Martin Heidegger
I've found myself referencing Heidegger a lot in the past several discussions. I'd like to ask the Forum what they think of Mr. Heidegger's thought.
Before giving an interpretation or general opinion, I'd like to reserve this thread only for those who have at least read Being & Time. Of course this is only my request, not Forum guidelines.
So there's no mystery about how I'm approaching this question, I want to be clear that I consider Heidegger to be a great thinker and teacher, and that I've learned a great deal from his writings and interviews (not so much his private letters, since I've been limited in my sampling).
I will not take criticism of Heidegger personally, however. I do not consider his writings Holy Writ (or the clearest), I do not consider him infallible, nor his general thinking the "ultimate truth."
Before giving an interpretation or general opinion, I'd like to reserve this thread only for those who have at least read Being & Time. Of course this is only my request, not Forum guidelines.
So there's no mystery about how I'm approaching this question, I want to be clear that I consider Heidegger to be a great thinker and teacher, and that I've learned a great deal from his writings and interviews (not so much his private letters, since I've been limited in my sampling).
I will not take criticism of Heidegger personally, however. I do not consider his writings Holy Writ (or the clearest), I do not consider him infallible, nor his general thinking the "ultimate truth."
Comments (797)
Anyway I think I could add something to an informal conversation. But I don't read German, so I'm definitely an amateur in that sense, doing the best I can.
I do love the word 'care.' That is some strong English. We feel that word.
(1) Scientific/conceptual knowledge being relegated to a present at hand understanding and away from the "core tasks" of philosophy.
(2) How he approached the history of ideas is very fecund (retrojecting; linking discourse analysis and metaphysics), how he equated that with the history of the understanding of being is not.
(3) Little to no politics and social stuff.
(4) There's a lot of "formal structure" that piggybacks off suggestive examples that maybe don't generalise as far as he wants ("ontological moods", the centrality of anxiety and being toward death).
(5) Dasein is mature; there's little discussion of learning and socialisation.
Seeing a human being as "a Dasein" misses out a lot which is relevant, what is "ontic" is not "merely ontic".
That sums up my thoughts rather nicely as well...
That's true, but remember that this is because he didn't publish anything else until much later. In any case, I only mentioned Being & Time because it's the most likely thing anyone has read or has access to, and because I doubt very many will have read his other works and exclude that from the list.
Quoting path
Well then, welcome!
Quoting Gregory
Sorge is the German word. I don't mind it either as far as translations go. One can talk about "concern" as well, but always within the context of a larger"for-the-sake-of-which" in which we're always acting. I always want to equate this concept with "willing," but so far in my reading that doesn't really cut it. Heidegger actually seems to think of "care" as more broad than "willing" or "wishing."
Regardless, after flushing out the "structure" of being-there (existence, human being) as being-in-the-world, this gets reinterpreted as "care" in a three-fold way, which as you know itself later gets reinterpreted as temporality, which is ultimately the basis for any interpretation or meaning of "being" in general and human being. So it's an important concept indeed.
Quoting TheMadFool
Not really. I'm asking about Heidegger's thought, not Heidegger as an individual personality. In fact, I think his personal biography often works against him due to his being a Nazi for a while, as you know. That being said, yes I don't consider him a "god" any more than Kant or Newton or Einstein. This thread wasn't intended as a venue for hero worship.
Quoting fdrake
I like your use of "experiential time" for "temporality."
Quoting fdrake
I think he includes most of philosophy in this relegation as well, and so nearly all of Western thought since the inception of philosophy with the Greeks. His main thesis is that the question of the meaning of being has been forgotten, that it's been covered over as self-evident or useless or indefinable, and that even the desire for stating this question is lacking.
So it's not only a matter of science, which Heidegger has great respect for -- it's all of Western metaphysics at least since Aristotle.
Quoting fdrake
I don't quite understand what you mean here. Can you elaborate?
Quoting fdrake
I agree -- I would have liked to see more there, but that never seemed to be his focus and he only makes thin connections to politics. Even in his Nietzsche lectures, you would expect more -- but his focus remains with ontology even there.
Quoting fdrake
Again here I'm not quite sure what you mean.
Quoting fdrake
That's true, although he does talk much about the "They" or "Das Man," which takes for granted culture, socialization, norms, conformity, etc.
It's true that "care" and "concern" do have unintended connotations, although I wouldn't say he's misunderstanding the world. But I agree with you that it's much more related to "comportment" towards both present-at-hand entities and towards ready-to-hand equipment. All are tied in some basic way towards our purposes, projects, "needs," and engagements -- there's no way to understand it otherwise.
But he made clear this is an existential analytic with the question of the meaning of being as an aim. So plenty will be left out of this, necessarily.
Very true! I found B&T quite difficult. It's huge, rich, and a bit overwhelming. So naturally I looked for help, found out about earlier lectures and shorter, earlier drafts. That really helped open my eyes. I could go back and read lots of Div One especially feel that I was getting it. I found Dreyfus's Being-in-the-world quite helpful, but there are some great papers in the Cambridge Companion too. I'm pretty fond of Kisiel's and Van Buren's work too.
Quoting Xtrix
Thanks!
Also, just to put this out there, I like to think of Wittgenstein pointing to language as a ready-to-hand tool that we tend to try to gaze at as something occurent. (Our blind skill with language is more absent than present, perhaps...)
The lack of playful humor or a role for music in his 'thinking', as George Steiner points out, is quite telling of his decadent, constipated, "spirit of gravity" (Nietzsche). Jaspers & Marcel, then later on Levinas, Merleau-Ponty & Gadamer, do 'hermeneutical daseinanalysis' so much better, less - or counter - solipstically by comparison (Adorno), and therefore morally, even politically, more cogent and relevant to any 'existential project'.
Heidegger's crypto-augustinian fideism via metaphysical 'de(con)struction of metaphysics' (e.g. [s]Seyn[/s]) amounts to little more IMO than a sophistical derivation of 'wu wei' (or 'satori-kensh?'). Read works by The Kyoto School thinkers (e.g. Nishida Kitar?) instead for the comparative philosophical clarity lacking in most of Heidegger's writings, especially after his so-called "die Kehre".
I've been grateful to Heidegger, nonetheless, since my earliest philosophical studies in the late '70s for his monumental oeuvre as a/the paragon of how NOT to philosophize - or think-live philosophically (as Arendt points out) - as manifest by the generations of heideggerian obscurant sophists (i.e. p0m0s e.g. Derrida, Baudrillard, Lyotard, Rorty et al) who've come and gone in and out of academic & litcrit fashion since the 1950s - apple-simulacra don't fall far from the tree-simulacrum (or is it "Ye shall know them by their [s]fruits[/s]" :chin:), do they?
Quoting Gregory
Interesting. Like Hegel's 'Absolute' - a metaphysical strange attractor transforming (dialectically, not quite or explicitly teleologically, à la 'retro-causation'?) fundamental chaos into the ultimate cosmos (à la 'platonic heaven' (caveat: Meinong's Jungle :yikes:) ... or 'realer reality'). Yeah, I can see that in Heidegger too. Pure speculative nonsense (Kant). :sweat:
Agreed.
Quoting path
Dreyfus was an excellent teacher. I'd check out his Berkley lectures as well -- they're online (YouTube et al) for free. His Being-in-the-World is valuable.
I'm not familiar with Kisiel's or Van Buren's work, but thank you for the references. I'll look them up.
Quoting path
That's interesting. I hear Wittgenstein mentioned many times in this Forum; his influence here is obvious (and perhaps everywhere). However, I haven't read more than a few pages of his Tractatus.
I didn't quite understand this.
His chapter on the 'who of everyday dasein' is perhaps my favorite. 'One' uses words this way or that way, automatically. Any attempt to make this know-how explicit is a fresh use of our blind skill that can never dominate that skill and always depends on it. That's very roughly my attempt to hint at the intersection of Heidegger/Wittgenstein for me.
I also have studied Gadamer a little bit, and I love what he does with Heidegger. I love the idea of forehaving or preinterpretation or interpretedness. To me the thrown-ness idea is potent.
'History is a nightmare from which I am trying to awake.' (Joyce) Or we are the history from which we are trying to awake. It's only our prejudices that allow us to think against such prejudices. The most potent prejudices are the ones we don't know we have. What is ontically closest is ontologically farthest. It's the glasses we don't know we are wearing, the water we swim in without noticing until a strong philosopher can make it visible and only then optional.
I'm riffing, but hopefully some of this speaks to you.
I can't cite a passage at the moment (sorry) but as I get to the end of B&Y I keep feeling like his sense of potentiality and reality go backwards, almost as if we live life in reverse.
Well you're in good company in that assessment. I'm not sure why you include Spinoza, however. Surely not the clearest writer either.
Quoting 180 Proof
Where? I didn't get that at all. I see only the utmost respect for Nietzsche. If you mean the opposite of what Nietzsche thought, then all I can say is that Heidegger discusses "being" a lot where Nietzsche thought it was a "vapor" and "mistake" -- but that's Heidegger's entire philosophy, so that shouldn't be a surprise. As for Nietzsche's ideas about values, he doesn't have much to say about that.
Quoting 180 Proof
I'm not sure what "existential project" you're referring to. Heidegger is clear about his question, so to criticize that he ignores social and political issues is like criticizing him for not writing more about biology and astronomy. That's just not his concern.
Most of those you mention acknowledge a large debt of gratitude to Heidegger. Derrida and Foucault as well, and of course Sartre. (I don't necessarily care for any of them.) Regardless, whether they did "daseinanalysis" better or not is debatable. I think many of them, with perhaps Merleau-Ponty as an exception, are rather bloated and overrated. But to each his own.
Quoting 180 Proof
The idea of wu wei does have similarities to the ready-to-hand activities Heidegger describes.
By "destruction of metaphysics" he means basically a historical analysis of the concept of "being" in philosophy; I'm not sure how that amounts to fideism. Maybe unpacking this a little would be helpful.
Quoting 180 Proof
I've heard there are similarities to Zhuangzi as well. I wouldn't be surprised. But I doubt very much what he or Kitaro are discussing is ontology, especially in the context of the history of Western thought.
Quoting 180 Proof
Yes, all that's fine. I think postmodernism, poststructuralism, Derrida in general, is almost completely without value. I don't include Heidegger in this camp, nor in the "existentialist" camp at all -- in fact I'm sure he'd disavow almost all of it.
As for obscurantism -- yes, a common charge, and one he anticipates outright in Being & Time. I think the same charge has been made against Kant and Hegel as well, not completely unfairly.
But you haven't really shown you've read his works -- have you? What exactly is troubling besides the neologisms and awkwardness of translating a complex analysis of "being" from idiomatic German to English? Where are you disagreeing? Where does he go wrong? I'm much more interested in that; so far everything you've said you could easily have based on either secondary sources or from a casual glance.
Which is fine too if that's all you want to say. I was hopeful for something more in-depth.
Well I still don't quite understand fully, but perhaps you're referencing his conception of "temporality," which doesn't view the future as "after" or the past as "before," and so in that sense gives the connotation of going "backwards" somehow?
Noted. :ok:
It does. The "water we swim" is exactly right -- it's right there around us at all times, and for just that reason is the last thing we notice. The method of "unconcealing" these hidden features of life is how I see him defining phenomenology.
Interesting. So you agree with that rather nuanced criticism of being dressed-up wu wei? or with the very common accusation (especially of those who have read only secondary sources) of obscurantism?
:roll: Nevermind. Thanks for the input.
Excellent. I agree with all of that. I've been talking about consciousness in other threads, and I think it's close to the issue of being. People use familiar words in a loose way without noticing just how haze these words are. For practical purposes that's fine, but philosophers build metaphysical systems on foundations of fog. I like to think of it as dragging our ignorance into the light.
Indeed, we are probably already always doing that as we try to fit the past into our own futures. I hope this adds to the thread. One can tell that he was a student of Heidegger.
[quote=link]
Gadamer’s positive conception of prejudice as pre-judgment is connected with several ideas in his approach to hermeneutics. The way in which our prejudgments open us up to the matter at issue in such a way that those prejudgments are themselves capable of being revised exhibits the character of the Gadamerian conception of prejudgment, and its role in understanding, as itself constituting a version of the hermeneutic circle. The hermeneutical priority Gadamer assigns to prejudgment is also tied to Gadamer’s emphasis on the priority of the question in the structure of understanding—the latter emphasis being something Gadamer takes both from Platonic dialectic and also, in Truth and Method, from the work of R. G. Collingwood. Moreover, the indispensable role of prejudgment in understanding connects directly with Gadamer’s rethinking of the traditional concept of hermeneutics as necessarily involving, not merely explication, but also application. In this respect, all interpretation, even of the past, is necessarily ‘prejudgmental’ in the sense that it is always oriented to present concerns and interests, and it is those present concerns and interests that allow us to enter into the dialogue with the matter at issue. Here, of course, there is a further connection with the Aristotelian emphasis on the practical—not only is understanding a matter of the application of something like ‘practical wisdom’, but it is also always determined by the practical context out of which it arises.
The prejudicial character of understanding means that, whenever we understand, we are involved in a dialogue that encompasses both our own self-understanding and our understanding of the matter at issue. In the dialogue of understanding our prejudices come to the fore, both inasmuch as they play a crucial role in opening up what is to be understood, and inasmuch as they themselves become evident in that process. As our prejudices thereby become apparent to us, so they can also become the focus of questioning in their own turn. While Gadamer has claimed that ‘temporal distance’ can play a useful role in enabling us better to identify those prejudices that exercise a problematic influence on understanding (Gadamer acknowledges that prejudices can sometimes distort—the point is that they do not always do so), it seems better to see the dialogical interplay that occurs in the process of understanding itself as the means by which such problematic elements are identified and worked through. One consequence of Gadamer’s rehabilitation of prejudice is a positive evaluation of the role of authority and tradition as legitimate sources of knowledge, and this has often been seen, most famously by Jürgen Habermas, as indicative of Gadamer’s ideological conservatism—Gadamer himself viewed it as merely providing a proper corrective to the over-reaction against these ideas that occurred with the Enlightenment.
[/quote]
https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/gadamer/
Definitely. I think at the very least one of the most invaluable contributions of Heidegger is his etymological analysis of classic philosophical words, especially of course from Greek. Nietzsche was doing some of this as well, but as far as I can tell not many others -- which is kind of mind-boggling given both their obvious importance and the rise of "linguistic philosophy."
Yes of course -- everyone can think whatever they want. Hating him personally for being involved in the Nazis is a good reason to hate him, and his dense and often cumbersome text is another reason to be frustrated. But that's pretty superficial -- I'm really only interested in opinions of those who have made a real effort to read him, hence my request in the OP that a requirement should be having read Being & Time. If you can't get through that, that's fine -- not you're cup of tea. But then why bother announcing your disapproval?
Incidentally, I think Derrida is very much a posturing charlatan -- just as Zikek is now -- and I've tried hard to understand him.
Yup. And rejecting Heidegger is to some degree rejecting all of the scholars who have taken Heidegger seriously. So Heidegger is a fraud ==> Dreyfus is a fraud ==> Braver is a fraud ==> etc. To me it's a bit like conspiracy theory. Lots of famous people being influenced and interested is of course no proof that Heidegger or whoever is great, but it might give one pause. At the same time the thrill is not being fooled. 'That fad didn't suck me in. I'm too shrewd.' I don't know if we are ever done deciding if we are lying to ourselves in either direction.
I do know that life passes quickly, that I've spent 20+ years reading philosophy and not getting paid for it (working at something else for a living), and I still don't claim to have mastered any major thinker. Personally I think we short-lived mortals always die in our ignorance. I still can't claim to have always had the modesty for silence. In some ways it's good to spout prejudice and overhear oneself, perhaps. Maybe we always spout prejudice, which is not to say that all prejudice is equally desirable.
I don't want to derail your thread to defend Derrida...but my connection was through Limited Inc and Dreyfus's interpretation of the who of everyday dasein. Witt's beetle-in-the-box passage is also crucial.
[quote=Witt]
If I say of myself that it is only from my own case that I know what the word "pain" means - must I not say the same of other people too? And how can I generalize the one case so irresponsibly?
Now someone tells me that he knows what pain is only from his own case! --Suppose everyone had a box with something in it: we call it a "beetle". No one can look into anyone else's box, and everyone says he knows what a beetle is only by looking at his beetle. --Here it would be quite possible for everyone to have something different in his box. One might even imagine such a thing constantly changing. --But suppose the word "beetle" had a use in these people's language? --If so it would not be used as the name of a thing. The thing in the box has no place in the language-game at all; not even as a something: for the box might even be empty. --No, one can 'divide through' by the thing in the box; it cancels out, whatever it is.
That is to say: if we construe the grammar of the expression of sensation on the model of 'object and designation' the object drops out of consideration as irrelevant
[/quote]
To me this passage just destroys our mentalistic assumptions. We don't have some isolated subject gazing on Platonic meanings. The inside is outside. For the most part we are no one, and it's only by being this no one of linguistic conventions that we can invent the mentalistic talk. Derrida uses 'iterability' to get at this. So in some the way it's a question of the being of language --which is also a being-in-the-world, since the 'inside' is 'outside.' You can imagine how this fits into 'the water we swim in' and our inherited pre-interpretation of existence, of being here. 'Consciousness' is a sign in the game. We can't say what consciousness 'means' by futility gesturing to an 'inside' that is also one more linguistic convention. The 'illusion' or assumption is that there is some spiritual-mentalistic occurent entity that overhears itself perfectly, perfectly in touch with purely subjective meaning.
I'll shut up about Derrida if this doesn't whet your appetite. To me there's a whole sequence of thinkers who were on to this issue, the being of language and the social.
I was just going through a book that’s a guide to philosophers and their work, not one mention of Heidegger. Is it that bad?
Edit: on reflection I think it might have been a matter of space and that they chose Kant over Heigegger.
Yeah, well, boredom made me do it ...
Quoting Xtrix
Read S. His latin is crystal clear as are the excellent english translations by Stuart Hampshire & Edwin Curley. (Also, S is the ontologist par excellence.) H's german, on the other hand, is as clear as mud, which many scholars have also attested to, such that even very fine translators like Joan Stambaugh could not render H's meandering mumblings into serviceably lucid english.
And so H uncharitably interprets N in his own 'onto-[s]theo[/s]logical' terms rather than in N's philological-genealogical & psychological-axiological terms - thus, what I call 'anti-Nietzschean' - in order to project onto N's 'practices' the very 'onto-theology' H claims to have 'overcome' even as he too 'practices' it; thus, "die Kehre" away from Sein to [s]Seyn[/s], etc. Obscurant pedantic sophistry. :shade:
Apparently I have not "shown" anything to you since clearly you've not studied H's works enough (or any of the philosophers I've cited in my previous post) to recognize the pearls I've cast before you. :roll:
You've already answered your own question, Xtrix:
Yeah, I agree. It's hard to be a mortal with only so much time and decide which soil is more or less fertile. Time and chance lead us all to different thinkers in a different life contexts.
Perhaps we focus too much on the authors and not enough on the intensity of reading. I'm used to people hating on Nietzsche, because Nietzsche can be outright obnoxious. But if one stays with Nietzsche and grows up while reading Nietzsche...one uses Nietzsche to criticize Nietzsche.
I can probably think of something objectionable about every philosopher that I have learned from. I'm guessing that many of us feel that we are beyond taking this or that talkative mortal as our guru. We're all lighting matches in the dark, which doesn't mean we don't also act with a certain confidence.
I’m interested in definitions of Besorgen and Sorge and the use of “care” and “concern”. These seems to me, in spirit, more like engagement. Any thoughts?
Is what that bad?
I can't read Latin very well unfortunately. But if you say Spinoza is clearer in Latin, I believe you.
As for ontologist par excellence -- one of the greatest, no doubt. But the fact that he's still very much (like Pascal) struggling with Christianity makes me less likely to delve in further. I've only (partly) read his Ethics. But he's certainly on my list, with Augustine, Anselm, Suarez, Duns Scotus, and Aquinas. (I realize he's not defining "god" in the way the Church Fathers did, by the way.)
Quoting 180 Proof
Unfortunately German isn't a second language of mine either. But from what I've come across, there are many scholars who say his German isn't unclear, it's just very idiomatic and extremely hard to translate into English. I've also heard from Dreyfus, and others, that the John Macquarrie and Edward Robinson version is still the best we have (although quite a few adjustments need to be made there as well -- for example of their translation of "woraufhin"). So perhaps that's worth a try, if attempting to take a serious look at it.
Quoting 180 Proof
When? I never see him translating Nietzsche's ideas about values into ontology. Heidegger argues that Nietzsche eternal recurrence is ontological; that's debatable, of course -- and Heidegger is the first to admit this. He acknowledges Nietzsche did indeed believe the concept of "being" was a vapor and mistake -- and agrees with him in the sense of how it's been handled in Western thought.
Quoting 180 Proof
But I have studied Heidegger, carefully, at length, and in detail. I think I've demonstrated that as well, numerous times on this thread and in this forum. If you have as well, you've been very non-specific in your critique. You made a few claims, like the one about wu wei, which may indeed be true, but which I have no way of checking or fully understanding because, again, it's so vague.
Quoting 180 Proof
Yes, but I've also started this thread and mentioned from the beginning I think Heidegger is an immensely deep and important thinker who has taught me a great deal. So if these are truly your criticisms, then I repeat: that's fine, but superficial. Why? Because Heidegger is up front about what he's doing: his question, repeated over and over again, is that of "the meaning of being." If that's not what you're interested in, and prefer learning or thinking about politics, ethics, social issues, etc., then why bother with Heidegger at all? You won't find it there.
But that's much less a criticism of his thought than it is a reflection of your interests.
Quoting Xtrix
The antipathy towards him.
Not that I can tell. I know there's been a lot of backlash, and continues to be, for his being a member of the Nazi party. I'm no apologist for him in this respect, but I do think his work contributes much to philosophy. If some guides leave him out, that's their decision, but I don't see it as widespread "cancellation."
[quote=Heidegger]
Making itself intelligible is suicide for philosophy.
[/quote]
A thinking is 'strong' if it questions the very framework ('vocabulary','method') that is currently taken for granted (enacted 'blindly' and automatically). If I work within the taken-for-granted framework or vocabulary or method, then I'm just doing more 'normal discourse.' This is sub-philosophical or at most 'weak' philosophy. At this level we can argue as if our terms and method were fixed, which is to say pseudo-mechanically. To say that we are thrown is to say that we are always already operating in such unnoticed, inherited frameworks. As being-in-the-world, we are mostly no one or the one enacting the form of life.
If a 'strong' thinking comes along and intervenes against the vocabulary or the tacit assumptions of a conversation, then it is 'unintelligible' from 'within' that conversation. The sacred current vocabulary is being rudely fucked with! Our bold boy is talking nonsense ! Our initial reaction 'must' be a misreading that tries to tame such deviation by re-assimilating or refuting it in the currently dominant vocabulary.
Also... our would-be strong philosopher or thinker has no choice but to use the currently dominant vocabulary even as he seeks to undermine it. We just are the history that we're trying to wake up from. To abandon this thrust against our throwness (the project of dragging our constraining prejudices into the light) is to abandon 'strong' philosophy to fly around in the same old bottle.
I think it's definitely related. Anything we engage with or "comport" ourselves to involves "care" and "concern," or "concernful circumspection." In the simplest sense I can think of, any time we're doing anything at all, there's some kind of "attending" involved and thus "caring." Unfortunately there are many connotations with "care" as well, in the social sense of "caring for one another." I think it's worth keeping in mind Husserl's "intentionality" here, because it's in this context that Heidegger is defining "Sorge."
Exactly right. One should react against and criticize only something they understand, otherwise they're whacking at straw men. While no one has infinite time to read everything, and carefully, one should be careful to rely on secondary sources, pop culture philosophy books, etc., and form a "stance" on the thinker in question on that basis alone. It's risky business, and at best you are left with an extremely general view. Better to reserve judgment or acknowledge your superficial engagement, rather than feign expertise. This happens far more often on this forum than I would have expected, even for "amateur" philosophy people. It's just ego I suppose.
From my reading I don't see him saying there is no "inside" or "outside," but that indeed there is an "inner" and that "inner concepts" can't be really linked to objects. But I don't know the full context of Wittgenstein to be confident in that reading.
I do agree with you, however: there really isn't an "inner" world separated from an "outer" world. This is very hard for some people to accept, as is the subject/object dichotomy. We love our dualisms.
I love this. Exactly right. I know it gives me pause. In the same way that a good friend who knows your taste makes a recommendation for a place to travel or a book to read or a movie to see -- something I may have otherwise considered garbage, and therefore ignored, now I'm much more likely to want to take a look at.
Quoting path
I think there's personal reasons involved perhaps, but also the question should be asked: What is most useful not only to me now (and to the current world), but the future world?
At least with this more future-oriented sense of "useful" in mind, I keep gravitating towards a handful of people in various domains, and I'd like to think I have good values and good instincts. To me the names Anaximander, Parmenides, Heraclitus, Plato, Aristotle, Nietzsche, Heidegger, and Chomsky are the most relevant and interesting, if I were forced to choose only the essentials. But I may be completely wrong as well -- I can live with that.
Again so there's no huge mystery: I think the key to the future isn't space travel and artificial intelligence as far as technology goes, but eugenics (not in the Nazi sense!), and in terms of spirituality (in the philosophical-artistic sense) in the most general sense.
Yeah I like that. I haven't always lived up to it, but yes. And we can question the notion of expertise beyond its vague relative use. I've read passionate disputes between Heidegger scholars (Sheehan and Farin). Even the experts can't agree...on the basic message!
Is there such a thing as Heidegger in the singular? Are we ever done figuring out any thinker? I think Heidegger is first rate. But even a second-rate thinker can't be mastered, perhaps. By 'mastered I mean assimilated with a kind of assured finality. This is often associated with a sense of knowing what so-and-so was 'really getting at.' I have this sense myself at times. Gadamer thinks its essential to reading. We constantly project a vague total meaning as we read and constantly adjust this projection. Perhaps it eventually stabilizes, giving us a sense of relative mastery.
Thanks! Indeed, that's just how I hopped from poet to poet, novelist to novelist. Someone wins your trust. It could be a friend, or it could be a philosopher. I really got into Rorty, and he led me to taking difficult Heidegger and Hegel seriously enough to read the originals (and other secondary sources).
Rorty I found by chance at the public library. I just loved his easy style. I also found Kojeve this way, and he fused Hegel and Heidegger into something that really blew my mind.
Definitely truth in that. There's lots of interpretation, projection, and re-assessing whenever studying something hard. How we do so is also shaped by our purposes, values, and goals. What I said earlier about "usefulness" was a little misleading because while true, it doesn't necessarily mean what's most "useful" and what's the most important "part" of what's been said.
As I grow older I become more aware of how much I do care about the human future. I think we all do, and that to be intellectual is even to implicitly enact the 'we.' We get bored with our idiosyncrasies. We want to connect with something larger. I suggest that we have transferred traditionally religious passions into a secular humanism that can criticize itself. Instead of the afterlife, we think of how future generations might benefit from our efforts.
[Criticizing secular humanism might include getting some distance from our anthropocentrism and the willful subject.]
I haven't studied Anaxmander or Chomksy closely, but the others have been important to me.
Yeah. I studied the clash of 'sec' and 'sarl' (Derrida and Searle) closely in Limited Inc. Even at the top level there's the same kind of nasty and impish combat. (I know that you are currently a Derrida skeptic, but in this context Derrida might as well be Heidegger. He's trying to do a strong thinking that is being opposed rhetorically by appeals to the obvious and the familiar.)
On this forum in particular I have often seen two exceptionally intelligent people do their best to tear one another to shreds, paint the other (clearly bright) as an idiot. It's not the same two people each time but a recurring pattern. (I follow many conversations that I never participate in.)
I agree that tech won't save us. If something can save us, I (also) think it will be spiritual in the philosophical-artistic sense, which will manifest politically. 'Only a god can save us' is legit if interpreted a certain way. The eugenics theme is fascinating. Elaborate if you feel like it.
And thus we come full circle, in a sense. Philosophy and politics in some ways seem like polar opposites, but are connected in very clear ways. The latter is far more pressing to deal with these days, no matter how knowledgable or familiar one is with philosophy (or history) -- but having that knowledge certainly doesn't hurt. I'd argue that, like with any decision, the more information one takes into account, the better the decision will be. The same is true about where we go as as species and how we should therefore organize society.
The connection is that the powerful people of the world who are currently making the key decisions for hundreds of millions (and in fact billions) of human beings, are not aliens -- they have ideologies. They have belief systems. Thought systems, perspectives, in which they interpret the world and set their agenda. Much is tied up with values, and the values with "religions," but I'd argue they are really philosophical at bottom (even the Christian "ontology" in the sense of a worldview).
Yanked out of context like that, the passage is far from conclusive. Surely I am reading into it also. But if the beetle in the box plays no role, then that's revolutionary. Hegel made a similar point in his first book. A crude empiricism wants to point 'here' and 'now.' 'Look! Reality is right there.'
Some kind of ineffable direct access is vaguely taken for granted and yet plays no role. This is why the question of being is related to the question of meaning and the question of consciousness for me.
I have a strong sense that I'm always still finding words to say in new ways that we human beings don't know what we are talking about. Now obviously we get along practically. So I'm exaggerating as a rhetorical device in order to make something visible. This helps me relate to Heidegger trying to awaken the question of being. I am still trying to figure out how the question of meaning and the question of being relate, beyond the straightforward way (what does it mean to say something is?)
Is it the same-enough question? I think AI connects to this, not because (at all) I project some mystical capacity on AI. Rather because AI is a kind of a mirror for us. Whatever we think that AI can never be is related to whatever meaning is or being [s]is[/s]. Just to emphasize, I don't have answers. With Heidegger, I just want to light up a question, drag our 'ignorance' or hazy preinterpretation into the light.
It's basically a thrust against complacent chatter that has no choice but to work within that chatter.
That requires another thread, I think!
But oddly enough, this is something Heidegger worried about. With the advancements in genetics, the only thing that stands in our way (truly) are ethical (philosophical) concerns. Eventually the taboo will be lifted, and we can in a sense "engineer" human beings. I think that's probably the next stage of our evolution.
Indeed, I am even tempted to speak of the primacy of the political and the embedded-ness of any philosophy within a contentious history.
Quoting Xtrix
Right! And beyond their conscious ideologies I think there are 'enacted' non-linguistic comportments. I also see the philosophy in Christianity. I like to generalize either religion or philosophy to something like 'form of life' or 'spirit of the times.' We enact a stance on our existence that is only to some degree verbalized or self-aware. In some stances we see a critical tradition (philosophy proper) that allows for a kind of endless bonfire (yet quietly constrained nevertheless by throwness.)
[Have to go get some work that pays done, but I'll be back for more!]
Perhaps one begins to see why the predilection for Heidegger.
I'll just make one last comment. In The Possibility of an Island, we get to see the 'neo-humans' who drink sunlight through their green skin. Yes, it's likely enough that we will do it. This is a great issue indeed. [This is not to say that we should do it.]
Yes Banno, because I love the Nazis. Run along.
:yikes: :rofl:
Quoting path
Thanks for this - so I didn't have to.
Quoting Xtrix
Given that S was an excommunicated Jew, the first openly secular philosopher in Christendom in the last half or so millennium and the father of biblical (Tanakh & Xtian NT) criticism, he certainly wasn't "struggling with Christianity" (Judaism, Islam or any 'religious faith').
If you're literate in deutsch, then that earlier 1962 translation more than suffices. It's the version I first read in the early 1980s since it was the only one available until 1996 (which I read a decade later). And since Stambaugh's is based on H's 1976 revisions of SuZ instead of the 1927 manuscript on which Macquarrie's & Robinson's translation was based, I'll stand by Stambaugh's as more authoritative (pace Dreyfus et al).
Be-en there, Do-ne that. :yawn:
If you say so. Clearly, neither of us is convinced of the other's bona fides. For me, sir, H is not worth my time to delve any deeper than I have - e.g citing chapter & verse - in order to more thoroughly critique his work (or the relevance to ANY existential project, as I've said, of the question of a "meaning of being" (vide Adorno, Levinas, Arendt et al)).
A philosophy which is either of no consequence to or concerned even tangentally with its own implications for "politics, ethics, social issues, etc" is not worth bothering with - EXCEPT that H's has blitzkrieged universities throughout the West since the end of the Second World War, and in order to make sense of all the p0m0 backwash in his wake, H has to be studied. If one is serious, one doesn't choose philosophers a la cart or from a buffet table; serious study includes running down significant sources wherever and whomever they are. If you are serious, Xtrix, then you know that, and that your question is disingenuous.
My criticism isn't that he is mole hill easily bypassed but that H is a very high mountain pass to scale and find the least treacherously sophistical path through and beyond him; or as Freddy Zarathustra might say, H is a "priestly-type" of human, all too human "underhanded (onto)theologian" decadent one must overcome in oneself in order to affirm the whole of life - amor fati!
Maybe; I don't think so. We'll have to agree to disagree on this point.
Not at all sus, that. We don't want all that ethics getting in the way.
You are quite welcome! I'm thinking you know though that I chose that infamous gem precisely as an easy target in order to rescue it somewhat.
FWIW, I like your criticisms of Heidegger. I still don't see a problem in raiding his texts for spare parts. I think we both love Nietzsche, and to me it's not clear why Nietzsche is any less of a target for a certain uncharitable reading than Heidegger, Hegel, or Derrida. To me it's a matter of what we make of their traces, how we weave them here and now into our discussions.
I see that we have only so much time and that we have to make choices. We decide to set some writer down, having seen enough. But when is the story finished? Who knows ahead of time how things might be re-contextualized? In any case, I think it's great that you elaborated on Heidegger. I always enjoy your posts, even if you call some of my favorite thinkers sophists.
Petey Sloterdijk almost agreed, but shifted the scene
I don't think that's true. Maybe "struggling" is too imprecise, but within the context of a Christian worldview- otherwise why mention "God" at all, even if meant in a quasi-pantheistic way?
If nature or existence generally is "god," then I'm certainly a believer.
Quoting 180 Proof
Fair enough. Perhaps in further discussion we'll come across examples where Stambaugh is more clear - I wouldn't be surprised.
Quoting 180 Proof
If you say you've read B&T twice then I believe you, but you haven't said stated where he's off the mark, given his thesis.
Quoting 180 Proof
But that's exactly what this thread was created for. You don't have to necessarily cite "chapter and verse," but something a little more concrete or perhaps elaborated more (like your point about wu wei) would be appreciated. If you're not interested, you're not interested - I can't help that. But you apparently cared enough to comment, so we're left where we are.
Quoting 180 Proof
But that's not the case. There are plenty of connections. It's simply that politics ethics are not his main thesis, as you know. He claims only to be doing "fundamental ontology." Later he will say that this is connected to the "spiritual fate of the West."
Quoting 180 Proof
So you had to bother with Heidegger at some point for various reasons- fine. I'll rephrase: given your claim to have read him, and your finding his thought on par with postmodernist babblings, and further your unwillingness to give any potentially valuable elaboration on his shortcomings, then again I ask: why come here? Why bother? If it's simply boredom, so be it.
Quoting 180 Proof
This is a good example of what I wrote above. "Onto-theologian" has the potential to be a criticism, but I can only guess as to what you mean. Where's the theology in Heidegger? I don't see it. Any examples would be helpful, as maybe I missed something important. But as far as I can tell, I don't see where the "priest-type" comes into play.
If one were to criticize him for being a stuffy, scholarly type man, I wouldn't deny it. But again, this is pretty superficial.
In any case, I more or less echo @fdrake's response to Heidgger. I was drawn to him initially because he was a Big Name and mysterious; came back later and found a lot to like in B&T; now have a qualified appreciation for him, while understanding and sympathizing with some criticisms.
:up:
Thanks. Neither do I.
N was a piñata of "uncharitable readings" by Anglo-American analytical/positivists for the first half of the last century, as I recall, until Walter Kaufmann translated his dionysian music into lyrical english in the 50s and R.J. Hollingdale brought Zarathustra back down to old "Motley Cow" in the 60s-70s, both of which helped make N accessible, even hypnotic, to postwar students and bohemians - though, as you know, never quite respectable (fortunately) - on both sides of the Atlantic.
Every decade since the late 80s it seems rereading Spinoza's oeuvre has "re-contextualized" "things" for me. As I once had learned by example to read N against N, I read S against S (always mindful that S had read Descartes Maimonides & Aristotle against themselves!) "Beware lest a statue slay you" indeed!
:cool:
Yeah, well, some of my favorites are sophists too ...
Very interesting.
So it's not that the questioning of "being" has no relevance to the current political or social world; it does.
Worth pointing out.
Quoting Xtrix
Again, read Spinoza. What you "think" is clearly uninformed and/or not thought through.
Good- now you know how I feel. :up:
I agree, but there's a double-work to be done. One kind of work involves universal, invariant structures (like the kind you see in B&T). Another involves the here-and-now texture of where you live, how you're 'thrown'. And of course thrown-ness is a big thing in Heidegger - but it's universalized in him. That's a neat trick. Thrown-ness (facticity, destiny etc) is discussed, but in the mode of the universal. It's always : One, in a given historical situation, has to do such and such ('retrieve' from the past, and so on) but it's always spoken of in this abstract way. What you don't get is any clear communication about how that is working on the actual, thrown, human that is Heidegger, and how he's working through it. While there is much to love and take from him, the he-was-a-nazi criticism of him is not - definitely not - all wrong. Unclear to himself, only able to talk in abstractions about the concrete, or in universals about the singular, he became co-opted by the first thing that came along that, in its broad contours, seemed to check his boxes.
You're the one who turned me on to him, actually, mentioning Spheres over on the old forum ( I think.) This is from a newer collection Not Saved: Essays After Heidegger (but I've only read what's available on google books preview.) I think [Heidegger+ Sloterdijk] is a valuable pulse of thought in the same way Spinoza is [Descartes+Spinoza], but I'm not sure - I still have to give Spinoza more attention.
I think they're intimately connected through "disclosure," through aletheia. Being is only vaguely understood in a pre-theoretical way and then interpreted in some fashion. Interpretation certainly involves meaning. So the human being is a "clearing," "unconcealing" beings while giving them meaning.
I lashed out at you the other night. I think I had to, then - but I'd like to bury the hatchet, if you would also like to. (If not, understandably, pass this by)
This post ties together a lot of themes that are important to me.
I've long thought the beginning of Hegel's Phenomenology (say what you mean) has the flavor of a kind of bullying. You point to the thing, it's this. The responding voice: but what is this? This is just "this", it has nothing to do with what you're pointing to. And so forth through Sense-Certainty- 'now'? But now it's not when you said 'now'! You can see the bullied kid thinking: no, I'll show and tell them what I mean!
And then elaborately, flourishingly, extravagantly, trying to use their own logic to show them they're wrong (I also get this vibe from Derrida in his response to Searle.)
Reality is right there, but you can't see it unless you can process the objections to it that have gotten to you. Reason, in this mode, is a bully. The meaning of reality, and of being, is just what it was before something snuck into your head and scrambled everything, like the sound of a coin in a washing machine. There have always been beetles in boxes, before the bully showed up, only what you did was play with one another to express or articulate the beetles, thereby creating something new (and the beetles themselves were shaved off from a common space, they were both outside and inside, which is what allows the play) Convention - which is important and has its place- develops from this sort of thing, but then afterwards turns back and says : 'there is nothing important to say that we haven't all already decided upon - consider the language of laying slabs.'
What you have to do is figure out how to handle both aspects - if there's bullies, there's bullies and you have to meet them on their level. But meeting them on their level is not the whole point - it's the very beginning.
The questions: does life has a meaning? What is meaning? etc only make sense if you have some backdrop sense of what 'meaning' is in order to show that it doesn't. In other words: you can only think life has no meaning, if you already know what meaning is, but you've lost it. The question of meaning is more like: can you remember? Can you play again?
----
Regarding AI, I think we should think of it less as a potential 'also-dasein' and more in the sense we relate animals to cells (or, more precisely, whatever facilitates the organization of cells into animals) At one point in the history of life, there were just single-celled organisms. They would have no sense, at any level, of what it would mean to become an animal* Still, they did. This development is impossibly mindboggling from a 'before' perspective. The relation of a single-celled-organism to an animal is not the same as the relation of a single-celled-organism to another single-celled-organism. But we tend to think of AI as a potential 'agent' or 'consciousness' on the same level as us. It seems to me that AI, for better or for worse (I'm terribly torn on this) is less 'another dasein or non-dasein entity' than a potential skeleton, or fusing spirit.
I don't think this is either good or bad, but I think it may be inevitable. I imagine that these kinds of fusing-powers are slowly introduced, in times of crises, until we don't know how to live without them. This is how agriculture developed: we didn't choose it. We incorporated it, as one source of food among others, and it allowed us to grow more crops (extract more energy) which created more of us, which made us dependent on it to sustain that population, and suddenly here's the State and this is how we live now. Was the state good or bad? It's hard to say. I can imagine AI being used for something like population control for allocating immigrants, for sentencing, for distribution etc, until we don't know how to live without it. At each crisis, we cede more power to it, until, a few generations down the road, it just, in-your-bone-feels, like a universal force (like god, or the market) that you don't question. And then how it progresses from there?
----------
*[for another perspective shift: In the first caves with cave art ----the length of time they were inhabited means that the cavemen in the middle of that span had a greater distance between them and the original cave-artist than we today have between ourselves and the earliest Egyptians]
Of course! You are too valuable a conversational partner to abandon.
Quoting csalisbury
I like the way you frame this. I'm no expert on the conflict, but I think of Hegel mocking Schelling (the mystic) for the night in which all cows are black. I think the basic idea was that 'all is one.' The world was a mystic blob of subject-object, something like that. But Hegel found it all too easy and mushy. It had to be made Conceptual and Scientific. So he mocked a friend in his first book and ruined the friendship forever. Then Schelling came back on the scene later and spoke some mystic stuff about the blindness of systems. That's my imperfect memory, without leaning on sources. Feuerbach also was really annoyed with Hegel about this. Feuerbach stressed sensation and emotion, the stuff that is not in thought, or not 'directly' in thought, not in the 'pure' Conceptual Science. But all of them were mystics! in the sense that they had a sense of the meaning of life, were basically (anti-)priests. (I know the least about Schelling, but I've been impressed by some of his quotes.)
Had to look some up, and found some good ones:
[quote=Schelling]
One is almost tempted to say that the language itself is a mythology deprived of its vitality, a bloodless mythology so to speak, which has only preserved in a formal and abstract form what mythology contains in living and concrete form.
...
Nothing upsets the philosophical mind more than when he hears that from now on all philosophy is supposed to lie caught in the shackles of one system. Never has he felt greater than when he sees before him the infinitude of knowledge. The entire dignity of his science consists in the fact that it will never be completed.
...
This is the incomprehensible basis of reality in things, the irreducible remainder which cannot be resolved into reason by the greatest exertion but always remains in the depths. Out of this which is unreasonable, reason in the true sense is born. Without this preceding gloom, creation would have no reality; darkness is its necessary heritage.
...
All rules for study are summed up in this one: learn only in order to create.
[/quote]
If you mean the meaning of life, then I think I agree. To me there's enough 'enlightenment' in just getting back in that state of immersed play. The coin in the washing machine annoys us into a 'lower' state of troubleshooting (which is sometimes good for us in the long run.)
Quoting csalisbury
Yes indeed. I do ultimately believe in the beetles, however ineffable. So I don't know if belief is the right word. 'Since feeling is first,...' And we live a kind of inside-outside. If I do bully people in the Hegelian style, it's often against hardened complacent convention --against other bullies who invoke common sense as a kind of law. Sarl is an annoying dad, who refuses to understand his arty son, and he panders to other annoying dads, Polonius to Polonius. I'm Hamlet of course. Who else?
Quoting csalisbury
I like all of this. I can't know for sure exactly what you mean, but it sounds right. That backdrop sense of meaning is what I try to point out by talking about 'myth,' however awkwardly. We are always already invested, never coming from nowhere. We are after something, have some orientation, as we join the conversation. So the angtsy nihilist just wrestling with the death of god is a tender heart. He's sort of identifying with his tormentors as he cast away all beliefs and restraints (only in his imagination, thankfully.)
I have it on a pile somewhere but I haven't gotten around to reading it yet.
This is a deep issue, which is maybe two issues.
On the mirror issue, I have coded some neural nets and I really personally don't see them becoming daseinlike unless Issue B becomes important. For me they are currently rhetorical devices or mirrors for showing us that we don't know what we are talking about with 'consciousness' and so on. I do think there is some kind of beetle in the box, but we can't ever say it clearly, outside of all conventions. I can't prove that you exist on the other side of your posts, but I 'know' it. But this knowledge is somewhat ineffable, and 'I know' only signifies within conventions. So this Issue A is for me all about pointing out how loose and slippery language is, that it's not anchored to the ineffable beetle in any calculable or master-able way, despite the wishes of a metaphysical Polonius (a type) who won't admit that he really doesn't know except 'mystically' or 'ineffably.' Metaphysics won't admit that it's poetry !
Issue B is just the thought that somehow the stuff that we are made of (hydrocarbons and whatnot) became 'conscious' or daseinlike. Are zygotes conscious? Most don't think so. So somehow a fertilized egg becomes daseinlike, which by Issue A is an ineffable or 'mystical' thing. So from this angle it seems possible that some brain-analogous but non-bio structure becomes 'self-aware,' whatever that 'really' or 'ineffably' means. I don't think about this much, but maybe some kind of panpsychic stuff is happening and we just don't know it. I can't really act on this or take it seriously. But I have to admit that I don't see how it's ruled out, given the strangeness that we are daseinlike bags of water. I also love animals. My cat has a soul of some kind. Do rocks? Maybe I just can't handle the truth or have any access.
Right, and I'm in interested in 'false necessity,' what we learn as children to take for granted, as if the nature of things and not some invention that become dominant. I'm ambivalent about AI, really. You mention some creepy possibilities, but even their use in targeting ads is already disturbing. I'm not crazy about the automatic panopticon. We may end up treating ourselves the way we treat pigs (or do so even more intensely.) But I'm no saint. I had pork for dinner, even if I didn't buy it. It's complex navigating relationships with humans and animals at the same time. I think the way we treat animals is part of a taken-for-granted inheritance that might one day gross out our descendants (well not mine, but somebody's).
I love this. Thanks!
It's a good point. I think Heidegger is insightful on our current situation. It sucks that he acted on his insights then the way that he did, but we can still raid him for parts (like Caputo does.)
Thank you for the charming response. You make me want to study Spinoza closely. I mostly just know what Durant writes about him in Story. Durant adores him and paints an amazing personality, but your response to him suggests that he deserves a careful reading in the original (well, in translation.)
Thanks also for admitting that you too like some sophists. I'm pretty stuck on the idea that it's the poetic core of thinkers that does the heavy lifting.
One way I can approach this (which is maybe Braver's way) is to think of being as reality. Philosophers obsess over what is real. What do they mean? Some people say the physical, which is one beetle in the box. And some say the mental, which is another. If we try to determine the physical, we end up mentioning all kinds of mentalistic stuff. If we try to determine the mental, we end up talking about the worldly stuff. The whole game of reducing the whole to some X....seems doomed and confused.
In practical terms, no one even cares about the philosophical game. We don't have to know what money 'really' is in order to chase it furiously. Scientistic types beat down challenges to their foggy philosophical foundations with (seems to me) implicit appeals to raw power or better paying jobs. Then the other side is often trying to beat down the secular-critical threat of newer philosophy in a nostalgia for lost religion or attachment to some method.
Basically we get scientism or theology, which is maybe better expressed as scientism-theology, given that the essence of each is a forgetfulness of the question of being-meaning (taken it as a dead question that has been answered well enough, so please stop wasting everyone's time.)
I guess I understand the clearing in terms of a holism. We social beings and our world are one. In our form of life we have a system of entities, things we take-as or take-for this or that, for these or those purposes within various typical roles (professor role, student role, restaurant server role.) This 'system' is given as a whole. We are the clearing for this system. Sheehan interprets the clearing as a kind of wiggle room for our interpretations. I am still trying to grok some of Heidegger's basic concepts, while others seem quite vividly 'there' for me. Like I seriously feel connected to 'idle talk' or 'interpretedness' or 'forehaving.' These things rings bells in my skull. Like yes, that's it!
Just in case you haven't seen this quote (you probably have), it seems relevant:
[quote=Hegel]
What is “familiarly known” is not properly known, just for the reason that it is “familiar”. When engaged in the process of knowing, it is the commonest form of self-deception, and a deception of other people as well, to assume something to be familiar, and give assent to it on that very account. Knowledge of that sort, with all its talk, never gets from the spot, but has no idea that this is the case. Subject and object, and so on, God, nature, understanding, sensibility, etc., are uncritically presupposed as familiar and something valid, and become fixed points from which to start and to which to return. The process of knowing flits between these secure points, and in consequence goes on merely along the surface. Apprehending and proving consist similarly in seeing whether every one finds what is said corresponding to his idea too, whether it is familiar and seems to him so and so or not.
[/quote]
This is that whole 'we don't know what we are talking about' yet we go on arguing as if we do or just appealing (anti- or pre- philosophically) to what Everybody knows. 'One knows of course that blah blah blah.' Such idle talk or gossip or chatter lives in the buzzing we grow up in. It's that old familiar fuzz. It's those routines that are second nature, false necessity, the bottle in which the flies are [s]trapped[/s] masters.
I repeat this kind of thing routinely, which makes me fear that I'm a bot. (Kidding! Sort of...)
Aw, dammit! Not yet, perhaps.
I think this is exactly right. "Backdrop sense" is well put, because it's not really a "definition" laying dormant somewhere in our heads.
:yawn:
But that's what an anti-Heidegger bot would say....
No, no. He'd say Yawhol!, not "yawn." He was quite punctilious, especially during his time as Rector at Freiburg. I doubt he ever yawned in that joyous, busy time.
I think Heidegger probably was thinking he would be the Third Reich's go-to philosopher, and so that was tempting. He was also apparently pretty naive politically.
Quoting path
The whole idea of "reality" and how it's traditionally thought of is misleading from the beginning. Remember Heidegger discusses this in B&T, and it's quite interesting (the concept of "reality," that is).
Also, the "mental" and the "physical," or the subject and object (or representation), seem to dominate Western thought since at least Descartes. We seem stuck in this dichotomy, which is what Heidegger tries to find a way out of, in part by calling Dasein's way of being "existence," or being-in-the-world. We start with a world -- so it's not a scandal that no one can "prove" the existence of the external world; it's a scandal that anyone is trying to.
Quoting path
Or perhaps scientism and "mysticism," but I take your meaning of "theology" in this sense as well. Excellent point -- I think that's what we're left with, yes. Along with one very important third position (usually embodied in science or in a reaction to the "death of God"): nihilism. Nietzsche worried about this quite a bit. Heidegger takes it up in terms of "technological nihilism." But it amounts to the same basic trend: away from God and gods, without any moral "ground" or any story (context) that gives us goals, purpose, and meaning, towards complete faith in the results of science, and mesmerized by technology (cell phones, computers, TV, cars, etc).
To add to this, I would say our current world is also dominated by propaganda, consumerism, and a variety of unsophisticated hedonism. Especially in Europe and the U.S.
Quoting path
That's a great quote, and that's exactly right. Funny, I just started in on Hegel this year. I've heard for years that he's the "hardest" philosopher to read. But so far I don't find him hard at all. Schopenhauer repeatedly throws insults at Hegel, and between that and what I heard through secondary sources, I figured I would just wait. Heidegger comes down favorably on Hegel, however, and so I thought it worth while to actually read the man and see what all the fuss is about. So far I see why he was so influential. His contributions towards a history of philosophy (and the importance of interpreting history generally) are alone very important indeed.
:up:
If only there were such bots, ready to pounce at every reverent mention of his name.
Proximally and for the most part, we are bots. Even our philosophical selves are ripe for replacement by bots. Let's go ahead and install an anti-Heidegger bot on the site.
This spiel too is easily automated. I want a bot that says 'proximally and for the most part, we are bots.' It switches on whenever either Heidegger or AI is mentioned.
I just suggested installing one...
And I know that you're not really a bot, so no offense intended.
This helps understand a little Heidegger's distinction between "presencing" (or "presence"), which has been the mode from which "being" has been interpreted since the Greeks, and a successive sequence of "nows," which is how "time" is ordinarily understood (on the basis of presencing -- so that time itself becomes a present-at-hand fact, a kind of number line).
The entire thesis of Being and Time is that being has been interpreted on the basis of time, and a specific aspect of it: the "present." Our ordinary conception of "world time," or "clock time," comes out of our experience of the world, in the sense that we are temporally. Perhaps we could say "embedded time" or "experiential time" as someone put it, and which Heidegger calls "temporality."
This has interesting consequences for the history of philosophy (and science), and so for politics, technology, and values as well -- right to the present day. It flies in the face of 2,500 years worth of tradition, to boot. This is why I find Heidegger relevant and interesting, and at least worth taking a look at carefully.
Someone's been reading too much Heidegger :rofl:
Yeah. The way I read it is that he was an applied philosopher. We just don't like the way he did it. His world-historical fantasy of himself is pathetic...and Van Gogh cut his ear off, etc.
[quote=Heidegger letter to brother]
It would appear that Germany is finally awakening, understanding and seizing its destiny.
I hope that you will read Hitler’s book; its first few autobiographical chapters are weak. This man has a remarkable and sure political instinct, and he had it even while all of us were still in a haze, there is no way of denying that. The National Socialist movement will soon gain a wholly different force. It is not about mere party politics—it’s about the redemption or fall of Europe and western civilization. Anyone who does not get it deserves to be crushed by the chaos. Thinking about these things is no hindrance to the spirit of Christmas, but marks our return to the character and task of the Germans, which is to say to the place where this beautiful celebration originates.
[/quote]
https://www.theparisreview.org/blog/2016/10/18/in-his-own-words/
But Pound is not a bad poet for liking Mussolini, and Heidegger's stupidity on Hitler doesn't cancel what is good in his work. [Jesus this is a bot-like thing to say. We also need an anti-anti-Heidegger bot.]
I think you are missing the joke.
Thanks! Yeah, that's what I was going for. Being a bot about being a bot...
Everyone knows he was a Nazi, yes. Some even know he was a devoted one. But this is trivial to philosophers and students of philosophy, a concern only to bots, yes?
I understand. It's a sophisticated perception. There are bad Nazis, assuredly, but good ones as well, and Heidegger was a good one; our favorite Nazi, in fact. There never was a Nazi quite like him. He was the best of them. Such a perceptive, insightful Nazi. Surely we can all agree about that.
So no bots on my account, please.
Indeed, and we just echo the 'problem' of the 'scandal' like bots. Or (as I am doing now) the scandal of the scandal. But Hegel saw that we had to be bots to catch up with the conversation. I need to work through this now classic philosophy. I mean Heidegger is old news, Hegel is older news. But I, stupid mortal that I am, have to work through the wreckage for myself.
[quote=Hegel]
This bygone mode of existence has already become an acquired possession of the general mind, which constitutes the substance of the individual, and, by thus appearing externally to him, furnishes his inorganic nature.
[/quote]
Quoting Xtrix
Indeed. There are different ways that philosophers can try to show us the way out of this bottle. Like trace its development (Rorty in PMN, inspired by Heidegger, Dewey, Sellars, Quine, others). Or Wittgenstein can try to wake us up with homely comments. I think you've followed Heidegger's etymologies more. That's a harder path for me.
Quoting Xtrix
I like the phrase 'technical interpretation of thinking.' Theology is (to me) mechanical when it isn't mystical. Even anti-scientism tends to be scientistic in its methods. It demonstrates a taking-for-granted of this technical interpretation of thinking. One proves God. Or one generates a philosopher's god out direct access to concepts that just ignores Witt's critique of such beetles. Even 'intentionality' is theological in this sense. All these systems need their beetles. I wish that some of them would admit it, which is to admit that they are poets without anchors, but then I'd have no targets. I'd be a bot without a purpose.
On the other hand the 'honest' nihilist just drops the metaphysical pretense and chases power and money. This is 'true' sophistry. Who cares what X really is? It's standing reserve, canned whatever-we-need-it-to-be. Pretty soon we are canned whatever-we-need-us-to-be.
OK, he was a creep. But do I also have to pretend that all of Woody Allen's movies suck? That Louise CK was never funny? Where does it end? Why not also blast Aristotle? Frege? Or the slave-owning founding fathers? At some point we'll need our hand held as we walk through the dangerous library. Blast them at people, but maybe let me explore their work for myself.
To me it's just like it is with Heidegger. I can find passages or lectures that speak to me. But then there are long passages that remain obscure, or rather suggestive. Maybe he means this. Even if I didn't have to work non-philosophically for a living and knew 5 languages, I think I'd still end up thinking that life is just too short.
Quoting Xtrix
I got into Hegel first, which is maybe why I prioritized historicity when reading Heidegger. Roughly I think that Heidegger added a kind of subconceptuality to Hegel. The zeitgeist is enacted. This is where Dreyfus comes in. The who of everyday dasein (the 'one') is not primarily conceptual. The stance we take on our existence is so deep that we don't have to think about it. Interpretative phenomenology is hard work! The familiar is too close.
I think Hegel in the quote below is trying to be a proto-Heidegger, but he's still caught in the language of thought, thought, thought. That last line sounds like 'destruction.' We are so thoughtlessly theoretical that the problem is getting under all this machinery, to grasp it as machinery, not building it up in the first place.
[quote=Hegel]
The manner of study in ancient times is distinct from that of the modern world, in that the former consisted in the cultivation and perfecting of the natural mind. Testing life carefully at all points, philosophizing about everything it came across, the former created an experience permeated through and through by universals. In modern times, however, an individual finds the abstract form ready made. In straining to grasp it and make it his own, he rather strives to bring forward the inner meaning alone, without any process of mediation; the production of the universal is abridged, instead of the universal arising out of the manifold detail of concrete existence. Hence nowadays the task before us consists not so much in getting the individual clear of the stage of sensuous immediacy, and making him a substance that thinks and is grasped in terms of thought, but rather the very opposite: it consists in actualising the universal, and giving it spiritual vitality, by the process of breaking down and superseding fixed and determinate thoughts.
[/quote]
Heidegger's notion of 'restoring force' to elementary words seems related. We usually just chug along in our inherited bot-speak. We don't even hear ourselves. This is our 'inorganic nature.' And we thought cyborgs had to set off metal detectors...(I say we are cyborgs because we are thrown into this bone-machine that we speak and think with that's invisible to us most of the time.)
Right. And we can think of physics time as deworlded time. I think we can also drag in Sellars. The 'manifest image' is like the holistic network of equipment. The 'scientific image' is the system of prsent-at-hand entities for a deworlded dehistorized 'I' or 'pure' abstract subject.
[quote=link]
Could manifest objects reduce to systems of imperceptible scientific objects? Are manifest objects ultimately real, scientific objects merely abstract constructions valuable for the prediction and control of manifest objects? Or are manifest objects appearances to human minds of a reality constituted by systems of imperceptible particles? Sellars opts for the third alternative. The manifest image is, in his view, a phenomenal realm à la Kant, but science, at its Peircean ideal conclusion, reveals things as they are in themselves. Despite what Sellars calls “the primacy of the scientific image”(PSIM, in SPR: 32; in ISR: 400), he ultimately argues for a “synoptic vision” in which the descriptive and explanatory resources of the scientific image are united with the “language of community and individual intentions,” which “provides the ambience of principles and standards (above all, those which make meaningful discourse and rationality itself possible) within which we live our own individual lives” (PSIM, in SPR: 40; in ISR: 408).
[/quote]
https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/sellars/
'Synoptic vision' is nice, and I understand the desire to do justice to both images. Personally I lean toward interpreting the scientific image as 'valuable for prediction and control.' If we say that the world is really particles or waves, then I don't think we know what we are talking about. 'The finite has no genuine being.' Or things depend on context for their determination. 'Atoms & void' are a picture. Waves are a picture, and so on. Only mathematical Platonism can try to dodge this.
Then that Peircean ideal conclusion is Hegelian af, shoving metaphysical difficulties into the future. Things are revealed in themselves? Because our models get better? I can't make sense of it. Maybe Kant had the substratum the least wrong by saying the least about it, if one was not going to just attack the notion as problematic.
Though I was referring to Heidi's mystagogic heideggerization of 'will to power' 'eternal recurrence' etc, I'm always mindful that, in Heidi's case more than most 'thinkers', the man fertilizes the philosopher. To wit:
Quoting path
- yet Freddy presciently calls Heidi on this sort of 'Reichpolitik scheiße' the year before he was born:
[quote=What Germans Lack ...][i]One will notice that I wish to be just to the Germans: I do not want to break faith with myself here. I must therefore also state my objections to them. One pays heavily for coming to power: power makes stupid. The Germans — once they were called the people of thinkers: do they think at all today? The Germans are now bored with the spirit, the Germans now mistrust the spirit; politics swallows up all serious concern for really spiritual matters. Deutschland, Deutschland uber alles — I fear that was the end of German philosophy.
Even a rapid estimate shows that it is not only obvious that German culture is declining but that there is sufficient reason for that. In the end, no one can spend more than he has: that is true of an individual, it is true of a people. If one spends oneself for power, for power politics, for economics, world trade, parliamentarianism, and military interests — if one spends in the direction the quantum of understanding, seriousness, will, and self-overcoming which one represents, then it will be lacking for the other direction.
In the history of European culture the rise of the “Reich” means one thing above all: a displacement of the center of gravity. It is already known everywhere: in what matters most — and that always remains culture — the Germans are no longer worthy of consideration. One asks: Can you point to even a single spirit who counts from a European point of view, as your Goethe, your Hegel, your Heinrich Heine, your Schopenhauer counted? That there is no longer a single German philosopher —[/i][/quote]
and delivers a coup de grace premonition of SuZ nearly forty years before:
[quote=... Twilight of the Idols (1888)]One need only read German books: there is no longer the remotest recollection that thinking requires a technique, a teaching curriculum, a will to mastery — that thinking wants to be learned like dancing, as a kind of dancing. Who among Germans still knows from experience the delicate shudder which light feet in spiritual matters send into every muscle? The stiff clumsiness of the spiritual gesture, the bungling hand at grasping — that is German to such a degree that abroad one mistakes it for the German character as such. The German has no fingers for nuances.
[/quote]
(emphasis is mine)
I think this nails it, and I agree. Heidegger is a constipated priest. No golden laughter there, instead a heavy mystic gloom, a sort of concentrated hysteria, somehow tangled in the being-toward-death stuff that I could never quite get --because maybe it wasn't there to get. It was just a storm cloud for a god.
Nietzsche, on the other hand, at his best, was well beyond metaphysics. Better a clown than a priest, and he meant it. I like thinkers who can laugh at themselves, who aren't quite convinced by themselves. I want them to laugh with the abyss as it laughs at them. Don't they hear the laughter of the gods?
[Derrida tries in some sense to assimilate Heidegger to Nietzsche, raid him for parts in a spirit of play, if there is such a thing as a Derrida.]
“life and foreknowledge of death, individuality and connectedness, choice and foreclosure, individual and collective life in the present and projections of future prospects for both, presume, first, a close alignment between the identity the self seeks to realize and socially available possibilities of self-formation and, second, a shared sense of confidence in the world we are building, a confidence that links the present to the future through effort and anticipation at one time and memory and appreciation at another.” (William Connolly, Identity/Difference).
The lack of political and social analysis in Heidegger is no accident, but a constitutive element of his Daseinanalysis. There’s lots to learn from in Heidegger, and I always feel edified after having read him, but his whole approach has always been overly narrow to me. His peasant romanticism, his haughty disparagement of das man, his luddism are all awful aspects of his philosophy. His most interesting concept to me has always been the clearing - the Lichtung - along with his more topological considerations of Being (documented brilliantly in Jeff Malpas’ Heidegger’s Topology). But in general, he’s a thinker that’s more fun to forage around in and plunder than to take wholesale.
Seconded. And this can probably be generalized. Who can we take wholesale?
Zizek writes somewhere that the only way to stay true to the spirit of a philosopher is to betray them in a direction they would not have considered. I think there's alot to that.
Oh that's a shame! I think this is exactly where Heidegger is most "useful" in a scholarly sense; the man certainly knew his Greek. I think he is still underestimated as a "philologist," or perhaps linguist.
An excellent place to get into this particular aspect is where he himself says to begin in the preface to B&T: with the Introduction to Metaphysics. Have you tackled that one yet? I would substitute 20 secondary sources and "interpreters" for this one book alone (really a series of lectures).
I laughed at that one. There's a lot of truth to that, yes.
Quoting path
Eh, I wouldn't say that myself. He never killed anyone or advocated for the holocaust. If simply being a member of a dangerous political party makes you evil, then we currently have a lot of equally evil people in the US alone- called Republicans. (In former times I'd write "Republicans and Democrats", but I can't equate the two anymore with good conscience.)
Re: Heidegger and Nietzsche. I've read nearly everything Nietzsche has written, and he remains in my view one of the most challenging and relevant thinkers of all time. But comparing the two isn't altogether fair, and I'd recommend checking out Heidegger's (4 volume) lectures on Nietzsche. Jump over the rather shallow secondary interpretations and see what you think, if you ever have the time to kill.
Quoting StreetlightX
I'm not sure what you mean by "idealized" here. Until that's explained, there's no way to tell if whatever conception you're referring to is narrow or not.
Quoting path
No one. And I'd be very skeptical of anyone recommending such. Heidegger himself, over and over, says his work is interpretative, provisional, incomplete, and probably wrong in unforeseeable ways.
Every "proximally and for the most part" is also a "maybe not".
Yeah that's fair enough. Basically that Heidi offers a narrow slice of human experience passed off as a generalized phenomenology in which lots of interesting features are obscured and dropped out. I could substantiate it but I don't care enough about Heidi to spend that energy. If I had to point you in a direction, I'd say check out Alphonso Lingis's reading of Heidi in his Sensation: Intelligibility in Sensibility.
As for Heidi's philology, there's an interesting phD thesis by Rui de Sosa that meticulously tracks the responses by different philologists to Heidegger's reading of alethia, and concludes that the majority of them - although not all - more or less reject Heidi's reading. And, that even Heidi offered a half-hearted retraction of his earlier reading on the topic which barely anyone has noticed:
"The late period in the discussion of aletheia by Heidegger and the philologists is marked by Heidegger's retraction of his earlier views on early Greek truth. This cornes as a direct result of Friedlander's criticism of Heidegger and no doubt is also due to a widespread agreement with Friedlander among philologists. Heidegger's retraction remained equivocal and stated only in a cursory fashion; in his very latest work he continued to affirm that there was a fundamental difference between Greek and modem thought.
...Despite Heidegger's equivocations on the question of aletheia in his very latest work, he never again attempted to put into question the communis opinio of the philologists on the meaning of this word. He refrained from doing so, despite the fact that he continued to make pronouncements on the general character of Greek thought that seemingly set him at odds with mainstream philological opinion. There seems to be a great divide between the communis opinio growing around Friedlander's thesis that in the end andent Greek alethea was fundamentally akin to the modem concept of truth and Heidegger's daims that the fundamental premisses of the Greeks are very different from our own". (de Sosa, "Martin Heidegger's Interpretation of Ancient Greek Aletheia and the Philological Response to It")
He goes on to conclude that while there are good reasons to suspect that Friedlander's position is also not universally supported, most modern philologists have mostly just stopped any sort of dialog with Heidegger altogether. So it's still a somewhat open question, although I think it's pretty fair to remain quite suspicious of Heidi's readings as being faithful - albeit productive and philosophically entrancing.
That may be so, I'm afraid, or close to the mark. There is a kind of revulsion.
It may be a fault in me, but I'm unable to separate the man and his work so blithely.
Sort of like Tom Lehrer and Wernher von Braun.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QEJ9HrZq7Ro
I appreciate the sources, and both yourself, Path and 180 Proof have now provided me with a lot of reading material which I will check out, but the reason I created this thread was exactly for that reason: substantial criticism (or substantial "praise"), with the goal of understanding Heidegger even better. So if I may:
You're saying he's mistaking a narrow slice of human experience for a totality, and that he isn't justified in claiming this? What does the "in which lots of interesting features are obscured and dropped out" refer to, the "generalized phenomenology" or "the narrow slice of human experience"? It's ambiguous but relevant to clarify I think. Regardless, can you give an example? Because I'm certain he leaves many, many things out his analysis of human experience. His main concern, and he takes a while to get there, is "time," which he does consider rather obscured -- or concealed.
Quoting StreetlightX
That's really a shocker to me. That's a major part of his entire thought, as you know. I was always under the impression that his translations, while considered outside the mainstream of scholarship, were still accurate in terms of their (several) meanings. (So while logos as a "gathering" is indeed found in Homer, for example, and so was used in that sense at one time, this still doesn't prove that this sense applies to the writing of Aristotle in any meaningful way [as Heidegger claims it does.]) If it does turn out to be "accuracy" in this sense, then I would be very surprised, but I have a hunch that it's the latter. I couldn't find a PDF initially but I'll take a look at it.
Quoting StreetlightX
I agree. The question for me arose years ago regarding the philologic community's consensus on Heidegger's translations, and all I remember is finding something like I described above. When de Sosa states, for example, that
Quoting StreetlightX
I wonder if the bolded part is historically probable? We know from our own experiences just how quickly words can take on new meanings, how quickly its usage changes, and even how a meaning can be created and, within a generation, can predominate (like the word "gay"). So while Heidegger may be completely wrong in his attributing meanings in the wrong contexts, I can't imagine our "modern" conception of truth being at all similar to what the ancients meant, any more than "democracy" or "justice" is. Of course there will likely often be aspects which are the same -- otherwise there would be no traceable historical evolution to a word -- but the semantics will especially be very different, since meanings shift so quickly, even philosophical terms or scientific technical notions.
:clap:
Quoting StreetlightX
(ramble on)
And that may be the key: fidelity only to a philosopher who also, in this way, stays true to the spirit of his or her philosophers.
Reflective (like artistic, or improvisational) provocateurs.
Dialectical rodeo clowns.
Exemplars - philosophical surgeons, not therapists, as Clément Rosset says, yet mindful of Freddy's "Beware lest a statue slay you" - from which to learn how to unlearn and live for unlearning.
Heidi has his uses, no doubt, like many of others; but you're spot-on, Street, that, also like many others, his concerns are too narrow and often shallow (even retrograde, such as his 'peasant ludditism'). And it's arguable, I think, whether or not Heidi stays true to the spirit of any of his philosophers ...
(ramble off)
Yes, I too like philosophers who gesture beyond themselves.Quoting StreetlightX
I still need to really look into Deleuze. The set of weapons metaphor in nice, and goes well with Nietzsche's army of metaphors metaphor. I like this distance that thinkers can take from what they say. The pragmatists were on to something with the 'tool' metaphor, but (like anything maybe) it's easily made banal, conformist, sleepy. The philosopher forges tools or weapons with uses that cannot be anticipated, and being open to this is connected to that gesture beyond themselves. I like that they know they will be recontextualized, that they can't dominate the future.
Quoting StreetlightX
Totally agree. Betray them even with the tools they've given us, which is both loving and hateful. Escapes age into new traps, or something like that.
I do what I can to follow certain scholars on the etymological issues...but I am haunted by a sense of being outside all of the languages I don't know. I feel forced to recreate some analogue that's necessarily a misreading. On the linguistics front, I have only looked in Saussure, but it was illuminating.
Quoting Xtrix
I haven't seriously studied it. I was impressed by certain passages, definitely. So far I've mostly been drawn to the early stuff, before B&T, though obviously that book has its killer lines. I guess I don't like when Heidegger gets too systematic. To me, Witt and Heid were sometimes saying the same thing in different styles. Witt could be 'too' anti-systematic while Heid was too systematic. It's a tradeoff, and I'm glad both went in different directions. And what I have in mind is the deconstruction of various linguistic/metaphysical confusions based on assuming an isolated subject, etc.
To be clear, I could always read more of either or of other thinkers. I def. feel my finitude. I see so many...paths...and I can't take or be them all.
For me it's tricky, because I don't want to either just virtue signal self-righteously or act like his being a Nazi wasn't important. That letter I quoted is painful. I've read some of Mein Kampf. It's an ugly book, and Heid was recommending it, complaining only about the boring autobiographical parts. I won't quote Hitler here, but browse for yourself. It's a thuggish document. It troubles me that anyone could recommend it in the spirit of Christ...
But yeah fucking Mitch & the gang are evil. I will hold my nose and vote for Biden, I guess, though it won't matter in my red state...
Yes, his concern for the question of being is too "narrow." Spot on criticism; very substantial. Not too general (since it's literally about everything), but too "narrow."
That's not, in fact, what was said. What was said was that there was a narrow conception of human experience.
Why do you continue to bother with this thread if you have nothing interesting to say? It's bizarre.
You can still learn a great deal even if you don't know the language fluently. In Heidegger's case, there's maybe 20-30 important Greek terms that are interpreted outside the mainstream that are particularly relevant.
If interested in Chomsky, Saussure is a good place to start, but ultimately one must come to wrestle with Chomsky's neurolinguistics.
Quoting path
Well it's worth a look. Perhaps it's a bit more systematic than his other lectures/books, but I find that useful and I wish he did more of it.
I'll have to get to Wittgenstein this year, after Hegel.
Quoting path
Likewise.
Yeah in retrospect that looks awful, of course. But does he ever explicitly advocate the killing of Jews, blacks, gays, the disabled, etc? Did he even know about this? He resigned his Rectorship pretty quickly. He also called his involvement his "greatest blunder," although he never apologized.
It's like the people who thought Trump was a "brilliant" man -- what if he turned out to be destroying the country systematically? I think a lot of those people would reconsider...
Quoting path
I can't say I've read Hitler, but I'm sure it's thuggish.
Quoting path
Well I'm in a swing state (NH), so I'll definitely be voting Biden (and also holding my nose...again).
I'd like to learn more about the Hegel||Schelling||Holderin relationship. It's a nice mythy thing, isn't it? You have three roommates, all with mystical bents (as you point out) but one (Hegel) will go on to become the magisterial state-speaker par excellence, another (Schelling) will become a dark-hardened-outsider-mythologist, and the last (Holderin) will end up a mad poet, who flew too close to the sun. It's reductive, but it functions as a handy image for showing how all these very different modes of living can root themselves in something mystical and profound, while producing very different flowers. And the variance in final flowering is probably pushed along through all the brawls and tussles.
[In Hegel's Early Theological Writings he does a long exegesis of the bible which prefigures his secularized phenomenology. I read some of it last year when I finally got around to reading the bible (highly recommend!) and I was struck by how he hones in on Abraham's loneliness, how he only interacts with those outside his family in purely transactional ways - how he even insisted on paying for burial ground that was offered to him freely (If I'm remembering this right) - that seems like a key to Hegel's character, or at least interests.[
The Schelling quotes (I think he's my favorite of the three, despite having read little of him) are great. At the same time, I have a wariness of anti-system thought, of staking your ground there. I think Anti-System still has one foot in System. That's fine, but Anti-System seems like an airlock on the way to the outside (which is only The Outside for System). There seems like a temptation, understandable, to camp in the airlock halfway between the system and the outside, drawing comfort from both, without risking anything. (& it is a risk, cf Holderin)
Another way to put that. This : "All rules for study are summed up in this one: learn only in order to create" can become the final, deepest lesson that one rubs like rosary beads in order to delay creating. Strains of French Philosophy elevate this to a principle: Blanchot (part of the circle Derrida drew most from) will write a book (or collection of essays) called The Book to Come which is largely about the impossibility of writing the book one needs to write. Maybe --- theres a beauty in that terrain, which is wistful and decadent and intricate, but I'm not totally sold on this, and something in Derrida seems, well, cowardly. Borges, one of the most baroque, labrythine, writers who does tons of stuff that would be right up the Blanchot/Derrida/Jabes alley, seems somehow more full-throated and present. I suspect that is exactly because he spent a lot of time on the theme of cowardice. He confronted it, while playing his metaphysical mirror games, and I think that gave him a better ability to speak in his own voice (Derrida, of course, being suspicious of voice, unsurprisingly)
Yeah, I think enlightenment, if it exists, is something reached subtractively. One way to get at that is to decry 'enlightenment' altogether which I think is a legit approach. 'Enlightenment' is so loaded and many of us - like me, for one - can begin to see it as the inverse of all the mucky psychic debris we have, which lets us project onto it the removal of that debris, so that it becomes the Prime Desire Which Will Rescue Us. The only way out is through, and then you don't need a way out anymore, I think. Maybe that just means opening the washing machine and fishing around for the coin, finally getting it, and expecting it'll happen it again, but it's not a big deal - rather than plugging your ears and hoping it will go away.
Quoting path
"The Dexter Approach" was my way of thinking of the same thing I think you're talking about. I'll allow myself to embody the violence, but only if it's a check against others using that violence (of course, sometimes (sometimes) you're deluding yourself.)
------
Isn't there something lovable in Polonius? He gets shit on all the time, and mostly rightly so, but I can't bring myself to hate him, or even hold him in contempt. He's ponderous and pedantic but he does seem to love his son, and really want to help him, he just can't do it in any way but the Polonius way. And he's not wrong when he warns Ophelia against Hamlet. But Hamlet also, has every right and reason to be Hamlet. But which Hamlet? The Hamlet of the beginning is a coward (you see a theme arising, cowardice has been on my mind a while now) and in his self-monologue he knows this, but when he talks to the court he's ironic and clever and can't be caught, above them all. Still, it's all meaningless until he goes on his journey, then comes back with the real ability to avenge and restore. Before that, it's all the narcissistic flourishes of someone convincing himself of his own superiority in order to avoid his father's charge.
Yes, exactly that last part. There is some security in identifying totally with your wound, while having control over how the wounding happens (Deleuze will say this is the core of masochism) John Ashbery's long prose-poem-in-parts three poems gets at this well (and draws together a lot of the things we've been talking about):
The flipside of lacerating yourself, which I feel like is the same thing, is to become the lacerater.
No more bizarre, lil dasein, than you continuing to bother taking issue with me saying "nothing interesting".
Very cool that you've been in the trenches with the nets. I feel (I'm responding to your posts, as I read them) like I'm getting a better sense of "Path's Polonius" (who does, I admit, bear a strong resemblance to the character himself) He seems to think he understands everything well enough, without looking beneath the smooth workings of everyday life.
I don't have the firsthand experience, but my gut aligns with yours here - I don't think the nets are 'conscious' in the way we are. I'll out myself (I've outed myself before, though) as a panpsychist, but I definitely don't mean that like: everything is just like us, on different scales. "There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio etc" I think there are weird ways of being conscious that you see shades of in peak experiences, that aren't it, but sort of let you glimpse how infinite the possibilities are for other ways of being are. (I do also think there is a strong strictly philosophical case to be made for panpsychism, but that's neither here nor there.)
In any case, what I'm trying to point to isn't AI as Dasein-like or not, but more like smoething that deeply inflects our 'being-toward', or horizonality, to dip into Heideggerese. Again, the organizing-force-that-creates-the-animal isn't another single-celled organism, its a wildly new way of changing how those cells act.
But there are a few things going on. I think the dasein vs AI debate (as in Dreyfus) functions primarily to draw out what is legitimately unique about dasein, and I think that's exactly right, I'm not on Polonius's side here. I think it's important to understand what we are that AI is not.
But I think, having accepted that, that a space is opened to understand what AI really is. Which is not just the programs themselves, but our relation with them, and how we change them and are changed by them... and how that rhythm of change keeps morphing, if that makes sense? That's why I think another technological suite - agriculture - is really useful here, particularly how it begins as one thing among others, then slowly changes us in ways we don't recognize, until we're symbiotic with it.
ok, margs are hitting now
:ok:
But then the kicker: [backdrop sense] can itself become a concept foregrounded against what we mean by 'backdrop sense.'
That's the thing I'm circling around in Heidegger.
' Backdrop sense' is all well and good. But if truth is aletheia, if it's disclosed, then what's needed are concrete, practical, real-and-physical-as-learning-to-drive-a-stick-shift or how-to-play-the-piano ways of coming into contact with it ( of summoning it, or of taking a walk with it, or of getting into a fight with it, or of having a nice dinner party with it etc etc)
Nietzsche said: 'What if truth is a woman?' but just as much, what if truth is a friend, or a co-worker, or a father-figure and so on
Yes, and fortunately it's online so no one has to pay for it. That's part of Heidegger's guilt. I know he got out early, but he read that book and praised it. He put his fame behind that movement and helped to legitimatize it.
His stubborn silence afterward fascinates me.
I think you're right. I've said it before - said it above in this thread, in fact - but I think Sloterdijk is one of the most-underrated philosophers (at least in the anglosphere) and I think he's done some great foraging and plundering. He takes up Heideggerean themes (and he knows his shit) with a refreshing sense of humor and actual understanding of urban and social concerns. More than anything, he reads like someone you're having a direct no-bullshit conversation with (provided you have some phil background.) To be able to do that with a firm grasp of what you're talking about is a rare thing. The closest thing is Zizek but I'm becoming more and more disenchanted with what I see as a fundamental dishonesty at Zizek's core. I don't mean his analyses are wrong, per se. I mean that Zizek wants to be both a radical marxist and a protected elite and can't reconcile the two*. You have weird cycles of thought that never land anywhere but are constantly revolving around paradox and negativity, covered with delightful anecdotes, insights, and bite-size jokes (lacan seems like this too, but in a more dour register) I think Sloterdijk bites the bullet, and you can feel it. Can't recommend enough.
------
*I hate Tyler Cowen but his interview with Zizek is perfect, the one time I side with him. Zizek plays the crowd, plays nice with the koch-funded guy, and then Cowen lays bare whats literally happening ('drop the marxist thing, its aesthetic at this point, come hang with us in Malaysia!' while zizek sputters and glitches and tries to reframe things 'I don't want to be perceived in this way!' Well, you're already here, dude, why are you gladhanding a Tyler Cowen crowd? ]
Exactly! And that's us here too.
Quoting csalisbury
Always. That's what I try to load in the 'ironic' of the ironic aphorist. I can't mean what I say or say what I mean. It's always wrong. It's always thrown. To be thrown is to be in a system, perhaps especially an anti-systematic system. Now I'm in the system of us always being thrown. I relate to Derrida so much perhaps because he suffered and thrilled at/as the system trying to climb out of itself.
Right. I like that approach while knowing it's not the only approach. In some ways my vision of what enlightenment is is just so mundane that it hardly deserves the name. If I get caught up in loving my cat, forgetting mortality and identity and all of that, then that's it. Or I'll settle for just being in a state of easygoing play, even if that play is hard work. 'The seriousness of a child at play.' Maybe there's more, but I'm pretty happy with that. It's an animal kind of spirituality. The more mystical-manic states I've had via philosophy might deserve their own name. But it's like a drug state, not really for mortals, or not for long.
The debris part also speaks to me. My strategy, right or wrong, has been to lean in to the idea of dying in sin, dying in my mess. The only sure escape from those debris is just getting caught up in play, which I can't force. I can get the coin out of the washing machine, but it's like Bukowski said: he could always suddenly not be a poet. Probably boring things to talk about like diet and exercise are huge, which I'm OK with. But I lean on my coffee and nicotine gum.
I know that disaster is up ahead somewhere, and it's not the rest but the awkward transition I resent. In the meantime I'm trying to work out how to make money without selling my soul.
(I think it's cool that you work remotely now. That's what I'm doing too for now. So much of my life happens on this one screen.)
Yeah, I was talking to my friend about this the other day : the seriousness of play. It's really hard to access now. Forgive me another Ashbery Three Poems quote. a couple quotes I'll stitch together.
Well that's one part. the upsurges are everything, but I think there is a time to...Letting them be as what they were without trying to get back to them seems so relieving, if possible
Polonius is my shadow. I read lots of Jung once, I confess. I connect him [Polo] to idle talk, chatter, or bot-speak. We always leave (or I always leave) a slime trail of the already-been-said. That's part of it. Polonius just barfs up what everybody knows.
But he's also a father figure. There's basically a performance of the smart guy that is implicitly patriarchal. So I can deliver a sermon on humility and the form of the communication is arrogant. Who gets to give the sermon? That's the 'real' issue on the level of form, thinly veiled by content. So runs my sermon on humility.
You also hint at a kind of shallowness of knowledge. I relate to that too. I play fast and loose and basically bluff, and part of that bluff is that everyone is bluffing. That's part of my AI point, too, that we just use these words and they work and we don't look to closely at how.
And talk of us all walking in darkness is one more false light, which is more talk of walking in darkness. But part of me wants to be called out, as an opportunity to catch the spaghetti again. If I am called out gently and perceptively, then the game is actually happening. This is a narcissistic detour, but I want to catch the spaghetti again.
I think this is a great issue in itself. For me it has been mostly about 'idle talk' or 'botspeak' as the 'incarnation' of the 'One' as discussed in a non-moralizing way in Dreyfus.
The moral version would be not whatever Heidegger's authenticity is (I can't figure it out) but Bloom's anxiety of influence. I'm worried about being a bad poet, of merely repeating and not creating. Fight for recognition? But it's also just grasping how automatic most of life is. How taken-for-grantedly it flows, the way these words pour out. Yet that's also what I've called enlightenment, when it feels good.
By paragraph:
--I like Jung. I think he's really good, actually. I haven't read him deeply, but I've read him. I get your qualification because he gets a bad rap, but I think that rap is misplaced. He's good.
--Right, the submessage of Polonius' Speech to Laertes is that he knows better than him what the world is like and how to act. That is arrogance. But a father's speech is always inherently arrogant in that way. If you haven't earned that knowledge, its bunk to pass it on like that. I would like to say that the ideal on here is equalizing that relationship. A free flow of lessons learned, erudition, how to go forward - of course, it rarely happens like that.
--I wasn't calling you out as shallow, I just meant the polonius archetype, as conventionally understood, tows with it the idea of shallowness. I don't think you're shallow - far from it. I want to be called out as much as you do (tho, as you say, gently and perceptively.) I think most of us here do, whether we know it or not. We're all trying to work something out, putting forward bold statements, like children, or like adults, to see how they withstand whatever, in order to grow. If you shove a lot, you're looking for a Big Shove, I think, you want to know where your limits are in order to move forward.
I love Ashbery, by the way, which somehow I'd never looked into until you mentioned him. I still have only seen what you've shared. Masochism is deep stuff. I've been listening to 'Venus in Furs' (Velvet Underground) and also think of 'In Every Dreamhome a Heartache' (Roxy Music.) I'm dropping those as (to me) great songs that might be fodder for more convo on this.
Right. This is that Games People Play idea of adult-to-adult or peer-to-peer. And it can't (I don't think) be formalized. It's a dance, with a certain amount of sensitive and ultimately affectionate challenging.
Quoting csalisbury
I guess I knew that. It was maybe compulsive confession on my part. Like I don't want to be perceived as thinking that I'm a scholar. I'm just an outsider artist, an amateur, yet I can't deny the hope that I drop some good metaphors. I need to believe (and mostly do) that I can play these cards.
I agree.
I understand Dreyfus to aim at symbolic AI especially. The 'connectionist' approach is actually working. The 'thoughts' are just huge boxes of floating point numbers.
So for me it's primarily about how AI mirrors our chatter or botspeak. Mostly we are quite predictable. A strong philosopher surprises us. But in his daily life he uses all the normal words correctly and automatically.
[sentimental post, redacted. margs and time to go to bed for me]
I have looked at it. I was quite gung-ho about Heidegger for awhile (he was my favorite), so I bought more books than I could get around to, checked too many out from the library. I'd dig around waiting for something to speak to me. Ontology: Hermeneutics of Facticity is one that really got me. The B&T terminology wasn't fixed yet. The translation was good too. I'm a poet at heart.
What I remember from H's N was that it was Heidegger's Nietzsche. For me Nietzsche (when not a little too close to Hitler with a higher IQ) was a cosmic clown, an ironic mystic. Maybe Heidegger read him more as the un-ironic mystic of eternal return. I could be way off. I do know that Nietzsche was very much my favorite in my crazy 20s, for both the right and the wrong reasons. I had to read Nietzsche against Nietzsche, his best self against his worst self, which Nietzsche himself was also doing, another Hamlet.
DETOUR
As far as Nietzsche's insanity, I find the brain disease most likely, then the syphilis. I don't think he had a 'spiritual' meltdown, tho I can't be sure. I just mention that because it's interesting. What happened to him? Even Ecce Homo has some good lines, but wtf? And in The Antichrist he even hits his mystical peak with his portrait of Jesus, creating a sect of mystical-ironical Christianity in passing even as he speaks against it. It reminds me of another favorite passage from Hegel's aesthetics. Both are like my 'mysticism.' Both are words that aim beyond words. Yet much the The Antichrist is ranting, far beneath the beautiful Jesus-shadow of the antichrist.
We might ask how the Hitlerian streaks in Nietzsche affected Heidegger. By Hitlerian I mean basically the credo that war is god, which is perhaps Heraclitian too. This ties into csal's & my point about the tenderness of the nihilist who yet identifies with a dark tormenting god. I was that kind of dude. When god died, I replaced him with the meatgrinder, the amoral machine of nature that just did not give a fuck. This is what freaks people out about the scientific image of the world, I think, and most flee from it in the usual ways. But some of us mix a religion of dark truth in with the religion of the war god and the blind machine. I'm still somewhat attracted and attached to 'war is god,' though the better part of me knows better.
I love it. Yes indeed. We've got to risk those tentacles. We can't curl up like worms.
Thanks for sticking up for him. I actually read quite a bit of him, and he was valuable to me. 'Whatever is unconscious is projected.' That one will stick with me forever. There are just so many thinkers who become uncool who nevertheless have their bright spots. I loved Spengler too. We can just raid them parts and not follow them where they went too far.
That song was great. Thanks for sharing & no hard feelings.
'There are only differences without positive terms' connects for me with the beetle-in-the-box and something like a radical holism that for me connects to Heidegger. It was Derrida who lead to me Saussure. But I noticed that Saussure was not that interested in grammar. I have studied formal grammars in theoretical computer science, and we did cover CNF, but that's about it. Except, naturally, that I've enjoyed Chomsky's political ideas, mostly through videos.
I was thinking more about this and it's maybe the question of being. The beetle in the box is there.
Something 'is' behind the signs. But the signs can't grab it. The signs can't grab anything
It's a vapor? Does one awaken the question for the wrong reasons? Hard to tell. It's all caught up in sign-systems and politics, seems to me.
What is the difference if not this 'consciousness' or 'being'? Because if the planet-size computer can out-talk us eventually, it won't be clear. Your panpsychism is reasonable to me. It could genuinely become difficult to know for sure if our planet-size-AI is 'really' there. To defend ourselves against that thought we'd need to think that our biology is magical in some sense or get into some quantum woo. I don't know. It makes sense to me that 'being is not a being.' There's the metaphor of the light that makes things visible. Nicholas of Cusa was maybe saying something like this. It does get negative-theological. It's all so slippery that I'll just stop here.
I do feel that. For me it's tricky because riffing on what I got from Derrida and others pretty much is my poetry. We are recreating Plato on this forum, a bunch of voices colliding and improvising. It's not like academia. Some true weirdos can thrive here. Quality is uneven but new tones and styles are possible.
Quoting csalisbury
One of the easier ways for me to approach this is to think of my own temptation to look at the world from a distance, to remain endlessly uncommitted. I relate to Derrida quite a bit, and I think that he also experience his own proper name as a toe-tag. My name is what they call me. It's not my name, for I am [s]Ulysses[/s] no one. I also think of Kojeve's skeptic, with skepticism as another slave ideology, an excuse not to fight. Of course it's easy to imagine rich skeptics too, making excuses not be kinder and more generous. Maybe this can be boiled down to the preciousness of the artist, which takes us back to Nietzsche? Am I special enough that others should be sacrificed for me or at least have to do the dirty work while I do these mirror games? (Is the artist a choose-a-priest in a pluralistic society?) I also think of Marx and Stirner. Marx was stronger and righter in almost every way, but there is some mystic gleam in Stirner, which Hegel knew and described and tamed into a respectable responsible system that the state could like. Is this at all what you have in mind?
Let me float this idea by you. Hamlet was wrestling with a conspiracy theory. He really wasn't sure if the ghost was legit. He could also question his motives for wanting to believe or not believe (including cowardice.) There's also the grief, feelings about mommy's new boyfriend, Ophelia. Working up the courage makes sense as part of this, but all the conspiracy theory out there these days just made me think of Hamlet. A fucking ghost tells him that the government is evil in a special way, poison in the ear. Did the ghost pour poison in Hamlet's ear? We know also that Shakespeare played the ghost, that he lost his only son named Hamnet when the boy was 11. You may know all this from Ulysses, in which Stephen gives his own conspiracy theory about Shakespeare.
You have to understand how much I don't particularly like talking about Heidegger in depth. I've done a great deal of it and I've squared my intellectual accounts with him long ago. Nonetheless, in the spirit of laziness, here is a snippet from Lingis, whose argument basically boils down to the fact that being-toward-death cannot do the job that Heidegger wants it to do, and that the temporal and 'possibilizing' (my term) role assigned to it is far too theoretically overburderded and misses a certain immanence of death which frustrates any attempt to give it a temporally orienting/horizoning role (Blanchot, whose name has cropped up in this discussion, incidentally, was all about this - death disorients as much as it orients). Here is Lingis:
[quote=Lingis, "Sensibility"]Heidegger argues that the sense of the irreversible propulsion of a life toward its end precedes and makes possible every unilateral array of means toward particular ends and every determinate action. But can death, which has no front lines and no dimensions, assign a determinate direction to one's life, and thereby impart a unilateral direction to the connections in the instrumental field? The anxiety that anticipates dying does not anticipate a last moment situated in the time of the world which my existence extends. Death is neither present nor future; it is imminent at any moment. How could death then fix the end and bring to flush the ends possible in the time that lies ahead?
Heidegger concedes that the path of one's own destiny, which unifies one's life and one's situation, cannot be drawn from the nothingness of death. He then argues that it is in the common world, in paths inscribed on the world by others, that one finds the possibilities left for one and for which one' s own powers are destined (B&T p. 434). Yet he would have to explain that the lives of others trace out paths of possibility which they leave for others because the path they actualized was an assignation put an them by death. The explanation only displaces the question.
In Heidegger's dialectic, anxiety, the most negative experience, experience of nothingness itself, converts into the most positive experience, positing my existence as my own, positing the world in its totality. The entry into the world as my home passes through the most extreme degree of alienation. ... [By contrast] to the dialectic that seeks to retrace the genesis of the world, Maurice Merleau-Ponty objected that distance, differentiation, gradation, pregnancy are primitive notions and that the facticity and nothingness with which dialectics constructs them are twin abstractions.[/quote]
There's alot more to this, and the full measure of the critique can't be given without contrasting it against that account for which 'distance, differentiation, gradation and pregnancy' are primary - but I simply have no desire to put in that work (for a related, Derridian critique, see here, 24mins-37mins; for a fleshed out account of the kind Lingis refers to, see here).
I will say, with respect to the discussion of etymology more generally - it's probably a good rule of thumb not to trust philosophers with doing it 'accurately'. They all have some kind of agenda and I'd much rather trust an actual philologist or linguist whose discipline it is. One of my other favourite philosophers - Giorgio Agamben - engages in long philological analyses all the time (he was a student of Heidegger's at one point), and while I love his work to pieces, I wouldn't dare offer any of it up without qualification to take it with a grain of salt.
And I've seen that Tyler Cohen interview. I think maybe part of the 'problem' is that Zizek is playing to many audiences at once, and, yes, it's hard to square all of what he attempts to do. It'd be interesting to me to see how Sloterdijk does it. But I think it's useful as a reader to try and take responsibility for what one gets out of him. Reading Zizek always puts my guard up. I'm more critical when I read him than other authors and I almost get more out of him precisely for that reason. A kind of pedagogy of suspicion that is all the more productive because you can't trust your source.
I think of our dualisms as useful practical tools that harden into metaphysical-strength concrete.
I think we might already agree on the following, but to zoom on on
One way I understand time (us) in Heidegger is in terms of inheritance. We just take metaphysically hardened dualisms for granted. That's just what philosophy is if we were first exposed to it that way. In the same way our weird parents are just parents-in-general until we widen our experience and look back.
I think that's why we are essentially historical beings. The past leaps ahead. It leaps ahead most dominantly when that leap is invisible. That we are projected on the future is intuitive for most people, I think. Living in the moment is even on our to-do list. To dwell on being thrown, though, is to suffer a threat to one's autonomy. There's the fantasy of being one's own father, being self-caused. Perhaps God is an impossible image of the unthrown thrower. Man is a futile passion to not be thrown, to be God. This is my attempt to corrupt Sartre toward Heidegger.
Anyway, I'd also like to hear what you have to say about time and about the question of being. As you know, I find it slippery and yet so adjacent to my concerns about meaning and what separates us from AI that could not be distinguished from a genuine mind, whatever we/those are.
My fury is reserved for Heidegger. I'm merely amazed, and baffled, by those who admire him.
It's odd, isn't it, for a philosopher to be enamored by a thug, and thuggishness? I suspect this tells us something about him. The cerebral among us seem inclined to this kind of base attraction sometimes. Pound, Yeats and others were quite fond of Mussolini.
My favorite Lehrer tune is The Vatican Rag, which I think could be found somewhere in the Web.
Fair enough. Heidegger's views on death and anxiety were never very striking to me, nor do i pretend to understand them very well. So if that's where your criticism lies, I wouldn't want to defend it. I will check out the links regardless.
Quoting StreetlightX
Yes that's true, but that's what was surprising to me: I didn't think linguists were calling into question what they apparently are (semantic accuracy).
But it's tough with philosophy, as you know. We should be equally skeptical of linguists as well, because without a solid background in philosophical thinking, translations can easily go awry. Aletheia as "truth" (with all our modern ideas associated with it), for example, while certainly accurate, doesn't quite capture its usage 2500 years ago (of course) and so can be misleading, just as translating "episteme" as "science" can be misleading. I'm sure you agree. Regardless, your point is well taken.
Quoting path
It's as if we habitualize a way of interpreting. I'm reminded of those ambiguous pictures where, once you're told what it is beforehand, that's all you can see (like a cat) without a great deal more effort, whereas it could also be interpreted as a candlestick. I think something similar to that happens with our basic preconceptions about the world. The mind-body version of dualism is a good example, particularly in the West. Descartes' influence really can't be overestimated.
Quoting path
That's great! I like that.
Quoting path
I think that time is like saying "life" - it has to be presupposed. It's the background, like light. It's no wonder every Western philosopher grapples with time (and change) in some fashion, but also the contemplatives of the East.
Heidegger's claim is that being (also a background) is opened up (or disclosed) by human being, and since human being is temporality, we interpret it on that basis. In the West, we do so by "presencing." I find that accurate.
So again, it seems like action instead of being is the foundation of the world for him. Very modern. Also sounds Buddhistic
That does seem right to me, so I guess I'm trying to fish more out of all of us. How is ti a background? To be thrown (speak only thru inherited traces, for one) is part of that.
[quote=Heidegger]
Thrown and entangled, Dasein is initially and for the most part lost in what it takes care of.
...
Spirit does not fall into time, but factical existence 'falls,' in falling prey, out of primordial, authentic temporality.
[/quote]
from B&T II.VI
There are other great passages around there that I'm too lazy to type up, and I think you have Stambough's translation yourself.
To me this means falling into the past that leaps ahead as present-at-hand false necessity. Authentic temporality realizes its contingency, knows that it is thrown, and that history is not an object for the eye.
This 'false necessity' is IMV illustrated by taking over the vocab of the times in a 'blind' way as a ready-to-hand tool. It's the 'given' that makes us intelligible to one another. Part of this given is the vulgar concept of time as a sequence of nows, which obscures genuine historical time and our being thrown, being entangled. So 'being' is a vapor, but then all of the elemental words are vapors without force as we mostly just pass them back and forth as too obvious to be worth thinking about. I connect this to the Hegel quote about being stuck on the surface, taking master words like 'subject' for granted. I also connect it to the Wittgenstein quote: the 'beetle' plays know role. For practical purposes we need only adopt the conventions for immersed, worldly business. We don't know what we are talking about, and we fall into time by also not knowing that we don't know what we are talking about. We forget that we have forgotten.
My approach to this is connected to Heidegger's quotes of Yorck, and Yorck seems like a pre-Heidegger, a John-the-baptist for Heidegger.
[quote=link]
There seem to be two questions here. First, how can one conceive the "subject matter" (Sachverhalt) of the human sciences, i.e., human, historical life, without reducing it to a natural thing? Second, is the theoretical approach and manner of knowing that prevails in the modern sciences appropriate for understanding its subject matter? For Dilthey, both questions about the human being -- as subject matter of knowledge and as knower -- unite in the philosophic question about what he calls the "connectedness of mental life" (p. 4). Yorck, however, possesses a keener awareness that the domain of the "historical" differs "generically" from that of other entities (p. 7). Heidegger clearly means to suggest that an adequate treatment of these questions about the human being requires the analysis of the "ontological characteristics" of Dasein in its "historicity" (p. 73). Such a consideration of "Dasein," taken as the "subject matter" of inquiry, will then also address the question of how human, historical life is to be apprehended theoretically, for the analytic works out the ways in which Dasein is "disclosed" to itself (through, for example, its own, pretheoretical "autonomous self-interpretation" [pp. 32-33]).
...
n the Concept of Time, the task of "understanding historicity" appears to be more central than it is in Being and Time. The account of "what time is" and the description of Dasein's "temporality" are presented as preparation for this problematic (pp. 2, 10). Accordingly, this text amplifies the importance of the insight into Dasein's historicity for our understanding of philosophy and science -- and that includes our understanding of the philosophic inquiry that is communicated in these texts. Heidegger thus praises Yorck for drawing the "ultimate conclusion" from "his insight into the historicity of Dasein" (p. 9). This conclusion is the need to "historicize philosophy," to, in other words, "understand philosophy as a manifestation of life" (p. 9). That Heidegger's own inquiry is historicized is confirmed later in Chapter 4: "If historicity co-determines Dasein's being, it follows that any investigation that aims to open this entity must be historical" (p. 81).
[/quote]
https://ndpr.nd.edu/news/the-concept-of-time/
What I grok thru Braver's take on the later Heidegger ('sendings of being') is a kind of open-ended Hegelianism. For Braver we are thrown into 'impersonal conceptual schemes.' If this language is mentalisitc, that's maybe because Braver is trying to sell forbidden continental thinkers to analytics in a kind of bridge language. These 'schemes' are 'forms of life' are 'zeitgeists' are 'understandings of being.' Or it seems to me that this is the evolution of the same vague historicizing insight. 'Thinking' is profoundly social-historical, in a way that thinking can hardly overestimate.
Something like this seems like the core of Heidegger to me, along with the ready-to-hand mode of being and the lifeworld nexus of equipment (subconceptuality, enactedness).
Quoting Gregory
That all sounds more or less correct to me. Dasein is enacted. We bark and meow about substance and subject as if we meow what we are barking about, but it's all analogy, poetry. Metaphysicians forget that they are poetry-in-progress by taking dead metaphors literally, which is to say as not-metaphors. The notion of a purely literal cognition is part of a white or anemic mythology, a chest of old mystical coins with their inscriptions rubbed off. The literal is metaphor so dead that we've forgotten it ever breathed, that metaphors like breath are at the heart of systematic theologies. The most suspicious and scientistic epistemological machinery is sophistry that forgets its instituting metaphors. (If it's all just metaphors, wtf is a metaphor? A dead metaphor, a forgotten journey.)
Ah, thank you for this analogy. Prepare ye the way of the Lord!
To me it's not so odd. There's a violence in philosophy as it questions dearly held assumptions. There's perhaps the same violence in authoritatively telling others how it is, how it should be. That strong intellectuals in the humanities are something like creative geniuses and not working in a giant lab on particle physics might also have something to do with this. The priest-artist-intellectual in touch with the grand truth, which only he gets right, is already a single self-important mouth, a dictator. (Pound, Yeats, others.)
Heidegger sneered in his early work at the idea of philosophers working together on a committee. He had pictures of Dostoevsky and Van Gogh in his office. He loved Kierkegaard. This cult of the genius seems connected to the cult of the dictator. 'We need a strong man (singular) to cut through all the red tape and confusion.' The little people don't have the guts. They just chatter or cluck like hens.
At the same time Heidegger's work points in the opposite direction. This willful self-present independent subject is itself bunk and confusion. He's just a whirlpool in inherited traces. But people often hate this more Derridean attitude as irresponsibly playful. Opposed to Hitlerian elitist priest-philosophy we have Feuerbachian socialism-humanism (in its modern forms) and outside of both to some degree the stoic and the skeptic. The stoic can of course be responsibly political, which is perhaps where you are. Be a stoic philosopher, but first/also be a decent citizen. I feel like the skeptic who tries to remind myself not to be too selfish, too detached.
Heidegger explicitly called himself a theologian in a letter, so yeah! But this structure also haunts anti-religion. We see this in Stirner reading Feuerbach against Feuerbach. Any lingo can function metaphysically, spiritually, politically. The libertarian language of individual freedom can and is used in class war by the 'priests' of a ruling class. It seems to me that many lovers of Trump think of themselves as masters of suspicion as they wallow in conspiracy theory (the new opiate of the masses?)
I am not lumping you in with these guys, just offering an example of how just about any lingo can be subverted (such as the lingo of Marx by creeps like Stalin).
These Yorck quotes remind me of the Hegelian criticism of Kant (which I will never master.)
[quote=link]
That life is historical means that each person is always already outside his or her own individual “nature” and placed within the historical connection to predecessor- and successor-generations. For Yorck, living self-consciousness is, to use Hegel's fortuitous phrase, “the I that is we and the we that is I” (Hegel 1807, p. 140).
...
Transcendental philosophy reduces historical life to the merely “subjective,” which misses the genuine characteristic of Geist, spirit or mind, namely its real, historical extension and connection.
[/quote]
https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/yorck/
We also have Feuerbach on this:
[quote=link]
Unlike sense experience, thought is essentially communicable. Thinking is not an activity performed by the individual person qua individual. It is the activity of spirit, to which Hegel famously referred in the Phenomenology as “‘I’ that is ‘We’ and ‘We’ that is ‘I’” (Hegel [1807] 1977: 110). Pure spirit is nothing but this thinking activity, in which the individual thinker participates without himself (or herself) being the principal thinking agent.
[/quote]
Then there's Wittgenstein:
[quote=W]
--But suppose the word "beetle" had a use in these people's language? --If so it would not be used as the name of a thing. The thing in the box has no place in the language-game at all; not even as a something: for the box might even be empty. --No, one can 'divide through' by the thing in the box; it cancels out, whatever it is.
That is to say: if we construe the grammar of the expression of sensation on the model of 'object and designation' the object drops out of consideration as irrelevant.
[/quote]
If we think only in signs (or can only claim to be thinking things only with signs), then thinking is not done by the individual person as individual person. That there is no private language is old news, but some of us don't like the mystic editorializing of those old newspapers. If one starts with the TLP and its scientistic form, however, and ends with homely reminders...we finally have ears to ear that we never had mouths to ourselves.
Quoting path
Well then, when he referred to some god being needed to save us in Der Spiegel, he must have meant some other god, not himself. At least he said "god" and not "fuhrer" that time. It's likely they're the same, to him, however.
Quoting path
If I understand you correctly, then he'd probably eulogize Trump as he did Hitler. Imagine it: "President Trump alone is the present and future American reality and its law!" I can hear it being said, see them marching.
Eh, sorry. I do get carried away.
But I disagree about there being a streak of violence in philosophy. Nietzsche may have filled his writings with exclamation points, Schopenhauer pushed noisy women down stairs, Rousseau delighted in confessing his sins and telling everyone the wonderful things he learned by sinning, much like St. Augustine, but philosophy, particularly romantic philosophy, is generally an expression of self-love or self-involvement. A kind of onanism. How's that for an analogy? Which some used to say does violence to the onanist if I recall my Catholic youth correctly, so perhaps there's something in what you say.
I hesitate to mention Dewey in a thread about Heidegger, especially since csalisbury has joined the discussion. But Dewey is an example of a philosopher--a modern one, even--who might be said to have tried to make philosophy applicable to public affairs, society and education, without evoking the destiny of some nation, race or group of peoples, and fuhrers and gods, and without demeaning other nations, races or groups of people, and some others have as well, so perhaps it can be done. The Stoics too, given their view that we're social beings, each carrying a bit of an immanent deity within us. But I doubt musings regarding the Nothing and daisen, technophobia and visions of hearty peasants lovingly placing seeds in nature's bosom will result in any true change.
No doubt I've overstayed my welcome.
I'm no expert on the later Heidegger, but I think that he had a new 'sending of being' in mind. I think he saw us (in this stage) as control freaks. Our need to control was out of control. Can we get our need to control under control? This is like putting living in the moment on our to-do list. 'Only a god can save us' means that we are fucked unless somehow a new attitude can grip us so that we loosen our grip.
It reminds of an unnecessarily mystic expression of a pessimism that Rorty would occasionally voice. The passivity implied is questionable in its own way. Instead of marching to war, one just sits around and waits.
Quoting Ciceronianus the White
If intellectuals aren't political, they are onanistic. If they aren't sufficiently political, they are to that degree still onanistic. If they are too far left or right, they are guilty in the eyes of their opponents. There's a primacy of the political going on. 'Self-love and self-involvement' is right, but how is this neutrally evaluated? An activist can always tell you that you are not doing enough, that you are wallowing in your privilege, and they may be right. At the same time the activist may be insufficiently critical in a self-involved way to be doing the right thing. The worst are full of passionate intensity, but do the best lack all conviction?
The devil is in the details, and the negotiation in endless.
Quoting Ciceronianus the White
I like Dewey quite a bit, and Rorty, who turned me on to him. I agree that Heidegger is hard indeed to resuscitate for political use. But just the disaster of Heidegger is fascinating. It's a historical phenomenon that's worth making sense of, and Heidegger provides some of the tools for that. To me, reality is just that complex, that messy.
I think you are right about a scientistic reading; the TLP's quasi-formalist expression, however, deliberately calls attention to the semantic form of it's own meta-language (i.e. nonsense) and, arguably, meta-discursivity in general.
That's a great point, and I should say that I adore the TLP. I don't claim to have mastered it, but it's meant something to me.
I guess my comment is a slight dig at some I've argued with who just ignore the mystical charge in Wittgenstein and hate continentals as language on holiday. I'm looking at/for a kind of continuity in the long philosophical conversation. Is anything truly fresh? Completely new under the sun?
I get that (&, to be honest, I left off about 1/4 of the way through the last volume of Spheres, will come back some day) I will say that, if you bracket size, his style and vibe is so unintimidating. That may not be the case for someone who isn't broadly familiar with Heidegger, but if you have Heidegger under your belt (as you do), the books are truly a breeze. They're fun to read. And whenever he dips into Heideggerese it's delightfully tongue-in-cheek (Like, you can see he understands the terminology, and is using it right, but he only takes it as seriously as it deserves. It's not mocking, it's more like affectionate irreverence.)
My thought on ZIzek - and I've had this thought for a long time, even when I was really into him - is that there is no single, consistent way of framing his thought (I don't think he could, even to himself). It's more like there or 3 or 4 quasi-consistent frames which feel similar (use similar references and terms etc) but kind of cycle through, in a blurred way, and the manic hopping-around isn't incidental but is an unavoidable symptom of his thought. Of course he recognized this, to a degree, and it gets baked into his metaphysics, via Lacan - whether this is a mark of rigorous thinking (i.e. the point of Plato's Parmenides oughtn't be one of negative theology, but simply that reality is an inconsistent matrix of incompossibilities suspended above* the void) or Next-Level self-gaslighting is another question. I think approaching him - and others, oneself - with suspicion, or at least an ironic reticence, is a good move.
----
*or within or below or throughout... mobius strips, Borromean rings, a dragon that eats his tail by chanting 'topology' nine times in order to become both surface, depth, and the transversal motion by which surface and depth co-create one another, like a fractal, what if the epidermis was your intestines and the libido was your epidermis**, the holy trinity)
---
**ok, to be fair, that particular one is a riff on Lyotard in Libidinal Economies (which he later rejected), but it's part of the same family.
I don't know Nicholas of Cusa (besides a few quick references in other books), and I don't mind negative theology, so I'd be curious to hear more.
Let me see if I can try to gesture at something here.
I feel like what keeps happening is something like this: There is one pole ['System' or 'signs' or 'sign-system'] and there is another pole ['consciousness' or 'being' etc.] One thing that can happen is this: The latter is seen as somehow pure, and what we want to get at, and defend against the suggestion that it, the latter, is just a species of the former. AI is not dasein.
Then there is the derridean approach: Both things are impossibly tangled up in one another, and the neat separation is something that is grounded in their entanglement, their entanglement is the condition of the separation. In reality, it's a play all the way down.
Both systems of thinking are operative, but blip on and off, depending on the situation. They flow into one another, and it's not always clear exactly what part is speaking.
So the first:
Signs
|
Being
Derrida: No, it's not like that, binaries always conceal an intimate entanglement.
But that immediately does this:
_______
Signs
|
Being
_______
|
Differance
You can see how this could go on for a million iterations, reduplicating itself by adding new levels. I think what's happening is thought (a particular kind of thought) is trying to get out of thought by thinking (a particular kind of thinking.) At the limit, you can even know this, but still helplessly do it (this is where you get into stuff like using the term 'being' but crossing it out and all that)
Virgil can help Dante through hell, but he can't bring him out of it. That's a key point in the Inferno, there's a limit to what he can do. You can almost hear thought, reluctant to let Virgil go, crashing against its limit.
But how can you move beyond that, without repeating it, on another level? I think the answer is: you can't think your way out of it. You can't get to the right thought by rejecting other thoughts, in thought. You have to do something irl which is always casually textured and non-binary, wouldn't even think to draw attention to it, (what would it mean to learn to swim in a binary way? What would it mean to intentionally swim in a way that draws attention to itself as nonbinary swimming?) And then you can look back at these thought-patterns as all just part of it, not to be rejected, but not to be taken as seriously as they took themselves. They were one thing you did among others.
Why does Ulysses (or Portrait of The Artist) work? Because Joyce doesn't edit out Stephen's earlier confusions, he works them into everything that comes after, as essential.
I tried to find the quote (read it once in an anthology), but the idea is that being is like vision itself while beings are what are seen. I relate this to pointing at what is 'here' and 'now.' Or it's what language is about. Feuerbach might gesture at sensation, tho 'sensation' is caught in the sign-system. Being is the beetle in the box, the one the system of beetle-talk can in some sense do without. Or it depends on no particular beetle. Clearly something like desire drives human history.
Quoting csalisbury
That desc. of the derridean approach is great! I also like the sketch of the quest for the pure. On dasein issue, maybe we can clarify which aspect we have in mind. For many, a 'genuine' AI would know that it is there. It can't just say that it is there. That's too easy. Or maybe we should ask less. Can AI ever feel pain? It's pain or redness inasmuch as these exceed our talk about them, what 'sensation' and 'emotion' try to point at, without that pain-outside-language being able to anchor the sign, as Wittgenstein saw, at least not on an individual level.
This part of our AI talk connects with the panpsychism issue. Can silicon feel? The other part (concerned with bot-speak or idle-talk) is IMV more about metaphysics trying to crawl out of itself. The two meet up here perhaps. What, if anything, grounds or anchors the sign-system? Sensation are emotion are there. (They are what we articulate.)
Quoting csalisbury
Right. For me it's important tho that this can become a kind of play. Our helplessness becomes infinite jest.
Quoting csalisbury
Right. I agree. And we can mention binary thinking versus non-binary thinking, which is of course more binary thinking.
This is why doing is so important. Without it, there is only the revolving door of opposed thoughts. Not swimming is not [not-swimming, which is of course more swimming.] Do you see what I mean? There is a trick and enchantment in thought, it's hard to see out of.
On an applied existential level, I think I agree, sort of. (But) The real Derrida was a globe-trotting womanizer, famous enough to create a backlash, basically a wildly successful poet, a lovable more user-friendly Nietzsche for nice, respectable people.
To me Buck would be like some doctor on the front lines of the pandemic. He's not up his own ass. Chances are he can't keep up with Stephen/Hamlet at their verbal game, but he enacts a different stance on life, which he can also articulate in terms of 'irresponsible' or 'onanistic.' Or I think of the activist chiding the navel-gazer awash in his privilege. Do something, you lazy, selfish poet! To be clear, I do wrestle occasionally with the image of Buck. I'd probably feel more guilty if I didn't have the convenient excuse of a background of poverty. 'I ain't no senator's son, or nephew, or distant cousin.' But this poverty excuse connects to the slave ideology of the skeptic. Artists are pregnant women. Are intellectuals in general a little worried about getting their precious brains beat out in the streets? You comments on Zizek are fascinating, and that's where I'm coming from. How serious is Zizek?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l-gK-CzCHug
I fucking love this video. Isn't he just telling the truth as a joke? It's more complicated than that, because he's aware of it, but...?
Sure, but we both know, I imagine, that womanizing is itself an addiction. It is a mark of desirability, for sure, but it is not an entry into a Ledger of those who succeeded. It is only a victory against being non-desirable, and anything like that will become a compulsion, so long as what-it's-a-victory-against haunts
Quoting path
I would like to take the chiding out of it, if possible. When I'm talking about doing, I don't mean it in an accusatory way. I mean it in a universal way : here's the problem, the way through is doing. I mean it 'beyond good and evil' or any moralizing. Like, 'I think I see a snare here, and I think this is the way out of it.'
Most simply said, something like: 'As someone who himself rarely did, this is how I've been thinking about this lately, and, having done a little doing, recently, I think it's true. I would like to pass it on because I think we are similar in some ways, and I believe it can help. but I still find myself relying on long-worn ways of talking which I can see coming off as chiding, though that's not my intent.
This is a great point. I should have been careful about mentioning the womanizing. I tried to do some of that myself once in long gone days, and there's still a crooked little envy in me for that kind of life. For me it was relatively squalid. I was (for instance) a sandwhich artist, and the girls (tho cute) were also alienated young adults. Derrida got the glamour version of that, and his wife tolerated it, and many thought he was a genius. It's the nerdy version of the rock star fantasy. I know from his bio tho that he suffered terribly at times from depression. He seems definitely to have been haunted. As far as lives go, I still think he was luckier than most. But everyone suffers, and it's likely that wiser if note cleverer people have lived happier, quieter lives in obscurity.
Quoting csalisbury
I didn't mean to imply that you meant it that way. I was somewhat just stilll responding to Cic above and also to real life circumstances (the real world moment and my place in it.) Anyway, I am a good target for that comment, because I do largely experience the world as a spectacle. Part of my job is teaching, so even that is more talking about technical ways of seeing the world as a spectacle.
I'm not sure I feel what you mean. Is it more than being immersed in washing the dishes, chopping carrots, a walk in nice weather?
Partially that. I don't want to come across as more experienced then I am, because I'm in the shaky bambi-on-the-ice stage myself, and often relapse. It's that, but it's also the bad memories and emotions that well up, and meeting them as they well up, without contextualizing them or looking for a way out of them. Everyday life is shot through with really hard, heavy stuff. I think the more you look at what everyday life is, without something to shield you from it, the less boring it seems. Being immersed in washing the dishes and chopping the carrots and walking is really really nice if you can do it! But that only happens by immersing yourself also, fully, and without false exit, in all the less bucolic aspects of life, which are brutal. And the desire for the final culmination, the Truth Stated, the perfect work of art etc is part of it too (part of it.)That's what I mean about the airlock : The 'outside' of the system isn't an idyll - it's all the things without an addictive defense, and they are all over the pleasant/unpleasant spectrum, but engaging them, rather than withdrawing to see them from a 'safe' vantage, is what lets all the rest happen - I think that is where poetry comes from, for example, if you want to write poetry, but there might be something to be said for just actually living your life, as your life, without watching it from a distance.
---I want to add the 'you' here, is not at you directly. I'm relaying my thoughts recently which are in a second-person form, usually addressed to me as I think them
OK, that helps. And I very much agree. What's funny is that I am usually in a good place when I hang around this forum, largely because I have so much fun, which is not to say it's never difficult here, but mostly it's a blast. I usually withdraw because I'm neglecting work, neglecting my wife. In that world, away from my derriodicy, I do get down in the funk and the muck of life.
I am slow to make big decisions. I could be more economically secure by now. I have lived irresponsibly in that sense. Thrift is easy for me, but commitment is difficult.I do crave a simple life as the background of my dreaming....
I think I agree with the analogy applied to real life. But on the level of art or poetry, that doing-laps-around is everything, which does make the game a little cruel and maybe petty.
Quoting csalisbury
I do find it addictive, and I see why you don't like calling it poetry. Way back when I first started talking 'foolosophy' online I called it 'transcendental buffoonery.' (F. Schlegel) It's strangely both serious and ridiculous. I wonder what the real Socrates was all about. I'm tempted to think of it as a late kind of spirituality. I can joke that philosophy is poetry, but it's also a serious as a toilet. It does some necessary dirty work in my life. But doesn't poetry proper also play this 'religious' role?
Quoting csalisbury
'Defense against change' is great, and it kind of paraphrases a critique of metaphysics (a flight from time and chance into eternal certainty, if only of the structure of things.) But of course this critique can fall in love with itself and become a bot. (So how I worked it back to the bot theme? Why do I repeat all of this about 'repetition repetition repetition' ?) So clearly I agree. I guess I'm just ambivalent. I get furiously invested in the game, add a couple of metaphors to the same old buffoonery toilet, and get disgusted with the repetitious addiction. Eventually I'll miss it, maybe after having read something that freshened it up just enough. And I can work all of this in, as I'm doing now. That's part of it. This is what I found so intoxicating in Kojeve/Hegel at first. The result included every bit of the engendering. The engendering was the result, simply grasped as a whole that included that final grasping as a whole (or really just a hole.)
Quoting csalisbury
Yes, like that! 'History is a nightmare from which I am trying to awake.' I keep quoting it because it's so rich, so Hegelian without the jargon.
I'd also love to hear what you make of the 'poison in the ear' as a metaphor for conspiracy theory in Hamlet. As the actor playing the ghost, Shakespeare poured poison in Hamlet's ear. That poison was the story of Hamlet's father being poisoned in the ear. And Shakespeare the author poured the poison of Hamlet in our ears. (We can also talk about 'like a whore, unpack my heart with words' and 'they are actions that a man might play.')
Click, whirr, it's back up and running.
I think we've run the course here, where we've come to can't be talked about, at least in airlock-talk, which will renew itself endlessly. (Or it can suddenly, slidingly, try to bring everything together 'too soon', if you know what I mean) One of the few good things about repetition is that once you become aware of a cycle, and begin to pay attention to it, as cycle, you can learn more about each part and its function, every time you repeat. Our conversation being a condensed version of particular cycle, I think I'm understanding better, I recognize that this is the part where it would behoove me to exit. Thank you for the talk
Till next time, my airlock brother...
That Hamlet was Claudius all along is a perfect outro, btw. I love that.
Re: Heidi ...
[quote=F.N.,The Gay Science]We do not belong to those who only get their thoughts from books, or at the prompting of books,-it is our custom to think in the open air, walking, leaping, climbing, or dancing on lonesome mountains by preference, or close to the sea, where even the paths become thoughtful. Our first question concerning the value of a book, a man, or a piece of music is : Can it walk? or still better: Can it dance?[/quote]
:death: :flower:
That's interesting.
[Quote]Heidegger discusses "being" a lot where Nietzsche thought it was a "vapor" and "mistake" --[/quote]
I just thought I'd throw out there that as I recall, there is a footnote to the Stambaugh translation of BT in which Heidegger 'approves' of Nietzsche's characterization of being as a 'vapor' - I don't have a copy in front of me so can't cite the exact page/passage but thought it might be of interest.
That's exactly right. He also "approves" of this characterization in Introduction to Metaphysics. What he's clear about is that both our "understanding of being" and the question of being itself has been completely lost, to the point where it has now become, as Nietzsche says, a "vapor" and "mistake."
But obviously, if he agreed completely, there would be no book "Being and Time," so that's worth keeping in mind as well. Being is still worthy of question, and Heidegger considers it the question of philosophy and metaphysics.
Elaborate please. Also: do you agree with H that "question of being" is "the question"? Why or why not?
Sure. Heidegger will say, multiple times, that the question of what it means to "be" has been forgotten, essentially since the inception of philosophy with the Greeks (ending with Aristotle). He believes being is that on the basis of which we define ourselves and everything else in the world, and that although the question has been forgotten we still walk around with a "pre-ontological understanding of being" - which has gone through many variations (creature of God, a subject with desires to satisfy, etc) but which has remained Greek through and though.
As far as it being the question of philosophy, he's consistent with that point: he sees philosophy as ontology. "Why are there beings at all instead of nothing?" Is the question of metaphysics, according to him.
Do I agree with it? Yes I do. It's almost a truism, though. Our concern for various domains of things in the world - all the sciences, all the arts - only happens on the background of "being," and so questioning what "it" is is indeed the core of philosophical thought.
Quoting Xtrix
It intrigues me that someone like Heidegger could focus so fiercely on this idea that forms the basis of everything he thought and then either find that engaging with the Nazis was the logical consequence or live a life completely contrary to the philosophy he worked so hard at.
I have to look that up. I've never played Final Fantasy, but that's interesting he makes an appearance there.
Quoting Brett
It intrigues many people. But I don't fully understand what you mean by "contrary to the philosophy he worked so hard at." Heidegger has no ethical philosophy, really. Later Heidegger is preoccupied with language, technology, and poetry -- but never ethics.
Personally, I don't see that he did anything wrong himself -- he never hurt anybody, so far as I gather. That he was swept up in the political goings-on of the time is no different than being swept up in Trumpian policies -- which are far more dangerous than Hitler (based on his environmental policies alone). Hitler killed millions; Trump is helping to kill off the entire species.
Both are mistakes, no doubt -- but if we have an issue with the German people for going along with Nazism, how will history judge not only our fellow Trump supporters, but also we who are against him - for not doing more?
Besides, in philosophy, science and art you can make significant contributions and yet be a complete jerk or even psychopath. We don't have to like the personality. I'm of the opinion that you can separate the two.
Yes I understand that. My laziness in writing. I wasn’t referring to the ethics of the situation but the way he approaches us and the world and keeps drilling down. That sort of attitude, fierce as I called it, that idea of “forgetting of being” suggests, to me, someone who would be very conscious of why he does something and what’s behind the doing.
I have no way of, or interest in, judging him, except in how it might happen. Someone who seems so tuned into the blinkers we apply to ourselves and yet went wrong himself and then later regarded what he’d done as stupid (I can’t remember the exact words).
In some ways I can see that being the grounds for people rejecting him and his work; not because he worked with the Nazis but that it blew back on the grounds for his thinking and writing.
Exactly. For all his oompah oompah on "the question of the meaning of being" (or, according to Rorty, "myth of being"), Heidi's daseinanalysis is as autistic as it is solipsistic - I agree with the critical observations of Karl Löwith, Theodor Adorno, Emmanuel Levinas, Hannah Arendt, Walter Kaufmann, George Steiner, et al - which makes his indefensible political "stupidity" somewhat intelligible.
But he ended up recognizing that he had been unable to give an explanation of the problem of Being. So much effort and so much praise for Hitler for nothing.
In my modest opinion neither he nor those who followed him were able to give an explanation of the fundamental concepts of his doctrine or of his affiliation with the Nazi party. His deliberate obscurity and changes of position made it impossible to fully understand ten pages in a row of Being and Time. In my opinion.
Ja. Gelassenheit :point: 'Scheiße-sein'.
update:
A morning spent reading Beckett - e.g. long passages from his Trilogy (Molloy, ...) or plays in the register of, and just after, Godot - confirms, IMHO, the fundamental shallowness of Heidegger's oeuvre: his "myth of being" (Rorty).
[quote=F.N., The Gay Science]Those who know that they are profound strive for clarity. Those who would like to seem profound to the crowd strive for obscurity. For the crowd believes that if it cannot see to the bottom of something it must be profound. It is so timid and dislikes going into the water.[/quote]
What he'd done -- meaning joining the Nazi party or his earlier work? Because neither is true. He infamously never apologized for being part of the Nazi party, although he once referred to it (in a letter I believe) as a "blunder."
Quoting Brett
In what way? I'm not sure exactly what you mean here.
Solipsistic? This entire sentence is so vague it's baffling. How is he solipsistic? Because he focuses on human being? He emphasizes again and again the importance of other people.
And what do you mean by "autistic" in this context?
I often feel with you, 180, that your tone appears critical of Heidegger, and yet there's never anything substantial enough to learn from or push back on. To use a quote that isn't my own, "That isn't even wrong."
An explanation about the problem? I'm not sure what that means. If you mean that he later recognized that he was unable to "reawaken" and "question" the meaning of being, then I see no evidence of that whatsoever. Although Being and Time wasn't finished, he still acknowledges how important the path he took there is in this respect.
Quoting David Mo
Unable to give an explanation? I've tried a number of times, and I'm happy to answer any questions. It's not so difficult to do once you've gotten into his funny language.
Quoting David Mo
Difficult, but hardly impossible. In my view, worth the effort.
Great quote -- also leveled at Spinoza, Kant, Hegel, etc. etc. Not to mention Nietzsche himself -- among other accusations. No need to take this, or secondary sources, seriously. At least not until you've read it yourself, done so carefully, and thought it over. If you can then demonstrate where it's wrong, great -- if you can only give quotes and list names of Heidegger's critics, I'm not interested: I already have a library card, so I can read those people myself. I'm only interested in discussing this with people who have read him -- and thus can substantiate their criticism with evidence (perhaps supplanting this with other sources). I haven't seen this demonstrated yet.
Heidegger disqualifies his rivals and the entire universal philosophy for not having understood what the Being is. He does so systematically. I have been searching uselessly in Being and Time for an answer to that question. I consulted several qualified commentators (not believers) of his work who told me that, precisely, Heidegger never made something similar to a definition of the Being and even recognized that the Being is an indefinable concept. If you have an answer to what the Being is and you can base it on some text of Heidegger, I would be grateful if you could tell me. It will dispel the terrible suspicion that haunts me: that Heidegger did not know what he was talking about.
NOTE: A text, please, not a simple quote.
Sure, but the problem is that Nietzsche is perfectly understood (sometimes more than his fans would like) and Heidegger is not. What's more, Heidegger uses a few resources to provoke darkness, not lightness, which could be shared by any esoteric sect guru. For example, a specific jargon that is never clearly defined and that provokes endless discussions among his followers about what the master said. You know, "that seeing they may see and not perceive, and hearing they may hear and not understand, lest they should be converted and their sins forgiven!" (Mark 4:12).
To think about what the hell kind of clarity is that which " unfolds" the darkness. Very poetic and very unphilosophical, I'd say.
Quoting Xtrix
Of course you must know the truth of these issues.
He became an official member of the Nazi party in April, 1933.
He is quoted as saying it was “The greatest stupidity of his life”.
Quoting Xtrix
Because he was so tuned into ideas of “authenticity” and “fallenness”. Why, how, did he think the Nazi part was a good idea?
But he never said clearly what that stupidity consisted of. He never disavowed the assumptions of his philosophy that led him to that "stupidity". He never denied the political basis that led him to glorify Hitler and his party. He always abhorred the Jews, communism and democracy.
So I don't think that elusive ways of shake the burden off are to be taken into account.
"Heidegger never made something similar to a definition of the Being and even recognized that the Being is an indefinable concept."
I don't have the text in front of me, but thought I'd offer that in the beginning of BT, he gives at least one tentative definition of Being as "that which determines beings in their being," he suggests, as already noted, we already have a preontological understanding of being - ("what is being?" for example, presupposes a direction/horizon for the question and a sense of being in the "is" of the question we are asking), and from the start he repeatedly insists Being should not be thought of as 'a being,' and that Being can not be understood as 'objective presence' which is how philosophy/metaphysics has typically 'covered over/concealed' this character of Being.
I think a good way to think about this can be found in the beginning of Hegel's Phenomenology:
As soon as consciousness has a "this" or "now" or "here" for itself, the immediacy which it thought it had has already passed - what remains is the concept that has preserved/superseded and subsequently mediates.
Or in Heraclitus albeit with a different 'attunement:'
"No man ever steps in the same river twice, for it's not the same river and he's not the same man."
"Very poetic and very unphilosophical, I'd say."
I'm not familiar with that particular passage, but in some of H's later stuff, he seems to me to be attempting a kind of blend of the 'poetic' with the 'philosophical.' I think he does this because he views poetry as being capable of capturing a sense of certain things that cannot necessarily be named explicitly in philosophical prose.
"Why, how, did he think the Nazi part was a good idea?"
In some of his comments, Heidegger seems to me to have thought of Hitler along the lines of Hegel's observing Napoleon ride past:
"I saw the Emperor – this world-soul – riding out of the city on reconnaissance. It is indeed a wonderful sensation to see such an individual, who, concentrated here at a single point, astride a horse, reaches out over the world and masters it.” - Hegel
In another passage from the link referenced by Path above, Heidegger writes:
"The world of our Volk and Reich is about to be transformed and everyone who has eyes with which to watch, ears with which to listen, and a heart to spur him into action will find himself captivated by genuine, deep excitement—once again, we are met with a great reality and with the pressure of having to build this reality into the spirit of the Reich and the secret mission of the German being […]"
In the Der Spiegel interview of 1966, we can find a sort of parallel I think between what he saw as his role as rector - bringing together the disparate sciences of the university (perhaps relatable to Husserl) and the Nazi's consolidation of power over the 22 parties apparently in conflict in Germany at that time.
From the interview:
"SPIEGEL: But we seem to perceive a new tone in your rectoral discourse, when, four months after Hitler's designation as Chancellor, you there talk about the "greatness and glory of this new era (Aufbruch)."
Heidegger: Yes, I was also convinced of it.
SPIEGEL: Could you explain that a little further?
Heidegger: Gladly. At that time I saw no other alternative. Amid the general confusion of opinion and political tendencies of 22 parties, it was necessary to find a national and, above all, social attitude, somewhat in the sense of Friederich Naumann's endeavor. I could cite, here, simply by way of example, a passage from Eduard Spranger that goes far beyond my rectoral address."
http://www.ditext.com/heidegger/interview.html
He also reportedly wrote to Karl Jaspers:
"What I report here can excuse nothing. Rather, it can explain how, when over the course of years what is virulently evil became manifest, my shame grew-the shame of directly or indirectly having been involved in it."
No, that's simply wrong.
Quoting David Mo
I don't know exactly why you accuse me of being a "believer" -- but that's nothing but a term of abuse.
What you stated originally was this:
Quoting David Mo
An "explanation of the problem of Being" is his entire work of Being and Time. That's not the same as what you're now asking for, which is a definition of being -- what being is. I could have told you, as I have here, for example, that Heidegger never defines being -- somewhat frustratingly for many. But that's completely missing the point. Being -- including human existence -- has been interpreted in various ways throughout history. We also walk around with a "pre-theoretical" (pre-conceptual/abstract), or in his words "pre-ontological" understanding of being -- and this shows up in what we do, given our time and place. Various cultures and various epochs have different understandings of being.
His thesis in Being and Time is that in the Western world, since the Greeks, "being" has been defined in terms of what's present before us, present-at-hand (Vorhandenheit) -- he says at one point "presencing." This has given rise, in his view, to Western philosophy and science -- showing up as ousia in Aristotle to the res of Descartes -- a kind of substance ontology. Beings then become "objects," representations, etc.
He does indeed go through the history of this, thoroughly. But if you're looking for a definition of "being" from Heidegger himself, then yes you'll be disappointed. Better to look towards his ideas about disclosure and aletheia, which I think get closer to any kind of definition.
Quoting David Mo
See above -- I can't provide you with it. The closest he comes is saying being is "on the basis of which entities show up as entities," or something to that effect -- which isn't very helpful, I'm sure.
Quoting David Mo
Introduction to Metaphysics is where I'd start almost anyone. Much more clear than Being and Time.
I agree with everything except "always abhorred the Jews." Husserl and Arendt with both Jews, as you know. Maybe there's some private letters I've missed, but so far as I can tell he wasn't anti-Semitic.
This is very well said. I wrote something similar just before reading this -- which goes to show Heidegger isn't completely unclear, after all -- even if one rejects his perspective, it's not so murky, provided one puts forth the effort (and I don't blame those who don't).
I like Arendt very much as well. Ironically, I don't think she'd give Heidegger's corpus away though.
How good to know there are some others who aren't thrilled with Heidegger. You know, I wrote a little poem about Heidegger once. It went something like this:
Mystical Martin Heidegger
Whom some have said wrote trash,
Used to worship Der Fuhrer
Right down to his mustache.
While exhorting German youth
To follow Hitler's lead
He managed to remove the Jews
From Frieberg with all speed.
It's not that he despised those folk
He merely thought it prudent--
He even was inspired to poke at
One who was his student.
One day he said the Nazis failed
But not due to their dealings
It wasn't all the folk they killed...
They had no sense of Being!
I don’t really have anything against Heidegger, I feel quite comfortable with his ideas. What I find of interest is the distance between theory and action in the world, how we can think something and be convinced of it then find ourselves entangled in something, by our own choosing, that contradicts that thinking. This is obviously another subject from the OP so I’ll leave it there.
That had me laughing. Well done. lol
To say that x is not y is not to define it. To define a thing is to give a series of characteristics that make it recognizable when it is presented. Nothing you mention is a definition.
Moreover, in Identität und Difference he goes so far as to say that the attempt to separate the Being from entities is useless. Since he had said that the knowledge of the Being is a prerequisite for the knowledge of entities, this means an invalidation of all his doctrines.
NOTE: I have not read the book in question, but it is cited in the book that George Steiner dedicates to him ( page 256 of the Spanish edition).
The characteristic of poetry is that it plays with language to create a world of ambiguity that is suggestive and emotional. The characteristic of philosophy should be that it provides some kind of clarity to the basic questions of life. If you mix the two things up, you create nothing but confusion. Thus, a poet is sold to us as if he were a philosopher. That sounds like a guru, as I said before. And I don't like gurus. I think humanity needs light and not having its guts stirred up with magic wands.
From the very beginning:
Quoting Xtrix
I was not referring to you, whom I do not have the pleasure of knowing, but to a certain type of Heidegger followers who function as believers in a mystical sect.
I'm sorry, if you felt referred to.
Quoting Xtrix
Do you have to read all 102 volumes of his complete works to get a brief summary? Gee, it is hard!
Anyone who knows about a subject is supposed to be able to give a brief explanation of it, even if it is only approximate, but this is the typical response of Heidegger's followers to any request for clarification. It should not be stressed that I find it very unphilosophical.
Heidegger does not define or explain anything because there is nothing to define. Carnap and Ayer closed the problem in less than a page. Heidegger confuses the use of "being" as the subject of a sentence with a name of something. Basic logical error into which Parmenides already fell, by the way
"Something is happening out there."
"Something smells rotten in Denmark."
Then there is a stuff called "Something" that is at the origin of everything because we can say of everything that is "something". We have to elucidate what "Something" is before we go into any other subject. But Heidegger makes an ontologically rude mistake. Too much influenced by Parmenides, he believes that the alternative is between Being and Non-Being, when in reality we have three types of First Reality: Something, Totality and Nothing (I am Hegelian and I do not believe that Non-Being is not). And along this path I go where I want. And nobody should ask me for clarification because it is so obvious that one has to be blind not to see it... (or similar answer).
And I leave the thing here because I'm getting excited about my parody and I see myself writing a hundred and two volumes in paste.
"Some of my best friends are black," you know.
It seems that the publication of the latest Black Notebooks has left little doubt about Heidegger's anti-Semitism, which had already been denounced by Husserl and Jaspers, among others.
Not once does he disqualify anyone for "not understanding what the Being is," in that quotation or anywhere else. Why? It should be obvious in what was said before: he himself provides no definition. But he's not talking about a definition. The very beginning of that paragraph -- and its section title -- explains clearly what he's getting at: the question today has been forgotten. That's not disqualifying anyone, and it's not about "understanding" -- in fact, as I said before, Heidegger argues we all not only have a tacit understanding of being, but that talk about "being" is taken for granted as something obvious; it's gone through many variations, right up to Hegel, as a "theme," and has now become trivialized.
This is what the above means. It has nothing to do with disqualifying anyone, nor about "understanding" being (especially not in your sense, which apparently means providing a definition).
Quoting Xtrix
Quoting David Mo
To get a brief summary of what? The history of the interpretation of being? Because that's what I was referring to in this specific context.
As I mentioned, Introduction to Metaphysics is a good start. As far as "brief," I tried to do that above: Western thought has interpreted being from the "horizon" (standpoint) of time, particularly the present.
I can't make it any more brief without making it a cartoon version. Keep in mind this is one point -- but an important one, and the one I was talking about above.
Quoting David Mo
But you haven't asked anything. A brief explanation of what? His entire philosophy? The history of the interpretation of being? His thoughts about the relation of being and time? The history of the conception of time?
I gave at least one brief synopsis in the very response you're citing:
[quote=] His thesis in Being and Time is that in the Western world, since the Greeks, "being" has been defined in terms of what's present before us, present-at-hand (Vorhandenheit) -- he says at one point "presencing." This has given rise, in his view, to Western philosophy and science -- showing up as ousia in Aristotle to the res of Descartes -- a kind of substance ontology. Beings then become "objects," representations, etc. [/quote]
Maybe you don't understand it, in which case the onus is on me to be more clear, but it's certainly brief.
Quoting David Mo
Ayer and Carnap are analytical philosophers, who -- like Russell before them -- never showed they really bothered with Heidegger at all.
Given that Heidegger says over and over again that being is not a being (an entity), I fail to see how he's "confusing [it] as the subject of a sentence with a name of something." It's not even a "subject."
Quoting David Mo
No, not a "stuff." But yes, any time we use "is," we're assuming the being of whatever phenomenon we're talking about. That's fairly trivial.
There's an entire chapter titled "The Grammar and Etymology of Being" in Intro to Metaphysics which you may find interesting. I keep recommending that book to you -- it's all online for free. Doesn't take that long to read, and it's what Heidegger recommends one reads in his preface to the 7th edition (or something close to that) of Being and Time.
Quoting David Mo
"He believes." Where? Where does he say that the "alternative is between being and non-being"?
Your characterization of Parmenides is wrong. Heidegger wrote an entire book on him (lectures), if you care to read about it before speculating about what he "believes." Feel free to cite the text if you find anything close to what you're claiming here.
Honestly, I get the sense you've made up your mind about Heidegger already. You claim you've tried reading him and couldn't make sense of "ten pages," etc. So you rely on secondary sources. That's fine -- be happy in that. But I don't think there's any sense pretending you care to learn anything here -- rather, everything you've said so far indicates an attitude of defending a position (and in my view a very weak one, given your level of study). I'm happy to keep discussing it, but it's worth pointing this out.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Thank you. One does what one can.
I'll take your word for it -- I haven't read them myself. If that's the case, that's disappointing.
If to say that everyone has forgotten or trivialized the essential question of philosophy is not to disqualify, I do not understand what disqualify means.
Quoting Xtrix
In Heidegger's usual contradictory way to have an immediate understanding of what it means to be seems that it is not in contradiction with having forgotten or trivialized the question of being. So that intuitive understanding seems to be quite trivial or ineffective for walking through philosophical life. As he themes it, it is truly trivial. In my opinion.
Quoting Xtrix
Obviously I was asking for a summary of what the fundamental concept of all Heidegger's philosophy can mean: the Being. That being with a capital letter that sometime comes to qualify as "divine". If I remember correctly.
Quoting Xtrix
It seems you're trying to give me the explanation I asked for. The Being would be the "present horizon", which obviously can mean anything. If that is all that can be said about the Being, it is tremendously vague to me. Poetic, but vague. But since you refer me to the Introduction to Metaphysics as a key text, I will take a look at it to see if I can find out better. Fortunately I have it at hand.
Quoting Xtrix
Ayer mentions Heidegger's metaphysics as a "superstition" on page 49 of the Spanish edition of Lenguaje, Verdad y Lógica (Language, Truth and Logic) and refers to Carnap, who analyses the concept of Nothing in Heidegger in section 5 of his article "The Elimination of Metaphysics through Logical Analysis of Language" and concludes that it is the result of a "gross logical error".
I don't know if "bother" is the right word in English, but of course Heidegger's metaphysics didn't appeal to either of them.
Quoting Xtrix
Heidegger uses the term "Being" as a subject on countless occasions, adding to it the capital letter, which makes it especially substantial by making it a proper name.
I prefer Karl Jasper's provocative conception of "The Being" as encompassing (i.e. 'nondual transcendence' - from his lectures titled Existenzphilosophie, published in 1938) for its much more direct expression and nearly pellucid explication than Heidi's mystagogic, etymologizing, logorrhea.
Disqualify from what? It's not meant to be derogatory, which he says many, many times. In fact he sees it as necessary given philosophy's inception. He has almost only praise for Aristotle, Suarez, Aquinas, Kant, Hegel, and Nietzsche.
Einstein wasn't "disqualifying" Newton any more than Heidegger is disqualifying the history of Western thought.
Quoting David Mo
Sorry, but this is why it helps to read Heidegger. It's not contradictory at all once you get into his language, which I mentioned above. Having a "pre-ontological" understanding of being does not contradict the fact that philosophy, as ontology, and with it the question of the meaning of being, has been almost completely forgotten or trivialized. We can accept or reject Heidegger's argument, but let's at least be clear about the distinctions he's drawing (and then uses quite consistently throughout his works).
Quoting David Mo
A summary of what "being" means -- which you mentioned before and which I thought I addressed already: Heidegger gives no definition. If that's what you're looking for, you won't find it from him or from me.
Regarding the capitalization: that's just a mistake, in my view. It's not capitalized in every text, and I believe it shouldn't be for exactly the reason you mention: it gives the connotation of a "super-thing" of some kind. In German, it's capitalized -- but all nouns are capitalized in German.
Quoting David Mo
I agree, it is vague. I know it's frustrating, but I have to nitpick here. It's not that being = the present horizon. Rather, it's being argued that in Western thought, it is from the standpoint of the present horizon that we interpret "being", and therefore all beings (plural, as in "entities" or "phenomena"). Hence why when Heidegger traces the history of Western thought, he sees only variations of "present-at-hand" ontologies which deal almost exclusively with beings rather than being itself (which he will, confusingly, call "fundamental ontology"), mainly substance ontology (as the "ousia" of Aristotle gets translated) and it's offshoot: the measurable, calculable ontology of Descartes (the "res" ofres cogitans and res extensa).
That's a mouthful, I'm aware. But it's worth reading a couple times, because it did take me a few minutes to re-read and edit, in all honesty.
Quoting David Mo
That is fortunate, and please do. Let me know if you find it clearer than Being & Time -- or if my description of it is accurate.
Quoting David Mo
True, by "bother" there I meant really take him seriously enough to read carefully. Again, I don't blame them for that -- there's plenty of good reasons not to, least of all his Nazi involvement. But given that that's almost certainly true, the little they did write about him isn't all that challenging -- they simply misrepresent what he's saying. But it's been a while since I read either Ayer or Carnap, so I'll take another look -- but that was the impression I got when perusing years ago.
Quoting David Mo
But he repeatedly says it's not a "being" (in the sense of an object or entity). It's presupposed in any sentence that uses "am," "is," "are," etc. He speaks of the copula a lot in Intro. to Metaphysics, in fact. And as I mentioned before, all nouns are capitalized in German, and I think it's misleading to capitalize it in translation, when we wouldn't capitalize "Chair" or "Rock."
Lol. Well done.
Quoting Xtrix
I agree here. My impression, in English translations, is that the capitalisation of “Being” is to set it apart from a “being”. Though it doesn’t seem to me to be very difficult to tell the difference.
I think it’s virtually impossible to prove something to someone who actively does not believe. I have no trouble with the concept of “Being” and I find it hard to understand why others can’t or won’t. But in some ways you either get it or you don’t.
Edit: I’m relatively new to Heidegger, but it seems to me that we do wonder about our existence, so that suggests that the meaning of Being is under question. How and why would we instinctively question something we don’t believe exists?
Heidegger is then saying that we should try to discover the meaning of Being through the way we exist and live.
According to the dictionaries I have consulted, disqualifying means rejecting someone from a "competition" because they have done something wrong. This is what Heidegger did with regard to all philosophy from the Greeks to him. Things are not so drastic in science. Einstein only limited the field of application of Newtonian physics, he did not reject its validity.
Quoting Xtrix
It cannot be said that Heidegger does not capitalize on the word "being" and that in German all nouns are capitalized. Indeed this was my thesis: that the capitalization implies that the Being is used as subject by Heidegger in spite of his own refusal. Many translators in English and other languages think that Sein's substantivity is so evident in many passages that it deserves to be capitalized. Exactly the same way as Dasein. This is not a widespread whim but an insight of the ambiguity inherent in Heidegger's discourse.
Quoting Xtrix
If you don't remember what Ayer and Carnap say about Heidegger, your accusation is a priori. Read it first. You will see that the Carnap article I mentioned does a thorough analysis of the concept of Nothing through Heidegger's article "What is Metaphysics? It is a clear case in which a concept is substantialized without logical foundation.
The former would not be surprising because Heidegger's translations of Greek are quite capricious (he goes so far as to translate techné into "knowledge", which is something any student of philosophy knows not to be the case). The second would be surprising. But, leaving both paths open, Heidegger reserves a possible escape route face of his critics, which may be very intelligent, but not very philosophical.
Quoting David Mo
You introduce the word disqualify as the definition of Heidegger’s view of Western philosophy. Then you go to your dictionaries to dig up the meaning of disqualify as meaning “rejecting someone from a "competition" because they have done something wrong” and then ask Xtrix to defend Heidegger on that basis. Sounds a little cheap to me.
You keep referring to “the Being” as a subject and it being the fact “in spite of (Heidegger’s) own refusal.” Only someone who refuses to see would persist in thinking that. I don’t know why you persist in this.
Yes, that's certainly why. But people will mistake the capitalization in the sense of "God," a supreme Being of some kind -- and that's not what's meant. But I agree, it's not that difficult for me either, and in many translations (like Basic Problems of Phenomenology by Hofstadter) that doesn't capitalize it, it's easy to follow.
Quoting Brett
Maybe. But that's education and learning in general. Some people (myself include) will be able to grasp something, others won't. I'm a firm believer that ANYONE can, if the motivation is there to understand AND if they have a good teacher. I am decidedly NOT in favor of obscurantism, and am very sensitive to it; I feel I can very easily tell if someone knows what they're talking about or not, or if they have any interesting things to say. I went into Heidegger thinking that, like I did with Hegel, that he was nearly impossible to read, and not expecting to understand anything due to the convoluted language. But, like with Hegel, I was wrong.
Quoting Brett
Well we should distinguish two different aspects: 1) the pre-ontological (pre-theoretical, pre-reflective, pre-abstract) understanding of being, which you mentioned, and 2) the state we're in when we're analyzing our existence, spurred by the "wonder" you mentioned. (2) is the state all philosophers have been in, according to my reading of Heidegger. This is why they always interpret being from the one particular aspect of time, the present. Thus even "time" itself becomes an present-object, and itself gets interpreted as such (a succession of "nows").
As for (1), you're right: we do have a sense of being, but very rarely do we stop and ponder it intellectually. When we do, it's almost always in the way mentioned above.
No, he's not. At this point, I'll have to ask you for any textual evidence of this. From what you've given so far, you've misunderstood. See my previous remarks.
Quoting David Mo
Likewise, Heidegger is not rejecting the validity of presence-at-hand. He'd be rejecting the entire enterprise of science if he did that, and he holds science in high regard (as he holds Aristotle in high regard).
Here's Heidegger himself (emphasis mine):
"Our immersion in the prior view and insight that sustains and guides all our understanding of being is all the more powerful, and at the same time all the more concealed, because the Greeks themselves no longer shed light on this prior line of sight as such. For essential reasons (not due to a failure), they could not shed light on it." (Intro to Metaphysics, bottom of page 124)
This is just one example, but very typical of Heidegger. He is not rejecting, disqualifying, or belittling the Greeks, nor the variations of Greek ontology in the form of Christian theology, modern philosophy since Descartes, or modern science, in any way. If this is what you gather from reading him, you're just mistaken. If you have concrete evidence, I'll take a look, but in all my reading of him I have never gotten the impression of "disqualifying" anything -- unless, as I mentioned, we describe Einstein of "disqualifying" Newton.
Quoting David Mo
This is a very confusing sentence, but I'll try to respond: it certainly CAN be said that German nouns are all capitalized. I don't know what you're arguing here. All German nouns are capitalized -- that's just a fact.
If you're not arguing this, I'm not sure what the above is supposed to mean.
Quoting David Mo
Yes, and it's a mistake in my view, because of the connotations -- which are never implied in Heidegger.
Quoting David Mo
Which he's supposedly disqualifying?
Quoting David Mo
"search for the Self"? What does this mean, and where is it in Intro to Metaphysics (or in Heidegger at all)?
Quoting David Mo
Heidegger has an entire analysis of ousia in that book. It has traditionally been translated as "substance," true. But he will say in Aristotle its meaning was "constant presence," basically -- that which appears and persists. See pages 33 and 61.
Quoting David Mo
The "former" what? "Particular sense"? Yes, I mentioned what Heidegger says about ousia.
As for "capricious" -- it's hard to take that seriously coming from you (no offense meant), based on your level of reading and understanding so far of Heidegger, but you're welcome to present an argument as to where he goes wrong. One reason I say this is based on the very example you gave, techne. Heidegger describes it as follows: "Techne is generating, building, as a knowing pro-ducing" (p 18). That requires further clarification, of course, but it's hardly him defining it as "knowledge."
It's easier to learn something if you're not dedicated to "debunking" it beforehand. Try to be open and hear, make sure you understand it, and then make up your mind. I'm not trying to persuade you to "follow" Heidegger; I'm assuming you want to learn about him, as you implied a while back. If you've settled in your mind that he's a charlatan from whom there's very little to learn, and who's not worth the time to read or understand, then this discussion becomes one of me correcting misunderstandings and mistakes. I'm not interested in doing that.
Don't you think there are often obvious contradictions in what people say they do and what they actually do?Do you accept the statement of politicians who say they are not racist when what they say is full of racism? Heidegger says that Being is not a subject, but he writes constantly as if it were.
I'll complete the answer when I have a minute. Thank you for your patience.
I'm sorry. Automatic correction program jokes. Although I do go over it, sometimes I miss some of its pleasantries. Read: "search for [s]the Self[/s] Being".
Heidegger did not consider the Greeks to be competitors. It was the period when, according to him, the question of the Being had been most correctly posed. It is precisely Christian theology that perverts this approach which, in its fairest form, comes from (his version of) Heraclitus and Parmenides.
The problem is that Heidegger's translation is manifestly pro domo sua. The translator of the edition of the book you recommended that I have consulted has to recognize that Heidegger's version of fragments 1 and 2 of Heraclitus, which is fundamental to him, is "deviated" from the "conventional" version. "Conventional" means the one that true experts in classical philology give. Something similar occurs with Heidegger's other main focus of inspiration: Hölderlin. With a few manipulations, he turns it into an antecedent of German conservative nationalism, which Heidegger himself professed.
But the manipulations of Heidegger's history are of little interest to me. I would like to discuss what an archaic thinker like Heidegger can say to the men of the 21st century.
Gee, I didn't realize that attacking Heidegger could be an offense to you. You don't take it too personally?
Techné, in platonic and post-platonic context does not mean "generating knowledge similar to physis (sic)", but in the sense of an inferior form of praxis. It is not true knowledge, science, which is attributed sensu stricto or by eminence to intellectual thought. It is a clearly derogatory term. To overlook this turns out to be a real manipulation.
By the way, I did not refer to the appearance of techné in the Introduction to Metaphysics but in the acceptance speech of the rectorate of Fribourg. If I remember correctly.
[quote=Heidegger]
https://youtu.be/MtATDlUSIxI
[/quote]
Nicomachean Ethics, Book VI)" (1924).
"The aim of the present interpretation is to enable Aristotle to speak again, not in order to bring about a renewal of Aristotelianism, but rather in order to prepare the battleground for a radical engagement with Greek philosophy — the very philosophy in which we still stand. If an examination of Aristotle’s text should show that much of what we say here is not to be found there in the text, that would not be an argument against our interpretation. An interpretation is a genuine interpretation only when, in going through the whole text, it comes upon that which common sense never finds there, but which, although unspoken, nonetheless makes up the ground [Boden] and the genuine foundations of the kind of vision from out of which the text itself came to be. We need not go further into the steps taken in this kind of interpretation, which in its principles goes back to phenomenology’s investigations of the matters. That approach should become apparent of itself in the very way this interpretation looks at things and inquires into them."
https://www.academia.edu/34868841/BECOMING_HEIDEGGER_second_revised_edition p.216
And:
"There are five distinctive possibilities of ?????????, that is, of “being-true” in the Greek sense of uncovering an entity. Let us put the question more precisely: how does Aristotle characterize these five distinct ways of being-true, that is,?????????? What is his “guiding thread” [Leitfaden
, clue] for distinguishing them, and what criteria does he use to put them in a specific order of priority?
III. The Ways of Being-True and its Distinctive Possibilities
To begin with, let us enumerate these five different ways of uncovering.
1. ???????? : knowledge
2. ????? : here I emphasize that ????? does not mean manipulating some-thing. Rather, ????? is a form of ????????? and it means know-how [sich Auskennen] when it comes to manipulating something
3. ???????? : insight, or, better, practical insight [umsichtige Einsicht]
4. ????? : pure understanding
5. ???? : pure apprehension [Vernehmen] "
https://www.academia.edu/34868841/BECOMING_HEIDEGGER_second_revised_edition p.223
Why do you keep referring to "the Being"? Where does the "the" come in?
Please give one example where he even implies Christian theology "perverts" the approach of Parmenides and Heraclitus.
Quoting David Mo
True.
Quoting David Mo
From what I've read, nearly all scholars recognize his accuracy in his translation of Greek words but also recognize that it's a nuanced and unconventional way of translating things. He discusses logos as length, for example, and only then incorporates his language into a passage of Aristotle or Heraclitus.
The fact that it deviates from convention is irrelevant. HIs entire philosophy and interpretation of history also deviates from convention -- so what? If there's a specific point to be raised, then raise it. Otherwise appealing to authority is useless.
Quoting David Mo
I think there's a great deal to learn, in fact.
No, which is why I said "no offense meant." But then I go on to mention why: you claim his translations are capricious (which you're clearly not yet in a credible position to do, admittedly), but then misrepresenting "techne" as an example, which confirms the point.
If you take offense to that despite my saying "no offense" (and I mean it), I can't help that.
Quoting David Mo
Being a "kind of knowledge" is very different from "knowledge," for reasons you just mentioned. He goes on:
"Techne means neither art nor skill, and it means nothing like technology in the modern sense. We translated techne as 'knowing.' But this requires explication. Knowing here does not mean the result of mere observations about something present at hand that was formerly unfamiliar. Such items of information are always just accessory, even if they are indispensable to knowing. Knowing, in the genuine sense of techne, means initially and constantly looking out beyond what, in each case, is directly present at hand." (p 169)
As far as "derogatory term" -- what are you talking about there? Heidegger's use of techne or what your claiming the Greeks use was?
Thank you for that, that was interesting indeed. I think he's exactly right about interpretation and translation. On the other hand, if many scholars thought his analysis of the Greek words was completely bogus, it would certainly give me pause. That's not what I'm seeing, though. Take logos as "gathering" -- scholars don't disagree with Heidegger on this, but they DO disagree with what they consider the appropriate context in which to give this particular meaning.
Quoting Kmaca
Elaborate please, that's interesting. They seem worlds apart to me.
Quine, Sellars, Rorty and others were still not relaxed or distant enough from the analytic tradition to fully describe (to me anyway) why I should value use over truth in conceiving of our relationship with the world but Heidegger’s work brought me there. I hope that sounds somewhat understandable as sometimes I’m not sure of it myself.
Heidegger also seems to resemble the more mysterious moments of early Wittgenstein like what we can not say, we must pass over in silence. Heidegger’s later philosophy on truth as revealing allowed me to make sense of that comment.
All in all, I feel like Heidegger built a great, free standing system a la Kant that I think has quite a bit of clarity. I am lost reading the more philosophical passages of Sartre for example but Being and Time never tied me up in that way.
Quoting Xtrix
On the fidelity of Heidegger's translations:
The experts I have consulted do not agree with you. Note the significant quotes in the text. I have consulted the translations I have at home of the fragments of Heraclitus, including the prestigious The Theology of the Early Greek Philosophers by Werner Jaeger, which, of course, have nothing to do with Heidegger's free lucubrations. Some examples of Heidegger's "free interpretation" of the texts can be found in the Introduction to Metaphysics that you recommended, where the absence of any critical apparatus, essential in any serious philological study, is evident.
On his opposition to Christian theology, Heidegger maintains that historically the forgetfulness of the Greek ideals that he maintains begins from the moment one passes from Greek to Latin. That is, in the theology of the Western Church at least. Expressions contrary to Christianity can easily be found even in political texts. I am not an expert and I have found several. For example, in a speech in June 1933 Heidegger declared that ‘A fierce battle must be fought’ against the present university situation ‘in the national Socialist spirit, and this spirit cannot be allowed to be suffocated by humanising, Christian ideas that suppress its unconditionality’.
Also in the Introduction to Metaphysics, in several passages. This one, for example:
“But it was Christianity that first misinterpreted Heraclitus. The misinterpretation already began with the early church fathers.” (97/133)
(I don't need to tell you that Heraclitus, together with Parmenides, are the fundamental thinkers in the "recovery" of the Greek philosophy proposed by Heidegger).
NOTE: I am surprised that you – who accused me of not reading Heidegger carefully – have overlooked these passages from a book you recommended. Because there is more than one in the same sense.
La paciencia es la madre de la ciencia (Patience is the mother of science), Spanish proverb.
But it's not just patience. I like to get into these battles because I practice English and I remember philosophers I read in another life far away. Both are good things.
Right now I have just dusted off the books I have at home dedicated to Heraclitus and the Presocratics. As expected, none of them mention Heidegger, which reinforces my initial statement: Heidegger's Greece is only suitable for Heidegger fans. They draw a lot of things from it that they've put in before.
Beware of Nietzsche who is not very faithful to classical Greece either. It seems that in both cases Greece inspired in them a devout love, but they were not respectful sons to their spiritual mother.
It's this kind of explanation that's misleading. Although it is true that Platonic terminology can be ambiguous in some cases, in its clearest formulations the word techné is associated with the world of shadows that Plato had condemned without nuance in the Republic (el oficio del sofista, el retórico y el médico). And this is something similar to what happens with the world of appearances in Parmenides and also in Heraclitus. I do not know the reasons why Heidegger forgets the obvious to confuse the knowledge of physis with that of the senses, which also does not fit very well with his theory. From what I know of it.
So I've learned through the years and from other Classicists.
Well you have to know what I'm saying before you can state whether they agree or disagree. And so far it's not clear that you do.
The two mentioned above are not saying he wasn't accurate, they're saying he's going to "extremes," etc. You left out, importantly, the rest of what I said. For example, no scholar I've come across disagrees that one meaning of "logos" -- at one point in history, at least -- was "gathering," which is what Heidegger emphasizes. In fact this is close to Proto-Indo-European. It's true that most scholars translate logos as "reason" or "discourse," etc., given the context -- Heidegger is well aware of that. But that's far different from claiming "gathering" is a false reading; it isn't, it's quite accurate.
I wonder how many of these translators have really taken the time to understand Heidegger's thinking -- because without doing so, critiquing his translations is a moot point. Of course his translations are outside the norm -- that's without question.
Gave a good example on this topic.
Regardless, in this context, whether or not his critics disagree with his translations says almost nothing. I'm sure most don't. I'm sure I could find many who do (the translators of IM often say his translations, though idiosyncratic and cumbersome, are fairly accurate). It's not a settled issue. But even if it were -- it doesn't tell you much about Heidegger's thinking. But if it turns out, for example, that "logos" never meant "gathering" at all, or that "aletheia" never meant "unconcealment" -- that would be a real problem indeed. But I'm not seeing that.
Quoting David Mo
For example? What "critical apparatus" are you talking about?
Quoting David Mo
That's not quite what you said. Politics is not ontology. Fortunately we have a record:
Quoting David Mo
My response:
"Please give one example where he even implies Christian theology "perverts" the approach of Parmenides and Heraclitus."
Christianity as a whole (which can mean almost anything), Christian values, and Christian political "ideas" is not what you mentioned. "Perverted" also implies a negative judgment, where Heidegger is simply discussing changes in history (as he sees it). You'll find only the most respect for major Christian thinkers from Augustine to Suarez to Aquinas. But he will say that Christianity does misinterpreted/distort much of Greek philosophy, largely due to Roman translations.
This is to say nothing about Heraclitus and Parmenides, which you also leave out.
The best synopsis of the background history is from page 14:
"In the age of the first and definitive unfolding of Western philosophy among the Greeks, when questioning about beings as such and as a whole received its true inception, beings were called phusis. This fundamental Greek word for beings is usually translated as "nature." We use the Latin translation natura, which really means "to be born," "birth." But with this Latin translation, the originally content of the Greek word phusis is already thrust aside, the authentic philosophical naming force of the Greek word is destroyed. This is true not only of the Latin translation of this word but of all other translations fo Greek philosophical language into Roman. This translation of Greek into Roman was not an arbitrary and innocuous process but was the first stage in the isolation and alienation of the originally essence of Greek philosophy. The Roman translation then became definitive for Christianity and the Christian Middle Ages. The Middle Ages trans-lated themselves into modern philosophy, which moves within the conceptual world of the Middle Ages and then creates those familiar representations and conceptual terms that are used even today to understand the inception of Wester philosophy. This inception is taken as something that we have left behind long ago and supposedly overcome."
That's the background. Now to Christianity more specifically:
"Only with the sophists and Plato was seeming explained as, and thus reduced to, mere seeming. At the same time, Being as idea was elevated to a supersensory realm. The chasm, khorismos, was torn open between the merely apparent beings here below and the real Being somewhere up there. Christian doctrine then established itself in this chasm, while at the same time reinterpreting the Below as the created and the Above as the Creator, and with weapons thus reforged, it set itself against antiquity [as paganism] and distorted it. And so Nietzsche is right to say that Christianity is Platonism for the people."
Quoting David Mo
And Anaximander, yes. He considers those three the true "primordial" thinkers.
Quoting David Mo
Hardly. See above.
Remember, you started by admitting you haven't read Heidegger widely, and didn't understand him, and never met someone (one of his "followers") who could explain him succinctly. Now you're shifted tone a bit, feigning expertise, and launching accusations before first demonstrating you have the facts right. There's no way, for example, that you've finished Introduction to Metaphysics -- which should be required reading for anyone new to Heidegger, and which is so dense as to take at least a couple weeks to really absorb.
Doing a Wikipedia search, scrolling down to "criticisms," and using that as a starting point already betrays the bias you have against Heidegger (it oddly cites exactly your "criticisms" and exactly the same critics). So again, if your mind is basically made up that he's a charlatan, so be it. I don't care to change your mind. If however you're sincere in what you originally said -- namely, that you want to understand his thinking -- then pointing to Ayer and Carnap's analytical problems with being as a "subject" is a pretty strange way to begin.
Yes, because Nietzsche's work on the Greeks aren't also controversial.
:roll:
I think this short sentence summarizes Heidegger's position: What I say is not in the text, but the interpretation I make is the good one. Amazing hermeneutic method.
What Heidegger hides is that he is not facing a "popular" interpretation that does not take into account of I do not know what totality, but that of the experts in the subject, who base their reasons on philological and historical arguments (what is called "critical apparatus"). He even recognizes that his interpretation of a fragment of Heraclitus clashes with the most obvious translation and that it contradicts other fragments of the same author. In front of them Heidegger can only say that his interpretation is convenient to his interpretation and that is why it is "revolutionary". And so much so.
Heidegger admitted later in life that his book on Kant went too far in that regard
Of course they do. More delicately than I do, but they say that what Heidegger sees in the text is not in it. Or what you think "to violate a translation" or that he makes a "translation" (with quotes) mean? You don't capture the nuances of the language, I'm afraid. Any philologist who was told that would be more than nervous.
Quoting Xtrix
I beg your pardon! I quoted Heidegger's conclusion that it is blunt in itself:
Quoting David Mo
Isn't this saying something from Heraclitus?
Quoting Xtrix
It happens that they are not "his critics", it is practically all the experts on the subject. Something like that would have baffled anyone with less aspirations to be a philosophical Messiah than Heidegger. He wouldn't run away for such a little thing.
Quoting Xtrix
I haven't pretended any such thing at all. I'm not an expert on Heidegger and I've said so several times. My knowledge of Heidegger is limited to three books of him, two monographs and about four articles on him. Regarding Introduction to Metaphysics, I am reading it now -due to your kind recommendation- and I comment on what I am reading. I know a little more about Heraclitus and Parmenides and that is why I can criticize the interpretation he gives. Modestly.
Note: If I have enough books on philosophy at home, it's not because I'm dedicated to it. It's for family reasons that are beside the point.
Can you pass me the reference? Thank you.
This is a well known fact. Heidegger's short "explanation" or "self criticism" of his interpretation can be found in a preface to second edition of his Kant book (1950). Heidegger speaks here about endeavour/experiment which tries to start/set in motion a thinking dialogue/discussion (Gespräch) between thinkers; in difference to the methods of historical philology, which has its own task, thinking dialogue (Zwiegespräch) is under different laws (and which are more vulnerable to lacks and neglects).
[Heidegger writes in German: "Diese ("laws of thinking dialogue") sind verletzlicher. Das Verfehlende ist in der Zwiesprache drohender, das Fehlende häufiger."]
I'm not a "fan" of his per se, but I have read him and have concluded that he's accurate and deep. But taking myself out of the equation: don't you think there's something more than luck or charlatanism involved in Heidegger's name still being around, books being published about him still, etc., if there wasn't something important there? I would check it out more for yourself, make a real effort to understand it, and then see if the critics are correct.
Fine -- one reference on where "logos" isn't also "gathering," etc. I've read nothing of the kind. The fact that he's unconventional is well established, and known even by him.
Quoting David Mo
No, they don't. At least that's not what I've seen. What they do is disagree with his nuanced way of translating -- which isn't surprising. But I think they're just wrong: take a look at the texts, even those in Intro to Metaphysics, that he discusses. He makes a very convincing case, if one firsts understands the background thought -- otherwise it looks insane.
So here we both, not as philologists, have a choice: go with one group saying one thing, or another group saying another. There is debate about this. I have preferred to read Heidegger, and I've concluded that he's very clear and very illuminating indeed. His neologisms and funny language, which he also injects into his translations (after a lot of explanation and background), are not that difficult once you learn them.
Quoting David Mo
If that were true, Heidegger wouldn't be but a faint memory. It's not settled, and even if it were one still has to ask: did they truly engage with his thought? Nietzsche faces similar problems, as you know -- being anti-semitic, being used by the Nazis, etc. Hegel faces enormous criticism for his supposed incomprehension, etc. Even if Heidegger was way off in some respects -- and if so, I haven't been presented any evidence of this, just appeals to vague authorities -- that's missing the point really. Take "ousia," conventionally translated "substance." Whether Heidegger is completely wrong in highlighting a nuanced meaning of "ousia," his entire critique is based on how its been translated (and thus interpreted) as what it is. Who could argue with that? He thinks it gets further away from what the word meant in Aristotle's day, but we all agree on how it was translated.
So perhaps first get the general sense of what he's describing, and then we can get into the weeds about accuracy of his own translation.
I'm quite open to the fact that Heidegger could be completely wrong about everything he said. No sunk-cost fallacy here. But it will take some evidence, and I'm not yet convinced with yours. I would be really shocked, too, given my understanding of his thought.
Quoting David Mo
Eh, it sounds to me like you're hit this particular issue more to "refute" than learn. And you may be right, but that attitude is never conducive to truly hearing -- that requires an openness, not blind but deliberate.
"God is." "The earth is." "The lecture is in the auditorium." "This man is from Swabia." "The cup is of silver.'' "The peasant is in the fields." "The book is mine." "He is dead." "Red is the port side." "In Russia there is famine." "The enemy is in retreat." "The vine disease is in the vineyards." "The dog is in the garden." "Over all the peaks / is peace." (ItM: 68/93)
These examples are offered by Heidegger to demonstrate his thesis that "Being" is not an empty word, but is paradoxical since it is intuitively understood in its daily use, but mysteriously resists being defined. This is in spite of the fact that, according to him, the term "Sein" is the most "high", that is to say the most general, and is presupposed in every language in such a way that, if it were not understood, the language itself would disappear. Heidegger's analysis of his own examples is disappointing for several reasons.
First of all because it is not true that the use of a term means any defined "intuitive" understanding. Nor is it true that without a perfect understanding of "is" there would be no language. Words are learned through successive trials and errors until they reach an acceptable use by the community of speakers. This does not imply that our use or "understanding" of that word is "defined", nor that there is a universal community of speakers. On the contrary, both children and adults are often called upon to misuse a word they thought they were using correctly. Therefore, the question of "Being" does not make much sense if we do not look at the uses of "being" in various communities of speakers. It is not true, then, that in order to use the word "tree" one must have a knowledge of its meaning independent of the particular trees that have been presented to the speaking subject. The concept is formed from them and used in a process of continuous variation. It does not exist as an immutable entity and prior to the use of language achieved by who knows what mysterious intellectual intuition. The same with "tree" as with "being".
There are some fundamental observations in the examples Heidegger proposes that he "surprisingly" overlooks. First, they involve three different uses of the word "being" that correspond to three different language communities. Most are simple copulations that attach a predicate to the subject of the sentence. Ex: "The cup is of silver". These are the ones that correspond to the common language and do not offer any metaphysical difficulty. Another, "Over all the peaks / is peace" is a poetic language that, as is well known, is not descriptive but metaphorical and emotional. We can park it because it does not enter into the subject.
But the first two sentences are properly metaphysical or theological. In ordinary language no one says "The dog is". But a metaphysician will say "God is."
As Carnap says, the problem with Heidegger is that he makes a jumble of all these uses to build a fictional "entity", which is-but is not-one thing or a "fact": the " Being". In the Heideggerian explanation any use of "is" is confused with "exist". Now, when a theologian speaks of God's "being" he can say two things: his existence or his essence. God exists or God is immutable, eternal, etc. When a normal person wants to say that a communist exists or is in the garden he uses expressions like "there is," "is in" (or he names it while pointing it out!), but he does not make "Existence" a problem. In fact, the problem of the existence of something is easily solved because it is understood as the "absolute position of the thing"--I think the phrase is from Kant--the relationship that is established between one thing or event and others in the world. When I say that "there is a communist in my garden," I am not referring to a mysterious quality of being of that communist, but I am putting it in relation to the context of the world of speakers. If I say that God exists, it is because I establish some relationship between God and my world.
If what is spoken of is the essence of God, what is mentioned is the set of attributes that define the word "God". It's the same as if I say "That communist is honest". But it is important not to confuse the two things.
Said in this way, the problem of "Being" loses all its semantic mystery. It is nothing ineffable, unless we understand that the only words with meaning are those that refer to "something". When we understand that language is a mechanism for using words in very different ways -relations, copulations, commands, expressions, etc.- so that they are shared by a community of speakers, the problem of Being becomes a pseudo-problem.
Heidegger's conclusion is totally fantastic. He assumes that "being" implies the designation of something (a substantive use of the word) and that there must be a common essence to that something. That the word is polysemic does not even occur to him. What a lack of imagination!
Just because Heidegger makes a pseudo-problem his modus vivendi doesn't make him a charlatan. I would say it's some sophisticated form of delusion. Much less when he's able to transfer his monomania to many intelligent people. Complicating one's life with false problems seems to be part of the human condition and the smartest are not exempt. So I see no reason to insult anyone for it, unless their monomania becomes a danger to others. That Heideggerian monomania necessarily led to the justification of Nazism is an interesting subject that we can leave for another time.
Who's claiming that one must have a "knowledge of its meaning independent of the particular trees"? Or to translate: Where does Heidegger say we have an "independent knowledge" of being when we talk about any particular being? He's not echoing Plato.
It's not independent knowledge -- but it is a kind of understanding, which he calls the a pre-ontological understanding of being.
You get at it better here:
Quoting David Mo
Not "defined," and not just any term -- but when speaking of anything at all, in fact. What else could be presupposed but the "is"-ness, "such"-ness, or "being"-ness of what is talked about? It doesn't mean there's a special knowledge about something "behind" or "beyond" things, as with Plato's Ideas, but it does indeed signify a pre-theoretical understanding that something is there. In any culture and in any language. This is not profound -- it's a truism. It's like saying there's an awake human being, or consciousness, uttering the sentence. Big deal. That shouldn't be controversial. The question is: what IS a human being, and what IS consciousness? Likewise, what is this "pre-theoretical, pre-conceptual" understanding of being?
Quoting David Mo
This is just way off. A pretty common misunderstanding. Being isn't a "fact" or an "entity" at all. That does indeed seem strange, admittedly, and can make sense only in the context of his philosophy. Read in isolation, it's almost gibberish.
Quoting David Mo
I can't think of any examples where "is" doesn't imply that something appears, is there, or "exists" (as in being) in some respect. So I fail to see how it's confused.
Quoting David Mo
I'm afraid I don't see how any of this is relevant. From Intro to Metaphysics, p 62:
"In these lectures, we constantly return to the Greek conception of Being because this conception, though entirely flattened out and rendered unrecognizable, is the conception that still rules even today in the West--not only in the doctrines of philosophy but in the most everyday routines. Because of this, we want to characterize the Greek conception of Being in its first fundamental traits as we follow the Greek treatment of language.
This approach has been chosen intentionally in order to show, through an example from grammar, how the experience, conception, and interpretation of language that set the standard for the West grew out of a very definite understanding of Being."
From 64 (so there's no mystery):
"What grounds and holds together all the determinations of Being we have listed is what the Greeks experienced without question as the meaning of Being, which they called ousia, or more fully parousia. The usual thoughtlessness translates ousia as "substance" and thereby misses its sense entirely. In German, we have an appropriate expression for parousia in our word An-wesen
This is the thesis, and in this context regarding language speficially (the chapter title being "The Grammar and Etymology of 'Being'").
Quoting David Mo
What "problem"?
In fact, Heidegger's claim is that "Being" has been discussed and interpreted in many different ways. That's hardly "ineffable." It's either taken, theoretically and abstractly, as something "present" - like a substance, or God, or energy, or an "object," or "will," or else tacitly assumed in everyday life and discernible based on average, everyday actions and routines (what it means to be a human, what it means to be anything at all, etc -- just as looking at what ants do will tell you something about their pre-theoretical nature).
The point is to re-awaken the question.
Quoting David Mo
No, this is your own interpretation (apparently), which is a misunderstanding. Which is easy to demonstrate: nowhere, not ever, will Heidegger claim that "being" means a being. I would challenge you to provide textual evidence if you believe it so. Thus, to say he "assumes that 'being' implies the designation of something" is itself rather "fantastic," assuming one's read Heidegger. Perhaps it's due to a lack of imagination?
Quoting David Mo
It's fairly clear to me, however, that you don't really understand what the "problem" is -- thus, hardly in a position to talk of a "pseudo-problem." Because if, in your interpretation, the "problem" is one of defining being, or attempting to link being with A being, etc., then you've completely missed the point.
I repeat myself:
Quoting Xtrix
So Heidi says.
"Presence" of ???
Perhaps it's my stumbling-block too, Xtrix, like Heidi's references to "what is" - what is ???
His tedious ruminations on vague, indefineable, underdetermined 'utterances' are framed - reimagined by him - in a context of epochal "forgetting" which I, like many others, suspect is an alibi for Heidi's own peculiarly evocative, though nonetheless, inchoate misunderstandings (and, thereby, antiquarian, syntax-tortured, misappropriations). However, if this read of him uncharitably misses the mark, why didn't he just come right out and say, paraphrasing Laozi's nameless dao and Buddha's anatta-anicca, or Schopenhauer's noumenon (à la natura naturans), that "the meaning of Being" is ... Bergson's la durée? Why the (crypto-augustinian re: "time") mystery-mongerer's career? All that rambling, oracular, mystagogy just buried the lead, as they say, making it easier for everyone (even old Marty at the end mumbling, bumbling & stumbling through 'das Geviert') to lose the plot.
[quote=Twilight of the Idols, How the "True World" Finally Became A Fable. The History of an Error.]The true world — we have abolished. What world has remained? The apparent one perhaps? But no! With the true world we have also abolished the apparent one.
(Noon; moment of the briefest shadow; end of the longest error; high point of humanity; INCIPIT ZARATHUSTRA.)[/quote]
P.S. Being and Time, in my opinion, was written as a response to Aquinas, who had said that actuality is prior to potentiality. Heidegger seems to say that opposite in the book. But saying there is actuality/Being seems to reject Buddhism. I still don't understand what Heidegger's position on nothingness is
Hegel posits nothing and being as the abstract form of the Idea which sublate each other into the world, which is pure becoming (Shunyata). I am very interested in reconciling Buddhism, Hegel, and Heidegger
Yes, with reasoning and evidence which is quite convincing, at least to me.
Quoting 180 Proof
The presence of whatever is before us, whether numbers or trees. Whatever persists (or "holds sway"). To say "presence of" you may be implying a subject/object distinction, but I'm not sure -- if that's the case, perhaps that's the stumbling block. It was for me as well. It's just hard not to think of any phenomenon as an object or representation for a "subject" or a "thinking thing" (res cogitans). This is why he emphasizes "being and thinking" as the fundamental way we "relate to" and thus "interpret" being:
"The entire Western tradition and conception of Being, and accordingly the fundamental relation to Being that is still dominant today, is summed up in the title Being and thinking." - p. 220 (Intro to Metaphysics)
BTW, I'm well aware of how Heidegger looks from the outside. I'm sure it must appear like Zizek or Derrida appear to me. I'd be very skeptical as well, especially if you peruse their "work." All I can say is that, for me, once I took the time (over a year) to do a careful study of his thought, the more and more I've learned and the more convinced I am that he has a very simple (when boiled down), but very deep, analysis of history, of time, and of our interpretation and relation to "being" itself. I've found it very useful indeed -- though not in the same way as studying physics, mathematics, biology, economics, or world history. But he's not intending to shed direct light on any of those subjects anyway.
Quoting 180 Proof
Good questions: because those are all interpretations of being. The Dao, nirvana, the will to live (which Schopenhauer associates with Kant's noumenon, but not completely -- even he says it's simply the "closest" we can get to it while still "within" time), are all dealing with similar things, it is true -- as is "God," for that matter. They all interpret beings and being. Heidegger isn't interested in interpreting it by way of a definition himself, but in reawakening the questioning of being, and so our interpretation of it (and thus human being).
As far as Bergson, Heidegger actually mentions him often enough, as one thinker in a chain (since Aristotle) who has tried interpreting time. Needless to say, he does not think Bergson gets it right with duration. Spinoza's natura naturans, from what I understand of it, seems very close to Heidegger's treatment of phusis -- which shouldn't be a surprise, as the Latin "natura" is how phusis was translated. But again, my reading of Spinoza is restricted only to the Ethics. If you care to say more about it, I'd be interested.
Heidegger will talk much about "time," as you know. From his perspective, there's "time" as a sequence of "nows," since Aristotle, and there's temporality, or as someone one here said "existential time," which is essentially the structure of how we live: thrown, anticipating, and absorbed (past, future, present). He will say being, but also time itself (as ordinarily understood), has been interpreted from the "perspective" of one aspect of temporality: the present.
"But this 'time' still has not been unfolded in its essence, nor can it be unfolded (on the basis and within the purview of 'physics'). For as soon as meditation on the essence of time begins, at the end of Greek philosophy with Aristotle, time itself must be taken as something that is somehow coming to presence, ousia tis. This is expressed in the fact that time is conceived on the basis of the 'now,' that which is in each case uniquely present." (p 220)
I think Heidegger would agree wholeheartedly with Nietzsche here. Heidegger wants to get outside the tradition which Kant himself (whom Nietzsche is essentially referring to here, along with Plato) is still very much a part of. Thus all the examples of "hammering" and "average everydayness." This is the pragmatic part of Heidegger, and why he carries on so much about phenomenology and the "hidden" and "concealed" aspects of life, which philosophers have nearly always ignored (in his view).
I myself see a number of parallels to Buddhism and Daoism in Heidegger. But when you say he thinkers Being is "real," I'm not sure what you mean. He has a lot to say about the concept of "reality" in Being and Time, in fact. It's true that a core principle in Buddhist philosophy is the concept of [i]anicca[/i (Pali), impermanence, but I don't see how this is rejecting "reality" while Heidegger is somehow accepting it.
Quoting Gregory
Heidegger has much respect for Hegel and published a great deal of lectures on him. He sees has as the end of the Western tradition from the inside. Nietzsche marks the end of it completely (although Heidegger will argue his "eternal recurrence" is simply his interpretation of 'being').
If we're to reconcile them, I think Heidegger would agree with the Buddhists (and Daoists) that we need to "get in touch" with our being again. Buddhists will do so through the practice of meditation (vipassana), while Heidegger wants to "reawaken the question of being" approached as a thinker. He sees this as necessary to creat a new interpretation of being, since our current interpretation (which has its roots with the Greeks) as resulted in nihilism (here he agrees with Nietzsche) and has been completely forgotten.
As far as Hegel goes -- Heidegger is certainly historical and likewise interested in the presocratics. Where Hegel's dialectic fits in with Heidegger, or his ideas of Being and Nothing, I don't feel confident enough to comment on -- I'm only in the beginning stages of reading Hegel, and I can't from memory recall much of what Heidegger says about him, unfortunately.
My understanding is that being reveals itself to us (according to Heidegger), while there is nothing to be revealed for a Buddhist
Quoting Xtrix
Where can I get those lectures?
Quoting Xtrix
It is obvious that the postulation of a special Being whose meaning does not depend on particular entities forces Heidegger to invent an extra rational knowledge that I have called "intuition" to make it intelligible. To speak of "pre-ontological", as Heidegger does, seems to me to introduce an unnecessary neologism for what classical philosophy defined as what is neither empirical nor discursive: intellectual intuition.
Quoting Xtrix
Therefore, there is a special knowledge ("pre-ontological") that goes beyond the individual entities.
This means opposing the empirical to the irrational intuitive which is becoming more and more complicated. Because if Heidegger recognizes here a logical contradiction he does not have any other choice but to impugn the own logic, which he does in another part of the book. He has already challenged philology and the history of philosophy. Now logic and experience fall. Open field for irrationalism.
Quoting Xtrix
Quoting Xtrix
Quoting Xtrix
Quoting Xtrix
Quoting Xtrix
I would say that the problem is not only with Heidegger, but also with you (so much love gets contagious). You cannot deny that Heidegger speaks of Being as " something " and say at the same time that it implies the designation of " something ". In fact, Heidegger is forced to adopt a substantialist language to define Being. But as he had said before that it was "ineffable" he now has to camouflage it as a "common horizon" to all the diverse meanings of being (this is just what meaning is):
Didn't you say that Being has nothing to do with substance? Well, here it is said with all the letters. And from contradiction to contradiction this Being is becoming more and more like God: ineffable, an entity different from the entities but by which the entities are what they are, the object of an intuitive knowledge and the end to which all things must tend. Without God, I mean without Being, even nations sink into the darkest decadence. And, of course, this Being also has his prophet: Heidegger.
In short:
Heidegger is forced to assume an irrationalist position because of all the confusion introduced by his lack of a semantic analysis of the concept of being. You affirm, with Heidegger, that the concept of being has a meaning ("horizon", he says) only that you assimilate to the existence. Heidegger, who never wants to be clear, adds to the existence ( presence ) the substance. It would be necessary to conclude that this Being is something with substance (then definable) and existence (then detectable). But, obviously, all of us who are not Heidegger or related do not have such capacity of a "pre-ontological" knowledge, it appears that is justified only by the supposed capacity of all languages to use intuitively the word being in a "defined" way.
Against this claim I wrote in a previous comment. In short, my arguments were basically two:
The word "is" does not exist in all languages. It is not universal in that sense.
Nor in all languages does "to be" mean the same thing.
When used as a copulation, for example, "is" does not mean that something exists, but rather that a property is linked to a subject. It can be said that there are things that exist or not, but this is not said in common language with "is", but by "exists", " there is", etc. The confusion between being as existing and being as a logical link is caused by the twisted use of the same word. In some languages, especially the logical ones, but also common ones, there are resources to express this difference without resorting to a common term like "is". Of course, you can pretend it's “implied”, but that's cheating. First, because we're talking about the meaning, not the circumstantial implications. Second, because if even the absence of Being – Nothingness – , is Being, Everything is Being and the concept of Being lacks meaning, sorry “horizon”. Not to mention that we have killed Parmenides, who was supposedly a venerable idol. You know, what the goddess forbade Parmenides in the first place, the way of foolishness: Not-being is. (Let us not talk about Heraclitus, who is worse).
How Witty of you. :up:
A reification fallacy common to platonists & sophists alike.
Well, "smarts" isn't mutually exclusive with respect to stupidity - often it's the enabler (re: Kahneman-Tversky, Dunning-Kruger). I agree that Heidi isn't a "charlatan"; rather he was a 'great philosopher' who, like e.g. Hegel, IMO, shows another way how not to do philosophy.
Quoting Xtrix
And poor Heidi adds nothing - yeah, he's interpreting it too, don't believe his hype - that either improves upon or invalidates these other 'ontologies'; that there are so many (much more than I'd care to list) both within the European philosphical tradition and other traditions, makes it clear that the "forgetting of being" is only, or mostly, a parochial Wilhelmine anomaly which, no doubt, the Nazi movement under the spiritual guidance of the good Herr Rektorführer was "called by destiny" to remind das Herrendasein, das Man und andere Üntermenschen that “das Nichts nichtet". :eyes:
Not all sophists, I think. Gorgias: "Being is not; if it were it could not be known and if it were known it could not be expressed".(I quote from memory). This is a direct attack on Parmenides and his Platonic aftermath.
In general, sophists establish an interesting distinction between physis and nomos and are sceptical about the former in some/ quite a few cases. "Man is the measure of all things; of things that are in so far as they are and of things that are not in so far as they are not" (Protagoras), also gives cause for thought.
In your criticism of Heidegger I think we agree very much.
Well beings reveal themselves, anyway. Buddhists certainly "believe" that there are beings (or phenomena).
Quoting Gregory
Online or at your library. Some are PDF, but I haven't searched -- I have the book itself. There were others, but the one I have is "Hegel's phenomenology of spirit."
I've read this, and it's rife with confusion. I'll respond in detail when I have time.
I look forward to it.
If we want to equate "pre-ontological understanding of being" to "knowledge" or "intuition," that's very misleading -- in Heidegger's context. Which his why he doesn't use either term.
The quote you gave was part of the chapter "The Question of the Essence of Being," which is worth keeping in mind, and was used as an example of Being's uniqueness, in that it is implied in any particular being whatsoever. In the same way that "treeness" is understood before we look at individual trees, so being is understood before we look at any particular being. He'll go on to say that the analogy is limited:
"Consequently, it remains questionable whether an individual being can ever count as an example of Being at all, as this oak does for 'tree in general.' It is questionable whether the ways of Being (Being as nature, Being as history) represent 'species' of the genus 'Being.'" (IM, p. 85)
So to read into all this that Heidegger is advocating a kind of Platonism is just wrong. There is no "independent knowledge," as you claimed -- being is simply understood when referring to any entity. The last sentence of your quote captures it. It's a very simple point, really. Basically a truism dressed up. That's on Heidegger, though, and his confusing circuitousness.
Quoting David Mo
Let's be clear about what's being said, which I believe you're overthinking: being is "indefinite" in that we can't define it, but yet we "understand" it -- why? In the same way we understand "tree" beforehand, only in this case (re: Being) without any definition. To put it another way: the being of any object or entity whatsoever is presupposed or implied when talking about anything at all: Bach's fugues, mineral baths, rocks, trees, people, suntan lotion, justice, anger, cars, etc. But yet when we ask about "Being" in general, we can't give an answer. This is what makes it unique, and quite different from trees (or dogs, or any other entity). From page 85:
"The word 'Being' is a universal name, it is true, and seemingly one word among others. But this seeming is deceptive. The name and what it names are one of a kind. Therefore, we distort it fundamentally if we try to illustrate it by examples--presicely because every example in this case manifests not too much, as one might say, but always too little. Earlier we stressed that we must already know in advance what 'tree' means in order to be able to seek and find what is particular, the species of trees and individual trees as such. This is all the more decisively true of Being. The necessity for us already to understand the word 'Being' is the highest and is incomparable. So the 'universality' of 'Being' in regard to all beings does not imply that we should turn away from this universality as fast as possible and turn to the particular; instead, it implies the opposite, that we should remain there, and raise the uniqueness of this name and its naming to the level of knowledge."
There's nothing irrational about this. It only appears to be contradictory. He will go on to say, in fact, that "Being" has indeed been interpreted -- as ousia, at the end of Greek philosophy.
"Being, from which we set out as an empty label, must therefore have a definite meaning, contrary to this semblance of emptiness." (p. 216)
Also: babies and animals have an innate sense of causality. Is that entering the realm of the "irrational intuitive"? Just because something cannot be defined, or is held tacitly, doesn't necessarily mean it's irrational. If we choose to define it this way, fine -- but in that case, nearly everything we do is irrational. So it goes with any pre-theoretical understanding of being as well, by definition. But that doesn't progress the conversation at all.
"Suppose that there were no indeterminate meaning of Being, and that we did not understand what this meaning signifies. Then what? Would there just be one noun and one verb less in our language? No. Then there would be no language at all." (86)
Quoting David Mo
That's precisely what I'm denying, because there's no evidence of it and, in fact, quite the contrary: he emphatically states, over and over again, that Being is not a being. Being has certainly been interpreted throughout the ages, explicitly (substance, God, energy, will, etc), but that has nothing to do with Heidegger -- he offers no interpretation whatsoever. His goal is to reawaken the question and to describe the history of how its been interpreted -- which he could be completely wrong about, it's true, but let's first be clear about what he's doing.
Quoting David Mo
I'll give you the benefit of the doubt and say you've misunderstood this, rather than accuse you of deliberately taking it out of context. Based on my study of Heidegger, I can easily see what he's describing here is not his view at all, even without referencing the book in this case, but from the quotation itself one might believe it. So let me quote in full:
"However, a definite, unitary trait runs through all these meanings. It points our understanding of 'to be' toward a definite horizon by which the understanding is fulfilled. The boundary drawn around the sense of 'Being' stays within the sphere of presentness and presence, subsistence and substance, staying and coming forth.
This all points in the direction of what we ran into when we first characterized the Greek experience and interpretation of Being. If we follow the usual explication of the infinitive, then the expression 'to be' gets its sense from the unity and definiteness of the horizon that guides our understanding. IN short, we thus understand the verbatim noun 'Being' on the basis of the infinitive, which in turn remains linked to the 'is' and to the manifoldness we have pointed out in this 'is.'
[...]
Accordingly, 'Being' has the meaning we have indicated, which recalls the Greek conception of the essence of Being -- a definiteness, then, which has not come to us from just anywhere, but which has long ruled our historical Dasein. At one blow, our search for the definiteness of the meaning of the word 'Being' thus becomes explicitly what it is: a meditation on the provenance of our concealed history."
He'll then go on to discuss the history of being, from the Greeks onward, and conclude that being has been interpreted as "constant presence, on as ousia." (p. 216) To confuse this as being his own view is just a misunderstanding. Understandable, given his way of lecturing, where it's not always clear if he's speak from the perspective of the Greeks or giving his own thoughts. In this case, it's certainly not his own thought, it's precisely what he's trying to un-do by pointing out that time (temporality) is the perspective that guides the Western way of interpreting Being (as presence).
Quoting David Mo
God is one interpretation of being, yes. That's Anselm, Spinoza (in my understanding), etc. Call it "Christian ontology," as Heidegger does in various places in his writings. But you'll never hear him say Being is anything like a "supreme Being," which the capitalization itself may indicate -- and which we discussed before.
Quoting David Mo
This is only barely coherent to me, but as I mentioned above, Heidegger does discuss the history of the interpretation of Being as substance and presence. This is not, however, his position. "Horizon" is used to refer to time, not as a "meaning" of being. He will argue that time is the "horizon for any understanding whatsoever of Being" (Being and Time, p. 1) -- but that's quite different.
Lastly, I appreciate the time you've taken to actually read Introduction to Metaphysics and your take on it. In case there's any doubt, I do respect your views. I happen to disagree with you in this case, but your observations are not so easily dismissed -- I did have to take some time to think about them in some cases, and even go back to the text itself. That's worth pointing out.
Cheers.
He's not interpreting being, no.
As far as improving upon or invalidating other interpretations -- I think he contributes a great deal to understanding the history of the interpretation of being, and it's important to our current age.
The rest of this paragraph is pretty jumbled -- I don't know if you're deliberately trying to be unclear, or why all the strange references ("Wilhelmina anomaly"?), but what do you mean by "there are so many (much more than I'd care to list)"? So many ontologies?
If that's what you meant, then in his view, there have been several: the Greek interpretation/ontology, the Roman variation, the Christian variation, and the modern (Cartesian) variation. We're standing now, he'd argue, in a technological/nihilistic understanding of being. But in my reading, he's never dogmatic about a set number. Perhaps there are indeed "so many" (and I'd encourage you to give at least a few examples) interpretations, that doesn't really impact his thinking.
Quoting Xtrix
Quoting Xtrix
Quoting Xtrix
I also appreciate your efforts to answer my questions, even when I feel they are not correct or as inextricably confused as Heidegger himself.
I also appreciate your recognition that Heidegger is not "always clear". I would say that he is almost always confused. But I am predisposed to give the benefit of the doubt and to think that this confusion is not a deliberate device to leave the door open to a possible retreat, but the result of a basic misguided approach to metaphysical pseudo-problems.
What is interesting, however, is your interpretation of these confusing points.
Quoting Xtrix
You're getting lost here. Why is Heidegger making this long journey to the Greeks' vision of Being? Is this just to leave them when it's over? That would be absurd.
There's a general reason and a particular reason for that.
In general Heidegger thinks that the Greek philosophy - Parmenides and Heraclitus especially - was in the right direction and only with "lanitinization" Western philosophy lost its way.
In particular, this path is especially marked at the end of this chapter: The "horizon" of Being was "pointing our understanding" on the path of "presence and subsistence". It is not necessary for him to write the word, although he does: "substance". This is exactly what pressence and subsistence mean.
Strong arguments are needed to change this conclusion. I do not see them.
The above seems clear to me, even if you don't like it. It is not so clear, or rather, it is very confusing, why don't you admit that the knowledge of Being that is obtained through language is - or pretends to be - some kind of intuition.
As far as I know, there are three forms of knowledge: rational discursive, empirical -- also known as empirical intuition -- and intuitive. It is obvious that Heidegger's "pre-ontological" knowledge of Being matches the third type.
Said in his confused way of writing:
This is simply incomprehensible. It is impossible to get any "definite" knowledge of anything we don't know what is ("indefinite meaning"). The first step of any knowledge is to precise its terms. And confusion is increased when he adds that this "definite" knowledge is "dark, confused, covered over and concealed". My God, what a words dance!
Your example does not add any clarification. Babies and animals have no "definite" knowledge of the causes. They are simply conditioned to respond to certain stimuli with certain behaviours. Something like a pre-concept of cause slowly makes its way into children's minds through a repeated process of generalising responses. We have to wait for the formation of abstract language to talk about a "definite" knowledge of the concept of cause that is accompanied by a defined understanding of the word "cause". Dissociating one thing from the other is impossible.
I don't even talk about animals. I don't think Heidegger was thinking about Pavlovian conditioning.
I think your effort to personally interpret Heidegger is most interesting assuming you are willing to defend Heidegger's theory of Being. In this assumption I would ask you what the Self means to you. Why is it so important?
How can one not when "being" is only a word (undefined, no less) and not a definite object or fact? Heidi conjures up "the meaning of" and meaning is synonomous with interpretation. And then, in a tediously long way around, goes nowhere with it.
Fair enough.
Quoting David Mo
Because he argues it's the Greek way of interpreting Being (I'm using capitalization now simply for clarity) that determines all other interpretations in the West, down to the present age. He says this many times. He will say that it starts with phusis and ends with ousia in the Greek era. He will then go on to say that ousia (translated as "substance") is an interpretation from the perspective of time, namely the present. Hence the "metaphysics of presence" as the history of Western philosophy. This is one major part of Being and Time and the Intro to Metaphysics -- the "historical" part, or the "deconstruction" part (which was never written for Being and Time but which does should up in other works).
Quoting David Mo
There's debate in Heidegger scholarship about this, but from my reading I don't see Heidegger necessarily thinking Parmenides or Heraclitus somehow got it "right" while Plato and Aristotle didn't. True, their thought was prior to the almost immediate disjoining of "being" from "becoming"/"seeming" -- but they both were still very much within the Western tradition of interpreting being from the perspective of time as "presence." They were "presencing" as well. He will say that this is the inception, and the inception ends (in greatness) with Plato and Aristotle.
Regardless, I'm not seeing the relevance in bringing Parmenides or Heraclitus in to the discussion at this point. Remember, what set this digression off was the following:
Quoting David Mo
Quoting David Mo
Quoting Xtrix
Quoting Xtrix
So again, what you quoted is not Heidegger's position -- he's describing what has been thought. There's no way he himself is claiming that "being" is "substance." He wants to get outside this interpretation, in fact.
Quoting David Mo
That's fine -- if we want to describe it as a kind of "intuition," I don't have anything against it, as long as we remember it's not what Heidegger says and has potentially some rather problematic connotations. So call it the "intuition of being" if you'd like, as long as what we mean is a pre-theoretical understanding I think that's safe enough.
Quoting David Mo
Well don't take my word for it, just keep reading. I'm pretty confident on this point, and it's all over his writing: he does not believe "being" is a substance. His entire philosophy wouldn't make the slightest it of sense if he did, in the same way it wouldn't if he suddenly described the world in Cartesian terms. So really, strong arguments need to be made to the contrary -- and so far you've quote one sentence which, as I've said, you're mistakingly (but understandably) attributing to Heidegger himself. I gave a rather lengthy explanation and quotation in my last post, as well.
Quoting David Mo
I didn't say it was a "definite" knowledge, though -- just that it was present. Again, use "intuitive" understanding of causality, if you'd prefer. It's exactly not abstract, linguistic, or theoretical -- yet still there. That's the point.
Quoting David Mo
But I don't think Heidegger does have a theory of Being.
As far as the self goes -- I have thoughts on the self, but what's the connection to Heidegger? As far as I know he doesn't talk very much about it.
Nothing. I think I explained that. It's a dirty trick of the word processor program of auto-correction. It has a mania for change "Being" for "Self". Also "pressence" for "pressure". Although I correct its mistakes, sometimes I miss one. I should take out the auto-corrector, but sometimes it comes in handy.
Quoting Xtrix
There are many Heidegger's passages on the capital importance of correctly understand the "concealed" message of Greeks. An example:
I think it is impossible to understand Heidegger without his personal version of them. However, it is possible to discuss Heidegger's philosophy without Heraclitus and Parmenides if someone wants to defend him. I am not sure you want to do so.
Anyway, I will repeat my answer properly corrected:
What Being means to you? Why is it so important?
Quoting Xtrix
This is Heidegger's problem for me:
There is no definition of "Being".
There is no intersubjective method of knowing Being.
No theory of Being...
... And a continuous insistence in rejecting every opponent because he does not understand or despises this mysterious (though essential) Being.
In my frustrated attempts to understand Heidegger I have read many times the word "mystic". That, I think I understand. But I don't like it.
Here ya go :point: [s]Seyn[/s] ...
Right, that's partly my fault, I completely forgot.
Quoting David Mo
But that's all different from saying they're "right," remember. He does indeed think their thinking has been concealed and covered over, etc. But as I said, from my reading anyway (and I can give you references if you'd like), I see him as saying they're both still part of the "metaphysics of presence" -- they're still presencing. This is why Being has been interpreted this way from then onwards, and why it "had to be" -- because the seed was already there at the beginning. So in Plato and Aristotle Being becomes Idea and Ousia, respectively, as the Romans and Christians it becomes substance and God, and through Descartes as the res, also a substance. "Being" then becomes a mistake, a vapor, an error, empty, meaningless, etc., and the question of its meaning becomes completely forgotten, ignored, or dismissed as senseless.
This is the point in history where Heidegger comes in, in the 1910s, inspired by "phenomenology." During a time in history where technology was advancing exponentially, physics and chemistry were being transformed, and mathematics was undergoing a "crisis" of foundations. It's a time when Russell and "analytic philosophy" was emerging and mathematics was attempted to be "reduced" to logic. A lot of influence from Kierkegaard and Nietzsche too. Worth keeping all this in mind when reading him, of course.
So you have it exactly right -- I'm only challenging the idea that Heidegger judges Parmenides and Heraclitus as "right" per se. He no doubt has the highest respect for both thinkers (and Anaximander) and, as you rightly quoted, believes their thinking was the inception of philosophy and still "sustains" our own world today.
Quoting David Mo
I think it means what we want it to mean -- how we interpret it. I think history bears this out, in fact, in terms of the history of ontology. Here it's "substance," there it's "idea," or it's "god," it's "energy," it's "will," it's perhaps the "thing in itself," it's rationality, it's "nature," etc etc etc. It corresponds with the meaning of being human, too -- which is most important and a crucial point in Heidegger (and why he bothers with the question at all, in the end).
What "is" being apart from our interpreting it? Well, it's not a "thing" (a being) at all, or an object at all. That's why the confusing statement that "Being is not a being." Is it a kind of "nothing," then? Sure, but even the idea of "nothing" is something. Nihilism is a big problem, and here he agrees with Nietzsche -- but it permeates this part of the modern age. We're technological/nihilist. A way to get beyond this is to confront Nothing and Being.
This is all very anxiety-provoking in the modern age. It feels groundless. But as Heidegger says, if we don't "flee" from it, we can achieve a kind of liberation (like the Buddhists often talk about), and that can transform our way of being/living. By accepting the groundlessness of life, you don't have to "grasp" a hold of something as the "ultimate truth" or the ground of all being, etc. This is needed now more than ever, because we as humanity are killing ourselves, heading right for destruction (this is in the nuclear age, even prior to climate change).
Now is this itself an interpretation of "being"? Not that I see -- because it's not a definition of "it." It's simply an acknowledgment that we as human beings question and interpret things. We're "ontological," in the sense of questioning being and beings, and "hermeneutical" in the sense of interpretation. Since at heart we're historical/temporal beings, it is from the standard of time that we interpret or question anything at all, including "being" itself. Let me digress a bit to fill this out before you respond...
Most of us, most of the time, are not doing ontology or thinking philosophically or scientifically, or even "abstractly." Once we see that -- which we all agree is true, I think, and only need to examine ourselves in our "average everydayness" (as Heidegger puts it) to remember it -- then we see that what we DO (most of the time) in this everydayness gives us plenty of clues as to what our "pre-theoretical" (assumed, tacitly held) understanding of life, being human, and Being generally, is.
There's a whole story there, too -- about the "world" and our "Being-in-the-world." Turns out by looking at what we do for the most part (when not being theoretical or "the rational animal"), using Heidegger's analysis and terminology -- that what we are, as the entities that ask about being and have an understanding of being, is "care" (Sorge).
We're caring beings acting in the world towards goals, projecting out into the future towards which we go, anticipating, moving towards something now for the sake of something later (a tacit plan or goal). Crude example: if we're hammering, we're doing so as part of a whole totality of other beings and equipment which only make sense in the context of house-building, which only makes sense in terms of the human need for shelter, etc.
That's only a rough sketch of his ideas. I only digress here a bit to round out the picture a little, because if you dwell on any one aspect of his philosophy it can look insane (especially when approaching it from, as example only, more of an analytic point of view -- which is far more clear and precise), so it's good to give a cartoon-like overview.
Turns out, of course, that our average everydayness, which is not theoretical, and which represents "care," -- turns out that this is really "time" in the sense of lived time or existential time. It's on the basis of this meaning of time that "world time" (clocks, calandras, a series of "nows", etc) is derived, through measurement and counting.
Heidegger calls this lived time "temporality."
One thing I like about Mr. Heidegger is his simple examples to illustrate all of this -- liking hammering, or turning a doorknob, or being a professor and lecturing. We could use driving or any often skill or activity to demonstrate what he's getting at too. Turns out that these obvious things, in his hands, undermine 2,500 years of tradition. That's a big claim to make. So why?
Because he will claim that temporality (the caring being-in-th-world that is a 'there' [dasein], which we see in these average behaviors) is essentially how a human being interprets anything at all and, therefore, includes the activity of philosophy and science. How does this undermine the tradition?
Because this has been overlooked and concealed. Because he will claim that since the dawn of philosophy in Anaximander, Parmenides, and Heraclitus, Western thinking (philosophy) has been dominated by one aspect of lived-time (temporality): the present. Hence we interpret Being and TIME ITSELF from the perspective of the present, as something "present-at-hand" (the permanent, an enduring prototype, substance, an object that persists, a particular entity). If we're staggering in history, we're staggering in part for this reason. So a new perspective should be opened up in which we can interpret ourselves. Later Heidegger says it's the poets and artists that can lead the way on this. Kind of ironic.
I hope this makes sense. I realize on first glance it sounds like a lot of confused, jumbled bullshit. Please know I'm quite aware of that and am thus always reluctant to give condensed accounts like this -- always also with the awareness that this is only one reading of Heidegger, which he himself may have thought was completely wrong. But I feel it's only fair to give my own synopsis, given your (difficult) question. Quoting Heidegger all day would be more time-consuming and a bit of a cop out.
My own personal view is that turning to the Eastern tradition is an important move in the right direction. Bringing back a sense of the "divine" in life (not supernatural), perhaps like the Hindu or Greek-religious interpretation, would be a good thing for humanity right now. When it comes to ideas of this sort, I'm much more in agreement with Nietzsche and much more drawn to Marx, Chomsky, and Wolf -- who I think are on the right track in emphasizing politics and economics.
Cheers.
I will quote you one last text:
If after this quotation you continue affirming that for Heidegger Heraclitus, Parmenides and the Greeks who were in this line were not right, it is that we do not understand the same for "being right".
I will continue with the rest of your commentary when I have time to read it.
Quoting Xtrix
Your first two paragraphs have a lot to talk about. You'll allow me to stand on them.
You define the method of interpretation as going anywhere in any way. That's very Heideggerian, but it doesn't work for me. The act of knowing is supposed to be reasonably shared, but if all is fair the result can be chaos and confrontations can take us anywhere. I don't think you're serious about this.
The proof that you don't seriously mean it is that in the next paragraph you put "apart from the interpretation". But here too you are remarkably confusing. From what you write next I get nothing. That Being is neither this nor that. The conclusion does not seem to be very conclusive, truth be told. Besides, how do you arrive at the question of what Being really is apart from the interpretation? Is there any other method that you have not told us about? I hope it would be more precise that interpretation.
Exactly. It's not that Hegel, or Kant, or Descartes, or Augustine, or Greeks (presocratic or not) were wrong. Likewise, science isn't "wrong" either -- if Heidegger ever claimed that he'd be laughed out of the room, rightfully. If Heidegger is doing anything he's pointing out that there has been something overlooked (and then not even questioned) in our tradition. If we want to say that this is the same as not being "right," I think that's a little misleading. I don't think Heidegger would be that presumptuous, and is why he almost always speaks highly of these thinkers.
Quoting David Mo
Quoting David Mo
Very true, and please do.
Quoting David Mo
Well I'm not sure what you mean by the first sentence, but I'm not advocating for irrationalism or mysticism if that's what you're hinting at. But if you could elaborate I'd rather wait until I respond to something I don't fully understand yet.
Quoting David Mo
I don't think I've fully understood you here, either. But as for the first question: I don't think there is an answer to what Being really is. There are plenty of interpretations and tacit assumptions, etc., but nothing I can define, measure, or formalize with confidence -- far more brilliant minds than mine have done so, and I'd simply defer to their interpretations, which is not very interesting.
It is evident that we speak different languages. According to Heidegger there is an essential question: What is being? He dedicated several books and many lectures to it. He considered that Western philosophy had overlooked, deformed, degenerated, etc. this question since the time of the Greeks. If overlooking, deforming and degenerating a main subject is not to be wrong, what does it mean to be wrong for you? I'm afraid you speak a language that I don't know. And it's not English.
Quoting Xtrix
Irrationalism or extreme relativism, which is the same thing. You refuse to defend your point because "there are many theories", "I don't know what Being is", etc.
Two don't discuss if one doesn't want.
If anyone is being inconsistent then it's probably you.
A contingent thing maybe created by a contingent being.
Quoting Arne
Well, I meant to point out that the existence of Martin Heidegger is not necessary. Anything else wasn't implied in my statement. I probably should've said that if Being and Time were written at all it didn't have to be Heidegger. :grin:
Because it'd be like saying that if one states "the glass is half empty," it's "wrong." It's not wrong -- it's just as true as the opposite. There are various ways of interpreting things. Our way, in the West, is to interpret being in terms of time. This is the "metaphysics of presence." It's gone through various adaptations for 2,500 years. That's the thesis.
Again, if you want to say that this all amounts to Western thinking since 500 B.C being "wrong," you're welcome to. But it's not in Heidegger. Forgetting, overlooking, concealing, and taking for granted have very different connotations -- in English.
Quoting David Mo
Defend what point?
But you've given no indication here that you've read one word of Heidegger. If you're in the "ignore the man because he was a Nazi" group -- that's fine. Then why come here at all?
Oh, I have. Actually in my distant youth I engaged in long passionate debates about him and his obscure metaphysics. A long story. And he wasn't much of a Nazi, though unrepentant for whatever he was. But that Latin quote is apt nevertheless. Anyway, I think you are right, I have had my fill of him.
There's an example up there. "It's either half empty or half full." Perfect hermeneutical relativism.To err in the wrong direction by degenerating the answers to the point of needing a "new beginning" is to be half right.
I like to call bread, bread and wine, wine. It is a question of taste, you would say: bread can be wine, depending on how you want.
"Hermeneutical relativism" is a redundancy. We're talking about interpretation. Interpretation presupposes a point of view, of course. So a kind of "relativism" is already implied in the word -- it's relative to a perspective. It doesn't mean that truth is relative. I gave the simple example of the glass simply to demonstrate that just because an interpretation, or description, doesn't account for all the data doesn't make it "wrong."
Again, was Newton "wrong"?
But this isn't very interesting -- if you want to use "right" and "wrong" in describing the history of philosophy, I won't object any further. As I said, it's a bit of a nit-pick. But it's of tertiary importance.
Newton was (and is) right within the scope of his theory. Newton was right against his Cartesian rivals. The Cartesians were wrong.
Nevertheless, Heidegger poses a question with a universal scope: Being. According to Heidegger, Western metaphysics perverted the correct questioning of the Greeks. Therefore, the Greeks were right and western metaphysics was wrong. So much so that philosophy needs to start again, which does not happen until Heidegger arrives. Of course. (Without the Holy Spirit, I suppose). He accepts some partial successes in some exceptional philosophers, but not on the fundamental question: Being.
Hermeneutics, with Heidegger at the head, claims something confuse or contradictory: truth doesn't exist ("Truth is untruth", in Heidegger's words). They (you) don't say that absolute truth doesn't exist. This would be reasonable with some additional clarifications --I have done some above. They (you) claim an absolute truth against the truth. An absurdity.
If what you (or they) mean is that all truth fits within a scope, that is not denied by anyone outside the field of rationalist metaphysics. It is a rather trivial truth. But it does not prevent us from saying that, according to Heidegger's own words, the Greeks were right in the face of scholastic medieval metaphysics or Cartesian rationalism, for example.
Of course, like every prophet, Heidegger changed his theory later because he wanted to and reserved the truth for poetry. About the inconsistencies of this "second birth" of Western thought we can talk if you want.
Exactly. Philosophers of the last 2,500 are right within the scope of "presencing."
Then you go on to make a lot of assertions...
Quoting David Mo
No. The question has been forgotten, it's true. But Heidegger doesn't think of it as "perverted" or "wrong." He just doesn't. Your reading is just incorrect, I'm afraid. He will go on about how the interpretations have varied and how the "question of the meaning of being" has been concealed/forgotten or simply taken for granted.
Quoting David Mo
You keep insisting on painting a picture of Heidegger as having some kind of God-complex. I really don't see how this is justified from any reading of him. But yes, given the state of the world and the history (as he understands it) of Western thought, we should return to the questioning of the meaning of Being. This much he claims.
Quoting David Mo
I claim none of those things.
The "truth is untruth" quote is, of course, a deliberately cheap thing to do. Of course it looks ridiculous without further explanation. I'm not interested in playing games like that, though. If you want to know what he means by that, I'd be happy to explain it -- or read it yourself, if you're interested.
Quoting David Mo
"Right" about what?
Quoting David Mo
...
Quoting David Mo
What "truth"? In Heidegger, it means something very different.
Sorry to say, but this is once again sounding like something from a secondary source. The Cliffs Notes version of later Heidegger thought isn't of much interest to me.
I document what I say with primary and secondary sources. You seem to ignore both. For example:
Quoting Xtrix
What kind of question is this? Heidegger repeatedly accuses Western philosophy with negative concepts that imply falsity in many ways, both in Being and Time and in the Introduction to Metaphysics. And in all cases, in comparison with Greek philosophy In the first section of Being and Time (#1) four basic errors of Western philosophy are pointed out. A few later (p. 22/43-4) western philosophy is qualified as: "deteriorated," "dogmatic," and " concealment".
The term "misinterpretation" applied to Western philosophy appears from the first pages (7/10) and throughout the work. The same as "fall away from the truth" (p. 111/154). I particularly recommend page 11/14 where, explaining the perversions brought about by the Latin translation of the Greeks, he describes it as "deformation and decline". The following paragraph is illustrative:
I do not think that I need to underline Heidegger's words that make direct reference to the concept of truth, both in the common sense and in the sense that Heidegger gives them. And something must be said about that because the question that follows is not understood.
Quoting Xtrix
Heidegger understands truth as aletheia. He describes it with various words that refer to a revelation or unveiling of the concealed. (Very poetic). Cf. Being and Time (223/265). That's what I'm talking about. I don't know what other sense you're talking about.
Quoting Xtrix
I don't know what scope that is. What do you mean by "presence"?
Heidegger is explicitly referring to the realm of that mysterious stuff called Being. At least it can be said that this Being is universal. He says so. He does not mention a restricted scope, as is the case of Newtonian physics. So Western metaphysics cannot have the excuse of applying to a special field. It is the realm of Being and everything that Heidegger says about it is applied to it without restrictions.
By the way, his description of the hammer, the use of the hammer, and the blacksmith's application of the hammer, smacks of a mind that has never been inside a real smithy, but, rather, that got this view from watching Wagner's Siegfried. In a real smithy, the blacksmith does not impose shape upon the metal, just look around at how many hammer are there of all shapes and weights! No, in a real smithy, the metal teaches the smith what it can and can't do. The matter is the matter, not the mind. It is a form of Calvinism that supposes that divinity channels its design upon a corrupt world through the mind of the believer. Just the reverse is truth. Divinity is the conceit that matter doesn't matter. Truth is what belies this.
A figure is not the destiny of history, as the second Heidegger says. Apart from God or the Absolute Spirit, which he explicitly rejects, I don't know what it can be. He didn't know either. In my opinion. What you can't talk about, you'd better shut up or you'll get into pseudo-problems. In my opinion.
Apparently a more informed - better read - "opinion" than that of most Heideggerians (on this thread).
Is this to say that he said to 'be is to exist' and then later said 'be is not to exist' or later said 'I never said that to be is to exist?'
In either case, could you point me in the direction of where either or both were said/where I can find these? And/or other referenced denials?
Audacity is an essential characteristic of knowledge. No Galileo, Newton, Einstein or Bohr would have been possible without it. But audacity should not be confused with irresponsibility. True cognitive audacity exposes its idea to a verdict where it can be either false or true. Audacity is not required when it is said to be true because I want it and let whoever wants me follow me. This is the audacity of a prophet... and Heidegger's. Very little audacity when nothing is at stake.
What is at stake is Heidegger's tenuous claim upon his own ego trip.
Kevin.
At the very beginning of B&T, Sartre famously quotes him in the intro to his Being and Nothingness. I don't remember where he denied it, but it was commonly discussed among students of his. I clearly remember the matter coming up in class, over fifty years ago. The response from the instructor was "he made a mistake". Yeah, and a lot more of them.
We do not fear being dead. We do not fear being nothing. The apprehension the thought of dying can cause in us is to distract us from the terrible weight of the possibility of being real. We will do anything to avoid the thought, and "anticipatory resoluteness" is just the dramatic conceit that we can do this "authentically". Being real is just what we most dread.
Writing is the supreme conceit in that dread. It is, quite deliberately, the murder of language, and poetry is its embalming fluid. "Idle talk" is far more genuinely what language really is.
At the beginning of section #9 of Being and Time, Heidegger makes a nice word game between essentia, existenze, existentia, being, being-present-hand and others that may end your patience. If you resist stoically you will come to know that existence is said and not said of the being of the Dasein because it is not the same existence as the other existence. Well, more or less.
Said in a more natural language, the concept of existence can be related to two types of being, the "being present at hand" of the objects whose being consists in the essence and the one of the human beings Dasein, whose being consists in the possibility of giving itself a kind of existence or another one. Which are those that are properly in the ontological sense because the others are but are not ontologically of the whole. They are ontically that it is a way to be that is not Being.
Well, more or less.
In another part of this book it says that the Dasein is the only being in which his being consists of the existence.
Well, more or less.
If I've said something nonsensical, I can always blame the translation. Or say that I translate as I want and it suits me, which is what Heidegger said about his way to translate from ancient Greek. If it was good for him, why wouldn't it be good for me?
I seem to recall a note in BT in which he says Sartre misunderstood him in "existentia precedes essentia" or "existence precedes essence" but that such a formulation is appropriate for something like existentialism - or something to that effect but would have to look it up. I may be off a bit.
Quoting Gary M Washburn
There seems to be a couple of things going on here - I'm not entirely sure whether this is all posed contra Heidegger, an interpretation or re-appropriation, or a bit of both, but it seems as though it could be teased out/unpacked in a few different ways..
Where's the difference?
In my opinion Heidegger realized that Sartre was drawing his own conclusions from existentialism, which he found unbearable. Sartre was probably using the concepts in his own way. I don't see anything wrong with that. Rather, I find Sartre far more digestible than Heidegger (Leaving Critique of Dialectical Reason aside).
Difference between what?
Quoting David Mo
I don't see anything wrong with it either. From what I've read of Sartre, I'll agree on the digestion as well.
"2. That Being which is an issue for this entity in its very Being, is in each case mine. Thus Dasein is never to be taken ontologically as an instance or special case of some genus of entities as things that are present-at-hand. To entities such as these, their Being is 'a matter of indifference'; or more precisely, they 'are' such that their Being can be neither a matter of indifference to them, nor the opposite. Because Dasein has in each case mineness [Jemeinigkeit], one must always use a personal pronoun when one addresses it : 'I am', 'you are'.
Furthermore, in each case Dasein is mine to be in one way or another. Dasein has always made some sort of decision as to the way in which it is in each case mine [je meines]"
p. 42 (in #9 The Theme of the Analytic of Dasein)
For Heidegger being seems to be radically individualized. Dasein/Existence can't be logically subsumed under a genus. It is interesting to note that Husserl's starting point was individual "targets" (Gegendstand) or intentional objects. In plain "passive" perception there is individual homogenous figures. These are already somewhat familiar and arouse certain expectations. When an experience of this individual object proceeds these prior expectations are fulfilled or not and experience is accordingly revised. Vaguely figurative or known object becomes "explicated" to its determinations. Throughout the explication the appearing determinations are "hold" or maintained in respect to the current object under consideration. They continually individualize or "enrich" the current object. On the other hand, determinations can be viewed also with respect to ontological typifications (this would be the generalizing aspect here). What Husserl describes is the intuitive "pre-predicative" experience prior any "purely" logical operations, that is generalizations, predications, inductions, deductions etc. How Heidegger relates to this? Is Heidegger's point of view that scientifical-logical operations can't be applied to Dasein/Existence at all? Dasein can't be ontologically typified? In this passage (and in the whole B&T) Heidegger is redefining Husserl's conception of the intuitive pre-predicative field of experience? He is interpreting Husserl's basically "epistemological" (theory of knowledge) stance from the perspective of Life philosophy? (Then the explications/determinations don't appear along with the ("kinaesthetically") "moving" or proceeding contemplative analysis (at the object) but along with the moving "living" whereby these determinations become functional significations i.e. they become something that matters or cares us? That is, predicates become non-logical, non-theoretical expressions.)
(I am currently reading Husserl's Experience and judgement which might affect these my "interpretations" (which actually are more like study notes).)
Existentia/ essentia vs. existence/essence.
Excuse me. Apart from the fact that I don't know what "indifference" means in your Heidegger quote, I also don't see what it has to do with the paragraph I mentioned.
For the rest of your "explanation". If we start explaining Heidegger with paraphrases of his lexical inventions and without getting out of his jargon I am afraid we do not clarify much. Heidegger is confusing enough to have to read other interventions as confusing as his texts. I had mentioned the problem of the various verbal games with the concept of "existence" and "essence" and you don't even mention them. Where are we going?
I hope you enjoy Husserl. I have an Oedipal problem with him and I cannot read a single line from him. I've tried, though.
I see no difference - just can't recall the exact wording of the quote/note.
Life is the articulation of the worth of time. That worth is unendurable. There is nothing enduring it is. It is momentousness (as Socrates tries to get Parmenides to recognize). Duration is a space or time or term attenuating moment like a reduction to essence. But when the space of time or term is measured out its full course there is nothing within, and, most assuredly, there is nothing at all akin to its beginning its end is. Only what is of no duration whatever can encompass the sweep of time. Presence is never what that encompassing moment is. But what the ends of time is is a contrariety between the markers of the space of time (conventionally referred to as beginning and end, or some such). But since those markers contradict each other and so cannot be part of the same duration, only the contrariety they share, as much to that duration (epoch, or space of time or term) as to each other, is the encompassing term. But opposites so enjoined in the encompassing moment contrary to the duration term or epochal (would-be) structure of time cannot be identified by any attributes shared within that duration, nor by the contrariety either alone is to it. Person, then, of which “dasein” is a deliberate distortion and neither here nor there, is a dynamic between contraries to the march of time. We are not alone. We need each other, and no god can help us in this save as a straw man supporting the conceit that we are alone and that the aloneness in the 'presence' of that straw man is who we are. But that conceit cannot endure the moment of contrariety we can only together, though always in a contrariety inimitably our own, bring to that conceit.
In the dawn of time, I asked my instructor what “ownmost” meant. His one word response was “crowded”.
Commenting Heidegger's "verbal games" (p. 42): In the traditional metaphysics there is an important basic distinction between essence (what) and existence ("that"). This distinction can't be applied to Dasein (living subject). Dasein's "essence" is its "to be"* i.e. its essence seems to be its existence. But here existence can't be understood traditionally as present-at-hand because this type of being doesn't apply to Dasein's (living subject) being. So, Dasein's existence is Existence and non-Dasein's existence is present-at-hand. Now, Dasein's essence lies in this kind of being i.e. in Existence (not in existence i.e. in present-at-hand). Dasein's ("essential") characteristics are not (perceived and contemplated) properties of the existence or some existing "thing". (Essential) characteristics of the Existence are its possible ways "to be". So, with regard to Dasein there is no "static" distinction between properties (essence) and existence (thing) but instead "ways to be" which somehow "dynamically" "unifies" essence and existence.
* Translation in Macquarrie: "The 'essence' ["Wesen"] of this entity lies in its "to be" [Zu-sein] ."
Original German text "Zu-sein" is translated as "to be". "To be" would actually be in German "zu sein"? "Zu-sein" stresses the preposition "zu" which has certain directness or the sense of towardness or preposition "to". So, "to be" would have certain "intentionality" (or "ways"). Zu-sein is "to be t o (= preposition)".
The whole passage which is in question here (Stambaugh translation would be better):
"The 'essence' ["Wesen"] of this entity lies in its "to be" [Zu-sein] . Its Being-what-it-is [Was-sein] (essentia) must, so far as we can speak of it at all, be conceived in terms of its Being (existentia) . But here our ontological task is to show that when we choose to designate the Being of this entity as "existence" [Existenz], this term does not and cannot have the ontological signification of the traditional term "existentia" ; ontologically, existentia is tantamount to Being-present-at-hand, a kind of Being which is essentially inappropriate to entities of Dasein's character. To avoid getting bewildered, we shall always use the Interpretative expression "presence-at-hand" for the term "existentia", while the term "existence", as a designation of Being, will be allotted solely to Dasein.
The essence of Dasein lies in its existence. Accordingly those characteristics which can be exhibited in this entity are not 'properties' present-at-hand of some entity which 'looks' so and so and is itself present-at-hand ; they are in each case possible ways for it to be, and no more than that. All the Being-as-it-is [So-sein] which this entity possesses is primarily Being. So when we designate this entity with the term 'Dasein', we are expressing not its "what" (as if it were a table, house or tree) but its Being. " p.42
The individual is not an isolated entity. It is the dynamic that at once differentiates us and enjoins us in a rebellion against the continuity of time that would trap us in patterns that cannot be ours together. The individualism that would isolate each one in the face of the oneness of it all is a trope to force submission. Each alone, we cannot effectively thwart the hierarchical distinction between “Being” and beings. But the reality of it is, there is very little such a distinction can do to arrest our participating in the discontinuity time really is.
Do you feel it leads you toward it or away from it? Not much more you can ask for these days really.
It's not a question.
Quoting David Mo
"Falsity" in the sense of being concealed, covering-over, and forgetting.
Quoting David Mo
"Applied to"...mainly in the context of how words are translated (and thus interpreted), yes.
Quoting David Mo
No, that's correct. But if you know that, then how can you be interpreting "falsity" or "wrong" as anything other than a concealment and hiddenness?
But as I said before, I'll gladly capitulate: maybe Heidegger was "negative" about the Western tradition. He says repeatedly he does not mean to sound like he's making a condemnation, but regardless -- I'm not particularly interested in this line of discussion, as I said from the beginning I think it a fairly nit-picky type point. You've chosen to focus in on this point almost exclusively at this point. I think that itself is telling.
Quoting David Mo
That's a great question. There's plenty to talk about there. He has a lot to say in Being and Time about the "present-at-hand" relations to things in the world. This is the "mode" in which he believes nearly all philosophy has dwelled -- by seeing things as present before us, as substances or objects. This is the connection to the "time" part of the title -- that Being gets "interpreted" from the perspective of time. (Namely, the present.)
Quoting David Mo
Yes, but I didn't say that "Being" is restricted (it is indeed everything), but that the interpretation of Being certainly is. And that interpretation has been taken for granted for a long time. This is the entire thesis.
Quoting David Mo
Again, I don't think "realm" or "stuff" are appropriate here. Being isn't a being, and it isn't in some mysterious "realm." It's any being whatsoever. It's the "is-ness" of any thing. What "is it" apart from any individual being? This is the question: the meaning of "Being." Heidegger wants to re-awaken that question.
Neither -- because I don't think there is an "ultimate truth."
You think. Enough to share it. Therefore there is. For you at least.
It is not in Being and Time, but in Letter on Humanism (trans. Franck Capucci, online)
Quoting Heideger, Ibid, p. 250
I understand Sartre and Plato perfectly, but I do not understand what other meanings these words have in Heidegger.
I'm afraid waraala's attempt is not very helpful.
I'm afraid you still haven't explained what the terms existence and essence in Heidegger mean. You vaguely allude to the meanings in traditional metaphysics such as what and that. That can mean anything. I think I understand it because I know something about traditional metaphysics. In traditional metaphysics the essence is the being of something, which makes it what it is. Existence is the absolute position of the thing among other things, that is, in the world. But in Heidegger?
It is not useful that you derive the question towards the Dasein (human being) if before we have not clarified the concept of existence and essence in Heidegger. Neither it clarifies anything that mysterious "to be present at hand" that does not apply to the human being.
Either we clarify the previous concepts or everything becomes a mere verbal game. I put terms poetically expressed and each one thinks about what he wants.
Are you for that task? Or do you prefer to keep repeating Heideggerian jargon? Because if it's the latter, this discussion isn't very interesting.
And all the examples I gave you? Have you read them?
Deteriorated, dogmatic, concealment, misinterpretation, deformation, to destroy our genuine relation to things.
These are Heidegger's words. Are not these terms implying error or falsehood? It seems to me that when you don't want to understand a thing you decide not to understand it. Because if you are not able to contemplate the being of something because it is concealed and you think you know the truth about it, you are not wrong? Isn't false your belief? I don't know any other way to say so.
Quoting Xtrix
You yourself are saying that the term being applies to all things. Therefore it is universal and we cannot find a "scope" that is restrictive. It is not the same as Newtonian and Einsteinian physics, which apply to different fields of reality. The metaphysical error will always be an error about the totality and we cannot say that it is an error for a certain field of objects, but not for another one. Metaphysics is the science of being as being. At least in its ontological sense, which is the one followed by Heidegger.
Thanks for the source/correction.
For Heidegger essence/existence is an historical distinction which has to be "destructed". Destruction means the critical presentation of the historical genesis and evolution of this distinction.
As an extremely general context for Heidegger's approach to this here follows a sketch that I wrote for this thread about a month ago (I added emphasis in bold):
Just read a treatise from Heidegger entitled "Metaphysics as the History of being" (1941) published in Nietzsche II (1961). Good, fairly short exposition of H:s view on the history of metaphysics.
Timeline of the history (of the transformations) of Being: Beginning of metaphysics (Platon - Idea, Aristoteles - Energeia). Medieval metaphysics (Energeia becomes Actuality, existence; idea becomes essence). Beginning of the modern metaphysics (Descartes - Re-presentation; "Subietity" (Hypokeimenon) becomes subjectivity and appears as human subjectivity which replaces medieval god. Truth becomes certainity for subject). Beginning of the completion of metaphysics (Leibniz - Perception, appetition, force, will). (Heidegger dedicates many pages of this treatise to Leibniz.) Completion of metaphysics (Hegel, System). Ultimate completion (= "self-destruction"?) of metaphysics (Nietzsche - Will to power). (Kant was mentioned as "discovering" the concept of object as the "counterpart" to subject. Heidegger discusses Kant more thoroughly in a treatise called "Sketches for a History of Being as Metaphysics" (1941) which can be found also in "Nietzsche"; Key term there is reflection.)
So, quite a story i.e. Being is a complex historical "phenomenon". Being has various ways of be-ing or "essencing" (Wesen, be-ing as verb). Basic distinction in metaphysics is between "whatness-being" ("appearance", idea, eidos) and "thatness-being" (existence, energeia). Being as metaphysics is various combinations of existence and essence or this originally "misunderstood" distinction. However both in relation to hypokeimenon as "subietity" (Heidegger constructs a new term). Before that distinction Being was physis and aletheia (Parmenides - Noein; Heraclit - Logos). Being was something primary and beings something secondary. Truth was still unconcealedness (aletheia). Being was not relative (constitutively) to beings. Was there "beings" at all in the original Being? Heidegger also uses the expression "Bergung" of beings. Beings "are" "recovered" in aletheia (in original Being). - Metaphysics can't think Being because the distinction essence-existence and all constructions based on it "hides" Being (through/in these constructions). Being remains evasive for metaphysics. Only thinking metaphysics as a whole in its historical becoming makes it possible to go beyond metaphysics.
Being is an historically variable complex structure. For example, Enframing (Gestell) is the Being of our modern time. And it should be not forgotten that certain being has always its own truth.
Thanks for this.
I was lucky enough to be introduced both to Plato and Heidegger at more or less the same time. I was intrigued by Heidegger's call for a “psychology of mood”, and, more or less in my school days, found the answer to one in the works of the other. Plato was not a metaphysician or an ontologist. He was a dramatist. Scholars universally miss this. Oh, some pay lip-service to the dramatic form, but not to the dramatic content. What he is doing is portraying the intimation of human character in the dynamics of convictions under the scrutiny of a masterful guide. That human character is the engine of meaning. What our conviction invariably does is to reduce to its least term any changes in the character of that conviction. But if that least change is the most rigorous term of our character in that conviction, and it can only come to recognition under the critique of a careful examination, then that least term of change is who we most really are. And yet, of course, there are no perfect guides, and so we wrangle against each other's convictions, and maybe never recognize any changes in them, and yet what is ultimately undeniable is there is a change in their terms. And that change is the property of neither participant. It becomes ours, and even if no more capable of conserving the terms of our convictions, by becoming ours in the face of a rigorous effort to fend them off, we are intimated the character, and so the person, each is. Time is intimation, not explication.
Physics confronts phenomena that has no discernible pattern. This should be evidence that everything in this glorious universe is unique. Every particle. But only become a calculable or “known” quantity can we engage in the dynamic of conviction and changing character in that conviction. Physics achieves this by reducing the unquantifiable to its least term. It applies calculus, first to round off, and then to zero-out, the very term it claims is its goal to understand. It amounts to keeping the bath-water and throwing out the baby. In the life sciences, random mutations simply cannot explain evolution. Sure, it's a factor, but what life does with those changes is not only crucial, but clearly has an essential impact on the trajectory of species change and development. But we may never have recognized this if the science hadn't got out of the labs full of dead specimens and observed life as it is lived. Philosophy, on the other hand, is still isolating all its terms in a system guaranteed to prevent understanding. But the least term of change rigorously untraceable to antecedent conviction is all we should need to recognize the unique character of person each of us is in the drama of it. Heidegger, of course, is lost in a wilderness of his own convictions and resistance to recognizing any changes in them.
No, there isn't. There's plenty of things I believe are true. "Ultimate truth" is meaningless.
And without context, just that -- words. As I mentioned, from my reading these statements are almost always made in reference to translations of words and how the question of "Being" has been lost. I'd go through each one, but it's really not that interesting. You're taking a stand on this one narrow issue because you apparently have nothing left to discuss.
Quoting David Mo
Substance. Or God. Or nature. All interpretations of Being, and all restrictive in their interpretations.
Being itself isn't restricted to any class of entities.
Heidegger has an entire chapter on this, titled "The Restriction of Being." He goes through four of them: being and becoming, being and seeming, being and thinking, being and the ought. This is how being has been historically interpreted and "set apart" from something else. Being "and not", etc.
Plato was all of those things, and more.
To say he was merely a dramatist is at best an understatement.
Almost all philosophy, except for the most dogmatic positivist, distinguishes between the mode of existence of beings in general and that of the human being. (For example, the existence-essence opposition appears in authors as diverse as Nietzsche, Dilthey, Unamuno, Bergson, Simmel, James, Marcel, Jaspers, Ortega). Sartre: for example, he distinguishes between being in-itself and being for-itself. The way of being for-itself is radically different from the way of being in-itself. In the for-itself existence precedes essence. With this formula Sartre says practically the same thing as Heidegger, who also uses a similar formula several times in Being and Time ("The substance of man is existence," or similar p. 117, 212, 314. Sartre means that for-itself is not determined to be by a permanent essence, but is permanently open to all its possibilities and obliged to pursue his project towards the future. This is the same as saying that he is free. This freedom is radical because what guides for-itself is his project of transcending his present being. In this way freedom is his way of being. It can be said that he is in a constant process of projecting himself into the future without ever being able to stop in any way of being essential. This is the exact opposite of being in-itself.
Therefore, Heidegger misinterpret the famous Sartrean sentence. Most probably he had been too quick to criticize Sartre without having read carefully what he has written.
As I said above, Heidegger also uses the distinction between essence and existence in a very similar way to Sartre. What differentiates his concepts of existence and essence from Sartre's? Nothing. That is, only one thing: the more than nebulous assertion that Sartre, to whom he endorses by decree the same concept as Plato, cannot reveal Being. Of course, neither can Heidegger. All that he says of the Being are metaphors of the type "the clearing of being", "to shepherd being", "the destiny of being", "throw of being", "advent of being", "the house of being", "presuposition of the sacred"... But, in spite of being unable to say clearly what he is talking about, he dedicates himself to disqualifying others because they do not understand the same thing that he does not understand... or is unable to express.
I won't qualify that procedure. I clearly don't like it.
Can you clarify some of what you're saying?
Which translation changes the meaning of misinterpretation or concealment? Because the ones I have in Spanish translate exactly the same.
When Heidegger says that metaphysics has lost the question of Being, what context can change the meaning of being wrong way? If you want to go to Barcelona and take the plane to Singapore, is there a context that explains that you have not been wrong?
Let us pass to a specific context. We can analyze this text of Heidegger and you would have the opportunity to explain that Heidegger doesn't say that Western metaphysics is wrong ant that we shouldn't "destroy" it to regain the true way of Being. (Bold added; italics are Heidegger's).
Do you want?
Quoting waarala
This last does not seem to me to bear on the foregoing in any direction. In particular, I am not understanding how H's distinguishing between Dasein "as its 'to be'" versus beings present-at-hand elicits the trouble in understanding him/referenced passages because (?) "almost all philosophy, except for the most dogmatic positivist, distinguishes between the mode of existence of beings in general and that of the human being.".
A comparison with Sartre would be interesting, but at a glance I get the impression that, for Heidegger, Sartre is still making the distinction between essence and existence, "taking existentia and essentia according to their metaphysical meaning" in the statement "existence precedes essence," whereas for Heidegger, "this distinction can't be applied to Dasein (living subject)." Whether or not H misinterprets S, I don't know.
In that paragraph Heidegger doesn't use the verb "destroy" but noun "Destruktion". Stambaugh translates this correctly "destructuring". Somewhere else Heidegger uses the verb "abbauen" which means dismantling (a construction) and which Derrida later for his own purposes translated as "deconstructing".
The passage continues like this. Bold added. (unfortunately I can't copy and paste from the PDF file that contains the Stambaugh translation) :
"In thus demonstrating the origin of our basic ontological concepts by an investigation in which their 'birth certificate' is displayed, we have nothing to do with a vicious relativizing of ontological standpoints. But this destruction is just as far from having the negative sense of shaking off the ontological tradition. We must, on the contrary, stake out the positive possibilities of that tradition, and this always means keeping it within its limits; these in turn are given factically in the way the question is formulated at the time, and in the way the possible field for investigation is thus bounded off. On its negative side, this destruction does not relate itself towards the past; its criticism is aimed at 'today' and at the prevalent way of treating the history of ontology, whether it is headed towards doxography, towards intellectual history, or towards a history of problems. But to bury the past in nullity [Nichtigkeit) is not the purpose of this destruction ; its aim is positive; its negative function remains unexpressed and indirect."
In Being and Time H. is only vaguely referring to the task of the historical destruction of metaphysics. It would have been carried out in later volumes which were never written. It is no use to try to analyse that paragraph because it only consists of general remarks.
Here is the whole plan for the (series of) book(s):
"Part One : The interpretation of Dasein in terms of temporality, and the
explication of time as the transcendental horizon for the question of
Being.
Part Two : Basic features of a phenomenological destruction of the
history of ontology, with the problematic of Temporality as our clue.
Part One has three divisions:
1. the preparatory fundamental analysis of Dasein
2. Dasein and temporality
3· time and Being
Part Two likewise has three divisions :
1. Kant's doctrine of schematism and time, as a preliminary stage in a problematic of Temporality
2. the ontological foundation of Descartes' 'cogito sum' , and how the medieval ontology has been taken over into the problematic of the 'res cogitans'
3· Aristotle's essay on time, as providing a way of discriminating the phenomenal basis and the limits of ancient ontology." p. 39-40
Being and Time consists of Part One divisions 1. and 2. Note the expression "a phenomenological destruction of the history of ontology."
The point is that time, and reason, is something personal. That is, the dynamic character of thoughtful discourse is the central issue, even of reality itself. The infinitesimal is the pivot around which everything real orbits. But it is itself not part of the mechanism. The least term of time is all the differing it is. Worth is moment, duration is the dilution and ultimate elimination of worth. If duration is being, time is the stranger to it. And the articulation of its worth is the stranger we come to know each other to be to it. Do you wonder why Plato replaces Socrates with the Stranger?
Sartre was a flawed man, and thinker, in many ways, but he was honest and consistent, he just couldn't get past the aloneness the spacial framework of the Post-Enlightenment era. "Under the gaze" was as close as he could ever get to love. By the way, he was, surprisingly, personally affable and deferential, the diametric opposite of Heidegger. And, yes, this does matter.
Notice he doesn't once say that Western metaphysics is "wrong." The question has been forgotten and concealed, and the "orignary" way the early Greeks thought about it has indeed been deformed and misinterpreted, etc. If we want to say that therefore Aristotle, Descartes, Suarez, Augustine, Aquinas, Spinoza, Kant, Hegel, and even Heidegger's mentor Husserl are all "wrong," then we can -- but as I said from the very beginning, that's pretty misleading and, as you've now shown, not in Heidegger.
I have no way of knowing exactly what you're responding to here.
Quoting Xtrix
Quoting Xtrix
Of course, he uses a dozen words that mean the same as "wrong".
I don't know why you say this translation is "correct". From what I've read it's pretty controversial. Not to mention the fact that in the index of Stambaugh’s translation you can see that he keeps the term "destruction". Anyway…
Indeed, Heidegger says that one should not destroy everything in the previous metaphysics. There are partial successes in it. But the error that metaphysics makes is in the key (this is the term that Heidegger uses) of the comprehension of Being. And Being is what is in the base of all the philosophical, political, scientific, technological and poetic thought that is worth for Heidegger. Throughout this section Heidegger comments some cases (Kant, Descartes) of this error and qualifies them very hard. Besides he extends them to all Western philosophical tradition. Some examples from Being and Time:
Etc., etc.
This means that you can translate the term Destruktion as you like. What you cannot hide is the harshness of Heidegger's condemnation of the seminal error of Western philosophical tradition: the "concealment" of Being. This condemnation is the one that implies a second beginning of philosophy that recovers the initial impulse, although unfinished, of the pre-Socratics. It seems to you little destruction?
The phrase you quote does not cause any confusion. It simply points out that there is a philosophical tradition which describes the specificity of the human being in Heidegger-like terms. They all raise the universal issue of freedom.
What happens is that Heidegger is too busy defending his particular etymologies to realize that behind other linguistic forms there is hidden the same content, the same problem and even the same solutions. He seems to believe that by using the terms in a different way than he does the same thing is no longer designated. Because Sartre uses the term essence he does not fall into the Platonic tradition. He uses it just in an anti-platonic sense. As I showed, Heidegger also uses the same term "existence" for similar purposes. Neither is Heidegger too original in spite of his taste for creating neologisms.
You can praise yourself, but I don't think what you say is very "interesting" because it doesn't go to the heart of the matter.
The mistake that Heidegger blames on the metaphysical tradition is to err on the key question: Being. That's why he says it has to be "destroyed". Please read my previous comments.
According to Heidegger, God, substance or nature are not understood without a previous theory of Being. Western metaphysics was perverted because it hid Being under Substantialism.
On the other hand, the law of gravity can be understood without the general theory of relativity. Therefore, Newton could not degrade, nor err, nor hide a superior reality, as Thomas Aquinas or Descartes did. He worked correctly in the field of objects within his grasp. No one is going to destroy Newtonian physics. Scholasticism, on the other hand, must be destroyed as a system.
I view his neologisms as his attempt to speak about something "so far as we can speak of it at all" in an effort to have his "form in congruence with its content," to "let what shows itself show itself as it shows itself from itself." This seems to me to be the phenomenological feature and a reflection of what he means by "fundamental ontology."
Does Da-sein refer to the same thing as subjectivity or subjective experience? Sure.
However, if it's a common word in German, that receives a peculiar sense with the hyphenation, and he's using it both to refer to everyday existence but speaking from and to a philosophical voice, my understanding has been that he wishes the word to carry with it all of these senses not in a deliberate act to confuse or seem profound where he is not, but because what he is getting at, or think he's getting at, loses something (conceals) once it gets settled/'congealed' into this or that concept/objective presence. Perhaps also to take up N's suggestion of experimentation for a "philosophy of the future."
The neologisms might also "perform" the modes of being of the coming-to-be of beings as objective presence - without themselves quite 'congealing' into ready-made concepts. I don't have the text in front of me but the sections on conspicuousness and obstinacy - that give rise to something as objective presence seem to me here applicable to the neologisms themselves - whether he intends this or not, I do not know - but it actually strikes me as fitting.
The endless hyphenation in translation at least I always took to reflect an emphasis on the unity of the terms despite a certain necessity for division "so far as a can speak of it at all."
The neologisms also resist pre-conceived notions as ready-made concepts from others or the temptation to think they are the same or the exact same as what we find in similar thinkers.
In these ways, I would say H stikes me as simple at times, deceptively simple at others.
To be sure, reading the English hyphenations in BT in some sections gets beyond overboard, but then Heidegger himself in the cited video earlier recounts his attitude changed such that as his thought developed he left that behind.
He also agreed with critics and those that have an interest in his work that his effort is simple - or rather simple to begin but hard to maintain/carry out.
I see this as also why he blends the poetic with the philosophical in other writings - to resist the concealing in the elucidation insofar as every elucidation is also a concealing, and to maintain, as tim wood mentioned earlier in this thread, a kind of being "on the way."
That's fine with me. Neologisms can awaken stale concepts when they are sufficiently provocative.
But as long as they are clarifying. That is, as long as they are accompanied by sufficient explanation. This is not what Heidegger does. Heidegger launches neologisms that are confusing metaphors and leaves them on the table so that you and I can understand what we want. At the same time, this lack of definition serves Heidegger to say that you and I have not understood the real crux of the matter. And he still doesn't explain the real crux of the matter.
I have nothing against art, quite the contrary. I often go to museums, exhibitions and cinemas. I read a lot of literature and go to the theater from time to time. I like all this if it's good. I believe that good art fulfills that function of waking up the sleeping soul. It helps me, at least. But I don't think art has anything to do with truth. I mean, I don't think there's an aesthetic criterion of what's true or false. That's the function of science and - in a sense - of philosophy. To mix the two things, is to provoke the ceremony of confusion. Which is what Heidegger did from the first book he wrote to the last.
I find it difficult to explain why so many people find this game stimulating. Well, I think it has to do with post-modern gobbledygook, which has revitalized Heidegger lately. A sign of our time.
Georg Lukács: El asalto a la razón, Madrid 1976; p. 406.
Curious this semi-praise. It should be taken into account.
[The point is that time, and reason, is something personal. That is, the dynamic character of thoughtful discourse is the central issue, even of reality itself. The infinitesimal is the pivot around which everything real orbits. But it is itself not part of the mechanism. The least term of time is all the differing it is. Worth is moment, duration is the dilution and ultimate elimination of worth. If duration is being, time is the stranger to it. And the articulation of its worth is the stranger we come to know each other to be to it. Do you wonder why Plato replaces Socrates with the Stranger?
Sartre was a flawed man, and thinker, in many ways, but he was honest and consistent, he just couldn't get past the aloneness the spacial framework of the Post-Enlightenment era. "Under the gaze" was as close as he could ever get to love. By the way, he was, surprisingly, personally affable and deferential, the diametric opposite of Heidegger. And, yes, this does matter.]
I thought I had posted this yesterday. Overnight I received a notice that you replied..., to what post I do not know, unless it was the one comparing Parmenides to Heidegger. By the way, the word Socrates uses to defeat Parmenides, and Heidegger, is participation. Of course, academically trained sources portray this participation as of the sort of a cog in a machine, or recruit in a body of action thought or style of living. This, because they are readers rather than listeners.
The written word was invented to dehumanize rental accounts, and to conclude obligation in systems of exchange. Later, sovereigns wrote in stone to deny appeal, but did not expect reverence or devotion, merely obeisance. The Bible was written by a group of expatriate Hebrew scribes who, displaced from their positions in the only city in the region fit for such such professionals prospering, created a mythic resource with which to bring to the region, from which they had fled, to use as a means of domination, since they had no military skills. From then on the written word became a fetish for privileged interpreters to browbeat less literate or illiterate supplicants for their wisdom.
I can appreciate how Heidegger's terms can cloud one's capacity for discussion. For anyone seriously studying him I highly recommend an extended sabbatical from him, until one can think in one's own terms. He should be credited with demanding we reexamine fundamentals, but his performance just doesn't measure up to the hype. Being is a verb used to require calculative accounts dehumanized or divested of Socratic participation. As such it “abstracts” from “beings” a persistence in a timeless dimension of..., what? Analysts obviate the issue by reducing being to a cypher, and drop it out of their symbolic representations entirely. Heidegger is forced to be ever more expansive in the calculus of its dimensionality, until we find ourselves in a dimension where navigation is entirely ungrounded in any flesh-and-blood discourse.
Reason requires conviction in the constancy of its terms. But it is utterly absurd to suppose that conviction is the engine of language. It is simply impossible that there can ever be any term in any language that conveys a simulaneity of thought among us. That requires us to chase down all the variances and urge justification for them. The result is intended to be a reduction of differences in the apprehension of terms to the least possible variant. But the real result is to eliminate all conventionally shared terms of any simulaneity of perception between us. We are separate minds and reasoners, and this is inviolate, however zealously we convince ourselves of universals. But the result, also, is a dynamism to all terms. That is, the least term in the intended reduction of variations in our perception is the complete revaluation of all terms, unlimited by any dimension of meaning at all. Heidegger wants being to be a dimension, of which he is the prime navigator. The moment of the differing in which we are more participant to the evolution of the meaning of terms than we are in the conviction of their constancy. That participation conveys more of who we are and of the quality of our reasoning than the conviction of the constancy terms can prevent us from knowing. That conviction is isolating. That participation is nothing of aloneness. We are as fully of it as it discerns us as inviolately autonomous reasoners. But if reasoning requires the conviction we are each alone and yet wins its terms only in a participatory drama in which we are discerned each other nothing alone in it, conviction is always hidden us from each other, and from our terms, and discourse ultimately eludes all dimensions of aloneness, even as it discerns us in ways conviction never could. Nothing is hidden. We hide from each other and then find each other trying not to. Nothing “withdraws” or comes out from “concealment”. That is the view of the isolation conviction is. Truth is not a strip-tease.
I have, and even if I were to agree with you that Heidegger is being negatively judgmental in some way in his analysis, it's hardly the "heart of the matter." In fact it has no real effect on his thesis. If he were as critical of Western metaphysics as Schopenhauer was of Hegel, it wouldn't prove anything. It's simply the only point left you feel competent enough to take a stand on, while ignoring the much more relevant issues -- namely, that it is from the standpoint of time (the present) that Being is interpreted from the beginning of philosophy to today. Whether this is "wrong" or "covered over" or "forgotten" really makes no difference. The question is: is this thesis accurate? Is it supported by historical and textual evidence?
Take it from the man himself (at 6:32):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vcm05b8m6tQ&t=527s
"Firstly I have to correct the question with regard to the way in which you talked about the 'downfall of Being'. For that is not meant in a negative manner. I do not speak about a 'downfall' of Being, but rather about the fate of Being insofar as it hides itself more and more in comparison to the Openness of Being with the Greeks." -- Heidegger
This is what I've been saying all along. The rest is your interpretation, and you're welcome to it. But it's so far from the main issues raised in Being & Time and the Introduction to Metaphysics, that to carry on about it already proves me point.
Quoting David Mo
Your reading of "destroyed" isn't accurate. I think someone on here already pointed that out to you.
Also, "theory of Being" should be "interpretation of Being" in the above context. To talk about this interpretation not being understood without a "previous" interpretation (or theory) is nonsensical. The interpretation of Being as "substance," or ousia, is not "hiding" Being, it's interpreting Being -- on the background of the present moment (parousia) -- time -- which is indeed hidden as the horizon (or perspective) upon which Being is interpreted (in this case as "constantly present," later translated as "substance").
Not to be rude or egotistical or anything like that, but you don't understand Heidegger as well as I do. Your ego isn't letting you see that, which is why you persist with irrelevancies at this point. This isn't a flaw in intelligence -- it's simply that I've dedicated more time in reading him. I can very easily admit that you probably understand many philosophers better than I do, and if I were interested I would want to learn about them collaboratively rather than defend some position on limited information. But that's me. You started with a real effort and some interesting questions, but now I'm afraid I'm rather bored with going in circles and repeating things I've already written.
Sorry, but I really don't see the relevance of this. I have no idea what you're responding to.
This is rigorously disproved by the quotes I have placed above. Your interpretation of Heidegger seems a little "autistic", if I may say so. I mean, you don't listen to the words of Heidegger himself.
Quoting Xtrix
That's funny.
There is no mystical "hidden". But we do hide from ourselves, and with good reason. Any claim of understanding Heidegger should be suspect. But our convictions, and their terms, undergo changes through the very effort we undertake to conserve them. We need others to help us see this, but they are too entailed in their own. What we hide from ourselves is how much we need each other free. Only needing each other free are we able to be foil to each other's convictions, and so by hiding that need from ourselves our convictions alter through discourse and yet enable the conceit of conserving them. But nothing is hidden from us in any mystical sense. It's psychological, if anything, not metaphysical or ontological, nothing really mysterious. The generation and growth of language is that drama. We don't want to see it, not because it's like making sausages (or laws!), but because being too aware of our participation in the growth of language undermines the facile use of it. We become the strangers to ourselves that is too 'proximally' who we really are.
Your way of phrasing things is misleading.
Read the whole paragraph:
Also, "theory of Being" should be "interpretation of Being" in the above context. To talk about this interpretation not being understood without a "previous" interpretation (or theory) is nonsensical. The interpretation of Being as "substance," or ousia, is not "hiding" Being, it's interpreting Being -- on the background of the present moment (parousia) -- time -- which is indeed hidden as the horizon (or perspective) upon which Being is interpreted (in this case as "constantly present," later translated as "substance").
Emphasis mine. It's the question of the meaning of Being that's been hidden and forgotten. The interpretation that's taken for granted, ousia (substance), isn't itself "hidden" -- it is THE interpretation of the West, with different variations over 2500 years.
Quoting David Mo
Ok!
True, which is why I give plenty of textual evidence. This is what the thread is about. If I'm mistaken, I'm not seeing it. Maybe it's just me being daft, I don't know. I'm sure I'm not 100% on everything, but in understanding the general thesis I feel I have a pretty decent understanding, after a year of study.
I don't understand anything. The text above is by Heidegger? If so, it's misquoted. Quotes and reference are missing.
I don't understand either who talks about "the interpretation of ousia as substance is hidden". Is the interpretation hidden? That doesn't make much sense. Can you explain it better?
I think this whole mess you're making is because you didn't understand my opening remark. I can explain it better, if you like.
What I was trying to explain is that Newton's theory is still valid in the terms that the theory is limited. That is, it is valid for concepts defined in the terms of Newtonian physics. Absolute space -independent of time and perspective- perfectly works in phenomenal objects. In this sense, it is still applied with constant success.
You pretended that it was the same case with the theories that are limited to talk about God, substance or other partial aspects of metaphysics, which according to you are valid "interpretations" of Being or partial aspects of it. I explained that for Heidegger this was not true. Theories about God, for example, are not different or partially valid interpretations, but wrong approaches without a correct comprehension of Being. Heidegger says textually that only a previous understanding of Being can lead to understanding of the sacred. Therefore, everything that is said about God outside a Heideggerian phenomenological perspective is invalid (inapplicable, if you want to say so).
Of course, this is not compatible with your theory that all interpretation is valid. Heidegger never said such a thing. Here the key of this mistake:
"Misses its sense entirely"; “Falsified from the bottom up”. Is it not clear for you? What context can change the meaning of phrases expressed so strongly?
No, I was just quoting my entire paragraph. It's not Heidegger, it's me. Hence why no references.
Quoting David Mo
You're the one that was making that claim, not me -- remember? Look:
Quoting David Mo
Now you're agreeing that it doesn't make much sense?
I think a lot of this could be avoided if you just quoted (or perhaps read) more fairly. The context matters.
Quoting David Mo
That very well could be, and I welcome you to.
The analogy to Newton and Einstein was to demonstrate only that because A becomes the dominant theory does not always necessitate that B is "wrong." This is true for theories in science as it is for interpretations generally. Sometimes theories and interpretations certainly are simply wrong. But it's not always the case.
I brought that up in the context of your claiming that Heidegger is making some kind of negative judgment, which I don't see supported and in fact have quoted him directly saying he does NOT mean it this way. This was the only point, and a fairly trivial one.
There are many interpretations of being. Heidegger is not interested in proclaiming them "wrong" or "right." All he does is point out the interesting historical fact that there has been this series of interpretations, which are variations of the Greek interpretation of being as ousia, and that the "question of the meaning of being" has been forgotten and hidden, covered over as a question. He believes this question should be re-awakened.
That's all.
Quoting David Mo
I never claimed that "all interpretation is valid." Not once. Nor has Heidegger.
Quoting David Mo
Here again, as I've said before, Heidegger is talking about translations. When talking about translations, of course he believes that many are simply inaccurate. This is a matter of scholarship.
You claimed, however, that Heidegger thought that Western philosophy (including the Greeks) was wrong. Those are two very different things. Here's what you have said:
Quoting David Mo
Quoting David Mo
Quoting David Mo
Here is what Heidegger says:
Quoting Xtrix
The question of being has been forgotten. The early Greeks (including Plato and Aristotle) still asked that question. It is not a negative judgment on Western metaphysics that it's become concealed.
So your above quotations are accurate, but they only mean that the original sense (or meaning) of various Greek words have been misinterpreted over the years.
Sorry but you don't understand Heidegger. The meaning of words in Greek philosophy is not an academic issue for him. Inaccurate translations are a reflection of inaccurate metaphysics: the concealment of Being. To reveal means truth in Heidegger, concealment is wrong. He expresses this error in many different words that I have included here in previous comments.
You have avoid the fragment that I put in my previous comment, according to which the metaphysical Western tradition "falsified from the bottom up—on the basis of the dominant concept of substance".
I insist: How do you can dissimulate the absolutely obvious expression "falsified from the bottom up"?
I never said that this concealment includes the Greeks. It would be opposite to all my previous comments. I have mentioned several times the "first origin" of the question of Being that Heidegger places in Heraclitus, Parmenides and Anaximander.
No. He never once says anything about "inaccurate metaphysics" or that concealment is "wrong." That's your projection, and it's not in Heidegger. Not once.
The question of the meaning of being has been concealed and forgotten. That doesn't make Descartes, Kant, or Hegel "wrong." This is a childish way of looking at things. But go on arguing it if you must.
Referring to translations of the Greeks. He's claiming their original way of seeing the world -- as phusis -- gets mistranslated and thus the original meaning gets falsified. So what?
Page 2 of Being and Time:
"Yet the question [of the meaning of being] we are touching upon is not just any question. It is one which provided a stimulus for the researches of Plato and Aristotle, only to subside from then on as a theme for actual investigation. What these two men achieved was to persist through many alterations and 'retouchings' down to the 'logic' of Hegel. And what they wrested with the utmost intellectual effort from the phenomena, fragmentary and incipient though it was, has long since become trivialized."
Also page 2:
"...a dogma has been developed which not only declares the question about the meaning of Being to be superfluous, but sanctions its complete neglect."
"In this way, that which the ancient philosophers found continually disturbing as something obscure and hidden has taken on a clarity and self-evidence such that if anyone continues to ask about it he is charged with an error of method."
Does any of this sound like "all philosophers and metaphysics since the Greeks are wrong"? If so, you're wrong. Heidegger is uninterested in making claims about the truth or falsity of metaphysics since the Greeks. There have been many interpretations of Being, but today it's trivialized, concealed, and unquestioned. It's time to re-awaken that questioning, and in so doing perhaps find new interpretations.
If Heidegger ever once stated that Augustine, Aquinas, Spinoza, Hegel, etc., were all "wrong," he'd be an absolute joke figure. Which is apparently what you would like to turn him into. But you'll not find it in the texts.
"Greek philosophy is then interpreted retroactively—that is, falsified from the bottom up—on the basis of the dominant concept of substance" (ItM: 148/207)
Quoting Xtrix.
So what? You mean Heidegger didn't think the forgery was wrong?
Quoting Xtrix
And this?:
This is starting to get a little crazy.
Do you have a special problem with the word "wrong"? Otherwise your position seems incomprehensible to me.
I'll say it a thousand times: his is in reference to translations (which he says at one point always includes intepretation). Heidegger is talking there about how the Greeks are interpreted in terms of substance ontology -- and that interpretation is false. What does this have to do with Western metaphysics being "wrong"? Notice he doesn't say substance ontology is "wrong," he says that interpreting the Greeks this way (retroactively) is falsifying what they "really" (according to him) believed.
Quoting David Mo
What forgery? Regardless, yes he thinks this interpretation of the Greeks is wrong.
Quoting David Mo
I do, yes. This whole line of discussion started with what I admitted was a bit of a nit-pick, but I stand by it still. The claim that "all of Western philosophy after the Greeks is wrong" or any such claim like that is just a misunderstanding of Heidegger. If that's not what you're saying, fine. If you're talking about translations and interpretations of the "original" Greek meanings, then yes Heidegger thinks they're just wrong. That's not the same thing.
Trivial, blind and perverted is not "wrong"... according you. What means "wrong" to you?
In my opinion you are blind to the true meaning of Heidegger's work. You trivialize and pervert it. But don't worry. I am not saying that you are wrong... according you.
This is excellent.
Quoting David Mo
Because "wrong," in this case, is meaningless if you mean in terms of accuracy or correctness. What would be "right"? The Greeks? Well we know that's not the case because, according to Heidegger, although they questioned being they were still very much within the realm of the "metaphysics of presence," which is the basis for the rest of Western philosophy. So if it's not about the questioning of being, it's about the interpretation of being -- so what's the "correct" interpretation? Since Descartes and Kant are "wrong," what's "right"? Heidegger's interpretation? Well, as we've discussed before, Heidegger does not offer an interpretation or definition of being.
So where are we left? Exactly where we were: (1) the questioning of being has become forgotten and concealed, and (2) the interpretation (or "meaning") of being has been taken for granted as something present-at-hand, as a particular kind of being ("substance," mainly). So the question of the meaning of being should be re-awakened and we should begin questioning again, rather than taking it as trivial or "self-evident." That's all. Nothing about "right" or "wrong," no negative assessments of Aristotle or Descartes. Plenty of wrong translations of Greek philosophical words (in Heidegger's view) like "phusis" as nature, "ousia" as substance, and "aletheia" as truth -- but that's all. In relation to the "original" meanings, how they were translated was inaccurate, incorrect -- "wrong."
This is why you won't find "wrong" in Heidegger regarding Western interpretations of being. It's why he explicitly says he does not mean anything negative like that.
I'll call attention yet again to how boring this conversation is. You truly have nothing left to say. But carry on...
Remembrance of the question of being, yes. That's what he's trying to do: re-awaken that question, the question that's been forgotten.
To say Heidegger isn't "down to Earth" is kind of ridiculous. His entire analysis of the "worldhood of the world" emphasizes average everydayness and "ready-to-hand" activities like hammering and opening doors. As for the Greeks, he has quite a bit to say about their analysis of everyday practical activity, if you're interested in reading him.
Quoting Gary M Washburn
There's a lot of debate about why writing was invented. Many believe it was for accounting, etc., but it's not settled scholarship. To make declarative statements like "That is what writing was invented for" really makes me want to ignore you. No offense, just figured I'd give honest feedback. Let's not pretend to know things we don't know and give lectures on them.
Quoting Gary M Washburn
You just don't know what you're talking about, I'm afraid. Please provide any textual evidence to back up these bizarre statements, because otherwise I have no idea what you're talking about.
Again, "Remembrance of being" refers to re-awakening the question of the meaning of being. The question has been forgotten -- we are no longer concerned with or it, we take it as self-evident, etc. Heidegger says over and over again that we all walk around with a "pre-ontological understanding of being," so it's not that there is something "out there" that we need to "remember." This is just a complete misreading if that's what jumps to mind. But, honestly, I think you're just uttering nonsense. I'm happy to be proven wrong -- but with sources.
According to Heidegger, taking up the line of Parmenides and Heraclitus, which is what he was doing. According to Heidegger. Because the path that begins with Plato and continues with Aristotle, the Latin scholastic, Descartes or Kant was a wrong path. You had to start all over again. He calls this the "second beginning". I insist, start, start again.
Quoting Xtrix
Oh,my God!
This becomes boring because you haven't read Heidegger properly and don't want to read what I write to you. Perhaps if you read some of those secondary readings that you so dislike that your ideas go into "the clearing". I can't do any more.
How can we continue to argue if you say that accusing someone of being blind, of degenerating the sense of philosophy and hiding the real issue are not "negative assessments"? There's no way to argue with that.
This thread is about Heidegger. As I said from the very beginning, a pre-requisite should be at least a reading of Being and Time. If you want to give rambling, irrelevant lectures you're free to do so elsewhere. If you want to discuss Heidegger, then do so with sources. To equate this with slavery is embarrassing.
Quoting Gary M Washburn
Quoting Gary M Washburn
Parmenides also interpreted being as presence, as did Heraclitus. This was the inception. They thought and questioned being, but they did so from the perspective of one mode of time: the present. This is not "right" or "wrong."
Now about this point I'm not 100% sure. This is from my reading. But if it's true that Anaximander, Parmenides, and Heraclitus are not within the tradition, that would be very surprising to me. If you can find references to this that I've overlooked, I welcome it. I still doubt very much that you'll find anything about "right" and "wrong," however. Below is a relevant passage about Parmenides:
"Legein itself--or rather noein, that simple awareness of something present-at-hand in its sheer presence-at-hand, which Parmenides had already taken to guide him in his own interpretation of Being--has the Temporal structure of a pure 'making-present' of something. Those entities which show themselves in this and for it, and which are understood as entities in the most authentic sense, thus get interpreted with regard to the Present; that is, they are conceived as presence (ousia)." (Being and Time, p. 48 -- the BOLD is mine)
Quoting Xtrix
Quoting David Mo
I've explained why, many times. I've cited Heidegger saying he "does not mean anything negative" -- many times. I have said before that there is certainly a "wrong" and "right" way to translate words (in terms of accuracy or correctness) -- many times. But you will only find the utmost respect for Aristotle and Descartes from Heidegger. If you want to continue to project your negativity, that's your business.
How the hell can we remembrance what we never knew and what is unprecedented in being? Is "Being", before after all, what reason infers from antecedence? What remembrance the unprecedented? Later Heidegger is pandering to his last and final refuge, the ineffable interest of practitioners of Zen. That is, his later terms of "Being" are meant as a "koan". Shock and awe, not understanding.
"My own original take on the same ideas." First you have to know what those ideas are, and you haven't shown the slightest degree of understanding any of it -- and that's the point of this thread: Martin Heidegger. Like most people who want to hear themselves talk, any discussion that requires real work (i.e., having to back up your assertions with textual evidence, and thus the painful task of reading) you eschew. That's fine. Start your own thread and discuss whatever you want. Personally I think your writing is completely confused and nearly incoherent.
Or you can continue playing the victim by complaining about what a misunderstood free-thinking genius you are. Your call.
Quoting Gary M Washburn
This is exactly what I mean by incoherent. First, is "remembrance" a typo or used in a special sense? Do you mean "remember"? If so, I've addressed this before. The whole sentence is meaningless. For example, "what is unprecedented in being"? What does that mean? What's unprecedented "in being"? What does "in being" even mean? Are you talking about being in general or about beings (entities)? What exactly in Heidegger are you responding to? Where does he say we need to "remember" being? Etc. etc.
Quoting Gary M Washburn
Are you even capable of formulating a coherent sentence? Or is this incoherence deliberate?
Quoting Gary M Washburn
Literally gibberish.
Quoting Gary M Washburn
You don't have a clue about what you're talking about, and it's both obvious and embarrassing. If you wish to learn about Heidegger, stop talking and listen -- or ask questions. You're in no position to make assertions of any kind.
Quoting Xtrix
I think you're mixing up the moral and epistemic senses of "being wrong". I'm not talking about respect in moral sense. I'm talking about fundamental errors in what ontological truth is. Nor am I talking about particular evaluations but a global consideration of the authors' work. I can have a positive evaluation of the subtleness of Plato's language or Nietzsche's sharpness in criticizing the moral hypocrisy of bourgeois society without accepting Plato's idealism or Nietzsche's will to power. Heidegger respected Aristotle and Kant - I am not so sure about Descartes - but he thought that they were part of a philosophical tradition that perverted the question of Being, which is the mother of all questions. Of course, Parmenides and Heraclitus are an important part of the philosophical tradition, but they were not part of this misleading tradition.
Should read:
The act of deciding who and what "Being" is (somehow forgotten or hidden from us) is because we are trying to hold onto it.[/quote]
This is much better, in my view, than what you've said before. But I wonder why you say "perverted the question" -- I think they've simply overlooked the question. Heidegger says Kant basically took Descartes' position on that question, and Descartes in turn assumed the Scholastic framework. So neither really addressed the question at all. That's not really perverting it, it's not even addressing it. By that point the question had been essentially taken for granted as "self-evident," or "God," or substance, etc. You see what I mean? Again I'm nit-picking, but it's important to careful here.
"Being" belongs to any entity whatsoever, including humans. It's the "is-ness" of anything that exists, or that is.
So which one of us is "us" doesn't really make much sense. Every one of us, as individual entities, is just as much a "being" or "exists" as much as that tree or that rock or anything else.
Quoting Gary M Washburn
OK -- references please. Because I've read a lot of Heidegger for the last year and a half and this looks like complete nonsense to me.
Have you read Heidegger? What have you read? Upon what are you basing your interpretations?
Quoting Gary M Washburn
Good for you.
Strange. It is the same I have repeated again and again.
Quoting Xtrix
The answer is in the very texts by Heidegger and his commentators that I have quoted here.
For example:
"The verb 'verfallen' is one which Heidegger will use many times. Though we shall usually translate it simply as 'fall', it has the connotation of deteriorating, collapsing, or falling down". (John Macquarrie & Edward Robinson, Being and Time, Oxford, Blackwell, 2001, p. 42, footnote).
"Greek ontology and its history which, in their numerous filiations and distortions, determine the conceptual character of philosophy even today-prove that when Dasein understands either itself or Being in general, it does so in terms of the 'world', and that the ontology which has thus arisen has deteriorated [ verfallt] to a tradition in which it gets reduced to something self-evident -merely material for reworking". (Heidegger: B&T, p. 22/43)
If you don't like the word "degenerate," you can take "pervert" or " deteriorated". I don't see the difference. Anyway, the word "degenerate" is also used by Heidegger (Ibid, p. 36/61, for ex.). And "peverted" on a B&T quote I placed above.
Why does Heidegger say this? We should ask him. In my opinion, he wasn't clear. But in his words, it seems that substantialism is to blame for this degeneration, perversion, deterioration or fall. Because it turns the mystery of being into an intelligible "thing". And what is understood made it nervous. He was into mystery, poetry, fog and vagueness.
A year and a half! Wow! I may have written more than you've read. I might not be any more impressed if you said a decade and a half. But, keep reading, and keep a sharp eye on how your reading changes over a lifetime. Then maybe you'll recognize what the real question is.
When I say the thrown ball isn't hidden from you I do wish you'd see the important meaning in the image. You haven't lost the ball, you've joined the game, and you cannot make a property of that participation. You cannot anticipate your part in the play. You have to let it play out freely. People who hog the ball often lose their place on the team. Heidegger strikes me as the kid who doesn't like his role in the game and takes the ball away, expecting to be begged for his return, under his terms. I gave up on Heidegger when the Neitzsche series came out. What a hatchet job! For fifteen years I willfully avoided anything Marty, but was drawn back by the Stambaugh translation, which is much more readable. But then most new titles were just rehashed material his estate put out, presumeably to make a buck, from old class notes. Volume after volume came out all saying the same damn thing no better, or more meaningfully, than the first time. So, no, I am not going to go chapter and verse. What you keep saying is vacuous. I suggest you read Plato's Gorgias. There, Socrates keeps asking Gorgias what is it he does. The answer is always some evasion, as if the question is not understood at all. He offers vapid boast after vapid boast. But in the end even Gogias himself recognizes he has no response. So, if you cannot explain yourself except by reiterating the assertion that is at issue, then let me try.
I think it was in his Parmenides that Heidegger says, quoting Parmenides (if memory serves), "Let it not be said that "Being" isn't!". In his Introduction to Metaphysics he does go on a bit about how impossible to talk about nothing, which makes it problematic to ask "Why is there something rather than nothing?" It seems, "Being" is so 'Beingful' that even nothing is something, and everything that is is so devoid of nothing that what it is does not distinguish from all else that is in its being what "Being" is. But this makes it rather difficult to reason or think at all, if by thinking we mean to distinguish between beings, and between circumstances of being, to make judgments amongst them, and, indeed, about what "Being" is. No, it's not really a ballgame, or play in any sense, the stakes are too high. What is at stake is the articulation of the worth of time. That articulation only comes in sudden bursts of intensity or moment. It always leaves nothing, no term in any language, no issue in any life, unmoved and unaltered. And until this is recognizable in a way no "Being" can remembrance there is no worth in "Being" at all. This, because remembrance and duration is not what worth is. What extends in time, or in logical inference, can only attenuate and ultimately thin that worth out to negligible. This, by the way, is the flaw of science, it is dedicated to that reduction of the moment of worth to negligible. If you wish, I could explain how the invention of calculus does this, or you could read "The Analyst" by George Berkeley. But what then is moment and worth, this momentousness that "Being" hides us from? If we think of time as a continuity of duration, and moment as a break in that continuity, we would suppose moment is a nothingness between, demarking a before and an after, and nothing more. But if that nothing, nothing at all, generates a wholesale transformation of every term and circumstance in both its before and after, then it is literally more encompassing than all the expanse of time as duration and of what "Being" is there. And yet it is neither before nor after the moment of it. It is nothing. And even its unendurable intensity of worth, because there is nothing enduring moment is, is nothing but its being neither its before nor its after. But all reason and thought hovers around this nothing, attenuating its intensity to the negligible, and therefore enduring, term. Science (and Anglo-American philosophy) simply runs with the power this neglect offers it, while Heidegger simply denies that discernment can have any impact upon its "originary" term. Time, and truth, is what changes everything. The moment of that change is nothing. Neither its past nor its future. But it is precisely being neither/nor that it is what worth is. Science and Heidegger may go in opposite directions in this, but neither can suss what nothing is, and how much of worth it is. Throw the ball and you're in the game, hold it and your nothing and nowhere at all.
Xtrix,
I guess I'm not getting the ball back. I'm not your enemy. I know what it is like to become addicted to Heidegger talk. It was like rehab getting out of it. And I was helped because I was all along pursuing a strain of thought of my own. If the book is getting in the way of thinking for yourself it's time to put the book aside.
I said I've been reading Heidegger (carefully) for a 1 and a half. Philosophy generally has been a lifelong interest on mine. Try reading more carefully.
Quoting Gary M Washburn
Yes, I'm sure you waded through the hundreds of pages of Heidegger's lectures on Nietzsche very carefully and that was the deciding factor in avoiding him. A "hatchet job" -- excellent critique.
Stop being a child. If you have anything interesting to say, please say it soon.
Quoting Gary M Washburn
In other words, you can't back up anything you say. What a shocker.
I don't believe for one minute that you've read any Heidegger, given the nonsense you've been talking. Secondary interpretations, however -- maybe you've done a little perusing.
So given that this thread is about Heidegger, and that I was clear from the beginning that one should have at least read Being and Time, your incoherent ramblings are welcome elsewhere.
Quoting Gary M Washburn
I suggest you read Heidegger.
Quoting Gary M Washburn
Explain what? You haven't asked anything -- you've simply made incoherent statements.
Quoting Gary M Washburn
This is complete gibberish. "Articulation of the worth of time"? This is completely meaningless, and not ONCE in Heidegger. The "worth of time" means nothing whatsoever.
Heidegger talks a great deal about time as the horizon of interpreting Being, which I can explain to you if you want to learn about it, since you've not read him: Heidegger's thesis in Being and Time is that from the Greeks onwards, "being" has been interpreted on the basis of one mode of time -- the present. It has been called "ousia" in Aristotle, and has gone through variations since then. "Ousia" Heidegger links to "parousia," which means constant presence. It gets translated as "substance." Being gets objectified in the same way we objectify objects in our environment when things break down -- like a hammer. The hammer becomes an object with properties when we're looking at it scientifically or philosophically, in an abstract or theoretical way, which Heidegger calls "presence-at-hand." This same mode of abstract thinking or "presencing" is the mode we're in when thinking theoretically, which is the state of philosophy and science and has been since the inception of Western philosophy in the Greeks.
So it is on the basis of TIME that Being has been interpreted for 2,500 years. TIME, however, has also been interpreted as a being, as an entity -- as a sequence of "nows," as a kind of number line, as measurable motion -- which itself is a present-at-hand, theoretical kind of "being," and so another object of thought. This is not how Heidegger sees time. This very concept also dates back to Aristotle and his essay on time in the lectures on Physics, and Heidegger goes over this in lectures after B+T, in "Basic Problems of Phenomenology" and others. So rather than confusingly using "time" in discussing where this very concept emerges from (which is the human being), Heidegger uses "temporality" instead. Temporality is one way of interpreting what a human being is -- through its activity.
We are caring, willing, feeling beings -- and are always moving towards ("towards which"), on the way to something, doing things now for something later ("for the sake of which"), etc; striving, future-oriented beings with unconscious goals and plans -- displayed through our actions, habits, skilsl, and "average everyday" activity. (Aristotle in many ways has this "right" and you can see the influence on Heidegger.) Looking at average everyday activity phenomenologically (looking at what's hidden), which is mostly ready-to-hand activity (coping, engaged action), we see that human beings are mostly "care" (Sorge), and that "care" is essentially temporal -- e.g., "anticipating" something involves feeling, desiring, and willing, and where we conceptualize "future." It's not only "thinking time," in the traditional sense of "thought" as logic, rules, and theory.
The common concept of "time" is thus grounded in our being, which is caring: "anticipation" can be thought of as the future, as something not yet happening.
There's much more to say about it, but this is a general outline. All of which can be supported with actual passages from Heidegger, and all of which is far more interesting and clear than your unlettered incoherence.
Quoting Gary M Washburn
I don't consider you my enemy, nor do I treat Heidegger as ultimate truth. I have, however, made a genuine effort to understand his thinking -- as I have done with Plato, Aristotle, Descartes, Kant, Schopenhauer, Nietzsche, Chomsky, etc. I started this thread to discuss it with anyone who has done likewise. You have shown you're simply not one of them. I haven't said this very nicely, it's true -- but I'm not always a nice guy. So it bothers you that I say this, but it's still true -- so you instead project onto me that I'm a blind follower of Heidegger, as if in a cult. Makes it very easy to ignore the fact that you don't know the material. Creationists say the same thing to me when talking about evolution -- they make the claim that I've been brainwashed by Darwin. It's predictable and boring.
Either you've read Heidegger or you haven't. It's easy to bullshit in philosophy, but I give no quarter for it here: here, in this thread, you actually have to do some work. David Mo, who I obviously have little agreement with, has at least made the effort to read. You have not. And it shows. Simple as that. Spin it how you will to save face, I don't care.
I refused to read Heidegger for years because of his affiliation with the Nazi Party, but eventually decided to give Sartre enough credit to go ahead and read Being and Time and found that I actually kind of liked it.
I wonder about authenticity, though. I used to be sort of into Jean Baudrillard, but had later decided that there was no such thing as simulated experience. A person who pilots a flight simulation still has the experience of doing just that. Obviously, it differs from piloting an actual airplane, but the simulation of the flight is still an experience in its own right. That might seem somewhat obvious, but I think that it can become pertinent when you consider things like what I can only think to refer to as "fourth generation warfare". A person is capable of waging a war as if it were a simulation because they can establish a certain degree of emotional distance between how it is that they experience their form of combat and what it actually effects. What is the difference between the loss of one, one hundred, and one thousand people when a person can rely upon the cold analysis of engaging in war as if it were a game of computer Chess? I actually think that war has always kind of been waged as such. Men have always moved figures around on maps without any real understanding of what that effects on the ground. The semblance of simulation has always provided people with the requisite delusions to decide upon things like who lives and dies and how.
Conversely, however, authenticity would seem like an antidote to such "bad faith". I can't quite place what it is; there just seems to be something that is somehow aristocratic and Fascist to what he evokes, though. It's as if he thinks that most of the human experience is somehow "inauthentic". It's as if he somehow thinks that someone who purchased an around one-hundred and twenty dollar Fender mandolin isn't an authentic mandolin player because they don't own an old mandolin that they inherited from a wealthy family who had one made from a distinguished luthier. All of the human experience is authentic. A person can act in bad faith, but none of what they experience is any more or less genuine than what anyone else does. I don't think that explicitly states anything to the contrary in Being and Time, but I just kind of got the feeling that there was something all too, how do you say, "Baroque", to what he was implying. That could not really be there, though.
You're right, to Heidegger time is worthless. He is a classic proponent of inhumanism. His idea of “authenticity”: “anticipatory resoluteness”, “Being towards death”, “the unity of the totality of dasein's structural whole”, is entirely a matter of obviating the differing time is through us. We cannot be resolute in that differing because we are not in possession of its completing term. That completing term is not our resolving to be, but the worth our departure from being makes recognizable. When someone dies, we suddenly realize we cannot know our loss. There is no remembrancing it. And there is surely no anticipating even that minimal recognition by others of what worth our being brings to them even as we die. We cannot resolve to possess or even to let be what others become through us. Heidegger's “resoluteness” forecloses upon what others might otherwise become through us upon our departure. His “being towards death” isolates the “resolve” such that only some abstracted “Being” or “Bying” (or some such)—which, by the way, would be instantly recognizable to any Calvinist zealot!—could offer consolation to the human worth foreclosed upon by the structural unity of our “resolve”. That is, as I've been trying to knock some sense into you about all along, there is no structural unity to the momentousness of our participating in the dynamic growth of the terms of articulating what worth time is. Any resolve to be can only eviscerate that worth and deaden that articulation. The act of being is not resolve, but departure, and its completing term is the response, nothing of its own, in recognition of the worth of the departed. In this sense dying is the least aloneness we can ever achieve. But because we cannot prepossess the response, the completing term of our being recognition of the worth of the departed is, we cling to, or “resolve”, always to be. Is being better than nothing? What if there is something rather than nothing only because the only possible terms of articulating what worth time is is that clinging onto being that forecloses upon that worth? If so, reality is an experiment in vacuity meant to supply the setting for a recognition of an otherwise incomprehensible departure. Heidegger's “authenticity” is dedicated to that vacuity and to denying itself that worth.
You're right, not nice at all. But what bugs me is that there is no autonomous thinking applied, let alone any effort to digest what I am saying. It's a crushing bore to constantly have a third party interposed. I can't have it out with Heidegger himself, and I cannot get you to speak for yourself. I am not the one claiming to be the superior interpreter of Heidegger's words. I am trying to explain to you, not what he meant in his own terms, but why he was wrong in any terms. And to get you to speak, and think, in your own terms. It is a very dangerous thing to become a disciple to a dead text. The life of a faithful disciple, upon departure, leaves no residue.
Gurk,
I suggest you go back a bit. Sounds like you've been focusing on his later stuff, “after the Kehre”. But I would stay away from his “Introduction to Metaphysics”, and for goodness sake don't waste time on his “Rector's Address”. Maybe focus instead on his works on Parmenides and Heraclitus.
You might take a look a Herman Hesse's “Glass Bead Game”.
"Falling" has nothing to do with the question of being. This is out of context.
[quote=] "Greek ontology and its history which, in their numerous filiations and distortions, determine the conceptual character of philosophy even today-prove that when Dasein understands either itself or Being in general, it does so in terms of the 'world', and that the ontology which has thus arisen has deteriorated [ verfallt] to a tradition in which it gets reduced to something self-evident -merely material for reworking". (Heidegger: B&T, p. 22/43)
If you don't like the word "degenerate," you can take "pervert" or " deteriorated". I don't see the difference. Anyway, the word "degenerate" is also used by Heidegger (Ibid, p. 36/61, for ex.). And "peverted" on a B&T quote I placed above.
Why does Heidegger say this? We should ask him. In my opinion, he wasn't clear. But in his words, it seems that substantialism is to blame for this degeneration, perversion, deterioration or fall. Because it turns the mystery of being into an intelligible "thing". And what is understood made it nervous. He was into mystery, poetry, fog and vagueness.[/quote]
Yes, the question has "deteriorated" and become reduced to something self-evident. "When tradition thus becomes master, it does so in such a way that what it 'transmits' is made so inaccessible, proximally and for the most part, that it rather becomes concealed." (B&T p. 43)
It's worth remembering what we're talking about:
Quoting David Mo
Quoting Xtrix
I stand by that. You'll not find Heidegger saying that these men "perverted" the question of being -- why? Because they never asked it or, better, they overlooked it. Take this example regarding Kant:
"There were two things that stood in his way: in the first place, he altogether neglected the problem of Being; and, in connection with this, he failed to provide an ontology with Dasein as its theme..." (p 45 B&T)
It's hard to pervert the question when it's become so concealed, so taken for granted, that it's no longer even asked.
"Instead of this, Kant took over Descartes' position quite dogmatically, notwithstanding all the essential respects in which he had gone beyond him." (p 45)
The question of the meaning of Being has been neglected and concealed since the inception of Western philosophy, which ended in Aristotle. Even in Aristotle it was becoming concealed and transforming from phusis to idea and ousia. This is the point. We can negatively judge all philosophy afterwards if we choose, but that's our business. No need to project it on to Heidegger -- he doesn't do this. He's simply pointing out that it's happened. He offers no interpretation himself, and if he did he would hardly call it the "correct" interpretation. Rather, he further points out that all interpretations in the Western tradition have inadvertently made their interpretations on the basis of temporality, which is what we are as human beings. Human beings -- our perspectives, values, interpretations, words -- is where all of this philosophizing comes out of. If we are temporal creatures, then it's fairly easy to see, once it's pointed out, that our understanding of what it means to "be" human, and what it means to "be" anything at all, is filtered through our temporal lens. Kant pointed this out in his own way. In the Western world, Heidegger argues, it's been especially from the "present" that Being gets interpreted -- ousia as parousia (constant presence). "Time" itself has been interpreted from temporality (experiential time, lived time) and has thus been likewise concealed in its phenomenological basis. But none of this has anything to do with accusations of perversion, "incorrectness," falsity, etc. It's simply one way that one group of human beings, 2500 years ago, interpreted the world. If in the present day we want to find new directions and new values, we have to shake off this tradition by recognizing this fact and thus opening new horizons for thinking.
You're dancing on a tightrope.
Your objections to my interpretation of Heidegger (by the way, this is the standard interpretation) are only based on words.
If you want to say that the concealment of the question of Being begins with Plato and Aristotle is not the same that they deteriorate the basic ontological questioning about Being; if you want to say that the failing of providing an ontology for the Dasein is not a fall of the very meaning of Being, you are concealing words with other words. And concealing is the opposite or truth, because unconcealing is aletheia, it is to say truth, in Heidegger's words.
If you want to say that Heidegger's words against metaphysical Western tradition (degenerated, deteriorate, concealing, dogmatic, etc.) are not negative I think we have different dictionaries. And so it is impossible any serious discussion.
If getting rid of does not imply a negative evaluation, tell me which dictionary you use.
(And let's piously overlook the "original" statement that according to Plato true thinking is techné.)
If you are accusing me of saying that Heidegger's negative evaluation of Western metaphysics implies that nothing it says has any value, I would ask you to read what I write. That way we will not get into useless discussions because they are repetitive.
Xtrix,
My instructor was a recognized expert in Heidegger who conducted well attended seminars on him, and Plato, at a major eastern university. When her class tied itself in knots trying to work out what “Being” is she would sometimes forcefully pronounce that '“Being” is better than nothing!' But is it? In fact, she drove herself insane, and ultimately to an early grave, believing that, and reiterating it ever more forcefully. But aren't there times, admittedly rare and very painful times, when nothing is better than something? When “Being” just isn't worth it? If so, it takes courage, honesty, and a great deal of discipline to recognize this. To tell me you cannot see any meaning in my responses is not an argument against me. And it bespeaks an astonishing lack of interest in what you seem to be claiming to be deeply invested in. I understand that you initiated this thread, and expect a certain control over its conduct. But if that expectation extends to dismissing strong counter-views I can only conclude your interest is not as intense as you suppose. Socrates spent his life gainsaying every assertion that he faced. He did so, perhaps, with greater discipline and grace than I am able to bring to these discussions, but he also always conducted himself with a view to bringing his respondent to recognize the worth of not thinking and believing as he had. And never is there any demonstrable evidence he ever intended to supplant the other's view for his own. He had no “teaching”. Sometimes nothing simply is better that “Being”, and as painful as that is to recognize, the changes we undergo facing each other with the truth of this realization transforms all the terms of concourse such that even though we might despair of knowing what we mean, we come to share the terms of recognizing how much more worthy of us that despair is than repeated iterations of the same unbending view. This, by the way, is the subject of Hess's impressive book, and of all the other sources I have cited, which you seem to suppose have no bearing upon the question of the meaning of “Being”. Another resource is a movie called “Cloud Atlas”, in which rebels against oppressive regimes find themselves together over great stretches of time, never really successful in their own time, but ultimately more real and worthwhile together, though never meeting, than any of them is in their own time. Something like this is how recognizing that nothingness is sometimes is better than “Being”, and that our enjoining in recognizing this is much more worthy of us than asserting it can never mean anything, as Heidegger does.
So, if the above is to the point at all, "Being" is and can only be a kind of decadence. And the world is the circumstance and language of that decadence. The quotidian is endemic to "Being". There simply is no enduring what worth is. And so, "Being" always forecloses itself against it.
"Standard interpretation" to claim that Heidegger believes all of Western philosophy, excluding the preSocratic Greeks, are "wrong"? What can I say -- if that's true, so much for the "standard interpretation." Kind of a weak appeal to authority.
But yes, I am taking issue with words. I said so from the beginning. They're rather "nit-picky" but relevant nevertheless.
Quoting David Mo
Not different -- he just never applies it in the way you're saying. As I've gone over with you several times now, there's a distinction to be drawn between translations and the entirety of Western thought. He does not believe the latter is "wrong" -- but rather that an essential thing has been overlooked: that all of our various ways of interpreting being has been on the basis of the present -- and that perhaps it's time to go to the "things themselves" (the cry of phenomenology) by understanding and overthrowing this tradition.
Or maybe Heidegger thinks Plato and Aristotle and Descartes and Kant are all completely "wrong." Have it your way. But there's no evidence of it.
Thank you for this. It says it better than I could have. I read it AFTER I wrote what I wrote above.
Quoting David Mo
He doesn't say "get rid of," he says we must "free ourselves" from an interpretation of thinking that "has its beginnings" in Plato and Aristotle. Just as we must about time. Just as we must about being. Just as we must about truth. Etc.
What dictionary are you using where this somehow becomes a negative judgment? Un-doing and un-learning what we've learned from a long tradition, in order to open new horizons of thinking, hardly means that what was learned is without merit or greatness. In fact Heidegger praises Kant, Hegel, Aristotle, etc., many many times. Odd for a bunch of wrong-headed people who have mislead us for so long, no?
Quoting David Mo
I don't think you're saying that necessarily...but think about it: if they're all "wrong" in their interpretation of being and beings and of time, then what value do they have?
Doesn't matter though, because he isn't saying that in the first place.
I don't understand what "better" signifies here, nor what you mean by "being" and "nothing." So there's no way to talk about it. It's clear you're not using any of these terms in reference to Heidegger, since you've made clear you haven't read him and have no interested in doing so. So your own very free-thinking observations and questions look juvenile to me, in that context. It's good to ask those questions regardless, and I wish you well in your pursuit of them.
Quoting Gary M Washburn
Your writing is incoherent and completely off-topic and, thus, inappropriate. That's what I object to, first and foremost.
Now you seem to be equating "Being" with life, and asking if there aren't some times in life where death is better than life. That's been asked many times by many people, and it's a good question and an important one -- but that's completely irrelevant to this thread. Do you understand?
My interests in Heidegger and the question of being has nothing to do with what you're talking about. You're off in your own world. To flatter yourself by saying you offer "strong counter-views" should be embarrassing. You've not demonstrated the least bit of understanding of Heidegger, the topic of this thread, and have even gone on to say you have no interest in doing so. If you want to share your questions and views on various topics, you're welcome to. Why come here to do so? That's what I'm not seeing and what you're apparently not understanding.
Quoting Gary M Washburn
(1) Your use of "Being" is not that of Heidegger's. Heidegger in fact offers no interpretation whatsoever.
(2) Heidegger never, not once, claims that being "never means anything." That's a completely ridiculous statement, given that you've read him at all. But since you haven't, I suppose it's forgivable.
(3) "Being" is not synonymous with "life" or "consciousness," so why keep using it this way?
Quoting Gary M Washburn
Complete gibberish.
If you don't mind being alone in the face of danger, go ahead. But Gary Cooper only wins in the movies.
Quoting Xtrix
Of course, you don't read what I write.
Quoting Xtrix
Of course, you don't read what I write. Or you're manipulating what I say. That "completely" is an addition from you.
Quoting Xtrix
From Cambridge dictionary of English:
Synonym of free from/of sth. : removing and getting rid of things.
This is my dictionary, what is your dictionary? I'm afraid it's not an English dictionary.
Quoting Xtrix
I think I've explained this, but here we go.
If they have any, it will not be as paths to the truth of Being, guides of the thinker. They will be partial and secondary successes. In the main they are wrong. That's not I who say this. Heidegger repeatedly says it, as anyone who's read only one of his books can be aware.
Heidegger spoke of death as a "possibility of being". So it's better to exist objectively, and it's subjectively better to exist if you have good karma. If we have a cauldron of evil people, to them the world is evil but the real world smiles at their predicament. Fixing karma is a B
Anyway, best wishes.
There is nothing I equate "Being" with because that would be to predicate upon the form of predication. Neither can the form or idea of predication be intransitive. It is a passive verb, or, at most, a part of a middle voice, not an active agent in the real. "Being" is not a pronoun! By 'better', I simply mean more meaningful. or even more what meaning, and worth, is. The only agency in reality is a departure that has no "da" unless what remains is burdened with a responsibility that the worth of the departed be recognized. That departure is the only act of being, and that response is what love really is. There can be no anticipating it or finding it in time, because it is not being there at all. And what does "da" mean? For one thing, it really is neither here nor there, and if context determines for us what we think it means it can hardly be objective. The plain fact of the matter is the more we map our whereabouts the less present we are there. Proximally and for the most part, if I may, all systems of navigation are quite explicitly a means of passing through and leaving, not of being there at all. And if you mean to leave you are not really there. "Da" is intrinsically vague and ambiguous, and vagueness and ambiguity is what "Being" is. The capitalization does not give it agency.
The term "Aletheia" came up at some point. Fact is, Lethe is the river all souls must drink from entering Hades, for forgetfulness. A-letheia, therefore, means, simply, the unforgotten or un-forgetfulness. Scholars are in general agreement that Heidegger's grasp of Greek is bogus. Living language is spoken, not written. As I've said, the written word is the deliberate murder of language, and poetry is its embalming fluid. Everything we utter is unique. There is no repetition possible of the meaning most intimately shared between us. Even if we simply reiterate the same, there is a difference that intimates the fullest meaning of what is said, and the written word steals this meaning from us. Moreover, there is no past to refer to to authenticate that intimation. There is no impending future to appeal to for interpreting it. Every utterance is perfectly itself or it is nothing at all. And every response burdened with responsibility that the worth of that unique intimation be recognized breaks through all the boundaries any before and after could put upon it. That is, language is only inauthentically historical. What is intimated between us is always new and unprecedented. And what comes of this is completely devoid of landmark. It is how we know ourselves and each other. What is not a whole new creation is intrinsically vague and ambiguous. And what would have a future in reference to this is not there at all.
Sorry if I'm not getting through to you, but I am quite certain the fault is not wholly mine.
This, along with every other substantive comment I've made, naturally gets ignored in favor of:
Quoting David Mo
Quoting David Mo
So now you've apparently been reduced to appeals to authority and, as I've discussed elsewhere, appeals to dictionaries. Pity.
You won't find any negativity in Heidegger beyond perhaps harsh critiques of translations -- and rarely at that. Your own projections are exactly that: your own. This "true/false", "good/bad," "right/wrong" way of analyzing history and philosophy is childish and, more importantly, completely misses Heidegger's point. I suggest going back to the drawing board on that one.
But again it's worth pointing out that this is a trivial issue. One you happen to be wrong about and can't bring yourself to admit to, but since you evidently have nothing left to contribute beyond that you carry on anyway. Well, carry on some more if you must.
Quoting David Mo
No, he doesn't. Why? Because "paths to the truth of Being" is meaningless, for anyone who's read Heidegger. Openness of being is the truth, and thus we all possess it, in a "pre-ontological understanding." Being is not an object.
Secondly, "wrong" is never said in Heidegger when referring to the interpretation of being, as I have shown. Never. Not once. Ever. That's your fantasy. I'll repeat once again, for the now perhaps tenth time, so you can selectively leave it out of your quotations: Heidegger offers no interpretation of being. He's talking about the history of the interpretation, the meaning, of being, and the asking of the question of the meaning of being. The early Greeks did ask that question, and it has since become trivialized and concealed. The interpretation of being has been through-and-through Greek, as presence, but has gone through many variations, from the Christian to the modern age. These interpretations are not "wrong," which is why Heidegger never says that, but they do indeed forget the asking of the question and so, at their core, take up a thoroughly Greek intepretation: namely, ousia -- presence.
"In the main they are wrong." You simply don't know what you're talking about. Mainly due to the fact that you want to paint a picture of Heidegger as a person with a god-complex who wants to position himself as a savior of some kind. With that picture in mind, yes I'm sure it's very easy to project onto his writings something like "All of Western philosophy is wrong, in the main." But it's utter nonsense.
Perhaps read Heidegger for longer than a couple weeks.
I never once mentioned agency.
I never once mentioned "love."
"Vagueness and ambiguity is what 'being' is" is more nonsense, so I assume one of your "original" thoughts.
Learn to use the "quote" feature so people know what the hell you're talking about. Otherwise you're a massive bore.
Quoting Gary M Washburn
So far the only coherent (and accurate) thing you've said.
Quoting Gary M Washburn
What scholars? Provide reference to these scholars.
Quoting Gary M Washburn
No, I'm quite certain it is. You keep rambling off topic, and it's boring. If you simply want to hear yourself talk, let me know so I can ignore you. By adding "Xtrix" at the beginning of your post, I assume it's related to me somehow. So far that really hasn't been the case, as you've simply meandered into irrelevancies. You remind me of Harding from One Flew Over the Cuckoos Nest.
Re-read what I wrote and try again.
I think this is exactly your case:
You're a good disciple of Heidegger: you've decided that words don't mean what they usually mean but what you want them to mean. That's why you don't care what the dictionaries and everyone who has studied Heidegger say. Of course, the criterion of authority is not an argument in itself, but there are times when it is useful. It's useful in the face of a question we don't know. When talking about nuclear physics, most human beings have no choice but to trust what the scientists say. When all the experts on Heidegger say one thing contrary to what you say you would do well to meditate a little on your position. Especially when you are not able to present a single text that supports your position and you say it because you want to.
And your whole excuse is that "free from something" is a "technical" term whose meaning only you know. Don't make me laugh. Where did you get your knowledge? If you don't back up your interpretation with commentators' texts or Heidegger's, where does your interpretation come from? Is it a metaphysical intuition?
I got tired of providing you with Heidegger's negative terms regarding the western metaphysical tradition, his interpretation of Haraclitus' and Parmenides' philosophy - which had correctly raised the question of Being ("the way the question of Being is formulated"). I think I must have put here a dozen examples taken from Heidegger's own books. I repeat some of them to refresh your memory, which seems to be somewhat weak.
Deteriorating, collapsing, falling down, inadequately formulated, forgotten, distortions, taken over dogmatically, concealments, baleful prejudice, failed to determine, falsified, misses its sense entirely, falsified from the bottom up, degeneration, blocked, forgotten, erroneous
Wow, there were more than a dozen of them. These are all terms Heidegger uses in his usual sense. They are not his own concepts that require an explanation (if they have one), as it would be the Dasein, to be thrown, clear of being and others. All of them constitute a "radical" criticism, that is to say, in its root, to the western metaphysics, which, according to Heidegger has undertaken a wrong way of which it is necessary to get rid of. Of course, according to your metaphysical intuition they do not mean "wrong". They're just for show.
But you just respond like a litany (mantra, if you like) that they don't mean what they obviously say. But you cannot present a single text in your favour. So this debate is not a real debate. It is pure stubbornness on your part.Probably because you presented yourself as someone who knew Heidegger's work well and this is not true. If you have read one or two texts that you did not understand or did not want to understand. There's not much to present you as an authority on the subject.
That Heidegger did not have a concrete answer to the question of Being, he recognizes that himself. He takes refuge in vague and metaphorical terms like "shepherd of Being", "clear of Being", "truth of Being". But in spite of not knowing what he is talking about, he dedicates himself to disqualifying all the previous metaphysics with the qualifiers that I have collected above. All of them imply that this metaphysical tradition was mistaken in the "question of Being". That this is inconsistent with being unable, after twenty years, as he says in Letter on Humanism, to say anything really concrete about Being is one of the problems of Heidegger's reading, which sometimes has really comical effects.
You started this thread by saying:
Quoting Xtrix
You don't look like you've demonstrated that much knowledge of Heidegger to me. Actually, almost nothing. I think the two months I've been reviewing Heidegger has been more productive than your whole life as a Heideggerian. I've presented at least ten times more Heidegger's texts here than you have. A clear indication.
If you mean he doesn't offer any coherent interpretation, fine. But that doesn't stop him from attributing to Being a number of powers that go beyond the natural. That has nothing to do with the pre-conscious understanding of being that he says we have. If that comprehension were enough to understand what being is, Heidegger would not have written the amazing amount of pages he did. As he says in Being and Time, Being must be explained beyond the intuition, because the existing explanations have hidden the truth of Being. It seems that he devoted his whole life to that. With very little success, as he himself admits. In that I give him the reason. His interpretation is just talk. Or bad poetry, at best.
Not off topic at all. Just not within the limits you arbitrarily set. Agency is the issue. And love is the discipline needed to find the answer. Good and evil and just neutral change come into the world through us. But we cannot be permitted to know this because it is not real at all unless our being departed it invests others with responsibility that what worth that departure is lost to them is recognizable. That responsibility is what love is. It cannot be unilateral. It cannot be alone, or even the one it would be if “Being” were “world historical”. But if the structure of the act of being and the response of love cannot be known or possessed, and so not received any reward for what worth that act is, this bereavement of possession of our “ownmost being in the world” (or some such) also spares us knowing what evil or mediocrity we bring to it either. And so we invent and promote ontologies and metaphysics that ratify our being spared responsibility. And so sparing ourselves that participation in the changing of the world, we erect structures promoting and sustaining the suppression of the dialectical participation between the act of being departure is and the response of the worth of time love is. That suppression is the essence of elitism. And “Being” is its most persistent and most weaponized term.
The elderly often find themselves strangers to their world. This is not because they have not kept up with technology. It goes much deeper than techno-babel ever could. It is because they have spent a lifetime taking part in the nuanced changes in all the terms of everyday life. And yet, if the language so produced, or at least re-calibrated, is to be real at all, and really intimate the meaning of our lives as much as we are able to share in this, we must be kept from knowing our part in it so that the world can be free to respond with its burden of responsibility that the loss we are to it, upon our departure, be recognizable of its worth. That is, as loss. Loss and love is the central dialectic of the real. Yup. Really. And I can prove it. But not in your feeble terms. But, you see, nostalgia for a lost greatness or purity is just a specter or shade of the only completeness time is as that dialectical dynamic between loss and love is. Heidegger is hardly original in his style of wrecking love. It has been the favored ploy of unjust elites from time-immemorial. That is, they use something like “Being” to absolve themselves of responsibility and to turn their backs on the worth of what is lost to the world that is not of their own doing.
In a non heideggerian context how would you explain
your idea?
"Everyone who has studied Heidegger." First of all, I've studied Heidegger. I care about my own reading of him, yes. More so than secondary sources. If they have evidence, I'll gladly hear it. You certainly have not provided it. Secondly, "everyone" is a sweeping generalization with no basis in fact. Dreyfus, Carmen, Blattner, Kelley, etc. etc., hardly agree with your assessment.
Quoting David Mo
Again, see above regarding "all the experts." But not only does the text not support your assertion, neither do the experts.
And I've quoted MULTIPLE texts that demonstrate exactly the opposite of what you're saying. I even linked you a video from Heidegger's own mouth about how he "does not mean by that anything negative." I suppose that was ignored, which isn't surprising.
Quoting David Mo
It comes from Heidegger's text, which I've quoted dozens of times. Of course he's arguing we should free ourselves from the tradition. That's not in question. What's in question is your taking that to mean the history of philosophy is somehow "wrong" in Heidegger's eyes, and yet haven't "presented a single text that supports your position," not surprisingly -- because he never says it. Your "deducing" it from the text is your own business. I've provided plenty of explanation as to why that's not the case -- which you've (also not surprisingly) ignored. That's also your business, not mine. If you care to learn, then learn to listen. If you care to pretend to be an expert out of ego, then do it elsewhere.
Quoting David Mo
And I get tired repeatedly telling you that these terms pertain to translations of Greek words, not to what you're claiming. If you still don't understand that, that's also your problem, not mine.
Quoting David Mo
Yes, and which ones are referring to "Western philosophy", exactly? Don't bother, I already know. See above.
If you want to believe that listing a bunch of words, without context, lends credence to your claims that Heidegger believes the Western interpretations of being have been "wrong," you're welcome to.
"Firstly I have to correct the question with regard to the way in which you talked about the 'downfall of Being'. For that is not meant in a negative manner. I do not speak about a 'downfall' of Being, but rather about the fate of Being insofar as it hides itself more and more in comparison to the Openness of Being with the Greeks." -- Martin Heidegger
Again, the above quotation is Heidegger, not me. What do you make of it? Is he simply confused? True, maybe you, in your extensive study, understand Heidegger better than me -- and better than Heidegger.
Quoting David Mo
Let me try this way. If Western metaphysics is "wrong" -- then what's "right"? Parmenides and Heraclitus? What were their interpretations of being? They certainly asked the question -- but so did Plato and Aristotle. Where is the textual support for this assertion, if in fact this is what you believe?
Quoting David Mo
I have provide multiple texts in my favor. But if I were using your method, I'd simply pick "positive" words from Being and Time and make a list of them, context-free.
So far all you've proven is that you can list words that Heidegger uses. You've had several opportunities to show where he says the interpretations of being are "wrong." Where? I'll give you another shot. But I won't hold my breath, because there are none. You've taken other words, like "falsified from the bottom up" (pertaining to translations, as I've repeatedly 100 times), and claimed it as proof that the tradition is "wrong," which is never said. That's all you've done.
Quoting David Mo
The stubbornness is with you. I've said from the beginning it was a nit-picking point, said numerous things which are far more substantial (and even re-posted them to get it back on track), and yet you've focused, laser-like, on this one narrow and boring issue. The fact that you refuse to understand it, "stubbornly," is your own issue. The fact that I won't let it slide, even something as trivial as this, is what's truly bothering you -- but I do so repeatedly because it's simply incorrect. You should be adult enough to see it. But you won't, because you want to believe you're an expert in something you're not. As I've been very honest about: I know Heidegger better than you. It's not because I'm smarter, it's because I've spent more time reading him. You refuse to accept this and learn from me. That's also your business.
Quoting David Mo
I never said I was an authority. But do I understand Heidegger better than you? Yes, and it's clear to me. It'd be clear to Heidegger scholars as well.
Quoting David Mo
Not my whole life. The spring of last year until the present I've been carefully and seriously reading Heidegger. I have well over a dozen books. I've listened to many lectures as well.
You don't really think that, and you know it. Your ego is just getting the best of you, and now you're regressing into a childlike tantrum. Carry on if you must, but I suggest not letting emotion get the better of you.
It's also ironic that the person accusing me of not understanding Heidegger has admittedly read far less, and has very explicitly started from an approach of debunking/refuting rather than attempting to understand (which has consistently lead to false, speculative, and unsubstantiated claims, both about what Heidegger says and about his character).
_________
To recap. Your claim is that (1) Heidegger believes Western philosophy (since at least Parmenides and Heraclitus), in the sense of its interpretations of being (since ousia), is "wrong" ("in the main").
It's a simple claim, and it's simply wrong. Heidegger does not say this, nor does he believe it. In fact, as I've quoted above, goes out of his way to say there is nothing negative meant in his assessment. These interpretations are not inaccurate or incorrect -- in fact these terms don't even apply. They are simply historical facts (as he sees it). What you've given as examples are related to translations, mainly of Greek words (e.g., aletheia, logos, phusis, doxa, etc), which Heidegger indeed believes are wrong, inaccurate, and incorrect. You take these and conflate them with (1) above. That's simply not the case.
Here's an example of why you go awry (emphasis mine):
"There are various ways in which phenomena can be covered up. In the first place, a phenomenon can be covered up in the sense that is is still quite undiscovered. It is neither known nor unknown. Moreover, a phenomenon can be buried over. This means that is has at some time been discovered but has deteriorated [verfiel] to the point of getting covered up again. This covering-up can become complete; or rather--and as a rule-- what has been discovered earlier may still be visible, though only as a semblance. Yet so much semblance, so much 'Being.' This covering-up as a 'disguising' is both the most frequent and the most dangerous, for here the possibilities of deceiving and misleading are especially stubborn." -- B&T, p. 60
So there you go -- I've highlighted a bunch of "negative" words for you. If you truly believe, given what he's talking about here, that it relates to what you're claiming -- as I anticipate you will -- then you're completely off track.
But carry on.
No, he offers no interpretation period.
As for "attributing to being a number of powers that go beyond the natural," what are you referring to? There's no way Heidegger "attributes" anything to Being, because being HAS NO attributes. It has no properties. It has no traits. It is not even an "it." Being is not a being. It is not an object. It is not an entity.
This is elementary in Heidegger. But feel free to explain. What, in your opinion, is he "attributing" to being?
Quoting David Mo
"Being must be explained beyond intuition." Again, this really goes against everything Heidegger writes.
Being is interpreted as presence in the Western tradition. That has become self-evident and unquestioned. Heidegger wants to re-awaken the question again, through phenomenology (basically the analysis of what's "hidden") of our existence and through the "deconstruction" of the history of Western thought. Where do attributes and explanations come into play?
The limits I set is that this thread is about Martin Heidegger's philosophy. That's not arbitrary, it's the topic I chose. Are we free to talk about life on Mars? Sure. But that's off topic. Likewise, nearly everything you've said is off-topic -- and both incoherent and boring, to boot.
I'll skip the rest.
What a pity! What a waste of time!
Quoting Xtrix
I had the patience to seek out your contributions to the debate. You have quoted Heidegger 11 times (including a Youtube). I have quoted Heidegger 32 times. Your quotes are generally short (two lines) and do not relate to the question. My quotes are usually larger (several lines) and ever centred. You say I made a list of words out of context. You see that's not true. I made the list as a summary. My quotes are presented in full, not like yours. And at least they refer to the subject, which is not the case with yours, as I will explain below.
Quoting Xtrix
[Quoting Xtrix
In this quote your lack of understanding and inexperience about Heidegger are simply obvious. You quote a Youtube, a short interview with Heidegger. Someone who knows Heidegger would have presented other texts by Heidegger where he deals with the subject more deeply. Here he limits himself to a few unclear words.
Nowhere in the interview does Heidegger talk about the topic we are discussing. You are not aware of this. Therefore, his quote refers to the fall of Being. But we are talking about the failure of Western metaphysics. Not of Being.
Quoting Xtrix
Quoting Xtrix
I don't think Heidegger said anywhere that the "interpretations" of Parmenides and Heraclitus were correct. I believe that what he says is that the correct approach to Being was made by Parmenides and Heraclitus. One can say that they were in the right direction or that they unraveled the root of the problem. "Interpretation" is not the right word, I think.What was wrong was the interpretation of its key expressions by the later tradition. You put the question of translation on the back burner. No, not at all. Language is the "house of being" for Heidegger (Letter on Humanism p. 253,.) Any concealing or downgraded translation of Heraclitus and Parmenides in terms of substantia meant the loss of the right way of understanding Being. And this is what Plato and Aristotle did first, and the Western metaphysical tradition after them. That's why they falsified the whole (bottom up) question of Being. And this is the context.
Quoting Xtrix
That is why Heidegger says that it is destiny, the key to being saved, that it is revealed or hidden, that it dwells in the languge, that is the truth, etc., etc. Of course, that's not having properties. I suppose Heidegger calls it something else, proclaims it to be the "true" meaning and is so calm. Privileges of quackery jargon.
I, however, think that when someone attributes a property to something, he is talking about property. Of course I speak everybody's language and Heidegger is far above humanity.
Quoting Xtrix
Leaving aside the fact that here another subject is raised that is not Western metaphysics. the text you quote would work against your argument! Or is being dangerous not negative?
Heidegger thought he had cracked the enigma of induction. The problem of how we achieve or receive completed thoughts and terms when mind operates entirely by reduction. That is, by taken as given a concept or term that we then derive further inferences from by slicing away what does not belong to it. The problem with the solution of “Being” is that it requires a special heritage that cannot be regained once lost. It also obligates its future to its past. That is, the only trajectory of this mode of “induction” is the revival of something “originary”. But in reality, the future must be so unbeholden to its past that emancipation from it is the only presence. This, of course, is enough in itself to refute the entire project Heidegger has undertaken. He obviously knew this, that is why he kept cropping up with new spellings. No doubt, had he lived, there would be “Byong” “Byung”, “Bying” and “Byang”! The fact is his thesis boils down to a reduction of being to the universal quantifier, 'the oneness of it all'. But reason still operates reductively, by the enumeration of that oneness into its parts. But even if “Being” is the prime enumerator, as it were, this still leaves us with the question: how many is it? How many is one? May seem an impertinent question, but it underscores the enigma between one and many that philosophy has been tripping over since Thales. And only Socrates and Plato had anything really to offer. But their solution requires us to value the personal character of our changing convictions and their terms, and philosophy, especially in the Christian Era, is dead set against this. I could go on, but I fear Xtrix would fiercely object. I will just suggest that money was invented to put an end to human investment in each other. Once the fee is paid and the transaction complete, we need pay no more heed to each other. Money does this by quantifying human effort and dehumanizing value. Prior to this people engaged in exchanges that were never complete, and so kept its participants in an endless revaluation of each other and what of value is outstanding. Put an end to that and societies inevitably diverge, segregate, and suffer disparities of valuation, disparities ratified and secured by the motive any government has to protect its currency. That is. The quantifier in exchanges makes the public sector shill to private avarice. I could go on, but it might be more appropriate to take this elsewhere. I've never opened a topic, but if you would like to just give me a heads up, I don't go online regularly.
Xtrix,
I think a lot of readers would say it was Heidegger who is from another planet. But, no, he was part of a tradition which he both parasited upon and abused. If you do not know the difference between induction and reduction you don't know enough philosophy to read any of it at all. Mind is far vaster place than you seem comfortable with. Whatever.
I gave you a statement: “Every utterance is unique.” What do you not understand in this? I must confess, I mean “unique” in the strict sense. If “Being” is as Heidegger claims, what is unique is either what “Being” is, or it is nothing at all. As Goethe claimed, you can't be hammer and anvil too. But if presence is a future emancipated from its past, then the unique is the emancipator that is the only presence. Presence, that is, because the future can only remembrance that unique act in contrariety to the stricture of its past in recognition of the value that emancipation is to it. It's a simple enough question, then, do you understand what uniqueness really is, and why it is conclusive proof Heidegger made a hash of everything he turned his mind to?
Again, you don't know Heidegger well :
For example:
And:
The "right way." It's almost laughable to put it like this.
Your thesis: Parmenides and Heraclitus had it "right" (though we're not sure what the "it" refers to), and those after them have it "wrong." Excellent analysis. But not once in Heidegger. Which is why in all of your 32 references it's not once claimed.
Quoting David Mo
You don't have a clue about what you're talking about. Again. Quite boring.
Now it's simply "quackery jargon," which you believed from the beginning, prior to your very thorough and open-minded two-week investigation into Heidegger. Again, excellent analysis.
"The Being of entities 'is' not itself an entity." -- B/T, p. 26
Objects and substances (beings) have properties. Being has no properties. What you referred to above is ridiculous -- he never refers to being as a "destiny" as though this a property of some kind, that's competely meaningless. You're confusing being and beings. Beings are revealed or hidden. Heidegger discusses this a lot. Of course, you have to read him first.
Quoting David Mo
I anticipated this, and even said so:
Quoting Xtrix
Kind of funny. Thanks for proving my point.
You really do live in your own world, don't you? I haven't come across someone so delusional on this forum yet, so thank you for providing that experience.
No, you weren't clear. Notice he doesn't once mention "intuition," which is a loaded term. If by "intuition" you're referring to the "pre-ontological understanding of being," then yes -- we shouldn't simply accept that understanding, and should raise the question of the meaning of being again. Fine. Be more clear next time.
Where does he "attribute to being" powers "beyond the natural" here? That's not what this passage says at all.
It's hard to attribute anything to Being, since being "itself" has no attributes. You keep wanting to think it's "God," or a mysterious "force," or something like that. But that's a tired, common reading of Heidegger. Completely untrue, to boot. He says nothing whatever, including in your irrelevant quotation (number 33, congratulations), about "powers of being." Being has no "powers." This is more of your own imagination.
How anyone could think, even after reading the little of Heidegger you have read (haphazardly, with the intention of confirming prior beliefs), that he says that Western metaphysics is "wrong," that the early Greeks were "right," and that being has properties, including "powers beyond nature," is pretty surprising. You've added this on yourself -- again, because you made up your mind a long time ago about Heidegger. It's a pity that this mentality blocks your understanding. I'd say "keep reading," but that's pointless -- and I should have realized that from the beginning.
Let me save you further trouble: Heidegger is a mystic and a charlatan who wanted to be the philosopher-savior of the Western world. And a Nazi to boot. He can rightfully be ignored, especially since he gave up on his project later in life.
There. Now you don't have to further burden yourself with this guy.
A property is nothing more than an attribute, a quality, like the ability to do something. If you say that X is y or that X possesses y, y is the property of X. Although Heidegger denies that Being is an entity like other entities, he attributes certain properties to it. For example: Being comes and Being is destiny. "Advent", which is the expression that Heidegger uses, means to arrive. Advent is an unusual archaism that today is used almost exclusively in the Christian liturgy to speak of the coming of Christ (so much so that my automatic corrector immediately puts a capital letter in front of me: Advent). That advent of Being is the destiny that governs history. Notice that it is not beings that rule that destiny, but Being, which as such is placed as something different and above them. That is, supernatural.
Therefore, despite Heidegger's statement that Being is not God, he speaks of it in such a way that one cannot conclude but that it is a kind of divinity. Perhaps not a personalized god, but an entity of supernatural powers.
Quoting Xtrix
When you don't know what to say you resort to the supreme resource of the loser: the word "wrong" or "intuition" is not in the text.
Please, we have already discussed this. I seem to remember that on some occasions he does use that word, but this is not the case. Heidegger does not usually use the word "wrong". He uses at least a dozen words that have the same meaning. And I'm not going to repeat them because that's getting boring. You refuse to accept - I suppose if you understand - that to accuse someone of being blind or corrupting the matter is to be wrong. It really is not my problem and I am not going to go back over it.
And the same goes for intuition.
Well, you're laughing at Heidegger himself.
It is clear from this text that the Greeks had a knowledge of truth that was later lost. That knowledge of truth is something like a way or pathway that was blocked. That this path was the right one and to which we must return Heidegger says so until he gets tired. It's absurd to have to repeat it so many times.
No, he doesn't. Nor does he interpret or define being.
The "destiny of being" is meaningless until the context is provided. To believe Heidegger is treating "being" as an entity, or a being, and attaching a "destiny" to it as a property, is simply a mistake. Thinking being, interpreting being, etc., has a destiny -- Dasein has a destiny, and is historical. This is all related to his idea of time. It has nothing to do with an object with properties, which goes against everything he writes.
Quoting David Mo
So now being is supernatural, according to you. "Different and above" beings? This makes no sense whatsoever.
Since being is not an object or a being, it is not "different and above" beings. The fact that any being is implies being. Another way to say it: Being (capitalized, for no reason) is the is-ness of any thing (any being) at all. You're continually getting confused about this. There is no set of "things" in the universe or nature and then Being, which is somehow "outside," "above," or "beyond" it all. If this is what comes to mind, it's a mistake.
Quoting David Mo
Almost laughable. Stop reading secondary sources. If you want to pretend Heidegger is essetnially a crypto-Christian, that's your business.
Quoting David Mo
Exactly.
Quoting David Mo
Someone? Who? Descartes? Kant? Aristotle?
Once again: translations have been wrong, or in error -- the way of Greeks understood beings (phusis) has been mistranslated and therefore misunderstood, corrupted, etc. That is far different from saying "the Christians were wrong and Parmenides was right," which is exactly what you want to interpret Heidegger as saying. "In the main." And you're wrong.
Quoting David Mo
Before even reading your quote, based on past behavior, I can predict that it will not contain anything like what you wrote above. Let's see...
Exactly.
Quoting David Mo
It's absurd that you misinterpret this in such a way.
Here he is talking about truth as aletheia, which the early Greeks had and which we've lost. Why? Because our understanding of truth is much different, and phenomena get interpreted as something present-at-hand (one line above the cited passage).
The Greeks did not have "knowledge of the truth" as if there's truth "out there" to be known. Truth is unconcealment, an emerging (phusis). Later it becomes a matter of logos as assertion, as correct propositions and correspondence of that which is present-at-hand. None of this has anything to do what your claim that the Greeks had the "right way of understanding Being." Being is not even mentioned here -- the issue is truth and the analysis of the "traditional conception of truth" and its derivatives.
He does interpret it, but he doesn't Interpret it. :wink:
That's funny.
I really wish I could read it all in German!
Quoting Xtrix
Let us see:
(I have highlighted in bold letter some words that may help you understand what you seem unable to understand).
For Heidegger (except in his last phase of his life, which is not that of the text we are commenting) truth is revelation (aletheia). And the opposite of truth is concealment. The primordial truth is the truth of Being. That “primordial” means Heidegger's idea that Being can only be understood through what is everyday and "close" to us. That is not a subjective truth. It is the knowledge of something that is there. As the text clearly states, the early Greeks had an understanding of that truth in contrast to those who began to hide their ontology. Aristotle is mentioned in the text, although elsewhere Heidegger situates Plato as the first to begin the concealment. In this sense, the Aristotelian metaphysics and its consequences in all the western metaphysics are blind to the truth of Being.
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 p. 11/31; italics by Heidegger)
And that's why I asked you what it means to be blind to one thing. How can a philosophy that's blind to the most fundamental be "correct"? What the hell do you think it means to be blind?
I wish, instead of beating around the bush, you'd answer this. And if you bring up your famous contexts, to explain what context might be there that makes being blind “correct”.
For a person who has spent many years studying Heidegger, you make primary mistakes. According Heidegger, present-at-hand is a deficient or secondary mode of knowledge. To put it as an example of “correct” knowledge is a macroscopic error on your part.
Unsurprisingly, you did not respond to my question. Uniqueness cannot exist in a Heideggerian world. Does an anomaly mean anything at all? Not alone, surely, but if other anomalies also tend to undermine the prevailing pattern, then either alterations emerge in that pattern as it tries to preserve itself, or they mount against it to eventually overthrow it against whatever forces are arrayed around that attempted preservation. But if each anomaly is really such, unique, then no pattern can ever emerge to sustain the changes it brings to “Being”. How, then, do anomalies to that pattern energize the production of changes in the pattern? A contrariety between unique beings as contrary to each other as to the prevailing ways “Being” presents itself is not only opportune to the recognition of the uniqueness of each, but to the continuous and revolving alterations of “Being” such that the community in contrariety against the dominance of “Being” over our perceptions becomes the language of our knowing reality. Only the trees are real, the forest is a construct, largely arbitrary, that each tree in the forest participates in generating by falsifying it. Or, again, a friendship is what it is precisely because each participant in it is actively determined itself not what that friendship is. That departure is uniqueness, the kind of uniqueness that generates all that is real. The patterns of “Being” that would be “originary” to it are a complete and utter fraud in the face of such reality. The most powerfully real “presence” is responsibility of recognition departure, the act of being not in any sense 'present', is left us with.
“Care” is arbitrary. It is not only that there is no 'why?' to it, but that in taking it up as the locus or motive of “Being” it is quite deliberately suppressed any possible recognition of the worth that is far more real, and the only possible meaning to the question.
We are a community in contrariety. You might have to explore rather more philosophy to know what that means. There is a context to Heidegger's work. If you deny all context to his words you cripple your reading of him. No author is clairvoyant. He retains meaning he is not necessarily conscious of, and derives his meaning from his wider context, not necessarily hidden, but nonetheless not presented to us in his texts. He was a student of Husserl, who had developed an updated version of Hume's patterns of perception, in a structure he called 'epochal'. I use 'intuition' to convey something of this perception, or, as I recall, 'a-perception'. It is, in my view, a necessary amalgam of reason and experience, but riddled with contradiction. Reason and perception do not operate by the same rules, and actually confute each other. Heidegger's 'presence' is a version of this epochal vision. It states that only what persist in being is, or teaches of, what “Being” is. There is no place in it for the uniqueness departure is.
Do you know any biology? An organism is comprised of vast numbers of cells. All the DNA can do is supply a pattern for the replication of proteins. The fact of the matter is that the completeness of the organism is that each cell in it is differentiated, not replicated, its place and role within it. Some cells deliberately die off. Are they being told to do so? Is there some sort of black-balling club that gangs up on them? Or is there something more worthy of them in the opportunity that departure brings to the whole? If every time a cell divides it introduces difference between it and all other cells, difference opportune of further differing for itself and all other cells, then it is not some preexisting pattern or 'originary' plan, but the capacity of each cell to respond with differentiation of its own conducive of a more worthy wholeness that makes it a life. A life most complete and worthy in departure. I could go into quantum, and show this dynamic there, and maybe even cosmology. I certainly can show its dynamic in human societies, but dogmatists like yourself generally deplore anything human in their ideas. But, as ever, the crux is the response not limited to its prior patterns of perception.
Says the person who doesn't understand.
How exactly you misinterpret this as going against what I was quoted saying above shows you really don't know what you're talking about. My statements stand.
There is no "knowledge of the truth" mentioned, at all. What he's talking about there is a pre-ontological understanding of being, a "primordial understanding of truth," which co-existed with what later evolved as assertion, correctness, etc. That's why he says this understanding "held its own" against the concealment implicit in their ontology. Do you know what that means? I'll give you a hint: it has something to do with time.
Quoting David Mo
Eh. Heidegger never puts it as "truth of being." The truth is unconcealedness, yes. This relates to logos and phusis, as well -- as gathering, emerging, enduring. An openness or disclosure of being.
Quoting David Mo
He doesn't say "knowledge," he says "understanding." "Knowledge" is also a loaded term, and thus he avoids it. There is a "sense" of a being that's pre-theoretical, pre-ontological, pre-epistemological, that we all have as human beings.
"Blind to the truth of being." No. But the question of being has been forgotten and concealed. In Plato and Aristotle, the question was still very much alive -- but the concealment was beginning to take root. See 'Restriction of Being' chapter of Introduction to Metaphysics.
Regardless, even Parmenides was "presencing." Heidegger wants to acknowledge that and attempt to get beyond it. So while the Greeks asked the question about being, and had a primordial understanding of truth, the seed was always there (necessarily) for concealment. In that sense, Aquinas is just as "wrong" as Parmenides. They both view being as something present-at-hand.
Quoting David Mo
Here he is talking about ontology, particularly in relation to the sciences. Blind and perverted from its ownmost aim -- yes, that's true. This has nothing to do with your claim. Descartes and others do indeed clarify the meaning of being, but it's just a new variation on the tradition of presence. So "God" or the "res cogitans" are ontological interpretations, but within a tradition that Heidegger wants to get beyond. This doesn't mean they're "wrong" interpretations. Wrong would make no sense in this context. Why? Because there is no "right" way to interpret being. To translate it this way is pure confusion. Hence why he never claims this. There is certainly blind/misguided ways to do ontology, however -- for example, by not even clarifying the meaning of being, or not realizing that this is your "fundamental task." But this is in relation to what ontology's aim is -- which is the question of being. It's not a statement about the various interpretations of being in the history of Western philosophy. And it's certainly not saying they're all "wrong."
Quoting David Mo
I'm not saying it's correct. I'm also not saying the entire history of Western philosophy is "correct" either. See above. "Right" and "wrong" simply do not apply in this analysis. This is why he talks so much about hermeneutics -- the emphasis is on questioning, meaning, and interpretations. Not to go through them and point out how they're all "wrong," but to elucidate the various interpretations, how they've changed through time, and where they originated. This would have made up the second part of Being and Time, which was never published. Rather, see "Basic Problems of Phenomenology."
Quoting David Mo
I guarantee you that Heidegger never says "deficient." You and your true/false judgments are just childish. He will also NEVER describe it as a "mode of knowledge." This already shows how stuck you are in epistemology and analytic philosophy generally.
Regardless, I never once said that the present-at-hand is "correct" knowledge or anything like that. Yes, it is a founded mode of being. When things break down, etc. First and foremost, we're engaged, coping beings interacting with the world, with equipment and with each other.
Perhaps deign to read before launching accusations about "macroscopic" errors.
Some passages to chew on:
"Because Being cannot be grasped except by taking time into consideration, the answer to the question of Being cannot lie in any proposition that is blind and isolated. The answer is not properly conceived if what it asserts propositionally is just passed along, especially if it gets circulated as a free-floating result, so that we merely get informed about a 'standpoint' which may perhaps differ from the way this has hitherto been treated. Whether the answer is a 'new' one remains quite superficial and is of no importance. Its positive character must lie in its being ancient enough for us to learn to conceive the possibilities which the 'Ancients' have made ready for us. In its ownmost meaning this answer tells us that concrete ontological research must begin with an investigative inquiry which keeps within the horizon we have laid bare; and this is all that is tells us." - B&T p. 19/40
And here is essentially the entire book:
"We have already intimated that Dasein has a pre-ontological Being as its optically constitutive state. Dasein is in such a way as to be something which understands something like Being. Keeping this interconnection firmly in mind, we shall show that whenever Dasein tacitly understands and interprets something like Being, it does so with time as its standpoint. Time must be brought to light -- and genuinely conceived --as the horizon for all understand of Being and for any way of interpreting it. In order for us to discern this, time needs to be explicated primordially as the horizon for the understand of Being, and in terms of temporality as the Being of Dasein, which understands Being." -- p. 17/39
No mention of "right" or "wrong," just a very clear thesis: up to the present day, time has been the horizon (the standpoint) of understanding and interpreting "being." Since the Greeks, this means parousia (presence); "idea" as prototype in Plato and "ousia" in Aristotle.
It's obvious why you want to ignore this and continue on about your childish point of "rightness" and "wrongness" (which is never in Heidegger, but which you want to try cramming in), but if you read this carefully it becomes obvious what's happening.
Or you can keep beleiving Heidegger thinks he's "right" and that almost everything else in Western philosophy is "in the main" simply "wrong." Go on framing it in that way if it helps you. Doesn't mean I have to take it seriously. Especially since you've given no evidence whatsoever that demonstrates it, other than pure misunderstanding of what he's talking about.
Okay, I'll make it simple for you:
Quoting Gary M Washburn
No one is talking about "uniqueness." Absolutely no one. It wasn't mentioned here, it's not mentioned in Heidegger, and it has nothing to do with anything.
I didn't read the rest of your post. Learn to say something coherent in the first few lines -- otherwise I'm not interested in wasting my time on utter nonsense.
Aristotle and all the ulterior metaphysics because they conceal it and became “blind and perverted” in Heidegger’s words.
Quoting Xtrix
Of course, it only says what interpretation is blind, perverted and concealing. Which is not the same as saying it' s wrong, according to you. Where' s the difference? I don't see it anywhere. Please explain it.
Anyway, your maniacal repetition that Heidegger does not present the understanding of Being in the sense of right and wrong, is strongly refuted by this little phrase:
Quoting Xtrix
It is impossible to understand something without having knowledge about it. If the early Greeks had a primordial understanding of the question of Being, they knew something important about it, which lost the later metaphysics. This is Heidegger’s Bible.
I
Quoting Xtrix
With those or similar words he says it repeatedly. If the truth is the unveiling of Being, the Presocratics were much closer to it. That's why Heidegger comes back and interprets his texts over and over again. If not, why does he do it? Is it not because he hopes to regain a path (beginning or way in his words) that has been lost? In the texts I have quoted here he says that the "Greeks" were closer to Being than anything that came after. Isn't proximity to Being a criterion of truth in Heideger? Of course it is.
Once again, that primordial knowledge does not imply that they fully knew Being, because even Heidegger himself does not claim it for his philosophy. But they were closer, on a correct path than the later philosophy.
Quoting Xtrix
Absolutely not. I have you presented a Heidegger's text against the perversion of Parmenides and Heraclitus by the Latin metaphysics (see above). Aquinas is a perfect example of substantialism that is the main concealment of Being in the Medieval philosophy. You cannot put them at the same level.
Heidegger says (T&B: 26/48) that Parmenides is guided by things for his interpretation of Being. Let us leave aside that this phrase is quite strange, since Parmenides denies the existence of everything that is not the unique Being. In any case, this does not allow him to be equated with Aquinas except at this point. Not in the essence of his theory.
About the presence-at-hand things you should read this.
That is, a secondary knowledge because Being that is obviously not a “thing” and the knowledge of Being is the sine quanon condition, the most universal, etc. As Heidegger is never clear I am not sure if presence-at-hand and readiness-to-hand knowledge can be preliminary steps to Being. But what they are not is the primordial knowledge that conditions everything else, that is, the knowledge of Being.
...Oh, I forgot. I don't know what your cryptic reference to time is about. It's not what we're discussing.
Thankfully, because I have read Being and Time multiple times, especially part 1, it's very easy for me to see -- without even looking at it -- that this, once again, has nothing to do with your claim. Why? Because here Heidegger is talking about Dasein, and specifically about how to analyze it -- namely, through phenomenology, which he argues is the proper method for doing so. A couple of sentences above, which you deliberately leave out:
"Dasein does not have the kind of being which belongs to something merely present-at-hand within the world, nor does it ever have it. So neither is it to be presented thematically as something we come across in the same way as we come across what is present-at-hand. The right way of presenting it is so far from self-evident that to determine what form it shall take is itself an essential part of the ontological analytic of this entity. Only by presenting this entity in the right way..." [Italics mine -- p 43/68-69)
So again, that has NOTHING whatsoever to do with the "pre-ontological understanding of Being," it has to do with the method of analyzing Dasein; furthermore, it has absolutely nothing to do with the claim that Western metaphysics (philosophy) is "wrong" ("in the main"). Even if Heidegger had believed what you're projecting onto him, this quotation tells us nothing about it.
It's almost as if you're searching for something to prove your thesis, context be damned. My suggestion: try reading the first two introductions in their entirety. And then read them again. It's helpful to do so. Stop combing the first 100 pages for something that proves your thesis -- you won't find it. Trust me. Why? Because it isn't there, and never has been. You're misunderstanding Heidegger.
Quoting David Mo
He doesn't use the word "knowledge" for many reasons, as I mentioned above. Mainly because it's been understood, since a least Descartes and the dominance of epistemology, in the context of a subject "knowing" an object. But leaving that aside -- it's quite true that the early Greeks questioned Being, and that this questioning has been forgotten.
I'm not sure why "Bible" comes into play, besides being part of your project to paint Heidegger as a closet Christian who wants to set himself up as philosophy's savior. Which is very strange.
I noticed you bolded the first "true," but not the second. Might as well bold the word any time he uses it -- it would be just as relevant. Which is to say, not at all.
The above is absolutely correct. The fact that you believe this supports your thesis is baffling. I've said over and over again that translations can certainly be "wrong."
Absolutely.
Quoting David Mo
No; he doesn't.
Quoting David Mo
It isn't.
Quoting David Mo
Yes, he hopes to re-awaken the question of the meaning of Being, which the early Greeks had and which has since been forgotten. Their interpretation of Being as "presence," however, is exactly what permeates all of Western thought, through multiple variations. So what gets lost/degenerated? The questioning itself. Which we should return to by understanding our tradition's origins in Parmenides/Heraclitus/Anaximander.
Or we can interpret this as his saying "The Greeks had the truth of being, and the truth has been lost." But this isn't supported by the text.
Quoting David Mo
You most certainly can, because that's in essence the heart of Western philosophy: presence. Heidegger says so himself -- i.e., that this has been how Being has been interpreted since the early Greeks. Thus, if substantialism is "wrong," then Parmenides is fundamentally "wrong" as well. You see how silly this reading of Heidegger is, I think.
Neither are "wrong." Parmenides questioned being; Aquinas was stuck in a tradition laid down by the Greeks, as was all of Scholasticism. In that sense, Parmenides is clearly the more "originary" thinker.
Quoting David Mo
"Denies the existence of everything"? Everything has being. All that "exists" has being. Whatever "is" has being. What you're talking about is incoherent. The phrase "the unique Being" is also completely meaningless.
And no, Parmenides is not "guided by things." The claim in that passage is that he is guided by legein, or "noein," which is the simple awareness of something present-at-hand. This of course has the temporal structure of "making present." Once again, presence is emphasized -- just as I had indicated above. Later, beings are conceived as ousia. This is all right in the very passage you cite.
Quoting David Mo
That's absolutely right. I prefer "entities" over "things," but the point is the same.
Quoting David Mo
(1) It's not "knowledge" at all. Stop projecting your own words -- Heidegger eschews them for good reason.
(2) "Preliminary steps to Being" is completely meaningless.
(3) What exactly are you arguing against? Being gets interpreted on the basis of time -- i.e., the present. Presence-at-hand is the mode of being we are in, as human beings, usually when things break down or we're in "reflective or philosophical contemplation," as Wheeler (correctly) says above. This mode of interpreting Being has been the dominant one since the beginning. This is the entire thesis. This is why the book is called "Being and Time." It has nothing to do with "knowledge," or "right and wrong," or "properties of Being," or some kind of ultimate, supreme, supernatural "force" out there that we can "know" somehow. All of that is added on by you, and is a complete misunderstanding.
Quoting David Mo
It's exactly what we're discussing, because we're discussing Heidegger, and you cannot possibly understand him if you don't understand his claims about time. It's not surprising you have no clue what it means. See (3) above.
Worth repeating:
[quote=] "We have already intimated that Dasein has a pre-ontological Being as its optically constitutive state. Dasein is in such a way as to be something which understands something like Being. Keeping this interconnection firmly in mind, we shall show that whenever Dasein tacitly understands and interprets something like Being, it does so with time as its standpoint. Time must be brought to light -- and genuinely conceived --as the horizon for all understanding of Being and for any way of interpreting it. In order for us to discern this, time needs to be explicated primordially as the horizon for the understanding of Being, and in terms of temporality as the Being of Dasein, which understands Being." -- p. 17/39 [/quote]
Do you really understand this?
You may not credit this, but I actually greatly appreciate your disinterest.
What is a phenomenon? Does Heidegger use the term “phenomenology” in the same sense Hegel does in his major work? And does Heidegger's sense of it owe anything to the tradition, predating Hegel, from which it arises? Prior to the rise of the phenomenon, the powers that claimed authority over the human mind insisted, and often violently enforced, the notion that all that is real in this world must only be perceived through religious texts, canon, and myth. It was over a very arduous and dangerous road that these enforcers of dogma relented to the observations and careful analyses of those who proposed the phenomenon as a representation or manifestation of divine presence in this world. But the most pertinent reality to any phenomenon is not that it follow formal law, but that it itself exists at all. If you've read Heidegger as thoroughly as you claim, then you know the first part of B&T promises to rectify this flaw. Others before him thought they had. Leibniz came up with the monad, identified as a unique confluence of otherwise formally analyzable traits or attributes. But this is merely a numerical identification, not much more of an identifier than a serial number on an otherwise identical part off an assembly line, or the tattoo forced upon victims of the Holocaust. It is a system designed to distinguish without really identifying or in any way knowing who a person really is. Rousseau, on the other hand, argues that we are not a monad, but a member of a community, and that our being who we are is determined by our participation in that community. Doesn't Heidegger merely sort of mix these two together? The one amongst the many, similar to each but ultimately itself only so distinguished itself from them that only “Being” can save it from the aloneness of the monad and the 'them' of the world? But it's still a numbers game. As if we could address the contradiction between one and many by become obsessed with math!
This is not impertinent. Heidegger was a poor boy, with a working life looming ahead of him, so when an opportunity ('potentiality'?) comes up for a good education he jumps at it. This is where he was introduced to thinkers like Duns Scotus, and Victor Erigenus (or some such), and was steeped in the culture of piety and the Christian myth. But then he learned that he could avoid the obligation of taking holy orders (you see, he was sort of conscripted, a bit like ROTC) by switching his studies to math. That is, the Church at that time had fully swallowed the theme of the phenomenon as representation of divine order and presence in the world, and math was thought of as the embodiment of that representation. But in reality, he was just dodging the draft. Shafting his mentors was a way of life for him.
Hegel could not write explicitly, the Kaiser, his boss and a stern censor, would have taken a dim view of his claiming that human participation in the world could have any impact upon the ways in which power are imposed upon it. So he portrayed the world a personality, that developed and evolved over time. But what part the person in the midst of this evolution, and what part does its role in it play in its own identity? Is it the one isolated from the many, and so distinguished numerically from it, or its part in the many, and so indistinguishable from it?
Around the same time as Heidegger, an English thinker, C S Lewis, was grappling with his wife's terminal disease. He found he was not sufficient to solace her. From this feeling of inadequacy he derived a thesis that no individual was enough in himself, and needed a personal 'Being' to appeal to for solace from the contradiction between a numerical identifier and a mass or community identity. Heidegger is doing precisely the same in his notion of “Being”.
I mentioned my questioning my instructor in the meaning of 'ownmost', to which I received the answer “crowded”. “Ownmost potentialities for being”. What exactly does that mean? Surely it does not mean an intimate interest in each other! Even Heidegger's hints at a social life are very much of unilateral or 'ownmost' interests. 'Care and concern', 'mitsein', and the like, never tread beyond the lines drawn between the monad and 'them'. And as such he has achieved not a whit of impact upon the contradiction between one and many in losing us from our own identity, reality, and existence. It is not, therefore, an impertinence to raise the issue of uniqueness, the uniqueness that only person is, that is only the personal, that neither the isolated monad nor immersion into the world can name.
It's become impossible in such an overpopulated world, but a name is meant to be unique, even the means of recognition of the very idea of uniqueness, that no analysis can hope to explicate. And quite aside from the fact that Heidegger's later works make any claim of analytic phenomenology quite laughable, the meaning of a name, the most fundamental energy in language, is completely ignored in all his work. Because uniqueness, the uniqueness each person is, is neither its ownmost potentiality for being, nor its being in a world. It is a departure that is opportune to others. This may be nothing more than a change of tone in a philosophical discussion that does not alter each party's views, but merely recognizes a difference in mood that those views are otherwise meant to exclude from discourse. In other words, that gives us a name and welcomes the personal. The eradication of person in the life of mind has become the mission of philosophy, especially as practiced in our schools and publishing houses, and Heidegger is steeped in this mission.
I'm sorry to say you didn't understand the meaning of my quote. I had included it so that you would see that your idea that Heidegger does not speak of a knowledge, interpretation, etc. that is "right" is false. The term "right", although rarely used in Being and Time, also appears in the sense of "correct".
I take this opportunity to remind you that Dasein's Being is the center of the research on Being in the mentioned book, to the point that it displaces other considerations of Being.
"Understanding of Being is itself a definite characteristic of Dasein's Being". (T&B: 12/32)
Quoting Xtrix
I'm not doing an exegesis of Heidegger, but a critique. This criticism refers to his use and abuse of language. If he says that to understand is not to know, I would think it was nonsense. Can you separate the two things?
But Heidegger doesn't seem to support you in this. Consider the following text:
Before you start your litany on "context" I will explain why I have brought this text: because it makes a clear connection between interpretation, understanding and knowledge. Have you noticed? As here with interpretation and knowledge:
Quoting Xtrix
Who said that? I am not. It is one thing for them to be closer to the knowledge of Being and another for them to have the knowledge of Being. My on words: "If the truth is the unveiling of Being, the Presocratics were much closer to it".
Does it have to be explained?
Quoting Xtrix
It is.
Translators’ note (J. Macquarrie & E. Robinson): "The Greek words for 'truth' are compounded of the privative prefix à.- ('not') and the verbal stem lath-('to escape notice', 'to be concealed'). The truth may thus be looked upon as that which is un-concealed, that which gets discovered or uncovered ('entdeckt')".
(I regret the transliteration from the Greek. I haven't had time to put the Greek keyboard on).
And this one:
Every disclosure of Being as the transcendens is transcendental knowledge.
Phenomenological truth (the disclosedness of Being) is veritas transcendentalis. (B&T:38/62)
Knowledge and truth together. What do yo think?
Quoting Xtrix
We are not discussing the meaning of Heidegger's philosophy, but a series of partial issues that do not need the understanding of time to be resolved.
The preeminence of Greek thought.
The concept of truth.
The criticism of Western metaphysics.
To bring up the subject of time now is to try to deflect the question.
Quoting Xtrix
Is it clear enough?
As you can see in the previous text, present-at-hand is equivalent to beings or things in the empirical world.
For Parmenides there are two different ways of knowledge: that of reason and that of opinion. The one of reason affirms that only the Being exists. That of opinion says that multiple and different things exist, but this is what the Goddess advises against as mere appearance.
Heidegger says that Parmenides is guided by things (“presents-at-hand”; see above!). There is a contradiction with Parmenides’ theory that he does not explain.
That from the things present-at-hand cannot be passed to Being or Dasein, is clearly expressed in a text that we have already commented.
Quoting Xtrix
And perverted because of its interpretation as substance.
***********
Look, you can go round and round in your "goodistic" interpretation of Heidegger, but you cannot respond to the texts that I have been putting out for days where he talks about the blindness and perversion that Western metaphysics subjected to the world of the dazzling and powerful intuitions and words of the early Greeks.
There is a very simple question that you will never answer: What is the difference between being wrong and being blind and hiding the question that really matters? Is not the wrong question a mistake that prevents you from giving the right answer?
Remember that "Basically, all ontology, no matter how rich and firmly compacted a system of categories it has at its disposal, remains blind and per verted from its ownmost aim, if it has not first adequately clarified the meaning of Being, and conceived this clarification as its fundamental task".
I bet you are unable to answer this simple and straightforward question without beating about the bush.
Yes? I really don't see what you're driving at anymore.
Quoting David Mo
I think you can, yes. One may speak of an "understanding" of driving or hammering. To claim that these activities, when conducted in a ready-to-hand manner (in a sense "unconsciously" or transparently), involve "knowledge" is misleading. Because to "know" something, traditionally, is something a conscious, thinking mind does or has. But what if the thinking mind were playing no part whatsoever in the activity? So that one does not need to "recall" knowledge or even be thinking about what one is doing at all. Should we still call this "knowledge"? Ultimately, we have to ask what is meant by "knowledge," and that takes us into history and etymology. Which is why I mentioned using the word is complicated and why Heidegger eschews it.
Quoting David Mo
I understand. But again, what on earth is "knowledge of Being"? Again, this leads us off into Heidegger's (unconventional) definitions of "truth" and "knowledge." I suppose if truth is unconealedness, than the early Greeks were perhaps less "concealing" of being, and hence somehow (in this idiosyncratic usage) "more in the truth" than others -- but I don't see Heidegger ever really saying that explicitly. I can see now where you might think that, but again it comes down to textual evidence. I don't see it in Being and Time or in Heidegger generally, as you do, but we have to ask ourselves if this is a better way to think about it. I think it just shows that the Greeks and the later Greeks (and then Romans and Christians) had very different meanings for "truth," and nothing more. Interpretations on truth, like that on "being," "time," or any of the other (originally Greek) concepts and words, are varied and evolve in time (in history).
If Heidegger makes any kind of value judgment, I think he does so in relation to the questioning of being. The questioning was greatest with the originary thinkers, he believes. He often says that the inception was the greatest era, and it ended with Plato and Aristotle (thus they are part of this great inception), and that it has "degenerated' ever since in terms of the core aim of philosophy (ontology), which is the question of being. But I do not believe he thinks of this in terms of "right and wrong" or "true and false," even in his own usage.
He does, however, believe the results of various understandings (results in terms of what "shows up" in a culture which holds this understanding/interpretation of being), which he says in our own epoch have resulted in technological nihilism (chasing of beings without any grounding in or sense of being whatsoever), are certainly open to moral judgment -- and if we consider our present age as "bad" in the Nietzschean sense of "decline," then we must overcome it by overcoming what has led to it, which is our traditional, philosophical/religious "background." This is background goes back to the Greeks and, however great they were and however great the "inception" is, it still needs to be examined and ultimately overcome (although we at least need to first get back to their questioning, which we don't even do anymore).
Quoting David Mo
Truth is what is unconcealed. Only beings become unconcealed. Being itself isn't an object to be un-concealed. If you mean that being permeates all beings, and is "revealed" in its being-ness through beings, then yes, truth is the unveiling of Being. I wonder if that's what you meant, though.
Quoting David Mo
Time is related to all three.
Quoting David Mo
No, it's to show that you don't understand the entire context of Heidegger's thinking. I do this only to demonstrate why you're so often misunderstanding various passages.
Quoting David Mo
As I've said before, this is actually difficult and interesting. You bring up a good point and it's now given me pause. Here's my take: presence-at-hand is the mode of being of objects (things), yes. But it's certainly true that Parmenides also thinks/questions Being "in general", not simply beings (things). That has to be true, based on everything we've seen Heidegger say about Parmenides. I'm sure you agree. So while later thinkers may interpret Being as A being, as a "thing" like a substance or God or the totality of things in "nature," Parmenides thinks being, but is still guided in his interpretation of it by temporality (as anyone has to be, as Dasein -- who's meaning is temporality), in the sense of "presencing", which has dominated ever since.
I can't say for certain if Heidegger is clear on this, because I haven't read all of the "Parmenides" lectures. He certainly does revere Parmenides, and wants us to get back to this "great inception" and to the questioning of Being, but I think it's also true that he believes we need to do so in order to overcome it, as this is the "birth certificate" of our tradition, which dominates to this very day.
Quoting David Mo
OK, try to hear me: I'm distinguishing between two claims. One is that every interpretation of being (including as "substance") since the early Greeks is essentially "wrong," and the other is that the Greek understanding of being has been "perverted," "diminished," etc. I agree he says the latter, I disagree about the former. Why? Because while an interpretation may very well be perverted regarding it's interpretation of what the Greeks originally believed (and hence "wrong" as incorrect, inaccurate, etc), in and of itself it is just as "valid" to interpret Being as "God," -- or Brahmin, for that matter (in Hinduism). Despite nothing like what the Greeks meant, these interpretations are nevertheless essentially Greek. Heidegger says this many times. So if they're "perverted," there's also something fundamentally "Greek" about them as well. What is it that's remained? That temporal standpoint -- the interpreting of Being in terms of time (namely, the present). This is why I keep bringing up time.
So it does no good to say "Descartes has a perverted interpretation of Being," or anything like that -- unless it's in comparison to what the Greeks believed (according to Heidegger) and described as "phusis," just as our later sense of "truth" is perverted in this case. Doesn't that mean logic is "wrong" or perverted? I don't think so, no. Nor is science, for that matter. Heidegger is not against science or technology. He's not against God or substance, either. But he is against looking back at the Greeks and interpreting them as being the "first scientists" retroactively, holding our current conceptions in mind. That's a completely wrong thing to do.
Maybe that helps. Again, fairly trivial because even if we go with your interpretation, what makes the early Greeks "right" besides their questioning? Because they too interpret Being as "presence," according to Heidegger. We should go back to them in order to shake off our pre-conceptions and all the baggage of our tradition so that we may "begin anew," as Korab-Karpowicz correctly says above -- but I don't think he's according that any ultimate truth lies in their interpretation.
Quoting David Mo
I tried answering above. I don't think there *IS* a "right answer." If we are really doing ontology, then the aim of ontology is the question of being, so in that case to question being is the "correct" method of ontology (phenomenology). The early Greeks had the question right, and so were doing ontology -- their answers aren't a matter of right or wrong, however. So, again, is science "wrong" in its answers? Not at all. But it does not ask the question of being -- it studies beings (entities, things). According to you, all of science would be "wrong" because it doesn't question being. I do not see Heidegger saying that, nor do I think you believe that. Science never claims to be ontology. Even if it did, it wouldn't falsify its answers and results.
Two relevant passage:
[quote=] "Since the essence of man, for the Greeks, is not determined as subject, a knowledge of the historical beginning of the Occident is difficult and unsettling for modern "thought," assuming that modern "lived experience" is not simply interpreted back into the Greek world, as if modern man enjoyed a relation of personal intimacy with Hellenism for the simple reason that he organizes "Olympic games" periodically in the main cities of the planet. For here only the facade of the borrowed word is Greek. This is not in any way meant to be derogatory toward the Olympics themselves; it is only censorious of the mistaken opinion that they bear an relation to the Greek essence." (Parmenides, p 165 -- emphasis mine) [/quote]
Replace "Olympics" here with "logic," "truth," "substance," etc. The same applies -- our modern conceptions are NOT Greek, just as our modern Olympics are not (except in word only), but in themselves they're fine. Heidegger only is "censorious" of the attributing to the Greeks this modern meaning and thus to the belief that what we believe is what the Greeks believed.
[quote=] "In thus demonstrating the origin of our basic ontological concepts by an investigation in which their 'birth certificate' is displayed, we have nothing to do with a viscous relativizing of ontological standpoints. But this destruction is just as far from having the negative sense of shaking off the ontological tradition. We must, on the contrary, stake out the positive possibilities of that tradition, and this always means keeping it within its limits; these in turn are given facticly in the way the question is formulated at the time, and in the way the possible field for investigation is thus bounded off. On its negative side, this destruction does not relate itself towards the past; its criticism is aimed at 'today' and at the prevalent way of treating the history of ontology, whether it is headed towards doxography, towards intellectual history, or towards a history of problems. But to bury the past in nullity is not the purpose of this destruction; its aim is positive; its negative function remains unexpressed and indirect." B/T p. 23/44 [/quote]
Quoting David Mo
Ok, straightforward answer: there is no difference. But where we apply "wrong" and "blind" is what matters. Do we apply it to science? I don't think we do. Do we apply it to ontology? Yes, in the context of it's goal. So if we define ontology's "aim" as clarifying the meaning of Being, and it doesn't do so, then it is indeed "blind and perverted to its ownmost aim." I don't see how we can jump from this to saying "Descartes' interpretation of Being as essentially ens infitinum is wrong, blind and perverted." It's a powerful ontology, and a very useful one-- at least in terms of the mind/body, subject/object duality (which is still a dominant view in the sciences). It does overlook a number of things, but so do the early Greeks (they overlook their guiding line of temporality). It is also hampered by much more traditional baggage and rather than question being, it 'takes over' a medieval understanding of being.
The sciences are also limited and also don't raise the ontological question. Does this make it all "wrong"? No. Does it make Descartes interpretations "wrong"? Again, I don't think so -- because what would be right? Phusis is "right" and the res cogitans is "wrong"? I don't think so. Furthermore, Heidegger never puts it like this.
You obviously haven't read Parmenides's poem. The goddess guides him to pure Being through beings of the world
I'm sorry to say, but the one who hasn't read it (or hasn't understood it) is you.
I have read and reread quite a few fragments of Parmenides' poem and comments because my professor of history of philosophy had written a book about him (Fernando Montero Moliner: Parmenides, Madrid, Gredos, 1960). I have a copy signed by him and I will stick to his translation, although not to his interpretation which is quite risky -say it with all the respect and admiration he deserves.
Since Plato, it is a unanimous comment that Parmenides recommends a path based on reason (thought) and strongly advises against those who, based on the senses or on the unreason, pretend that multiplicity and things exist.
Therefore, you will not find a single commentator to support your belief that Parmenides bases the way of Truth on the things of the world. Nor will you be able to support your belief in the text itself.
In general, the reason he speaks about is considered to be a primitive version of the principle of identity (from which it draws metaphysical consequences):
I hope I have convinced you that I do know something about Parmenides' poem.
I didn't mean to hurt your feelings. I was just pointing out that Heidegger was right that Parmenides found being thru presence-at-hand. This is because the goddess told him to consider the world and how change doesn't make sense. That's how I took the Heidegger quote but you seem to think he didn't understand Parmenides
But he does this to discredit the "habit" of the senses and to deny that the things we see are real. How can Parmenides base his doctrine on things that are not?
The only truth is achieved with reason itself and is Being that is eternal, immobile, unique and "well rounded". The latter sounds shocking, but it is a consequence of the perfection attributed to circularity in the Greek world.
This radical doctrine of being will be supported by Zeno's aporias that oppose reason to the variable world of the senses in favor of the former. Plato will start from the same ontological assumption, although correcting it considerably with the plurality of Forms.
Heidegger ignores all this olympically. Among other things because he quotes in his own way the Greeks he is interested in and forgets those he does not consider "Greeks". Zeno is a case, to my knowledge.
Good points. The Eleatics were too abstract for Heidegger, and remember that his Catholic upbringing poisoned Aristotle and Plato for Heidegger, as they did for me. Nowadays, I like Heidegger
You are not aware of all the movements that allow you to drive a car. But you know how to drive a car. And that goes for a lot of knowledge that you are not aware of.
That's as far as the common use of the word goes. Philosophy includes unconscious intuition as knowledge. In many schools of an intellectualist or phenomenological nature this intuition is even superior or primordial knowledge. I am thinking, among others, of Sartre and Merleau-Ponty, which I read recently.
Of course they give different names to that intuition, but the concept is the same: a pre-reflective knowledge.
The fact that Heidegger does not expressly call pre-ontological knowledge "knowledge" does not prevent him from talking about it.
Quoting Xtrix
Put "understanding of Being" if you like it better. Or "un-concealing". You won't deny that these are Heideggerian terms.
If you prefer more confusing and poetic expressions, Heidegger says that the truth of Being is revealed in the clearing of Being, when man shepherds Being. But since I believe that this is like a provocation to the intelligence, but nothing that can be discussed, I think it is better to stick to what can be discussed.
Quoting Xtrix
Of course "degenerated" implies a value judgment, but it is not moral, as you suppose. You can make mistakes in the Mont Blanc path and never reach the top, but that does not mean you are a bad person.
The error that Heidegger points out with an abundance of value terms that I have already pointed out here several times does not concern morality. At least not directly, although in some cases it seems implicit. It is expressly a metaphysical or philosophical condemnation.
Therefore, philosophical error does not imply a total or moral condemnation. Not necessarily, at least. You should understand this because it seems to me that it is at the basis of your misunderstanding of Heidegger.
Quoting Xtrix
Look at my previous comment to Gregory. Parmenides does not think in terms of temporality since Being is immobile and eternal. And time and space are pure illusions. See Zeno's contribution of Achilles and turtle. Or rather that of the arrow that never reaches its target... thinking rationally.
+++++++++++++++++++
You misinterpret the quote about the Olympics. It actually refers to the vindication of the Greek world which was very common in the Europe of his time and especially in Germany. Heidegger criticizes that recovery because it was superficial and did not reach the true heart of Greek thought. The paradigm of Hellenistic superficiality is the modern Olympics, but it encompasses almost the entire phenomenon in general
Heidegger does not think that the solution lies in simply repeating the thought of the Greeks. Like all attempts, including his own, they do not definitively resolve the question of being. But their approach to them is closer to the fundamental question of any thought, then he recommends that we must go back to take it as a starting point for a new beginning.
Why not start from the post-Greek metaphysics? Because it does not apply to what is fundamental to all thought: the understanding of Being. Of course, one can find in it partial successes. As you say, Heidegger has nothing against science or technology (this latter question is more confusing; let's leave it alone). As long as they keep to their limits, which are the issues of the ontic. Heidegger is radically against positivist thinking because he makes a fundamental mistake: he claims to apply science to ontological issues. This is the same mistake that Descartes makes.
That is why Descartes is a bad example of usefulness for the ontology of Being. Heidegger disqualifies him in every possible way. In Being and Time there is a good battery of these "destructive" criticisms
I think that's enough of a sample.
Quoting Xtrix
Greek thought is not wrong like that of metaphysics in general. But I doubt that Heidegger thought it was "valid" to interpret Being as God. Heidegger's theological position in his final stage is confusing enough to reach any convincing conclusions. His followers have found in it a poetic license or a theology. It may be one or the other. But I don't think there is a quote in Being and Time that supports the idea you expound. I'm almost certain of it. Nor later either, except in some marginal writing. Can you provide a quotation on this? It would be interesting to discuss this subject.
Quoting Xtrix
In short, the difference between the correct ontology of the Greeks and the erroneous one of the later metaphysicists is well condensed in this quotation:
If you say starter in a psychological sense you are right. Every knowledge begins in our experience.
In an epistemological sense it is not true. Some knowledge are founded on reason. This is what Parmenides and Zeno thought, at least. Zeno opposed mathematical rationality to the senses.
I've never read Heideggers lectures on Parmenides. Would Zeno's paradox demonstrate a concealment of being for him? The Eleatics didn't like space or time as concepts so I know he rejected that part of their philosophy
What is the purpose of philosophy? If the mission of philosophy is defined as service to human beings, then it seems reasonable to question the value of works which can not be accessed by most human beings, even most college educated human beings.
If the mission of philosophy is defined as being in service to the careers of philosophers, then it can be said that obscure fancy talk projects an image of authority which helps the philosopher justify his claim to expert status, and the salary he obtains from the suckers, I mean, the book buying tax paying public.
I don't think you can say that philosophy is in the service of people. Not in a direct way, at least.
Human activities have two kinds of usefulness for people who don't practice them.
One is direct. For example, medicine or technologies.
The other is not direct for those who do not practice it. This is the case with philosophy or the practice of a sport.
If philosophy has any usefulness it is for the one who practices it and only and in any case indirectly for the people who do not practice it.
The problem is that while many people learn to practice a sport more or less effectively, few people practice philosophy. People who have tried to devote themselves to it in a non-professional way often say that they cannot do it because it is difficult. Naturally, it is also difficult to run 100m in 10'', but you can manage to run regularly without so much effort. But the impression that many trainees get is that with philosophy you can't even begin.
The problem is that while many people learn to practice a sport more or less effectively, few people practice the philosophy. People who have tried to devote themselves to it in a non-professional way often say that they cannot do it because it is difficult. Naturally, it is also difficult to run 100m in 10'', but you can manage to run regularly without so much effort. But the impression that many trainees get is that with philosophy you can't even begin.
Of course, medicine is also a difficult subject. It requires a lot of effort, a lot of prior knowledge, a lot of intelligence and a lot of money (at least in our society). But the difficulty of philosophy, although it also requires some of these things, is of another nature. It is said that philosophy is difficult because it is obscure. What does this mean?
This means that when you open a book on philosophy, before the first paragraph you begin to feel that you do not understand anything.
This happens because even common words seem to have another meaning and sentences are often constructed with a grammar that is not normal. Not to mention the amount of new words that are not explained.
Of course that discourages anyone.
You can resort to philosophy dictionaries. But it happens that to define a word the dictionaries need four pages that are understood less than the original word.
You can also go to handbooks, which are a little more understandable. But also the manuals are sometimes lost in strange lucubrations. Besides, sooner or later you find out that what is written is a simplifying summary of the "true" doctrine of the master philosopher. And, at best, it serves to take the first step.
Maybe you are satisfied with this first step. In this case we can leave it here.
But you may want to go further (you are curious!) and sooner or later you will wonder why philosophy has to be so obscure? If you are interested we can continue.
I haven't read it either. I have it on my desk, but it's a little heavy for me to read. I'm not interested in philology fiction and I'm saturated with Heidegger. But I used a search tool and I didn't find any mention of Zeno. I don't think he ever considered him. He's not the only Greek he despises. I don't think important thinkers like Democritus, Empedocles or the Pythagoreans deserved his attention either. Not to mention the Stoics who were like Romans. Puaff.
I see the obscurity as being a function of a couple things.
1) An inability to think the issue through to the bottom line, which can almost always be expressed in every day language.
2) A property of the philosophy business, where obscurity is used as a way to persuade funders that the writer is an expert, and thus merits funding.
3) A love of obscurity for itself. You know, that's just the writing style of some writers.
I think the only item that can be seriously discussed is the first one. Deciding whether the philosopher's obscurantism is a guru's ruse or a genuine yearning for darkness seems impossible to me. It would only be possible if we knew the person well enough. Yet much we could say would be presumption based on indications. That gives little room for anything more than malicious suspicion.
As for the first one: the defenders of obscure writers, such as Hegel, Heidegger or Lacan, answer that the obscurity is given by the complex and often unsolvable nature of the problems. People who abandon the study of these authors are either because they are prejudiced that all knowledge can be acquired without effort or because they have no capacity for abstraction. Seeing the level of sharpness of everyday thinking that manifests itself in youtubers, twitters (Include some President of a certain state) and trash TV, can one pretend that most people can understand Hegel? How many people are able to understand the theory of general relativity? So why do we pretend that they understand Kant?
Yes, it wasn't my intention to evaluate a particular writer, but the field at large.
It's my sense that obscure philosophers are typically not engaged in a conscious deliberate business agenda, but are rather just swimming with the tide, doing what everyone else is doing, doing what they think their peers expect of them etc. That is, imho, not really doing philosophy.
Quoting David Mo
I plead guilty to exaggerated attention seeking rhetoric which sometimes falls in to the malicious suspicion trap. I sincerely believe the points to be valid and useful, but the packaging they come in could sometimes use an upgrade.
Quoting David Mo
I would counter that many things are complicated on the surface, but if one digs deep enough the bottom line is usually pretty straightforward and can be expressed in every day language. At the least, that's the destination I strive for, not claiming I always get there. Partly this is just my blue collar aesthetic, but also I sincerely believe the purpose of philosophy is to serve human beings, and if only a relative handful people know what we're talking about, we aren't serving very well.
I assume that you are not providing a reasoning or evidence, but a feeling. I can share that feeling more or less, but it's not a basis on which we can argue.
Quoting Hippyhead
And many others become more and more complicated when we go deeper into them. For example: I intuitively understand Rutherford's atomic model, but when we go deeper into quantum mechanics I read more and understand less. Is it Niels Bohr's fault or the complexity of the theories about the atom?
Surely you and I would find some philosophical theory that can be simplified without losing depth - I'm not quite sure, but it can happen. It's another thing if this is the case with all of them.
I wouldn't say the purpose, but I would say that philosophy can support people, including ordinary people. For that I don't think they need to read Hegel's Phenomenology of the Spirit. Now, making philosophy popular is as difficult as making people enjoy Kandinsky's paintings. (I don't even like them!)
He does indeed interpret being in temporal terms -- not in the common understanding of "time," but in "presencing" (as Heidegger mentions) in terms of the present-at-hand, he certainly does. Heidegger believes this is the ontological structure of Dasein, who asks the question of being. It's not a criticism of Parmenides, who was a human being.
"Temporality" (in Heidegger) does not equate with "becoming" or have anything to do with "mobility."
Quoting David Mo
No, you're misinterpreting it. Again:
"Since the essence of man, for the Greeks, is not determined as subject, a knowledge of the historical beginning of the Occident is difficult and unsettling for modern "thought," assuming that modern "lived experience" is not simply interpreted back into the Greek world, as if modern man enjoyed a relation of personal intimacy with Hellenism for the simple reason that he organizes "Olympic games" periodically in the main cities of the planet. For here only the facade of the borrowed word is Greek. This is not in any way meant to be derogatory toward the Olympics themselves; it is only censorious of the mistaken opinion that they bear any relation to the Greek essence."
He is using the Olympics as an example only, to demonstrate our distance from the Greeks (hence why "modern 'thought'" finds it difficult to comprehend the Greek's notion of the essence of man -- as it was not "determined as subject.").
I don't see anything controversial or very hard to understand about the above passage.
Quoting David Mo
Approach to "them"? I'm not sure about what that refers to -- the problems of philosophy generally?
Regardless, I'm glad you agree. We need to go back to the beginning in order to find new horizons.
Quoting David Mo
Perhaps "valid" is the wrong word. It depends of course on what we mean by "God," which as you know is a complicated history. I don't think that Spinoza's God or Anselm's God would "bother" him much. But who knows -- the only point is that this is one possible interpretation, and one word for basically the same thing (using the philosopher's notion, not an invisible sky-father) as "being," as an infinite entity of some kind.
Quoting David Mo
You're simply misreading it. But I feel like we're going in circles, and it's boring. Interpret it your way; I remain unconvinced.
Can you define what this "presence-at-hand" is and what it has to do with time and Parmenides?
Presence-at-hand (Vorhandenheit) means the theoretical attitude we take when viewing the world, detached from everyday involvement and engagement. It's the basis for science but also for (Western) philosophy -- it emphasizes things as they are present before for us, as something to analyze, as a problem, etc. Normally this occurs when a piece of equipment (e.g., a hammer) breaks down -- it stops becoming something we use transparently, and now becomes an object with properties that we must fix. Ditto a car, bicycle, computer, etc.
Shamefully, due to time constraints, I'll quote Wikipedia, as in this case they're pretty accurate:
[quote=] In Being and Time (1927; transl. 1962), Martin Heidegger argues that the concept of time prevalent in all Western thought has largely remained unchanged since the definition offered by Aristotle in the Physics. Heidegger says, "Aristotle's essay on time is the first detailed Interpretation of this phenomenon [time] which has come down to us. Every subsequent account of time, including Henri Bergson's, has been essentially determined by it."[2] Aristotle defined time as "the number of movement in respect of before and after".[3] By defining time in this way Aristotle privileges what is present-at-hand, namely the "presence" of time. Heidegger argues in response that "entities are grasped in their Being as 'presence'; this means that they are understood with regard to a definite mode of time – the 'Present'".[2] Central to Heidegger's own philosophical project is the attempt to gain a more authentic understanding of time. Heidegger considers time to be the unity of three ecstases: the past, the present, and the future. [/quote]
Heidegger sees Parmenides as already conducting his thinking on this background of the present-at-hand.
Says many other people who haven't read a word of Heidegger. I'll save intelligent people more time: before forming an opinion about a thinker, best to read him carefully. Otherwise, best not to comment.
At the beginning of our discussion you tried to give me lessons because, according to you, I did not read Heidegger directly but through second-hand sources. Now you are going to Wikipedia, which is not a second-hand font. It's fourth or fifth hand. It's fun. But where have you put your principles?
Also, I'll thank you to give the name or the article when quoting an encyclopedia. It's the right way to do it and it helps to locate the exact citation. Also, this helps to find the original text.
Because, for further confusion, the Wikipedia quote does not even mention Parmenides and you do not explain anything about him on your own.
I have done the homework for you --you're welcome:
Now, you can explain this imbroglio between presence-at-hand, time and Parmenides and I will explain you where Heidegger conceals the very thought of Parmenides. In two points, at least.
I said it was due to time constraints. You asked what "presence-at-hand" means, which I've talked about before and which, had you read Heidegger, you'd know. Rather than go through and type out relevant paragraphs, I thought the Wikipedia article was accurate and approved of it as at least an introduction to the term (if indeed you're not familiar with it).
Quoting David Mo
You're right. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metaphysics_of_presence
Quoting David Mo
Funny you say that -- I quoted this text twice before in reference to Parmenides.
Quoting David Mo
No imbroglio. The above says most of it. With regard to "time" (in terms of the common notion since Aristotle's essay), Heidegger will talk at length about. As the Wiki article mentions, correctly, he has a different analysis, which he calls "temporality."
In the beginning, phusis and logos meant something very different than what they meant later on in the inception. They both had to do with unconcealment, as an emerging and a gathering, respectively. This is where Parmenides began, with aletheia. As you know from reading Intro to Metaphysics, phusis became "idea" and logos became assertion/category, which Heidegger claims sets the stage for Being to be interpreted as "substance" and later "object," apart from the thinking subject. He will claim that the distinction (or "restriction") between "being and thinking" has dominated Western thought since (IM p. 208).
Specifically regarding Parmenides, pages 101-103 is a good start. From Parmenides (and the "inception") onwards, the question of being becomes concealed. A relevant passage below:
"Now the collapse of unconcealment, as we briefly call this happening, does not originate from a mere deficiency, from an inability to sustain any longer that which, with this essence, was given to historical humanity to preserve. The ground of the collapse lies first in the greatness of the inception and in the essence of the inception itself. ["Fall" and "collapse" create an illusion of negativity only in a superficial exposition.]" (IM p. 204)
Notice the part in brackets -- it's as if he's specifically talking to someone like yourself.
In any case, Parmenides is still "presencing," and this is why the "ground of the collapse" was embedded in the inception. It's not meant as a criticism, but as a description (interpretation) of history. It's also much different from later interpretations and questioning, and one in which we should return. Why? Because Parmenides "indicates Being itself in view of Being and from within Being" (IM p. 102). Still, the seeds of concealment were there from the beginning: "...in the inception of Western philosophy, the perspective that guides the opening up of Being is time, but in such a way that this perspective as such still remained and had to remain concealed." (IM p. 220) The underline is mine.
This is why "time" becomes relevant. An interesting thesis, worth mulling over. None of this can be understood fully if taken in isolation. You have to first take up Heidegger's terminology, which his difficult. You're simply not at that stage yet.
I asked you for a clarification that you have not given. You limit yourself to talk about the valuation that Heidegger makes of the "inception" (origin) of philosophy in Greece. You mention the concept of "presencing" in Parmenides but do not explain it, much less in relation to time and his concept of Being. As for my question, you limit yourself to repeat in the same words what I asked you to explain: "the perspective that guides the opening up of Being is time". I will not ask you again to explain it because it seems to me that it will be useless. It seems that you are in another "stage" (that of the clouds). Instead, I am going to explain it in a less "nebulous" way than yours.
Prior warning: No one should look up the definition of "present-at-hand" in Heidegger. It is not given, at least in the texts I have consulted. This is very significant because the term "present-at-hand" has an important place, at least in B&T. By not giving a precise definition, any interpretation becomes possible and Heidegger reserves the right to disqualify the one he does not like. This is very typical of him.
Heidegger's arbitrary interpretation of Parmenides is based on this indetermination of language. In the paragraph we are commenting on he does so in the following terms.
1. Present-at-hand: ambiguity of meanings: a) pure theoretical "contemplation" - as opposed to "ready-to-hand" which includes the interaction of the subject (Dasein) with the world; b) the placing of the subject in front of the objects of the world (the "objective" point of view).
2. Presence: quality of being present to human understanding. Ambiguity: a) the subject is placed in front of the object of knowledge; b) the object of knowledge is placed now (present time as different from past and future).
Applied to Parmenides this is resolved in an affirmation that mixes all these different senses within the same meaning: "Parmenides had already taken to guide him in his own interpretation of Being-has the Temporal structure of a pure 'making-present' of something".
Heidegger's argument synthesized: Truth is presented to Parmenides > It is something that is presented as pure presence independent of the practical relationship that one may have > It is the truth about something (Being) > Being is now (present)> It is contemplated in the mode of Time.
Critical analysis:
Heidegger's first omission: Parmenides does not “contemplate” Being. Parmenides is taught by the Goddess. (Suppose the Goddess is a metaphor. Instead, we could suppose that Parmenides is giving a theological content to his poem and the presence of the Goddess is literal. This is not the general interpretation nor Heidegger's - I think - so I overlook it).
In the non/theological context of the poem, what the figure of the Goddess means is an illumination. Moreover, the Goddess specifies where that illumination comes from: from the way of Reason.
The Goddess does not induce Parmenides to the contemplation/presence of any object of knowledge, as Heidegger claims. The Goddess leads Parmenides to the truth not by the presence of something, but by the force of a logical reasoning: Only Being is and non-being is not (variant of the identity principle).
Therefore, Heidegger's identification of Parmenides' vision in the literal sense is out of place. There is no presence, no temporality. Parmenides’ thought is produced outside of time and the narration of the poem is a mytho-poetic artifice.
Second omission: This is riveted by the Goddess when she states that if the non-being is not there can be no change or time since it is impossible to move from something that is to what is not, or vice versa. Time is expressly refuted in Parmenides' poem. Being is one and immobile.
The (verbal) game is over.
I did; you haven't understood it.
Quoting David Mo
You accuse me and Heidegger of being "in the clouds," then go on to offer an analysis of these "clouds" which you admittedly don't understand. Rather you make several utterly false statements and then try to "clean up" Heidegger to essentially be more Cartesian. Much like Sartre. To demonstrate:
Quoting David Mo
Have you consulted Being and Time?
That which is present-at-hand is a theoretical object, something that is "extant" or, as Heidegger says, is tied up with what is traditionally meant by "existentia" (basically "substance") [p. 42/67]. Presence-at-hand is a related term, the mode (or attitude) we're in when looking at the world in such a way -- apart from being involved in it with equipment (the "ready-to-hand").
Quoting David Mo
No ambiguity -- (a) and (b) are the same thing. Your injecting "subject/object" into this is one example of making Heidegger Cartesian. There's a reason he uses "dasein."
Quoting David Mo
Again, both say the same thing.
Side note: the entire subject/object dichotomy (or mind/body) is likewise conceived within this mode (i.e., within the theoretical, present-at-hand). Only when one is taking away from everyday "coping," and looks out "objectively" at the world does the world become "substance" or "object," and thus the entity "looking out" becomes a "subject." When you're trying to catch the bus, this is not one's experience.
Quoting David Mo
No. Truth is "there," it opens, it is "disclosed." Aletheia is the truth. The goddess is the truth. It's not "contemplated" -- I don't know where you came up with this one, because it's not in Heidegger. The truth is aletheia -- unconcealment, disclosure. Indeed it must occur in the "present" -- because Parmenides is a human being. Unless he "stepped outside" of life itself, whatever he "saw" happened in the present. Unless he's an angel. Everything happens in the "present" -- the rest is separated by thinking, and has a long history which, as you know, has largely been determined by the Physics of Aristotle, which interprets "time" as a sequence of "nows." Which is a perfectly fine conception, and a very powerful one -- just as the mind/body, subject/object distinction is. Just as "substance" and "nature" is. Just as modern science is.
So yes, if Parmenides was a human being -- and not a magical angel -- he lived and breathed as a human being, and whatever he experienced was experienced "in time" (not the time of physics, but experienced time, which in Heidegger is "temporality"). So of course it's in the "present."
Quoting David Mo
Nice job knocking down the pins you yourself set up. But since it's not what Heidegger is saying, completely irrelevant. Might as well be playing chess with yourself and congratulating yourself on the win.
Quoting David Mo
You "think"? Heidegger is emphatically against the interpretation of the goddess as "literal." (Parmenides, p. 8-11; 14-16). "To make of 'the truth' a goddess amounts to turning the mere not on of something, namely the concept of the essence of truth, in a 'personality.'" (p.10)
Quoting David Mo
Yes. It is illumination (or un-concealedness) itself.
Quoting David Mo
Where is Heidegger claiming this? I'll save you the trouble: he doesn't. Another straw man. You're confusing the fact that what is revealed is revealed in the "present" must mean that "being" becomes a present-at-hand "object" -- this is not the case. As I said before, everything happens in the present, whether we're aware of it or not (off thinking about the future or the past). Just introspect or meditate for a while and see for yourself. What "time" is it? It's now -- the present. Not "now" as an object-point, not "now" as a second hand on a clock.
This is why I say you're not on the level to understand Heidegger -- there's too much more reading you have to do.
Quoting David Mo
Logical reasoning? This is your interpretation?
Quoting David Mo
Almost laughable. "Outside of time," eh? So Parmenides was an angel. "No presence, no temporality" -- so no human being, either. Where exactly did this "logical reasoning" take place, then? In heaven? Clearly not in the 6th century BC, as it was "outside of time" (both temporality and world-time, apparently). Come on.
It's fairly obvious you must be equating "time" with "motion" and "becoming," but even this view of time is contradictory in this context.
Quoting David Mo
The old "being and becoming" interpretation. :yawn:
Heidegger has a lot to say about this -- if you read him.
To explain the relationship between three terms you must be able to link them together (Parménides, presence and time) in a sequence or proposition. You did not.
An explanation must be made in terms other than the explanandum. You did not. You simply repeated what you had to explain.
Interestingly enough, it is in this commentary that you attempt an explanation. And it is remarkably... naive? insufficient? I will explain it to you.
Quoting Xtrix
On the page you mention Heidegger does not give any definition. He simply relates (tantamount) present-at-hand to the classical term existentia. He gives no further explanation and the comparison is not too clarifying, since that term was used in different ways from Aristotle to Ockham.
If you want a definition you'll have to go elsewhere.
Quoting Xtrix
Quoting Xtrix
Of course, that is my interpretation of Parmenides. An interpretation in which I follow the immense majority of experts. I don't risk anything. For the separation between the world of truth and the world of opinion in Parmenides you can read
https://www.jstor.org/stable/2183487?seq=1
https://www.degruyter.com/view/journals/apeiron/32/3/article-p153.xml
If you do not have access to these I suggest an open article that will show you how to make a serious study of a Greek author, instead of Heidegger's inventions. The identification of the goddess of Parmenides with the goddess Truth is a typical case. Heidegger goes from linking words by their similarity until getting convinced himself of the conclusion: The first link matches the last one. It seems a typically childish game: "What does a cheesecake look like at speed?" Heidegger in its pure state.
Heidegger’s jump in this case consists of saying that the goddess speaks the truth is the same as saying that she is the Truth. If Parmenides had wanted to give her a name, he would have given it to her. He probably did not because the name of the goddess is irrelevant. It is simply a mytho-poetic image of the way of truth, of the philosopher's reason.
https://www.persee.fr/doc/reg_0035-2039_1969_num_82_389_1027
On the other hand, Heidegger may not use the term contemplation. But since he uses metaphors such as illumination or unveiling which involve contemplation, I think I am authorized to use that term. I don't think Heidegger or you have the only visa to play poetically with language. At least I have the decency to put quotation marks around it.
Quoting Xtrix
Well, finally the clarification I asked for appears.
Totally laughable: you (or Heidegger) confuse two things:
Analysis of the psychological or social origin of the ideas.
Internal analysis of the meaning of the ideas.
In the first case, to say that Parmenides' ideas come from the world in which he lives is probably true, but it is something that few philosophers would deny. In different ways it is admitted by empiricists, historicists, Hegelians, Marxists, phenomenologists and many others. It is a statement that is not limited to Parmenides, but to all of us who have ideas. If you or Heidegger say nothing else, your explanation is a banality.
If you pretend to say it is an idea of Parmenides, you are saying an outrage. As the articles I have quoted and many others I could quote to you show, the distinction between the world of truth and the world of appearances, between truth and doxa, is proper to Parmenides. The Goddess clearly excludes that truth comes from the world of things or from the world of appearances. The basic argument of the Goddess is an early formulation of the principle of non-contradiction. That is, logic, incipient state, but logic and rationality, not experience of anything existing. Moreover, the conclusion is that the world of things is not true.
Therefore, in the first sense we can say that Parmenides' ideas come from his world (this gives rise to a religious interpretation of his poem that a minority of phylosophers have attempted), but it is a banal statement. If we say in the second sense that Parmenides affirms that truth comes from existing things (present-at-hand) according to the category of temporality, we are saying an atrocity. To maintain this barbarity we would have to justify it with a careful analysis of the text. Something that Heidegger does not bother to do. Of course.
Finally I will add an explanatory bonus for your understanding of something that is obvious:
In traditional logic there are no time variables. If a truth is logical, or rationally pure, it is supposed to be the same now as at the end of time. That is because it does not depend on experience, but on the inner connection of the terms themselves.
Heidegger talks about the present-at-hand all over Being and Time. You have to read it to understand it. If you're looking for a place where he "defines" it the a format that's suitable to you, then you probably won't find it, as "x = y." But it's obvious from anyone who's read him what it means, as I explained above (which is uncontroversial in secondary scholarship, even among those who are critical).
The above explanation stands.
Quoting David Mo
Yes, I did. Again, your failure to understand what is being said is not my problem. The cause is that you showed up to this thread (and to Heidegger) not to understand but to defend a position you've already settled upon, that of Carnap, Russell, etc.
Quoting David Mo
:lol:
Yes, because you've definitely earned the right to give lectures about Heidegger so far. :roll:
Before accusing others of being naive, try to make sure you're not making a complete fool of yourself first. Which you've done over and over again, particularly with your childish reading of Heidegger's views on the history of Western thought.
Quoting David Mo
Yes, you risk nothing indeed by parroting the common reading of Parmenides.
Quoting David Mo
It also has the benefit of being accurate. But you wouldn't know one way or another, having read so little. Set up more straw men -- I'm not interested. You haven't demonstrated you've understood Heidegger.
Quoting David Mo
Yes, you've really nailed it. Run along back to the others. Come back when you're serious about learning something -- the way most adults approach a topic.
Quoting David Mo
It doesn't involve contemplation any more than vision involves "contemplation."
You don't understand Heidegger.
Quoting David Mo
I didn't mention "the world," I mentioned time, in response to your ridiculous claim that Parmenides was "outside time."
Parmenides was "presencing," and what was disclosed to him was being. Ditto Heraclitus. Both men, as human beings, thought/wrote/interpreted being from the perspective of time -- namely, the present, that which is present before us, that which appears, that which is uncovered and unconcealed. All of the Greeks took "time" as the perspective in which they interpreted themselves and the world, without knowing it. "Time", as pointed out by Kant, is a form of our sensibility, along with space -- in Heidegger's hands it becomes something much different than this Aristotelian "time" which Kant presupposed -- it becomes temporality, which is what Being and Time is about -- namely, interpreting the human being (Dasein) in its average everydayness, which brings out the ontological structures of this entity, as care. Care (Sorge) is reinterpreted as temporality.
If you don't see any of this and consistently keeping it in mind, you're avoiding Heidegger. You're just focusing on isolated features. And it's boring.
Come back when you've shown you understood a word of what you've read. Before that, however, it's important to approach a thinker with an open mind. That's what this thread was supposed to be about -- not a defense of a position long ago decided from secondary sources.
Quoting Xtrix
To say that Heidegger talks a lot about it and that to understand it you have to read everything Heidegger is not to explain anything.
It is not true that you have established the relationship between Parmenides, presence and time. It is true that you have tried but with a monumental confusion that I dismantled in my previous commentary. It is certain that you have not understood what I explained to you and you fall back into the same hole:
Quoting Xtrix
You confuse two different things again:
Parmenides was a man of (his) time (or world, which is the same in common language). "He was not an angel," you said.
Parmenides thought that Being is timeless (eternal and immobile). What I said.
Please make an effort. Perhaps you will see the difference.
Quoting Xtrix
It is normal, you can see something without contemplating it. By turning your back, I guess. You do it almost always in this thread.
Quoting Xtrix
Surely not. But neither do you. You are not able to answer a single one of my questions and objections.
And you know that the one who knows that he does not know is much wiser than the one who pretends to know without knowing.
Quoting Xtrix
Why are you telling this? What are Kant and Aristotle doing here when we are talking about Parmenides? It has nothing to do with the objections I made to you. If you want to prove that you know how to repeat Heidegger's words, you have already done it several times. But to repeat does not mean to understand. Answer my questions and stop tracing texts that you do not understand.
Sein und zeit was really complex to read but I got a rather agreeable picture of his view on what meaning of life is. The base in everyday life and then thoughts on the timeliness of the existence, the importance of death, the augenblick and the historicism. All good and well and not a trace of a guy that wants to stand in a flock and yell heil a few years later(ok, thats seemingly more his cup of tea than socialising with upper class gossiping but anyways)
So what to look for next?
That's not what was said.
Quoting David Mo
What you said:
Quoting David Mo
Parmenides thought that being is timeless. He "produced" this thought "outside of time." That's what you said. And it's ridiculous. Next time try harder to be clear if this isn't what you meant.
Quoting David Mo
As you've demonstrated very well. The reasons are obvious, too. Not from a lack of intelligence, but from a lack of openness to learning (from him and from me). Pity.
Quoting David Mo
:yawn: Ok bud, whatever you say. There's no such thing as "expertise," I guess. You're like arguing against climate change deniers -- do a little perusing of data, then use it to justify what you already wanted to believe to begin with. What a shocker that the notion of Heidegger you began with hasn't changed. And of course, the person who has studied much longer and more carefully (and open-mindedly) than you "doesn't understand." Standard fare. :yawn:
Regardless, if I don't understand Heidegger, it's surely not been you who have shown that. Nor are you in any position to judge it.
Quoting David Mo
Because if you don't understand it, it's no wonder you don't understand his views on Parmenides, phusis, aletheia, the history of Western thought, etc. But you can do on believing you do -- not my business.
Quoting David Mo
I repeat:
Quoting Xtrix
Your "questions" have been answered. Multiple times. As I said, if you don't understand them, that's not a surprise...
Quoting David Mo
First you have to understand what "presence" and "time" mean in Heidegger. When you can explain that to me, you'll see understand the already given answer:
Quoting Xtrix
Quoting Xtrix
If you fail to see the connection between "presence" and (common) "time," and how this relates to Parmenides (when you yourself quoted a relevant passage), and furthermore why it's important to understand Heidegger's thesis about Western thought and temporality -- then that's your business. If I thought for a second that further elaborate explanation would actually get through to you, I'd do so. But it won't -- you've already taken a position on Heidegger, and that position has become dogma. Feigning a desire to learn by asking questions you don't understand simply because it's a topic you think you're well versed in (Parmenides) is not of interest to me. You've already taken up enough of my time with digressions about how "wrong" Heidegger thinks Western thought was -- again because you can't keep up with the conversation otherwise. I won't be sucked in again. If you want truly want to learn about what Heidegger thinks of Parmenides, since you refuse to learn from me (after all, I "don't understand" any of it) then here are the relevant texts: Parmenides, Basic Problems of Phenomenology, The History of the Concept of Time, Basic Questions of Philosophy, The Fundamental Concepts of Metaphysics, and even Phenomenological Interpretations of Aristotle. This of course assumes you've truly and carefully read Being and Time and Introduction to Metaphysics, which I highly doubt. There are also free UC Berkley courses available by Hubert Dreyfus et al., which go through the text carefully and which is a good introduction to Heidegger. Good luck.
In terms of?
What is ridiculous is that you focus on a phrase that is not well expressed to avoid the question. What I thought I said clearly and in detail in two comments:
Quoting David Mo
Quoting David Mo
So don't try to evade the question with little tricks and answer the question, please.
Do you see the difference?
Question:
What does Parmenides have to do with presence and time?
Answer:
Quoting Xtrix
Is that what you call a response? To repeat the question?
Question:
If we are talking about Parmenides' Being, why do you talk about Aristotle instead?
Quoting Xtrix
Is that what you call an answer? To boast of being very wise and look the other way?
Quoting Xtrix
Quoting Xtrix
Stop strutting around. Your Youtube Heidegger doesn't interest me. If you want to discuss answer the specific questions you are asked and ask in turn. I'm not going to talk of a different thing that asked.. It's not my style.
I'm sure it appears that way. The reason it appears this way is that you don't understand what "presencing" means, in Heideggerian terminology. Presencing is related to aletheia, to phusis -- that which is unconcealed, that which emerges and endures. The connection to "time"? Fairly obvious: "presence" is something present. The present is a dimension of time. Again, "time" has to be explained further -- hence Being and Time. Heidegger differentiates between "time" and "temporality," which has to be understood. You don't seem interested in understanding this distinction. Fine -- in that case, you get your answer in one step.
So where's the connection between presencing (in the present) and Parmenides? You quoted a relevant passage from Being and Time. Heidegger is claiming that Parmenides was likewise in this "mode" when philosophizing. I think the point is a truism -- or a "banality" if you like, until we find out why pointing this out is relevant. Heidegger spends hundreds of pages elaborating on it, especially regarding time (yet you go on to question why I continually bring this up, as if it were irrelevant) and how on its basis Being gets interpreted. The "seeds" of the meaning of Being as "ousia" (and hence substance, nature, object, etc) were already there with Parmenides, as the beginning of the great tradition (which he claims is now in its end, or has peaked with Hegel and came to an end with Nietzsche). Its important to understand this tradition and what it's come to if we're interested in understanding our modern situation and the possibilities of the future. This is Heidegger in a nutshell. This is why there's so much time spent on the Greeks and on history (of ontology and of the concept of time).
Quoting David Mo
Hmm...
Quoting Xtrix
"YouTube" Heidegger?
Quoting Xtrix
1. Time is not only present. A present without past or future does not pass and therefore is the lack of time: eternal immobility.
2. Parmenides defended that Being is eternal in this sense.
3. It cannot be said, as Heidegger (you) claims, that Parmenides' concept of Being is temporal. Unless Heidegger (you) twist the word time to make it say something else and then say that others do not know what the word means. I wouldn't be surprised. It is the quintessential Heideggerian method.
---------
4. In the same sense, Parmenides represents a tradition that worries his followers, especially Plato and Aristotle who try to correct him. They cannot be expected to be mere continuators of his concept of Being. But this is another issue.
Quoting Xtrix
I am interested in any distinction you would like to make that would shed light on the problem of Parmenides and time.
Quoting Xtrix
Apart from the Introduction to Metaphysics and some loose lines, your recommendations are excerpts from an interview and a Dreyfuss course on Heidegger. Both on Youtube. Draw your own conclusions.
Addendum: By the way, the term substance (ousía), whose origin Heidegger attributes to Parmenides, does not even appear in his poem. Of course, according to Heidegger's peculiar etymological method one can say that the author has said it even though he has not said it and without giving any proof that he has said it.
I think this brief fragment says much more than your twists and turns in the void.
Since the nature of being is temporary, the philosophers who defended the eternal character of nature were misleading their readers. They say that substances are eternal, but they are unable to give a coherent view of time and eternity.
So far I find this criticism acceptable and debatable. But Heidegger begins to run aground when he pretends that Plato's ideas or Parmenides' being are of a fictitious timelessness because they rest on a concept of "vision" that is nothing but the present turned into unlimited. It would be a false eternity.
But it is not. This is where Heidegger skates.
Parmenides' concept of being is not based on any "vision" or "presence" as he says. It is the fruit of a rational analysis -by the Goddess- of the discourse of men. This analysis does not focus on any contemplation or vision, but on a Truth of proto-logical order: it is not possible that the non-being is. Where is the vision here?
Secondly, St. Augustine and Heidegger are wrong. Platonic idealism is not only based on the illumination/vision of the world of ideas in the present. Two aspects of time are internal to its development: the past in the form of oblivion and the future in the form of reincarnation. Forms are not known because they are seen, but because they are remembered on the occasion of intellectual illumination. And life is projected to the future because it doesn't ends in worldly death, but in a continuous journey of the soul rising or falling
So, it is not true that Greek metaphysics has a concept of eternity based on the hypostasis of the present. Especially it is not true in the case of Parmenides.
There's two claims here.
1) I agree time is not only present -- but I never claimed that.
2) I noticed you mentioned "does not pass" and "eternal immobility." That's interesting. In this case your conception of time is equivalent to (or closely associated with) change (becoming, happening, or the Buddhist "impermanence" [arising and passing]) and/or motion (mobile vs. immobile). Am I misinterpreting? I think the latter is the basic formulation of time in physics, and an important one.
Quoting David Mo
That change is impossible, because nothing truly arises or passes -- or put another way, that there is only being, and no such thing as non-being (and thus no arising and passing, since for something to arise it has to arise from non-being into being, or pass out of being into non-being, which is impossible). Hence, as Zeno later points out (as you mentioned), no such thing as motion either.
This is my understanding of the standard interpretation of Parmenides from most scholars, or at least from the (limited) secondary sources I've read. You subscribe to this view, in my understanding- perhaps put in slightly different terms, but nonetheless essentially accurate?
I want to at least get all this correct, otherwise going on further is fruitless.
Quoting David Mo
Well I would lose the term "twist," and I would also reject that me or Heidegger would have deride someone for "not knowing what the word means." I have indeed mentioned that you don't fully understand (yet) what Heidegger is meaning with "time" and "temporality," yes. For good reason: it's not an easy topic. It's still very difficult for me in many ways, and there's no doubt I don't have it all 100% accurate.
Quoting David Mo
I don't think they're continuators of his concept of Being at all. I think you're right when you say both Plato and Aristotle tried to "correct" him, or at least synthesize or appropriate his thought. The "being of beings" in Plato and Aristotle are very different from Parmenides, without a doubt.
Quoting David Mo
I don't understand -- I have now twice given you several relevant books. Why ignore this? And yes, I really have read these. Here's a third attempt:
"Parmenides, Basic Problems of Phenomenology, The History of the Concept of Time, Basic Questions of Philosophy, The Fundamental Concepts of Metaphysics, and even Phenomenological Interpretations of Aristotle. This of course assumes you've truly and carefully read Being and Time and Introduction to Metaphysics"
Obviously that's a lot of reading, but you'll find very quickly in each of these from the outline and indexes what you're looking for regarding Parmenides, time, and the history of philosophy.
Well what can I say? I'm glad you find this person a better communicator. I agree with the above wholeheartedly.
Quoting David Mo
No "vision" perhaps, but certainly thought, perception and interpretation. As you say, "rational analysis." Well Heidegger would say "Where is this rational analysis/thinking/interpreting coming from, if not the human being?" So if (1) this is an interpretation of Being, (2) we assume Parmenides is a human being (Dasein), (3) the Heideggerian interpretation of the "essence" of Dasein is its "existence" (it's "there-ness," its "being-in-the-world"), (4) that this "existence" manifests itself in the ready-to-hand, involved engagement with the world and with others (as its common and typical everyday "average" mode), and lastly that (5) this involved engagement is connected to plans and goals ("for the sake of which...", "in order to," "towards which"), which can be re-interpreted as "projecting" (i.e., towards a future), then (6) we see that the essence of the being (Dasein) asking the question of Being is essentially a caring-temporal one.
Very long winded, I know. But each step is in this layered analysis is very important. All Heidegger is really doing is focusing more on the practical, everyday stuff -- in a reaction to logic and analysis, like many others have done (the Pragmatists, other "existentialist" thinkers, etc) -- and doing so with a phenomenological method that focuses on absence and withdrawal, the "transparent" stuff that gets overlooked, the "hidden," the "concealed." In his hands, Kant's thesis still stands but in his phenomenological/hermeneutic anlaysis "time" becomes something very different, all with the incorporation of Nietzsche's "perspectivism."
Briefer: According to Heidegger, since Parmenides is a human being, and ontologically "human being" means "temporality" (again, in his formulation), then he cannot escape interpreting "Being" in terms of ("on the basis of") this temporality. I think B&T page 46-47/25 says it clearly, but especially Intro to Metaphysics page 157, as I think I quoted elsewhere, with reference to page 127 (concerning what is meant by "perspective").
From 157:
[quote=] But why time, precisely? Because in the inception of Western philosophy, the perspective that guides the opening up of Being is time, but in such a way that this perspective as such still remained and had to remain concealed. [...] But this "time" still has not been unfolded in its essence, nor can it be unfolded (on the basis and within the purview of "physics"). For as soon as meditation on the essence of time begins, at the end of Greek philosophy with Aristotle, time itself must be taken as something that is somehow coming to presence, ousia tis. This is expressed in the fact that time is conceived on the basis of the "now," that which is in each case uniquely present. The past is the "no-longer-now," the future is the "not-yet-now." Being in the sense of presence at hand (presence) becomes the perspective for the determination of time. But time does not become the perspective that is especially selected for the interpretation of being. [/quote] (Italics all Heidegger's)
Again, long winded but maybe helpful.
I assume this is what you think Heidegger would think. Interpretation in second phase.
If the above explanation is true, it would be applicable to Parmenides, according you. No direct quote of Heidegger to explain the link between Parmenides and time. Only a curt assertion.
Then, about your opinion:
Let us accept that every human being live in the experience of time (temporality). This is not the same than saying that every human proposition implies time because it is based on existence of things (presence).
"A is A" is not a temporal assertion. It is assumed to refer to objects without circumstances of present, past and future. Very different to say "The corpse was on the table". This is temporal because I can ask "When?" and I understand that it is different to "The corpse is on the table" or "We will put the corpse on the table". But asking "When A is A?" has no sense. You are badly asking. The answer is: "Under any circumstance of time and space" This is to say, without any circumstance of time and space.
Another thing is that the timeless statements that human beings are capable of making contain some empirical content. "A =A", for instance, is a formal statement. It says nothing about reality, but rather about the way thought is organized. Probably "Being is One", by Parmenides, has no empirical content. It does not describe anything, so to speak. It is a formal statement used as if it were existential. That is the error of all metaphysics and Parmenides is its father.
But this is very different from saying that we cannot formulate propositions that escape the a priori conditions of temporality. We can and do so constantly. In fact, Heidegger claims that it must be done, since he accuses Parmenides of defining being in terms of temporality, in terms of the present. But what I doubt is that both Parmenides' and Heidegger's metaphysical statements are referential, that they refer to something real. They are simple escapes from reality. Very typical of myth, religion and poetry.
1) are you a positivist?
2) have you read Heidegger on the metaphysical foundations of math and logic?
Quoting David Mo
Seems to me that you are taking the propositions of logic to be timeless, in a sense. In that case, the same applies to arithmetic, which is also not temporal assertions. But these formal propositions and assertions are still coming out of the human mind -- I think we both agree with that. If the human mind is essentially temporal, and if the symbols of logic and mathematics are themselves beings which occur in the mind (in thought, reason, etc.), it's difficult to see how they're somehow beyond or outside time -- unless of course by "time" we mean the time of physics, in which case we mean essentially change/motion, and of course A = A doesn't change or move. So again it really all depends on what we mean by "time." Which is why I bring it up so much.
Quoting David Mo
"Real" is problematic for me. Is discussing Being any less "real" than laws of logic? I also think ideas of referentiality are questionable.
Logic, math, language, etc., are all involved in thought. Thinking is a human activity (maybe exclusively, maybe not), along with feeling, willing, etc. Thoughts occur at some point in time -- so even the "objects" or "representations" of thought arise in a present. If I visualize a triangle, it's not that the triangle is somewhere "outside" myself that can decay, but neither is anything in thought. So yes, in that case almost anything we think or imagine is "timeless" -- they never change, they never move, they never decay. In that case the moon illusion is also timeless, in a sense -- it's in our heads as perception, and always has been, even though it is indeed an illusion.
But this opens up many questions as well, particularly about what we mean by "thinking," which is also an important one. Heidegger, in Intro to Metaphysics, talks at length about thought as traditionally associated with what you're talking about -- namely, with logic -- and goes on to claim that the distinction between being and thinking is the dominant one in the West.
And for me it's problematic that the concept of reality is problematic for you, especially because you don't give any reason for it. If you want to discuss it, and if you don't want to, I don't know why you say it.
Quoting Xtrix
Math is not based on what we visualize or imagine. Mathematical proofs are based on formal criteria, independent of empirical intuition. That's why there are totally counterintuitive mathematics. The same for logic.
Of course. The life of human being is subject to temporality. But he can formulate propositions that refer to non-temporal objects. I repeat, you see sense in saying: "Tomorrow at 10 p.m. A will be equal to A"? Do you see no difference between "A=A" and "The postman will ring twice"?
Summarizing: I think Parmenides was trying to do an a-temporal and counterintuitive theory of Being and Heidegger misunderstood him because he had a preconceived idea. He thought that all the metaphysical tradition was infected by the ontical. He was the only one that was able to lead humanity on the path of true ontological thinking. I think he had a high concept of himself. A philosophical vice.
What he did not perceive is that metaphysics is contaminated by the ontic because a thought detached from sensitive experience becomes empty and irrelevant to practice. Perhaps he realized this in his final stage and therefore preferred to take refuge in poetry and abjure philosophy. Because poetry has no commitment to truth and does not need to justify what it claims.
You just made we want to read his last philosophical works
Great! You'll tell us about it.
If you copy/paste the following:
University of Sussex › blogs › ...PDF
Martin Heidegger - Sussex Blogs
into google, you'll find a downloadable pdf version of On Time and Being (1969) with an intro/commentary by Joan Stambaugh. It also includes The End of Philosophy and the Task of Thinking.
Also seen Letter on Humanism available in pdf format as well in searches.
I didn't say mathematics is based on visualization or imagination. On the other hand, there are formal principles involved in vision as well -- yet without the triggering effect of experience we wouldn't know what they are. Regardless, assuming arithmetic is a completely formal system, it's still a part of the human mind. As is logic. As is language.
Quoting David Mo
Again, "non-temporal object" is meaningless until we explain what "temporal" means. If we define "temporal" as something that moves/changes, then no -- abstractions aren't, in that sense, temporal objects. Quite true. But this is why I said "It comes down to how we're defining time."
Quoting David Mo
"Ontical," in Heidegger, refers to beings (plural). That metaphysics has lost the question of Being itself, according to Heidegger, is quite true -- in the sense that "Being" gets interpreted as *a* being -- as permanence, as becoming, as Idea (enduring prototype), as ousia (substance). Whether Heidegger considers Parmenides as part of this I'm not sure. It seems Parmenides was truly doing ontology and raising the question of Being, but leaving unquestioned (phenomenologically) the perspective which guided his questioning. According to Heidegger, that concealed perspective was temporality.
I don't know how time can be defined without reference to change, evolution or whatever you want to call it. I would like to know how you do it. Seriously.
Quoting Xtrix
What do you mean, we don't know? The text we are discussing accuses Parmenides of having directly raised the problem of Being in temporal (present) mode. And Heidegger assimilated it to Aristotle. I don't have time to look at it now, but I think I remember it quite well.
Very true, but I was referring to:
Quoting David Mo
Whether Parmenides is part of the tradition of mistaking being for a being, or focusing entirely on "beings" (the ontical) is not clear to me, I'd have to go back and check a number of books, but my sense is that Heidegger considers Parmenides to be a true "thinker," a primordial one, one who raises the question of Being.
"Being is that which shows itself in the pure perception which belongs to beholding, and only by such seeing does Being get discovered. Primordial and genuine truth lies in pure beholding. This thesis has remained the foundation of western philosophy ever since [Parmenides]." (B&T, p. 215/171 -- context is important here, the brackets are mine but if you read the previous part he's referring to Parmenides' famous 'For thinking and being are the same' sentence, although 'thinking' here is interpreted by Heidegger as 'to perceive with the eyes" as the footnote explains.)
Quoting David Mo
Well not me, really, but Heidegger -- or at least my take on him. He sees Aristotle as treating "time" as something already present-at-hand, as something measurable, as change in the sense of a sequence of "nows" -- I think of a moving point on a number line, for example. One of the basis units of physics, as you know, is the unit fo time: the second, as measured by a repetitive, consistent change (something to do with caesium, but I won't pretend to understand it).
What Heidegger will say, however, is that this understanding of time is itself grounded in our "temporality," which in B&T is tied to Sorge, care. We're projecting, anticipating, expecting -- that's the "future." He'll call the past/present/future different "ecstases," but that temporality is really a unity and happening all at once, so that there is no "before" and "after," really. So in a weird way, there is no "time" without humans:
"Strictly speaking we cannot say: There was a time when man was not. At all times man was and is and will be, because time temporalities itself only insofar as man is." (Intro to Metaphysics, p. 71)
"There is no nature-time, since all time belongs essential to Dasein." (Basic Problems, p. 262)
All of this is admittedly very strange, but I wonder: what do you think he's driving at in Being and Time? He says from the beginning that "time" will have to be re-interpreted, that a new understanding of it needs to be "explicated," etc. His thesis stands or falls on whether he's adequately describing things, and so this is why "time" is particularly relevant here -- if he's wrong about "time," then he's completely useless (in my view).
I agree with what you've written on this thread. I think for Heidegger, time is meditation on being by the Kantian self
What is pure perception? An intellectual vision, since it is pure. But there is nothing in Parmenides that suggests contemplation in the sense of intuitive grasping (I use intuition in the Kantian sense), but reasoning. Of course, if we equate every thought with "pure perception" everything is "vision". But it is an unjustifiable assimilation that only serves to create confusion of language.
Quoting Xtrix
George Steiner is my main guide to (not) understanding Heidegger. In his own words, the subject of time "is watertight even by Heideggerian standards". Indeed, Heidegger creates around the concept of temporality a tangle of metaphors, neologisms and undefined concepts that make what he says unintelligible. A labyrinth only suitable for lovers of the cabala and masochists. :yum:
What I am clear about is that Heidegger distinguishes between authentic and inauthentic temporality. What I am clear about is that the authentic one is the one that corresponds to his ideas. What I am also clear about is that either of the two temporalities includes past, present and future as becoming. And it is clear that Parmenides denies becoming, since Being is one and immobile.
Therefore there is no reason why Heidegger accuses Parmenides of thinking Being in the mode of time. It does not make sense.
I hope Xtrix responds, but in would like a try at a little response.
Heidegger 's thoughts were always in projection. Once he found a truth he projected it.. Being the first existential philosopher, this was only natural and it was natural for him to tear through the continuity of his thoughts in search of One thought that would hold forever
What does "projection" mean?
Projection was to always put the truth in the future; it's like having a friesby that you keep tossing away once it returns to you. Hegel and Heidegger were the greatest products, or should I say projects, of Germany. Husserl was a genuine man, fish he even looks like a civil war General without the stress
So my argument on Parmenides and Heidegger is that both went through every contingent truth until the necessary truth was found. Only that Parmenides was an ancient, more akin to our distant ancestors
Hey, what language do you speak? I'm just saying that because of the accent. I hadn't thought of comparing Hegel to a potato chip, but sometimes Heidegger seems more like a sweet potato promoted to the generalate. I hope that doesn't lead to a third world war. With the civil war I have enough.
I'm from Italy actually, but my residency is in the US. Thank you for asking
I'm not sure what this means exactly, but perhaps it's true.
Quoting Xtrix
This "beholding" and "discovering" is related to aletheia, to unconcealedness, to "disclosure" or "open-ness" of the world. Remember this is what Heidegger asserts that the tradition has always believed, but with the emphasis on what's present before us. What he will constantly emphasize, however, is absence -- that which withdraws, conceals, and hides.
Quoting David Mo
Not easy, but I wouldn't say unintelligible. That "projection" and "anticipation" are the basis for ordinary concepts about the "future" as a "not-yet-now" isn't all that hard to understand: our experience and involvement in the world ("being-in-the-world") is where we always start from when we begin to philosophize -- but like when a hammer breaks down, it's a different mode of being than when simply acting.
Quoting David Mo
Maybe you could explain it to me then, because this is something I'm certainly not clear on. I'm not even sure if "authentic temporality" really makes sense. Dasein can be authentic or inauthentic, but I don't see how these ideas apply to temporality as Dasein's being.
Quoting Xtrix
Ley us see:
Two things are clear here: There is an authentic and an inauthentic temporality and both are based on "futural”. But what temporality means is gibberish.
This is a mess because Heidegger identifies past, present and future in a "unity". To build that unity he equates the future with "having been", that is, what is normally understood as the past. And the present is "liberated" from itself we don't quite know how nor from what. In other words, the construction of that unity destroys the common meaning of the word "time", without proposing an intelligible alternative.
In my opinion.
Once again I insist that all this has nothing to do with the Being of Parmenides, who is one and immobile.
NOTE: one of the traits that define authentic temporality is that of finitude. Inauthentic temporality is conceived as infinite. The authentic one as finite, that is to say, being for death.
One would be tempted to say that what happens is that the common man thinks time in objective terms, while Heidegger is thinking in subjective terms, beyond his particular life. But this is not the case. Heidegger prevents us from considering time in objective vs. subjective terms. Phenomenology is supposed to overcome that alternative of vulgar thinking. How? Another mystery.
Not really. Notice he doesn't mention temporality here. Being-towards-death is a separate, but related, issue. It's true that it deals with the future, but that doesn't mean it's synonymous with "temporality," which he'll later talk about in terms of "ecstases," etc.
Quoting David Mo
I don't see it as a mess really. What I gather here is his claiming that, in ordinary experience, all three are happening essentially at once, and only in detached, abstract thinking do they become separate "things" on a number line which happen in a sequence. It always has struck me as quasi-Buddhist, but I think they emphasize more that the "past" and "future" are indeed separate but illusory and that only the present matters.
In any case, again and again it's always helpful to keep in mind the separation of "ready-to-hand" and "present-at-hand" modes of being, ordinary everyday (average) experience, and contrasting with what the "tradition" (which has always privileged abstract, theoretical thinking and "logic") claims "time" and "being" are (i.e., how they get interpreted). By using phenomenology as a method, and as something that essentially studies the "hidden" or "concealedness" of things, Heidegger is trying to throw out all traditional concepts and describe "being-in-the-world" anew -- hence "Dasein" and "temporality" and "unconcealedness," etc.
To take Being and Time in reverse order: we essentially are temporality (as beings), which manifests are "care," which shows up in average everyday experiences as the "ready-to-hand" activities we're mostly engaged in and which are transparent to us because they're so "close," and have thus been ignored by the tradition. He layers these analyses, I think rather poorly, in the first two Divisions, but this (in my view) remains the thesis, apart from his "deconstruction" of the history of time and Being.
I suggest that you read the context of the texts I have provided. In any case, in the two texts I have provided, temporality is impied by means of future. In the first and second texts Heidegger is talking about temporality.
Quoting Xtrix
Because you don't pay attention to what I say and you respond to something else that comes to mind. The problem is not that they form a unity (at least not the one I was aiming at) but that in that unity the future is defined in terms of having been (past).
Quoting Xtrix
This is exactly what you do from here. Nothing you say refers to my objection. You recite what you more or less know and forget the terms of our debate.
Because the "terms" are based on no understanding of Heidegger's concepts, hence why I have to go back over and over to them. If you understood them, you'd quickly see how the "terms" melt away. Regardless:
Quoting David Mo
As far as I see, he never once mentions "authentic temporality." That doesn't make sense. What you're referring to is being-towards-death, which is a different topic.
Quoting David Mo
All three ecstases are defined in terms of the others. The past, therefore, is just as much defined by the future as the future is in terms of the past. Take a look at the quote you provided again, then the following:
"Thus we can see that in every ecstasis, temporality temporalizes itself as a whole; and this means that in the ecstatical unity with which temporality has fully temporalized itself currently, is grounded ithe totality of the structural whole of existence, facticity, and falling -- that is, the unity o the care-structure." (B&T p. 350/401 -- emphasis Heidegger's)
The entire paragraph is helpful, but I don't feel like typing it all out.
"Temporalizing does not signify that ecstases come in a 'succession'. The future is not later than having been, and having been is not earlier than the Present. Temporality temporalizes itself as a future which makes present in the process of having been." (ibid. p 350/401)
Quoting David Mo
He does not "equate" it, he's saying it's all happening at once and so should not be thought of as "later" or "not-yet." Likewise, the past is very much dependent on the future -- and if you look at how we live, or even how we think about our history or world history, our current values and goals plays a huge role in how we interpret the past. It's not a construction, it's a description. And it is indeed an intelligible alternative -- it makes good sense, in fact -- at least to me. Does it "destroy" the common meaning of the word "time"? Sure it does, of time as a sequence of "nows" that we measure, quantitatively, with clocks and calendars, etc. That "ordinary conception of time" has been destroyed isn't a criticism.
No, because "inauthentic/authentic time" is meaningless. Heidegger rarely spoke about relativity.
Quoting Gregory
You'll have to provide some quotations, because I see nothing about an afterlife in Heidegger -- ever.
For Heidegger it's meaningingless? He says "the facticity of Being is essentially distinguished from the factuality of something objectively present. Existing Being does not encounter itself as something objectively present within the world." This might be a starting point to seeing a difference in time-structure.
"The problem of possible wholeness of the being, who we ourselves actually are, exists justifiably IF care, as the fundamental constitution of Being, 'is connected' with DEATH as the most extreme possibility OF this Being."
So there is possibility of Being in death. Heidegger doesn't say we then go from Being to infinite nothingness. He doesn't speak of ETERNAL life at all. But Being does not leave us in death
"..death is the ownmost nonrelational, certain, and, as such, indefinite and not to be bypssed possibility OF Being".
All these quotes are from B&T
He's making a distinction between the present-at-hand, "objectively present" mode of being, the being of "objects" in our environment, and ourselves (Dasein). He's not talking about temporality here, and certainly not about authentic or inauthentic temporality -- which is meaningless.
Quoting Gregory
Page number?
This passage in itself says nothing about what you're thinking. Death is connected to "this being," meaning Dasein. Yes, dasein lives with the knowledge that it will eventually die. Death is the end of possibilities in Heidegger. There's nothing about an afterlife anywhere.
Quoting Gregory
Where? Pages are helpful.
"Possibility of being" is in relation to dasein -- and yes, in that case death is, as I mentioned above, the most extreme possibility -- the possibility which cancels all possibilities.
You're just misreading it, I'm afraid.
All the quotes are from the middle of the book when he starts talking about conscience and death; I simply wrote them down on my computer awhile ago so I could use them on this for this forum . You are supremely correct that I should've page numbers attached. I picked the book up today for the first time in months.
I thought death as a "possibility of being" meant we could find some kind of being in death. It's clear that language works such that the equivocal is predominate
2) Heidegger wrote "Modern Science, Metaphysics, and Mathematics" during an age when everyone was talking about relativity. I'm sure it's covered in the book. I see a lot of B-time in "Being and Time"
3) what would a conversation between Heisenberg and Heidegger have been like?? Energy was being discovered as the principle of everything, and the conclusion seemed to be that energy could create its own forces out of nothing. So much for a need for supernatural intervention! Heidegger must have found this interesting
I'm not sure what postmodernism says, to be honest. I suspect, from my little reading, that it says very little.
Quoting Gregory
Well if he covers relativity somewhere I'm happy to take a look.
Quoting Gregory
Heisenberg was a physicist, and Heidegger has a lot to say about physics (in the sense of its origins and ontological underpinnings). Whether or not he was interested in (or fully understood) all of Heisenberg's ideas, I have no idea.
He does not destroy anything. He changes the common sense of a word without giving a valid reason. When he speaks of temporality he is speaking of something else that is not temporary. According to you what reason do you have to "destroy" the common concept of time? Any sensible person understands that the football match to be played tomorrow is not now and that the car I bought yesterday is not in the future. For him everything is part of the same amalgam. That is, a play on words that serves only to mislead.
I understand that mystics and Buddhists like this verbal entanglement. I do not.
Tell Heidegger.
I found a dozen references to authentic or inauthentic temporality in 10''. Advantages of computer science.
Let me paraphrase that paragraph. "Existing in the world is being in the present, waiting for the future. To be authentically in the present is to resolutely anticipate, through which we see the future. Temporality and the present are the same, and it is a moment of vision. When the vision is timeless, it is in the ecstatic mood. Usually we are only a few seconds ahead of us. A broader vision is to see your whole destiny."
Is this Heidegger or St. Teresa of Jesus levitating?
I don't think you appreciate philosophy are it's deepest levels
"I don't think you appreciate philosophy are it's deepest levels"
Wells are not good for philosophy.
Quoting David Mo
Quoting David Mo
Most of division II of Being and Time is dedicated to giving multiple "valid reasons," in fact.
Quoting David Mo
So you stick with Aristotle. Nothing wrong with that. I myself use it, of course -- we all do. Heidegger goes beneath this "common" conception, however. The use of a "time line," a sequence of "nows," an equating time with "motion" or space, and the measuring/quantifying of repeatable changes in clocks, etc., is not necessarily how we experience "time." The experiential component, when analyzed phenomenologically, has little to do with "seconds" and "minutes," "befores" and "afters." Thus why he dubs it "temporality" rather than "time."
Quoting David Mo
Still doesn't make sense to me, but thanks for pointing them out.
If you don't quote any valid reason you are blocking the discussion.
"So you stick with Aristotle"
I do not adhere to anyone.
I am affirming the common perception of time that Heidegger violates without valid reason.
You don't need clocks to have a different perception of the past, present and future as different elements of a lived process. My objection is that Heidegger makes an aberrant mix as we saw with Parmenides.
In my opinion.
Been trying to untangle these, and playing somewhat fast and loose here, checking the index in Stambaugh to references to "inauthentic temporality," I'm gathering something like the following:
Authentic temporality and inauthentic temporality are linked with finitude and infinite time, respectively, toward the end of section 65 (331/304 Stambaugh).
In turn, finitude is linked both with the unity of the ecstasies and "my death." Infinite time/inauthentic temporality is linked with our everyday dealings with others, our entanglement with the they, and our flight from death.
"Looking away from finitude, the inauthentic temporality of entangled everyday Da-sein must fail to recognize authentic futurality and thus temporality in general." (424/389).
"Herein lies an inauthentic [I]awaiting[/I] of 'moments' that already [I]forgets[/I] the moments as they slip by. The awaiting of inauthentic existence that makes present and forgets is the condition of the possibility of the vulgar experience of time's passing away." (425/389-390)
In the above quote, "inauthentic awaiting" appears contrasted with anticipatory resoluteness and authentic being towards death.
...
"Thus if we demonstrate that the 'time' accessible to the common sense of Dasein is [I]not[/I] primordial, but arises rather from authentic temporality, then, according to the principle [I]a potiori fit denominatio,[/I] we are justified in calling the [I]temporality[/I] now set forth [I]primordial time[/I]." (329/302)
...
"The problem is not [I]how does 'derivative,'[/I] infinite time 'in which' objectively present things come into being and pass away, [I]become primordial,[/I] finite temporality, but rather, how does [i]in[/I]authentic temporality, as [I]in[/I]authentic, temporalize an [I]in[/I]finite time out of finite time?" (331/304)
...
So, playing fast and loose here, a sketch of what I think he's doing here (or if one likes, what he seems to be attempting or what he thinks he's doing/attempting) is showing our vulgar concept of time as an endless succession of nows to be taken as the expression of inauthentic temporality - which is our understanding of time in terms of our everyday dealings and entangled being-with others ("public time"), which is a levelling down of primordial time (the ecstases, finitude, and the potentiality-of being-a-whole disclosed by my death).
The vulgar concept of time I'm taking to be the expression (qua objective presence) of "public time," and the latter to be grounded in the ecstases/finite time.
The expression "[I]Temporality reveals itself as the meaning of authentic care[/I]" (326/300) perhaps should have simply read "Temporality reveals itself as care" (?) as his playing with "authenticity" here lends itself to confusion over the possibility of something like "inauthentic temporality but authentic care."
(Open to corrections of course - these were just some initial impressions.)
I've gone through his description of temporality, and I think it's quite accurate and, if you get into his terminology, quite elegant. His valid reasons for "changing" the common usage of the word "time" is partially based on this new analysis, and partially based on a historical and linguistic analysis. I've gone over this several times as well. If none of these are considered valid reasons, I'm not interested.
Quoting David Mo
We all have influences. The common description of time in physics is largely influenced by Aristotle's Physics and common notions are likewise influenced. In fact mostly we treat time as something measurable in clocks and calendars.
Quoting David Mo
The "common perception" has a long history, and in fact is not common everywhere. However, Heidegger isn't 'violating' anything -- in fact he spends hundreds of pages distinguishing between "time" (which he reserves for the ordinary conception) and "temporality" (which is his analysis of time as experienced, rather than a present-at-hand phenomenon the tradition has always held).
This wouldn't be surprising, I suppose. If this is correct, I don't see why he calls common notions of time "inauthentic temporality" -- why not just call it "ordinary time" as he does elsewhere? But I'll have to re-read most of it for a useful opinion. Your analysis seems reasonable.
I'm not sure either. All I can think of so far is it being a part of his attempt to link each discussion (insofar as the phrase only appears to show up once he has identified temporality as the meaning of care) in something like a thorough fashion (?). Will have to chew on it more.
This has been an interesting thread. My readings of Heidegger have been limited to BT, Intro to M, some of the shorter works and supplemental material - have found your posts to be helpful as well as waarala's and other earlier posts - even some of the criticisms, although the criticisms for the most part seem here to range from the fairly weak to the cartoonish. If nothing else this forum is good for reading notes - upon coming across this thread I think I'll take a look at History of the Concept of Time next or Contributions.
You've already read, in my view, very essential ones. I'd add "Basic Problems of Phenomenology" to the list. The History of the Concept of Time isn't all that informative, in my view. "Basic Questions of Philosophy" is also important.
Thanks for the suggestions.
"I've gone over this several times as well."
My memory is bad and I don't remember you doing what you say. Can you repeat any of those valid reasons?
Thank you
(Actually I don't think you've commented on any. )
"- in fact he spends hundreds of pages distinguishing between "time" (which he reserves for the ordinary conception) and "temporality" (which is his analysis of time as experienced,"
I am referring to the commonly lived time (temporality). I put special emphasis on that).
Paragraph 314?
Being and Time has 83 epigraphs.
What do you mean?
I have the Joan Stambaugh translation. It has a number on the side of the page every few paragraphs. I thought these were the original paragraphs. My apology
Yeah I'm not sure what you're driving at anymore.
It is very simple.
"His valid reasons for "changing" the common usage of the word "time" is partially based on this new analysis, and partially based on a historical and linguistic analysis".(Xtrix)
I'm waiting for you to refresh my memory with some of those valid reasons you mention. Obviously, I don't think they exist.
Note: I insist: I am not talking about any objective concept of time. I am talking about time lived subjectively. I believe that there are certain common traits in all this subjectivity. I believe that Heidegger's "existential" description is in contradiction with them.
I don't think this sentence makes much sense, but indicates my hunch was right that "care" is connected with the sum of reality caring for us somehow
Does Heidegger agree that time is linear?
"The being that is disclosed is that of a being that is concerned about its being. The meaning of this being- that is, care- is what makes care possible in its constitution, and it is what makes up primordially the being of this potentiality of being."
" future does not mean a now that has not yet come, but a coming in which Dasein comes toward itself in its ownmost potentiality -of-being. "
In a footnote in my translation "existential project and existential self-engagement projecting itself itself into that project go together."
Every thing is moving for Heidegger, even truth
Did the ... interruption caused by certain events in Germany affect his philosophy? S und Z is pre-Nürmberg.
Reading Les Mots at the moment, no wonder Sartre did find an interest in the works of Heidegger...
"...future does not mean a now that has not yet come, but a coming in which Dasein comes toward itself in its ownmost potentiality -of-being. "
This is one of the many occasions that show that Heidegger was only interested in subjective time (temporality). Here it is about the evolution of the self towards a supposed primordial identity.
He claims to have overcome the subject-object opposition. How? Falsely, in my opinion, like all phenomenologists... that I have read.
I've done so. Yet:
Quoting David Mo
What is time lived subjectively? Because that's essentially all Heidegger means by temporality -- existential time as opposed to clock time, without talking about "subjects" or "objects." If you're arguing that "subjective" time is a sequence of nows, of a future being not-here-yet and a past being no-longer-here, etc., then what you're describing is indeed the ordinary conception of time and which has been influenced by Aristotle and the tradition generally. Aristotle's ideas did not exclusively influence the field of physics, but our ordinary lives as well. In a way, so did Descartes' conception of the world as mind and body. And this is exactly the reason why Heidegger questions it and wants to describe it anew -- because it is not even seen (including by you) as something questionable. It appears as the most self-evident, obvious thing on earth. But it isn't. So why is it important to question and re-interpret? Because it's this long tradition of conceptualizing time which has blocked off other lines of inquiry -- particularly about Being itself, which has itself been interpreted as something "present" (in the sense of this "ordinary conception of time").
And why is that important? Because we're living with the results of such an understanding -- namely, how we interpret and define ourselves as human beings. This has consequences for the future of the species. If we're not calling into question our most basic assumptions, there's less of a chance to change things. Heidegger doesn't say this specifically (although he alludes to it with references to the "fate of the West"), but it's what he has to mean. There's also interesting passages about the foundations of science, and how real revolutions in science occur when their foundations are challenged:
"Basic concepts determine the way in which we get an understanding beforehand of the area of subject-matter underlying all the objects a science takes as its theme, and all positive investigation is guided by that understanding. [...] The real 'movement' of the sciences takes place when their basis concepts undergo a more or less radical revision which is transparent to itself. The level wh ice a science has reached is determined by how far it is capable of a crisis in its basic concepts." (B&T p 29/9)
I bring this up because this applies to "ontology" as well, its basic question being the question of the meaning of being in general. Heidegger is calling for such a revolution in thinking.
Which "time"? The time of ordinary meaning and physics is linear, sure. Experiential time -- temporality -- is not linear.
I can't say for a certainty that WWII in particular changed his thinking, but neither can anyone else. As far as his writing goes, there's debate about what the "turn" really consisted of. Some say he became more about "openness" to the world, some say his thinking became more "historical," etc. He seems to have much more to say about art (particularly poetry) and technology.
Anyway, as far as what to read next -- I would listen to Heidegger himself. If you notice in the preface to the seventh edition of Being and Time, Heidegger recommends "Introduction to Metaphysics," and I highly recommend that as well. I found it much more clear than Being and Time in many ways. Otherwise "Basic Problems of Phenomenology" is important too.
Reading Heidegger is not easy. I've found I've had to read several books, several times. Best to avoid secondary sources at first and make sense of it yourself, if possible. My personal opinion is that no one can really interpret Heidegger clearly without at least 6 months or so of reading. There's just a certain minimum needed to read, ruminate, re-read, etc. Hunting down a lot of these books isn't always easy either. I think in the end it's very much worthwhile -- I don't see any other philosopher in the last 200 years, besides Nietzsche, who is as challenging and fascinating as Heidegger.
" If you're arguing that "subjective" time is a sequence of nows, of a future being not-here-yet and a past being no-longer-here, etc., then what you're describing is indeed the ordinary conception of time and which has been influenced by Aristotle and the tradition generally"
You (Heidegger? ) are mixing theories about time (succession of homogeneous instants) with perceptions of time (past not present). The perception of the past and the future as something that is no longer or not yet here present is more authentic (i.e. immediate) than Heidegger's vision of the primacy of an "already been" future. Only if we speak in terms of "meaning" can we say that the future "is here" as a project. But meaning is subjectivity, in the face of the common perception of the irreversibility of time.
Then, you (Heidegger?) introduce your subjective theory of time with a false excuse: that the common perception of time is theory. Moreover, you assume that this statement validates your attribution of "authenticity". False: that your theory is an alternative to another does not imply that it is better.
Of course, it is!
I'm talking to my father about my mother. My father is here. My mother is not here. She is dead. I wish she were! My mother is present only in our memory. But they are two very different ways of existing. I experience my father's presence as objective. My mother's presence is subjective: that is, my father and I do not remember the same things in the same way or give them the same meaning.
Any philosophy that does not take into account these simple starting facts about time is illusory. I think Heidegger hides them under an avalanche of pretentious words. His twisted language is a screen before the simplicity of the primary facts.
Avoiding illusions is important for many obvious reasons.
Pretending to understand Heidegger without help is like pretending to climb Everest in a bathing suit.
6 months is a joke. That's what it took me to understand what I don't understand and what others who presume to understand don't understand.
You've still not shown you really understand much, unfortunately. Not meant as a cheap shot, just my opinion. I don't think you're in any position to give advice. Your reading of Heidegger is about as accurate as your reading of my statement: I didn't say 6 months is all you need, I said it's at least what you need -- and even at that it's just an approximate number, which depends on how much time you have to read, your reading comprehension, your reading speed, etc. After that rough amount of time, a general picture of Heidegger will emerge. I agree that may indeed be a "joke" for you. Whatever time you've put in so far one might say is a "joke," based on many, many of your statements.
Lastly, it's not "pretending." I've demonstrated it over and over again and, if I'm off base, which I've rarely been, and this has been shown, I've corrected myself. But I never claimed to "understand" Heidegger completely. Do I understand his basic theses? Yes, I think I do. If I don't, no one has shown it to be the case -- least of all you.
Of course there has been help involved -- I've explicitly mentioned the help, in fact -- especially Hubert Dreyfus. Again, the point is not to start with secondary sources. Give yourself some time to read directly. Clearly you haven't heeded this advice, and it's shown from the beginning, when you started from the interpretations and criticisms of Carnap et al. So you're a good example of why it's important to read something first for yourself before summoning outside help.
What you claim is "perception," isn't. Declaring it such proves nothing. One could argue, just as sincerely, that the mind/body dichotomy is also "perception." In fact many have.
Quoting David Mo
Another assertion. And clearly the "already been" of the future is especially tripping you up. Which is odd, since he also says similar things about the past.
Quoting David Mo
No one is proposing a theory, certainly not a "subjective" theory.
Is Heidegger saying we experience time backwards? The quantum eraser experiment comes to mind
Since there's no "forward," I don't think he'd argue in favor of "backwards" either. This is still a linear sequence view of time -- the time that's measurable, that's mathematical, that's abstract. It's the time of physics, measured in the unit of a "second," etc., closely linked to space and motion. This is what Heidegger is saying does not describe the phenomenon of time accurately in terms of experience. This is why he goes through the concept of time through history, in part to show how we've arrived at this current formulation of time. In many ways, "time" is as concealed as "being" (in general); they are both related.
You seem interested enough in Heidegger, so I suggest giving Being and Time or Introduction to Metaphysics a read (or re-read). Not an easy task, of course. A lot of it is very unclear.
It's important to always keep in mind the things in Heidegger that are clear. My eyes glaze over many times in division II when he talks about conscience, anxiety, etc. There are many passages that I can't make heads or tails out of. But I don't think that's all that important if we keep in mind his general argument.
The most obvious (and superficial) thing to keep in mind is the title: Sein und Zeit. The question of being is central throughout the book and throughout Heidegger's life. Also central to the book is Zeit, time. Why the "and"? How are they related or connected? What does he mean by "being"? Does he ever give "it" a definition or interpretation? What of "time"? Does he mean clock time? How is thinking defined in Heideggerian thought? Or truth? Or human being? Etc. All things worth asking.
He says from the beginning that his analysis will be exceedingly difficult because he wants to essentially "get under" an entire tradition, whose set of assumptions we've take for granted for 2 and a half thousand years:
"With regard to the awkwardness and 'inelegance' of expression in the analyses to come, we may remark that it is one thing to give a report in which we tell about entities, but another to grasp entities in their Being. For the latter task we lack not only most of the words but, above all, the 'grammar.'" (B&T, p. 63/39)
I think from the parts of Being and Time which I was reading today he is implying that being gives rise to time, and time gives rise to space. We see the three aspects as one
It's helpful to quote the text to support your interpretations. Honestly I don't see anything in Being and Time that implies any of this.
"[i]What you claim is "perception," isn't."
"No one is proposing a theory, certainly not a "subjective" theory."[/i]
Heidegger: B&T:
" The future is not later than having been, and having-been is not earlier than the Present."
I am talking to my father about going to visit my mother's grave. There is an obvious irreversible time sequence. Anyone can perceive a similar one without the need for theories. Heidegger's claim that the future is primordial needs to be argued. One has the right to ask "Why?" But it would be absurd to ask for reasons that my mother's death is prior to the conversation that precedes the visit to her grave. This is how we perceive time directly. Without theories. So do you.
Heidegger's work is a complex and confusing theory about being, time and the human being. He claims to be based on a pre-discursive knowledge, but even that is not evident, as I have just shown. The perception of time does not agree with essential points of Heidegger's theoretical analysis.
Heidegger's analysis is very death oriented. Maybe when your time is near it will make more sense. Not to be morbid..
Ye. I was just referring to those parts where he says to contemplate your death and have it before your eyes so that you can live. Maybe there is something about death that changes how time s experienced.
Yes, in talk and thought. No one is arguing otherwise.
Quoting David Mo
In describing something, there is thinking and concepts involved. To argue this is "theory" is misleading. It is simply a common way of understanding and talking about the world -- as a sequence. But there is no "future" when you're at your mother's grave. When you're there, it'll be the present just as it is when you're talking about going.
Quoting David Mo
Temporality is primordial, not just the future.
Quoting David Mo
When does the memory of the death of your mother occur? In the past?
"In describing something, there is thinking and concepts involved. To argue this is "theory" is misleading. It is simply a common way of understanding and talking about the world -- as a sequence".
"When does the memory of the death of your mother occur? In the past?"
If all perception includes theory, the pre-discursive knowledge that is the basis of Heidegger's theory and his critique of metaphysics and science is also theory. Everything is relative or subjective.
You do not distinguish between talking about a person's death and that the person is dead. When did my mother's death occur? In my memory? Is my mother's death "theoretical"?
Heidegger says that the future is the primordial existential ecstasis. I suggest you review your readings.
The main reason is that the authenticity of the human being resides in the anticipatory resolution of being for death. But the mere concept of project already anticipates that priority of the future that gives meaning to the past.
I'm surprised you don't know this.
Perception is not theory.
Quoting David Mo
No.
When you remember your mother's death, you're remembering it right now. It's a kind of cognition. That doesn't mean it's a "theory." Not all thinking or cognizing is "theory." The question pertained to time, not theory or perception.
Quoting Xtrix
Quoting David Mo
Temporality is primordial, it's what the ordinary concept of time emerges from. The future is one aspect of temporality, and a particularly important one in Heidegger.
Quoting David Mo
Yes...
Quoting David Mo
:yawn:
It's a truism once pointed out. Yet it's been continually overlooked in the history of philosophy, including today.
Quoting David Mo
No one is making any claims like this about his interpretation.
Quoting David Mo
What you're trying to ask, and failing to, is this: where is the evidence that temporality is the "original temporal mode," etc. If you want evidence for Heidegger's description, introspect for a while. Introspection is a kind of evidence. Beyond that, there's an entire book that presents evidence for it -- it's called Being and Time. Temporality is care, and care is "being-in-the-world," and "being-in-the-world" is tied very closely to ordinary, average everyday activity, which is analyzed closely (phenomenologically) with very basic examples (hammering, etc) which only overthrows 2,500 years of Western philosophy. If the evidence, interpretation, description, etc., doesn't convince you -- fair enough. Stick to the analytic philosophers or whatever you prefer.
Heidegger rejects as inauthentic the Aristotelian concept of time and what he considers its derivation in the vision of time lived by common sense. It is a continuous leitmotif of his work. If you pretend that Heidegger's interpretation of temporality is not an interpretation, you will tell me what it is. The real truth? No. Heidegger's interpretation is opposed to other interpretations, such as those of other phenomenologists like Merleau-Ponty or Sartre. Whether it is the authentic or the true, is what he never demonstrates. (Among other things because he shows an Olympic and explicit contempt for all that is evidence. His must be divine inspiration, that is, of Being).
And how do I grasp or think about time if not through perception or theory? Divine inspiration?
Heidegger himself repeatedly calls his theory an analysis. If I remember correctly, he also calls it an interpretation. Analyzing and interpreting are ways of theorizing. Here and in China.
Of course, you can resort to intuition. I have included it in the concept of "perception" so as not to complicate the debate.
Quoting Xtrix
Quoting Xtrix
True, but according to epistemology and psychology mere perception is influenced by theoretical conceptions. If you describe a perception you will include those theoretical elements. And this is true for Aristotle or Heidegger.
Quoting David Mo
Quoting Xtrix
Here it is. Underlined by Heidegger himself.
Hey, are you sure that what you have read with so much effort is Being and Time?
Perception is not theory. The rest of what you said is true enough, but no one is denying that. You're having trouble reading me I guess, so I'll just repeat:
Quoting Xtrix
This doesn't mean he's not giving an interpretation -- of course he is. It means the claims you say he's making about his interpretation is not the case. Pretty simple.
Quoting David Mo
Perception is not theory. Perceiving shapes and colors is very different indeed from theory. If we take "theory" or "theoretical" to mean something different than it means in the sciences (or philosophy), then we can claim anything we like -- in that case any sensation or perception is "theoretical." If you're convinced by that you're welcome.
Quoting David Mo
Quoting David Mo
Trouble reading again, I guess, so again I'll just repeat: temporality is primordial, not just the future.
That statement is true, and shown by the very passage you quote, as I clarified even more so (with underlines) in the same post:
Quoting Xtrix
I don't see how I can be any clearer. If you want to insist on misunderstanding so that you can "win" a debate, feel free. If you want to learn something, listening carefully is your best bet. Your choice.
You turn the discussion upside down so much that one ends up not knowing what one is talking about.
First of all, in contemporary psychology and philosophy you don't perceive colours, as you say. You perceive objects, that is structured sets with a form that is not a mere clustering of sensations (colours, sounds, etc.). The description of these objects is influenced by pre-concepts and categories, that have theoretical components. Theory is not the same that perception, but it does influence it.
Therefore, the pure description of phenomena that Heidegger and other phenomenologists pretend is impossible. We describe phenomena in a culture mediated background.
Heidegger suggest repetitively -if not claims- that Aristotelian-Cartesian concept of time is "theoretical" against his "authentic" concept of "temporality". This is false. His concept is as theoretical as Aristotelian. In the fact he himself recognizes it. He affirms that his interpretation has to "violate" the common sense of time. ("When violences are done in this field of investigation..." B&T: 326/374). It wouldn't be so grave if he were able to give some reason of this "violence" as he pretends. He is not.
One of the things Heidegger must justify theoretically is why the future is the primary mode within temporality, in preference to the past and present. (If you agreed with this, why did you argue? Why on earth did you add the superfluous consideration that temporality is "also" primary? It's just a desire to tangle things!). Heidegger's reason is purely theoretical. It depends on his concept of the priority of the anticipatory resolution of life before death. This is a Heidegger's very subjective theory that, as in others, is influenced by his Christian education. And it is rationally unjustifiable.
I’ll be back when I’m retired.
We have here in Scandinavia something called “summer program” in the most prominent radio channel, people still listens to the radio here. As podcasts on their Iphones. Have been running since the 50’s. The idea is that, everyday during the summer, some famous person will have 13:00-14:30 free to speak about pretty much what he or she wants to in small chunks, and play music of own choice in between. Hugely popular and I do listen to most. It might be their life’s story or some cause they root for. Whatever.
Anyhow, I’ve been listening to literary hundreds of those programs since the 80’s. Now, me and missus was talking about two different persons having had those programs years ago. I guessed their programs were like 10 years apart, but it turned out they talked almost the days consecutive.
When I read those parts in S und Z I kind of understood it as H was trying to formalize the feeling You get when “thinking of time”. Time as it appears to the dasein. Augenblick and all that. But I am no pro.
Heidegger has ever -- not once -- claimed the opposite. Neither have I. "Pure description" is your own invention.
Just give up at this point and be happy with whatever you believe. You came into this discussion thinking Heidegger was one thing, saw what you wanted to see, and now will leave the same way.
You're a good example of "theory" effecting perception.
Quoting David Mo
You're consistently rife with confusions this discussion. Correcting your (probably not deliberate) mistakes and mischaracterizations is boring, so I'll be brief:
Heidegger never says his CONCEPT of temporality is "authentic." Never. Apparently he talked about authentic and inauthentic temporality, which in my view doesn't mean much -- but that's not the same thing. Try to get your wording correct.
You make FAR more claims for Heidegger can he does. From now on, either quote something or reference a page, because at this point you're simply making things up.
Quoting David Mo
In the sense that you're taking "theory," how could it be otherwise? Of course interpretation and description is involved. Language is involved. Thinking is involved. Otherwise there would be no Being and Time. Is this really what you're arguing? If so, congratulations -- huge insight.
Quoting David Mo
Correct, he does have to justify that. We shouldn't take it on faith.
He does have an argument for this, consisting of many pages of words in a book called "Being and Time," which you've perused, with the intention of refuting (viz., not read at all).
Quoting David Mo
No, it's exactly the opposite: it's a desire to UNTANGLE things from your phrasings, which are imprecise. Your imprecision almost always skews Heidegger to an area you want him to be. You do this so often it's beyond count. It's no more "nitpicking" of me to correct these instances than it would be if you forget a decimal point while doing a math problem -- it changes everything else, so there's no need proceeding until it's fixed.
Here's a tip to be less boring: just assume, for a second, that Heidegger isn't a complete idiot. At least assume it about him -- I'd prefer you treated me that way as well, but I don't expect it given that I'm just an internet message board poster. Heidegger at least has some clout. If you don't want to bother with him, don't. If you do, do it seriously. That means putting aside pre-conceptions and what you've already heard about him, and really trying to get the story straight before launching criticisms. If you are having trouble getting the story straight, then turn to others for help and really push them to help you understand, until you truly "get it." THEN launch criticisms. Anything else is a complete waste of time.
Quoting David Mo
Cool -- you've figured out Heidegger and cracked the case. Good for you.
I think he gets his interpretation of time (in his formulation, "temporality") from looking at what we do in our "average everdayness," which he talks about as "being-in-the-world"-- as coping with equipment that is ready-to-hand, dealing with (and being influenced by) other human beings, engaging in projects (hammering in order to build a house in order to have shelter, etc), etc., which he will later re-interpret as modes of temporality. It's not that we "think" about it, but that when we do think about it we're "temporalizing" this pre-reflective (primordial) activity. Thus "time" in both the common understanding and in the theories of Aristotle are both derivative (or "privative") from this activity and experience.
When you introspect, follow him in his observations and descriptions, look at the various etymologies and historical contexts of highly influential texts (Aristotle's Physics, Kant's Critique of Pure Reason, Descartes Principles of Philosophy), and so forth, I think his argument is a compelling and original one. It also overthrows over two thousand years of thinking -- which is especially why many people (particularly those "educated" in Western philosophy) struggle with Heidegger, and why he often gets accused (like many before him) of charlatanism, heresy, etc. etc.
Nor have I seen any words from Heidegger about the influence of cultural background on phenomenal perception. You have spent many years reading Heidegger, so you could provide me with a wealth of references. One would be enough for me.
In the meantime, the fact that Heidegger blames the Aristotelian conception of time because it was "theoretical" suggests that he considered his own interpretation free of these theoretical elements. Is that so?
A Heidegger text on this would be interesting...
Quoting Xtrix
Absurd. Heidegger constantly talks about two opposing concepts of time (and others issues). One is inauthentic. The other is authentic. This is repeated ad nauseam. These words appear almost a hundred times in Being and Time
. You can't dismiss Heidegger's words by saying that "it doesn't mean much" to you. That meant a lot to Heidegger. And everyone understands what choice he had between authentic and inauthentic.
We're talking about Heidegger, aren't we?
Quoting Xtrix
If you agree with me, what are you discussing with me?
Quoting Xtrix
No kidding! I thought we were discussing the sex of angels! Thanks for warning us. Now, be nice, and explain to us one of those reasons the book is full of. One is enough for me. Because I have a malevolent suspicion that you can't do it. But I already say it's malevolent. You can easily disprove it. Sure.
Quoting David Mo
He's not blaming Aristotle. It's not that Aristotle has it "wrong" and he has it "right." He's not saying that. What he says several times is that by the time Aristotle conducts his analysis of time in the Physics, the Greek conception of being as phusis, though still lingering as a conception, becomes tied up with being as "Idea," and thus time itself gets treated as one more present-at-hand "object." Again page 220 of Introduction to Metaphysics is important. Heidegger, on the other hand, is claiming that his description is phenomenological, and discards many of these traditional pre-conceptions. If his thesis stands or falls, it does so on how well he describes the phenomena and, in my view, he does so brilliantly.
Quoting Gregory
I'm afraid I really don't follow you. Formulating a sensible question has to happen before any answer can be given -- I can't even imagine an answer in this case.
No, he doesn't. They're related, but there's no causal relation.
Quoting Gregory
Again, I really have no idea what this means.
What do you think Heidegger means when he says we do things by virtue of the future?
Some quotes from Being and Time.
As you can see, there is a " right" explanation of time. What is the wrong one?
Here it is clear, that which starts from Aristotle. What does it consist of? Here it is:
And what is Heidegger's alternative?
There are many confusing and contradictory things in Heidegger. But that he accuses Aristotle of being the founding father of a concept of time that is incapable of expressing authentic-primoridal temporality, is an item so repeated that only a myopic eye can fail to see it.
As you will understand if Heidegger's entire defense consists of his brilliance, according to Xtrix, the thing does not impress too much. Would you have something that looks like a piece of evidence or a favorable argument?
As I've said above, there are theories of time in physics that may have use of this theory. We may ordinarily experience time running backwards for example
"Rightly seen and rightly explained" refers to the phenomenon of time. There's no "blaming" there and no indication of being "wrong." This is why Heidegger repeatedly says this isn't the case.
Quoting David Mo
I see nothing about being "wrong." What a shocker. We've been through this before, and I've already shown you how you're misinterpreting it.
Aristotle's wrong and Heidegger's right. Put it in your simplistic terms if you need to. This is boring, and apparently the only thing you know how to discuss at length, while ignoring everything else. But have it your way -- I'm not interested.
Quoting David Mo
You have no idea what you're talking about. :yawn:
Quoting Xtrix
You're right: I don't know what you're talking about. Not Heidegger, of course.
"There is no worse blind person than the one who does not want to see". (Chinese proverb.).
The existence of a correct ("rightly explained") explanation of X implies the existence of a wrong explanation of X in all the languages of the world... except in your personal language (1). If you say that you have the "correct" interpretation of Heidegger you are saying that my alternative interpretation is wrong. In the quotations I have put Heidegger identifies this erroneous explanation as the "ordinary interpretation" of time. He points directly to Aristotle as the source of it ("persisted from"). Finally, he points out some essential differences between his correct interpretation and the ordinary one: finite versus infinite; priority of the future versus the succession of identical "nows". This is what serves him to confront his "authentic" interpretation with the "inauthentic" one. Which are two ways of talking about right and wrong.
All this is clearly explained in sections 65-71, if I remember the numbers correctly.
(1) I advise you to go to any synonym dictionary where you can see (if you want) this simple consequence.
Some more than others.
You're not talking about Heidegger. What Heidegger says, repeatedly and explicitly, is that the concepts handed down to us -- many of which have been incorrectly (wrongly) translated (this is especially where you've been confused in the past) -- are based on a particular interpretation of being: the Greek interpretation -- phusis which becomes ousia. This interpretation is not "wrong" in the sense of incorrect, it is simply based on more primordial phenomena which was overlooked and which Heidegger says had to be overlooked through no fault of their own (i.e., the ready-to-hand experiences which are traditionally concealed but can be brought out through phenomenology).
We see this over and over. The present-to-hand mode of inquiry, the theoretical attitude, is part of the human being, but ready-to-hand activity is where we find ourselves in our "average everydayness." It is more basic. If we interpret "time" as something present-at-hand, as Aristotle did, it doesn't mean it's wrong, it means it's "privative" -- it's leaving something out. This is why Heidegger never, not once, says anything like "Aristotle is wrong" or "Descartes is wrong." We've been through this over and over again. The rest of your "evidence" is simply misunderstanding, reading into the text your simplistic notions that you want to see. If you continue to refuse to see that, that's your own issue.
"Rightly explained" has nothing to do with "correct." You're misunderstanding that entire passage. Read "rightly explained" as "properly explained" -- i.e., handled phenomenologically. But if you want to die on that hill, you're welcome to.
What is left out is the level of ontology, Being, the understanding of Dasein's main constituents: temporality, care, anticipatory resolution, history, etc. That is to say, the primordial, authentic and true (unveiled). Without this, you remain at a lower ontical level of understanding of the philosophical tradition that Heidegger qualifies in a thousand ways, including the concept of right.
This is the main sense of Heidegger's work that you will find on every page of his books. I have given a sufficient number of quotations that imply his opposition to traditional metaphysics on this basic point. If you want to say that it is not because this tradition is wrong, but because it is insufficient, this is a simple play on words. Because that insufficiency is primordial, according to Heidegger, and prevents traditional metaphysics from solving the basic problem on which all others depend: the question of Being - and of Dasein, consequently.
And how you like to demand quotations - without understand those I am giving you - I would like you to give one where Heidegger says that the traditional metaphysics that is maintained at the ontic level (present-to-hand) is "privative" and equivalent to his own phenomenological analysis. I await with genuine interest.
I don't understand why you keep posting random, disconnected, Twitter-like assertions. I don't mean to be rude, but so far you have not demonstrated that you have any idea what you're talking about. Please try to be more relevant and more coherent. Otherwise you'll simply be ignored. If you have genuine questions, ask them. If not, your opining about Heidegger is not interesting.
Ignorance
What's left out is a more phenomenological way of treating time. Quoting David Mo
It's not a play on words. It's Heidegger's words.
Quoting David Mo
It prevents metaphysics from asking the question. He never says anything about solving a problem -- to phrase it this way gets us right back into the tradition.
Quoting David Mo
It's not equivalent to his phenomenological analysis, so I can't provide a quotation because he never says that. This would also undermine his entire thesis.
Yes, you are ignorant. Now please go away.
If you want to choose with the full consent of your free will to be ignorant, I'll leave your thread alonw
Yes, I do wish to remain ignorant of your obnoxious, random rantings about something you don't understand. Now please get off my thread.
"More" phenomenological? Is Aristotle phenomenology?
Heidegger explicitly says that the ordinary interpretation of time derived from Aristotle does not go beyond the ontic level. Please read Heidegger again.
And of course not. Aristotle is not "less" phenomenology, whatever you understand by more and less.
Quoting Xtrix
Where Heidegger says insufficiency is not wrong?
Quoting Xtrix
It is a truism, which Heidegger also uses, that if a question is not asked properly you cannot give a correct answer. Do you think that a correct answer can be done to a wrong question?
This is what produces the fundamental flaw in Western metaphysics: the obscuring of the question of being, to the point of denying meaning to the question and the concept of Being.
Heidegger says that the right approach to a question is the condition of the right answer.
Heidegger does not often use the term "to solve", but uses others with the same meaning. In the previous fragment he speaks of "clarifying". The term "demonstrate" and "appropriate and complete" are used also. Throughout his work other terms are equivalent, such as "unveiling". Or more metaphorical-mythical terms like "shepherd". All of them imply that, although the problem of the sense of Being is not totally solved -this is expressly recognized by him-, the path that Heidegger advocates is the right one and allows to take adequate steps in the right direction. Other ways are insufficient or occlusive. That is to say, the wrong paths.
Quoting Xtrix
This phrase has no meaning to me. Clarify it, please.
Quoting Xtrix
OK. In what way is it not equivalent? Why would this undermine your whole thesis?
How do you deal with this "error"?
Quoting David Mo
No, he doesn't. The ordinary conception of time and Aristotle's interpretation of time are two different things. It is not "derived" from Aristotle.
Almost everything that comes out of your mouth (or keyboard) needs correction. It's boring. Stop talking and start listening.
Quoting David Mo
:yawn:
And this?
I put this quotation some days ago. You have a poor memory. (Underlining is mine).
To lead irremediably and directly to error means to be wrong ( defective, faulty, flawed, inadequate, insufficient, lacking and so). Is it not?
This (like many other quotes I have included) dismantles your theory that Heidegger presents his theory as simply different from that of Aristotle. No. It is about truth versus error.
You have trouble reading, I think. That's fine. But ask yourself: what is it that has become explicit in an Aristotle's interpretation?
Answer: The ordinary conception. They're not the same. Related, but not the same.
Quoting David Mo
Yes, but as I've grown tired of saying: translations of terms is a different topic, and they're often wrong (according too Heidegger). You're stuck in confusing this with a sweeping generalization of all Western thought, which is based on "presence."
Is viewing things as present-at-hand "wrong"?
Of course not.
Quoting David Mo
Well at least this is consistent with your view that Heidegger has a messiah complex. He'd have to be like that to make such a claim - I.e., that he has the "truth" (as "correct") and Aristotle is "wrong" (incorrect). By all means interpret it that way - no surprise, since you started with that assumption. You see what you hope to see.
I don't see this in Heidegger and he's given me no reason to. I think a claim like "Aristotle is wrong" is so childish I'd be embarrassed to say it. I don't care about right and wrong, I'm interested in understanding the world and its history. Perhaps Aristotle and the Greeks missed certain things. Perhaps Galileo and Newton did. Perhaps everyone has. No doubt we have (and are) missing plenty of things right now, and 99% what we believe right now will turn out to be misguided, limited, etc.
The only thing interesting to look at is what we do with our time and lives. We can't understand that fully if we hold on to dogmas. Heidegger, like Aristotle and Nietzsche (and perhaps even Marx), etc., was someone who was able to look at everything and question it. Some "things" remain concealed even to Heidegger, as they did for Aristotle. This is why he constantly emphasizes questioning -- hardly egotistical. This is why he's saying there is probably a more fundamental "horizon" that is yet to be discovered, and why he talks endlessly about "openness" and "resoluteness."
Or we can take the attitude that Heidegger views himself as being "right" while Aristotle is "wrong," much like modern scientists do about the Greeks.
If you had not mutilated the phrase you would have realized that the ordinary interpretation is "in" Aristotle already. It is part of the Aristotelian conception of time that last . As you can see in this other quote:
I call your attention, in case you get lost in trtanslation :joke: , to the fact that the accusation against Aristotle is not banal, it is of "concealment". Which implies that it is contrary to the truth, according to Heidegger's definition of truth, not a simple divergence.
In essence, that Aristotelian definition of time, contrary to the temporality defended by Heidegger, consists of this:
In other words, a quantitative and homogeneous concept of time in terms of "present". Elsewhere I have already put a quote summarising Heidegger's (alternative) position.
Quoting Xtrix
What German word does Heidegger use that is not equivalent to "error"? If you know it, say so. If you don't know, don't try to hide your ignorance with undefined statements that say nothing.
Quoting Xtrix
It depends on the use you want to make of it. As merely natural knowledge of "things" there is no problem. But when the ontology claims to be based on them, they are a serious impediment.
Is it not clear for you?
Quoting Xtrix
Well, I have already given you a good number of quotations in which Heidegger explains the error that Aristotle begins and continues throughout metaphysics. Until Heidegger arrives and puts things in their place, according to him, by destroying all previous metaphysics (as we saw a few months ago).
What seems childish to me is that you pretend to seek how to understand the world and its history and do not want to accept that there are explanations that are correct and others that are incorrect. Is there no true or false? Anything goes? Then why do you call what you don't agree with you childish? Or why do you say that it is based on pre-judgements? That childishness or prejudiced views are correct too?
In ordinary language right and wrong are words that match many of the adjectives Heidegger uses against his rivals. But you don't want them to be wrong.
One fundamental question you must answer: What does "wrong" mean to you? If you don't answer, I'm afraid this conversation is definitely blocked.
They're not the same. This was my point, which you tried, and failed, to show was incorrect with that passage.
The ordinary way of understanding time (1) is made explicit in Aristotle's interpretation (2). That's not a "mutilation," that's the passage itself.
Quoting David Mo
Concealment does not mean "wrong." If aletheia means un-concealment, and this often gets translated as "truth," then this is what was meant by "truth" to the early Greeks. Later on, truth comes to mean "correct assertion," and "wrong" (as "incorrect") becomes its opposite. That does not mean "concealed," in Heidegger or in the Greeks, means "wrong" in the sense of incorrect or in any other sense. Being "concealed" does not mean "wrong" in any way. It simply means it's hidden. This is a mistake you continually make.
Quoting David Mo
The use is very clear in Heidegger. To view things as present-at-hand is to naturally conceal the ready-to-hand aspects, bringing other aspects to the fore. "Wrong" plays no role whatsoever.
Quoting David Mo
Sure, it's an impediment to seeing what gets left out, to what gets hidden, etc. Very true.
Quoting David Mo
Very clear.
Quoting David Mo
It's not an error, and it's not wrong. Those terms have no relevance whatsoever. What happens in Aristotle is that the original notion of being as "phusis" (unconcealed sway), while still "in" Aristotle, becomes even more concealed (as "ousia"), and sets the stage for getting solidified into self-evidence. Ditto with time. Thus, it makes it much harder for later philosophers, who take over Aristotle's position, to question "being" or "time" -- they become concealed, "closed off." Heidegger wants to re-awaken the questioning of the early Greeks.
To use words like "wrong" or "error" is, at best, very misleading. And very presumptuous. It's something I'd expect from a first year undergraduate: "Heidegger claims that all Western thinkers, including Aristotle, are completely wrong."
The words matter.
Quoting David Mo
Correct or incorrect have to be defined in a context before this makes any sense. In the sciences, I think it's very sensible to talk this way. I think some propositions and theories turn out to be wrong in many ways, or even completely so. If history teaches us anything, it's that we're almost certainly wrong about many things right now, given our goals and purposes. I don't pretend otherwise.
Quoting David Mo
In logic, in mathematics, in the sciences, in ethics, and in everyday life -- yes of course there's true and false. But always within a context. If your goal is to lose weight, then eating apple pie everyday is "wrong," etc. We don't define "true" or "false" in a vacuum.
But none of this applies to Heidegger's analysis. If it did, it would essentially mean that science is "wrong," since science's "founding fathers" held assumptions and beliefs which were rooted in Aristotelian philosophy and emphasize the present-at-hand objectification of nature. If you really want to interpret it this way, again I say: you're welcome to. But I don't go along with it, and think it's childish.
Quoting David Mo
"Wrong" either means incorrect or morally "bad." That's the ordinary usage. We'll discount the latter, because we're not discussing morality. The former refers to logic, in the sense of assertions and propositions and laws of thought. All that is perfectly fine with me. (And Heidegger.)
They just happen not to apply to Heidegger's analysis of the Greeks, as you claim they do.
Quoting Xtrix
This is called juggling with words on the tightrope.
Sorry, it's not that "aletheia" “may be translated” as "truth". Heidegger's very concept of truth is "not covered" or "uncovered" and is opposed to the false or hidden. You can see this in the underlined words (by me) of Heidegger himself. Sometimes he also uses "wrong" or "inadequate". "Incorrect" is less usual.
To say that what is is not is false. Keeping some truth hidden is false, wrong or inadequate. All these words are synonymous used more or less by Heidegger.
Therefore, when he says that the concealment of Being begins with Plato and Aristotle he is saying that the metaphysical path that follows them is wrong, inadequate, incorrect or whatever you want to say. These are similar words to express the same idea of failure.
Of course, this does not mean that all traditional metaphysics have to be discarded. Heidegger expressly rejects this conclusion. He speaks of Aristotle or Kant with respect in some relevant points. But his metaphysics needs to be "destroyed" in the sense of reformulated in a very different sense with important corrections in a phenomenological sense. This is the role he assigns himself.
Quoting Xtrix
Firstly, science no longer follows Aristotle. Since the modern age. Heidegger did not know much about contemporary physics. The mere concept of cause has not been Aristotelian for a long time. Of course, some similarities can be established between modern science and Aristotle. But not the concept or the structure of science. This is one of Heidegger's false assumptions.
Secondly, Heidegger does not say that science is absolutely wrong. Positivism is wrong when it takes science as a model for metaphysical knowledge. Science has its foundation in the ontic (natural) perspective. That is, it has its limits. When someone tries to go beyond them, he is wrong.
All of which agree entirely with what I'm saying.
When I say "may be translated," I mean exactly that. "Unconcealment" is another way, which Heidegger prefers. Not because "truth" isn't accurate in translation, but because the association "truth" has as "correct assertion" doesn't capture the Greek sense of aletheia.
No juggling. In fact, very straightforward. It takes juggling not to see it.
Quoting David Mo
No, they aren't. To take "wrong" as being "incorrect" is absurd, and this is not what he says. Ever.
If to be "hidden" is to be "wrong," that's your own business.
"Inadequate" may be fine, as long as it means that their thinking was "privative," leaving out and concealing some aspects of the world. Doesn't make them "incorrect" any more than science is "incorrect."
Quoting David Mo
In every point. He has nothing but respect for these men. If you've missed this, then I suggest reading Being and Time rather than searching for words and phrases piecemeal, as you've been doing. Allows one to understand the context.
Quoting David Mo
Oh, good to know. :roll:
Quoting David Mo
You don't know what Heidegger assumes, because you don't understand Heidegger.
The talk about science was my own, not Heidegger's. I used it as an example, which you unsurprisingly don't understand.
No one is claiming modern science directly rests on Aristotle's philosophy.
According to you, a proposition that is false is not wrong or incorrect. (???)
You speak very strange English.
Quoting Xtrix
No. You don't understand Heidegger because you speak "privative" English.
Quoting Janus
This is interesting. I’ve always taken “presence” to be connected with presence-at-hand — i.e., the mode of being we’re in when contemplating things, when things break down. Something like the centipede effect. It’s something derivative and emerges out of a more basic human state, the ready-to-hand — the realm of habit, skill, automaticity, “second nature” actions, etc.
So it’s not perception, but a certain kind of interaction with the world. On this basis do nearly all philosophers begin their philosophy, and so everything said is biased towards an objectifying or “substance-ifying” (ousia) interpretation of the world.
But I’m open to different interpretations.
Quoting Mikie
Yes, Heidegger’s account of presence-at-hand and Being as persisting presence are closely related.
:up:
I'm interested in why we are tempted toward persisting presence ? Is it an evolutionary advantage ( genetic or memetic) to find and value patterns that are always exploitable ? That which persists allows for investment. Imagine a guaranteed-by-the-gods 10% annual return on savings. Along these lines, do we want to identify with a divine-timeless structure and find an vicarious immortality in it ?
I apologize and withdraw the theme if this is too much of a digression.
This persistent presence could be understood to be dependent on consciousness, on the perceiver, or it could be taken, as it is with materialist metaphysics, to be prior to consciousness. a persistent presence that is "there" regardless of whether it is being perceived or not.
The way I read Heidegger, the experience of persisting presence is a kind of illusion , or better yet, distortion, flattening, closing off of the what happens when we experience something as something. Experiencing the world is not accomplished by a subject directing itself toward objects. Dasein is not a consciousness but an in-between. Heidegger traces the modern idea of being as persisting presence to Descartes:
“Thus what can be shown to have the character of constantly remaining, as remanens capax mutationem, constitutes the true being of beings which can be experienced in the world. What enduringly remains truly is. This is the sort of thing that mathematics knows. What mathematics makes accessible in beings constitutes their being.”
“Thus the being of the "world" is, so to speak, dictated to it in terms of a definite idea of being which is embedded in the concept of substantiality and in terms of an idea of knowledge which cognizes beings in this way. Descartes does not allow the kind of being of innerworldly beings to present itself, but rather prescribes to the world, so to speak, its "true" being on the basis of an idea of being (being = constant objective presence) the source of which has not been revealed and the justification of which has not been demonstrated.
It is therefore not primarily his dependence upon a science, mathematics, which just happens to be especially esteemed, that determines his ontology of the world, rather his ontology is determined by a basic ontological orientation toward being as constant objective presence, which mathematical knowledge is exceptionally well suited to grasp.”(Heidegger 2010)
Heidegger explains that in taking something to be the case in a propositional judgement (for instance, S is P) , we are taking something as something within a wider context of pragmatic relevance.(The ‘as' structure designates the peculiar ‘between-ness' of Dasein that Heidegger also describes as the ontological difference between Being and beings). Making sense of something is an act that always has the ‘as' structure, as Heidegger tells us, but this structure of relevanting is covered over and flattened down in causal models.
I think this is the subject/object thing again. I don’t think it’s either. There’s simply being in the world. However, once in a present-at-hand mode of being, a subject contemplating an object makes sense. In that case, sure, it’s dependent on consciousness — and everything Kant says rings true, etc.
But being as constant presence isn’t a modern idea really. It goes back to the Greeks. I think he’s quite clear about that. Ousia, etc.
Maybe I’m misunderstanding your wording.
I think all our thinking is in dualsitic terms, and, inter alia, in terms of subject/object, substance/mode and so on. Even "being in the world" is dualistic; whereas simply "being" is not.
Well it depends on what kind of thought. My junk thought doesn’t seem dualistic in any sense. When I’m contemplating myself or my world I’ll schematize the world that way, but that’s not my typical state.
I think the point is that being is being-in-the-world-as-time-spirit-etc. Equiprimordiality may be the key thought ?
I agree; I think our experience is not dualistic, but is inevitably discursively framed to be so due to the inherently dualistic nature of language.
Quoting green flag
"Being-in-the-world-as-time-spirit" is dualistic: Being as X: substance and mode. I don't understand what you mean by saying equiprimordiality may be the key thought.
Sorry I missed your response earlier.
I understand dasein as "being there"; it must be a kind of awareness, even if not reflexively self-aware. I agree that the separation of subject and object only obtains discursively; it is not the primordial nature of human experience.
:up: :up:
The world, the self, the others, language...are all equally foundational or primordial..are in fact a unitary phenomenon.
Quoting Janus
Yes. This is about what I mean. So 'experience' is even misleading here, as you will perhaps admit. If the subject is a function of language, then so is the mind/matter distinction, etc.
This is a whiff of the structuralism I was arguing for elsewhere. Concepts are contrastive, a system of differences.
You might like this:
https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/14172/a-simple-theory-of-human-operation/p1
I think Heidegger's "being-in-the-world" as a unitary mode of being is revolutionary.
:up:
Perhaps he's making Hegel more explicit (?), so he had his sources, but his fusion is so coherent and direct that it cut through the noise.
:up:
Yes. Of course any cute summary is liable to objections, but that's part of it. I am not locked behind some screen in a control room. Beingthere is not an object for a subject. I am not hidden away from others in my own immaterial infinitely private bubble. I am in fact mostly the others in terms of 'software,' in terms of tribal norms of what makes sense.
Certain metaphors became dominant until young men in 2023, having inherited those hardened and venerated metaphors, think it makes sense that maybe there's really no world and no other people 'out there' beyond their Sensations. And this they say in the name of logic and caution and epistemological responsibility. But they don't see that they take these norms for granted. That amuses and frustrates me, yet I was guilty of that harmless insanity myself once.
It's a phase for some and a psychological affliction for others. I had a stage when I was around 10-11 of thinking everything was a simulation - although I lacked the wording for this back in the 1970's. I thought of it as a movie being run in my brain by parties unknown.
Wild ! I'm glad you came out of it. It really does permeate our culture. As we've discussed before, Plato's cave is one possible major source. A certain kind of philosophy is sanctified madness, conspiracy theory made venerable by the distance of centuries, perhaps becomes it gets enough right at times that we ignore its excesses. Or because we need the sci fi.
Yes, but this concept is not new (except as a cryptic formulation by Heidegger). Read e.g. the [i]Daoists, Confucians, Epicureans, Stoics ... Spinozists, Humeans, Kantians (e.g. Schopenhauer), Nietzscheans, and Heidegger's contemporarieqs: Peirceans-Deweyans, Jaspers & Wittgenstein.
yep
I totally agree that it's not so new (being-in-the-world), but I gotta stick up for Heidegger's early stuff before he took up that tiresome style. I'm talking The Concept of Time, Ontology : Hermeneutics of Facticity, stuff like that, made available much later, though written before B&T. Though some of Being and Time, in my view, is actually well written --- I mean the English is enjoyable, words aren't wasted. I'm a bit surprised to see Hume on the list. I totally agree about Witt.
I don't think Hume is a dualist (or Cartesian), do you?
It's been awhile, honestly. But am I wrong to remember him building everything from impressions of various distinctness ? (So maybe he's a monist like Mach ?)
I wouldn’t pay attention to it. Regarding in-der-Welt-sein, there’s some evidence of similarities with Daoism. That’s about it.
I'm wondering if it's about a kind of monism of prepsychic impressions that get sorted tentatively into self and world ?
Personally I've never seen anything so decisive and explicit on this topic as Heidegger was at his best. I do think the later Wittgenstein is compatible, but (for better or worse) he doesn't methodically lay out theses.
Wittgenstein has some similarities, especially in terms of “average everydayness,” but I see little similarity with Heidegger’s conception of being-in-the-world.
Fair enough ! W is so elusive that I can only argue for one assimilation among others equally reasonable. Have you looked at Braver's Groundless Grounds ? He fishes out similarities.
I haven’t. I’ll look it up.
https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/comment/509613
Your criticism, which is fair, reminds me of what Dreyfus writes in Being-in-the-world. But I think the tension between owness and falling immersion can be (mis)read as courageous destructive-creative interpretation. Philosophy 'is' the battle of sedimented dead metaphor against itself, for we have no other tools. This helps explain Heidegger's tonal ambiguity when it comes to gossip or chatter. It is us in our everydayness, our generic tribal soul, the deaf repetition of platitudes as a genuinely convenient and valuable substitute for thinking, when it's not appropriate to really think. The (misread?) [s]authentic[/s] baste 'philosopher' 'restores force to the elemental words,' heats up the wax of dead metaphors, appropriates or makes explicit the past as interpretedness that leaps ahead as unwitting projection, contingent mistaken for necessity. 'One' is the stillbirth of the Bloom strong poet. The anxiety of influence is that of having never even been born as a poet, of dying as a bot. So he rages against it, like Axl Rose, just a small town Catholic workingclass white boy, doing the right thing (at first) for the wrong reason (reactionary etc). Did he with the Being stuff generalize Kierkegaard into a more glamorously negative cryptotheology ? For me the key stuff is human historicity in language, which Gadamer ran with, along with lifeworld centrality and the unbreakable unit of world-self-language-others that makes philosophy possible. Braver fits it into an ICS framework running from Kant through Hegel through Heidegger. [ICS is impersonal conceptual scheme]
[quote=Dreyfus]
For both Heidegger and Wittgenstein, then, the source of the intelligibility of the world is the average public practices through which alone there can be any understanding at all. What is shared is not a conceptual scheme, i.e., not a belief system that can be made explicit and justified. Not that we share a belief system that is always implicit and arbitrary. That is just the Sartrean version of the same mistake. What we share is simply our average comportment. Once a practice has been explained by appealing to what one does, no more basic explanation is possible. As Wittgenstein puts it in On Certainty: "Giving grounds [must] come to an end sometime. But the end is not an ungrounded presupposition: it is an ungrounded way of acting.
...
This view is entirely antithetical to the philosophical ideal of total clarity and ultimate intelligibility. Philosophers seek an ultimate ground. When they discover there is none, even modern philosophers ... seem to think that they have fallen into an abyss -- that the lack of an ultimate ground has catastrophic consequences for human activity.
...
There is, however, something that average everyday intelligibility obscures, viz., that it is merely average everyday intelligibility. It takes for granted that the everyday for-the-sake-of-whichs and the equipment that serves them are based upon God's goodness, human nature, or at least solid good sense. This is what Heidegger called "the perhaps necessary appearance of foundation." One cannot help thinking that the right (healthy, civilized, rational, natural, etc.) way to sit, for example, is on chairs, at tables, etc., not on the floor. Our way seems to make intrinsic sense -- a sense not captured in saying, "This is what we in the West happen to do." What gets covered up in everyday understanding is not some deep intelligibility as the tradition has always held; it is that the ultimate "ground" of intelligibility is simply shared practices. There is no right interpretation. Average intelligibility is not inferior intelligibility; it simply obscures its own groundlessness. This is the last stage of the hermeneutics of suspicion. The only deep interpretation left is that there is no deep interpretation.
[/quote]
I don't see how the thought of being in something is not dualistic. The thought of simply being is not dualistic, but when it 'in-the-world' is posited it becomes so.
Edit: reading back over the thread, I see I'm repeating myself; but I'll let it stand.
Also, as a matter of definition, where else would we be but in the world? It could be said that to be is necessarily to be in an environment or surroundings, or to be "here" or "there", but that is still a reflective and necessarily dualistic conceptualization. Do we constantly have the sense of being in something or do we, pre-reflectively, simply have a sense of being?
Heidegger's way of purportedly getting beyond the subject/object distinction and positing Dasein as 'being-in-the-world'; or simply 'being there' ultimately fails to transcend dualism I think. The Eastern religious traditions had posited simply being and subject/ object as an illusion for millenia. Heidegger reportedly said upon reading D T Suzuki's exegesis of zen philosophy (paraphrasing because I can't be bothered searching for the exact quote): "if I am reading this right, this is exactly what I have been trying to say".
I think zen and Buddhism would be more likely to say "being the world" than "being in the world" but the conceptual thrust may, to be sure, be interpreted to be the same.
[i]Competence without comprehension is the way of life of the vast majority of living things on the planet and should be the default presumption until we can demonstrate that some individual organisms really do, in one sense or another, understand what they are doing.
Comprehension is not the source of competence or the active ingredient in competence; comprehension is composed of competences.[/i]
I'm sure Arne, Mikie or Joshs can respond to this better, but my understanding here was that Heidegger wanted to emphasize that "being in the world" in the sense of a subject confronted with objects, or a mind and body in objective space, was a derivative or secondary mode of thinking about ourselves, and in our everyday dealings with the world, we are always already enmeshed in a constellation of relations such that Da-sein essentially 'is' its "being-in-the-world."
The hyphenations of Da-sein and "being-in-the-world" I took to be an emphasis that they are unitary despite the fact that we cannot help but divide phenomena in order to analyze or interpret them at all. Thinking of oneself as "being in 3 dimensional space" would be a derivative mode or secondary mode of being in that we would not normally think of ourselves in that way unless, say, we misplaced our keys and analyzed the "world" from the standpoint of an analysis of objective presence and retraced our footsteps and actions looking for them.
This is what I take to be another facet of the "phenomenological" aspect of "being-in-the-world," or "what shows itself as it shows itself" for Heidegger.
later Wittgenstein does say that the world is everything. I also think Heidegger's and Wittgenstein's notion of "background" and its importance are similar to understanding how one gets around in the "world."
Well said. Of all the words you choose, I suspect "derivative" is the most accurate. However, it is important to keep in mind that Heidegger never gives any sort of independent standing "in" the world to beings not having the characteristics of Dasein.
Essentially, only Dasein is "in" the world while all beings not having the characteristics of Dasein are "within" the world that Dasein is in. This puts a significantly different perspective on the Cartesian notions of internal/external and/or subject/object.
This also puts a significantly different perspective on the notion of "transcendence". Instead of transcendence being the process encompassing the interaction of subject with object, it is the process encompassing the interaction of Dasein with the world.
Only Dasein is "in" the world. All other beings are "within" the world that Dasein is "in."
Exactly. We can thank Dreyfus , and to a certain extent Gadamer, for a god-awful misreading of Heidegger that turns him into a Kierkegaardian existentialist.
It's unfortunate that the deepest stuff gets overshadowed by the lurid stuff. We are the (historical) house of being, not so much timebinding as bound time itself -- or bound time further binding itself. Do you see the modified minimal Hegelianism in this ?
Quoting Janus
The history of philosophy has offered a variety of ways to think about subjects, objects and their relation. Traditional approaches posited a unitary a priori subject with self-identically persisting faculties of mind surveying external objects across a divide. More modern perspectives
de-transcendentalize the subject but still retain from older thinking the assumption that the being of a subject or object is the being of an inherence, an in-itself, an identity, even if this is only a temporary identity that is continually modified by its interaction with other things in the world. Things are beings-in-themselves that appear before a subject. The dualism in this way of thinking is that between the inside and the outside, the self- inherence of being vs its becoming, alterity and identity, feeling and intention, state and transition. For Heidegger subjects and objects don’t inhere in themselves, have no internality or subsistence. To ‘be’ is to be a crossing or intersection between past and present. Being is one part memory and one part present. It is between these two as a becoming , a transit , a difference. Dasein, as Being-in-the-World, is a worlding’, not the appearing of things before a subject but an enacting of world in which to be is to be displaced into what discloses itself.
:up:
We all had the same fixed faculties too.
Quoting Joshs
Quoting Joshs
:up:
Perhaps comment on the future too here ?
I’ll let Heidegger have at it.
“Temporalizing does not mean a "succession" of the ecstasies. The future is not later than the having-been, and the having-been is not earlier than the present. “Dasein "occurs out of its future"."Da-sein, as existing, always already comes toward itself, that is, is futural in its being in general." Having-been arises from the future in such a way that the future that has-been (or better, is in the process of having-been) releases the present from itself. We call the unified phenomenon of the future that makes present in the process of having been temporality.”(Being and Time)
Can you explain this in your own words?
For Heidegger, the past, present and future don't operate as sequential modes which mark distinct states of objects. They interpenetrate each other so completely that they together form a single unitary event of occurrence.
A prior object is already changed (affected) by what it interacts with before it can simply inhere in itself as cause. Whereas for traditional notions of time it is only later, that the difference made to other objects can in turn affect “it"”, the fact of its being already affected in serving as the past of that present object with which it interacts deprives both past and present poles of the interaction a separate identity. Rather than there being first one element followed by its effect on a second element (‘caused' by the first), there is only a single event of crossing simultaneously determining past and present in their interaction. Past and present function as already cross-affected by the other. Each is determined by, and also determines the other.
How is this physically possible?
Quoting Joshs
In what way is what happened 1,000 years ago not prior to what will happen 1,000 years from now?
How close together in time do the ecstasies have to be for the present to influence the past?
In what way is an object that was affected by what now is?
Quoting Joshs
We are always carefully on the way to something. We are always bringing something to fruition, making it present. We come toward our possibilities, what we want to be. What we have been is interpreted in this context, in terms of realizing and further articulating our possibilities. Critique of the past is 'really' critique of the present in the realization of a possible future.
What we have been is also the very language and conceptuality which we 'are' by default and which we must use (there are no other tools) in order to critique this past itself, this past that leaps ahead, governing our self-interpretation today and what is possible for us tomorrow.
I am the history from which I'm trying to awake, the history that twists to free itself of itself, like a snake shaking off dead skin. I am that which would be its own father, having never been thrown. The deepest having-been-thrown is perhaps linguistic. My 'spiritual substance' is sediment I did not choose, and 'I' myself (a normative function of language) am part of this sediment. How does the mound of memes in our beehive change with or rather as the times ?
the who of every say dasein
In Joshs explanation he is talking about objects determining each other.
You say:
Quoting plaque flag
In what sense is what I have been the language and conceptuality I am? If I was dropped on my head as a baby is what happened language and conceptuality? If was neglected and malnourished and ate lead paint how is that language and conceptuality?
Quoting plaque flag
If this was my past then I would not have this tool. My ability to develop language would not have developed. And yet, without being able to critique my past I would still have a past.
Quoting plaque flag
I think this happens to some degree but what was need not determine what we will be. If our past governs our self-interpretation then what is to be gained by trying to educate and improve ourselves?
The issue is what you want to identify with. Are you that body ? A merely occurrent thing ? Are you the legs and not the dance ?
To be clear, I'm not denying that we have bodies. I think language is a movement of the body, not some magic immaterial substance 'contained' in sentences but those 'material' sentences themselves. To wag a tongue, to wave a flag.
We need the hardware to run the software. We need legs to dance.
Just to be clear, Heidegger and my creative misreading are both using temporal terms with different intensities of metaphoricity. Let me try another approach. Look at the shape of a hawk. Think of how much 'experience' (struggle for survival) in encoded in its DNA. In the same way, the latest best bots encoded the entire internet, a history of reading and learning, in a few billion floating point numbers. To be encultured is to 'download' compressed tribal 'experience' which is used to meet the future and also functions as an 'organ of perception.' One absorbs norms by interaction and example. Bots internalize them from examples alone.
How did language evolve to such complexity ? I don't pretend to know the details.
We can successfully criticize the past 'as' that same past. We can indeed bring one metaphor to bear on another. We are also 'generative.' We somehow create new metaphors.
Clearly we do become more complex, more articulate. To me this is the genius of Hegel. He saw the towering accumulation of knowing's or freedom's self-consciousness. We are the process which decides and articulates its own nature, with greater and greater power and complexity. Theology itself is a god on the way to its birth. Or is it on the way to its mirror ? A cat trying to catch its tail ?
Unthrown on the throne, but the one must be thrown, cannot escape a residue of passivity.
[i]Hegel denies the intelligibility of the idea of a set of determinate concepts (that is, the ground-level concepts we apply in empirical and practical judgment) that is ultimately adequate in the sense that by correctly applying those concepts one will never be led to commitments that are incompatible according to the contents of those concepts. This claim about the inprinciple instability of determinate concepts, the way in which they must collectively incorporate the forces that demand their alteration and further development, is the radically new form Hegel gives to the idea of the conceptual inexhaustibility of sensuous immediacy. Not only is there no fore-ordained “end of history” as far as ordinary concept-application in our cognitive and practical deliberations is concerned, the very idea that such a thing makes sense is for Hegel a relic of thinking according to metacategories of Verstand rather than of Vernunft.
All that he thinks the system of logical concepts he has uncovered and expounded does for us is let us continue to do out in the open, in the full light of self-conscious explicitness that lets us say what we are doing, what we have been doing all along without being able to say what was implicit in those doings.[/i]
I don't see how a deliberate misreading can make anything clear. Does he use temporal terms metaphorically?
Quoting plaque flag
How does this fit with the past governing our self-interpretation?
.
Haven't you read the guy ? Of course. But successful metaphors become literalized. I'd say it's more like a continuum that runs from hard wax to hot wax. I've already quoted some passages for you about interpretedness.
comment
Lots of people quote Heidegger without risking a paraphrase. Calling my interpretation a creative misreading is to some degree just humility. On the other hand, I'm not a disciple of Heidegger but a rival poet 'forced' to consume an influence too weighty to be circumvented. While I do try to project a cohesive interpretation on the texts, it's not my life's project to get Heidegger right but rather to crank out some good philosophy myself, transforming what's been thrown to me into something that is mine, appropriate to the singularity of my mortal moment. Yet as poetry / philosophy this thing I create is for the tribe. I'm a faithful Hegelbot, working on my little piece of the graveleaping selfreferential blockchain.
I have read some things, but I don't recall reading anything that would make me think he was talking metaphorically.
Dasein is time. What can you make of that ? Is that metaphor or what ?
Does he say that? Why not Being and Dasein? I would have to read it in context before saying more.
Quoting Joshs
That's the way I understand Heidegger too, but again as discourse here there is still no hope of evading dualistic thinking even if the specific framing of 'subject/ object' is eschewed. I think Heidegger came to realize the futility of analysis, and that explains his turn to the later work.
Yes, of course. Yes, you would.
Quoting Fooloso4
I'll show you this again, from the Dilthey draft. You can find a similar thing in the official version.
[i]Being-there as being-in-the-world is primarily governed by logos…Coming into the world, one grows into a determinate tradition of speaking, seeing, interpreting. Being-in-the-world is an already-having-the-world-thus-and-so. This peculiar fact, that the world into which I enter, in which I awaken, is there for me in a determinate interpretedness, I designate terminologically as fore-having.
Dasein is history.
...
Dasein, whiling away its own time in each case, is at the same time always a generation. So a specific interpretedness precedes every Dasein in the shape of the generation itself. What is preserved in the generation is itself the outcome of earlier views and disputes, earlier interpretations and past concerns.
...
The wellspring of such persistent elements lies in the past, but they continue to have such an impact in the present that their dominance is taken for granted and their development forgotten. Such a forgotten past is inherent in the prevailing interpretedness of being-together-with-one-another. To the extent that Dasein lives from (cares about) this past, it is this past itself.
...
The world with which we are concerned and being-in itself are both interpreted within the parameters of a particular framework of intelligibility.
...
One has a timeworn conceptuality at one's disposal. It provides the fore-concept for the interpretation. The interpretedness of a 'time' is strictly determined by these structural factors and the variable forms of their realization. And it is precisely the unobtrusiveness of these factors --the fact that one is not aware of them -- which gives public interpretedness its taken-for-granted character. However, the 'fore'-character in the structure of interpretedness shows us that it is none other than what has already been that jumps ahead, as it were, of a present time pervaded by interpretedness. Guided by its interpretedness, expectant concern lives its own past.[/i]
We are thrown into dead interpretations, the cold wax of literalized metaphors mistaken for the given itself. We take as necessary what proves later to have been contingent.
[i]Language is not merely a tool which man possesses alongside many others; language first grants the possibility of standing in the midst of the openness of beings. Only where there is language, is there world, that is, the constantly changing cycle of decision and work, of action and responsibility, but also of arbitrariness and turmoil, decay and confusion.
...
The one as that which forms everyday being-with-one-another...constitutes what we call the public in the strict sense of the word. It implies that the world is always already primarily given as the common world. It is not the case on the one hand there are first individual subjects which at any given time have their own world; and that the task would then arise of putting together, by virtue of some sort of arrangement, the various particular worlds of individuals and of agreeing how one would have a common world. This is how philosophers imagine these things when they ask about the constitution of the inter-subjective world. We say instead that the first thing that is given is the common world -- the one.[/i]
Then this is about the gossip we are thrown into, the gossip we mostly are. We are Poloniusbots with the potential to switch into Hamletbot mode if we can hear our superficiality. Polonius must realize that he's mostly a bot, suffer the terror of never having been, of having been lived by an anyone who was no one at all, a mere echo of what one says what one says. I claim that if you don't feel how thrown you are then you can't understand what's crucial in Heidegger.
[i]What is talked about is understood only approximately and superficially. One means the same thing because it is in the same averageness that we have a common understanding of what is said.” “Publicness ” does not get to "the heart of the matter," because it is insensitive to every difference of level and genuineness.”
Idle talk is the possibility of understanding everything without any previous appropriation of the matter. Idle talk, which everyone can snatch up, not only divests us of the task of genuine understanding, but develops an indifferent intelligibility for which nothing is closed off any longer. Discourse, which belongs to the essential constitution of being of Dasein, and also constitutes its disclosedness, has the possibility of becoming idle talk, and as such of not really keeping being-in-the-world open in an articulated understanding, but of closing it off and covering over inner worldly beings. “ “ Ontologically, this means that when Da-sein maintains itself in idle talk, it is-as being-in-the-world-cut off from the primary and primordially genuine relations of being toward the world, toward Mitda-sein, toward being-in itself.”
Idle talk conceals simply because of its characteristic failure to address things in an originary way [urspriinglichen Ansprechens]. It obscures the true appearance of the world and the events in it by instituting a dominant view [herrschende Ansicht].”“Usually and for the most part the ontic mode of being-in (discoverture) is concealment [Verdeckung]. Interpretedness, which is speech encrusted by idle talk, draws any given Dasein into 'one's' way of being. But existence in the 'one' now entails the concealment and marginalization of the genuine self [eigentlichen Selbst]. Not only has each particular given itself over to 'one', 'one' blocks Dasein's access to the state it finds itself in [Befindlichkeit].[/i]
One is a bot.
Quoting Fooloso4
Sorta-kinda. What he actually says is that Being is time. Being is disclosed to Dasein in its way of understanding.
“In Being and Time, Being is not something other than time: "Time" is a preliminary name for the truth of Being, and this truth is what prevails as essential in Being and thus is Being itself.”(What is Metaphysics)
1.1 The world is the totality of facts, not of things.
1.11 The world is determined by the facts, and by these being all the facts.
1.12 For the totality of facts determines both what is the case, and also all that is not the case.
1.13 The facts in logical space are the world.
1.2 The world divides into facts.
1.21 Any one can either be the case or not be the case, and everything else remain the same.
[/quote]
I think 'Witty's facts' (sinpliciter) are synonymous with actual relations. Anti-cartesian/platonic ontology (à la Spinoza ... Epicurus ... Laozi ...)
So what additional, clarifying insight does the cryptic "In-der-Welt-sein" offer? :chin:
https://www.wittgensteinproject.org/w/index.php?title=Tractatus_Logico-Philosophicus_(English)
Nossir, exactly. "Dasein is time, time is temporal."
This is on page 20E of the McNeill translation of the [Marsburg] lecture The Concept of Time, which is affectionately known as the urB&T. I'm sure it's in the Dilthey draft too (same name, confusingly), and I'll give the location if I bump into it. Please note that, for Bard knows what reason, there are three valuable Heidegger texts titled The Concept of Time. (This is perversely fitting somehow, given the importance of the concept.)
Kojeve fuses Heidegger and Hegel and has quite a party with man as time as the concept existing empirically. He helped me see how Hegelian Heidegger is. Softwhere is my jam, friends. I'm on this.
I'm not saying you can't find this in one of the texts. Nor do I disagree. I will say that his earlier stuff was more experimental. There's not just 'one' readymade Heidegger, in other words.
I don't think (?) early Witt discussed the 'transparency' of the tool in the hand, the way that tools exist. Nor did he make worldhood explicit. If you chunk both early and late W, then maybe you have something comparable to early H, but I still think there's good stuff that'd be left out.
Yes, of course he said Dasein is time? Where?
Yes, I would ask for a reference so I could read it in context? Guilty as charged!
See above.
This is from the Dilthey draft, page 60.
Am I softwhere ?
Yes, I just noticed that. Before discussing the lecture let's back up a little. The question arose as to whether he was using temporal terms metaphorically. You cited the statement: Dasein is time as an example.
From a quick preliminary reading of the lecture: He is not talking about what man is but how he is. Time is dasein's way of being.
The lecture ends:
How we are to be is being questionable. Dasein's way of being is open to possibilities. In the lecture he insists on the indeterminacy of the past and the certainty of the future as death. The indeterminacy of the past means we must return to the past, for it is the way to the future.
It depends on what you want to count as philosophy, I guess. To me it's almost tautological to call philosophy 'hermeneutical fundamental ontology.' Philosophy unfolds, makes explicit, appropriates the hermeneutic situation...
:roll:
[i]In fact, it was in this semester which inaugurated his phenomenological decade that he first discovered his root metaphor of the 'way' to describe his very kinetic sense of philosophy. Philosophy is not theory, outstrips any theory or conceptual system it may develop, because it can only approximate and never really comprehend the immediate experience it wishes to articulate. That which is nearest to us in experience is farthest removed from our comprehension. Philosophy in its 'poverty of thought' is ultimately reduced to maintaining its proximating orientation toward the pre-theoretical origin which is its subject matter. Philosophy is accordingly an orienting comportment, a praxis of striving, and a protreptic encouraging such a striving. Its expressions are only 'formal indications' which smooth the way toward intensifying the sense of the immediate in which we find ourselves. It is always precursory in its pronouncements,a forerunner of insights, a harbinger and hermeneutic herald of life's possibilities of understanding and articulation. In short, philosophy is more a form of life on the edge of expression than a science. That phenomenology is more a preconceptual, provisory comportment than a conceptual science, that the formally indicating 'concepts' are first intended to serve life rather than science, becomes transparent only after the turn...
...
Philosophy is 'philosophizing', being 'on the way to language,' ways ---not works.
...
Life is sufficient to Itself, Ekhart already said. The trick is to get to this level and stay with it, thereby reaping the harvest of its self-expression. For factic life also gives itself in the deformation of the objectification, which must first be dismantled in order to get to its initial moment of articulation.[/i]
Not saying I agree with that very early approach, but it's fascinating. I love Brandom, who explicates carefully and systematically. But I want my philosophy to be alive and get at 'factic life.' It's not a toy for the shelf. It's the deepening of a sober joy, an endless pursuit of greater wakefulness. It's also a kind of worldrevealing poetry. Paintings and phenomenology teach us how to see.
@plaque flag
Earlier I asked for an explanation. I followed up with some questions intended to focus on what is at issue and what is not.
Heidegger is talking about time as it relates to Dasein and the disclosure of Being. The disclosure takes place in or through time but this is not the same as what happens day by day or in what is recorded in history books. It is not about objects in the world or what happens to me or someone else in their past.
Having been refers to the history of Being. To what was disclosed, what was hidden, and what was forgotten. Heidegger returns to the first disclosure of Being through Greek philosophy in order to think what was left unthought. Having been is not earlier than the present in for far as it is still present in order for Dasein to think what was left unthought.
We must be careful in attributing exactitude to Heidegger’s discussion of time at this preliminary point in his career, and in the specific context of your quote. The introduction to Concept of Time notes that in Chapter 3, “Heidegger warns against the 'misunderstanding' that would summarize his view as: 'Dasein is in each case time'. Heidegger was always far more nuanced than many of his critics acknowledge. The review article is best understood as 'preliminary notice' of his own research, as Heidegger states in the Introduction to this work. As such it is an important way station, not a fixed doctrine.”
Given that this is the first draft of Being and Time, let’s see what Heidegger says about Dasein and time in his magnum opus. Heidegger begins Being and Time saying his aim is to answer the question of the meaning of being in general. Alas, by the end of BT, he leaves us with only questions and a promise for answers in a division III which was never produced.
He does define Dasein's kind of being as the ontological difference , the in-between , happening , occurrence , the ‘as' structure , projection.
“ Something like "being" has been disclosed in the understanding of being that belongs to existing Da-sein as a way in which it understands.”
“The ontological condition of the possibility of the understanding of being is temporality itself.”(Basic Problems, 1927)
“In Being and Time, Being is not something other than time: "Time" is a preliminary name for the truth of Being, and this truth is what prevails as essential in Being and thus is Being itself.”(What is Metaphysics)
But he leaves us with the following questions:
“The existential and ontological constitution of the totality of Da-sein is grounded in temporality. Accordingly, a primordial mode of temporalizing of ecstatic temporality itself must make the ecstatic project of being in general possible. How is this mode of temporalizing of temporality to be interpreted? Is there a way leading from primordial time to the meaning of being? Does time itself reveal itself as the horizon of being?
Why?
Quoting Joshs
What does it mean for time to be the preliminary name for the truth of Being?
The unitary structure of the three ecstasies, future-present-having been, determines the ‘is’, the essence, the Being of being as this structure of transit.
Would someone with little or no background in Heidegger understand this? What does the truth have to do with this?
Sure. But for me anyway there's no Moment when the real Heidegger please stands up.
Do we [as time] do so ?
Quoting Joshs
IMV, this is like Hegel warning against thinking that pithy summaries (substance is subject!) can mean anything to today's busy consumer without them having to wrestle with the matters themselves. Dasein is in each case time is part of what he says, but it's just mumbo-jumbo and gossip to those who aren't serious.
Dogmatism as a way of thinking, whether in ordinary knowledge or in the study of philosophy, is nothing else but the view that truth consists in a proposition, which is a fixed and final result, or again which is directly known. To questions like, “When was Caesar born?”. “How many feet make a furlong?”, etc., a straight answer ought to be given; just as it is absolutely true that the square of the hypotenuse is equal to the sum of the squares of the other two sides of a right-angled triangle. But the nature of a so-called truth of that sort is different from the nature of philosophical truth.
https://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/hegel/works/ph/phprefac.htm
One does not carry away a pocket full of Heidegger's theorems. Philosophy as fundamental ontology (a tautology) is a lifestyle or identity even which is endlessly on-the-way. I'd call it an ascending hermeneutic spiral, for one incorporates more and more in something that a jazz 'improvisation.' Riffs are repeated but also recontextualized, occasionally inspiring new riffs. So the music gets richer. The Onebot expands its metacognitive and affective vocabulary, finds deeper connections within what it already/only halfknows, ...
This is the problem with rich, difficult thinkers. Background is everything. Imagine a rich kid in a poor neighborhood, trying to make sense of things, or the reverse. It's not this or that sign but an entire world of inter-refering significations. As Dreyfus might put, there are assumptions too deep for tears, which aren't even articulate, so that 'assumptions' is a metaphor for something 'stupider' like a competence.
The problem is hiding behind jargon and frictive words that produce heat without light.
Quoting plaque flag
The background can be sketched, as simply and clearly as possible. Thinking and speaking simply and clearly is very difficult. Hiding behind words is easy but lacks probity. The most insidious part is that one's lack of understanding never reaches the surface.
I give Heidegger a pass. He has earned it. I am talking about the unwillingness or inability of some members here to attempt to clarify and explain things. The problem is when one attempts to do so the gaps in understanding as well as misunderstandings become clear.
Would also be interested in you translating this out of Heideggerese.
:up:
Always a fair request, no matter the dense philosopher...
[quote=Contributions to Philosophy (From Enowning), Notes 1936-1938]Those in the crossing must in the end know what is mistaken by all urging for intelligibility: that every thinking of being, all philosophy, can never be confirmed by ‘facts,’ i.e., by beings. Making itself intelligible is suicide for philosophy.[/quote]
Note N's prescient criticism sixty-something years before:
[quote=The Gay Science, 173]Those who know that they are profound strive for clarity. Those who would like to seem profound to the crowd strive for obscurity. For the crowd believes that if it cannot see to the bottom of something it must be profound. It is so timid and dislikes going into the water.[/quote]
(Emphases are mine.)
https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/comment/637153
There's a charitable reading of this. New metaphors confuse and offend. To test dead metaphors with a hammer is to do violence to common sense. One is outraged that another would dare question The Obvious.
Philosophy that does not challenge common sense (that does not make itself conveniently intelligible for today's busy consumer ) is indeed no longer philosophy.
Does this imply that the obscure is necessarily profound ? Of course not.
The profound is obscure but the other direction don't always work out.
This is a beautiful quote, and I will grant you that Being and Time contains many needlessly tangled passages. Yet there are long stretches that I find very direct and clear. I don't know why he did that. I wish he hadn't.
I can't comment on the later Heidegger. I will reiterate that his style is direct and clear in the lectures that led up to the writing of Being and Time.
I agree. The same is true of some of the lectures immediately following Being and Time as contained in Basic Problems of Phenomenology.
:up:
Now you are talking some Heidegger !
That's why we must dig, my friend. That's why we can't just stare, assuring ourselves that we are neutral and unbiased, for it's not a matter of a feeling in the tummy. It's a matter of us being language, being an enacted system of semantic norms. I am my history (my training, my contingent tribal software) as I come upon and try to make sense of the past in my pursuit of a future. Even that future which I pursue as a possibility has been articulated by me as my living past which leaps ahead, in terms I got from daddy and mommy and peers and PBS. But I can pop my head out in an uncanny moment, recessive violet, and think otherwise, twisting my gnarled inheritance, just a little...
I am thrown projection become aware of myself as such. I consider this theme to also be present in Hegel. (See Braver's A Thing of this World for more on this.)
I haven't yet read Basic Problems. It's been on my list forever. Always thought it looked good. But it seems we've both seen how readable the lectures are. They are detailed and thorough and careful. But Being and Time is the famous book, so everyone grabs that. A little Heidegger reader might be better --- maybe 2 volumes, 'early' and 'late'.
This is iffy. It's either a tautology or missing the point. Preverbal competence ! Toolbeing. In the beginning was animal skill. In the beginning was the deed, the handshake, the welltimed fart.
While engaged in hitch-free skilled activity, Dasein has no conscious experience of the items of equipment in use as independent objects (i.e., as the bearers of determinate properties that exist independently of the Dasein-centred context of action in which the equipmental entity is involved). Thus, while engaged in trouble-free hammering, the skilled carpenter has no conscious recognition of the hammer, the nails, or the work-bench, in the way that one would if one simply stood back and thought about them. Tools-in-use become phenomenologically transparent.
Yet language itself is also the hammer. We are mostly anything but clear on the staggering complexity of our tacit semantic norms.
His lectures were published at his leisure while Being and Time was rushed. Both the History of the Concept of Time and Basic Problems of Phenomenology were first published in the 1970s. Being and Time was a classic by then.
It is helpful to keep track of the argument. What does any of this have to do with the Josh's statement and my response about simplicity and clarity? You quoted Nietzsche approvingly regarding clarity,
gave @fdrake a thumbs up and said:
Quoting plaque flag
when he asks for the same thing about the same statement. But then tell me I am missing the point?
:up:
Yes, that sounds correct. We were lucky to have had the lectures available.
It implies that the world is always already primarily given as the common world. It is not the case on the one hand there are first individual subjects which at any given time have their own world; and that the task would then arise of putting together, by virtue of some sort of arrangement, the various particular worlds of individuals and of agreeing how one would have a common world. This is how philosophers imagine these things when they ask about the constitution of the inter-subjective world. We say instead that the first thing that is given is the common world -- the one.
I'd like to project Brandom backwards onto Heidegger (his goes taut to understand this better than any run slept Hegel maybe.) One [ das Man ] is a trumpduck of tribal norms, how bodies ought to do, including how they mouths flap, which is to say semantic norms, which is to say ( swift blazing flag of the regiment) inferential norms, what your contemporaries will let you get away whiff. Note that language is the rattle of teeth and gum, at least minimally if admittedly efficiently embodied incarnate immanent worldly glue. The you of every say dasein is a self-deferential dance of tongues and fingers. Find ye deep in this goo the convention of that famous pineal gremlin held responsible for workplace gropings and trailing a coherent sorry about the lifewhirled, that well gnome wherein of giving a creasy fuck. You can miss agree with me, we say (one says), but don't miss agree with your self, for one is one around here, or we'll refer you chew the soporific ministry of awakening.
This tradition of mouths being tracked for the claims that pour out of them like they was chimneys for half wonder stood spoke leads to weird theologies of penisolate phantoms who may just be lonely gods looking at the inside of a dreambag they can't crawl out of, for there is nothing else. Only the inside of the bag is given, somehow as an inside. Along with this we have thoughts as thin as angels' kin, diaphanous as the dandruff on a virgin's tear.
Do folks hear this chugging along in language ? This letting one think for one ? Song of old lung scents of the onebot ? Yesterday's risky metaphor is tomorrow's obvious truth that must not even can not be questioned, for it is no longer seen as something that was chosen, now mistaken for bottommost foundation, most obviously obvious obviousness.
This is the reduction of (the masking or covering up of ) the iffy and uncanny to / with comfortable banalities. Idle talk is gossip that levels, that smooths over, offering an excuse for one to believe that one already knows, for one [das Man] does already know, always. For one is curious and educated and has an industry that makes things easy for one. One is a tourist who has seen it all, eager to rattle off a catalogue of classifications, like a student in anatomy class. One knows that anything worth hearing is easily heard, anything worth saying easily said. One knows that one is a serious and practical and decent das-Man-of-the-world. Was ist das--die Philosophie?
Is Heidegger original here ? No. Not exactly here. But it's part of the quilt, and embodying norms as founded in aconceptual competence / comportment is newish. (?) [ To me sniffing out the origin of the origin of the organ is of finite allure.] One has a thick 'positive' kind of existence as our dummy unquestioning default mode, our foundational anti-Socrates, the part of us that fucking hates philosophy. Turns out that a young Socrates was on the jury that convicted the old Socrates, but he didn't recognize himself with the beard. Time travel stuff.
Quoting Fooloso4
If you mean the background can be sketched as well as it can be sketched, well sure.
If you mean the background can be made simple and clear, you are missing the point. One is the background, and one is terribly complex and not so good at seeing what one is.
"Thought is proper to man alone – not, however, to man only as an isolated individual subject; we have to look at thought as essentially objective." This Hegel quote can be framed in terms of 'material' meaning, patterns in our 'physical' embodied signtrading. Sentences are screwdrivers. Paragraphs are pelicans.
We don't learn to ride a bike from an instruction manual. We climb on and try to stay that way. Conversation requires the mastery of a mountain of tacit norms and receding yet enabling appropriate comportment.
Josh quotes Heidegger and was asked to explain the quote:
Quoting Fooloso4
In response he said:
Quoting Joshs
Now the first statement can and should be explained simply and clearly. The second does not do that, and no attempt to clarify it is made.
Instead of offering an explanation you choose obfuscation by introducing a "background". A background to what? The statement in question? Nope:
Quoting plaque flag
Instead of attempting to make Heidegger's statement more understandable, you cover it over, shroud it under a "background". As if, "you can't get there from here".
I speak Joshese. He's saying that Becoming is primal. Being presupposes the Spacious Now, and so the Grand Dramatic Arc from the Eternal Past to the Eternal Future.
The being of Dasein or human existence is care. Heidegger's definition of care: "to be already ahead oneself in (the world) as Being-alongside (the entities encountered within the world)" p. 191. This has a very "temporal feel" in it. That's why Heidegger argues that the sense (Sinn) of the being (of human existence) is time or temporality. In a more formal level the temporality can then be expressed as the unitary structure of the three ecstasies, future-present-having been. In B&T, right after the last chapter ("Care as the being of Dasein") of the first division ("Preparatory fundamental analysis of Dasein") begins the second and last division entitled "Dasein and temporality".
Quoting Fooloso4
Your definition of ‘simply and clearly’ is circular. If you can understand it, it is simple and clear. If you can’t , it is the fault of the messenger rather than the ability of you as the receiver to comprehend the message. The problem is not fundamentally with how Heidegger’s articulation of temporality is worded, but with the inherent difficulty of the concept he is attempting to convey. It took me not only reading B & T multiple times, but numerous other works of his before I could grasp what temporality was all about. And this wasn’t because Heidegger failed to condense the idea down to a 140 Twitter characters.
Following this quotation, H says:
"Thinking about the beginning of the history of be[ing] that reveals itself in the thinking of the Greeks will show that the Greeks early on experienced the be[ing] of be-ing as the presence of what is presenting itself.
[...]
For ???? means [to] make present. The essence of making present is buried deep in the original name for be [ing]. For us, however, ???? and ???? [(a) being] (as ???- and ?? ???????) already say the following: in making present, the present and lasting, unthought and hidden, are at work; time is present. Accordingly, be[ing] as such is born of time. Thus time is referred back to emergence, that is, [to] the truth of be[ing]."
I've been taking this to mean that if being is in any way or commonly thought as "persisting presence," or if it has been, time in some way would seem to be already itself present as the "horizon of the understanding of being" (Being and Time).
He goes to say in Being and Time:
"'Time' has long served as the ontological or rather ontic criterion for naively distinguishing the different regions of beings. 'Temporal' beings (natural processes and historical events) are separated from 'atemporal' beings (spatial and numerical relationships)."
If I explain the statement to someone and as a result they can now make sense of it, that is not circular.
Helpful. Thanks.
I will be posting my explanation soon.
In what is present and what is thought there remains something that does not yet come to presence and is not thought. This is why Heidegger returns to the Greeks, to uncover and bring to light possibilities that had at that time remained concealed. Truth, or in Greek aletheia, is to bring out of concealment, to disclose.
The future is present in the sense of possibilities. We are oriented to the future in that we plan and act and hope for what might come to be. Man, or Dasein, is the disclosive being. That is, man plays a role in what comes to be and how it is thought, as well as what is remains concealed from man.
The past remains present insofar as our language and conceptual frameworks were here before us and we think within and strive to think beyond them.
My guy I think this is still Heideggerese.
Quoting Fooloso4
I'm just going to provide the obligatory "concepts are seen as present as hand rationalisations of blah blah... the equipmental totality and its circumspective concern are more primordial than the application of the predicative as structure in the disclosive attunement of each existentiell conceptual framework...". , and then move on because that kind of talk isn't productive for the initiated or the uninitiated. Keep up the good work!
Quoting fdrake
Are you saying ‘that kind of talk’ represents a failure on Heidegger’s part to express himself clearly?
It has been a long time since I read Heidegger. I am probably also be in need of a refresher.
:up:
Yes. But (as you'll maybe grant) it's not just language, not just thought. Aconceptual competence. 'Mindless' comportment. The way of a man with a [s]maid[/s] hammer, the way of a man with a bicycle.
You’re certainly not alone in interpreting Heideggerian temporality in those traditional terms.
For instance, Matthew Ratcliffe splits temporality into three separated time positions. Heideggerian Care is ”the way that we are anchored in the past (facticity), situated in the present (fallenness) and forever looking to the future (projection)”
Jan Slaby refers to his model of affect as ‘radical situatedness' and yet shares Ratcliffe's traditional, inauthentic understanding of temporality as causal dispositional state taking place in time, which is to say that, contrary to Heideggerian temporality, for Slaby time is divided into separate phases: the present as what is happening now, the future as what is not yet now, and the past as what is no longer now.
Slaby says factual situatedness
“is situatedness in a place and a time, synchronic and diachronic”. “Affectivity ultimately is time, namely the factual past in the form of sedimented remainders that infuse, burden, and potentially suffocate ongoing comportment.” “ The existential task of affective disclosure is circumscribed by this essential tension: A tension between what is already apprehended, articulated, and made sense of, and what is furthermore “out there,” beyond us, yet weighing on us and determining our situation in unforeseeable ways.”
For Heidegger, temporality is neither a separate past that burdens the present nor a generator of future possibilities as a hypothetical present that has not happened yet. Instead, it encompasses all three temporal ecstasies as the way in which I find myself changed. The future is not what has not yet happened , not empty possibilities in logical space. And the past is not represented memory but a having -been which arrives already changed by what occurs into it.
Putting it differently, the traditional approach is to treat past, present and future as having separate contents and the. line them up in a sequence. We could instead glom them onto each other and say that we have freed ourselves of linear time by making these three contents (past, present, future) simultaneous. But that is not what Heidegger is doing. He is letting the future lead the show. The future isn’t the not-yet , but a kind of scaffolding into which the present emerges. The having-been is already shaped and defined by how this scaffolding produces the present, so that is why Heidegger says the past comes to us via the future.
“The being-possible, which Da-sein always is existentially, is ... distinguished from empty, logical possibility and from the contingency of something objectively present, where this or that can "happen" to it. As a modal category of objective presence, possibility means what is not yet real and not always necessary. It characterizes what is only possible. Ontologically, it is less than reality and necessity. “(Being and Time p.135)
It is good to have a Josh-whisperer. Sometimes I think I also speak that dialect, but maybe not always.
I am grinding coffee beans now because I hope to be drinking coffee soon. I never signed up to be born in a world with coffee in it. It was my fate, the hand I was dealt. Not that I'm complaining.
Just riff on Hegel and it's usually right.
Yes. And that method may have a wider application ! Rorty jokes about us always finding Hegel ahead of us on the path.
Really? It's true, Hegel's mind was gigantic. Nobody knows how he got it all crammed into that little skull.
Some of it might be projection (finding what you look for), but that cake is crazy rich.
No. I think it's not useful as a way of explaining Heidegger's thought to people who don't already understand it.
Tbh, I don’t know that there’s a good substitute. It all
depends on how serious one is about understanding what he’s getting at. One could work ones way up to his language via secondary sources, but there are risks, like taking Dreyfus as a solid authority on Heidegger. It was because of secondary sources that I delayed reading Being and Time, having convinced myself I already understood him. But those sources didn’t prepare me for the real thing, which was a life-changing experience for me.
Also should note in passing that Kojeve's Hegel is weird and great (scifi ?) (mixed with Heidegger and Marx.) Brandom's is profound in its relentless reasonableness. Nothing iffy or mysticalsounding is left over but the tower stands glorious anyway.
Perhaps. That's just about H. though. If you're engaging with other strands of thought I believe you've got a responsibility to translate into a more neutral vocabulary. Hence, my request to de-Heidegger-ese your remarks. If they can only be articulated in Heideggerese it proves all those hermetic cult accusations quite true.
:up:
And one could even embrace the exclusive cult approach, but to me it's not the way to go.
Quoting fdrake
Well, the OP is titled ‘Martin Heidegger’ and includes its own request: “I'd like to reserve this thread only for those who have at least read Being & Time”.
Heideggerian thought is best delivered in Heideggerese, Derrida’s thought is best articulated in Derrida-eze, Deleuze’s ideas are best conveyed in Deleuze-speak. This is a key difference between analytic -style and Continental-style philosophy. The former strives for a commonsense normative discursive vocabulary while the latter tries to say close to the text. This does not mean one should only use vocabulary from the author’s text, rather one should interweave exegesis closely with the original terminology.
I thought you studied Heidegger ? Doesn't everyone know at least this part ? As with Wittgenstein, in the beginning is the deed. At the bottom of The Anyone we find an ungrounded way of doing things. Our spade is turned. This is how one does it. For no deeper reason. A chair is handled as something for sitting on, treated as a tool with that role in a vast system of equipment which we navigate with animal confidence.
*****
Heidegger argues that we ordinarily encounter entities as (what he calls) equipment, that is, as being for certain sorts of tasks (cooking, writing, hair-care, and so on). Indeed we achieve our most primordial (closest) relationship with equipment not by looking at the entity in question, or by some detached intellectual or theoretical study of it, but rather by skillfully manipulating it in a hitch-free manner.
...
...while engaged in trouble-free hammering, the skilled carpenter has no conscious recognition of the hammer, the nails, or the work-bench, in the way that one would if one simply stood back and thought about them. Tools-in-use become phenomenologically transparent.
https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/heidegger/#ModEnc
*****
Heidegger is quite readable at times. Of course I'd vote for focusing on his own (translated) words first.
Dreyfus is one of many interpreters worth checking out. Rorty's approach in terms of Harold Bloom is also nice. Sheehan. Farin. Derrida. So many.
We are all faithful Hegelbots, doing our best.
:up:
We are always on the way, bringing to fruition, living into or toward a possibility. This organizes our grasp of the world and our past.
Woa. I missed this one. Nice quote.
Two additional reasons why I think it important to put things in my own words.
First it is not always clear that we understand the terminology in the same way. We use Heidegger's or some other author's words but that does not mean we understand the concepts in the same way.
Second, putting things in my own words forces me to think through and articulate what I think is meant by a statement. What may seem clear to me upon reading it may turn out to need further work on my part if I am to understand it.
H uses these terms as synonyms the way (though not for the same reason/s as) Spinoza uses God and Nature.
I don't think using "being" & "time" as synonyms implies that these terms are equated. Maybe I'm mistaken but they seem to me complementary in H's usage rather than identical.
Hegel => Feuerbach => Heidegger
Heidegger articulates what 'kind' of thing we are (among other things we are self-articulating, what we take ourselves to be, but within the limits of our having been thrown.)
And there is of course a conceptual difference between #being# and #time#.
I was going off-topic; thinking of Julian Barbour's idea that time is nothing but change. :halo:
Here's some info on Count Yorck which could be helpful.
https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/yorck/
Together with Dilthey, Yorck was the first philosopher to elaborate the specific concept of historicity [Geschichtlichkeit] as a defining characteristic in the ontology of human beings. In particular, Yorck emphasized the generic difference between the ontic and the historical...Yorck aimed exclusively at the ontology of historical life, particularly the historical band (syndesmos) and effective connection (virtuality) that unites generational life. Based on the primacy of historical life, Yorck adopted a decidedly anti-metaphysical stance, rejecting all claims of knowledge sub specie aeternitatis.
...
According to Yorck, the analysis and evaluation of the contemporary intellectual-historical situation is integral to philosophy—all the more so if philosophy self-reflexively grasps its ineluctably historical nature, which in itself is one of Yorck's main philosophical objectives. The basic idea for the historicity of philosophy is straightforward. For Yorck, as for Dilthey, philosophy is “a manifestation of life” [Lebensmanifestation] (CR, p. 250), a product or an expression in which life articulates itself in a certain way. But all life is intrinsically historical. Life is inconceivable without its historical development. Yorck writes:
The entire given psycho-physical reality is not something that is, but something that lives: that is the germ cell of historicity. And self-reflection, which is directed not at an abstract I, but the entirety of my own self, will find that I am historically determined, just as physics grasps me as determined by the cosmos. Just as I am nature, I am history. And in this decisive sense we have to understand Goethe's dictum of [our] having lived [Gelebthaben] for at least three thousand years. Conversely, it follows that history as a scientific discipline exists only as psychology of history. (CR 71/72)
For Yorck, as for Dilthey, human life is incorrectly understood if it is subsumed under the generic catch-all category of “existence.” The first point is that human life is inconceivable without temporal and historical development, movement, and change; life always transcends itself, hence it never simply “is.” The mode of being for humans is “life,” not “existence.”[3] And life, unlike existence, is intrinsically historical.
Yorck emphasizes the “virtuality” or “effectivity” of history, i.e., the cumulative effects and results of individual persons exerting power and influence in transmitting the possibility and conception of life to their descendants. Successor-generations develop their own stance towards life in response to what they have inherited from the individuals and generations preceding them. History is the ongoing transmission of life's potentiality, including the transmission of power, ideas, and material conditions.
The child gains through the mother's sacrifice, her sacrifice benefits the child. Without such virtual transmission of power [Kraftübertragung] there is no history at all. (CR, p. 155)
Yorck does not refer to some anonymous bio-power or power structures, as discussed in much of contemporary philosophy, but to the authority, sacrifice, and direct action and communication through which an individual person or groups of persons form and shape the lives and behaviours of coming generations. It is for this reason that Yorck insists that “person” is the key historical category (CR, p. 109). History is the history of historical, individual agents, projecting their power and authority into the future.
For Yorck, there is one continuous and common line of historical life—a living syndesmos. Past generations and past persons are not “outside” a present horizon in a past world of their own. Rather, they live on, as it were, in their descendents. Moreover, because of this connecting band, one can go “backwards” by way of what Yorck calls “transposition” (CR, p. 61), transposing oneself into the lives of others and thus “re-enacting,” as Dilthey would say, the positions towards life that have been lived by one's predecessors. That life is historical means that each person is always already outside his or her own individual “nature” and placed within the historical connection to predecessor- and successor-generations. For Yorck, living self-consciousness is, to use Hegel's fortuitous phrase, “the I that is we and the we that is I” (Hegel 1807, p. 140).
Consequently, Yorck rejects from the start the transcendental method in philosophy as insufficient for grasping lived historical reality. Transcendental philosophy reduces historical life to the merely “subjective,” which misses the genuine characteristic of Geist, spirit or mind, namely its real, historical extension and connection.
Yorck's primary category of historical life does not only challenge transcendental philosophy as too-narrow a foothold for philosophy. A fortiori, it also challenges the entire metaphysical tradition, which presupposes or searches for an ultimate objective reality (being, idea, substance, and so on), divorced from the ground of the always shifting historical life. Yorck rejects claims to “knowledge” sub specie aeternitatis. For Yorck, metaphysics is a flight from the historical reality ‘on the ground.’ By making historical life primary, Yorck effectively aims to dismantle the predominance of Greek metaphysics, including the modes of thought of modern science derived from it.
But Yorck is not content with just opposing metaphysics and transcendental philosophy. Instead, he attempts to instill and to cultivate historical awareness in philosophy itself, based on the principle that all productions of life are as historical as life itself. He writes: Since “to philosophize is to live,” “there is no real philosophizing which would not be historical” (CR, p. 251). More radical than Dilthey, Yorck calls for the “historicization” [Vergeschichtlichung] of philosophy:
Just as physiology cannot abstract from physics, so philosophy—especially if it is critical—cannot abstract from historicity [Geschichtlichkeit]. After all, the uncritical Critique of Kant's can be understood historically only, and thus be overcome. [Human] behaviour and historicity are like breathing and air pressure—and—this may sound somewhat paradoxical—the failure to historicize philosophizing appears to me, in methodological respects, a metaphysical remnant. (CR, 69)
It is therefore not surprising that, unlike Dilthey, Yorck specifically appreciates the emphasis on historicity [Geschichtlichkeit][5] in Hegel and some of his followers, despite his rejection of Hegel's speculative or ontical superstructure (CR, 59).[6]
...
The separation [Trennung] of self and other, I and world, soul and lived body [Leib] is such an early separation, indeed, the first act of life, as it were, such that these derivatives appear as absolute, autonomous, and self-sufficient. (ST, pp. 11/12)
Yorck concludes: “The self is only through the other, just as the other is only through the self” (ST, p. 11).
...
Yorck distinguishes between the feeling of transitoriness, i.e., that everything passes away [Vergänglichkeitsgefühl] (ST, p. 33), and the feeling or awareness of one's own mortality [Sterblichkeitsgefühl][14] (ST, p. 90). Acquiescence into one's own mortality constitutes the opposite pole to self-affirmation, “self-renunciation” [Selbsthingabe] (ST, p. 14), which is thus distinct from and even antithetical to the ethical impetus in philosophy and science. Yorck argues that the inversion of volitional and cognitive projection in feeling and its concentration in pure, passive interiority amounts to a “religious comportment” and the feeling of dependency (ST, 121). To the extent that the religious concentration of life in interiority is inversely related to projective representation, Yorck understands religious life in terms of its “freedom from the world” or Weltfreiheit (ST, p. 81 & 112). Psychologically, freedom from the world is the precondition for the consciousness of a world-transcendent God, or the consciousness of transcendence (ST, p. 105).
...
History has nothing of the isolation [Selbständigkeit] of the natural [order]” (ST, p. 6), but rather, in each of its phases, history is self-reflexively involved in its own historicity—“as the ferment of its aliveness”—and thus opens itself to the ever new “historical contrapposto” (ST, p. 6). Nothing is exempt from historical change. Philosophical categories through which the world is understood are historical products of life and hence inextricably bound up with the historicity of humankind. For instance, Yorck explicitly claims that the category of “being” is itself “a result of life” (ST, p. 8). This liberates history from all relation to an unchanging, fixed point of reference outside historical life.
https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/dilthey/
The Kantian I-think that is the basis of the conceptual cognition (Erkenntnis) of the natural sciences really derives from a direct knowing (Wissen) rooted in Dilthey’s more inclusive thinking-feeling-willing of lived experience (see 1883/SW.I, 228, and ca. 1880–93/SW.I, 263–68). The natural sciences merely construct a phenomenal or ideal world that abstracts from the real nexus of lived experience. The world that is formed by the human sciences is the historical-social reality in which human beings participate. It is a real world that is directly possessed or present in what Dilthey calls Innewerden. This term has sometimes been translated as “inner awareness,” but is is better to translate it as “reflexive awareness” to indicate how things are there-for-us. Reflexive awareness is a pre-reflective, indexical mode of consciousness that “does not place a content over against the subject of consciousness (it does not re-present it)” (ca. 1880–93/SW.I, 253). It is the direct know-how that reality is present-for-me prior to any of the reflective act-content, inner-outer, or subject-object distinctions that characterize the representational world of conceptual cognition.
I am tired from overworking; having reviewed my files, I worry about their unfinished contents, whose completion demands incalculably more work from me. All this “about”, “of”, and “toward”, all these references of what is remembered to what is experienced, in short, all these structural inner relations, must be apprehended by me, since I now want to apprehend the fullness of the lived experience exhaustively. And precisely in order to exhaust it, I must regress further in the structural network to the memories of other lived experiences. (1904–9/SW.III, 50)
...
Individuals can be studied as psychic productive systems inherently related to each other as well as to more inclusive productive systems that are also at work in history. These larger productive systems come about because of the need for communication, interaction, and cooperation among individuals. But they can also take on a life of their own and survive the individuals that formed and shaped them. Dilthey’s category of Wirkung or productivity is at the root of Gadamer’s theory of the productive history (Wirkungsgeschichte) of works of art that grants them new meanings over time that exceed those intended by their creators. In the Introduction to the Human Sciences, Dilthey had been unwilling to consider purposive social systems as subjects or carriers of history. In The Formation of the Historical World in the Human Sciences, he qualifies his opposition to the idea of a transpersonal subject such as the soul of a people by de-reifying it as the spirit of a people that is to be considered as a logical rather than a real subject. It is possible to regard cooperative productive systems as logical subjects that transcend individuals without positing them as super-empirical real subjects.
...
Whereas Hegel restricted objective spirit to the legal, economic and political aspects of historical life, Dilthey expands the concept to include not only the sciences, but also the triad of art, religion and philosophy that Hegel had assigned to absolute spirit. But most of all, objective spirit embodies the everyday, mundane aspects of life that we grow up with.
From earliest childhood, the self is nurtured by this world of objective spirit. It is also the medium in which the understanding of other persons and their life-manifestations takes place. For everything in which spirit has objectified itself contains something that is common to the I and the Thou. ...
This common background suffices for the elementary understanding of everyday life. But whenever the common meaning of life-manifestations is called into question for some reason, higher understanding becomes necessary. This can occur because of an apparent inconsistency among various claims being made, or because an ambiguity that needs to be resolved. In each case we discern an unexpected complexity that requires us to shift our frame of reference.
"Temporality and historicality" is an important section in B&T. It is the (authentic) historicality that transcends the banality of everydayness.
It is interesting to note that Dilthey was one of the first to direct wider academic attention to Husserl. He began holding seminars on Husserl in Berlin around 1901. Dilthey believed that Husserl (like William James) represented the new psychology he was aiming for. Heidegger has pointed out the somewhat strange fact that Dilthey was interested in an "abstract" philosopher like Husserl (who, in fact, thought that Dilthey was too much of a skeptical relativist and not interested in "ideal" meanings).
https://www.beyng.com/pages/en/BeingandTimeMR/BeingandTimeMR.ToC.html
I am aware of your penchant and fondness for tangent, but try not to mistake your tangential excursions for something that has anything to do with the issue under discussion. If you want to take my question about what someone with little or no background in Heidegger would understand about a statement that was supposed to explain another statement as an opportunity to talk about the background of a text then go ahead, but don't mistake the one for the other.
Interesting and vivid description. Can we 'un-linear' ourselves in practice? What does an account like this mean for day-to-day living and how can it be utilised in human thought?
Eugene Gendlin’s Experiencing and the Creation of Meaning introduces an approach that applies this non-linear temporality to everyday life. His Focusing technique, incorporated into his psychotherapy practice, offers a way for us to go back and forth between the implicit intricacy of bodily-felt meaning and linguistic-scientific and logical conceptualization.
Quoting waarala
As it turns out, Dilthey’s historicism ends up
idealizing history in a way that Husserl avoids.
My experience is very much the same.
Now I continuously read Being and Time in conjunction with other writers. I especially like William Blattner and Taylor Carmen.
excellent point!
I would go so far as to say that if I cannot put it my own words, then I do not understand it.
:up:
Yes, a key chapter ! I happened to have just reread in the last week.
Nice background. Thanks.
:up:
This is why these days I put writing at the center of education. Articulation is like bending steel. People tend to think they know from merely reading or hearing, but finding other representatives in the same equivalence class ( paraphrasing points) is the true test. One takes a risk.
Feel free to correct me. I'm spitting out some of my take on Heidegger below.
To be historical is to be the kind of social being that has a world, a form of life. The spine or foundation of this form of life is personified by [the] one (as in what one does). Such a world includes a vast equipmental nexus, chairs for sitting on, forks for stabbing porkchops, books for staring at, ... This world is an immediatelysignificant lifeworld. One lives and moves in its familiarity, popping out for a bit, grabbing something from Starbucks, be back in a jiffy. [ Note the prephysics grasping of space and time. This is not Cartesian geometrical space. Also see Carlin's monologue on how many jiffies are in two shakes of a lamb. ] One is busy, mostly absorbed in this or that little task, bringing it to fruition as part of bringing ever larger schemes to fruition. One integrates all sorts of tasks into a general mode of being or lifeproject, living into being a good father, being a good philosopher.
This world in which we all live is something like a developing organism. New memes pop up, others die. Technology changes. Those who weren't around in 1994 (in that world) can't 'get' (without serious effort ?) what grunge meant. Young people love their lingo, phrases which the old folks can't handle properly. The phrases in yesterday's books are rusty 'antiquities.' One has to turn one's imagination into a time machine, pore over the letters of that forgotten world, to begin to understand what such antiques (maybe memes thought of as tools) were good for, how one intended and wielded them back then. But how one intended them is only the beginning, because genius or authenticity twists the given and uses tools in a wrong way that becomes the right way. Each generation inherits the geniuses along with the nobodies of the previous generations. Yesterday's blazing metaphor is today's triviality, today's necessity, for the contingent tends to harden into a false necessity. This is why deconstruction and archeology are necessary. A certain path was taken once and people forget that things could have been otherwise --- until the crazy asshole philosopher questions the obvious, uses a dead metaphor as tool the wrong way and gets lucky. Interpretation, once heroic, hardens into interpretedness, what every idiot 'knows,' what every nobody (anyone and everyone) now finds obvious, though their grandpappy tried to kill the fellow who came up with it.
Time is [ the ] one's self-confrontation, a snake twisting out of its skin.
Carlin doing phenomenology ?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6FXtyVPEKSk
https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/gadamer/#DiaPhr
To put the point more generally, and in more basic ontological terms, if we are to understand anything at all, we must already find ourselves ‘in’ the world ‘along with’ that which is to be understood. All understanding that is directed at the grasp of some particular subject matter is thus based in a prior ‘ontological’ understanding—a prior hermeneutical situatedness. On this basis, hermeneutics can be understood as the attempt to ‘make explicit’ the structure of such situatedness. Yet since that situatedness is indeed prior to any specific event of understanding, so it must always be presupposed even in the attempt at its own explication. Consequently, the explication of this situatedness—of this basic ontological mode of understanding—is essentially a matter of exhibiting or ‘laying-bare’ a structure with which we are already familiar (as well as a structure that is present in every event of understanding) and in which we are already embedded. In this respect, hermeneutics becomes one with phenomenology, itself understood, in Heidegger’s thinking, as just such a ‘laying bare’ (it also takes the form, given the focus on situation and situatedness, of what Heidegger later calls a ‘topology’ (Topologie) or a ‘saying of place’—see Malpas 2014).
Maybe how thrown we are is underestimated. It's not just being born lefthanded to a lavatory attendant and an epileptic with long fingers. It's the deepest part of me, my boldest thoughts, the language I am forced to think them in and with. It's my most basic bodily tendencies to react (Dreyfus likes this part, such as how close people stand in different cultures, how assertive they are physically.) Does Bergson fit in here ? We are continuous beings, gliding and accumulating, skating understandingly on a pre-conceptually significant and soporifically familiar roundabout. We do 70 on the highway, thinking about the book we are going to write, remembering an interaction that went beautifully, wincing at one that hurt.
Hmmm... (I guess I should reread The Origins of Geometry.)
:up: Excellent! Lots of valuable ideas.
Very kind!
Quick digression. I have no idea what grunge meant and I was there. Nirvana, I take it? Don't know any of their music. I've never participated in popular or contemporary music or culture, so the period when I was young - 80's/90's - is a black hole of films, TV and music unconsumed, except, perhaps, through ads and cultural osmosis. We don't all inhabit the same place, even when we do. :wink:
First things first: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lpWh2lA1m-c
Quoting plaque flag
from Hegel :
https://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/hegel/works/hi/history5.htm#iii
In other words, we are not a thing like a rock or even a honey-badger but instead a living concentration or accumulation of three thousand years of research and development, and that's just the software, the compacted-transmitted training, the human dance after centuries of improvisation within the constraints of what had already happened up to that point. I do not see the world through universal timeless eyes (with eternal platonic concepts) but through historical eyes (with evolved and 'liquid' concepts). We take a compatible (thrown) place within the social [s]construction[/s] performance of reality. This is not to deny that physics reveals a relatively solid and unchanging core, but Nature is a product of (part of ) Spirit. In other words, physics is part of that performance, methodically reducing 'rich time' to 'clock time,' a succession of equally meaningless nows. A system of dead predictable stuff is a powerful tool.
The young philosopher is always already thrown into a set of famous philosophers and their approaches, their pet themes and concepts --- and these influences were themselves thrown in the same way, so that the whole sequence is temporally cumulative and continuous, a smooth but curving torchlit path in some vast space left mostly dark, habitat of unchosen lifeworlds.
We see this Hegelian insight (which he surely got elsewhere) appear in Feuerbach, Yorck, Dilthey, and Heidegger. Predecessor generations have been discussed already (our having been thrown.) The mention of successor generations emphasizes our future directedness (our projection, our livingtoward, strivingtoward, bringing-to-fruition, expectant concern. Summer porn posthumously. The strong poet intends to pry its way into the past of the future. This poet hopes to be experienced as fate by those who come later. Indeed, those who come later will be (to some degree) a repetition of this poet, a reenactment of its memes. What is it in us that wants to come home with silver and gold?
Freedom from the world is a genuine lack of interest in more typical status indicators like wealth and fame, as well as (perhaps) a lack of attachment to longevity. One values differently. One has a rich interiority, a secret source of status. Consider the supreme myth of a transcendent god who only appears for the public eye (for One's eye) as a church-and-state crucified blasphemer. How could such a myth be intensified ? It screams its message, even to an atheist like me.
I find a gnostic (?) meaning in it as well. All good and beautiful and lovely things that exist...do so down here in 'hell,' on our mad prison planet, subject at all times to humiliation and accident, enacting the 'will' of that old gametheoretical demonking Moloch. Matrix, mother : tender and yet devouring.
[i]Here is an imitation of Martin Heidegger making fun of Plato:
"Plato, my dear friend, you are a dreamer. You live in a world of your own making, a world of eternal forms and perfect ideals. But the real world is not like that. The real world is messy and imperfect, and it is constantly changing.
You think that you can escape the real world by retreating into your ivory tower, but you are wrong. The real world will always find you. And when it does, you will be forced to confront it.
I urge you to come down from your ivory tower and face the real world. It is a harsh world, but it is also a beautiful world. And it is the only world that we have.
So stop dreaming, Plato, and start living."[/i]
This is better:
[i]The snake of history
Uncoils and eats itself,
Writhing and twisting
Through the centuries.
Its tail is its head,
Its head is its tail,
And it devours itself
In an endless cycle.
It is a symbol of death
And rebirth,
Of destruction
And creation.
It is a reminder
That nothing is permanent,
That all things must change,
And that even the past
Is not set in stone.[/i]
Just to be clear, this is not the other later Basic Problems.
It's is this one : https://www.amazon.com/dp/1441103600