That book is quite a find. I went through the “Introduction” on Google books, but I stopped before “The Thales Dilemma”. Furthermore, like yourself, “I’m no Heidegger scholar” either (in my case you can add every other philosopher to the list too).
With that being said, I think that the book, and especially the way in which it brings Heidegger to the table, is symptomatic for all western philosophy from ancient Greece to present day.
For a long time I had a suspicion that “the big departure from knowledge” or “the great loss of insight” happened somewhere between Socrates (for the sake of argument I’ll consider him a historical figure) and Plato. It always appeared to me that Socrates “knew” and could articulate his knowledge (or better said, lack of thereof, by which he steered his apprentices). Similarly, Plato “knew” but, since he insisted on formal philosophy, he somehow failed to properly pass the baton, which resulted in Aristotle, who became completely lost in the world of phenomena. And by that time the direct knowledge of Absolute was gone among Greek scholars.
Thus, it was a great delight to read that, (not only) according to Rubenstein, Heidegger was of the opinion that “philosophy from Plato onward becomes increasingly objectifying.”
Since, as I said, I know next to nothing about Heidegger, I looked briefly at the core ideas of his philosophy. While, to my astonishment, he very precisely discovered the underlying “unity of the different modes of Being” (“Martin Heidegger”, 2011, 2.1:3), and I find his explanation of beings turning away from Being spot on, there were several things that hit me right from the get-go.
First thing that really stood out was the very title of his opus magnum — Being and Time. Well, for me time is (though more precisely, time exists only as a concept for the measure of change — there is no time as such and it seems to be a serious scientific possibility as I have written elsewhere). Time (even if it exists as such) is, too, but a mode of Being.
Well, I read some more, and I discovered that Heidegger fell for the same allure of thinking as Plato and all later philosophers did. Let me put it this way — as described in Rubenstein, Socrates, quite correctly, hit a road block when he tried to grasp and formulate what is knowledge, essentially, while realizing that he cannot even argue what is ignorance. Even though he correctly pointed out the inherent problem (I come to this later), it didn’t prevent literally everyone who built upon his line of thought (which is basically the entirety of western thinking) during the following 2500 years to try.
So, Heidegger goes on to dismiss metaphysics (not that western metaphysics got it particularly right) on the basis of it dealing only with relative beings, not elaborating on Being and its meaning, that “being is unthinkable from the standpoint of metaphysics” (which, however, is true in general), and considering Being as self-evident (which is correct observation, too — Being is Self-evident). To highlight his criticism, Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (2011, 2.2.1:3) states the following, “According to Heidegger, the question of the meaning of Being, and thus Being as such, has been forgotten by ‘the tradition’ (roughly, Western philosophy from Plato onwards). Heidegger means by this that the history of Western thought has failed to heed the ontological difference, and so has articulated Being precisely as a kind of ultimate being, as evidenced by a series of namings of Being, for example as idea, energeia, substance, monad or will to power. In this way Being as such has been forgotten.”
It is an apt observation, but Heidegger obviously though of himself (as it happens regularly with almost all philosophers), that he will be the one who will finally put the inexpressible (you may have noticed apparent “holes” and “leaps” in my article too) into words. In his own words:
The question of Being aims… at ascertaining the a priori conditions not only for the possibility of the sciences which examine beings as beings of such and such a type, and, in doing so, already operate with an understanding of Being, but also for the possibility of those ontologies themselves which are prior to the ontical sciences and which provide their foundations. Basically, all ontology, no matter how rich and firmly compacted a system of categories it has at its disposal, remains blind and perverted from its ownmost aim, if it has not first adequately clarified the meaning of Being, and conceived this clarification as its fundamental task. (Being and Time 3: 31)
And yet, not only did Heidegger remain within a dualism of beings and Being, he also apparently considered “ordinary ‘prescientific’ understanding, [to be that] which precedes abstract ways of knowing, such as logic or theory.” Let’s not forget that, although he criticized his transcendental phenomenology, Heidegger was Husserl’s pupil. Well, if Heidegger bothered to have a look into Vedic philosophy (even though there’s a lot of BS in Vedas too), he would understand why Socrates stopped short of intellectually grasping knowledge, being, and their meaning. An introductory text based on Vedas, Upanishads, etc. from 15th century CE describes ignorance as:
[But] ignorance is described as something positive though intangible, which cannot be described either as being or non-being, which is made of three qualities and is antagonistic to Knowledge ...
[Positive in the sense that] ignorance is not a mere negation, as it is antagonistic to Knowledge. What is that Knowledge whose negation is contended to be ignorance? 1) Knowledge is used as synonymous with “the Witness, the Perceiver.” It’s absence cannot be called ignorance as it is eternal and therefore can never be associated with state of negation. 2) A particular function of mind is termed knowledge, as in the passage, “Through knowledge one understand the Rig-Veda”. But here knowledge is used only in an indirect sense. No mental function can illumine an object unless it has Self at its back. The senses seem to perform their functions consciously because they draw their consciousness from Self (Brahman). Hence under no circumstances can this knowledge exist in negative state. 3) Ignorance cannot be said to consist of the negation of knowledge, particular or general. Because when one says, “I am ignorant, I do not know anything,” even then one does not lose all sense of perception. Therefore it stand to reason that Knowledge which is eternal, ever-existent and positive can never be connected or associated with negation. But when ignorance is said to be “positive”, it does not denote an absolute substance which only Brahman is. Where it so, there would not be any liberation. [This explanation] has found a place in the Vedanta philosophy in order to explain the otherwise inexplicable production of the phenomenal world. It is absurd to seek for its proof. It cannot be proved by our reasoning because human reasoning can never be free from ignorance.
Vedanta-sara, Sadananda Yogendra Saraswati
Or in other words — maya is inscrutable. Other good source on why this is so, is Kabbalistic concept of tzimtzum. Well, and the best source, of course, is to see it for oneself —in short, it comes before causes, so it’s “causeless” yet not “primary” but not different from Absolute although still merely an overlay thereon.
That one really makes one wonder.
Which brings me to the main theme of the book. Frankly, I have quite mixed feelings about it. Until today I could not wrap my head around why all philosophers without fail obsess about emotional responses to knowledge. Be it horror, angst, fear, awe, wonder, and what not. Now, that I was introduced to the dialogue of Socrates and Theaetetus, I suppose that it’s because of formal training philosophers are subject to — they all start with Socrates, so I assume they are also familiar with that discourse on “wonder.” So, I’m inclined to think that they would not feel as proper philosophers, if they didn’t have some extreme emotions in their “Heureka!” moments (which they cherish and further incorporate into their respective philosophies as sort of trademarks and cornerstones).
Maybe I’m just cynical, then again I’m not a philosopher. When confronted with unexpected, I might have been startled, sometimes, yes, even brutally terrified, angry at times, in awe or pure ecstasy at different occasions, and sometimes totally unmoved. But the emotional response certainly didn’t play any major role. Maybe only as a quite normal way of human experience.
Is it possible that what Socrates had in mind was pure curiosity?
Martin Heidegger. (2011). In: Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. Retrieved from: https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/heidegger/
