In a message dated 24/10/2004 05:14:22 GMT Standard Time,
borealis@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx writes:
Jud [in a previous now]
" Traditionally, a being is
anything that can be said *to be* in the several senses of this word."
A being is, according to *tradition*, is any thing.....
John:
I don't see any profundity in this statement, and nothing in this statement
which refutes Heidegger's analysis.
If you can, then please explain.
Jud:
Unfortunately [and so typically of this list] you have removed the sentence
from the paragraph in which it was embedded and therefore distanced it from
its the explanatory context. Here it is in full with new comments by me
inserted in the interstices.
"Traditionally, a being is anything that can be said *to be* in the several
senses of this word.
Jud 01: Here I make the point that that which *is* - *is* in manifold ways
that have been recognised by the tradition for thousands of years.*
Jud 02:
"Therefore to examine the categories of *Being,* is to ascertain the most
cardinal senses in which things can be said to exist. More precisely, a
category, is any of the most comprehensive divisions of things. 'Thing' here
signifies anything that can be discussed and cannot be contracted or reallocated to
any other class.
Jud 01:
Here I emphasis the point that the categorial differences in the ways that
things exist [the existence of beings] precludes them from being contracted
or reallocated to another class, and in particular into a single class known
as *Being,* particularly if [as the result of the differing ways in which
entities are perceived and understood by individual beings, they are all
instantiated in different ways - some authentic, some partly authentic and some
completely authentic. If half the population of the USA perceives and
understands the invasion of Iraq in one way, and instantiates Bush as being an
inauthentic being, and the other half of the population of the USA perceives,
understands, and instantiates the invasion of Iraq in another way, and instantiates
Bush as being an authentic being.
The processes of *object givenness* of half of the population of the USA has
produced a false *Being* which cannot be lumped together with Heidegger's
risible one category version of *Being.* Trouble is which half? Is Anthony's
half the authentic instantiation of an authentic *Being* or is yours and
Rene's? I side with you and Rene as it happens - but even I will admit that
according to Heidegger's lights that does not swing it into the category of the
*authentic *Whole of Being.*
On a minor but non-the-less interesting scale, the fact that you don't see
any profundity in my statement, and nothing in the statement
which refutes Heidegger's analysis, merely confirms the fact that *Dasein*
is a load of garbage, for following Heidegger, the *Being* of that which I
have just written as instantiated by MY understanding differs from what I
have just written as instantiated by YOUR understanding, thereby confirming that
the universalised version of *Being* of *Dasein* to be a chimera, for
individual human beings do not perceived and understand and instantiate *Being* in
a standardised, agreed way, and each individual's understanding of *Being*
differs. So who's version of Dasein's *Being* is the one that corresponds to
reality which is actually the *Being* of beings? The Daseinic device for the
uncovering of *Being* is therefore a complete and utter failure which results
in the production of a completely spurious version of *Being.*
Caveat and reminder:
Although I have appropriated the language of the *male menopause of
metaphysics,* that does not mean that I believe a word of it. I am simply undermining
his fantasies from within - rather than from without.
Jud 01
A full explanandum of the categories or everyday life the arts or the
sciences would be exhaustively difficult. Remember, that in most of what I write
here, I am developing Heideggerian or transcendentalist themes, that is not to
say that I believe a word of it.
John:
Yes. But if we were are to take our time and analyze this in full honesty,
then we immediately realize that from ontology, we can begin. There are 3
modes of being.
Jud:
Please don't change the subject [yet] stick hermeneutically to the script -
I am stating above that the catagorialising of the beings of science, the
arts, philosophy, geology, biology, vulcanology, sociology, history, chemistry,
stamp-collecting, woodcraft, aviation, cosmology, boyfriends, disease,
meteorology, and the humanly attributed divisions of anything you care to mention
in the universe, and the DIFFERENT WAYS that every human being on the planet,
[or weekend trippers to the Moon,] perceives, understands and instantiates
beings as *categorialised beings* DIFFERS.
So the Heideggerian dream of accessing, via the Daseinic principle, some
fantasy authentic single-category *Being* in which the inauthentic and the
authentic, and the partly authentic, and the *might be authentic,* and the *may
not be authentic* *Being* of the milliards of beings which are rightly or
wrongly instantiated by the understanding of humanity [the inauthentic and
contrived Daseinic *being-there* becomes a metaphysical nightmare, and the biggest
deliberate lie in the whole history of philosophy.
John:
The common way of describing the 3 modes is past, present and future
[retention, intention, and protention].
The issue of 'what is' versus 'what is not' can often be demarcated
precisely by what has passed [the root of the spiritual], what occurs [phenomenon],
and what is about to occur [suggesting a vision, horizon]
Jud:
The cognitive contrivance of the notion of past, present and future is
abstract method that we employ to introduce temporal order into our lives.
We need this sort of concept to ascertain when [at what hour] to be at the
station to catch the train, or at what month we may stand in our waders with
our guns pointing skywards to massacre the flying ducks as they return from
foreign climes. Such abstractions are vital if we are to survive.
In primitive societies the concept of *time* was different - the rising and
setting of the sun, and the leaves turing brown were our *clocks.*
There is no such thing as *what is not* as wise old Parmenides said. There
is only our memory of what was once, and that is a holistic memory of the
human John as he recalls past events. The is only ONE INSTANT and that is NOW -
all else is either memory of what once was, or speculation of what might be
when this now is replaced by another.
John:
Again we can demarcate a further 'reduction' if you will...we can refer to
that which is of the 'imagination' and that which is a 'non-imaginative'
nature, or of 'nature'.
Jud:
The *reductions* and the *imagining* that you refer to are the actions of
the human called John's brain NOW.
The imagined Being* of nature as perceived, understood and instantiated by
the being John, is quite different from
the imagined Being* of nature as perceived, understood and instantiated by
the being Jud.
How does Heidegger know which is the authentic imagined *Being,* and which
is the inauthentically imagined *Being,* and therefore which one to admit into
the *super-category* of *Being* as instantiated by the adjudicatory
imagination of *Dasein* as *Dasein* was imagined by Heidegger?
John:
Philosophy and grammar are different studies. There is not much help to be
found in the grammatical [unless we were to discuss Derrida's word
sortie's], but more to be found in the analysis of what is.
Jud:
Then why is Heidegger so obsessed with words and their grammatical and
etymological construction? he must of spent half his waking hours with his
grammatical scalpel dissecting words into the constituent parts and thereby
extracting [or disinterring] dead meanings?
Words are the spades and mattocks wherewith we dig up the dead ideas of dead
civilisations, words are the chisels and scrapers with which we remove the
philosophical verdigris and encrustation of obscurantism with which Heidegger
assiduously wrapped his simple-minded notions, which, like numerous
wrapping-paper on a cheap gift, when exposed and uncovered expose the ontological
gimcrackery as base plastic tat.
John:
Language is a medium, not a messenger.
Jud:
You are getting confused again John - surely you meant to say *Language is
the medium not the MESSAGE?
A medium is the means or instrumentality for storing or communicating
information which is exactly the purpose of a messenger
John:
However language can 'open' up worlds of interpretation and description.
Jud:
That is what it is FOR.
John:
Heidegger has done this with gusto!
What about the word gusto? This word is Latin, meaning originally a breath
of wind. It means in modern Spanish, happiness, or pleasure, mucho gusto.
The phenomenon of course is that the word 'wind' is also 'gust' or sudden
stirring in the wind, or ambient surround, as Heidegger would offer. The
*similismus* is that the 'turn of phrase' is *like* a gust of wind, a sudden
turning in feeling, a will-o-waw.
Jud:
This is what I mean by pointing out that individual human beings do not
perceive and understand and instantiate *Being* in a standardised, agreed way,
and each individual's understanding of *Being* differs. Therefore *Being* as an
authentic *super-category* is a nonsense.
The more you disagree with me and the more I disagree with you the more the
gap between an authentic and an inauthentic *Being* widens and the more
ridiculous is the concept of an authentic grasp of *Being* possible by an imagined
Daseinic imagination.
John:
As I have told of this before. It happened again, this evening, a brief
lightening flash, a squall of wet rain and snow, plastering the day with
movement, before the darkening calm.
The best bit of writing in your message - sheer poetry without the
ontological pretence/confusion. ;-)
Regards,
Jud
Personal Website:
_http://evans-experientialism.freewebspace.com/index.htm_
(http://evans-experientialism.freewebspace.com/index.htm)
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