About This Quote

One of the most vivid moments of my college experience — which I’m thinking about today after hearing Hampshire College might close (or be restructured) due to financial troubles — was a moment talking about the Socratic dialogues with Tim; the idea communicated to me was, for Heidegger, the dialogues weren’t so much statements or declarations of truth, but beams of light or ‘beams of articulation’ reaching into a night sky that was empty and unresponsive to pleas and questioning. The energy of the dialogue — the simple act of projecting ‘beams’ into the sky — and continuing to do so despite the lack of response, was a beautiful act in itself. I think at this time in my development I still held onto a very Cartesian and Platonic view of the world, that there were right answers, that I could figure this thing out, and I was clinging to Plato for a formalism, that soon would be overridden, by an aesthetics of attempts. That every answer was a limit that could never be crossed, and endlessly renewed.

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