Heidegger

One should recall that Rene Descarte alluded to a premise that has not been mentioned.

That premise was “the clear and distinct idea” which for Rene meant having a clear and distinct proof, or argument, regarding his understanding of mathematical certainty.

The analogy is rather simple: if God exists, then mathematical proofs exist, and we can be assured abut the nature of what truth means, and that way there is obedience.

In the 5th Meditation Rene states:

[1] But if the mere fact that I can produce from my thought
the idea of something entails that everything which I clearly and
distinctly perceive to belong to that thing really does belong to it,
is not this a possible basis for another argument to prove the
existence of God? Certainly, the idea of God, or a supremely perfect
being, is one that I find within me just as surely as the idea of any
shape or number. And my understanding that it belongs to his nature
that he always exists is no less clear and distinct than is the case
when I prove of any shape or number that some property belongs to its
nature (AT 7:65; CSM 2:45)

 http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/descar…

chao

John
 

— On Wed, 11/5/08, Bernx at aol.com wrote:
From: Bernx at aol.com
Subject: Re: Experiencing: Existing and/or Being?
To: heidegger at an-archos.com
Date: Wednesday, November 5, 2008, 12:11 PM

In a message dated 11/4/2008 7:32:59 PM Eastern Standard Time, jPolanik at nc.rr.com writes:
Bernx at aol.com wrote:

>According to C.G. Jung, THINKING refers to the faculty of rational
>analysis; of understanding and responding to things through the
>intellect, the “head” so to speak. Thinking means connecting ideas in
>order to arrive at a general understanding. The Thinking-type often
>appears detached and unemotional. The Scientist and the Philosopher
>are examples of the “thinking type”, which is found more commonly in
>men.

>FEELING is the interpretation of things at a value- level, a
>”heart”-level rather than a “head”-level. Feeling evaluates, it
>accepts or rejects an idea on the basis of whether it is pleasant or
>unpleasant. According to Jung this is the emotional personality type,
>and occurs more frequently in women.

>note: The polar complement to DENKEN IST GEFUHL.

>Neither may be substuted for or equated with Experience because in its
>generality experience cannot be assigned as a psychological function,

Bernard,

yes, it’s true that Jung defined thinking in a way that distinguishes it
from feeling; but, we can’t begin to interpret Descartes (or Heidegger’s
case against the Cogito) by assuming that Descartes defined thinking
*only* the way as Jung (and some other psychologists) defined thinking
(which I will call thinking in the narrow sense).
Joe, yes of course, that is precisely the the sense that Descartes expressed his thinking. Since thinking was all for him if not for philosophers in general (Except Goethe and Schiller) it becomes the predicate of “experience,” i.e, as the only experience knowable.
Descartes needed a term that includes the entire range of subjective
experiences; because, for purposes of cogito-style arguments, feeling
would work as well as thinking (in the narrow sense), intuiting, sensing
or whatever. ‘I feel; therefore, I am’ is just as good as ‘I think
(narrow sense); therefore, I am’.

But, Joe, that was hardly the case. For one locked into thinking that is synonomous with experience in toto, feeling, sensation and intuition are blocked off (we say “repressed”) and cannot predicate experience. Ergo “I experience I Am as a thinker and nothing more. It may be equally noted that such repressed types (locked into thinking ist alles) their repressed personality functions rise up as an erotic compulsion for a woman (as mustress) supposed as of an inferior kind, such as Hedegger taking up with a student Jewess. Jung did the same thing with one  of his first patients, a young Russian Jewess, except he later managed to integrate some intuition and feeling in his active personality. But he literally had to “go crazy” to do this (what he called his “confronation with the unconscious”). He thus learned much from Nietzshe who went from thinking (and phiilosophy) to an archaic form of (feeling and poetry) and his fatal erotic compulsion for
shady ladies and his subsequent death from the tertiary stages of syphilis.. 
Bernard

Descartes, for better or for worse, chose ‘thinking’ as the term he’d
use to refer to the entire range of subjective experiences. I’ll call
this use thinking (in the widest possible sense). thinking in this wide
sense is used as we might use ‘experiencing’ today.

translating ‘cogito; ergo, sum’ as ‘I experience; therefore, I am’
better captures Descartes’ intent and exposes the fallacy behind the
complaints that Nietzsche and Heidegger make concerning ‘I think (narrow
sense); therefore, I am’. [I posted about these recently under the
subject ‘Axis of Error’.]

what do you think about Heidegger’s case against the Cogito — does its
force diminish when confronting ‘I experience; therefore, I am’ instead
of ‘I think; therefore, I am’? if so; then, is that because I have a
stronger argument or because I have a better translation of cogito;
ergo, sum?

Joe

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

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Posted on Sunday, November 9th, 2008 at 7:02 am
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