Heidegger

Jud,

I’ve been reading your dissertation. it is quite good; but (and you knew
I was good to say ‘but’), there are two problematic areas that could be
improved.

1. Abstraction/Reification

you’ve got a plausible theory as to the biogenetic origin of
reification; and, identify ways in which reification can lead to
political manipulation; but, you don’t examine the possibility that
de-reification might also be manipulative.

consider that reification of the seemingly coordinated activities by two
or more people: a conspiracy. do we really want to get rid of this
concept?

one can’t help thinking that those who conspired to kill former US
president J F Kennedy may have counted on a certain impatience with and
disdain for abstractions in American political thought (among the common
people anyway) to promote acceptance of the ‘lone gunman’ theory of the
assassination.

in a larger sense, the problem is finding a way to obtain the benefits
of abstraction/reification without paying too high a price; and, blindly
getting rid of abstractions/reifications *would* be too high a price.
without reifications such as governments, corporations, deeds of land
ownership, relationships such as marriage, etc. we would be living a
stone age existence.

2. Existential Constructions

you write:

>Linguistically and semantically the classification of Descartes’ and/or
>God’s: /I am/ as in,
>
>1. I think therefore I am
>
>and
>
>2. Tell them I am sent you
>
>are examples of the so-called absolute signification. [6] (OED 2005)
>They cannot possibly refer to a pure property-free state, for it would
>be impossible for such an entity to exist.

this misses Descartes’ point: it is possible to know *that* I am without
knowing enough about the properties of the referent of ‘I’ to say *what*
I am.

similarly, someone taking the via negative thru apophasis ends up unable
to attribute any predicate (any property) to God; but, would end up
concluding “… and, yet, God is”.

such statements are not claims that there is a property free state of
some entity; but, *are* claims that I, this experiencer, can be unaware
of those properties.

Joe

–
Philosophy is, after all, done ultimately in the first person for the
first person. — H-N Castaneda

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 http://what-am-i.net
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Posted on Sunday, September 14th, 2008 at 6:00 am
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