Heidegger

In a message dated 11/09/2007 12:12:42 GMT Standard Time,
_artefact at t-online.de_ (mailto:artefact@t-online.de) writes: Cologne 11-Sep-2007

michaelP schrieb Tue, 11 Sep 2007 06:27:15 +0100:

MichaelE donated this just now:

“Etwas Rätselhaftes, daß etwas ist als das, was es zugleich nicht ist.”
Martin Heidegger _Platon: Sophistes_ GA19:580

“Somewhat perplexing that something is as that which, at the same time, it
is not.” Martin Heidegger _Platon: Sophistes_

Michael, can you provide a broader textual con-text for Heidegger’s
entanglement of being and non-being? How does this fragment arise amongst its fellow
(e. g., fore and aft) text fragments? Once again, Heraclitus pops up (for me)
with his diapheremenon and synpheremenon [’scuse spellink]… although the
fragment to which I refer vaguely here [can’t remember which number this mo’]
rather speaks of being {it} falling apart as {it is} coming together,
something that is differing from its self… that {is} difference-qua-difference?

Eldred the Ontologically Unready Writes:
The Heraclitus connection is rather vague and tenuous in this context. The
page no. (p. 580) indicates that it’s late in the day. Plato’s Stranger is
closing in on the sophist, who has put up all sorts of strategems and tricky
manoeuvres to avoid capture. The sophist’s last supporters are Parmenides and
Antisthenes who enable him to claim that his way of speaking, his _logos, cannot
possibly be false. What I quoted from Heidegger is a formulation of Plato’s
task: to show that a false _logos_ is indeed possible. Before that, he had
disposed of the sophist’s line of defence that non-being, _to mae on_, is
impossible because, according to Parmenides, there is only being, and non-being
_is_ not at all. Parmenides therefore warns against the path of non-being,
which should be avoided altogether. The sophist uses Parmenides’ ontology to
bolster his claim that it is impossible for him, the sophist, to say what is
not/(does not exist).

But through his famous dialectic of the _genae_ (genuses, stems) _on,
kinaesis, stasis, t’auton, heteron_, Plato shows via the idea of _heteron_, i. e.
of the other and otherness, that the _mae on_ is/exists. Otherness as a FACET
OF BEING allows the one being to be different from the other. That is, the
negation of the one being does not lead to nothing, i. e. no being at all, but
to the other. The other as opposite is the _mae on_ of the one. This is one of
Plato’s most important discoveries — how otherness enables a non-being to
_be_ in a certain way, namely, as the opposite (_antithesis_) of something
else (e. g. the ugly as the non-being of the beautiful).

But Plato has to go further, because the sophist can object, “OK, a
non-being is possible, but you still haven’t shown that the _logos_ can be connected
with a non-being”. That is, the sophist now challenges the Stranger/Plato to
demonstrate that a false _logos_ is at all possible. This goes against
Antisthenes’ doctrine that says the _logos_ can only be linked with a being,
identifying the being as the same, _t’auton_, and not with _to heteron_. Plato
therefore sets out to analyze the _logos_ to show how otherness and therefore
falsehood is possible within it.

The crucial clue to the solution is that every _logos_ is a _logos ti peri
tinos_ — every speaking is a saying something about something, i. e. every
_logos_ uncovers a being _as_ something. This so-called triviality is the key to
solving one of the most perplexing problems, because, as Plato goes on to
demonstrate, the _as_ contains the possibility of both truth and falsity, of
same and other.

All philosophical questioning starts with a self-evident triviality, and
only singular genius is able to discover the abyssal mystery in it. But today
more than ever there is a refusal and inability to think philosophically, and in
its stead prevail prejudices, complacency and an air of superiority that
does not allow itself to be troubled by seemingly self-evident trivialities.. The
simplest is overlooked.

_ta gar taes toon polloon psychaes ommata karterein pros to theion
ophoroonta adynata_ i. e. _taei tou ontos ideai_ (Sophist 254a) “Namely, the eyes of
the multitude’s psyche are unable to persevere in looking at the divine”
(Sophist 254a), i. e. “the idea of beings”, the facets of being that make up the
world’s complexion.

Jud:
Parmenides provided a compelling reason-based argument in poetic form
regarding the way we talk about the non-existent abstraction ‘Being,’ which
recommended that all reference to such non-existents should be eliminated from
human discourse. It is a curious fact of language that the very mention of ‘
non-existents’ immediately instantiates the concept of such will o’ the wisps in
the human brain, and even introduces a dimension of concrecity to what is
merely neurological activity which can lead to the nominalised reified
abstraction being referred to conceptually and treated grammatically, syntactically,
semantically and sententially as if it did in fact exist.

Non-being, for Parmenides is infeasible as meaningful language because only ‘
being, (that which exists) exists, and non-being (‘to mae on,) ’is’ not.
Parmenides may well conclude that such a way is ‘unthinkable,’ but a lot
depends upon what Parmenides meant by the word ‘unthinkable.* The word has two
meanings:

(1) Incapable of being thought about, conceived or considered because it
does not exist to be thought about, conceived or considered.

(2) Out of the question, in the sense that it is vigorously rejected as a
general policy or behaviour.

The dialectical dickhead Plato falls into the trap of believing (which the
wretched Meinong did hundreds of years later) that just to think about
something implies that it exists in some way. Though I admire Parmenides’ radical
eliminativism (are we dealing with the first eliminativist in history?) I think
he takes his eliminativism a bit too far. Though I am in complete agreement
with him that to reify such non-existents is unacceptable, I do not agree
that such practices invalidates it as a useful fictive element of human
discourse. I my view it is enough to educate people as to dangers of reifying such
abstractions. If they are made aware of such word forms and warned of the
dangers of objectifying such conceptual instantiations as ‘Being’ and ‘Nothing’
(as was the case with ontologically-challenged Heidegger,) there is no need
to denude our language of such useful fictions if we can accommodate
ourselves to their use as useful linguistic tools.

For me such abstractions [denotata-less word-forms] and reifications are
vitally important linguistic elements that enable us to talk about the
visible experiential world in which we find ourselves . That certain inferior and
cruder, (surface-only) forms of philosophy accept such linguistic
conveniences as being real is regrettable – but it is surely too much to ask that
anyone who studies and practices philosophical enquiry is automatically
perceptive and wise? Some thinkers come to philosophy already attenuated and weighed
down with the bulky baggage of a bygone bullshit. Such abstractions are the
stuff of poetry, literature, philosophy and science. We have a need to be able
to talk about *Being* and *Not Being* in order to render accounts of our
world as it really is and argue against the continental fantasists, just like a
knowledge of biblical terminology helps one oppose the evil of religion, but
we do NOT have any need to reify AND BELIEVE IN the existence of the
abstractions that we use as convenient umbrella words to communicate such worldly
observations.

As to the childish nonsense of using the idea of heteron or *the other* as a
*facet of being* for hoisting the brave petard of *to mae on* in order to
proclaim the existence of *non-existence?* Well excuse me while I make a
quick dash to my en-suite vomitarium [a vital item in the washroom of any student
of Heidegger.]

*To mae on* is NOT an *other* or *the other* – it is A NON-OTHER of *Being.*
*Being* a non-existent itself and therefore it cannot HAVE *another.*
*Being* does not exist - a fact which many on this list including MichaelP
[and Heidegger himself] have always denied the existence of anyway. *Being* as a
term for that which exists is an ontological non-runner anyway for every
object in the universe is changing and BECOMING another version of itself.
*Being* is a physical and ontological impossiblity and if any of you guys out
there have in their possession an object, or know of any object anywher that
DOES NOT change and IS a *being* rather than a becoming object - then let him
make his way immediately to the airport where the SAS jet awaits him or her..

Looks to me like both Plato and the hermeneutically challenged Heidegger
have both been blown to pieces by their own petard even before they had time to
hoist the damn thing? Really some people DO tie themselves up in
presentational knots a lot these days – are they perhaps losing their ontological marbles
completely? Time for a refresher at university perhaps or a spell in a
retreat with Tympan the Trogledyte?

The notion that there exists a thing called *otherness* [difference] which
allows one object to be different from another is ontological non-sense – a
non-sentence which requires that the ‘relationship’ between to objects be
reified, when it is plainly the objects which are related and he or she who
attributed such a relationship. Any perceived ‘relationship’ is an existential
mode of the attributant [addressor] NOT the objects.

If two sisters are each left a Wedgewood plate by their deceased mother and
one resides in London and the other in Canberra it is the sisters who reify
the sentimental *relationship* that is invoked by the related crockery – the
sentiment in a modality of the sisters senses and is not an intrinsically in
the baked clay of the earthenware artifacts. The relationship between the
drive-shaft and the wheels of your car {if that is the technology presupposed by
automobiles is acceptable to Heideggerians, who may not just walk to schule -
but everywhere they go as a obeisance to the master?) is a *relationship*
arranged by the designers and effected on the assembly-line workers - the
*relationship* of two *othernesses* cannot be found in the metal pieces, even
if you melted them down and searches amonst the molten metal with asbestos
gloves. In other words the concept of relationship of two separate of opposite
components is a modality of Plato’s, Heidegger’ and Doc Eldred’s brain - not
of the Wedgewood plates, the car-parts or what is and what isn’t.

Eldred the Ontological Unready Writes:
The other as opposite is the _mae on_ of the one. This is one of Plato’s
most important discoveries — how otherness enables a non-being to _be_ in a
certain way, namely, as the opposite (_antithesis_) of something else (e. g. the
ugly as the non-being of the beautiful).

Jud:
The fact that you are now claiming Plato’s *Greatest Discovery* was that the
negation of the one being does not lead to *nothing,* i. e. no being at all,
but to the *other* prompts the question: *the other WHAT?* Hahahah! It can
oly be…gasp…mean: *THE OTHER OTHER!!! Hahahahah!!!! Oh my God – will somebody
phone Germany and get the Gestapo them to call a bloody ambulance. Hahahaha!
Hahahah! Hahahaha! Hahahaha!

(Turning to his wife) Darling, please get on to the plumber and arrange for
him to install another vomitarium in my study alongside my computer-station –
there’s a love – these ontological idiocies are coming so thick and fast it
leaves me no time to reach the toilet.

Hahahah! Hahahah!

Regards and thank you for the biggest laugh of the new milennium.

Jud
Personal Website: http://evans-experientialism.freewebspac…

“In nuclear war all men are cremated equal.”
Dexter Gordon

Posted on Thursday, September 13th, 2007 at 1:25 pm
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