Mark,
>First of all, is death simply a concept like any other?
Only when it is being treated as such. :) Sorry, I had to. :)
It depends upon what level you want to explore this. If you want to look at
B&T from a formal perspective and examine what was functionally neceessary
for Heidegger to get from A to B (say Division 1 to Division 2) then "Death"
is treated as a formal construct (concept) that is (as I see it)
*extremnely* necessary to the enterprsie in general. That is, Heidegger
could have replaced anxiety with, say, love (I don't know if he could have
but this is a hypothetical example) but could he have replaced "death" with
anything and still managed to get at Dasein as a whole? I do not think he
could have. Therefore, formally, he was "stuck" with using "Death".
It is much more fun, as we often do, to temporarily "buy into" what
Heidegger has said in Division One and then examine the role of Death in a
different way. That is, we ask ourselves, "Assuming everything in Heidegger
is true, in what way should we properly understand what he means by
Being-Towards-Death"? Even more fun is to iron out possible wrinkles in
earlier sections (ie, develop interpreted meanings for what he meant before)
and then see how we can work the concept of Death into these meanings.
Isn't that how we check our work? Try to figure out what he meant?
We decide what we are going to take, say, "Being-in-the-world" to
mean and then move on to "Being-with-Others" and then back to "Being in the
world" and then ahead again until we have that all straitened out, and then
we move onto the next thing and so on. Then, eventually we come to the
section on Death.
This is not always the same, however, as looking at how important
each section is or whether a section is formally necessary (is it?).
I personally think that the section on Death is extremely important
for this (formally and conceptually) because it is the section that I
believe to be the largest "hinge". A lot of what he says in the beginning
of Division Two reflects back heavily on Division One (and thus has an
effect on its meaning) and I do not think it is possible to adaqautely move
foward into Division Two without a really good understanding of the section
on Death. That is, you can run through the book with, say, a "strange"
(not nec. wrong) idea of what Ready-to-hand vs. Present-at-hand means, still
get through the book and still agree with what most people say the book was
about, but I don't think the same is true for Death.
>To answer this would surely require clarifying what a concept is - on the
assumption that clarifying what death is is not an option - and asking if one
>can conceptualize what one cannot clarify.
I think we are both using "concept" in two different ways (probably my fault
for using it at all - smile) but I, for one, can not seem to separate them
very well. I also do not understand why we would have to conceptualize
something that we could not clarify. *Everything* "...is a concept like any
other". Looking at the formal necessity of a concept to an argument,
however, is different than looking at the concept itself. Granted, to show
how important Death is as a formal part of the whole argument I have to look
at what Death meant in the first place and how this meaning related to other
aspects of the argument but that is because I am not going to take the time
to write out B&T in symbolic form (as if - smile).
>secondly if death is formally necessary to Heidegger's enterprise to the
extent that he has to describe dasein as the mode of access to Dase...Being
>then no doubt death is necessary inasmuch as it is inscribed in any
>relation to Being, and not as an empirical datum of anthropology.
Could you clarify this a bit? I do not see what this has to do with
Empirical datum at all.
-Nik
--- from list heidegger@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx ---
>First of all, is death simply a concept like any other?
Only when it is being treated as such. :) Sorry, I had to. :)
It depends upon what level you want to explore this. If you want to look at
B&T from a formal perspective and examine what was functionally neceessary
for Heidegger to get from A to B (say Division 1 to Division 2) then "Death"
is treated as a formal construct (concept) that is (as I see it)
*extremnely* necessary to the enterprsie in general. That is, Heidegger
could have replaced anxiety with, say, love (I don't know if he could have
but this is a hypothetical example) but could he have replaced "death" with
anything and still managed to get at Dasein as a whole? I do not think he
could have. Therefore, formally, he was "stuck" with using "Death".
It is much more fun, as we often do, to temporarily "buy into" what
Heidegger has said in Division One and then examine the role of Death in a
different way. That is, we ask ourselves, "Assuming everything in Heidegger
is true, in what way should we properly understand what he means by
Being-Towards-Death"? Even more fun is to iron out possible wrinkles in
earlier sections (ie, develop interpreted meanings for what he meant before)
and then see how we can work the concept of Death into these meanings.
Isn't that how we check our work? Try to figure out what he meant?
We decide what we are going to take, say, "Being-in-the-world" to
mean and then move on to "Being-with-Others" and then back to "Being in the
world" and then ahead again until we have that all straitened out, and then
we move onto the next thing and so on. Then, eventually we come to the
section on Death.
This is not always the same, however, as looking at how important
each section is or whether a section is formally necessary (is it?).
I personally think that the section on Death is extremely important
for this (formally and conceptually) because it is the section that I
believe to be the largest "hinge". A lot of what he says in the beginning
of Division Two reflects back heavily on Division One (and thus has an
effect on its meaning) and I do not think it is possible to adaqautely move
foward into Division Two without a really good understanding of the section
on Death. That is, you can run through the book with, say, a "strange"
(not nec. wrong) idea of what Ready-to-hand vs. Present-at-hand means, still
get through the book and still agree with what most people say the book was
about, but I don't think the same is true for Death.
>To answer this would surely require clarifying what a concept is - on the
assumption that clarifying what death is is not an option - and asking if one
>can conceptualize what one cannot clarify.
I think we are both using "concept" in two different ways (probably my fault
for using it at all - smile) but I, for one, can not seem to separate them
very well. I also do not understand why we would have to conceptualize
something that we could not clarify. *Everything* "...is a concept like any
other". Looking at the formal necessity of a concept to an argument,
however, is different than looking at the concept itself. Granted, to show
how important Death is as a formal part of the whole argument I have to look
at what Death meant in the first place and how this meaning related to other
aspects of the argument but that is because I am not going to take the time
to write out B&T in symbolic form (as if - smile).
>secondly if death is formally necessary to Heidegger's enterprise to the
extent that he has to describe dasein as the mode of access to Dase...Being
>then no doubt death is necessary inasmuch as it is inscribed in any
>relation to Being, and not as an empirical datum of anthropology.
Could you clarify this a bit? I do not see what this has to do with
Empirical datum at all.
-Nik
--- from list heidegger@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx ---