On Tue, 11 Apr 1995, Martin Weatherston wrote:
> I think your problem with the passage in question
> might stem in part from an insistence on seeing the comportment in terms
> of *relation*. All talk of relation (of correspondence or whatever) is
> *subsequent* to the original openness. This is why Heidegger writes in
> the sentence prior to your quotation: "This appearing of the thing in
> traversing a field of opposedness takes place within an open region, the
> openness of which is not first created by the presenting but rather is
> only entered into and taken over *as a domain of relatedness*." (my emphasis)
The german word that is translated as "comportment" is Verhalten, which
means relating. The related word Verhaeltnis means a relation in the
sense of a ratio.
This puts in a nutshell the problem I had with Dreyfus' explanation of
how Verhaeltnis overcomes the subject-object split: yes, the subject
might no longer be detached (whatever that could mean in Descartes
system - seeing something is still a relation), but there still is in the
word Verhalten two things that relate. It seems that Heidegger is
talking about two (or possibly more) kinds of comporting, one of which is
superior (or more originary, if you like) than the other. (As long as I
mentioned Dreyfus, what I take to be his "other" comportment, to
a world of Zuhanden things, is also not originary; rather the most originary
is a comportment to being itself.)
> I think the best way of answering this is to say that on the
> basis of Dasein's open comportment to the thing, there arises the
> *possibility* of relating to the thing by means of a presentative
> statement.
> As to: "All working and achieving, all action and calculation,
> keep within an open region within which beings, with regard to what they
> are and how they are, can properly taken their stand and become capable
> of being said. *This* can occur, etc." I think the problem you have
> here might be that you are assuming that the "this" has a much broader
> referent than it does. I believe it refers *only* to "become capable of
> being said". If this is true, then it makes perfect sense that *this*
> depends on beings presenting themselves along with the presentative
> statement. Reading a broader referent creates the codependency problem
> that I have rejecting. I hope all this addresses your problem directly.
>
> Martin
Chris
--- from list heidegger@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx ---
------------------