On Monday, June 7, 2004, at 08:44 PM, GEVANS613@xxxxxxx wrote:
Malcolm:
All bare assertions require the power to make them true.
Jud: You are way off beam. The question is what is human nature in the
context of will to will, and how the concept of their own human nature, and the
human nature of other humans is perceived.
Yes, and it is precisely in the context of the will to will that all bare assertions require the power to make them true.
There is a consensus that human
beings are [and this is a generalisation] greedy, self-centred and not
particularly concerned with the problems of others.
A consensus of belief in the truth of a bare assertion would be compelling for me depending on whose consensus it is and the reasoning behind it. There are lots of beliefs backed by consensus, such as the belief in the rather pagan Christian god for instance, or in the still amazingly persistent US belief that Hussein had WMD. Your generalisation that human nature is founded on greed and self-interest is nothing other than a bare faced belief, a dogma. There are a multitude of motivations in constant flux for every peoples all over this world, from greed, grief, hatred and anger to happiness, generosity, kindness and love. In a sense human history is this constant play of feeling or mood and their associated actions, a consensus of mood is what Nietzsche calls the herd. So far in our historical struggles greed seems to be predominant but that does not make it a principle of human nature, on the contrary, I'd say it's a symptom of our utter collective ignorance.
What we CAN talk about though are the strands of persistent and
reoccurring attitudes which manifest themselves as part of our animal
[human] nature — and the surprising behavioural predictability that can be employed
in the study of human social behaviour conduct. But as Husserl correctly
pointed out — this is sociology — not philosophy.
Depends really on what you mean by 'human nature' and 'attitude'. Humanity has traditionally been conceived as not merely beastly but also rational, the animal rationale, a thinking beast. You can go and do some polls and get back to the list on your sociological research, and I'd definitely find that interesting, or we can talk philosophically about what defining humanity as the 'thinking beast' actually means, how moods are a form of fundamental understanding, and how will to power functions as the form of historical relations between peoples. The latter is a phenomenological way of talking about our current situation, it's certainly a mode of philosophy as I understand it.
Pray inform me what is difficult for you to understand in the sentence: 'an
ongoing fixity and persistent intent of thought or purpose, ' is only
metaphysical as part of the cognitive rigidity of metaphysicalists?
Ok, I can't read it for one ... your use of the language is a bit stilted for me, and I don't really have any specific idea of what you mean by 'cognitive rigidity' or how you're using the term 'metaphysical' in relation to will as 'an ongoing fixity and persistent intent of thought or purpose'. As to the latter phrase why not simply use 'will'? The will to will would then be 'an ongoing fixity and persistent intent of thought or purpose' whose purpose would be to intend 'an ongoing fixity and persistent intent of thought or purpose'. For me the self-sufficient purposelessness of the 'will to will' is a much more succinct way of formulating this dynamic notion of willing.
Then you would have: The will to will 'is only metaphysical as part of the cognitive rigidity of metaphysicalists'. I guess you're saying something like 'will' is unproblematic except when it is artificially thematised by deluded academics? I find you difficult to translate Jud, but I think your notion that 'will' is something self-evidently unproblematic is rather problematic. In Heidegger's terms the will to will is metaphysical in that it provides its own grounds for being true and truth becomes something willed, truth becomes self assertion. Actually your own assertions are a good example of the self assertive metaphysical will to will and its truths, as are mine.
The ancestor of the boomerang is the Killing-stick and the
aboriginals knew the Killing-sticks well before the boomerang.
Depends really, there are a number of 'boomerang' styles used by various language groups over a long period of time, they all generally refer to the killing or throwing stick as far as I know. The returning boomerang is/was a specialised ceremonial throwing stick, it wasn't traditionally widely in use outside the northern regions if I remember correctly.
The point
remains that it is a piece of technology that can be used to kill or for
play. You can't blame the boomerang or the killing-stick if it used for evil
purposes — its the guy who throws it — the ONTIC human being who throws the
ONTIC boomerang or ONTIC killing stick.
Sure, but the killing stick is one implement that itself is only meaningfully useful in relation to the whole toolset and way of life of traditional Aboriginal peoples. Take it out of that lived context and you've got a couple of Wodgellas babbling about museum pieces or banana shaped nylon frisbees. I guess you'll insist that your utilitarian interpretation of the killing stick is the most relevant one, but what I'm interested in is how this notion of 'utilitarianism' already frames how you understand an everyday implement like the boomerang. That's a philosophical question by the way, straight out of 'Being and Time'.
What are we supposed to do? Go around smashing the looms and putting
hammers through monitor screens? Rip up railway tracks and throw dentist chairs on
the rubbish heap — pull all the plugs that feed the stock exchange and burn
the moguls at the stake?
The notion that technology sets up the meaningful context within which we live and use technological things to manipulate nature doesn't require that we all become Luddites. It's a misreading of Heidegger to suggest that he was anti-technology. The problem concerning technology is all about trying to understand how modern globalising technological civilisation is founded on a modern understanding of the world that is not simply rational and utilitarian. It's Heidegger's contention that our modern understanding is itself framed by the world disclosed through technology and its complex networks, what later Heidegger called the cybernetic order.
The man was a headbanging looney! There will be
reason and unreasoned use of technology in any age [Greek fire, siege engines,
beaked Triremes, etc.].
Neither is this a question of the reasonable or unreasonable use of technology, especially given that 'unreason' is merely another form of reason, just as irrationality presumes rationality. It's about that understanding of the world that sets up the non-rational meaningful context within which we can make reasonable use of technological things.
You can't blame the technology all the time, in spite of the fact that
it cannot answer back, because technology DOESN'T REASON - HUMANS DO.
Well done, and I agree so long as we don't reduce the notion of reason down to pure calculation and the algorithms used in AI and robotics research. Things don't think, humans do, and we also feel, and these feelings and thoughts are always meaningful in one sense or another depending on the lived context. It's that lived context that's interesting though don't you think? This material world of technological things and ways of doing business within which we live out our busy lives. What would reason be without this lived world that makes one reasoned response more or less meaningful than another?
Henry's: 'narrative which weaves itself into the popular consciousness' is a
HUMAN narrative - not a 'technological' one - you cannot blame the
technological medium for the human message.
Maybe we live in a technological medium that frames the meaning of the messages we send to one another? That's an open ended question again, no doubt for you we're just using this internet to communicate about a world that is self evidently just a bunch of stuff being kicked around by masses of thinking animals, us manic predator apes. And you'd be right of course, I'm just interested in what that objectively self-evident world view actually means.
Cheers,
Malcolm
--- from list heidegger@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx ---