On Sun, 26 May 1996 s_harkin@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx wrote:
>
> It would be hard to imagine anything more alien to "Heideggarian" "thought"
> than an attempt to formalise it in a precise, mathematical way.
>
> Mathematical formalisation is a fore-grounding that already determines the
> nature of its objects and their way of being. It is _one_ possible
> fore-grounding.
>
> As formulaic, algorithmic, essentially pre-determined, (pre-determination in
> its essence) it cannot be an experience of truth (temporalised unveiling).
> As H.'s reliable disciple, H-G Gadamer, puts it "Truth and Method" poses a
> choice between two options; between thinking and calculating.
>
> I can only point you to the remarkable passage in B&T 69b (pg. 414) where H.
> says:
>
> "Thus the paradigmatic character of mathematical natural science does not
> lie in its exactitude or in the fact that it is binding for 'Everyman'; it
> consists rather in the fact that the entities which it takes as its theme
> are discovered in it in the only way in which entities can be discovered -
> by the prior projection of their state of Being.
> When the basic concepts of that understanding of Being by which we are
> guided have been worked out, the clues of its methods, the structure of its
> way of conceiving of things, the possibility of truth and certainty which
> belong to it, the ways in which things get grounded or proved, the mode in
> which it is binding for us, and the way it is communicated - all these will
> be Determined. The totality of these items constitutes the full existential
> conception of science."
>
> As far as I can tell, cultural studies of science (including the whole
> Foucault school and Latour etc.) have been doing little other than
> plundering from that passage since it was published. For me it remains the
> most comprehensive _agenda_ (not method!) for thinking about our
> pre-occupation with science and technology, the ongoing mathematisation of
> 'the' universe and the precisely formal 'digitisation' of our world.
>
> What, if anything, _cannot_ be "precisely formalised" - that, for me, is the
> question.
>
> However, I am still fascinated and intruiged by Dr. Odor's work. Please post
> it to me privately if it is not appropriate to send it to the list as a
> whole. I look forward to receiving it with great interest.
>
> Unpredictably yours,
>
> Brendan
>
> "Most thought-provoking in this thought-provoking age is that we're still
> not thinking."
> Heid
> egger (WICT)
>
>
>
> --- from list heidegger@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx ---
>
I've been watching this thread, first with disinterest, then with
interest. Yes, the range-affirming openings are there in Heidegger quite
fully, as your quote demonstrates. At the same time, one can also trace a
mathematic-formalalism "up and into" Heidegger, a certain "spirit" of
mathematics. No question, putting things in formulae of the kind one finds
in, for example, some psychology or sociology texts, is not how this
mathesis manifests itself in Heidegger. There is a danger, however, that
it could. But there is a certain formalism, style, tendency, mood,
conforming atmosphere, regularity. Note Derrida's remarks that _Being and
Time_ bears all the formal traits of a philosophy of the subject.
The lineage I'm thinking of here is Husserl, of course. The impression I
got after reading Husserl for some time was that the way to "get" Husserl
was to first place oneself in a kind of mathematical orientation. Think
of "brackets", for example. More generally, the whole style of how the
Husserlian thought brings its Cartesian gaze on the phenomena of lived
experience, the painstaking explorations of "givenness", the unity and
completeness of data to be taken within the epoche, etc., all trace back
to a founding orientation in the double movement that constitues
Husserlian phenomenology. A constant attempt, a constantly unsuccessful
attempt.
Heidegger rebels against this, it would seem, by taking into view this
particular Cartesian *posture* as one disclosive style and one set of
conceptual operations. At the same time, transposed into a something that
can not be spatio-temporalized and metaphysicalized as "a broader
opening with more strata", as one might wish to say here, a certain
*rigor* determines the *form* and *formulation* of the *question of being*
and its excursions in Heidegger. The "mathematical", in a loosened sense
of the term, can be seen in the formalism Derrida identifies and in a
variety of tendencies in Heidegger's thought.
This is a double-sided view of Heidegger, since I think you are right
about the degree to which Heidegger's thought truly encompasses the
mathematical as a regional ontology. But one might say that to find
mathematical formulae for Heideggerian thought is not possible, but that
one may find a certain "mathematician" in Heidegger, if one looks with
the right eyes. Perhaps, indeed, the route to this disclosure lies in the
question of *style*, as Derrida seems to note. I was given to think of
Nietzsche when asking here about the "mathematician"...Nietzschean
charicature, masks, etc. And it is precisely the elements of style that
Heidegger dismisses in reading Nietzsche, as Derrida notes in _Eperons_.
In relation to the plurality of styles, and Derrida (again) notest that
if there is to be a question of style, it must be plural, in many styles,
Heidegger remains ever the mathematician. From here we can picture the
formalism mentioned above in parallel to a Nietzschean "Kant as
mathematician". I don't think Nietzsche said this, precisely, about Kant,
but he said something which parodies a regimental, academic tendency in
Kant. Perhaps the same can be said for Heidegger. But there is more than
one Heidegger.
I have often been tempted to imagine that Heidegger's thinking in _The
Question Concerning Technology_ was meant to refer to _Being and Time_,
too, as a highly technological edifice.
One might say that *if* a "mathematical spirit" were to be brought
successfully into the space of lived experience and in a way commensurate
with the major philosophical problems, it would take a form like that of
Heidegger's thought. If an investigation into mathematics reveals *more*
than formulae, but includes operations, gestures, sequences of
understanding, regularizations, etc., then it is easier to see mathesis
in Heidegger. In particular, the *stabilization* and *simplification* of
Dasein seem to enable (provided one has the stomach for it) a certain
mechanical seriess of operations. I refer here to the simplicities of the
existential conditions such as the states of integrity, corruption or
grace that one reads of in Heidegger, the process of "finding one's
hero", etc. When hightly stable, these moments can figure into the
*combinatory* operations of something like mathematics. Put *under* and
sublated, phenomena can then be manipulated. We might see a fruition of
this underwayness in later Heidegger, the thinking of the fourfold, etc.
To put this in more practical terms, I make mention of a little thing that
happened in an activism group with which I was working. The refugee
community had a "trouble maker" in it, and she was being discussed. One
person in our group looked at this situation and noted that the person in
question (who was not a refugee) was the "common denominator" in a lot of
problem situations. I generally disagreed with much of what was being
said. The person in question was indeed a trouble maker, but in an
overall situation rife with back-biting, confusion, and cheap organizing
principles, etc. In any event this "mathematical" operation only promised to
finish off all discussion on the matter even further by now introducing a
"super-operation" which would need to stablize the grounds of the
objects--people, situations--in question. This was not a context dealing
with Heidegger, although it was one which was, for some involved, a
situation of "faith activism", an activism which took into view more of
the "big picture", deployed the same spiritual categories and was
continually oriented according to such structures as one finds in
Heidegger.
If this example can illustrate anything, it is that a certain numericity
becomes possible when people can be adequately simplfied, when categories
and style are stable enough to allow it. A *Nietzschean* tendency in such a
situation would mean to introduce anarchy or a multiplicity which would
demand a correlating multiplcity of postures, orientations, etc. This
would be intolerable to the "genre" in question. But the style in
question, with its tendencies and operations, like the one which I
pointed out, was woefully inadequate to the situations and phenomena.
Perhaps, then, it is Heidegger, "the mathematician", who, in part, was so
unable to judge the problems of National Socialism or deal with them
after the Events.
Vis a vis issues of mathematical formulae *per se*, unfortunately I don't
think it is a done deal that some Heideggerian thought can't be
mathematized, at least if one avoids reading things like QCT, and therein
lies a very serious and growing danger, it seems to me. The potential
violence and ecological damage, which undoubtedly has already taken
place, arising from such a mathesis is great.
Tom B.
_______________________________________________________________________
Over a half million children have died from these sanctions. Over a a
third of the children of Iraq are permanently maimed and stunted by
malnutrition. The U.S. government has not been moved by this suffering.
Madeline Albright, U.S. ambassador to the United Nations revealed this
clearly when she said on "60 Minutes" that "... the death of a half
million children is worth it. The sanctions are working." (May 12).
_______________________________________________________________________
How would you feel about a roller coaster on which, say, one or two people
were killed each year? -- TB
--- from list heidegger@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx ---
>
> It would be hard to imagine anything more alien to "Heideggarian" "thought"
> than an attempt to formalise it in a precise, mathematical way.
>
> Mathematical formalisation is a fore-grounding that already determines the
> nature of its objects and their way of being. It is _one_ possible
> fore-grounding.
>
> As formulaic, algorithmic, essentially pre-determined, (pre-determination in
> its essence) it cannot be an experience of truth (temporalised unveiling).
> As H.'s reliable disciple, H-G Gadamer, puts it "Truth and Method" poses a
> choice between two options; between thinking and calculating.
>
> I can only point you to the remarkable passage in B&T 69b (pg. 414) where H.
> says:
>
> "Thus the paradigmatic character of mathematical natural science does not
> lie in its exactitude or in the fact that it is binding for 'Everyman'; it
> consists rather in the fact that the entities which it takes as its theme
> are discovered in it in the only way in which entities can be discovered -
> by the prior projection of their state of Being.
> When the basic concepts of that understanding of Being by which we are
> guided have been worked out, the clues of its methods, the structure of its
> way of conceiving of things, the possibility of truth and certainty which
> belong to it, the ways in which things get grounded or proved, the mode in
> which it is binding for us, and the way it is communicated - all these will
> be Determined. The totality of these items constitutes the full existential
> conception of science."
>
> As far as I can tell, cultural studies of science (including the whole
> Foucault school and Latour etc.) have been doing little other than
> plundering from that passage since it was published. For me it remains the
> most comprehensive _agenda_ (not method!) for thinking about our
> pre-occupation with science and technology, the ongoing mathematisation of
> 'the' universe and the precisely formal 'digitisation' of our world.
>
> What, if anything, _cannot_ be "precisely formalised" - that, for me, is the
> question.
>
> However, I am still fascinated and intruiged by Dr. Odor's work. Please post
> it to me privately if it is not appropriate to send it to the list as a
> whole. I look forward to receiving it with great interest.
>
> Unpredictably yours,
>
> Brendan
>
> "Most thought-provoking in this thought-provoking age is that we're still
> not thinking."
> Heid
> egger (WICT)
>
>
>
> --- from list heidegger@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx ---
>
I've been watching this thread, first with disinterest, then with
interest. Yes, the range-affirming openings are there in Heidegger quite
fully, as your quote demonstrates. At the same time, one can also trace a
mathematic-formalalism "up and into" Heidegger, a certain "spirit" of
mathematics. No question, putting things in formulae of the kind one finds
in, for example, some psychology or sociology texts, is not how this
mathesis manifests itself in Heidegger. There is a danger, however, that
it could. But there is a certain formalism, style, tendency, mood,
conforming atmosphere, regularity. Note Derrida's remarks that _Being and
Time_ bears all the formal traits of a philosophy of the subject.
The lineage I'm thinking of here is Husserl, of course. The impression I
got after reading Husserl for some time was that the way to "get" Husserl
was to first place oneself in a kind of mathematical orientation. Think
of "brackets", for example. More generally, the whole style of how the
Husserlian thought brings its Cartesian gaze on the phenomena of lived
experience, the painstaking explorations of "givenness", the unity and
completeness of data to be taken within the epoche, etc., all trace back
to a founding orientation in the double movement that constitues
Husserlian phenomenology. A constant attempt, a constantly unsuccessful
attempt.
Heidegger rebels against this, it would seem, by taking into view this
particular Cartesian *posture* as one disclosive style and one set of
conceptual operations. At the same time, transposed into a something that
can not be spatio-temporalized and metaphysicalized as "a broader
opening with more strata", as one might wish to say here, a certain
*rigor* determines the *form* and *formulation* of the *question of being*
and its excursions in Heidegger. The "mathematical", in a loosened sense
of the term, can be seen in the formalism Derrida identifies and in a
variety of tendencies in Heidegger's thought.
This is a double-sided view of Heidegger, since I think you are right
about the degree to which Heidegger's thought truly encompasses the
mathematical as a regional ontology. But one might say that to find
mathematical formulae for Heideggerian thought is not possible, but that
one may find a certain "mathematician" in Heidegger, if one looks with
the right eyes. Perhaps, indeed, the route to this disclosure lies in the
question of *style*, as Derrida seems to note. I was given to think of
Nietzsche when asking here about the "mathematician"...Nietzschean
charicature, masks, etc. And it is precisely the elements of style that
Heidegger dismisses in reading Nietzsche, as Derrida notes in _Eperons_.
In relation to the plurality of styles, and Derrida (again) notest that
if there is to be a question of style, it must be plural, in many styles,
Heidegger remains ever the mathematician. From here we can picture the
formalism mentioned above in parallel to a Nietzschean "Kant as
mathematician". I don't think Nietzsche said this, precisely, about Kant,
but he said something which parodies a regimental, academic tendency in
Kant. Perhaps the same can be said for Heidegger. But there is more than
one Heidegger.
I have often been tempted to imagine that Heidegger's thinking in _The
Question Concerning Technology_ was meant to refer to _Being and Time_,
too, as a highly technological edifice.
One might say that *if* a "mathematical spirit" were to be brought
successfully into the space of lived experience and in a way commensurate
with the major philosophical problems, it would take a form like that of
Heidegger's thought. If an investigation into mathematics reveals *more*
than formulae, but includes operations, gestures, sequences of
understanding, regularizations, etc., then it is easier to see mathesis
in Heidegger. In particular, the *stabilization* and *simplification* of
Dasein seem to enable (provided one has the stomach for it) a certain
mechanical seriess of operations. I refer here to the simplicities of the
existential conditions such as the states of integrity, corruption or
grace that one reads of in Heidegger, the process of "finding one's
hero", etc. When hightly stable, these moments can figure into the
*combinatory* operations of something like mathematics. Put *under* and
sublated, phenomena can then be manipulated. We might see a fruition of
this underwayness in later Heidegger, the thinking of the fourfold, etc.
To put this in more practical terms, I make mention of a little thing that
happened in an activism group with which I was working. The refugee
community had a "trouble maker" in it, and she was being discussed. One
person in our group looked at this situation and noted that the person in
question (who was not a refugee) was the "common denominator" in a lot of
problem situations. I generally disagreed with much of what was being
said. The person in question was indeed a trouble maker, but in an
overall situation rife with back-biting, confusion, and cheap organizing
principles, etc. In any event this "mathematical" operation only promised to
finish off all discussion on the matter even further by now introducing a
"super-operation" which would need to stablize the grounds of the
objects--people, situations--in question. This was not a context dealing
with Heidegger, although it was one which was, for some involved, a
situation of "faith activism", an activism which took into view more of
the "big picture", deployed the same spiritual categories and was
continually oriented according to such structures as one finds in
Heidegger.
If this example can illustrate anything, it is that a certain numericity
becomes possible when people can be adequately simplfied, when categories
and style are stable enough to allow it. A *Nietzschean* tendency in such a
situation would mean to introduce anarchy or a multiplicity which would
demand a correlating multiplcity of postures, orientations, etc. This
would be intolerable to the "genre" in question. But the style in
question, with its tendencies and operations, like the one which I
pointed out, was woefully inadequate to the situations and phenomena.
Perhaps, then, it is Heidegger, "the mathematician", who, in part, was so
unable to judge the problems of National Socialism or deal with them
after the Events.
Vis a vis issues of mathematical formulae *per se*, unfortunately I don't
think it is a done deal that some Heideggerian thought can't be
mathematized, at least if one avoids reading things like QCT, and therein
lies a very serious and growing danger, it seems to me. The potential
violence and ecological damage, which undoubtedly has already taken
place, arising from such a mathesis is great.
Tom B.
_______________________________________________________________________
Over a half million children have died from these sanctions. Over a a
third of the children of Iraq are permanently maimed and stunted by
malnutrition. The U.S. government has not been moved by this suffering.
Madeline Albright, U.S. ambassador to the United Nations revealed this
clearly when she said on "60 Minutes" that "... the death of a half
million children is worth it. The sanctions are working." (May 12).
_______________________________________________________________________
How would you feel about a roller coaster on which, say, one or two people
were killed each year? -- TB
--- from list heidegger@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx ---