Consciousness and the Paranormal — Part 3

[Constance]

I'm just trying to rile a defence of the un-attackable sacred shrine.

What work is that rhetoric supposed to do?

 

[Pharoah]

Part 1 Division 2 Section 13 page 87 - A founded mode in which Being-in is exemplified. Knowing the world

I was very interested in this section of writing by MH.
I looked up Dreyfus on this bit and was not particularly satisfied (although I need to read his text in full rather than skim it)
Then I found the following at
Part 1, Division 2 of on Reading Being and Time, an Explication and Commentary by Roderick Munday
see below.

***

If Being-in-the-world is a basic state of Dasein, and Dasein operates pre-eminently in the mode of everydayness, then Being must also be something which has always been experienced ontically as a part of our everyday existence. For if Being-in-the-world had remained totally veiled from view it would be altogether unintelligible. As we know, one of the defining aspects of Dasein is that it has an understanding of its own Being. And by extension, we can say that this means that, no matter how indefinitely this understanding may be manifested, or indeed may function, Dasein must be aware of its Being-in-the-world.

The problem then is not that Being-in-the-world is totally obscure, but that it has been habitually overlooked. This begs the question, why was it overlooked in the first place? Heidegger answers because as soon as the phenomenon of 'knowing the world' was grasped, Being-in-the-world was hidden behind it, or rather Being-in-the-world was interpreted by 'knowing the world' in a "superficially formal manner". In traditional epistemology this tended to happen in three main ways:

(page 87)

Traditional epistemology problem 1/ How it answers the question: "What is Knowing?"

Knowing is conceived as a 'relation between subject and Object'--the subject examines the object and the object is examined by the subject–and such a relationship assumes that there is no intermingling of either entity.

The subject is therefore understood as being quite separate from the object - and vice versa. This separation becomes the grounding assumption of objectivity. The crux of the problem of objectivity is that one cannot 'know' Being ontologically, since the notions of ‘subject’ and ‘Object’ do not coincide neatly with the ontological notions of ‘Dasein’ and ‘the world.' Even if it were feasible to give an ontological definition of "Being-in," primarily in terms of "a Being-in-the-world-which-knows," before we could say anything about this knowing-Being, or use the concept productively, we would still need to show that this knowing has the phenomenal character of a Being, which is both 'in' and 'towards' the world at exactly the same time... A bit of a problem if your grounding epistemological assumption is the absolute separation of the 'Being-subject' and the 'world-object'.

Traditional epistemology problem 2/ How it conceives of "objects as 'Nature'"

In the knowing paradigm, if one reflects upon the relationship of "Being" and "the world", an entity called 'Nature' emerges.

This entity Nature is given proximally as "that which becomes 'known'." But what needs to be noticed here, is that the process of 'knowing' is never to be met in the products of knowledge. In fact there is considered to be no 'knowing' object. And if such a knowing ever existed in traditional epistemology, it was for the most part effectively buried. So much so that, if knowing has a Being at all, we can only generally ascribe it to those entities which 'know'. But even in this case, to those entities (human-Things) knowing is not something present-at-hand, in the sense of being externally ascertainable or verifiable, in the way that, say, bodily properties are.

Traditional epistemology problem 3/ "Knowing is Inside"

Inasmuch as it belongs to "human things, " knowing is not conceived of as something external to us.

So we conclude that it must therefore be 'inside' and furthermore must have a different kind of Being to those entities which are outside. And what are we to conclude then? That the essence of knowing is psychical and not physical? Probably yes–but then we are back with metaphysics again.

Considering 'knowing' in this way prompts the question, "what is knowledge?" For knowledge never appears to be a "thing" of any kind, although we can talk about sharing and possessing knowledge as if it were a thing. This is the metaphorical and thus the metaphysical slight of hand that Heidegger is trying to uncover here.

Conclusion - The Problem of Knowing in a Nutshell

If one believes that one is making headway in answering the question, "what is the essence of knowledge?" It is only because one has perhaps presumed too much and inquired too little. The so called clarity which knowing brings to phenomena through the relationship of subject and Object, gets muddied as soon as we turn the same analytical techniques of knowing upon the problem of knowing itself.

The Ontology Of Knowing — Or How We Really Know What Knowing Is

In terms of Being, we will only really 'know' knowing when we abandon the subject/Object dichotomy. This becomes a necessary first step to really setting about the task of addressing the problem of how one must think of the so called 'object,' in order that the so called 'subject' can know it - that is if we don't want to venture into another metaphorical sphere.

There is problem of knowing that Heidegger merely touches upon here. In the so called metaphysical sphere of knowing, the existence of subject and object are taken as objective facts in themselves. The question here becomes, how can the knowing subject guarantee a one to one correspondents between the representation of a "known" object in her head and the object itself? Indeed is there any connection between the mind inside and the world outside? The problem here is that, if real things are considered to be external and thought things to be internal, then what guarantees the correspondence of real things to our mental pictures of them? This is a well cited problem in philosophy. Consider the case of the Cartesian Demon denying the reality of everything that could be experienced [ref. My note in Introduction 2, page, 45]. Descartes' solution to the problem was that God guaranteed the correspondence between thought and objects. This is what Donna Hathaway called "the god trick" of epistemology - [ref. Ihde (2002), p 74.]

Of course we are sometimes assured that we are certainly not to think of the subject's "inside" and its 'inner sphere' as a sort of 'box' or 'cabinet. But silence reigns when we ask either of these two questions:

1/ What is the positive signification of this "'inside' of immanence in which knowing is proximally enclosed?

2/ How this 'Being inside' (which knowing possesses as its own character of Being) grounded in the kind of Being which belongs to the subject?

What question 1/ is asking is there any proof of the existence of Descartes' 'God of epistemology?'

What Question 2/ is asking is for a description of the Being who is characterised as the knowing "voice in your head." In other words asking for the identity of Heidegger's soul, that knowing Being who Peirce referred to as 'your deeper self' when he said that, "all thinking is dialogic in form… your self of one instant appeals to your deeper self for his assent" (Peirce: CP 6.338)

The Argument Against Traditional Epistemology

Heidegger concludes that of any of the numerous in ways which this problem of knowing has been addressed philosophically; crucial questions pertaining to the kind of Being which belongs to this 'knowing subject' are left entirely unasked. Although, whenever the problem of the knowing subject is addressed in traditional epistemology, what we find inevitably is that the Being of this knowing subject is implicitly included in the argument.

It therefore becomes evident that a conceptualising of 'knowing' that leads to such enigmas will remain problematic unless we have at least clarified what this knowing is. For example, howdoes knowing makes its way out of its 'inner sphere’? And indeed, how it is that I can know things beyond that sphere? These questions need to be answered before any fresh epistemological inquiries are embarked upon, for otherwise they will proceed on a very unstable footing.

(page 88)

Heidegger asserts that with the traditional epistemological approach, the subject/Object distinction imputes a false dichotomy into knowing, and therefore the inquirer remains blind to what is already tacitly implied when she takes the phenomenon of knowing as her theme - even in the most provisional manner. Namely, that knowing is a mode of Being of Dasein as Being-in-the-world, and is founded ontically upon this state of Being. This then is the answer to the question "What is knowing?".

***

[In the unlikely event that you are still reading my contributions (I am sorry if I was disrespectful to you both. I am an idiot sometimes). But I am not sure how I can talk about B&T without irritating either of you, so I'll just say what I want to say.]
MH is right to treat epistemology with such irreverence of course But the assumption is that the objective-subjective dichotomy can never be integrated with the requiste understanding. Fair enough assumption given the history. In its absence, the project of describing Being must be as described - hence my premature reaction to page 78. But, of course when the two are integrated, Being remains, and it does so outside the sphere of the knowable phenomenal world.

 

[Constance]

I've just tuned in to the thread and discovered this post from yesterday still unposted from my posting screen. I'll post it now but might withdraw it later since Pharoah has written or quoted at length concerning Heidegger's B&T today and that could lead to a discussion we should follow first.

I read a blog at the PEL site this afternoon and a series of interesting comments on it. It raises several critical philosophical issues that we have discussed directly and one or two in passing. Here is a paragraph from the opening blog and the link to the page that includes it and the comments. I think that for a change in our modus operandi here we should all read that page and work as a group on what's variously asserted there. Hope the entire four of us will participate in this discussion. The title of the blog is "Duality without Dualism."

“…So we have a duality in our world-talk, there is talk that ends up being referential and talk that ends up being non-referential. This duality I believe has become metaphysically deified: that the possibility of non-referential world-talk is elevated to the level of an unReality of world-talk all together. Those instances where we do not find “what our words tell us to look for” are contrasted to those instances where we do find “what our words tell us to look for” and this contrast is unduly given grand status as a split in the world itself rather than as a liability of language and world-talk…..”

Duality without Dualism | The Partially Examined Life Philosophy Podcast | A Philosophy Podcast and Blog

 

[Constance]

Part 1 Division 2 Section 13 page 87 - A founded mode in which Being-in is exemplified. Knowing the world

I was very interested in this section of writing by MH.
I looked up Dreyfus on this bit and was not particularly satisfied (although I need to read his text in full rather than skim it)
Then I found the following at
Part 1, Division 2 of on Reading Being and Time, an Explication and Commentary by Roderick Munday
see below.

***

If Being-in-the-world is a basic state of Dasein, and Dasein operates pre-eminently in the mode of everydayness, then Being must also be something which has always been experienced ontically as a part of our everyday existence. For if Being-in-the-world had remained totally veiled from view it would be altogether unintelligible. As we know, one of the defining aspects of Dasein is that it has an understanding of its own Being. And by extension, we can say that this means that, no matter how indefinitely this understanding may be manifested, or indeed may function, Dasein must be aware of its Being-in-the-world.

The problem then is not that Being-in-the-world is totally obscure, but that it has been habitually overlooked. This begs the question, why was it overlooked in the first place? Heidegger answers because as soon as the phenomenon of 'knowing the world' was grasped, Being-in-the-world was hidden behind it, or rather Being-in-the-world was interpreted by 'knowing the world' in a "superficially formal manner". In traditional epistemology this tended to happen in three main ways:

(page 87)

Traditional epistemology problem 1/ How it answers the question: "What is Knowing?"

Knowing is conceived as a 'relation between subject and Object'--the subject examines the object and the object is examined by the subject–and such a relationship assumes that there is no intermingling of either entity.

The subject is therefore understood as being quite separate from the object - and vice versa. This separation becomes the grounding assumption of objectivity. The crux of the problem of objectivity is that one cannot 'know' Being ontologically, since the notions of ‘subject’ and ‘Object’ do not coincide neatly with the ontological notions of ‘Dasein’ and ‘the world.' Even if it were feasible to give an ontological definition of "Being-in," primarily in terms of "a Being-in-the-world-which-knows," before we could say anything about this knowing-Being, or use the concept productively, we would still need to show that this knowing has the phenomenal character of a Being, which is both 'in' and 'towards' the world at exactly the same time... A bit of a problem if your grounding epistemological assumption is the absolute separation of the 'Being-subject' and the 'world-object'.

Traditional epistemology problem 2/ How it conceives of "objects as 'Nature'"

In the knowing paradigm, if one reflects upon the relationship of "Being" and "the world", an entity called 'Nature' emerges.

This entity Nature is given proximally as "that which becomes 'known'." But what needs to be noticed here, is that the process of 'knowing' is never to be met in the products of knowledge. In fact there is considered to be no 'knowing' object. And if such a knowing ever existed in traditional epistemology, it was for the most part effectively buried. So much so that, if knowing has a Being at all, we can only generally ascribe it to those entities which 'know'. But even in this case, to those entities (human-Things) knowing is not something present-at-hand, in the sense of being externally ascertainable or verifiable, in the way that, say, bodily properties are.

Traditional epistemology problem 3/ "Knowing is Inside"

Inasmuch as it belongs to "human things, " knowing is not conceived of as something external to us.

So we conclude that it must therefore be 'inside' and furthermore must have a different kind of Being to those entities which are outside. And what are we to conclude then? That the essence of knowing is psychical and not physical? Probably yes–but then we are back with metaphysics again.

Considering 'knowing' in this way prompts the question, "what is knowledge?" For knowledge never appears to be a "thing" of any kind, although we can talk about sharing and possessing knowledge as if it were a thing. This is the metaphorical and thus the metaphysical slight of hand that Heidegger is trying to uncover here.

Conclusion - The Problem of Knowing in a Nutshell

If one believes that one is making headway in answering the question, "what is the essence of knowledge?" It is only because one has perhaps presumed too much and inquired too little. The so called clarity which knowing brings to phenomena through the relationship of subject and Object, gets muddied as soon as we turn the same analytical techniques of knowing upon the problem of knowing itself.

The Ontology Of Knowing — Or How We Really Know What Knowing Is

In terms of Being, we will only really 'know' knowing when we abandon the subject/Object dichotomy. This becomes a necessary first step to really setting about the task of addressing the problem of how one must think of the so called 'object,' in order that the so called 'subject' can know it - that is if we don't want to venture into another metaphorical sphere.

There is problem of knowing that Heidegger merely touches upon here. In the so called metaphysical sphere of knowing, the existence of subject and object are taken as objective facts in themselves. The question here becomes, how can the knowing subject guarantee a one to one correspondents between the representation of a "known" object in her head and the object itself? Indeed is there any connection between the mind inside and the world outside? The problem here is that, if real things are considered to be external and thought things to be internal, then what guarantees the correspondence of real things to our mental pictures of them? This is a well cited problem in philosophy. Consider the case of the Cartesian Demon denying the reality of everything that could be experienced [ref. My note in Introduction 2, page, 45]. Descartes' solution to the problem was that God guaranteed the correspondence between thought and objects. This is what Donna Hathaway called "the god trick" of epistemology - [ref. Ihde (2002), p 74.]

Of course we are sometimes assured that we are certainly not to think of the subject's "inside" and its 'inner sphere' as a sort of 'box' or 'cabinet. But silence reigns when we ask either of these two questions:

1/ What is the positive signification of this "'inside' of immanence in which knowing is proximally enclosed?

2/ How this 'Being inside' (which knowing possesses as its own character of Being) grounded in the kind of Being which belongs to the subject?

What question 1/ is asking is there any proof of the existence of Descartes' 'God of epistemology?'

What Question 2/ is asking is for a description of the Being who is characterised as the knowing "voice in your head." In other words asking for the identity of Heidegger's soul, that knowing Being who Peirce referred to as 'your deeper self' when he said that, "all thinking is dialogic in form… your self of one instant appeals to your deeper self for his assent" (Peirce: CP 6.338)

The Argument Against Traditional Epistemology

Heidegger concludes that of any of the numerous in ways which this problem of knowing has been addressed philosophically; crucial questions pertaining to the kind of Being which belongs to this 'knowing subject' are left entirely unasked. Although, whenever the problem of the knowing subject is addressed in traditional epistemology, what we find inevitably is that the Being of this knowing subject is implicitly included in the argument.

It therefore becomes evident that a conceptualising of 'knowing' that leads to such enigmas will remain problematic unless we have at least clarified what this knowing is. For example, howdoes knowing makes its way out of its 'inner sphere’? And indeed, how it is that I can know things beyond that sphere? These questions need to be answered before any fresh epistemological inquiries are embarked upon, for otherwise they will proceed on a very unstable footing.

(page 88)

Heidegger asserts that with the traditional epistemological approach, the subject/Object distinction imputes a false dichotomy into knowing, and therefore the inquirer remains blind to what is already tacitly implied when she takes the phenomenon of knowing as her theme - even in the most provisional manner. Namely, that knowing is a mode of Being of Dasein as Being-in-the-world, and is founded ontically upon this state of Being. This then is the answer to the question "What is knowing?".

***

[In the unlikely event that you are still reading my contributions (I am sorry if I was disrespectful to you both. I am an idiot sometimes). But I am not sure how I can talk about B&T without irritating either of you, so I'll just say what I want to say.]
MH is right to treat epistemology with such irreverence of course But the assumption is that the objective-subjective dichotomy can never be integrated with the requiste understanding. Fair enough assumption given the history. In its absence, the project of describing Being must be as described - hence my premature reaction to page 78. But, of course when the two are integrated, Being remains, and it does so outside the sphere of the knowable phenomenal world.

"[In the unlikely event that you are still reading my contributions (I am sorry if I was disrespectful to you both. I am an idiot sometimes). But I am not sure how I can talk about B&T without irritating either of you, so I'll just say what I want to say.]"

It's not a question of being 'disrespectful' to 'us' but of your attempting to read Heidegger loaded with presuppositions that prevent the possibility of your understanding what he is saying, and then making preliminary claims that you can undermine his philosophy with a few selected quotations from B&T. I wouldn't say that approach is even being 'disrespectful' to Heidegger; rather, it's being irrelevant to Heidegger. But let it go; no need to apologize. And of course you should say what you "want to say." It's a free world for free people, and you are free to interpret what you think Heidegger is saying against the grain of what he is saying by not reading the full expression of what he wrote in B&T and in later works that qualify and expand what he wrote in B&T.

"MH is right to treat epistemology with such irreverence of course But the assumption is that the objective-subjective dichotomy can never be integrated with the requiste understanding. Fair enough assumption given the history. In its absence, the project of describing Being must be as described - hence my premature reaction to page 78. But, of course when the two are integrated, Being remains, and it does so outside the sphere of the knowable phenomenal world."

Whose assumption are you referring to in the underscored sentence above?

I also wonder why, instead of reading explications of and commentaries on B&T by accomplished philosophical scholars fully informed of and about this work and the other major works of Heidegger and other phenomenological philosophers, you choose to seek guidance in your own reading from an individual who is just beginning to read B&T.

 

[Pharoah]

"[In the unlikely event that you are still reading my contributions (I am sorry if I was disrespectful to you both. I am an idiot sometimes). But I am not sure how I can talk about B&T without irritating either of you, so I'll just say what I want to say.]"

It's not a question of being 'disrespectful' to 'us' but of your attempting to read Heidegger loaded with presuppositions that prevent the possibility of your understanding what he is saying, and then making preliminary claims that you can undermine his philosophy with a few selected quotations from B&T. I wouldn't say that approach is even being 'disrespectful' to Heidegger; rather, it's being irrelevant to Heidegger. But let it go; no need to apologize. And of course you should say what you "want to say." It's a free world for free people, and you are free to interpret what you think Heidegger is saying against the grain of what he is saying by not reading the full expression of what he wrote in B&T and in later works that qualify and expand what he wrote in B&T.

"MH is right to treat epistemology with such irreverence of course But the assumption is that the objective-subjective dichotomy can never be integrated with the requiste understanding. Fair enough assumption given the history. In its absence, the project of describing Being must be as described - hence my premature reaction to page 78. But, of course when the two are integrated, Being remains, and it does so outside the sphere of the knowable phenomenal world."

Whose assumption are you referring to in the underscored sentence above?

I also wonder why, instead of reading explications of and commentaries on B&T by accomplished philosophical scholars fully informed of and about this work and the other major works of Heidegger and other phenomenological philosophers, you choose to seek guidance in your own reading from an individual who is just beginning to read B&T.

MH's assumption.

 

[Constance]

MH's assumption.

That's not Heidegger's assumption. It appears to be the assumption of the source you cite and quote, who states up front that he is reading B&T for the first time and, based on what he writes, is attempting to 'interpret' the early sections from off the top of his head and the presuppositions that reside there.

Again Pharoah, "I ... wonder why, instead of reading explications of and commentaries on B&T by accomplished philosophical scholars fully informed of and about this work and the other major works of Heidegger and other phenomenological philosophers, you choose to seek guidance in your own reading from an individual who is just beginning to read B&T."

 

[Pharoah]

It was what I had gathered from my own interpretation. I then looked up Dreyfus and the other source. I wanted to get a better sense of whether my understanding of MH was correct. I stand corrected: MH says that the objective-subjective gap can be bridged with the "requisite understanding"? i.e. with knowledge?

 

[Soupie]

I've just tuned in to the thread and discovered this post from yesterday still unposted from my posting screen. I'll post it now but might withdraw it later since Pharoah has written or quoted at length concerning Heidegger's B&T today and that could lead to a discussion we should follow first.

I read a blog at the PEL site this afternoon and a series of interesting comments on it. It raises several critical philosophical issues that we have discussed directly and one or two in passing. Here is a paragraph from the opening blog and the link to the page that includes it and the comments. I think that for a change in our modus operandi here we should all read that page and work as a group on what's variously asserted there. Hope the entire four of us will participate in this discussion. The title of the blog is "Duality without Dualism."

“…So we have a duality in our world-talk, there is talk that ends up being referential and talk that ends up being non-referential. This duality I believe has become metaphysically deified: that the possibility of non-referential world-talk is elevated to the level of an unReality of world-talk all together. Those instances where we do not find “what our words tell us to look for” are contrasted to those instances where we do find “what our words tell us to look for” and this contrast is unduly given grand status as a split in the world itself rather than as a liability of language and world-talk…..”

Duality without Dualism | The Partially Examined Life Philosophy Podcast | A Philosophy Podcast and Blog

I found this and the comments to be very interesting. In the comments, the author referred to idealism and phenomenology as 2nd order systems, which confused me, as I would think of those as 1st order systems (ie non-dualistic).

I also think the path he took to explain how dualism is arrives at was interesting re words that do and do not have referents.

Its ironic that some physicalists deny that the 1st-person is real, and assert that only the 3rd-person is "Real," when as this author argues (as has smcder) theres no coherent way to argue for a "real" reality apart from 1st-person reality.

The problem of other minds would seem to be relevant here.

 

[Soupie]

From the same author:

Phenomenology is Wrong | The Partially Examined Life Philosophy Podcast | A Philosophy Podcast and Blog

 

[smcder]

I found this and the comments to be very interesting. In the comments, the author referred to idealism and phenomenology as 2nd order systems, which confused me, as I would think of those as 1st order systems (ie non-dualistic).

I also think the path he took to explain how dualism is arrives at was interesting re words that do and do not have referents.

Its ironic that some physicalists deny that the 1st-person is real, and assert that only the 3rd-person is "Real," when as this author argues (as has smcder) theres no coherent way to argue for a "real" reality apart from 1st-person reality.

The problem of other minds would seem to be relevant here.

"Its ironic that some physicalists deny that the 1st-person is real, and assert that only the 3rd-person is "Real," when as this author argues (as has smcder) theres no coherent way to argue for a "real" reality apart from 1st-person reality."

Where did I argue this?

(see also OOO)

 

[Constance]

From the same author:

Phenomenology is Wrong | The Partially Examined Life Philosophy Podcast | A Philosophy Podcast and Blog

Oh dear, this blog is even worse than the one I linked earlier today, which at least raises interesting questions. In this one the author confuses Husserlian perspectives, goals, and methods with Heidegger's perspective and methods, and on that basis makes the absurd claim that all of phenomenology (implying all of phenomenological philosophy) is "wrong." I don't think he's studied the whole field of phenomenology or even understood Husserl's developing philosophy, which seems to be his target. He replies to one of the commentators that he is "reserving judgment on Heidegger." Only one of the commentators to this blog seems to be educated in phenomenological philosophy. This blog is a waste of time in my opinion, though the one I saw yesterday and linked today does provide some material we could discuss. When I read that one yesterday I took some notes on it in Word. I'll come back and post some of my responses to that blog later tonight or tomorrow.

 

[Constance]

It was what I had gathered from my own interpretation. I then looked up Dreyfus and the other source. I wanted to get a better sense of whether my understanding of MH was correct. I stand corrected: MH says that the objective-subjective gap can be bridged with the "requisite understanding"? i.e. with knowledge?

Understanding rather than 'knowledge'. These are not synonyms for Heidegger or for phenomenology in general.

 

[Constance]

Recommended as perhaps the best source to read for an understanding of the later philosophy of Heidegger:

Heidegger, The End of Philosophy and the Task of Thinking, trans. with an introduction by Joan Stambaugh

downloadable at Scribd:

Heidegger - The End of Philosophy

 

[Pharoah]

Recommended as perhaps the best source to read for an understanding of the later philosophy of Heidegger:

Heidegger, The End of Philosophy and the Task of Thinking, trans. with an introduction by Joan Stambaugh

downloadable at Scribd:

Heidegger - The End of Philosophy

I downloaded the book and started reading the intro.
page xi starts with some QAs with MH. Can't copy paste because it's in Scribd.
Have you read this publication yourself?
I am not sure understanding later MH is going to be particularly helpful as virtually every sentence contains a term whose meaning requires understanding a complex concept from earlier writing. ?

 

[Soupie]

"Its ironic that some physicalists deny that the 1st-person is real, and assert that only the 3rd-person is "Real," when as this author argues (as has smcder) theres no coherent way to argue for a "real" reality apart from 1st-person reality."

Where did I argue this?

(see also OOO)

You've noted that everything "comes to us" via subjectivity, including the 3rd-person perspective. I didn't mean to say you've argued for idealism or anything.

I'm obviously not 100% one what the author is arguing for, especially in light of his phenomenological post.

He appears to be arguing against metaphysical dualism, while rejecting monistic metaphysics such as idealism. He argues by way of epistemology, I think.

He seems to be saying that the fact that we can't know for sure that our thoughts refer isn't grounds for dualism because we can't prove that they do not refer!?

Re OOO: I noted that it seemed to be an attempt to describe what-is in purely 3rd-person terms, and you replied that that was nonsensical.

I'd love to hear how all of you interpret this authors arguments and your responses.

 

[Constance]

I downloaded the book and started reading the intro.
page xi starts with some QAs with MH. Can't copy paste because it's in Scribd.
Have you read this publication yourself?

Yes, but long ago, for a course on Heidegger. There was another text used in that course which I will also recommend to you below.

I am not sure understanding later MH is going to be particularly helpful as virtually every sentence contains a term whose meaning requires understanding a complex concept from earlier writing. ?

Yes, but Heidegger's later works are necessary for an understanding of his philosophy, which deepened in its understanding of being and its relationship to Being. So I see no value in relying only on a reading of B&T if one wants to use, apply, Heidegger's philosophy in further philosophical work of one's own. If you had a year to devote to understanding Heidegger's philosophy, you could read it all. Short of such an extended effort, one must rely in part on the explications of H's ideas provided by scholars who have read all of the philosophy in depth and with understanding. And one must choose one's guides carefully (not difficult to do if one recognizes that the ones most relied upon by scholars and philosophers support one another's interpretations of H's texts). Albert Hofstadter has translated a key collection of essays from Heidegger's later period and provided an excellent introduction to them in a book entitled Poetry, Language, Thought, which I recommend to you. You can read a large sample from the key essay "The Origin of the Work of Art" at this google books link {but all the essays are essential, and were published together with Heidegger's agreement}:

Poetry, Language, Thought - Martin Heidegger - Google Books

At this amazon link I recommend reading the first two reader reviews, the first of which provides a number of key extracts from the essays in this volume:


This is not a book of literary criticism or a book about poetry and other works of art as approached in literary studies and art history. The essays gathered here present the refinements of H's later thinking about the nature of human being alongside the being of things in the world, understood more fully through phenomenological thinking about the expressiveness of human works in general and most fully expressed in works of art.

Long ago, when I read this book, I had to read it three times before I understood all that H is saying in these essays. I still remember the night when it all finally came together for me. To put it mildly, the earth moved.

 

[Constance]

He appears to be arguing against metaphysical dualism, while rejecting monistic metaphysics such as idealism. He argues by way of epistemology, I think.

He seems to be saying that the fact that we can't know for sure that our thoughts refer isn't grounds for dualism because we can't prove that they do not refer!?

As I said above, I think this author is deeply confused about the epistemological grounds expressed in phenomenological philosophy, which he appears not to have read carefully. If you go to the google books link in my last post and read the essay sampled there (esp at pg. 24 ff), you will see the extent to which the blog author fails to understand Heidegger's phenomenology.

 

[Pharoah]

I found a nice bookmark piece of paper in my Being and Time book (bearing in mind that the book has come from my father-in-law's study):

The Philosophical Quarterly
With the Editor's Compliments
for 1500-word review by 31/10/62​

 

[Constance]

I found a nice bookmark piece of paper in my Being and Time book (bearing in mind that the book has come from my father-in-law's study):

The Philosophical Quarterly
With the Editor's Compliments
for 1500-word review by 31/10/62​

What was your father-in-law reviewing for that journal? Given that he has a copy of B&T, is it helpful to discuss that work with him?

 

[Pharoah]

The book was a complimentary copy for him to review... B&T (1962 edition sent to him in oct 1962)
He is no longer alive sadly. Very descriptive writer.