Heidegger

Cologne 20-Nov-2007

Joseph Polanik schrieb Mon, 19 Nov 2007 21:10:55 -0500:

> Michael Eldred wrote:
>
> >Joseph Polanik schrieb
>
> >>although ’starting point’ is the more traditional term, I personally
> >>prefer the term ‘turning point’ — something may conclude and
> >>something else may start at each ‘turn’. in this sense, both the CPI
> >>and the OD are turning points. in any case, having found the OD, the
> >>process of uncovering, of bringing to light, can continue until the
> >>CPI is found.
>
> >>the CPI is ontologically prior to the OD, which refers to beings AS
> >>beings, because it is prior to the designation of ‘being’ as the root
> >>predicate.
>
> >>do you deny that the CPI is ontologically prior to the OD?
>
> >ME: Your Confession of Partial Ignorance, “I know that I am; but not
> >what I am.”, is an assertion, on the one hand, and a private confession
> >on your part, on the other. (Insofar as it is merely a private opinion,
> >it is removed from any philosophical inquiry.)
>
> the part of the CPI that is an admission or confession of ignorance is
> a subjective report of my state of knowledge; and, as such, has the
> philosophical significance of a report of a sighting of a white crow: it
> refutes the claim that all crows are black.

ME: A “subjective report of my state of knowledge” is your own private
matter, and has nothing to do with philosophy, for which a line of thinking
must be “nachvollziehbar”, i.e. comprehensible also for the other. Hearing
the private confession of another is the business of a priest or a
psychotherapist.

>
> your claim is that I always already know that I am a being; and, I claim
> I don’t know that to be true.

ME: In the assertive part of your CPI you assert “I know that I am”, thus
implicating “I” with “am” which, in turn, is a conjugation of “being”. So the
“joining together” of “I” with “being” is already implied straight away by
your original assertion. Are you now wanting to break the nexus between “I
am” and “I am a being”? If so, you would have to show why “I am”, although
implicated with being, does not imply that “I am a being”.

>
> >You take it as a starting-point for an inquiry. As such a
> >starting-point, it is prior to everything that follows in the inquiry,
> >but that does not make it ontologically prior to what is unearthed
> >subsequently in such an inquiry.
>
> I fully agree that what is ontologically prior is often discovered
> subsequent to one’s ’starting’ point; but, you don’t seem to understand
> that I am claiming that this principle also applies to you.
>
> having found the OD (possibly after a lengthy process of clarification,
> uncovering and/or unlearning), any viewpoint or philosophy that is
> subsequently developed proceeds from that ’starting’ point; but, that is
> merely a *turning point* in the course of your thinking; and, it may or
> may not be the last such turning point. in any philosophical journey of
> discovery there could be a series of ’starting’ points — which is why
> I prefer the phrase ‘turning point’ although ’starting point’ is the
> traditional term.

ME: Nowhere have I asserted that the OD is the ontological starting-point. On
the contrary, I have shown that questioning the presuppositions you have
supposed in your CPI leads back to what is posited ontologically beforehand,
namely, the phenomenon (not the “chosen” “root predicate”) of being itself,
i.e. pure, unmediated, indeterminate presence. This originary phenomenon is
not “chosen”, for there is no choice about it — questioning itself leads of
itself to this originary phenomenon of the clearing seen by the mind’s eye.

>
> in any event, if, after discovering the OD, you were to continue the
> process of clarification and subsequently discovered the CPI, the
> chronological quirk of *subsequent* discovery does not preclude the
> possibility that the CPI is ontologically *prior* to the OD.

ME: In following your line of argument, which starts with the CPI (partly an
assertion and partly a confession), there is nothing more to discover. The
CPI is disposed of quickly by questioning its ontological underpinnings.

>
> my analysis that the CPI is, in fact, ontologically prior to the OD has
> *nothing* to do with the chronological order of discovery. my analysis
> is based entirely on the relationship between the two principles —
> irregardless of the order in which they are uncovered by particular
> individuals.

ME: What “principles”? As you say yourself, the CPI is taken as
starting-point for your line of argument, and only in this sense is it an
_archae_, a “principle”. The OD, on the other, is not a “principle” at all,
neither as starting-point for a line of argument, nor as an ontological
_archae_. So, as I have pointed out several times already, the “vs.” between
CPI and OD is entirely skew-whiff. They are not opposed, but on different
planes altogether. The ontological difference concerns how being comes over
beings, thus enabling them to define themselves AS beings. Such an
ontological difference or “carrying apart” of being and beings only comes to
light through the course of questioning itself, if the questioning is simple
and originary enough.

>
> you say:
>
> >Ontologically prior is therefore being itself, its sense, on the basis
> >of which the sense of “I am” could be clarified. Since “I” is a being
> >in a definite conjugation or “yoking together” with being, to say in an
> >ontologically well-grounded way what “I am” means, is an aspect of the
> >OD, which refers to beings in their being, and therefore, in
> >particular, to the “I” in its “I am”.
>
> >… the OD covers inter alia the “I” in its being. In other words, the
> >OD comes to light whenever the being of a being is ontologically
> >clarified, and the clarification of “I” in its being is only an aspect
> >of bringing the OD to light.
>
> it may well be that “the clarification of ‘I’ in its being is only an
> aspect of bringing the OD to light”; but, this shows that the CPI is
> ontologically prior to the OD; for, it assumes that the referent of ‘I’
> is a being; which, in turn assumes that ‘being’ has been chosen as the
> root predicate of the terminology in which the OD is expressed.

ME: See my rebuttal of this above.

>
> the CPI is a statement of one’s knowledge and ignorance prior to the
> *choice* of a root predicate. the OD assumes that choice is already
> made.

ME: There can be no “choice” here. See above.

>
> would you not agree that ignorance is ontologically prior to the
> knowledge that dispels it?

ME: No. Ignorance is temporally prior to the knowledge that dispels it, not
ontologically prior. The enigmatic thing about philosophy, as I have said
several times, is that it is knowledge of what we already know and of that
with which we are already entirely familiar as human beings, but have never
explicitly thought on deeply enough. By thinking on it, we may become human
beings, although we are human beings already.

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Posted on Tuesday, November 20th, 2007 at 5:10 pm
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