In trying to get at the sense in which the history of being might be
said to exhibit "necessity," Iain Thomson makes the following comment:
"In _Time & Being_, p. 52, Heidegger is said to have distanced his
understanding from Hegel's by saying that 'one cannot speak of a 'why,'
Only the 'that'--that the history of being is in such a way--can be
said." Nevertheless, Hiedegger reportedly goes on to assert that even
if one stichs to the that (the way in which being happens to unfold,
what earlier he called the truth of being, and then the happening of
being) we can ascertain "something like necessity in the sequence,
something like an order and a consistency" (52). This order turns out
to be the familiar "oblivion of being escalating itself" (52)."
Heidegger says explicitly in this passage that the necessity in question
isn't causal, and I don't really see how it could be called teleological
either. Could it perhaps be what we might call "genetic" necessity? By
this I mean that it was in no way necessary that being eventually be
interpreted as actuality, for example, but it has been so interpreted,
and in order for it to be so, it had to have previously been understood
as _energeia_. It was a genetic necessity that being-as-energeia
precede being-as-actuality.
Not sure how well this holds up, but it does seem to make sense of the
phrase "something like necessity in the sequence, something like an
order and a consistency." It would also make it possible to reconcile a
Heideggerian history of being with the interpretation of Bacon offered
by Faulkner. It was not predetermined that Bacon would invent a
technological science, but it was possible that he do so, in that the
necessary preconditions had occurred. Baconian science could not have
preceded Greek science.
-- Phil Miller
--- from list heidegger@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx ---
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said to exhibit "necessity," Iain Thomson makes the following comment:
"In _Time & Being_, p. 52, Heidegger is said to have distanced his
understanding from Hegel's by saying that 'one cannot speak of a 'why,'
Only the 'that'--that the history of being is in such a way--can be
said." Nevertheless, Hiedegger reportedly goes on to assert that even
if one stichs to the that (the way in which being happens to unfold,
what earlier he called the truth of being, and then the happening of
being) we can ascertain "something like necessity in the sequence,
something like an order and a consistency" (52). This order turns out
to be the familiar "oblivion of being escalating itself" (52)."
Heidegger says explicitly in this passage that the necessity in question
isn't causal, and I don't really see how it could be called teleological
either. Could it perhaps be what we might call "genetic" necessity? By
this I mean that it was in no way necessary that being eventually be
interpreted as actuality, for example, but it has been so interpreted,
and in order for it to be so, it had to have previously been understood
as _energeia_. It was a genetic necessity that being-as-energeia
precede being-as-actuality.
Not sure how well this holds up, but it does seem to make sense of the
phrase "something like necessity in the sequence, something like an
order and a consistency." It would also make it possible to reconcile a
Heideggerian history of being with the interpretation of Bacon offered
by Faulkner. It was not predetermined that Bacon would invent a
technological science, but it was possible that he do so, in that the
necessary preconditions had occurred. Baconian science could not have
preceded Greek science.
-- Phil Miller
--- from list heidegger@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx ---
------------------