The opening section of the third chapter of Hubert Dryfus’ treatise on Being and Time concerns itself with explaining the “being-in” of Dasein. Dryfus tells us “Heidegger calls the activity of existing, ‘being-in-the-world.’” (40) He then sets out distinguishing “being-in-the-world” as an existential concept rather than the more common reading, one might suspect, of the term as referring to a metaphysical concept. As one might suspect, a good chunk of this explanation turns on his discussion of the “being-in” part of “being-in-the-world”.
Dryfus begins by noting the priority with which we treat “in” as it refers an object contained within another object in space. He goes on to juxtapose this common interpretation of the preposition against the “primordial sense of ‘in’ [which] is ‘to reside’, ‘to dwell’.” (42) To dwell and reside are active ways of being, Operating with this understanding we are faced with the problem of being first, and objective in-ness only afterwards. Thus the usual manner of understanding “in” as a relationship between objects is not basic but subsidiary to being-in-the-world.
This distinguishing exercise is supplemented by a discussion on the distinction between what Dryfus calls the metaphorical/literal distinction in language. One reading of Heidegger’s concept of being-in has it that “in” is used metaphorically. This view has it that “being in trouble” is metaphorical since one cannot literally be in trouble: trouble is not one thing in which another can occupy space. This reading misses the take-home message regarding being-in as relating to residing and actively engaging. “Heidegger wants us to see that at an early stage of language the distinction metaphorical/literal has not yet emerged.” (42) Being in trouble is not only metaphorical, it is also contextually definable in the being which finds itself troubled in the world.
From here Dryfus turns towards relating being-in to being-in-the-world. “Being-in as being involved is definitive of Dasein.” (43) As such, Dasein is by defined by its involvement in a world. Further, “Dasein alone can be touched, that is, moved, by objects and other Daseins,” and it is due to the involvement of Dasein with objects and other Daseins that Dasein comes to acquire know-how. “Not only is Dasein's activity conditioned by cultural interpretations of facts about its body, such as being male or female, but since Dasein must define itself in terms of social roles that require certain activities, and since its roles require equipment, Dasein is at the mercy of factual events and objects in its environment. (44)” This last point is what pushes us from being-in to being-in-the world, what we have translated as being-alongside and what Dreyfus calls being-amidst: “What Heidegger is getting at is a mode of being-in we might call "inhabiting." When we inhabit something, it is no longer an object for us but becomes part of us and pervades our relation to other objects in the world.“ (45) This pervasive feature of my objects as they relate to my being and other beings has been obscured by the tradition, even though it “is Dasein's basic way of being-in-the-world.” (45)
"A Preliminary Sketch of Being-in-the-World, Section I: Being-in" by Hubert Dryfus in Being-in-the-world : A Commentary On Heidegger's Being and Time, Division I, Cambridge: MIT Press, 1991.
Thursday, September 20, 2007
Wednesday, September 12, 2007
Response to Husain Sarkar
Question: Taking into account sections II and III of Chapter I as well as the prisoner’s dilemma, how would you as an individual scientist structure your society of scientists?
In practice the crux of this question turns not only on the structure I choose for my group of scientists but also on the capacities of a single individual scientist amongst his fellow scientists. I assume we are to overlook this practical problem.
In theory the answer to the question depends on the approach: one approach would be to give my (rather naïve) particular appreciation for what constitutes the best structure for a society of scientists. Another approach, the one I am inclined toward, is to do a study of many individual structures and combinations of those structures against one another in some principled manner in order to discover the optimal structure for a group of scientists. My preference rests with my inclination that what I fancy as the best structure of a society will in all likelihood differ from one of my colleague’s favorite structure, and so going about things in that route will bring me to a political impasse. That is, the former approach is subjective in the worst sense.
The problem with the latter approach lies in analyzing structures. The intuitive method would be to lay out each structure in some list, choose one and compare it against the very next structure on the list. Whichever structure turns out to be better is next compared to the third structure on the list, then the victor of the this comparison is compared against the fourth structure, and so on until we have finished the list. One potential problem with this approach lies in the assumption that there are finitely many structures (and hence combinations of these structures) in principle (since this approach is theoretical). If there are infinitely many structures then our work is never done: for any finite list of structures our analysis will give us a victorious structure (or group of structures), but we must then compare it to one of the infinitely many structures that did not appear on our list, and again ad infinitum, in order to arrive at the best structure. So there’s one hitch. Another, as I alluded to above, is the problem of choosing between two structures that yield equal scientific results. This problem may never arise (note: the previous problem cannot arise in its principled form; it is more-or-less a specter over the entire method), but it remains a problem for the theoretician.
The big assumption of this approach, though, is that one can compare scientific structures, which according to Kuhn is impossible. This assumption is a playing field for further problems: what is to be compared in scientific structures, results or principles (or norms if you prefer)? If we answer “results” then how are we to valuate the results of any member of a set of theories? Here the answer is always “against some standard”, but implicit in this response lies a presupposed standard. I will leave this regress here, but I trust one will note that we need not. Alternatively if we answer “principles” then we are left with the same problem as we encountered when we responded “results”: what is the standard to which we evaluate principles? Again, this is necessary if we are to compare structures. That given two structures an individual scientist can respond to the question “Which structure is best?” with “theory a” or “theory b” does not get us out of this theoretical impasse. Unless there is an underlying principle or method for determining which response the scientist should make we are left with the problem of comparing scientific structures theoretically.
So the answer to the question for my part has to be that at the moment I am completely unable of choosing a structure for scientists in a non-ad hoc way. So let me choose the option I am most fond of right off of the top of my head: structure the group in accord with the principle that each scientist should practice in their own specialized field only as much as their scientific principles that are reconcilable across scientific domains allow, and to otherwise work with one another to resolve conflicts between principles that are irreconcilable over scientific domains. This principle intends for a homogenous scientific edifice.
In practice the crux of this question turns not only on the structure I choose for my group of scientists but also on the capacities of a single individual scientist amongst his fellow scientists. I assume we are to overlook this practical problem.
In theory the answer to the question depends on the approach: one approach would be to give my (rather naïve) particular appreciation for what constitutes the best structure for a society of scientists. Another approach, the one I am inclined toward, is to do a study of many individual structures and combinations of those structures against one another in some principled manner in order to discover the optimal structure for a group of scientists. My preference rests with my inclination that what I fancy as the best structure of a society will in all likelihood differ from one of my colleague’s favorite structure, and so going about things in that route will bring me to a political impasse. That is, the former approach is subjective in the worst sense.
The problem with the latter approach lies in analyzing structures. The intuitive method would be to lay out each structure in some list, choose one and compare it against the very next structure on the list. Whichever structure turns out to be better is next compared to the third structure on the list, then the victor of the this comparison is compared against the fourth structure, and so on until we have finished the list. One potential problem with this approach lies in the assumption that there are finitely many structures (and hence combinations of these structures) in principle (since this approach is theoretical). If there are infinitely many structures then our work is never done: for any finite list of structures our analysis will give us a victorious structure (or group of structures), but we must then compare it to one of the infinitely many structures that did not appear on our list, and again ad infinitum, in order to arrive at the best structure. So there’s one hitch. Another, as I alluded to above, is the problem of choosing between two structures that yield equal scientific results. This problem may never arise (note: the previous problem cannot arise in its principled form; it is more-or-less a specter over the entire method), but it remains a problem for the theoretician.
The big assumption of this approach, though, is that one can compare scientific structures, which according to Kuhn is impossible. This assumption is a playing field for further problems: what is to be compared in scientific structures, results or principles (or norms if you prefer)? If we answer “results” then how are we to valuate the results of any member of a set of theories? Here the answer is always “against some standard”, but implicit in this response lies a presupposed standard. I will leave this regress here, but I trust one will note that we need not. Alternatively if we answer “principles” then we are left with the same problem as we encountered when we responded “results”: what is the standard to which we evaluate principles? Again, this is necessary if we are to compare structures. That given two structures an individual scientist can respond to the question “Which structure is best?” with “theory a” or “theory b” does not get us out of this theoretical impasse. Unless there is an underlying principle or method for determining which response the scientist should make we are left with the problem of comparing scientific structures theoretically.
So the answer to the question for my part has to be that at the moment I am completely unable of choosing a structure for scientists in a non-ad hoc way. So let me choose the option I am most fond of right off of the top of my head: structure the group in accord with the principle that each scientist should practice in their own specialized field only as much as their scientific principles that are reconcilable across scientific domains allow, and to otherwise work with one another to resolve conflicts between principles that are irreconcilable over scientific domains. This principle intends for a homogenous scientific edifice.
Tuesday, September 11, 2007
The Tragic Sense of Life; Ch. IV
"And it was around this dogma, inwardly experienced by Paul, the dogma of the resurrection and immortality of Christ, the guarantee of the resurrection and immortality of each believer, that the whole of Christology was built up." pp. 56
"And the end of redemption ... was to save us from death ... or from sin [only] in so far as sin implies death." pp.57
"[W]hich is the real Christ? Is it, indeed, that so-called historical Christ of rationalist exegesis who is diluted for us in a myth or in a social atom?" pp.57
"Athanasius had the supreme audacity of faith, that of asserting things mutualy contradictory..." pp. 58
"In truth, [Catholic dogma] drew closer to life, which is contra-rational and opposed to clear thinking. Not only are judgements of worth never rationalizable -- they are anit-rational." pp.58
"Fundamentally [the Sacrament of the Eucharist] is concerned with ... the eating and drinking of God, the Eternalizer, the feeding upon Him." pp.59 This passage comes off as hellishly metal to me.
Funny quote from St. Teresa (one of 'em; not ours): "for I had told him how much I delighted in Hosts of a large size. Yet I was not ignorant that the size of the Host is of no moment, for I knew that our Lord is whole and entire in the smallest particle." pp.59-60
"It was from Kant, in spite of what orthodox Protestants may think of him, that Protestantism derived its penultimate conclusions--namely, that religion rests upon morality, and not morality upon religion, as in Catholicism." pp. 60
"For my part, I cannot conceive the liberty of a heart or the tranquillity of a conscience that are not sure of their perdurability after death." pp. 62
"[T]he highest artistic expression of Catholicism, or at least of Spanish Catholicism, is in the art that is most material, tangible, and permanent ... in sculpture and painting, in the Christ of Velasquez, that Christ who is for ever dying, yet never finishes dying, in order that he may give us life." pp. 62-3 I love that last part.
"No modern religion can leave ethics on one side." pp. 63 How many contemporary ethical theories have left religion to the side?
A doubtlessly honest yet disturbing comment: "And Christ said: "Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do," and there is no man who perhaps knows what he does. But it has been necessary, for the benefit of the social order, to convert religion into a kind of police system, and hence hell." pp. 63, emphasis added
"The gravest sin is not to obey the Church, whose infallibility protects us from reason." pp. 64, yet who will save us from the Church if that is where our faith lies? No one. No some. Only natural destruction in such a case, and we are bound to experience that!
Wow: "The Church defends life. It stood up against Galileo, and it did right; for his discovery, in its inception and until it became assimilated to the general body of human knowledge, tended to shatter the anthropomorphic belief that the universe was created for man." pp. 64, is there any wonder why conceptual and technological advances were in such short supply during the Middle Ages and the reign of the Church? And this is a terribly intelligent theological perspective.
"Do not the Modernists see that the question at issue is not so much that of the immortal life of Christ, reduced, perhaps, to a life in the collective Christian consciousness, as that of a guarantee of our own personal resurrection of body as well as soul?" pp. 65, I think Harry Frankfurt has some pertinent material concerning what is playing out in the background of this comment.
"Here you have the Catholic hall-mark--the deduction of the truth of a principle from its supreme goodness or utility. And what is there of greater, of more sovereign utility, than the immortality of the soul?" pp. 66
"[Religion] feared the excesses of the imagination which was supplanting faith and creating gnostic extravagances. But it had to sign a kind of pact with gnosticism and another with rationalism; neither imagination nor reason allowed itself to be completely vanquished. Amd thus the body of Catholic dogma became a system of contradictions, more or less successfully harmonized." pp. 68
"And the end of redemption ... was to save us from death ... or from sin [only] in so far as sin implies death." pp.57
"[W]hich is the real Christ? Is it, indeed, that so-called historical Christ of rationalist exegesis who is diluted for us in a myth or in a social atom?" pp.57
"Athanasius had the supreme audacity of faith, that of asserting things mutualy contradictory..." pp. 58
"In truth, [Catholic dogma] drew closer to life, which is contra-rational and opposed to clear thinking. Not only are judgements of worth never rationalizable -- they are anit-rational." pp.58
"Fundamentally [the Sacrament of the Eucharist] is concerned with ... the eating and drinking of God, the Eternalizer, the feeding upon Him." pp.59 This passage comes off as hellishly metal to me.
Funny quote from St. Teresa (one of 'em; not ours): "for I had told him how much I delighted in Hosts of a large size. Yet I was not ignorant that the size of the Host is of no moment, for I knew that our Lord is whole and entire in the smallest particle." pp.59-60
"It was from Kant, in spite of what orthodox Protestants may think of him, that Protestantism derived its penultimate conclusions--namely, that religion rests upon morality, and not morality upon religion, as in Catholicism." pp. 60
"For my part, I cannot conceive the liberty of a heart or the tranquillity of a conscience that are not sure of their perdurability after death." pp. 62
"[T]he highest artistic expression of Catholicism, or at least of Spanish Catholicism, is in the art that is most material, tangible, and permanent ... in sculpture and painting, in the Christ of Velasquez, that Christ who is for ever dying, yet never finishes dying, in order that he may give us life." pp. 62-3 I love that last part.
"No modern religion can leave ethics on one side." pp. 63 How many contemporary ethical theories have left religion to the side?
A doubtlessly honest yet disturbing comment: "And Christ said: "Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do," and there is no man who perhaps knows what he does. But it has been necessary, for the benefit of the social order, to convert religion into a kind of police system, and hence hell." pp. 63, emphasis added
"The gravest sin is not to obey the Church, whose infallibility protects us from reason." pp. 64, yet who will save us from the Church if that is where our faith lies? No one. No some. Only natural destruction in such a case, and we are bound to experience that!
Wow: "The Church defends life. It stood up against Galileo, and it did right; for his discovery, in its inception and until it became assimilated to the general body of human knowledge, tended to shatter the anthropomorphic belief that the universe was created for man." pp. 64, is there any wonder why conceptual and technological advances were in such short supply during the Middle Ages and the reign of the Church? And this is a terribly intelligent theological perspective.
"Do not the Modernists see that the question at issue is not so much that of the immortal life of Christ, reduced, perhaps, to a life in the collective Christian consciousness, as that of a guarantee of our own personal resurrection of body as well as soul?" pp. 65, I think Harry Frankfurt has some pertinent material concerning what is playing out in the background of this comment.
"Here you have the Catholic hall-mark--the deduction of the truth of a principle from its supreme goodness or utility. And what is there of greater, of more sovereign utility, than the immortality of the soul?" pp. 66
"[Religion] feared the excesses of the imagination which was supplanting faith and creating gnostic extravagances. But it had to sign a kind of pact with gnosticism and another with rationalism; neither imagination nor reason allowed itself to be completely vanquished. Amd thus the body of Catholic dogma became a system of contradictions, more or less successfully harmonized." pp. 68
Tragic Sense of Life; Ch. V
"The truth is ... that what we call materialism means for us nothing else but the doctrine which denies the immortality of the individual soul, the persistence of personal consciousness after deat." pp. 71
"And there is nothing that remains the same for two successive moments of its existence. My idea of God is different each time that I conceive it. Identity, which is death, is the goal of the intellect. The mind seeks what is dead, for what is living escapes it; it seeks to congeal the flowing stream in blocks of ice; it seeks to arrest it. In order to analyze a body it is necessary to extenuate or destroy it. In order to understand anything it is necessary to kill it, to lay it out rigid in the mind. Science is a cemetery of dead ideas, even though life may issue from them. Worms also feed upon corpses. My own thoughts, tumultuous and agitated in the innermost recesses of my soul, once they are torn from their roots in the heart, poured out on this paper and there fixed in unalterable shape, are already only the corpses of thoughts." pp. 80
"To think is to converse with oneself; and speech is social, and social are thought and logic. But may they not perhaps possess a content, an individual matter, incommunicable and untranslatable? And may not this be the source of their power?" pp. 80, perhaps this is a key feature of natural, as to compared to, say, formal, language.
"Hence it follows that the theological or advocatory spirit is in its principle dogmatical, while the strictly scientific and purely rational spirit is sceptical, that is, investigative." pp. 81-2
"And there is nothing that remains the same for two successive moments of its existence. My idea of God is different each time that I conceive it. Identity, which is death, is the goal of the intellect. The mind seeks what is dead, for what is living escapes it; it seeks to congeal the flowing stream in blocks of ice; it seeks to arrest it. In order to analyze a body it is necessary to extenuate or destroy it. In order to understand anything it is necessary to kill it, to lay it out rigid in the mind. Science is a cemetery of dead ideas, even though life may issue from them. Worms also feed upon corpses. My own thoughts, tumultuous and agitated in the innermost recesses of my soul, once they are torn from their roots in the heart, poured out on this paper and there fixed in unalterable shape, are already only the corpses of thoughts." pp. 80
"To think is to converse with oneself; and speech is social, and social are thought and logic. But may they not perhaps possess a content, an individual matter, incommunicable and untranslatable? And may not this be the source of their power?" pp. 80, perhaps this is a key feature of natural, as to compared to, say, formal, language.
"Hence it follows that the theological or advocatory spirit is in its principle dogmatical, while the strictly scientific and purely rational spirit is sceptical, that is, investigative." pp. 81-2
Tragic Sense of Life; Ch. VI
"We have seen that the vital longing for human immortality finds no consolation in reason and that reason leaves us without incentive or consolation in life and life itself without real finality. But here, in the depths of the abyss, the despair of the heart and of the will and the scepticism of reason meet face to face and embrace like brothers... Scepticism, uncertainty -- the position to which reason, by practising its analysis upon itself, upon its own validity, at last arives -- is the foundation upon which the heart's dispair must build up its hope." pp. 94
"We must make of [the war between our reason and our feelings], of war itself, the very condition of spiritual life." pp. 94
"[Life's] sole formula is: all or nothing. Feeling does not compound its differences with middle terms." pp. 95
"The methodical doubt of Descartes is ... purely theoretical and provisional... [Descartes] framed for himself a provisional ethic... the first law of which was to observe the customs of his country and to keep always to the religion in which, by the grace of God, he had been instructed from his infancy, governing himself in all things according to the most moderate opinions. Yes, exactly, a provisional religion and even a provisional God! And he chose the most moderate opinions 'because these are always the most convenient for practice.'" pp. 94-5
"[The] rationalist takes away our fever by taking away our life, and promises us, instead of a concrete, an abstract immortality, as if the hunger for immortality that consumes us were an abstract and not a concrete hunger!" pp. 98
"We shall see presently that to believe is, in the first instance, to wish to believe." pp. 100
"The will and the intelligence seek opposite ends: that we may absorb the world into ourselves, appropriate it to ourselves, is the aim of the will; that we may be absorbed into the world, that of the intelligence... The intelligence is monist or pantheist, the will monotheist or egoist." pp. 101
"[To] believe in the immortality of the soul is to wish that the soul may be immortal, but to wish it with such force that this volition shall trample reason under foot and pass beyond it. But reason has its revenge." pp. 102
"Nothing is sure. Everything is elusive and in the air." pp.104
"Because he believes--that is to say, because he wishes to believe, because he has need that his son should be cured--he beseeches the Lord to help his unbelief, his doubt that such a cure could be effectd. Of such kind is human faith" pp. 106
"Sufro yo a tu costa,
Dios no existiente, pues si tu' existieras
existieri'a yo tambien de veras." pp. 107
"We must make of [the war between our reason and our feelings], of war itself, the very condition of spiritual life." pp. 94
"[Life's] sole formula is: all or nothing. Feeling does not compound its differences with middle terms." pp. 95
"The methodical doubt of Descartes is ... purely theoretical and provisional... [Descartes] framed for himself a provisional ethic... the first law of which was to observe the customs of his country and to keep always to the religion in which, by the grace of God, he had been instructed from his infancy, governing himself in all things according to the most moderate opinions. Yes, exactly, a provisional religion and even a provisional God! And he chose the most moderate opinions 'because these are always the most convenient for practice.'" pp. 94-5
"[The] rationalist takes away our fever by taking away our life, and promises us, instead of a concrete, an abstract immortality, as if the hunger for immortality that consumes us were an abstract and not a concrete hunger!" pp. 98
"We shall see presently that to believe is, in the first instance, to wish to believe." pp. 100
"The will and the intelligence seek opposite ends: that we may absorb the world into ourselves, appropriate it to ourselves, is the aim of the will; that we may be absorbed into the world, that of the intelligence... The intelligence is monist or pantheist, the will monotheist or egoist." pp. 101
"[To] believe in the immortality of the soul is to wish that the soul may be immortal, but to wish it with such force that this volition shall trample reason under foot and pass beyond it. But reason has its revenge." pp. 102
"Nothing is sure. Everything is elusive and in the air." pp.104
"Because he believes--that is to say, because he wishes to believe, because he has need that his son should be cured--he beseeches the Lord to help his unbelief, his doubt that such a cure could be effectd. Of such kind is human faith" pp. 106
"Sufro yo a tu costa,
Dios no existiente, pues si tu' existieras
existieri'a yo tambien de veras." pp. 107
Tragic Sense of Life; Ch. VIII
"[W]e have at times the direct feeling of God, above all in mooments of spiritual suffocation. And this feeling--mark it well, for all that is tragic in it and the whole tragic sense of life is founded upon this--this feeling is a feeling of hunger for God, of the lack of God. To believe in God is, in the first instance, as we shall see, to wish that there may be a God, to be unable to live without Him." pp. 149
"And God does not exist, but rather super-exists, and He is sustaining our existence, existing us (existie'ndonos)." pp. 149
"God is and reveals Himself in collectivity. And God is the richest and most personal of human conceptions." pp. 150
"The concept that is most extensive and at the same time least comprehensive is that of being or of thing, which embraces everything that exists and possesses no other distinguishing quality than that of being... And the logical or rational God, the God obtained by way of negation, the absolute entity, merges, like reality itself, into nothingness; for, as Hegel pointed out, pure being and pure nothingness are identical." pp. 150
"And there may be a truer revelation in superstition itself than in theology. The venerable Father of the long beard and white locks who appears among the clouds carrying the globe in his hand is more living and more real than the ens realissimum of theodicy." pp. 157
"In its etymological signification to exist is to be outside of ourselves, outside of our mind: ex-sistere. But is there anything outside of our mind, outside of our consciousness which embraces the sum of the known? Undoubtedly there is. The matter of knowledge comes to us from without. And what is the mode of this matter? It is impossible for us to know, for to know is to clothe matter with form, and hence we cannot know the formless as formless. To do so would be tantamount to investing chaos with order." pp. 161
"We wish not only to save ourselves, but to save the world from nothingness. And therefore God. Such is His finality as we feel it." pp. 162
"If [the supposition of objectified reason without will and feeling] is reality, our life is deprived of sense and value.
It is not, therefore, rational necessity, but vital anguish that impels us to believe in God. And to believe in God is, before and above all, to feel a hunger for God, a hunger for divinity, to be sensible of His lack and absence, to wish that God may exist." pp. 162
Personification:
"This eternal and eternalizing person who gives meaning--and I will add, a human meaning, for there isnone other--to the Universe, is it a substantial something, existing independently of our consciousness, independently of our desire? Here we arrive at the insoluble, and it is best that it should be so. Let it suffice for reason that it cannot prove the impossibility of His existence." pp. 163
"And God does not exist, but rather super-exists, and He is sustaining our existence, existing us (existie'ndonos)." pp. 149
"God is and reveals Himself in collectivity. And God is the richest and most personal of human conceptions." pp. 150
"The concept that is most extensive and at the same time least comprehensive is that of being or of thing, which embraces everything that exists and possesses no other distinguishing quality than that of being... And the logical or rational God, the God obtained by way of negation, the absolute entity, merges, like reality itself, into nothingness; for, as Hegel pointed out, pure being and pure nothingness are identical." pp. 150
"And there may be a truer revelation in superstition itself than in theology. The venerable Father of the long beard and white locks who appears among the clouds carrying the globe in his hand is more living and more real than the ens realissimum of theodicy." pp. 157
"In its etymological signification to exist is to be outside of ourselves, outside of our mind: ex-sistere. But is there anything outside of our mind, outside of our consciousness which embraces the sum of the known? Undoubtedly there is. The matter of knowledge comes to us from without. And what is the mode of this matter? It is impossible for us to know, for to know is to clothe matter with form, and hence we cannot know the formless as formless. To do so would be tantamount to investing chaos with order." pp. 161
"We wish not only to save ourselves, but to save the world from nothingness. And therefore God. Such is His finality as we feel it." pp. 162
"If [the supposition of objectified reason without will and feeling] is reality, our life is deprived of sense and value.
It is not, therefore, rational necessity, but vital anguish that impels us to believe in God. And to believe in God is, before and above all, to feel a hunger for God, a hunger for divinity, to be sensible of His lack and absence, to wish that God may exist." pp. 162
Personification:
"This eternal and eternalizing person who gives meaning--and I will add, a human meaning, for there isnone other--to the Universe, is it a substantial something, existing independently of our consciousness, independently of our desire? Here we arrive at the insoluble, and it is best that it should be so. Let it suffice for reason that it cannot prove the impossibility of His existence." pp. 163
Tragic Sense of Life; Ch. 1 excerpts
From Spinoza:
"Everything, in so far as it is in itself, endeavors to persist in its own being. [Also] the endeavour wherewith everything endeavours to persist in its own being is nothing but the actual essence of the thing itself. [...] The endeavour whereby each individual thing endeavours to persist involves no finite time but indefinite time. That is to say that you, I, and Spinoza wish never to die and that this longing of ours never to die is our actual essence."
"To propose to a man that he should be someone else, that he should become someone else, is to propose to him that he should cease to be himself."
"... for me the becoming other than I am, the breaking of the unity and continuity of any life, is to cease to be he who I am--that is to say, it is simply to cease to be. And that--no! Anything rather than that!"
"The values we are discussing are, as you see, values of the heart, and against values of the heart reasons do not avail. For reasons are only reasons--that is to say, they are not even truths. There is a class of pedantic label-mongers, pedants by nature and by grace, who remind me of that man who, purposing to console a father whose son has suddenly died in the flower of his years, says to him, "Patience, my friend, we all must die!" Would you think it strange if this father were offended at such an impertinence? For it is an impertinence. There are times when even an axiom can become an impertinence."
"Little can be hoped from a ruler... who has not at some time or other been preoccupied, even if only confusedly, with the first beginning and the ultimate end of all things, and above all of man, with the "why" of his origin and the "wherefore" of his destiny."
"It is not enough to think about our destiny: it must be felt."
"So far as I am concerned, I will never willingly yield myself, nor entrust my confidence, to any popular leader who is not penetrated with the feeling that he who orders a people orders men, men of flesh and bone, men who are born, suffer, and, although they do not wish to die, die; men who are ends in themselves, not merely means; men who must be themselves and not others; men, in fine, who seek that which we call happiness. It is inhuman, for example, to sacrifice one generation of men to the generation which follows, without having any feeling for the destiny of those who are sacrificed, without having any regard, not for their memory, not for their names, but for them themselves."
"The chiefest sanctity of a temple is that it is a place to which men go to weep in common... Yes, we must learn to weep!"
"...man, by the very fact of being a man, of possessing consciousness, is, in comparison with the ass or the crab, a diseased animal. Consciousness is a disease."
"Everything, in so far as it is in itself, endeavors to persist in its own being. [Also] the endeavour wherewith everything endeavours to persist in its own being is nothing but the actual essence of the thing itself. [...] The endeavour whereby each individual thing endeavours to persist involves no finite time but indefinite time. That is to say that you, I, and Spinoza wish never to die and that this longing of ours never to die is our actual essence."
"To propose to a man that he should be someone else, that he should become someone else, is to propose to him that he should cease to be himself."
"... for me the becoming other than I am, the breaking of the unity and continuity of any life, is to cease to be he who I am--that is to say, it is simply to cease to be. And that--no! Anything rather than that!"
"The values we are discussing are, as you see, values of the heart, and against values of the heart reasons do not avail. For reasons are only reasons--that is to say, they are not even truths. There is a class of pedantic label-mongers, pedants by nature and by grace, who remind me of that man who, purposing to console a father whose son has suddenly died in the flower of his years, says to him, "Patience, my friend, we all must die!" Would you think it strange if this father were offended at such an impertinence? For it is an impertinence. There are times when even an axiom can become an impertinence."
"Little can be hoped from a ruler... who has not at some time or other been preoccupied, even if only confusedly, with the first beginning and the ultimate end of all things, and above all of man, with the "why" of his origin and the "wherefore" of his destiny."
"It is not enough to think about our destiny: it must be felt."
"So far as I am concerned, I will never willingly yield myself, nor entrust my confidence, to any popular leader who is not penetrated with the feeling that he who orders a people orders men, men of flesh and bone, men who are born, suffer, and, although they do not wish to die, die; men who are ends in themselves, not merely means; men who must be themselves and not others; men, in fine, who seek that which we call happiness. It is inhuman, for example, to sacrifice one generation of men to the generation which follows, without having any feeling for the destiny of those who are sacrificed, without having any regard, not for their memory, not for their names, but for them themselves."
"The chiefest sanctity of a temple is that it is a place to which men go to weep in common... Yes, we must learn to weep!"
"...man, by the very fact of being a man, of possessing consciousness, is, in comparison with the ass or the crab, a diseased animal. Consciousness is a disease."
Heidegger's Being and Time by Dermot Moran
Dermot Moran’s “Heidegger’s Being and Time” attempts to evaluate the place of Being and Time in the phenomenological tradition subsequent Husserl. Moran understands the tradition of phenomenology, to the extent that phenomenology can be called a tradition, as the divergent amalgamation of thinkers operating in their own self-identified practice of phenomenology. The common strand found in each of these thinkers is an emphasis on dealing with phenomena as such, and for Heidegger particularly this is understood as acknowledging the appearance of objects insofar as they appear in Dasein (literally "being there").
The central aim of Moran’s paper is to lay out the phenomenological aspects of Heidegger’s inquiry in Being and Time. To do this, Moran begins by relating the genesis and evolution of Heidegger’s phenomenology, prior to the publication of Being and Time, as germinating in his review of Karl Jaspers’ Psychology of World Views, in his interpretation of Aristotle, and in what Moran calls Heidegger’s “critical appropriation” of Husserl’s phenomenology as a practice along with Husserl’s conception of intentionality. Heidegger criticizes the abstract quality of Jasper’s philosophy of life in favor of a phenomenology historically bounded by a living being, he infuses Aristotle’s concepts with phenomenological content, and he created a distinct method from the basic notion in Husserl’s phenomenology (“to the thing in itself”) while throwing out key notions to Husserl’s phenomenological enterprise (e.g. intentionality and the transcendental ego, among many others). All of this provides the groundwork, says Moran, for Heidegger’s enterprise of asking the question of the meaning of Being.
Moran continues to develop Heidegger by discussing the distinction between ready-at-hand and present-at-hand, the “fusion of phenomenology with hermeneutics” (234), the hermeneutical circle, the nature of Dasein, authenticity, angst, mood, and being-with. A being’s being ready-at-hand or present-at-hand has everything to do with how the thing (construed phenomenologically) discloses itself to Dasein: as a tool or as an object of inquiry. Moreover, an object’s being ready-at-hand is how it is initially disclosed to Dasein. By the fusion of phenomenology with hermeneutics Moran has in mind Heidegger’s understanding phenomena as the primordial datum associated with being-in-the-world that are given meaning through interpretation. This interpretation is always done in a context of prejudices (taken non-pejoratively) or what Searle calls a background of information (though Heidegger's conception is at least as rich as Quine's "web of belief"), and the interpretation itself creates and destroys prejudices (or background information, or nodes in the web of belief). This view of the world leads to what is called the hermeneutical circle, construed by the naïve observer as the “circle” Heidegger is stuck in between prejudices and interpretation. The objection is that Heidegger cannot account for new knowledge. The objection is easily avoided by considering Heidegger’s notion of being “thrust” into the world, that being-in-the-world is primary, and that we are and can only be able to gain knowledge by allowing phenomena to disclose their being. This latter possibility requires diligence on the part of the enquirer for its realizability. Moran goes on from there to give phenomenological descriptions of Being-as-authentic, being-towards-death, mood for being, and being-with-others.
The central aim of Moran’s paper is to lay out the phenomenological aspects of Heidegger’s inquiry in Being and Time. To do this, Moran begins by relating the genesis and evolution of Heidegger’s phenomenology, prior to the publication of Being and Time, as germinating in his review of Karl Jaspers’ Psychology of World Views, in his interpretation of Aristotle, and in what Moran calls Heidegger’s “critical appropriation” of Husserl’s phenomenology as a practice along with Husserl’s conception of intentionality. Heidegger criticizes the abstract quality of Jasper’s philosophy of life in favor of a phenomenology historically bounded by a living being, he infuses Aristotle’s concepts with phenomenological content, and he created a distinct method from the basic notion in Husserl’s phenomenology (“to the thing in itself”) while throwing out key notions to Husserl’s phenomenological enterprise (e.g. intentionality and the transcendental ego, among many others). All of this provides the groundwork, says Moran, for Heidegger’s enterprise of asking the question of the meaning of Being.
Moran continues to develop Heidegger by discussing the distinction between ready-at-hand and present-at-hand, the “fusion of phenomenology with hermeneutics” (234), the hermeneutical circle, the nature of Dasein, authenticity, angst, mood, and being-with. A being’s being ready-at-hand or present-at-hand has everything to do with how the thing (construed phenomenologically) discloses itself to Dasein: as a tool or as an object of inquiry. Moreover, an object’s being ready-at-hand is how it is initially disclosed to Dasein. By the fusion of phenomenology with hermeneutics Moran has in mind Heidegger’s understanding phenomena as the primordial datum associated with being-in-the-world that are given meaning through interpretation. This interpretation is always done in a context of prejudices (taken non-pejoratively) or what Searle calls a background of information (though Heidegger's conception is at least as rich as Quine's "web of belief"), and the interpretation itself creates and destroys prejudices (or background information, or nodes in the web of belief). This view of the world leads to what is called the hermeneutical circle, construed by the naïve observer as the “circle” Heidegger is stuck in between prejudices and interpretation. The objection is that Heidegger cannot account for new knowledge. The objection is easily avoided by considering Heidegger’s notion of being “thrust” into the world, that being-in-the-world is primary, and that we are and can only be able to gain knowledge by allowing phenomena to disclose their being. This latter possibility requires diligence on the part of the enquirer for its realizability. Moran goes on from there to give phenomenological descriptions of Being-as-authentic, being-towards-death, mood for being, and being-with-others.
Monday, September 10, 2007
A Synopsis of William Barrett’s The Flow of Time
In The Flow of Time William Barrett argues that the flowing of time into the future is as primordial a datum as Heidegger’s view of time as a field of “past-present-future” (where time is understood to be a unifying, possibility-producing synthesis relied on heavily in Being and Time). Barrett propounds Heidegger’s construal of time, as a structuring ontological field rather than a mere “sequence of disjunct Now’s”, as “one of the most original of contemporary views on this ancient subject.” (356) As such, Barrett’s point of contention regarding Heidegger is restricted to the foundational, pre-philosophic landscape (to which, presumably, we each were party in, at least, our early childhood) that yields the notion of time in its disparate historical forms. (364) Accordingly, a correct account of time and the one that Heidegger implicitly relies on, according to Barrett, incorporates the flow of time within the horizon of possibility afforded by temporality.
Barrett’s first consideration wrestles with historical dating. First, Barrett notes that Heidegger makes much of the fact that we are “thrown” into the world at some time, t, notwithstanding Heidegger’s refusal to acknowledge t as intelligible outside of some “human project” (where project is meant in two senses: a project among one’s many projects, and the project[ion] of one’s existence). Barrett professes the belief that a certain sense of “datability of events” is intelligible outside of particular human projects and projections, e.g. “the fixing of events in relation to before and after”, and that if this fails to be the case then Heidegger brandishes little more than “a mere subjective idealism”. ( 364-5) The process of fixing events in relation to before and after can be thought of as a wanderer marking his trail on some sort of map in order to properly orient himself to his environment, except that for the analogy to fit the wanderer cannot stop nor reverse his journey: his map’s use is exhausted by the process of orientation.
Barrett then remarks on thoughts germinating in later works by Heidegger. As these considerations lie beyond the scope of this synopsis I shall only note that Barrett reads into these later works of Heidegger a concession as regards to his thesis. Also, in the chapter on Heidegger in Irrational Man Barrett makes much of Heidegger’s being mistakenly criticized for “evolving” in his later work when, as Barrett sees it, Heidegger simply extended what was already present in Being and Time.
In the last positive section of the paper Barrett further develops the essential place that the flow of time holds in phenomenological and existential philosophy by tracing the role of time-flow in discussions from Aristotle to Sartre before going on to explaining the impetus for his thought in the concluding chapter. On the second to last page in his only footnote Barrett admits that the entire paper can be taken to be an interpretation of one three word statement in Being and Time: “The world worlds.” Indeed the sentiment Barrett took from this statement should be obvious from the above statements: the world creates possibilities by actualizing some, destroying others and thrusting one into a world renewed yet whose possibilities are by-and-large bound to be destroyed, and still bound to perpetuate itself in an ever forward movement from the remains of what was into the unknown yet-to-be by means of the absolute reality of itself. And all of this, as one cannot fail to note when reviewing the literature, is absolutely limited by death.
Bibliography
Barrett, William. The Flow of Time in The Philosophy of Time, ed. Richard M. Gale, London: Macmillan & Co LTD, 1968: pp. 355-377.
Barrett, William Irrational Man New York: Doubleday, 1958.
Barrett’s first consideration wrestles with historical dating. First, Barrett notes that Heidegger makes much of the fact that we are “thrown” into the world at some time, t, notwithstanding Heidegger’s refusal to acknowledge t as intelligible outside of some “human project” (where project is meant in two senses: a project among one’s many projects, and the project[ion] of one’s existence). Barrett professes the belief that a certain sense of “datability of events” is intelligible outside of particular human projects and projections, e.g. “the fixing of events in relation to before and after”, and that if this fails to be the case then Heidegger brandishes little more than “a mere subjective idealism”. ( 364-5) The process of fixing events in relation to before and after can be thought of as a wanderer marking his trail on some sort of map in order to properly orient himself to his environment, except that for the analogy to fit the wanderer cannot stop nor reverse his journey: his map’s use is exhausted by the process of orientation.
Barrett then remarks on thoughts germinating in later works by Heidegger. As these considerations lie beyond the scope of this synopsis I shall only note that Barrett reads into these later works of Heidegger a concession as regards to his thesis. Also, in the chapter on Heidegger in Irrational Man Barrett makes much of Heidegger’s being mistakenly criticized for “evolving” in his later work when, as Barrett sees it, Heidegger simply extended what was already present in Being and Time.
In the last positive section of the paper Barrett further develops the essential place that the flow of time holds in phenomenological and existential philosophy by tracing the role of time-flow in discussions from Aristotle to Sartre before going on to explaining the impetus for his thought in the concluding chapter. On the second to last page in his only footnote Barrett admits that the entire paper can be taken to be an interpretation of one three word statement in Being and Time: “The world worlds.” Indeed the sentiment Barrett took from this statement should be obvious from the above statements: the world creates possibilities by actualizing some, destroying others and thrusting one into a world renewed yet whose possibilities are by-and-large bound to be destroyed, and still bound to perpetuate itself in an ever forward movement from the remains of what was into the unknown yet-to-be by means of the absolute reality of itself. And all of this, as one cannot fail to note when reviewing the literature, is absolutely limited by death.
Bibliography
Barrett, William. The Flow of Time in The Philosophy of Time, ed. Richard M. Gale, London: Macmillan & Co LTD, 1968: pp. 355-377.
Barrett, William Irrational Man New York: Doubleday, 1958.
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