It is not my job to resolve Heidegger's mess for him, for I know that it is
an irresolvable ontological hairball, unless one goes against the logical
nature of the brain and constructs a way around it with an illogical device
which fools the naive.
>From Heidegger's introduction of 'Dasein' (the gerundial noun - "Being
There") onwards there is no explanation from him about the nature of the impasse.
He doesn't face up to the logical inadmissibility of the daseinic device - he
simply goes ahead and creates it and then spends a lot of time in subsequent
chapters of *Being and Time* with illustrations of it fittingness for
metaphysical exploration of "existence." He is of course is extrapolating from a
false premise - the whole error of Heideggerianism is built on THIS
particular wrongful diagnoses - he creates the 'Daseinic device' because he can't
provide the man - for the man already has a *Being* - the man Is a priori.
I do not wish to annoy you further by repeating my ideas about piggyback
duality. Simply - the brain will not allow incorrectness of this unconscionable
magnitude. There can be no relationship between a *being* and a *non-being*
and 'dasein' is decidedly a *non-being.*
Relationships only take place between entities - a man and a woman - the
moon and the earth - oil and water etc. You don't have a relationship between a
swimmer and swimming - the swimmer has a relationship with the water in which
he swims. The *being* has a relationship with the cosmos - not with *Being.*
Moods are not entities. Existential moods and modalities are
electro-chemical changes - movements - changes - which take place in the bodybrain - the
human holism, and are part of the ever-changing physicality of the *being* in
question.
My wife's moods are not separate from my wife but are part of my wife's
brain and physiology whilst they are in operation. We can refer to a habitual
swimmer as a swimmer in certain circumstances, but while he is a swimmer that
is a person who travels through the water by swimming, he may also be a
father, or a snooker player or a reader or even a philosopher. That part of your
body which we call your lungs has a 'relationship' with the air that it sucks
into the bronchial area via the throat. It is a very critical relationship,
for without either your lungs or the air to fill them - you would die.
By cosmos I mean everything that exists anywhere. Dasein is no more capable
of understanding *Being* than any man or woman for Dasein originates in the
mind of a man, (Heidegger,) and the idea of Dasein taken up by his followers.
It is a thing of the conciousness not a *Being* that can understand itself.
Dasein is a very simple concept. The German word 'Dasein' has been employed
to a great degree in German philosophy to mean "existence," or Dass-sein
"that it is," of a thing, state of affairs, person or God. (Here we can spot the
usefulness of the word which includes Heidegger's errant 'IS' slipping in as
an outlaw to the logic of the brain,)
In order to stress the special meaning 'Dasein' has for him, Heidegger
sometimes hyphenates the word (Da-sein), suggesting "there *Being*," (again the
secret ontological agent of subterfuge,) which is to say, the *Being*
characteristic of human existence, which is "there" in the world.
I follow tradition and let the German word 'Dasein' or Da-sein stand,
translating the former as "existence" or "human *Being*" only when the usage seems
to be non-terminological. Dasein, *Being* is merely an idea which can comport
itself towards nothing. *Being* cannot comport itself towards existence for
'Dasein' and 'Existence' are just ideas in men's heads. A man or a woman can
contemplate, wonder about and question the 'nature' of 'existence' - but it
is impossible for one idea to contemplate another idea - only a contemplator
can comtemplate. 'Dasein' is forced upon Heidegger because of the
linguistic-logico impossibility of piggyback *Being*. I have already said that since
grammatically and semantically the brain blocks and seals off the use of the a
double-barrelled or tandem existence, in order to proceed to construct his
artificial viewing platform to contemplate the the 'experiential existence' of
mankind he had no alternative but to introduce an logically illegal construct
characterised by an disorderly, nonrational, and grammatically irreconcilable
semantic component.
Furthermore I have a feeling that 'Dasein' may distort rather than
facilitate existential investigation. This will be the next field of my investigation.
Heidegger eloquently points to the usefulness of the Daseinic approach, but
speaks not of the logical dynamic, which [like Pinnochio's puppetmaker)
brought 'Dasein' to life.
It is that linguistic/semantic dynamic which concerns me, not the
consequential advantages of a daseinic methodology.
The daseinic illegitimacy I have explained in the body of my text. The
meaning of 'Dasein' too I have already covered. Heidegger broaches logic by
attempting to disengage existence from its multiplicity of seamlessly dove-tailed
modalities which constitute an existential continuum. It is the same as
trying to separate meningitis from the meningitis virus - the disease can only be
observed as a corollary of the presence of the microorganism. We encounter
linguistic and semantic gridlock because Dasein is grammatically, logically
speaking and from the viewpoint of the human brain - an illegitimate ontological
bastard.
I am sure that Heidegger would be most surprised and even annoyed that
anyone would even dream of challenging this Daseinic contrivance, and I suppose
that many of us as creatures of habit, will have become so used to living with
the concept of 'Dasein,' that it will have become insinuated into their very
conciousness, and the thought of being rendered 'Daseinless' fills them
with horror. I have no wish to take away anyone's baby comforter, I am simply
suggesting that it can be safely set-aside and that we all have to grow up one
day.
And so in conclusion I will briefly restate my case, which is made up of two
observations.
1. The verb 'BE' in all of its tenses touches *Being* only tangentially. Its
main role is to as an assignment operator which is ready to 'stand in,' or
'dwell' as a 'ready to hand' actuator, which idicates or prompts an
interest in the existential nature of the relationship between the subject and
predicate of a sentence.
In its 'quiet, sometimes unneeded' role, that is when the nature of the
subject and predicate are uncontroversial and accepted by both speaker and
listener, it gives the false impression of an insignificant copuletic function.
Thus in the sentence: "King John is ready." The *IS * relates NOT to King
John's *existence* or *Being*, (which we assume and concur-in merely at the
mention of the words "King John," but rather to a consideration of King John and
any further unsignfied features of King John that we may wish or may not
wish to contemplate, plus the "readiness of King John" and the nature of or
state of his readiness.
Heidegger is significantly reluctant to admit his inability to analyse the
above, (illustrated in *A Chat with Herr Heidegger,* and his consequent
infamous dismissal of the problem and subsequent creation of Dasein as a
circumventory device is notes with contempt..
If he had said something like: "Look, I am restricted by the laws of
linguistics and semantics to adopt a *Being* in the world' position because frankly
I don't understand the workings of the BE-word, but I feel strongly that it
would be worth while to adopt an artifice in order to view the cosmos from
another interesting perspective, so I am forced to create a artificial creature
without any past whom we can say has been 'thrown' into the world, (rather
like Mary Wolstenholme's monster waking up on the operating table,) who had no
past, (and in his particular case not much future.)
If he had levelled with us, if he'd said:
"Yes, I'm going to invent a character, and just like in fiction this
character will be restricted in his world-view because of his fictive and impossible
position in logic - for this character will have no history, no mother and
father and no babyhood, no teenage years, and no genesis other than in the
mind of his creator."
It's very probable that people like me would have overcome our suspicions
and responded:
"Ok, that's fine - viewing the world in the first person suits my ego - it
allows another way of looking at things for a change - false and contrived as
it is - never mind - let's go!"
Cheers,
Jud Evans
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