Heidegger

Anthony Crifasi wrote:

>Joseph Polanik wrote:

>>Heidegger writes:

>>”In the assertions ‘God is’ and ‘the world is’, we assert Being. This
>>word ‘is’, however, cannot be meant to apply to these entities in the
>>same sense, when between them there is an infinite difference of
>>Being; if the signification of ‘is’ were univocal, then what is
>>created would be viewed as if it were uncreated, or the uncreated
>>would be reduced to the status of something created.” [BaT p. 126]

>>of course, my theory is that the ‘naked is’ (the existential
>>construction) asserts the root predicate only. it is left to us to
>>decide what [root predicate]-type is appropriate in a given case; and,
>>that accounts for the multi-vocal ‘is’.

>>Heidegger recognizes that there are different senses of ‘is’.
>>consequently, until I decide what sense is asserted of ‘I’ when I say
>>’I am’, how would I decide whether I am in, of, or alongside the world
>>(even if I previously decided which of the 4 uses of ‘world’ was
>>appropriate)?

>So you are asking why Heidegger prioritizes being-alongside over
>being-inside.

not exactly. Heidegger, like anyone else, can choose where to put his
attention; but, choosing one viewpoint to the exclusion of the other
doesn’t seem like a well-balanced approach to me.

the ‘world’ that is spoken of when one says being-in (in the sense of
inside) is not the same ‘world’ that is spoken of when one says being-in
(in the sense of being-alongside).

using first-person pronouns subscripted by reality type for greater
precision, one might say ‘I-1, this human body, am an existent and I
exist within a world of existing entities of various kinds including
other humans’.

in this statement, which I hope captures the sense of ‘insideness’,
‘world’ is for me a world of reality type 1. this corresponds rather
well to usage 1 in the enumeration Heidegger uses in section 14 of BaT:
“the totality of those entitites which can be present-at-hand within the
world”.

it seems to me that, when Heidegger speaks of being-alongside as opposed
to being-inside the world, he is speaking of usage 3 from his list:
“that ‘wherein’ a factical Dasein as such can be said to ‘live’”.

would you agree?

>There are several avenues we can take with this. I don’t prefer
>Heidegger’s etymological avenue, not because it’s wrong, but because I
>think there is a much more convincing avenue - one which motivated
>Heidegger to break from Husserl. That avenue is that if we prioritize
>being-inside (so that I am a physical being next to other beings, all
>inside the universe), the history of philosophy showed that this leads
>to the complete subjectivization and denial of the world. If I am one
>thing next to other things, the first priority is to figure out how I
>come to be aware of those other beings. That epistemological question
>is what caused Husserl to require that philosophy *begins* by denying
>the metaphysical existence of the world, reducing it to merely the
>world of my experience (something similar to what Descartes does at the
>beginning of the second meditation).

your analysis of the history of philosophy is questionable for two
reasons. first, epistemological concerns only require a suspension of
judgement as to the origin of experience rather than an outright denial
that there is a metaphenomenal world(s) that is the origin of
experience.

secondly, from what I can tell from readings in the contemporary
philosophy of consciousness, defining humans as no more than human
bodies (irregardless of whether we call those bodies ‘existings’ or
‘beings’) more often leads to an excessive objectification than to an
excessive subjectification.

I suspect it would be more accurate to treat Descartes as suspending
judgement as to the origin of experience rather than denying that there
is a metaphenomenal world that is the origin of experience.

>Given that dead end, being-alongside represents an alternative
>starting point that is immune from such epistemological doubts, because
>beings are not posited as physical entities next to one another inside
>a physical universe from the start.

it seems to me that any absence of epistemological doubts associated
with choosing ‘being-alongside’ as a ’starting point’ is due to a
failure to ask the right questions rather than to any natural immunity
this starting point gives.

unless Heidegger has somehow prohibited others from expressing his
(Heidegger’s) philosophy in the first person, anyone may translate
“Dasein is an entity which in each case I myself am” into something like
“I am myself *this* … whatever this is”. anyone who makes such an
observation may ask the obvious follow-up question ‘what am I?’.

the question is not about the relation (being-in vs being-alongside) to
the world. it is about the internal structure of I, this which I am.

is a human any more than a human body with a highly developed capacity
for reflective self-awareness?

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, February 29th, 2008 at 12:20 pm
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