Heidegger

michaelP wrote:

>Joe sums it up:

>>in any event, saying ‘I am human’ doesn’t answer the question ‘is the
>>human individual more than just a human body?’. In Heideggerian
>>jargon, ‘is there Being or a being within the human?.

>>so, we still don’t know what a human is.

>>I still know that I am; but, not what I am.

>I think, Joe, that one needn’t ask the post-cartesian question as to
>whether the human (being) is more than a human body (another being
>alongside the body-being, if you like). The very question assumes the
>presence of at least two beings to ‘account’ for human-being: and this
>immediately falls into the very (almost quantitative) problem opened up
>by post-cartesian thinking (to be one or two, that is the question) to
>which your current questioning is heir.

>[BTW, “Being” {for Heidegger} is not “within {or without} the human”
>since it is not a being, not some thing; and (a) “being” is anything
>that can be said to be at all {for Heidegger} — just to get your
>”Heideggerian jargon” at least proximally in the right ball park]

>So, if we don’t ask the ‘one-or-two-being’ question and instead (since
>this is a Heidegger list) go along for a moment (leaving aside the
>post-cartesian question) with a ‘formula’ from Heidegger, roughly:
>human-being (da-sein) is the being that puts beings (and thus be-ing)
>into question, we can immediately see *that* you, Joe, are a human
>being, and that ‘formula’ also answers your question of *what* you are
>(a being that questions beings {including the being that you are
>yourself}).

>So Joe, is that not a good starting point that avoids (at least,
>momentarily) the post-cartesian problematic of the body as something
>wholly or partially identifiable with the human being?

the trouble with this answer (’a being’) to the question ‘what am I’ or
‘what is a human’ is that it is not very informative. if anything that
is (in any sense) is a being, saying ‘I am a being’ adds no further
information beyond what ‘I am’ provides.

the ‘formula’ adds further information: I am this which brings into
itself the question of being a being, is there an I-3?

I recognize this formula (however formulated) as a definition of a mode
of being that is distinctively human because I recognize that it
accurately describes this I — presupposing that I am an experiencer of
reflective self-awareness. consequently, we’re on the right track.
however, having this formula only means that I pose a question for I to
answer.

you seem to think that the formula “also answers your question of *what*
you are”.

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 Sunday, October 12th, 2008 at 6:03 am
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