Heidegger

We seem to have this same debate once every few years, each time
advancing (I think) a little more. So let’s spit and shake that the next
time this comes up, I’ll be fluent in Greek, and you’ll be well versed
in the ancient Greek commentaries. That way, by the time one of us dies,
the dispute should be solved.

Michael Eldred wrote:
> 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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> 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.
>>
>
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Posted on Tuesday, February 26th, 2008 at 4:20 pm
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