----- Original Message ----- From: "Tympan Plato" <daxsein@xxxxxxxxxxx>
To: <heidegger@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Sent: Wednesday, October 20, 2004 3:43 PM
Subject: Re: [heidegger-dialognet] Re: god gods not god but gods a god [god is not be-...
is the *BEING* of the waterglass which *allows* the water
glass to *appear*
tympan tzu plato wrote:
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
Hi
Thank you for your eloquently written reply. However, with regard to Dasein, I see authenticity more in terms of openness than anything else. Therefore authentic understanding, for me, is more akin to not-knowing "than the illumination of a clearing and the shining secret of the things themselves". However, the being of the waterglass seems a different sort of animal to the being of Dasein. Whilst, I do sort of understand that Heidegger specifically does not tie Dasein to the body or the human-being as it is 'inauthentically' understood, Dasein is nevertheless always mine even if it is a sort of free floating not-entity. What is your understanding of the being of the waterglass?
Regards Edward.
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