Heidegger

Cologne 11-Dec-2007

Joseph Polanik schrieb Tue, 11 Dec 2007 06:49:36 -0500:

> >>JP: we both accept the statement ‘I am’ as true; and; we both ask
> >>’what’ about something; but, notice how the road forks at this point.
>
> >ME: Of course to pose questions we usually ask “What is…?” (although
> >using the word ‘what’ easily can be avoided by saying e.g., “Let us
> >pose the question concerning…).
>
> JP: that will almost always introduce unnecessary ambiguity as to *which*
> question is being posed.
>
> >ME: Using ‘What … ?’ does not preclude making its own meaning into a
> >question, which precisely has been done in the philosophical tradition.
>
> JP: in any event, I have no objection to making ‘what’ an object of
> inquiry.
> indeed, if you’ll recall, I’ve previously posted some material
> concerning the difference between asking ‘what am I?’ and asking ‘who am
> I?’
>
> >ME: My original statement from which you have snipped a part reads: “Just
>
> >as with the simple observation that “It is” confronts the philosophical
> >questioner with the quandary of what “is” means, so, too, does the
> >simple intuition, “I am”,confront the philosophical questioner with the
> >quandary of what “am” means.”
>
> >>JP: you proceed from this point by asking, “what does ‘am’ mean?”. I
> >>proceed from this point by asking, “what is the referent of ‘I’?”.
>
> >ME: You can’t dissect ‘I’ from ‘am’ in this way because ‘I’ already
> >belongs to “all that is”
>
> JP: the referent of ‘I’ is included in ‘all that is’.
>
> >ME: so asking the question concerning ‘I’ simultaneously implies a
> >clarification of ‘I am’. Similarly, asking the question concerning ‘am’
> >only makes sense as a clarification of ‘I am’.
>
> JP: so far, this would not be objectionable.
>
> >ME: And ‘I am’ can only be clarified in connection with the overarching
> >question concerning being
>
> JP: ‘I am’ can be clarified by choosing a root predicate of which there are
>
> three reasonable candidates in english: ‘existence’, ‘being’ and
> ‘reality’. you have assumed without questioning that one must choose
> ‘being’; and, given this article of faith, it may make sense to you to
> claim that “‘I am’ can only be clarified in connection with the
> overarching question concerning being”.
>
> however, questioning this article of faith leads to the recognition that
> one must choose a root predicate; and, this renders irrelevant the
> linguistic history of the word chosen for the root predicate.
>
> do you deny this? do you deny that all of your speculations concerning
> the meaning of ‘being’ become irrelevant when someone chooses
> ‘existence’ or ‘reality’ as their root predicate?

ME: I have not argued against your Axiom 0 by providing “speculations
concerning
the meaning of ‘being’” nor “the linguistic history of the word chosen for
the root predicate”. I did, however, refer to the history of philosophy for
which the question concerning being was there from the start. For any
philosophical thinking today, that reference must provide a clue.

>
> >ME: My observation was that in referring to “all that is”, one can
> >already say that it is. ‘Is’ is already the predicate predicated for
> >”all that is”.
>
> JP: here you are simply making up a rule of grammar to suit yourself. ‘is’
> by itself is not a predicate; but, its implicit complement would be a
> predicate.
>

ME: I don’t have to make up a rule of grammar, but merely point out that the
simplest sentence consists of a subject and something said about that
subject, i.e. a predicate. That is hardly controversial since Plato and
Aristotle (and the Alexandrinian grammarians followed Plato and Aristotle).
Of “all that is” one can simply say, “It is”. Thus “is” is already invoked as
predicate before you get a chance to choose your so-called “root predicate”.

Your escape from this dilemma has been to declare “is” to be not a predicate,
but a “copula” which necessarily must not say (predicate) anything at all in
order to avoid being a predicate. Unfortunately, “is” does say something, and
is a perfectly acceptable predicate for the simplest of all sentences.

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Posted on Tuesday, December 11th, 2007 at 10:10 pm
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