Heidegger

Cologne 26-Feb-2008

ME: This particular wrangle does not seem to be leading anywhere. You are defending a traditional
reading of Aristotle as postulating the existence of a god as the unmoving mover of all that moves,
and are claiming that this is the only possible reading. I am suggesting, by contrast, that there is
another way of reading and an alternative line of thought latent in Aristotle that leads, via an
interpretation of the sight (_eidos_) that beings show of themselves, to a non-existent god. A few
posts ago (Sat, 09 Feb 2008 18:47:51 -0600), you accused my of making “huge leaps” in my
interpretation of Lambda/XII Chaps. 1-7. That sounds promising. Not everyone enjoys leaping.

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_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_ Dr Michael Eldred (c)_-_-
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Anthony Crifasi schrieb Mon, 25 Feb 2008 07:31:09 -0600:

> Michael Eldred wrote:
>
> >>>>>>>> AC: What is your complete translation of 1064a29-37?
> >>>>>>> ME: “Since there is a science of beings qua beings and standing for itself, it
> >>>>>>> must be investigated whether this is to be posited as the same as physical
> >>>>>>> science or rather as different. Physical science is about beings having a
> >>>>>>> beginning/principle of movement within themselves, whereas mathematical science
> >>>>>>> is [also] theoretical and is about something permanent, but not standing for
> >>>>>>> itself. About being (_on_) standing for itself and immovable, therefore, there
> >>>>>>> is a science different from both of these if there is such an _ousia_
> >>>>>>> (beingness), and I mean standing for itself and immovable, which we shall
> >>>>>>> attempt to show. And if there is such a nature (_physis_) in beings, here, if
> >>>>>>> anywhere, would be the divine, and this would be the first and most powerful
> >>>>>>> beginning/principle.”
> >>> ME: Aristotle has already copiously shown that there is _ousia_
> >>> (beingness), e.g. as the
> >>> categories. Now he intends to show that there is a sense of beingness
> >>> that is “forever and immovable and standing for itself”.
> >> AC: That’s not what your own translation says. According to the exact words
> >> of your translation, he says that he intends to show “if there is such
> >> an ousia … standing for itself and immovable,” not “if there is a such
> >> a SENSE of ousia … standing for itself and immovable.” When Aristotle
> >> is referring to the SENSES of something, he simply says so - for
> >> example, look at the beginning of Met. V, where he states that he is
> >> going to discuss the various SENSES of being. Your reading therefore (1)
> >> depends on adding words that aren’t there, and (2) is inconsistent with
> >> the manner in which he expressed himself in other texts where he WAS
> >> doing the kind of thing that you are talking about here.
> >
> > ME: He is not going to introduce any new “SENSE” of _ousia_ at all, but is going to deepen the
> > ontological analysis of _eidos_.
>
> Again, he does not say that in your translation. He says he is going to
> show “if there is such an ousia … standing and immovable,” not that he
> is going to “deepen the ontological analysis of eidos.” Following your
> often repeated demand, let’s stick to what he actually says. The ontic
> meaning of what he says here becomes especially clear at 1064b10, where
> he says that if natural ousiai (plural) are the first of existing
> things, physics will be the first of the sciences. Your reading here
> would have him saying, If natural beingnesses (??) were the first of
> beings…. He then immediately follows up by saying that “if there is
> another _physis_ and _ousia_ standing for itself and immovable….” So
> given the immediate ontic context of ousia here, along with no statement
> whatsoever by him that he is changing the meaning of ousia, the most
> reasonable reading of ousia chôristê kai akinêtos at 1064b12 is a
> similarly *ontic* one - that he is talking about an immovable being
> here, not beingness. Otherwise, you’ll have to explain why he says
> “natural beingnesses” as opposed to just natural ousia, as well as what
> “beingnesses” could possibly mean.
>
> >>> ME: You just don’t get it. It IS META-physical to investigate even
> >>> physical beings qua beings (and not qua movable beings).
> >> AC: Whether it *is* or not is beside the point - we are talking about what
> >> Aristotle says. And what he says here is that physics would be the first
> >> science if there were only physical beings. (1064b10) It is impossible
> >> for physics to be the first science and for there to be a metaphysical
> >> science at the same time, since he says that metaphysics must be more
> >> universal than physics by being prior to it. (1064b14) Nothing can be
> >> prior to the first science.
> >
> > ME: At 1064b10 he doesn’t say what you want him to say at all:
> > _ei men oun hai physikai ousiai prootai toon ontoon eisi, kan he hysikae prootae toon
> > epistaenoon eiae_
> > “If then the physical _ousiai_ were the first among beings, physical science would also be the
> > first of the sciences”
> > And then he proceeds:
> > “If however there is another _physis_ and _ousia_ standing for itself and immovable,
> > necessarily other would also be the science of the physical and prior to it and of the whole,
> > because prior.”
>
> How is this not what I said? He says that the science would have to be
> “of the whole BECAUSE prior.” But nothing can be prior to the first
> science, and he says that physics would be the first science if
> “physical ousiai (plural) were the first among beings…” So there could
> be no such prior science at all in that case, since physics would be the
> first science.
>
> >> AC: You’re talking *traditional* ontology, not ontology in Heidegger’s
> >> sense. You walk an undefined line between the two, thereby equivocating
> >> on the word “ontology” throughout. Of course what *Aristotle*
> >> considers ontology will include beings as causes,
> >
> > ME: You denied that in previous posts, claiming that Aristotle himself spoke of “ontic
> > causes”, which is nonsense.
>
> which is precisely what is in question. So hold your horses.
>
> >> AC: since his philosophy
> >> is part of the metaphysical tradition, whose categories presuppose the
> >> priority of scientific knowing (of which the philosophical priority of
> >> knowing *causes* is a natural outcome). But both Husserlian and
> >> Heideggerian phenomenologies specifically abstain from all such
> >> metaphysical considerations. Heidegger does not deduce or consider
> >> beings *as causes* at all, because for Heidegger, that is how beings
> >> show themselves to the deprived sight of scientific knowing, not to real
> >> ontology.
> >
> > ME: This is merely obfuscation. Introducing yet another dichotomy, now between traditional and
> > “phenomenological” ontology in the sense of Husseral and Heidegger won’t save you at all. You
> > obviously have not studied Heidegger’s 1924 Aristotle lectures nor his 1924/25 Aristotle/Plato
> > lectures, but are relying on a very narrow-minded interpretation of an aspect of SuZ.
>
> The only way you could assume that the difference between traditional
> and phenomenological ontology is of no consequence here is if you were
> already assuming that Aristotle’s immovable ousia is not an ontic being.
> But that’s precisely what’s in question. So again, hold your horses.
>
> >>> ME: The issue is whether _eidos_ is to be understood ALWAYS as
> >>> beingness, i.e. as an aspect
> >>> of the beingness of beings. I say yes. If these commentators say yes,
> >>> too, then there’s no
> >>> dispute. Even when _eidos_ is translated as ‘kind’, i.e. apparently as
> >>> an ontic
> >>> classification of beings, it is still, in truth, ontological, namely,
> >>> the sight shared by certain beings qua beings.
> >> AC: If an eidos is shared by beings qua beings, then it would be shared by
> >> *all* beings, since all beings are beings. Yet there are clearly many
> >> “kinds” of beings within the whole of beings, so eidos in this sense is
> >> not necessarily shared by beings qua beings at all.
> >
> > ME: Patent nonsense. “Kinds” of beings can have different _eidae_, but of course each has its
> > _eidos_, i.e. its own sight of beingness.
>
> So you would agree, then, that metaphysics does not consider beings
> insofar as they have different eidae, but only insofar as each has its
> eidos simply? For example, that the roundness of a bronze ball is
> considered by metaphysics *simply* insofar as that is an eidos, not
> insofar as it is specifically *roundness*?
>
> >> AC: You will have to show me the phenomenologist who considers beings as
> >> *causes*. Husserl? Nope. Heidegger? Nope. Why? Because the consideration
> >> of beings as causes belongs to *scientific metaphysics* not
> >> phenomenology, which explicitly abstains from all such considerations.
> >> What Aristotle is doing is scientific metaphysical ontology, not
> >> phenomenological ontology. You are simply equivocating on ontology
> >> throughout here.
> >
> > ME: And we are debating Aristotle’s metaphysics, especially the interpretation of _ousia_ as
> > _eidos_. You seem to think that Heidegger, who engaged with Aristotle more deeply than hardly
> > any thinker before him, repudiated Aristotle’s understanding of cause as false.That’s
> > ridiculous.
>
> SuZ stands on its own, with the phenomena. It does not rise or fall with
> thought or didn’t think Aristotle said. As for whether a 20th century
> German “engaged with Aristotle more deeply than hardly any thinker
> before him,” I can name a few 2nd century Greeks who might dispute that.
>
> >> AC: I want to preface this by acknowledging that my translation skills are
> >> far below yours. That being said: between your overly literal
> >> translation of “en tois ousin” in the face of a philosopher who was
> >> native to ancient Greek, your addition of non-existent words to your own
> >> translation of the 1064a text (above) to make your reading work, and the
> >> disagreement of ancient Greek commentators with your reading and
> >> translation of Aristotle’s immovable ousia, authoritative dismissiveness
> >> regarding translations may not be the most appropriate attitude in this
> >> discussion.
> >
> > ME: “non-existent words”? Re _en tois ousin_ you introduced a DIFFERENT passage commented on
> > by Alexander of Aphrodisias, which is hardly pertinent.
>
> Again, a sweeping generality which whitewashes the specifics that I took
> the time to give you. First, it was Philoponus, not Alexander. Second,
> it was a philosophical context - his commentary on Aristotle’s Physics.
> Thirdly, it confirmed what I said about en tois ousin - namely, that
> this was indeed used by ancient Greeks as a whole phrase to mean “among
> beings,” which undermines your restriction of 1064a37 to “if there is
> such a [immovable] nature IN beings…,” which you needed to support
> your reading of the immovable ousia as beingness immanent in every
> being. So it was quite pertinent - unless you can show that the issue in
> Physics IV was whether there is a void somehow in every single being, as
> opposed to whether there is a void at all - whether there is a void
> among the beings that are.
>
> > And yes, the translations of primary
> > philosophical texts are often disastrous because each translator simultaneously interprets the
> > text translated, and these translators are often not up to the mark as thinkers. You have an
> > utterly naive understanding of how philosophical texts are to be read.
>
> The ancient Greek commentators I have been citing weren’t reading
> translations of Aristotle. Plus, they have the great advantage (over
> Hegel or Heidegger) of being native to the original language. So your
> resistance here **without even having read them** is philosophically
> mystifying.
>
> > ME: Aristotle’s categories not ontological?! You don’t know what you’re talking about, I’m
> > afraid. And you fail to notice that the opposite of an ontological element, its negation or
> > lack (such as “without matter”) is encompassed by the ontological determination — also for
> > Aristotle, for whom this is very clear. (And also for Heidegger and Hegel.)
>
> Hegel and Heidegger, yes. Aristotle, no. In Met. Gamma 3, Aristotle is
> quite one-sided on the issue of whether anything and its negation can be
> ontologically simultaneous moments (at least in *his* meaning of
> ontology). And when I said that some of Aristotelian categories (like
> somewhere, sometime) aren’t ontological, I specifically meant
> *metaphysical*, since that was the sense of “ontology” we have been
> discussing. Clearly, for Aristotle, somewhere and sometime don’t apply
> to immovable ousia, since he states that the latter has no magnitude or
> motion.
>
> > ME: The point at issue is a certain _ousia_ as “forever and immovable and standing for itself”
> > as prototype for the divine _ousia_. If certain commentators nail this _ousia_ as a certain
> > kind of (godly) being, then they’ve already foreclosed the issue. Already several posts ago I
> > summarized Aristotle’s grounding of the _ousia_ as “forever and immovable and standing for
> > itself” in a movement of thought in Book Lambda Chapters 1 to 7, in which Aristotle hones in
> > on _eidos_ as the sought-for _ousia_/beingness. You have avoided this grounding to date,
> > preferring instead to throw out bait for wild goose chases.
>
> Yet another whitewashing of what actually took place in our discussion.
> If you would take the time to go back over our posts, you would see that
> every step in our argument so far has been a response to a specific
> previous contention, all the way back to your summary of Lambda.
> Granted, our discussion has been long, so I don’t blame you for having
> difficulty remembering how the present state of our discussion
> ultimately derived from specific objections to your Lambda explication.
> But that’s no excuse for mischaracterizing this as an “avoidance” of
> your Lambda analysis.
>
> > ME: You are totally confused, and there is probably no point in talking further on this whole
> > issue, since I think you have a very faulty notion of what ontology is. We are completely at
> > loggerheads already at square one, viz. on how _to on haei on_ is to be understood. That’s why
> > I continually have the impression that your understanding is upside down. Now I see what you
> > are doing: You have set up a dichotomy between the ontic and the ontological, and practise
> > border-hopping between the two, usually ending on the side of ontic. Thus, you cross from
> > _eidos_ in general to an _eidos_ in particular such as a ball or a glass as if crossing from
> > the ontological to the ontic. Sheer nonsense. Each being, such as a ball or a glass, presents
> > its ’sight’ qua being, in the first case the ’sight’ of a ball, in the second case, the
> > ’sight’ of a glass. And we human beings are able to see these ontological, eidetic ’sights’
> > presented by each being in showing itself AS what it is. You, by contrast, imagine that there
> > is the naked being ontically as a ball or a glass, but this is impossible for, to be a being,
> > each being must present the sight of what it is in each particular case.. In other words, it is
> > impossible for there to be a dichotomy between the ontic and the ontological, and it is
> > impossible for a being to show itself, so to speak, naked, but ALWAYS ONLY in its beingness,
> > i.e. in its sight which it shows.
>
> I thought it would have been clear that I wasn’t saying that a being
> itself could actually show itself as ontically naked, without its
> beingness. I thought it would have been clear that I was talking about
> the various aspects in which beings are *considered* in the various
> sciences. I hope that would be clear now?
>
> > ME: Oh dear! What makes the ball a ball is its _eidos_ which, in this particular example, is
> > roundness. _ti_ (what) is the first category. In this example, the ‘what’ is ‘a ball’, and so
> > the example runs in terms of roundness and suchlike. Your confusion is endless on very simple
> > things. It’s as if Aristotle’s analysis of the metaphysics of poiaesis were restricted to
> > making houses because that’s his favourite example (for which the _eidos_, an ONTOLOGICAL
> > element, is ‘house’). Then everything made would have to be a house. Your way out is that,
> > when you fail to understand something ontologically, you hop across the border and resort to a
> > mere ontic understanding. Thus you have an ontological cause and ontic causes, and so on.
>
> My analysis is forgotten in your cartoonish characterization. Eidos
> *simply* may be universal to all beings (since every being has its
> eidos), but then metaphysics considers eidos *only* insofar as it is
> universal, not as this or that specific eidos - for example, not
> house-eidos or round-eidos, or as movable or IMMOVABLE. Not every ousia
> CAN be movable or CAN be immovable, so these are clearly not universal.
> By my reading, on the other hand, it is perfectly clear why the
> immovable is a metaphysical consideration even though it is not
> universal to all beings - namely, metaphysics is also a consideration of
> first ontic causes, and the immovable ousia is precisely that.
>
> >>> ME: Not at all. AS _archai_, the keel, foundation of a house, father or
> >>> mother, etc. are
> >>> ONTOLOGICAL because _archae_ is their mode of being, their beingness, in
> >>> each case.
> >> AC: In each case, the archai is an individual being - the archae of the ship
> >> is a being - the keel; of the house, a being - the foundation, etc. The
> >> archae of each thing is not beingness, but a being. To be the archae of
> >> the ship does not belong to the keel insofar as it is a being, since if
> >> that were the case, ALL beings would be the archae of the ship, since
> >> all beings are beings. These meanings of archae are therefore not
> >> ontological, since they are not about these beings insofar as they are
> >> simply beings.
> >
> > ME: This is really silly. As soon as one discusses an example there is, of course, a
> > particularization, but the move from the universal to the particular is precisely not the jump
> > across the border from the ontological to the ontic.
>
> You’re not the only one who thinks this is really silly. Of course every
> particular archae is an archae simply, but that’s not what Aristotle is
> talking about in the above specific *meaning* (among the other meanings
> he gives) of archae in Met. Delta 1. Some meanings are ontical and
> limited, others more universal. Nor should you conflate the issue with
> the ridiculous misunderstanding that I’m claiming that a particular
> archae can therefore exhibit its particularity “nakedly,” without its
> universal aspect as an archae simply.
>
> > ME. Yes, it IS basic, and you’ve got it completely wrong, I’m sorry to have to say. The
> > investigation of beings in their beingness has a manifold answer which includes, inter alia,
> > cause as a mode of being, and material cause as one of these causes. But that by no means
> > entails that every being has to be in the mode of being of material cause to be a being, and
> > such a claim indicates utter cluelessness.
>
> You are conflating a cause as cause (simply) with cause as specifically
> a *material* cause. Causality is universal to all beings, but *material*
> causality is not, since physicality is not universal.
>
> > And in general, a being does not have to
> > instantiate all the possible categories and ontological determinations to be a being. Lack or
> > negation (_steraeis_) is also an ontological category.
>
> Steraesis is universal (and therefore a metaphysical consideration)
> precisely because any and every being *can* be negated (at least
> propositionally).
>
> >> AC: The parts of water are not elements of water insofar as they are beings,
> >> but insofar as they are first constituents of something. Not every being
> >> is a first constituent, so being a first constituent doesn’t belong to
> >> simple beingness, and therefore doesn’t belong to the consideration of
> >> being insofar as its simple beingness! It *does*, however, belong to the
> >> consideration of first causes.
> >
> > ME: Utter confusion. You cannot distinguish between a general statement and an example. To
> > invoke ‘constituent’ is already to invoke an ontological category. That is, there is no such
> > thing as a naked ontic constituent.
>
> How you think I am implying that an element can be a naked ontic
> constituent is beyond me. The fact that a *science* like metaphysics can
> consider one aspect of beings to the exclusion of the others hardly
> implies that *beings* can actually show one aspect of themselves to the
> exclusion of the others. Your attempted reductio is philosophically
> mystifying.
>
> >>> ME: Each empirically observed celestial movement has the same _eidos_,
> >>> namely the circle.
> >>> There is no way to deduce ontologically the number 55. Nor is there any
> >>> ‘ontic’ ‘deduction’; you just have to count them empirically.
> >> AC: What is “them”? The spheres? But he says that there aren’t just 55
> >> spheres, but also 55 immovable movers (Met. 1074a15). He counts the
> >> spheres empirically, but then deduces that there must be the same number
> >> of immovable movers. So if immovable mover here meant beingness, then
> >> you would have Aristotle affirming 55 beingnesses. This non-sensical
> >> result disappears, of course, if the immovable mover is what I and
> >> almost every commentator in history have taken it to mean - an ontic being.
> >
> > ME: From the empirically observed movements he deduces the causes, so they have the same
> > number.
>
> Your wording is conspicuously awkward on this issue - you have to count
> “them” empirically, “they” have the same number. Such strategic
> indefiniteness covers up the glaring problem that would immediately
> appear upon specification of what “them” and “they” are here - the
> immovable movers, read by you as “beingness.” How can you number
> “beingness”? If the “cause” here is “beingness,” not an ontic being,
> then what could it possibly mean to have 55 “beingnesses”? This is what
> you continually sidestep with your indefinite wording. The fact is, 55
> “beingnesses” makes absolutely no sense. That’s a big problem for your
> reading.
>

Posted on Tuesday, February 26th, 2008 at 11:00 am
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