Heidegger

Joe goes along this path:

> 1. Heidegger attributes a first-person perspective to dasein and
> illustrates its use by having dasein utter ‘I am’ — the same statement
> Descartes says is necessarily true. I don’t think we’re going to be able
> to discuss the ultimate philosophical catastrophe, sinking into the
> quagmire of SIS, without wondering how this statement, ‘I am’, is true
> when dasein says it; but, false when Descartes says it.

Firstly, I’m not aware of Heidegger ‘perspectivising’ any kind of ‘person’
when speaking dasein-speech; secondly, da-sein is neither a thing nor a
state of affairs, rather an open-ness to be-ing, rather more: that might be
a good way to think da-sein instead of identifying da-sein with some notion
of an individual human-thing (whilst it is the case that da-sein might
appear as/in a human-body/spirit-thing, this being {the appearance as/of a
thing} is what *covers* its da-sein {like the cover of a book: Heidegger
reads the book, if you like}). Furthermore, as Anthony has said, da-sein
mostly appears as ‘the they’ in its everydayness and not the “I” of “I am”
where such an “I” is virtually synonymous with the ‘ego’ (of psychology, of
post-Cartesian thinking, of commonsense).

Thirdly, (forgive me if I missed it earlier) what is “SIS”?

Fourthly, Heidegger’s thinking is far more subtle and incisive than you
perhaps are giving it credit for and his thinking is not at all averse to
stepping into “quagmires” and not avoiding ‘voids’ and contradictions
(vicious and viscous circles); rather it engages them and reveals their
structures. Remember in Plato’s myth at the end of the _Politea_ that those
who step into the field of _lethe_ need to drink a little of the waters of
the river (called _Ameles_ = carefree) in order to return with the capacity
to engage _a-lethia_, philosophical ‘truth’, dis-closure…

regards

michaelP

Posted on Saturday, March 15th, 2008 at 8:00 am
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