From: "Edward Greig" <ed7@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Reply-To: heidegger@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
To: <heidegger@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Subject: Re: [heidegger-dialognet] Re: god gods not god but gods a god [god is not be-...
Date: Wed, 20 Oct 2004 12:53:55 +0100
Hi
Jud wrote:
Jud:
Note:
Caps for emphasis only as usual.
For Heidegger *Being* is an ineffable X which allows, avails and facilitates
the *uncovering [appearance] of an entity.
One could render it thus: *
There doesn't exist an X [*Being*] such that it doesn't exist as Jud's
waterglass, but doesn't exist as the *existence* of Jud's existing waterglass.
So **Being* is nothing more that the activity of a person's brain as he or
she observes and object - just an old medieval term exhumed and revivifies to
describe THE HUMAN ACT OF APPREHENSION. IN OTHER WORDS *BEING* IS NO MORE
THAN BEGINNER'S PSYCHOLOGY DRESSED UP AS *PHILOSOPHY*
Husserl was the ontological pathfinder who led the way, and Heidegger
followed and acquiesced that the *Being* [Meaning: *the *existence*] of all
entities [say the waterglass on my desk before me] lies in the sense we gain of
them in our understanding. This is an outrageous and juvenile ego-centric
transcendental subjectivism.
In other words â?? the way I sense â?? the way I apprehend the waterglass â??
with the sensors of my eyes as I regard it, and the sensors of my epidermis as I
lift it thus, is the *BEING* of the waterglass which *allows* the water
glass to *appear*
This appears to me to be more or less correct (although I don't think Heidegger would ever attribute anything to eyes, brain, skin etc).
What Heidegger does seem to be saying, to me, is that the waterglass is only intelligible as a waterglass if Dasein exists (but all wrapped up in the most impenetrable language).
"Of course only as long as Dasein is (that is, only as long as understanding of Being is ontically possible), 'is there' Being. When Dasein does not exist, 'independence' 'is' not either, nor 'is' the in-itself. In such a case this sort of thing can be neither understood nor not understood. In such a case even entities within-the-world can neither be discovered nor lie hidden. In such a case it cannot be said that entities are, nor can it be said that they are not." SUZ 212. Macquarrie 255).
Anyone like to comment on this for a relative beginner?
hi edward,
It's complicated if you make too much of the jargon. The problem is when we try to "understand Being" which is what the 'entity' Dasein is doing, it does it in such a manner as to think of something present-at-hand like the door, a screen or nail, a memory, or whatever we may be curious about knowing. Dasein itself can be understood as we would a door. This kind of understanding Heidegger calls a tranquilizing entanglement which alienates us from our ownmost possibility because thought gets caught up in aiming at this object and then an other and then that one and this one and on it goes without Dasein getting a hold of itself, halting and pausing to ponder why it is plunging it's aim into objects that it becomes attached to. When it does pause and idle... so to speak without immediately filling out its intent with an object then understanding instead of actualizing itself becomes its ownmost possibility and is authentic. When it does this Dasein is thinking backwards as I put it, it steps back, it grounds itself on the "for-the-sake-of-which...". Authentic understanding of Being is what in the last parts of _Being and Time_ is the ecstatic temporalization of temporality. That's it, on the one hand there is an understanding of the understanding of being that is inauthentic where Dasein plunges into things actualizing its potential and thinks by grasping an object seen in front. Here Dasein looses its possibility to ground itself and is groundless, without meaning, without promise and potential. On the other hand there is the authentic mode of understanding where Dasein's ownmost possibility are not obstructed and potentiality grows. These are two modes or ways of turning available to the "understanding of Being" or Dasein. If you always keep these in mind and ask yourself which one Heidegger is referring to as you read then it's possible to make something worthwhile out _Being and Time_. The basic know-how which is a skill or comportment is the question how is Dasein becoming grounded in the "for-the-sake-of-which..." which gives it meaning and disentangles us from the groundlessness of thoughts attached to objects? Thinking in this regard is the possibility of having a specific thought as its object which is why it's a potential and Dasein here is at its ownmost possibility. And the other side of the question is how is it that we get caught up in objects or how does the they-self get in the way of an authentic understanding of being. When there is an authentic understanding of beings then Dasein is grounded on the "for-the-sake-of-which...", on a moment of vision which is an ecstatic temporalization of temporality. Authenticity as being-in-the-world or undersatnding of being is then a worlding of the world, the illumination of a clearing and the shining secret of the things themselves.
regards, tympan tzu plato
Regards Edward.
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