On Tue, 16 Jul 1996, RESISTANCE IS FUTILE wrote:
> As early as the the _Geschichte des Zeitbegriffs_ H. affirms the inability
> of philosophy to teach us how to lead a good life, to be moral, to be
> saints rather than fiends. Philosophy is inherently disinterested in a
> certain profound way, hence its methodological atheism. Isn't accusing
> the Sache des Denkens because of its obliviousness to human concerns
> a bit like assaulting relativity theory because it provides no possible
> basis for ethics?
One must be careful. Heidegger says that philosophy cannot give definite
propositions on the good life, but it can direct us to the site wherein
we can lead authentically good lives. This relates to the twofold
historical nature of Dasein: one, that different times have different
conceptions of the good life and secondly, that that ethics must be
experienced as part of one's own being, not as an alien system which
commands. The necessity of experiencing/appropriating to any authentic
moral order means that authentic moral order cannot be imposed by some
philosopher (or state). This facet of human existence led Heidegger to
develop the "formal indication" as the way of talking about human being.
Formal indications indicate sets or structures of possibilities which can
enact themselves in a variety of ways and under various specific
situations. They are formal to respect the specificity of each way of
enacting which can never be specified in advance. This is why philosophy
cannot give practical maxims, which must be specific to the situation.
This formalism may not be completely satisfying, but Heidegger insists it
is the limit to which philosophy may properly attain.
Incidentally, this lived on in two students who attended some of his
early lectures, Arendt and Gadamer, and the same thought appears in
Rorty's privileging of the political over the philosophical. Van Buren
wrote some stuff on the ethics of formal indication, both in his book and
in an article in American Catholic Philosophical Quarterly, v.69: 2 (I
think).
Chris
--- from list heidegger@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx ---
> As early as the the _Geschichte des Zeitbegriffs_ H. affirms the inability
> of philosophy to teach us how to lead a good life, to be moral, to be
> saints rather than fiends. Philosophy is inherently disinterested in a
> certain profound way, hence its methodological atheism. Isn't accusing
> the Sache des Denkens because of its obliviousness to human concerns
> a bit like assaulting relativity theory because it provides no possible
> basis for ethics?
One must be careful. Heidegger says that philosophy cannot give definite
propositions on the good life, but it can direct us to the site wherein
we can lead authentically good lives. This relates to the twofold
historical nature of Dasein: one, that different times have different
conceptions of the good life and secondly, that that ethics must be
experienced as part of one's own being, not as an alien system which
commands. The necessity of experiencing/appropriating to any authentic
moral order means that authentic moral order cannot be imposed by some
philosopher (or state). This facet of human existence led Heidegger to
develop the "formal indication" as the way of talking about human being.
Formal indications indicate sets or structures of possibilities which can
enact themselves in a variety of ways and under various specific
situations. They are formal to respect the specificity of each way of
enacting which can never be specified in advance. This is why philosophy
cannot give practical maxims, which must be specific to the situation.
This formalism may not be completely satisfying, but Heidegger insists it
is the limit to which philosophy may properly attain.
Incidentally, this lived on in two students who attended some of his
early lectures, Arendt and Gadamer, and the same thought appears in
Rorty's privileging of the political over the philosophical. Van Buren
wrote some stuff on the ethics of formal indication, both in his book and
in an article in American Catholic Philosophical Quarterly, v.69: 2 (I
think).
Chris
--- from list heidegger@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx ---