Lecture I (Nr. 0004)
Facs
Transcript
... The function of the ais .. to provide ... Only if this is the case, then the danger of a widespread popular culture can be encountered. [?] And we are responsible for this, we are responsible for preserving the academic tradition. This is supposed to be a warning against a popular prejudice against b, which we can find everywhere. The word "abstract" has become more or less a word with the connotation of name-calling--a depreciative word. But there is no thought which is not abstraction. And as we shall see, it is an expression of human cthat he is able to abstract, namely to abstract from the concrete situation, from the concrete moment in which he encounters reality. Without this possibility, man would not be man, he would not be free. This is the basic definition of his freedom, that he can transcend the given situation in the power of the d, and language dwells in the realm of the abstract. Therefore I would say that complaints about abstraction in thought are like complaints in color and painting: if you complain about the fact that painters use colors, then you do exactly the same thing when you complain that thinking demands the "toil" of abstraction, and I at least cannot release you, in these lectures, from this toil and this labor!
In order to show you the organization of this [course of] lectures[s], which goes through the whole year, I need to begin with some of the most abstract concepts, namely those which constitute the title of the lectures: "Culture and Religion." And I will do so instantly. But before going into this real work with which I want to start today, I must make a few technical remarks about the procedures. First. . . I want questions from you whenever the Spirit drives you. But then the Spirit must move your right or left hand in order to stop the flux of my words! And I will do that and will receive your questions and, as far as I can, will try to answer them. I belong to that school of academic teaching which believes that there is not TOO much difference between lecture and seminar, that in ALL academic work, the dynamo--the "yes" and "no"--are needed; that the wisdom of the professor pouring down from his unfortunately too high desk to the seats where the listeners are sitting should be counterbalanced by the radical questioning power of those who are sitting there. The one side is never good if it remains alone. * [Recorded by e]