Heidegger

Reply to Errors, Misrepresentations and Irrelevancies

6. Axiomatic Language Not Axiomatic Ontology

>[ME]: I am saying that attempting an axiomatic approach to ontology is
>untenable

Axiom 0 is the ground of an axiomatic language not an axiomatic
ontology.

in the abstract, I will call this axiomatic language ‘humanese’. when
english is used in a conforming way, I will call it ‘humanese english’
or ‘HE’ to contrast it with vernacular or vulgar english, ‘VE’.
naturally, when french conforms to the axioms of humanese, it could
justifiable be called ‘humanese french’.

in any event, humanese is a language in which to ‘do’ (report, translate
or conduct) psychophilosophical inquiry. by ‘psychophilosophical’ I mean
concerned (in some direct or indirect way) with the question ‘what am
I?’ or its third person version ‘what is the structure of the human
individual’

I limit psychophilosophical to this domain because there can be only one
true answer to the question, ‘what is the structure of the human
individual?’. thus, psychophilosophy has the potential to become a
science; hence, the desireability of an axiomatic language.

in any event, I am not doing axiomatic ontology. by defining ‘existence’
‘being’ and ‘reality’ as I have done, I don’t require you to admit that
there is what I call ‘being’, an immaterial, metaphenomenal reality. you
can deny that there any reality of type 3. you can admit there is but
deny that there is an I-3 (a component of the human individual that is
or has being). you can remain agnostic about either of these questions.

the point of humanese is to allow the results of psychophilosophical
inquiry to be reported in a language that is as neutral as possible —
to allow disputes to be conducted in a language that does not give one
side or the other a rhetorical advantage.

whence came such a project? I was inspired by the same insight that
motivated Heidegger to say “Language is the house of Being” [Letter on
Humanism]; but, naturally, I would say ‘language is the house of all
that is’. I’m just trying to make the windows as transparent as
possible.

the problem with Heidegger’s formulation is that it is ego-centric and,
therefore, self-deceptive. Heidegger uses ‘being’ as his root predicate;
but, shows no sign of understanding that ‘being’ is but one word among
several that might be choosen as a root predicate.

similarly, he uses ‘Being’, the collective form of ‘being’, as a name
for ‘all that is’; but, shows no sign of understanding that this, too,
is but one choice among many.

I am generalizing Heidegger by uncovering the logically prior level on
which his idosyncratic, egocentric jargon depends.

are we clear on that? humanese is an axiomatic language; not an
axiomatic ontology.

of course, I may express in humanese english my own opinions as to what
there is; but, as Anthony has demonstrated, one can use my terminology
to express a contrary opinion as well.

Joe

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

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 http://what-am-i.net
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Posted on Friday, December 28th, 2007 at 4:35 pm
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