Heidegger

Joseph Polanik wrote:

> >>do you contest the claim that ‘I am’ is true when self-asserted?
>
> >Yes, due to Hume’s critique, using the very same criteria that
> >Descartes used in the First Meditation. In other words, Hume simply
> >drew out the consequences of what Descartes had begun.
>
> yet, somehow, neither you nor Hume is able to conclude your analysis
> with the words, “… and, thus, it is not the case that I am”.

Hume argues that I cannot *know* that I exist:

1. I remain self-identical throughout all my perceptions.
2. Therefore, if I know that I exist, I must know that there is
something which remains identical throughout all my perceptions.
3. But there is no evidence that anything remains identical throughout
all my perceptions.
4. Therefore, I don’t know that I exist.

> >>do you contest the claim that Heidegger agrees that ‘I am’ is true
> >>when self-asserted?
>
> >Yes and no. Yes in that he begins with an analysis of the “being that I
> >am,” but no in that he prefaces that analysis (SuZ section 25) by
> >questioning whether “I” am “I myself” (as opposed to Them) in the first
> >place.
>
> even earlier, in section 9, he writes, “We are ourselves the entities to
> be analysed”. this could be translated into the first as ‘I am this
> entity which I will analyze’ or, even more simply, as ‘I am *this* which
> I will analyze’.
>
> how do you get from ‘I am *this* which I will analyze’ to ‘… and,
> therefore, I am not’?
>
> and (just to be clear) would you kindly express your answer in the first
> person?

See above.

Posted on Friday, March 21st, 2008 at 12:20 pm
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