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Thinker, blinker, writer, typer. Registered: 11/26/14 Posts: 1,688 |
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A notion which I have been after for a long time, for instance, lately in stoicism, is an alternative to doing metaphysics; a philosophy based in existence.
The question I often come to in the past is whether "existential" philosophy is merely a derivative, psychological trope, or if it is genuine philosophy. I wouldn't deny psychological aspects, but I think it is something else that philosophers may describe in the temperament and character of "being" as well. That is what I'd like to attempt to characterize here, in a reading of the 20th century philosopher Martin Heidegger. Heidegger famously based his philosophy in existence. As I understand, this was not just taking the idea of existence for granted (as what merely "stands out"), but also delving into its "issue", in a broad sense. Namely Dasein is "existence"; Heidegger wrote in his native german; it is "being there", or more or less transparently, "the being for which being is an issue to it." "Dasein" or existence is namely what provides the impetus and apparent accessibility to the more profound questions about existence. A character of "existence" we often refer to today anyway, arose out of a general theoretical investigation of the question of being, according to Heidegger. Existence, is based on the impetus to ontology (an understanding of being). And as he wrote in Being and Time, ontology itself is an old tradition of thinking. Heidegger's tack in a contemporary world, was noting the importance of the question of being, and also that when we involve ourselves with a question of being, there needed to be a different approach than the traditional one of western ontologists, of just looking to the referent in general (Aristotle's being qua being was namely "the being of "beings"). "Being is not something like a being" Heidegger writes: Quote: Heidegger claims we have to "formulate" the question of being, and indeed seemingly embody ontology at the same time, as an everyday or average understanding of being; which: is Dasein, as described, the being for whom being is an issue to it. The main part of Heidegger's work, in trying to access this "fundamental" ontology, is articulating what would be found in relative lucidity, only practically accessible as the hermeneutic circle, or the circularity of Dasein, which bears an "interpretation" of being. This perhaps, in the existence of Dasein, would be a clarification, that Dasein could assume an alternative to leveling to "average everydayness" of temperment. Though we may go in circles, Heidegger insists, if we are clear, the question of being is not circular, in that: Quote: This embodied way of being is not just accessed for whatever reason, but ostensibly based on the formulation of fundamental ontology: Quote: Even if it may be taken as psychological relativity, or as it's point of access, and there is no other discrete proposition, (the question of being is not a proposition) in all this, the ontological priority of Dasein may be considered crucial. The interpretability of existence is found in openness, even if in our society says that is broached in a certain way. So besides this "point", this is what I am saying here in a provisional way. Clearly, it is mainly thanks to Heidegger influence, that among other things, "existential" not only describes a quality of existence, but the move from the priority of theory to embodying a temperment in general, in a generally positive sense. That is the "back and forth", the spiral of the hermeneutic circle, in existence. The question of this thread, is partly topical. Why does the term or idea "existential", at face value have a certain implied notion to it? Heidegger indeed was to speak extensively about angst, the apprehension of being towards death, but what is significant about his "existentialism" was this was significantly in balance with the projected means and ends of human beings in general, such as his goals in Being and Time of finding clarity in the projected goal of fundamental ontology. I think this balance that Heidegger sought, is something often missed by existentialism, or the merely psychological theory. Typically, we take the broaching or "interrogation" of dasein as departure, but existential analysis is not about that, at all in Heidegger's writing (Nor is it about free floating relativism either.) Maybe this is a commentary on Heidegger, more than anything in general. I am reading from the introduction of Being and Time here. What I would say is generally possible to extrapolate though. There is clearly a correspondence between the theoretical formulation (an involvement with the question of being, or ontology), and embodied Dasein, the being for which being is an "issue". We might for instance extrapolate the relation as "existence", in some relation to "essence" of being. Sartre, for instance, described this relation, as one where "existence precedes essence", in his essay Existentialism is a Humanism. Heidegger felt that this was a misunderstanding, and misinterpretation of his problematic, namely in its means and ends. His response was found in his openLetter on Humanism". That would have to be looked at closely. But apparently enough, elsewhere Heidegger's inclinations are generally clear: He did not find "existence" to be a simple expository maxim to interpret through, nor at the same time, was he the despairing type: “If I take death into my life, acknowledge it, and face it squarely, I will free myself from the anxiety of death and the pettiness of life - and only then will I be free to become myself.” In any case, I believe its useful to consider that what we call "existential" arose as describing an approximated "character" or "quality" of being, as existence. Heidegger did not complete his projected fundamental ontology in the end, however, so what is there to say? Whether or not we take Heidegger's notions seriously, we can presently wonder: why does "existential" in this sense that it is often referred to, refer to a character or quality? The answer could maybe be put in his own proposed terms, provisionally (whether fundamentally worked out or not): Existence or existentialism describes a quality, because it is a temperment or way of being, and that may be something in different ways, which is more or less authentic.
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Registered: 04/01/02 Posts: 8,005 Last seen: 23 hours, 2 minutes |
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Heidegger, it is what it is, because of its isness. There seems to be no handles to grab hold of when he writes it's all self referential. I don't know, maybe in German it makes more sense.
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Thinker, blinker, writer, typer. Registered: 11/26/14 Posts: 1,688 |
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He was something for sure. Have you tried any of his essays?
I took a seminar in college and at the time it was all basically impossible to me. I felt like an idiot making presentations, and I should have failed, but I think the professor was being kind to me. Since then I have gone back to Heidegger many times and made some progress, and I can actually kind of get it. Actually, it became pretty much life forming for me even. I still have quite a bit of difficulty though, of course. As far as I can see, with Heidegger there seems to be all these layers of analysis that refer to being. He seems to ask in so many cases for the reader to see through these layers, or really live through the layers of being, (or perhaps as he puts it, to "interrogate" dasein) as he suggests we can see and possibly understand being, through this somehow. The question seems to be; how is there something significantly "there", a point of reference, if we just see through or transcend (in one way or another) our way through being? I don't know anything about the German language per se other than what I've glossed in reading and learned from friends. You can see how the language itself is in so many cases cramming this and that together (those huge words) making it very partial to neologistic constructs, which Heidegger makes ample usage of. I think even Germans held Heidegger to be a little weird, by the way. Heidegger is Heidegger, probably no escaping that. We have some of the same things going on in English though anyway. The term german term Da-sein, "there-being" is what we Anglos apparently interpret "existence". And to ex-ist means literally to stand out. That is definitely the grapple point for Heidegger, and it could be for us. For example, if existence stands out (we even describe what it is to be existential, as despair or anxious, for some reason) then a large part of a tradition of philosophy asks what is essence? Do we consider essences as possible today? These of course would be attempts at thoughtful provisions. I'd say the language is essential...but also pragmatic. Yeah, I dunno; Heidegger's going to be Heidegger.
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Wanderer Registered: 12/16/06 Posts: 17,856 Last seen: 13 minutes, 30 seconds |
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I think your questions are pretty interesting. Hell, I think any investigation of existence is going to be an interesting rabbit hole.
I'm not quite sure how to approach such a topic. I guess with my own frame of reference, what else? I've come to view existence from a Buddhist point of view over time. As stated in the heart sutra, "Emptiness is form and form is emptiness." The meaning of which could ramble on for as long as any philosophical text you can muster. But in relation to your questions about Heidegger, this is how I relate. Heidegger seems to have been trying to dig into existence, below the surface of what we see, below the broad conventional characteristics. To not buy into the labels of existence but instead to actively try and grok what existence itself is, prior to these labels being slapped on. This IMO is what emptiness embodies in Buddhism. Emptiness is existence stripped back as far as possible. It is taught through an examination of existence that leaves a distinct sense that there is a lack of a root cause, a root source; an origin. A lack of an underlying base, of solid ground, of concreteness. And so existence can be seen as empty of all this presumed solidity. But of course to discuss the term "empty" there is an attempt to express something concrete! Much as I take you are describing occurs with the word existence. A philosophy can spend so much time trying to show that a term doesn't mean x, y, or z, only to then, in attempting to communicate clearly, become Q! And thusly negate the whole point of negation! I dunno, I think it's all a good laugh personally. -------------------- Why shouldn't the truth be stranger than fiction? Fiction, after all, has to make sense. -- Mark Twain
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Outer Head Registered: 12/06/13 Posts: 9,819 |
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I am enjoying this thread. Sometimes I have to wonder whether some of the philosophers got too deep into playing word-games with themselves, almost to the point of being drunk on them. Sometimes for me, it's when the words go away that I really begin to appreciate being.
-------------------- Vi Veri Universum Vivus Vici
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Thinker, blinker, writer, typer. Registered: 11/26/14 Posts: 1,688 |
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In my closet I found a stack of some old notes and printouts including this extract of a dialogue on language...
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Registered: 04/01/02 Posts: 8,005 Last seen: 23 hours, 2 minutes |
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I've looked at some of his essays, it's not that he doesn't make sense, it's that he never comes to any conclusions that stick. It's sort of like a kid that's relating a story more for your attention than to convey any meaning. And then, and then, and then and so on.
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Elder Registered: 12/09/99 Posts: 14,279 Loc: South Florida Last seen: 3 years, 2 days |
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Coincidentally, I picked up Heidegger's Being and Time last night, about 2:00 a.m., for the 3rd time in my life, determined to finish the tome this time. I need to begin at the beginning again however. I was inspired by having read Irrational Man by William Barrett. You appear to have a better feel for his writing style than I do. It would be immensely important to be conversant in German, and I am not. Western treatment of Being, after Plato and Plotinus, and Christian theology always took a back seat to Indian thought on the matter for me, which was always far less prosaic than Heidegger or Hegel for that matter. I feel a need to challenge myself at this point while so many of my contemporaries prefer to sit back and allow their 'thinking function' to become fallow. So, I appreciate the topic.
-------------------- γνῶθι σαὐτόν - Gnothi Seauton - Know Thyself Edited by MarkostheGnostic (08/15/15 11:11 AM)
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Thinker, blinker, writer, typer. Registered: 11/26/14 Posts: 1,688 |
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Nice. Definitely hope you'll share any thoughts you have, if you get a chance. I am surprised how much it has begun to help to hash through things a bit through writing.
Kickle indeed gestured to an eastern correspondence, Falcon will take some convincing, while DQ seems to be along for the ride... The question we have thus far arrived at. Is it possible to read Heidegger? Just kidding. I think we are all wondering what "existence" is, if we have stumbled on Heidegger in one way or another.
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(: Registered: 03/27/13 Posts: 5,724 Loc: Space-time |
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I've never read Heidegger but I'm sure I am familiar with his ideas.
If we are talking about being then we all are. ![]() seems to be that being may be a bit of a paradox in that while being is, it at the same time isnt. There seems to be an information trade-off, an awareness of experience before the experience - And this awareness exists in all beings as being. or something like that. -------------------- zen by age ten times six hundred lifetimes Light up the darkness.
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(: Registered: 03/27/13 Posts: 5,724 Loc: Space-time |
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And yet, how strange to even exist at all. That there is something rather than nothing -- and that this something is so intimate with being.
Even if we take everything away as in John C Lillys isolation chambers, there is that little bit of something. Even if we remove every particle in any given area, there still exists the higgs-field... There still exists! Why? Because absolute 'nothing' is equivalent to infinity, and due to infinities structure -- something is going to happen eventually and that eventuality is existence. And in beings case, experience. -------------------- zen by age ten times six hundred lifetimes Light up the darkness.
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Elder Registered: 12/09/99 Posts: 14,279 Loc: South Florida Last seen: 3 years, 2 days |
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Heidegger is labelled an atheist, but so are Buddhists. This doesn't mean that both do not acknowledge the presence of Ultimate Reality, just that they do not want to cast it in mythic and poetic words like "In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth..." This too is a metaphysical statement, but there are so many things that do not satisfy the intellect, that it is a statement that is read literally by children and fundamentalist Jews and Christians. The first word of the Torah, of which Genesis 1:1 is the first of 5 books, is the word "in." This little word is called the Bereshith in Hebrew and can be translated "at/in [the] head," according to Wiki. To me this always elicited a sense of "once upon a time" as fairytales often begin and additionally, about a point in time long ago. But in the exegesis of scriptures, there is the linguistic device of Pardes (PRDS), which means 'orchard,' but translates to our word paradise. Each of the 4 letters refers to a level of interpretation of scriptures:
P - Peshat - Literal R - Remez - Allegorical/Symbolic D - Darash - Midrashic/Comparative S - Sod - Mystical/Esoteric It is the Sod interpretation that carries the metaphysical meaning of scriptures. And "In the beginning" can mean 'to begin with,' in the sense of laying down an a priori that is simply accepted on faith. In the Tenach, that a priori is called God in English. The Hebrew name for God in this affirmation is Elohim, which the -im ending suggests plurality of the masculine noun. Esoteric Judaism (Kabbalah) reads its 10 sephiroth or spheres of divine attributes into this. Christian theology has frequently read trinitarian notions into this, but both of these idiosyncratic theologies have one thing in common. That is, that the Being of God (Being in Heidegger and others), is not some monolithic 'oneness.' I am reminded of a memorable passage in Huston Smith's now classic book The Religions of Man where he is referring to Christian author C.S. Lewis: "Professor Lewis tells us that while he was a child his parents kept admonishing him not to think of God in terms of any form, for these could only limit his infinity. He tried his best to heed their instructions, but the closest he could come to the idea of a formless God was an infinite sea of grey tapioca.” I had this vision myself the 3rd time I took LSD with a friend on a gray drizzly November Saturday morning, while lying on my back gazing into the sky, allowing my eyes to focus on infinity, like the little ∞ that one finds on decent 35 mm camera lens cases. I 'saw God' in that practice, or so it powerfully occurred to me. But the point I want to make besides extracting the philosophical metaphysics of Being from the mytho-poetic language of the Tenach, is that Being must suggest more than stasis in its nature, but also potential for Becoming (creation). The Buddhists remind us that anything which becomes, unbecomes. Temporal being is temporary, being becomes non-being. Heidegger apparently wants to define human beinghood as completely temporal. My whole life I have endeavored to find a metaphysical identity in Being, not just as psychophysical existence. An experience 3 years after the one mentioned above illuminated the New Testament "I AM" statements of Jesus in the New Testament with my personal identity vanishing, but a self-effulgent plenum-void of "unbearable compassion" and sapphire light (sephira/sephiroth in the Hebrew meaning sapphire). It was simultaneously an experience of the Clear Light of the Void and an experiencial understanding of the Great Mantra OM MANI PADME HUM, when the Infinite Plenum-Void retracted into an Infinitesimal Bindu or Jewel of piercing "unbearable compassion" in a center which became my Heart. The conclusion was that 'each' of us IS that Eternal Being, Eternal Light, Love that becomes hoodwinked into erroneously believing that we are this or that individual. It's 'God' or Being playing pee-a-boo with creation, through created beings, each to its capacity. But when individual identity (temporal being) dissolves at death (or even ego-death), there is the familiarity of who we (as human beings) are, awakening to our true identity as Being itself. As poet Percy Bysshe Shelly put it: "Life, like a dome of many-coloured glass, stains the white radiance of Eternity." Now, I have only begun to read Heidegger, but I have been much influenced by mystics, many of whom held theistic views. Jacob Boehme wrote that God is a "Coincidentia Oppositorum," a coincidence of opposites. "Being and Nothingness" were written as "Byss and Abyss." One of my agendas is to see if Heidegger's conclusions about Being are at loggerheads with the most mystical experiences of my life. Ultimately, his intellection on the matter (and everyone else's West or East) will not negate the telling mystical/gnostic experiences that have informed me and influenced my values about how to 'Be' in the world. There is that meme these days which says that 'religion is faith in someone else's experience, but spirituality is based on one's own experience.' There is truth in that meme despite the adjurations Christian and Buddhist about devilish delusions (Satan appearing as "an angel of light"), or of nimittas (signs, illuminations) in Buddhism which should be dismissed as makyo (illusion). I do not expect at this point in life to end up a Nihilist, which is a stage I certainly passed through as a late teen. But my thoughts have roamed far and wide here. 'nuff said. -------------------- γνῶθι σαὐτόν - Gnothi Seauton - Know Thyself
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Thinker, blinker, writer, typer. Registered: 11/26/14 Posts: 1,688 |
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American Professor on Hubert Dreyfus on Heidegger (Metaphysics, phenomenology, contemporary philosophy - 7 minutes)
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Elder Registered: 12/09/99 Posts: 14,279 Loc: South Florida Last seen: 3 years, 2 days |
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Thanks for the video! Professor Dreyfus is a pleasure to listen to.
-------------------- γνῶθι σαὐτόν - Gnothi Seauton - Know Thyself
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Registered: 04/01/02 Posts: 8,005 Last seen: 23 hours, 2 minutes |
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I can see where Heidegger could be interpreted like that, but it doesn't jump out at me when I read what he writes, it's more like a parody of the way Dreyfus describes Cartesian philosophy in the video.
Edited by falcon (08/19/15 04:37 PM)
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Thinker, blinker, writer, typer. Registered: 11/26/14 Posts: 1,688 |
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What do you mean? I am interested, and I appreciate your critical influence. I have started writing in depth with your remarks in mind.
Anyway here is a simple take; Heidegger is coming a lot from the Greeks mainly. I am not sure if it helps to point this out but the reflexive or "recursive" basis of his approach, or the openness of his critical question of being, was arguably there before Cartesian meditations. For instance, in Aristotle's question of "being qua being," (ontology) there is reflexive basis already. Heidegger does bring a modern take to that, ie. the whole disparity of reference, which yea, Descartes is mainly responsible for. He wants to describe a "phenomenology of being" Not sure if I am on the same page, but that is my shot at a general picture.
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Thinker, blinker, writer, typer. Registered: 11/26/14 Posts: 1,688 |
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BTW I mean Heidegger wants to describe a phenomenology of being. The sense that he inherits phenomenology, and is at the same time looking to make a deep critique of Descartes and post Cartesian philosophy at the same time is a good question.
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Registered: 04/01/02 Posts: 8,005 Last seen: 23 hours, 2 minutes |
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I mean Heidegger seems to me to be, taking apart how we think about what is to get at a clear picture of what is. But in doing so, I assume he is doing so from a position as an observer that is both outside and involved with what is happening. I enjoy your writing and looking towards what you have to say.
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Elder Registered: 12/09/99 Posts: 14,279 Loc: South Florida Last seen: 3 years, 2 days |
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Quote: With Kurt's suggestion, I have been listening to Professor Dreyfus' lectures on Being and Time. Last night I heard him speak to the issue of Heidegger trying to extract himself from the human condition, from Dasein, to explicate what you are saying. However Heidegger doesn't believe that anyone can truly do that according to Dreyfus, and therefore he deviates from his mentor Husserl who promulgated a Transcendental Ego from which one could observe from "nowhere." I also learned that Being and Time is considered his early work wherein he recognized only 3 kinds of Being. That is later expanded to 7 kinds. The last thing I listened to on lecture 2 was about the cultural definitions of Being, which are many, so from a cultural perspective, it may not be possible to define Being. My mind continually seeks a universal underneath the plethora of particulars. I suppose that is why I always believed myself to be a Platonist.
-------------------- γνῶθι σαὐτόν - Gnothi Seauton - Know Thyself
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Registered: 04/01/02 Posts: 8,005 Last seen: 23 hours, 2 minutes |
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What I've read of Heidegger, he seems to straddle that fence in his writing, mostly Being an Time. I'll check out some more of his writing, might be a while till I get to it. I'd like to watch Dreyfus some more, but not before I read more of Heidegger, Dreyfus is persuasive, it would make it hard to critique Heidegger, for me.
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Elder Registered: 12/09/99 Posts: 14,279 Loc: South Florida Last seen: 3 years, 2 days |
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Quote: I must be getting old AND feeble-minded. I could use a philosophy course to understand Heidegger. I took a course on Being and Time after finishing my philosophy degree and went to seminary, but promptly dropped it because I wanted to leave philosophy for theology. I seem to be trying to complete a task I abandoned, but I do not think my life will somehow be enhanced by understanding Heidegger. I'm questioning my motives other than to exercise my neurons.
-------------------- γνῶθι σαὐτόν - Gnothi Seauton - Know Thyself
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Registered: 04/01/02 Posts: 8,005 Last seen: 23 hours, 2 minutes |
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Dreyfus' mention of flow got me to thinking that Heidegger may have been doing something instructive not only with the meaning of, but the way he presents the topic.
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Elder Registered: 12/09/99 Posts: 14,279 Loc: South Florida Last seen: 3 years, 2 days |
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Quote: Care to elaborate? -------------------- γνῶθι σαὐτόν - Gnothi Seauton - Know Thyself
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Thinker, blinker, writer, typer. Registered: 11/26/14 Posts: 1,688 |
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Good points, maybe I can attempt to contribute. I don't know how useful this will be to these points of discussion, but I thought I'd try with further exegesis of the ways of being, Hubert Dreyfus mentions at the end of the video.
I think you already suggested some direction to exegesis, Markos. I am not entirely sure but I think I grok what Falcon has been saying. The hard part is addressing the criticisms, while not dissolving their importance. Maybe I can mention something side long to these criticisms. As Hubert Dreyfus suggests at the end of the video we can consider Heidegger's suggestive “ways” of being. What would that mean? Are these various ways of being, suggestive of a substantial notion of being, and its derivative modes, that we should seek to unify? Heidegger, I think, would say no. He wants a different face value consideration. I can't say this is any less of a problematic involvement, and it can't just be found in relative position. Definitely we need to be critical since it is pretty formalistic to say the least. I think I'd consider this criticism in terms of the point Markos made a few posts back: in what sense are we now apparently departing into a kind of pluralism; and view on ontology, one that Heidegger himself is criticizing at least in some way? Didn't he say we would be mistaken to look to the “being of beings” (in plural)? So I guess the question would have to be; what would we even mean by “ways” of being among others? Are we with Heidegger way-waying? In any case we must apparently consider a relatively derivative consideration of “ways” of being, with Heidegger too, which is not simply being itself in unity, but apparently some kind of proliferation. That should definitely strike as a problem. The way to pick it up, might be to ask; aas "opposed" to this, what would being itself be? Are we not practically and in an embodied way, asking? If we are significantly asking, it is not a single variable or another which we seek in a simple sense; to Heideggers consideration, this is not something from the beginning representational (being = x). That representation is perhaps more in a gap, formally speaking, which is not to say it can't be covered. Dasein, as the meditative point of existence, has a way of being in everyday existence. Such a position does seriously seem to suggest considering a problematic sense of “involvement”, (as per Falcon's suggestion), but that problem may present itself relatively different. That is maybe something to be distinguished, to greet this criticism. I don't think in a single swoop of an approach this can be resolved. This is an investigation of being, through existence? How do we think about this, as actually possible? It has to be considered aside from some general notion of stepping out of Cartesian dualism of course – even if it may still be essential that that is said. More specifically, I'd argue that Heidegger is not looking away from the Unity of being (being itself) in his manner of generalized involvement with a formal investigation, that apparently proliferates in this way. Instead, he calls the question of being a formal “ontological priority”, that presents itself, and that can be formally stood for. (See passage below for this relative "position") Crucially, these involved considerations in the investigation of being, in the broadest sense do not mean derivativeness to any particular ontological hierarchy as given by culture. While this is not a satisfactory response to these critiques, I don't think this point is being over-emphasized just yet. Maybe looking to two ontological conceptions that have been suggested in this thread - Platonism, and Cartesianism - by closely considering how we might actually step out of them, there might seem to be more clarity in Heidegger's approach. That would clarify that what we do with Heidegger is not just in a face value claim of a relative or meditative “position” for its own sake. That would be my tack anyway, and I will attempt to make this point. Heidegger seeks to raise a “question” of being, or even “the question”, and so it could be perhaps clarified that he seeks in that to be able to recover broad sense of the meaning of the question itself, its appropriate investigative problematic, and finally in some sense of consequentiality, he would like to reveal what is sought as being. This general form of the question, (found in the introduction) is something that it is pretty difficult to broach, not merely in the sense of Heideggers style. We are very inclined, to the contrary, to base an ontology on what we just assume. So what stands out hugely in Heidegger is how in view to what he suggests as the formal “priority” of ontological inquiry in general, this is something at face value that is relative to, and variously at odds with already "colored" interpretations of the meaning of being in the history of western philosophy. A renewed consideration of being does not occur isomorphically just as a blending or replacement of one ontology with another. This is why Heidegger considers the idea of being of beings problematic, and is outgoingly critical of derivative bases. Our tradition tends to pose the question of being as meaningless, or the meaning as implicit to whatever we are talking about – or both at the same time in some remarkable gap. Heidegger was aware and critical of how in assumed values we may actually “void” being as being meaningful at all, especially. As I take it, Heidegger's approach is a radical critique of Western culture. It is "fundamental", in this manner of suggestion at least. Mainly as distinctive in Heidegger, the provisions of ontology are not just culturally "relative"; Heidegger is responding to what would be taken as the relative cultural critique on its own terms. This (in many points of his career) is what he attributes as something that the 19th century philosopher Friendrich Nietzsche brought to bear. Rather than suggesting this pending crisis of western nihilism (Do we really need to...?) we can just think about typicality, or everyday, or common sense values, somewhat critically. Today we do not necessarily fully appreciate the sense that we just already think we know the meaning of being in a positive way for instance. In our usual epistemological considerations (our considerations of what we know and are able to know as general departure) we speak of what is true about the world in just one sense. What is true, of course, or what we know things of, is what “is”, rather than what “is not”. Who would say that realizing this is profound, some key to thinking? More, to delve into this as significant may likely even seem superficial, or even to be an error. I have to wonder this as I write these words myself. Yet being is in a way implied in what we speak of, in what is formally representational, and some critical consideration of this is appropriate too. What is typical? Well perhaps we only need to think the idea of what "is", as the priority of truth “itself”, as computational “validity” of an argument or proposition? Is it not said that we should dwell on is the “symbolic” or “analysis of language”, today, and assume everything falls into place? In any case, Heidegger's suggestion is that we dwell in the representation of being, in such a way, and apparently not wholly or at all in regard to what we really mean by what it is. Heidegger does not say this manner of presentation is wrong, or without use, but he takes this cursory presentational structure - nothing other than platonism - more loosely. In coming to his own basis of interpreting " presence" (not merely as representation of forms) in an ontological priority, it doesn't mean that there is an answer. Presence is just opened up a bit in its meaning, and that opens to other considerations. I would guess coming to it, the question of whether this is justified or not depends on how genuine Heidegger's own relative existential-phenomenological interpretation of being is, ultimately, (not just a relative position of "interpretability" in other words) and that is what we all seem to be trying to approach, both formally, and in our own ways. Something genuine, least to say in involvement with this obscure text... yeah. That I realize comes to attention. Incidentally I appreciate the dialogue outside of typically derivative argumentativeness guys. I am realizing how important it is to bring critical attention to these considerations in a relative way, as you guys have been suggesting, although I am not sure how this works to be honest. There is so much depth to Heidegger. I am myself picking up with Heidegger again. I never felt like I understood very well. I would not consider myself “Heideggerian” exactly, but whether I would like it or not, I have found in many ways, being so preoccupied with just trying to understand for so many years, that even when I put Being and Time down, I realize my own thoughts somehow attune with many of Heidegger's concept. I identify with these thoughts, or respectively find that Heidegger is pretty helpful at articulating them. That (putting things down and picking them up) is really by and large the only way I have made any progress with Heidegger, and I have almost always felt a sense of sheer brickheadedness with this stuff, even as I have understood something or other. Who knows how long you should stare at a single page? I think Hubert Dreyfus is great; by the way, and he has at least two lectures up on Being and Time, and another on Heidegger's "later" thought. He is very listenable in himself too. I wouldn't worry about missing something. Also I wouldn't miss out on Heidegger's later thinking which is less formally systematic. But yeah anyway, to have gone on so long, I feel like it is essential to grapple with these notions and relative critical consideration of e “involvement” in this investigation, in different ways. I do not ultimately know what to think or say. Maybe the basic thing to say is that his “ways of being”, may have a relative basis we do not immediately appreciate. What would this apparently strong, relative, if not negative attitude be exactly? It does seem to be given at face value. In Heidegger you get a critique of "metaphysics of presence". I guess anyone would have to consider for themselves if this is important or just a platitude. It should be mentioned though, as an approximate "position" of so many continental philosophers. Here is a useful Wikipedia page on the critique of Metaphysics of Presence: Quote: Here would be a straight reading of Heidegger: He is not seeking right at the outset to make a fundamental heirarchy of the "being of beings", and he even says this is a huge problem to confront, along with being a mistake of an approach, when it is so often derivative. His approach insists on our considerations growing out of existence, or Dasein. So from that point, even though he is talking about "ways of being" in proliferation, we can at least recognize the possibility it may be something different. The way things present themselves in the world could in some way be distinguished from, and also found suggestible in Plato's unity of "form", which relatively speaking is more provisionally unified in theory. On such a tack, Heidegger confronts this notion of presence in a unique way, by turning to existence. This confrontation is different, than say, the typical empirical critique from "experience". He doesn't look away from the possible unity of being in his own approach. He suspends judgment. Plato's unified conception of being, when considered in itself, seems to come down to the analogical unity of different “forms” of being, all those forms being multifarious and yet the forms. Maybe Heidegger is critical while he wants to truly unify this? So I'd argue he has not dropped the ball, even if he thinks this presence can't be considered chiefly, or as an approach to understanding being. Also, according to Heidegger, the “appropriate” investigation of being itself is existential, something which departs somehow from Dasein. From that point of departure, I think Heidegger is in a way, deferring on a question of the “position” of mind, in respect to matter, what is colloquially referred to as internal and external, based on Cartesian ontology. In all those considerations, the “place” is the arguable being of mental substance, that is not placed. (It is no less an incomplete investigation of ontology, which is just something we would assume and attempt to reconcile in various ways.) Heidegger does not pick up his investigation in this, in any case, although he is doing something phenomenological. That is definitely a specific issue which needs to be covered. Clearly; this is not the suggestion that Heidegger resolves his own ontological problematic (“involvement”, everydayness of Dasein), but that issue is something that at least arguably could be extracted as relatively unique in its own way, from Cartesianism. Being becomes a different sort of problem, than of a mental substance, in relation to an extended material substance, internal and external, theoretical and involved. But if I would be able to say anything positive at all in this sense, I'd say Heidegger in a formal sense, is not strictly talking about the "being of beings" when he is talking about the proliferated ways of being. When we consider two other “ways of being” Hubert mentioned, aside from Dasein, these ways of being are found in respect to Dasein's every day existence. These ways he mentioned are of being “present to hand” and being “ready to hand”. Heidegger bears some critique of the way things "present" themselves in the world, which as I take it, Heidegger takes a shot at, in opening the looser phenomeonological considerations he is suggesting. I think Heidegger's position seems in some manner to proliferate out in a way, that can perhaps be both involved and theoretical, in general. The most basic meaning of both these considerations, of "handiness" should have to do with the proximate, and apparently active tactile involvement with the physical world of an embodied being. I think this handiness of Dasein can be grounded. But for now, much has been predicated on something different or other than the Cartesian problematic, and I'll conclude there: Cartesian ontology presents these layers of internal and external, and tries to reconcile the alienation and did involvement with the world, which thinking this way creates, and yet is implicitly involved in its alienating assumptions, in that. For instance there was a discussion recently typifying this: "What I can know beyond my head", and then what can I know beyond the walls of the room I sit in? These layers, or these walls, are what we usually take as our phenomenological primer, the internal and external, and yet why? We think theoretical departures are over in this one place, and practical (or namely empirical, experiential) involvements are something else, and we interpret theoretical and practical in this sense, in a way which maybe is actually itself, questionable. Hubert, via Heidegger, says that this Cartesian problem is not necessarily what we should be looking to, when we consider what is “present at hand”, or “ready to hand”. "Theory" and "practice" are approximate notions in our own parsing of an assumed problematic, but not the same, clearly. To me the question is how is the consideration of present at hand and ready to hand different than theory and practice. To my mind Heidegger's philosophy typically seems to be both philosophy and meditation, a kind of a chop wood, carry wood thing. Heidegger might be way-waying through it all... Edited by Kurt (08/22/15 11:23 AM)
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Thinker, blinker, writer, typer. Registered: 11/26/14 Posts: 1,688 |
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I'll get relavent Heidegger texts up later. Here is just something I think is interesting as a possible "existential" parallel.
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Elder Registered: 12/09/99 Posts: 14,279 Loc: South Florida Last seen: 3 years, 2 days |
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It is refreshing to say the least to be able to discuss academic philosophy at this forum, so do not take this as a criticism. However, I have become increasingly pragmatic in my burgeoning old age. The reason I even took an interest in philosophy as a youth was the consequence of having the Psychedelic Experience, several times on some very potent 1970-era LSD. Very quickly I used my intuitive function (as an INTP by the MBTI) to filter the more 'worldly' philosophies - those which I deemed particularly materialistic, empirical, or political. I found myself early on moving away from those action-oriented philosophies, including Nietzsche's emphasis on action because I had had experiences which were best described as mystical, and by that I mean the paradoxical dynamic stasis of Being. In those early experiences, Presence, The Present, the Clear Light, or even the word God best expressed unitary Being. After 5 semesters as a philosophy major who preferred the writings of Plato and Plotinus in the West, and conversely the practices of Hindu and Buddhist Yoga (not so much the writings) in the East, made the most sense of Psychedelic Experience to me.
It became evident that the "Thinking function" that the MBTI isolates as one of four doorways to ego-consciousness was not the optimal approach to any comprehension of Being. Experiences of the Unity of Being, elicited by Yogic and/or Psychedelics, yielded more results to the Transcendental organizing center of my psyche (Self) than the predominance of intellection via the Thinking function. The Bhakti or emotional/devotional method of Yoga epitomized by the Bhagavad Gita and demonstrated by the then ubiquitous Hare Krishna movement was not the type of Yoga that appealed to me. rather, it was what the Gita called the "impersonalist," who was only "indirectly Krishna-conscious" which appealed to me. Such an one was depicted in my copy of the Gita as a dhoti-clad yogi, meditating in the jungle, with a glowing countenance of Krishna as "the plenary expansion of Vishnu in the lotus of the heart" emblazoned on his chest. This was the Jnani (Gyan) yoga, the Yoga of Intellect, but an intellect which sought the descent of the mind into the heart. In other words, the immersion of the rational in the transrational. So, when I decided to find a bridge from the East to the West, mentally and spiritually), and I entered a Methodist Christian seminary, I very pointedly avoided the chapel with its liturgical, devotional rituals and fashioned for myself a makeshift hermitage cell back in my childhood bedroom. There, I located Christian practices that resembled the Jnani yogis practices, culled from Eastern Orthodox Christian Hesychasm. Mantra Yoga also had its corollary in the Prayer of the Heart, and like the Catholic icon of the Sacred Heart of Jesus with the Crown of Thorns encircling the radiant Heart, the symbolism was the same - the descent of the mind into the heart. The intellect is like the prismatic division of simple white light into constituent parts. The contemplative path was the reversal of the process of differentiation, howsoever eloquent, into unification. Now, a temporal leap forward 37 years to the present -> I do not think Martin Heidegger, or his mentor Edmund Husserl were familiar with tconditions of mind that are evoked by the Psychedelic Experience. The nature-mysticisms of the lower-dose animistic or polytheistic stages, all the way through non-theistic, pantheistic, panentheistic or straight-up theistic encounters with Being are not even an issue with these philosophers. Indeed, it seems from only my cursory reading of Heidegger that Being retains a most atheistic position, not in the way of the non-theistic Buddhist idiom of Emptiness, but in my understanding it is more a cognition about Being, not an immersion IN Being which I can only call mystical, and from which one identity as 'a' being is radically changed with regard to living beings, human, animal, reptilian, insectoid and even vegetative. In other words, I find myself reading the workings of abstract thinking, not a phenomenological explication of what it means to experience oneself AS Being qua Being. His approach is further removed by an insistence on understanding Being, through the investigation of inanimate objects considered to be substances or beings in some sense. Being and Time apparently neglects even animal life completely, (although he later wrote a book on animals according to Dreyfus). It strikes me, after having listened to Dreyfus, that the assumption of an identity "nowhere," is phenomenologically similar or identical with what others have called "The Witness" (Ram Dass popularized this term in BE HERE NOW). I have considered that this Witness may also be what Husserl's 'Transcendental Ego' was purported to be, which Heidegger apparently thinks is an impossible condition to attain to (unless I misread Dreyfus). Meanwhile, Plato, and quite possibly Socrates too, were partakers of the Mystery Rites of Eleusis. There is even far-out speculation that Socrates may have been executed for corruption of youth by having obtained and administered the psychedelic kykeon of Eleusis outside of the prescribed rituals. Speculation at best, I realize. But the notion of ἀρχέτυπος (archetupos),"first-molded," occurred to me while on acid, while milling around my own personal Eleusis, at Grateful Dead shows in the 70s. I first hit upon the notion of archetypes when looking at the physical typologies of the concert-goers. This insight expanded to other 'forms,' like the spiral patterns in my psychedelic visions, its presence in things large and small, galaxies and seashells. God, it seemed had a set of cookie-cutters for reality - the Forms or Ideas. I am not stating that I experienced the identical revelations of Plato, and it is difficult to say now how much I was aware of Platonic thought back then, whether it influenced my experiences as the Constructionist school of mysticism maintains or whether I arrived at those conclusions independently, but the insights were extremely formative. Now, in an attempt to step outside of the very structure of my psychedelically-informed weltanshauung, which is apparently very Platonic, and possibly for the same reasons that it was for Plato, I am meeting with great resistance. This is even more true because I have probably spent more time realizing Being along Yogic idioms, both Advaitic as well as Abidharmic than I have along Western lines since having left my philosophy and theology classes in 1976 and 1978, respectively. It further begs the question as to why I am endeavoring to understand a difficult position intellectually that I intuit as being erroneous. Would the assumption of Heidegger's position on Being be corroborated by Buddhist philosophy, or is the 'storehouse consciousness' of Buddhism (the alayavijnana) more consonant with the Platonic Forms? I understand disavowing Cartesian dualisms, mind-body at the foremost of those dualities, but the Forms, the Plotinian Nous, and the Christian Logos might all be stating the same aspect of Ultimate Reality, and what good would it be (if any good at all) to jettison these ideas? I am not speaking to any ideosyncratic syncretism of Platonic-NeoPlatonic-Christian ideas here, I am, as always, attempting to see the transcendental unity of apparently different formulations of Being. I cannot help but see Heidegger's being as Spinozan substances or Leibnizian monads in an atheistic and abstract idiom. For this lack of sophistication I apologize. I feel like my appreciation of Heidegger parallels a paleolithic cave dwellers animistic understanding of God. -------------------- γνῶθι σαὐτόν - Gnothi Seauton - Know Thyself
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Thinker, blinker, writer, typer. Registered: 11/26/14 Posts: 1,688 |
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Markos, first of all thanks for sharing insights into experience of being, and emphasizing the importance of such a departure. I think it is a good point, but I wouldn't throw the baby out with the bath water.
This is something that is indeed very difficult to find in Heidegger. I think that is largely explicable due to the polarized intellectual environment he is part of in context. Maybe some due consideration and openmindedness to this, is all that could be suggested, for the sake of Being and Time. To my mind the cerebral basis of Heidegger's work has not ultimately been an obstruction though, and so maybe I can try to make a case, of how I think Heidegger might be appreciated, relatively speaking, and you can of course judge for yourself. To the point of context of the intellectual climate, I would say that to a western philosopher, the broaching that we refer to as "experience", is typically given to paradigmatic expressions. One is that experience is pretty much definitively found in the senses, in a certain representable or reproducible way. One response to this, within that tradition, is to phenomenological bracketing. But still, this broaching of "experience", is systematically posed in itself, in a manner of opposition to "theory". I would say this paradigm is not just "the" opposition (physics/metaphysics, mind/body, matter/form) but something, which we may get a hint, that is expressed in many ways. Largely in our Western tradition, in empirical research, what is found "in trial" or "experience", posterior to senses, has since Descartes been basically setup to rupture of the plenum of rational thought, "the walls" of our mind, or following that conventional manner of extension of our senses to a certain point of conventional finitude. The problematic of induction in other words, is based in this. As I take it, in his existential position, Heidegger is attempting to reconsider our whole concept and dichotomy of "practical" involvement in the world and "theoretical" insight, in their oppositions, and of course, this consideration doesn't fall into pre-given categories, as they are just mentioned in passing if he is reconsidering them. Heidegger is talking about what is "present to hand", and what is "ready to hand" in a way which should be clarified. I think there is a lot to be said for how closely they are considered, in novel meditative ways - and that is the chief bridge I would like to cross. What we keep returning to, is that experience to Heidegger, is going to be expressed as existential. That is what he is constantly broaching, because that is his slant. But hell, what do we even mean by existence? It's not a limitation, but it is probably important to recognize that this is not the only way to talk about experience in general too, so I take the point. You are talking about a certain kind of experience, (psychedelic/spiritual/theologic To my own familiarity, in commenting on Heidegger, it was only Sartre that in face value determined Heidegger was both an "existentialist", and an "athiest" and finally a kind of "subjectivist" all in one fell swoop, a controversy which is worth quoting: Quote: Heidegger didn't take to the characterization of being "existential" in general. Maybe it's somehow demonstrative that for many "existentialists" (what we typically think of that) precedence of existence never gets to being itself, and like Sartre himself says, becomes just another case of subjectivism, that place in the walls of the mind, just expressed in a new way? For Heidegger, existence, Dasein is not the leveling of being. He wants to know about being itself. What I'd note is that incredible recursiveness, and formal apparatus of Heidegger's approach, particularly in Being and Time, is indeed thoughtful, but not in any typified way. All I can say, in that in typification is it is very "interesting" to me. Of course I'd try to clarify that that doesn't mean I describe my favorite things about the world and experience itself as beardstrokingly and belly gazingly "interesting". Actually, I have seen that Heidegger has been broadly appreciated, by more than the "usual philosophers", but artists, and theologians, California farmers, and weirdly enough, software engineers and information scientists (information ontology) As an INFP myself, maybe I can elaborate some of my own appreciation of this too, but what I'd say may seem a little goofy, and that is I think these "F" qualities are just something you can dive into, and I think in some ways, the very cerebral approach of Heidegger can be well appreciated as a non-typical place. It is very thoughtful, and you can swim in the head for sure, and I could even admit I am one of those pisces types; I know the fish knows least the water he is in, knows most in a way. I am not sure what that says, but I thought I'd add in that I come from the "feeling" side...When you consider for instance, how Heidegger was pretty inspired by the pathos of Nietzsche it makes a little more sense maybe. When Heidegger talks about a general structure of the question of being, in respect to what presents the "being of beings" (forms), he is definitely talking specifically about a turn to recursive thinking. No doubt about it. But to a large extent I think what is usually appreciable in Heidegger, is how he is often taking the structures he refers to apart, while presenting in a similar way, in reflection, a priority to understand the fundamental unity of being, or "more originary" experiences. That seems to be mainly how Being and Time rings out anyway, even in its very systematic/formal way. I don't exactly know what his practical slant is, in face value appeal to a "fundamental ontology" in Being and Time, and he doesn't claim it outright other than a sense of wonder. To the present point - it is very reflective in this way. Since you point out the question of pragmatism, or a more notional term of experience, I think Heidegger, is very much involved with this in a general way that can be broached, under all these formal issues. A notion of experience, as such: What we have managed to speak to a little bit, is how he or how Dasein is involved with the world, and particularly with regards to how these other ways of being come to light. Being "present to hand" and "ready to hand", could be understood in that sense, something like theory and practice, but I think what we have gone back and forth on from the beginning, is that Heidegger is not taken in the typical sense, ie. it would be important to try to understand how these reflections are specifically not derivative of substance metaphysics in general, or Cartesianism. Maybe we have yet to hit the nail on the head on that. I don't think Heidegger is a substance metaphysician. I would like to make a specific argument for this, but at the same time, it is important that Heidegger's critique is not in making such response exactly, but in just doing what he is doing in a general way. Heidegger was at least not intentionally doing the typical substance metaphysics, and his way of reconciling this in his own terms was that substantia, that which appears to "stand firm", and also appears in peoples minds to always have to be so fundamentally important, is actually just an example of a broader, and looser consideration of what is just "present". Heidegger's apparent "ambivilance" - his letting of presence, to be, rather than protracting these analyses, is opening to broader phenomenological inquiry, which is fundamental to his critique. That is the basic turn of Heidegger, I think. At least, I think you can get a sense that this was a big part of Heidegger's overall intent. At mention of this phenomenological departure, I could really digress into the way Heidegger's Dasein relates with the physical world...but neither I or you think that is exactly the point. I think pivoting here in a more broad sense, will allow me be better able to relate anyway Namely, I don't know to what extent Heidegger falls into a kind of ambivilance in a prescribed relation to a physical world, and I would acknowledge that I think that is potentially a pretty important criticism to make, so I think it's a good point. I would just say we can maybe be open minded, and critical in that sense at the same time. At face value, Heidegger wants to protract a very broad phenomenology, a phenomenology of "being itself", and it seems like there is so much effort just to grok this. I think this is largely because what has been at issue, is the point in which phenomenology seems to finally depart from the paradigmatic expression of conscious states. What are "states" of being in the world, for instance? Maybe what we are talking about is not "modes" or "states", or static points, to grapple on, but something we have to think of differently. Maybe they are acts, and doings? In any case, Heidegger is not likely to believe in an overlying conception of being as substantia (the typical "being of beings") that which "stands firm" grounding things. He is also not just departing into a completely mutable, ungrounded flow, or cessation of the interruption of conscious states either. That is getting close, I think. In a broadly appreciable way, I think when he talks about Dasein, Presence at Hand, And Readiness to Hand, he is contemplating something like a "chop wood, carry wood". I think there are parallels to pragmatism for sure, and of contemplation specifically, and maybe somehow, to say both. I am guessing we have neglected this so far, because we have looked to Heidegger's most systematic magnum opus, that is claiming the "place" of this kind of thinking, this meditation (against, or deconstructing Cartesianism), even if it is not a "position" that he is getting at, for the most part. A position, is like a description of a mental apparatus, paradigmatically (whether in abstract or contemporary argument - where is the bridge, is it behind the pineal gland as Descartes said? etc) There are definitely more contemplative writings to mention, and maybe the best way to consider this would of course be to look to them. I have definitely been trying to be "systematic", and have been partial to give mind to the controversies of this departure. Anyway, I think on this prospect, your experiential insights into different forms of contemplation will be greatly appreciated here, since experience in some sense, seems important. I'd say you might be surprised and judge that he can at least be quite meditative, when you get down to it. Thus far I'd say - particularly in respect to Being and Time - what strikes as Heidegger's sort of ambivalence and allowance and critique of the "metaphysics of presence", (as a bracketed phenomena of being in the world), is pretty cerebrally based. I would in my own experience, draw broad and tentative parallels to yoga. That is probably because that is mainly what I am familiar with, to make such a bridge, but I have found that yoga at least relates in some ways to this broad phenomenology of being, that Heidegger is describing. Surely this priority to a kind of experience could be looked to though. I would myself like to consider some of Heidegger's less systematic writings, which are definitely more easily relatable in this way. There is one I am looking at now, that seems more in this line. At the same time, while I don't think it is possible to get closure, I think it is still important to recognize Heidegger's intellectual climate, in the West at the turn of the century when he wrote Being and Time, and clearly, all was in an uproar. The "stand" Heidegger takes, his position, is important, and I hope not to overemphasize it or underemphasize it either. That stand is intellectual, and he often has at least one foot down, to pivot in that...but maybe that's not all there is to Heidegger, too. Edited by Kurt (08/22/15 06:42 PM)
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Thinker, blinker, writer, typer. Registered: 11/26/14 Posts: 1,688 |
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I'll get to one of these better examples of contemplative effort in Heidegger, but I want to point to "the stand" Heidegger takes for "ontological priority", and his critique of approaches that are based on "being of beings" This mainly gestures to the departure of his own question of being, from conventional, pre-given bases and structures of inquiry.
Quote: Edited by Kurt (08/22/15 05:16 PM)
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Registered: 04/01/02 Posts: 8,005 Last seen: 23 hours, 2 minutes |
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That is a given,IMO. But I don't look for or at it always. Dreyfus statement drew my attention to it.
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Elder Registered: 12/09/99 Posts: 14,279 Loc: South Florida Last seen: 3 years, 2 days |
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Thanks for your in-depth reply. I plan on listening to all of Professor Dreyfus' lectures on Being and Time, (even though the YouTube series doesn't go into Division 2) before I pick up the book again. I have read the intros, even though the professor recommends reading them afterwards. This philosopher is important (despite his Nazi affiliations) and the book in question is obviously a landmark in modern philosophy. Aside from being a challenge to my reading comprehension which these days is tempered by some impatience, I will endeavor to read the book. It is good to be in dialogue with you and others over truly academic philosophy. Actual philosophers in the Western tradition have rarely been discussed in my 16 years on this forum. I suppose I could've searched elsewhere for such discussions, but I am reminded of one of those Mula Nasrudin Sufi stories:
"One day Nasrudin was outside his house. He was on his hands and knees frantically searching for something under a lamppost when his friend passed by and asked him what he was looking for. My key he said to his friend, I lost the key to my house. His friend being a nice person also got down on his hands and knees and tried to help him look. Some time passed. Eventually it was so dark they could barely see each other, when his friend asked him where he had lost his key. I lost it inside the house Nasrudin replied. If you lost your key inside the house, his friend asked him very confused, then why are we looking for it outside? Because Nasrudin said with a gleam in his eyes this is where the light is.”
-------------------- γνῶθι σαὐτόν - Gnothi Seauton - Know Thyself
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Thinker, blinker, writer, typer. Registered: 11/26/14 Posts: 1,688 |
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Anyone still interested in Heidegger?
I have been listening to this lecturer a bit, on "Truth of Being in Heidegger". To clarify, the notion of truth " of being" is that it belongs to being, and is situated around Dasein at least at face value. Of course the lecturer follows the common exposition of this, of Heidegger's departure from transcendental subjectivity. He goes into a little more depth of how Heidegger finds the manifesting of being qua being, is different than the consciousness's way of presenting of things. Namely, he suggests how conceiving this turn is not emphasizing a contradiction or just displacement of Husserl's phenomenological approach, but is indeed both in influence and departure, a different way of understanding. So he speaks directly to the face value issue of Dasein replacing transcendental subject, in a little more depth. Fair warning, this guy is adopting Heidegger's language, and is getting into it, and is not so off the cuff as Hubert Dreyfus. But he makes some good points to suggest Heidegger's emphasis on truly delving into an investigation towards being itself, is not just something which warrants the "turn" toward Dasein or the coping existential way of being in the world. That turn is just what makes such an investigation possible (so it is neither a principle of contradiction, or displacement). Anyway, per anyone's interest, here is another lecturer remarking on some of Heidegger's departures, in a little more depth.
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Elder Registered: 12/09/99 Posts: 14,279 Loc: South Florida Last seen: 3 years, 2 days |
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Yes, still interested, but conditionally, considering Heidegger's atheistic stance and Nazi affiliations. I see myself as something of a Panentheist, but the root 'theist' is still a part of the concept, howsoever modified. I rather like Husserl because he seems to speak to the same mental conditions that much of Yoga philosophy recognizes (i.e., "the Witness"). I just finished Roaring Silence by Ngakpa Chogyam and Khandro Dechen (they're British) after experimenting with the free Aro® meditation course they taught over the last year, Tibetan Zen: Discovering a Lost Tradition by Sam van Schaik, and Simulacra and Simulation by Jean Baudrillard. I promised myself that when I retired I'd work through Plato: Complete Works trans. John Cooper, but I've lapsed after having reconnected with a former philosophy professor whom I haven't had since 1975 and last saw in 1979. He's turned me onto writings by R.W. Emerson which I've obtained, (it's been great fun being his student again after decades), and The Sybil by Par Lagerkvist (I rarely read fiction). I also bought the little The Bacchae by Euripides while I was trying again to appreciate poetics instead of heavy prose. I think I'll listen to the Dreyfus lectures, but at my stage of life, if I do not perceive a time-consuming enterprise to be life-enhancing, I will skim it at best. There's no skimming Being and Time however.
I have yet to complete The Ever-Present Origin by Jean Gebser, but since I've quite a bit of Ken Wilber over the years, it's fun to see how much he has relied on Gebser's Great Chain of Being material. "The thing that hath been, it is that which shall be; and that which is done is that which shall be done: and there is no new thing under the sun." - Ecclesiastes 1:9
-------------------- γνῶθι σαὐτόν - Gnothi Seauton - Know Thyself
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Elder Registered: 12/09/99 Posts: 14,279 Loc: South Florida Last seen: 3 years, 2 days |
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It just occurred to me that Heidegger's emphasis on time as a substratum to Reality may well been a corollary to his cosmological stance. Of course this is one of those intuitions that appeared without forethought, but it seems that he must have assumed a Steady-State Theory of the universe, which is to say, a universe which is of indeterminate duration and which did not have a point of creation. If The Big Bang Theory hypothesized to have been some 13.3 billion years ago was not in Heidegger's mind, it would have reified his atheistic stance of no Creator. Without a point at which the universe was not, a Steady-State assumption would merely replace time for eternity, and inasmuch as time (space-time actually) denotes duration, and duration is fully half the nature of existence, the other half being extension (in space), existence becomes synonymous with Being, and under this system, there is no consideration of a "Ground of Being" which ontologically precedes existence.
I am reminded of something from my seminary years, where a quaint story arose ostensibly about a joking response that Augustine of Hippo to those who inquired about the Being of God prior to creation. I lifted this from a Christian site which sums it up for me: "Saint Augustine had two answers to those who asked what was God doing before creation. Jokingly he said, God was preparing Hell for people who ask such questions. On a serious level, he noted there was no time before God created and hence the question is meaningless. When God created the heavens and the earth He also created space and time. Before time began there was only eternity. God is a timeless being and time only began with His creation of the universe." - https://www.blueletterbible.org/ I have entertained pantheist ideas such as the spiritual and material energies that are one as promulgated in the Bhagavad Gita, but I realize the difficulty I have with Heidegger is that trying to get into a philosophical system that is atheistic is like trying to scuba dive without a weight-belt. Try as one might, you are not going to be able to get down to deeper levels. You are going to keep floating back up. I can demythologize, depersonalize, de-anthropomorphize Deity, but even the impersonal Nirguna Brahman which became the Buddhist Sunyata is still a kind of Ground of Being. But at this point of my life, I cannot take seriously or even [bracket] out the Presence of God in my life. It is not merely a belief, it is an abiding Presence that reaches from the marrow of my bones to the most sublime intuitions. I can suspend scientific or historical knowledge when I watch things on TV or film that do not belong in that era (like using Primacord to blow up a bridge during the Civil War in the film The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly. That stuff wasn't developed until 1936 and burns at 21,000 feet per second. Or, I remember in the sci-fi film Outland, when a spacesuit gets ripped on some distant planet, instead of mere evacuation of the air, the man inside exploded). I see inconguities and falsehoods all the time and most people do not know, care, or look them up. These details annoy me no end, but OK, it's just a story. However, when it comes to a basic metaphysical stance that is predicated upon false assumptions (IMO), I cannot take it seriously, nor do I find a need to understand the assertions. Moreover, the literary piece loses any real gravitas because it does not elaborate truth, but conversely, weaves an exquisitely complex and difficult to understand falsehood, which appears to be founded upon an erroneous yet unarticulated cosmology. My wife began a new TV series last night, The Last Ship, which like the zombie shows is just another iteration of a dystopian future. As a kid I found these themes interesting. My era still enjoyed horror films from the 1930s to the 1950s, before the genre of slasher films that began in the early 1970s. But now I find that even fictional shows taken in excess begins to exert an effect on one's psyche. There are survivalists who anticipate zombie attacks in the near future, being so affected by the cultural geist. I wonder if repetition does in fact create chreodes or pathways in Reality like Rupert Sheldrake hypothesizes, which actually create Reality through continual human psychic participation. Humans have often been considered to be Aristotelian Efficient Causes which manifest the Absolute Cause of Deity (or whatever one chooses to call the creative faculty of Ultimate Reality). -------------------- γνῶθι σαὐτόν - Gnothi Seauton - Know Thyself
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Thinker, blinker, writer, typer. Registered: 11/26/14 Posts: 1,688 |
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First, as per your suggestion, Heidegger's Nazism should be addressed. It is a difficult subject but at some point we should try.
Second, just for sake of clarity, I wonder, where or in what statements, or methods, do you see atheistic assumptions in Heidegger in particular? I would say it is interesting to me how the priority of his "question of being", does not fall into either "theist" or "atheist" positions. Arguably it is not likely even the usual third option, of an "agnostic" position, because clearly Heidegger is not at all deflationary, and plainly involved with ontological provisions. For instance, Heidegger's questioning, or puzzlement or "aporia" with being, on closer examination, is clearly not agnostic in any sense of being "non-seeking", because as he says, questioning "is a seeking", and indeed what he is doing is ontology. However, unlike most ontological "arguments" he admits we do not even know (although he may well have certain insights) of what "horizon" being appears on. He hints at "time", and this is ultimately suggestive at so many different points. We have focused in this thread a lot on his novel departure from Dasein, this involvement, for the being for whom being is an issue to it, upon this "own" horizon. This "hermeneutic" circle, on the provisional basis of Dasein's "everyday existence", could be described as secular. But establishing this point of existence for meditation, is not an answer to the essential inquiry Heidegger raises either. For example these provisions are what Sartre appropriated as the suggestion "existence precedes essence" in his writing. I think you could well say that this "existentialist" camp, as well as the "atheistic" camp, as well as finally the essentially "subjectivist" determination of essential relations to the world in this statement (I quoted it previously), are all face value attributions, and not Heidegger's own. Heidegger responded, in his somewhat usual gnomic response, that Sartre misunderstood him, and that Sartre remains in the realm of "metaphysics", and in "void of being". As for cosmology, I think Heidegger has his foot in the door, but is not simply expositing a point. I would take a stab, that according to his round about, Heidegger is clearly critiquing substantia, or the whole of the growth and prevalent dialogue of "substance metaphysics", or the persistent consideration of what was assumed to "stand firm", as it opens into other considerations. That notion of substance, as "standing firm" (aside from whether it does or not in so many particular considerations) is something Heidegger takes to be based on a misunderstanding of a particular interpretation of time, as something being present, in a particular way. So to put it in his terms, is a question, how is substance, that which stands firm, an interpretation of presence, and the present? How is this interpretation hiding the provision of presencing of beings in general when we interpret presence in this particular way? How is almost the whole tradition of Western philosophy, following Aristotle, locked in a particular notion of substantia as what is present? So I would say at face value he largely intended a peculiar critique of metaphysics of presence, which he found to be at the base of many cultural values in general. Rightly I would say, he looked critically on a constant and compulsive calling of things as present to mind, a compulsion based on certain tendency of appropriating these impressions in an atemporal sense. That reinterpretation could open up. I think while Heidegger's thought could open to process metaphysics, a cosmology, at the same time it is crucially meditation. The point of involution is Dasein. Presencing, is something Heidegger wants to describe on novel phenomenological grounds (a phenomenology of being), both in terms of Dasein and temporality, mainly. Or anyway, that is my understanding thus far. So I'd say in just understanding Dasein's way of being in the world, Heidegger's "secular" involvement, the temporal interpretations of being can come to clarity. I am not overall sure what that means. Chiefly an a-temporal and eternal present ascribed as substantia (again, that which stands firm as being) is something Heidegger is going to critique though, as a meditation on presence, for instance. What I think is crucial is that the meditation on Dasein, is not only the critique or "deconstruction" but what opens to possibilities in presencing of being. Not only is there this novel phenomenology, but in reconsidering existence this way, as not being suggested by the particular compulsions namely of a world Dasein is automatically "subject" to, the world opens up to other ways of being like "readiness to hand", Dasein's involvement with the world, means and ends and mainly, with the craft, where "creation" (the efficient cause) is something that could ostensibly be interpreted most clearlt in the world. I don't imagine that this meditation, and implied involvements in the world (the notion would be quite open with Heidegger) is something that should be perceived as a limitation in any typical way though. Being very inspired by Greek philosophy, he is likely like Aristotle, pre-theological in his hermeneutics. My own point of departure in reading Heidegger is indeed precisely in that efficient cause and how it opens up. I don't think you can understand Heidegger well, without thinking about these means and ends in the world, just because that is what he is talking about. Dasein for instance may have not only a being that is an issue to it, but a being to take a stand on, the being to be. Edited by Kurt (09/05/15 09:05 PM)
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Elder Registered: 12/09/99 Posts: 14,279 Loc: South Florida Last seen: 3 years, 2 days |
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Not interested in addressing Heidegger's Nazi affiliations. I investigated similar allegations about Jung decades ago. I obviously have been able to [bracket] that in the past, but my future with Heidegger's writings is going to be negligible. As to atheism, he is generally assumed by other philosophers (the last I read was in William Barrett's Irrational Man) to have a stance wherein God is never addressed in any idiom. There are several more possibilities than those you noted. I was not smitten by Process Theology when I read Hartshorn, Griffin and Cobb (I met Cobb's grandson one one of these forums). Perhaps I'll take another look at A.N. Whitehead. I am still tickled by:
"...So far as concerns philosophy only a selected group can be explicitly mentioned. There is no point in endeavouring to force the interpretations of divergent philosophers into a vague agreement. What is important is that the scheme of interpretation here adopted can claim for each of its main positions the express authority of one, or the other, of some supreme master of thought - Plato, Aristotle, Descartes, Locke, Hume, Kant. But ultimately nothing rests on authority; the final court of appeal is intrinsic reasonableness. The safest general characterization of the European philosophical tradition is that it consists of a series of footnotes to Plato. I do not mean the systematic scheme of thought which scholars have doubtfully extracted from his writings. I allude to the wealth of general ideas scattered through them. His personal endowments, his wide opportunities for experience at a great period of civilization, his inheritance of an intellectual tradition not yet stiffened by excessive systematization, have made his writing an inexhaustible mine of suggestion..." - Alfred North Whitehead, Process and Reality, p. 39, 1979 However, it is evident by your own writing style that Heidegger's style would appeal to you. Perhaps you have been significantly influenced by his writing style, in which case no affront to you or the late philosopher is intended. I appreciate a more immediately transparent style of expression. I understand the stance you mentioned on more than one occasion that reading Heidegger may constitute a form of meditation in itself, but this suggests to me the use of the word meditation that is akin to the Christian's use of the term meditation as a cognitive pondering of biblical verse, an intellectual savoring that may result in an intuitive (or transrational) insight popping out of the roiling intellect as an iridescent bubble. Meditation for me has the connotation of thought-less awareness which can become stabilized with practice allowing for a deeper experience of that atemporal Presence which suffuses space-time. A bubble's nature is insubstantial, yet it often shines with resplendent colors and is itself a momentary encapsulation of air and space that is capable of being apprehended in the moment. Ultimately, the goal is to experience the totality of Spaciousness (I prefer this Buddhist term emotionally more than Emptiness). I suppose with this disclosure I am back to the moment when I withdrew from Professor Charles Courtney's course on Being and Time at Drew Theological Seminary in the fall of 1976, fresh out of college with my little B.A. in philosophy, and I decided to shift idioms to theological language. At the time, the new idioms (including those of 'substance,' as in the Latin description of the Christian Holy Trinity as "Una Substantia, Tres Personas") as a radical departure from the ostensibly pure intellection and reason that philosophy asserted for more intuitive-based affirmations, to wit, faith. Faith was deemed a 'contemplative attitude' by author Andrew Greeley, but it was more than faith I was seeking. It was gnosis which seemed the closest thing to the gyan or jnana form of knowledge (as in Jnana Yoga, the Yoga of Knowledge or Intellect) that the Psychedelic Experience yielded and what the yogic literature had reified for me. Without being an emotional typology (INTP) and hence never feeling 'devotional,' I still required a 'descent from the head to the heart,' as best illustrated by the Catholic iconography of a crown of thorns encircling a radiant heart. The crown descends to the heart is the mind descending into the heart - the central practice of the Hesychast contemplatives on Mt. Athos and the closest thing Christendom had to Indian and Tibetan yogas. The heart is not meant to be understood as an emotional center but as a transpersonal center, a transrational center. The ancients were not wrong mystically, they were wrong only if considered strictly physiologically with their emphasis of this center. Interestingly enough, people with transplanted hearts have disclosed memories belonging not to themselves, but to the donors of their hearts! Perhaps those ancients knew some things about our physiology that we are just getting inklings of. This paragraph has been a complete departure from the thread at hand. Nevertheless, it is illustrative of why delving into Being and Time is like attempting to scuba dive without a weight belt. As lofty an intellectual exercise this book is, I find it to be like the deeper parts of our oceans, dense and cold and dark with the occasional luminescent creature bringing light to the darkness. While it is home to those creatures for whom such pressure is necessary to their existence, one cannot remove them from their depth. Conversely, as a sport diver, 130 feet is the limit (I have been to 110 at night). Special gas mixtures are needed for greater depth, and special equipment the deeper one dives. Similarly, we each find our own comfort zones. I applaud your interest in Heidegger, and wonder what other philosophers you are most interested in. I however will leave Being and Time on my shelf, as the temporal pressure I find myself under at age 62 does not admit of a usefulness that the work may provide for others. For me, the Tibetan prayer flags of Earth and Water seem more represented by Heidegger's substantial sense of Being, and I require some Fire, but a good deal more Air and Space as I move toward the limits of my temporal existence. Besides, I gave up diving long ago, and now prefer some form of lighter-than-air vehicle.
-------------------- γνῶθι σαὐτόν - Gnothi Seauton - Know Thyself
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Thinker, blinker, writer, typer. Registered: 11/26/14 Posts: 1,688 |
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"Diaphane, adiaphane."
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Elder Registered: 12/09/99 Posts: 14,279 Loc: South Florida Last seen: 3 years, 2 days |
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Quote: And the synthesis would be...? -------------------- γνῶθι σαὐτόν - Gnothi Seauton - Know Thyself
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Thinker, blinker, writer, typer. Registered: 11/26/14 Posts: 1,688 |
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Would the synthesis be able to describe something there and not? Present and absent?
Is unity a door on a hinge? Poetry is walking through it? I am not sure about this either, but aside from describing any implied convenience or value to Heidegger's approach I know something in myself, that when I look out on a horizon, over green hills I do not do this without also feeling the way those hills lay. Hills are then in my memory, you could say this by whatever accident, kiss or concussion. I wonder, why does the transcendentalist say experience is merely impressed, detached, or "transparent, floating", something there and not, but specifically not? Why not say this transparent eyeball has hands, and maybe give them a head, body heart to say so? Heidegger, who talks so much about "being in the world" swims in head space though. He talks about "seeing thinking", of phenomenology. Maybe it is no different than Emerson's nature, somehow "something" is there, and we try to describe it. Dasein, being-there, transparently. Heidegger is sometimes given credit for taking phenomenology to knew grounds, more grounded in the world, maybe more corporeal. But it is still all presence, at the same time, and well, it is weird. Is Heidegger's phenomenology synthetic, ie. offering direction towards implicit value, (namely truth)? Or is it more useful? Particularly when he is situated with a contemporary philosophy, Heidegger is a philosopher, and his thought definitely isn't in a conventional deliniation of the pursuit of truth and knowledge for its own sake, and so it is often described as neither. He is said to be obscurant by many people, or just too provincial. What I see, is that Heidegger had to argue his unique phenomenology, or exposit it amidst a contemporary world, and that has its upsides and downsides, both exacerbated by Heidegger personally. I think I am personally into seeing-feeling, whether that makes me less of a philosopher, or more (or less) Platonic. Yes I'll come back to the forms, truth, beauty and goodness. But where agreement might be, in that, is that some things have to be experienced... no? Diaphane, Adiaphane. Maybe it is as if we all have various degrees of synthesesia, I don't know. I think that this may be the closest insight I can seem to pull from this...aside from just "going through" existence. Edited by Kurt (09/06/15 09:19 PM)
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Elder Registered: 12/09/99 Posts: 14,279 Loc: South Florida Last seen: 3 years, 2 days |
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I get a feeling (as opposed to an articulated critical, intellectual analysis) of Heidegger, as I did with Hegel, of idiosyncratic Pantheisms. These are Pantheisms of great intellectual minds, not the Pantheisms of quaint Neopagans marveling at nature, symbolized as Goddess and God, and approached via the Feeling function as devotion. Rather than Pantheism, I prefer a Panentheistic description even if it immediately suggests a radical pluralism of spirit and matter, with the former having ontological priority and eternality, and the latter being derivative of Eternal Being. Intimately connected, Creator and creation are not identical as in Pantheism. Universe or multiverses can certainly be postulated, yet the Eternal Being transcends either possibility. In Panentheism, I can grok Being and non-being co-existing as Being and Becoming both present and accounted for by the human experience, and the human spiritual endeavor to find identity with Eternal Being as the only means for personal peace, liberation from the anxiety of which Kierkegaard spent so much time addressing, as well as Shroomerites in their discussions of 'death-anxiety.'
There may be peace for some in their acceptance of human beinghood as becoming-ness, non-being, and the enthronement of the Myth of the Eternal Return. Wiccans have no illusions of an afterlife beyond transmigration, and I cannot but feel saddened by the "King of the Witches," Alex Sanders whom I was intrigued by at age 18 (partly because of his much younger beautiful blonde wife Maxine) who, as it turned out was terrified of dying. He epitomized all Pagans for me, and was a poignant example of the effect on a particular specie of Pantheism on the human condition. In his case anxiety and terror in the face of his fatal cigarette-related lung cancer. Most people have an "Atman Project," whether it's children and grandchildren or their art or literature, but the error is in trying to find some enduring personal identity based in becoming rather than our human communal sense of being One - all of us waves formed of the same Ocean of Being. Even the tomb of the pharaoh Khufu (Cheops), the Great Pyramid, will return to sand in much less than a million years. It's a great Atman Project relative to the duration of human civilization, but laughable relative to Geologic Time. Being is a horse of a different color than Being-in-the-world. I'm not an Epicurean, and I differentiate happiness for fulfillment, but ultimately, shouldn't philosophy contribute most significantly to human fulfillment? Should not a philosophy worth its salt be useful in both showing us Truth (Ultimate reality) as well as teaching us the least painful way to accept the Truth about Reality? Philosophy is a human endeavor. What additional purpose should it have?
-------------------- γνῶθι σαὐτόν - Gnothi Seauton - Know Thyself
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Thinker, blinker, writer, typer. Registered: 11/26/14 Posts: 1,688 |
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Of all ideologies, the idea that world is following logic, "determined" in a vacuum, is the most general, and highest dogma to a mechanical age.
Look around to what we dwell in today! We do not only test our "experience", and that is clearly not all that we have put on the line. Are we to continue to dwell on the apologetics of logical empiricism, or of early 20th century philosophy? To distinguish the principles which have been handed down; to "understand" nature φύσις, physis, or even our nature or being, is in part to free them from the dogmas that have built up. What is called "constructive" or "productive" today, is built up. As the German philosopher Martin Heidegger wrote; much in line with the contemporary, we do dwell in language, as much as in the world. In his open letter written partly in regards to the French existentialist philosopher Jean Paul Sartre, Heidegger considered following meditation on humanism. To think of the world is not to "determine", but in participation, to "lead forth" (producere). Is this not true? Look around. When will we acknowledge the burden to think decicively of human action in nature? Quote: Edited by Kurt (12/07/15 03:50 PM)
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But the point I want to make besides extracting the philosophical metaphysics of Being from the mytho-poetic language of the Tenach, is that Being must suggest more than stasis in its nature, but also potential for Becoming (creation). The Buddhists remind us that anything which becomes, unbecomes. Temporal being is temporary, being becomes non-being. Heidegger apparently wants to define human beinghood as completely temporal.
I could use a philosophy course to understand Heidegger. I took a course on Being and Time after finishing my philosophy degree and went to seminary, but promptly dropped it because I wanted to leave philosophy for theology. I seem to be trying to complete a task I abandoned, but I do not think my life will somehow be enhanced by understanding Heidegger. I'm questioning my motives other than to exercise my neurons.

