Heidegger

Joe sums it up:

> in any event, saying ‘I am human’ doesn’t answer the question ‘is the
> human individual more than just a human body?’. In Heideggerian jargon,
> ‘is there Being or a being within the human?.
>
> so, we still don’t know what a human is.
>
> I still know that I am; but, not what I am.

I think, Joe, that one needn’t ask the post-cartesian question as to whether
the human (being) is more than a human body (another being alongside the
body-being, if you like). The very question assumes the presence of at least
two beings to ‘account’ for human-being: and this immediately falls into the
very (almost quantitative) problem opened up by post-cartesian thinking (to
be one or two, that is the question) to which your current questioning is
heir.

[BTW, “Being” {for Heidegger} is not “within {or without} the human” since
it is not a being, not some thing; and (a) “being” is anything that can be
said to be at all {for Heidegger} — just to get your “Heideggerian jargon”
at least proximally in the right ball park]

So, if we don’t ask the ‘one-or-two-being’ question and instead (since this
is a Heidegger list) go along for a moment (leaving aside the post-cartesian
question) with a ‘formula’ from Heidegger, roughly: human-being (da-sein) is
the being that puts beings (and thus be-ing) into question, we can
immediately see *that* you, Joe, are a human being, and that ‘formula’ also
answers your question of *what* you are (a being that questions beings
{including the being that you are yourself}).

So Joe, is that not a good starting point that avoids (at least,
momentarily) the post-cartesian problematic of the body as something wholly
or partially identifiable with the human being?

regards

michaelP

Posted on Sunday, October 12th, 2008 at 6:03 am
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