------Original Message------
From: "Gary C Moore" <gottlos75@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
To: gottlos45@xxxxxxxx
Sent: April 28, 2000 9:40:17 AM GMT
Subject: Fw: RE:" What is dasein really?"
I hope this doesn't end up in duplicate messages but iwon.com just suddenly
decided I couldn't send messages.
------Original Message------
From: Rene de Bakker <rbakker@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
To: heidegger@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Sent: April 26, 2000 2:43:22 PM GMT
Subject: RE:" What is dasein really?"
At 05:52 26-4-00 -0400, Gary C. Moore wrote:
(This is referring to Mr. Thom Whitby's letter of Apr.22, 1:40AM EDT.)
Hi Doctor de Bakker!
First let me thank you for your kind, pellucid, and excellent
letter. I
gained a great deal from it, and others should have also.
DR DE BAKKER:
Gary,
Indeed, "Dasein" is meant to speak in another way than essential
characterizations as "animal rationale" does. It is merely indicating,
without any content:
it's essence is its existence. All these notions are formal-anzeigend.
So there can neither be rivalry with Nietzsche's "essence" of man,
which is a turning upside-down of the traditional notion, now the ratio
being the function of the animalitas, which is will to power.
RE:GARY C MOORE:
Would you please explain more of what you mean by "the ratio being the
function of the animalitas". It sounds intersting.
DR DE BAKKER:
This determination of the essence of man, according to H., is still
metaphysical, i.e. in the way it speaks, dividing and uniting. Dasein is
not meant to be spoken about, it indicates merely the (range of the)
question, 'what is man?', or: 'who
are we?', which question H. repeats endlessly.
RE:GARY C MOORE:
Your 'description' of dasein as "the range of the question, 'What is man?"
is perfect. But then we have just spoken about dasein. I understand your
point about not being able to speak about 'dasein', but, on the other
hand, trying to understand dasein is in one sense the meaning of the
resolve
toward authenticity, i.e., one 'feels' (and that is the appropriate word
within the context of everydayness)in the everyday world that
understanding dasein is a 'better' thing than understanding the pointless
practical circle of action of "This
is done for the sake of that and that is done for the sake of another
thing and that thing is done for the sake of . . . " ad infinitum. Finding
out
what dasein is, is an end to the "for the sake of . . . " It is similar
(only) to not being able to talk about God since the very definition of
God excludes itself as words, altogether leaving nothing at all. Yet it is
like a big X in the middle of the context of life around which everything
centers. And, though defined negatively by this situation i.e. for instance
the question," Why
did God permit/create/employ evil?" does actually delimit the choices of
what God can be even though it still remains an X beyond words.
Delimitations have the aspect of choices made that cannot then be changed
back, and so maybe that is also an argument about not saying anything about
dasein. But I am compelled to define.
GARY C MOORE:
The main point is "dasein" is "being out there" in projecting the
world.
DR DE BAKKER:
To be honest, I don't trust this "out there". Some seem to consider this
as "really" out there, while I see only a task: Dasein has to preserve
an "out there" (ein Aussen), H. says in "4 seminars". The trouble with
Heideggerians is that they believe they're already "there".
RE:GARY C MOORE:
To me, "there" is all I am in reality which is the everyday 'They" self,
the only self that endures through every practical moment. I can see
dasein as
necessary to preserve the "out there" but simply as a necessary aspect of
being-there, being-in-the-world, but not as a task in the sense of
actively preserving it as if I had a choice. It seems much more, to me, a
burden
you would be better off without but can not get rid of this side of death.
You
are absolutely right then when you say being always "already" there is my
"trouble". That is a choice word. It does not just trouble me, I am
absolutely disgusted with and revulsed by it.
But, on the other hand, you have me at a disadvantage. I
know nothing of the "4 seminars". Could you tell me something about them,
especially if there is an English version since I am illiterate, and quote
the full passage from Heidegger you mention? I would appreciate that.
DR DE BAKKER:
Interestingly, H. uses the same term for every-day-Dasein and the
world of
the animal: "Benommenheit". Still I believe that there is no connection
between the world of the animal and that of man, and that this is
precisely the point
H. makes in "The fundamental metaphysical concepts".
RE:GARY C MOORE:
Dr. Eldred says, in his letter to Heidegger lists on Mar 7 entitled,
in reply to my letter, "Re: The Constancy of Life and Death Issues . . .
",
"The other passage you cite about 'Per se, the converse usage is also
possible linguistically, viz. to speak of the comportment of animals.'
(346 German edition, 237-8 English trans.), I think is innocuous, since
Benehmen and Verhalten in German are pretty much interchangeable synonyms.
H. is
just fixing some terminology in place."
The passage referred to in the English translation is (Heidegger's
italics are in capitals),"But OUR behavior--in this proper sense--can only
be
described in this way because it is a COMPORTMENT, because the specific
manner of being which belongs to man is quite different and involves not
behavior but COMPORTING ONESELF TOWARD . . ."
INTERRUPTION:
This really doesn't say much other than, "Our A is really B which
somehow is no longer A but B, without the A-ness that was originally
attributed to it, because B has an aim. Behaviour doesn't have an aim?
" The SPECIFIC MANNER in which the animal IS we shall call BEHAVIOR.
They are fundamentally different from one another."
INTERRUPTION:
Why?
" In principle it is also possible to reverse this linguistic usage
and refer to ANIMAL COMPORTMENT."
INTERRUPTION:
If there is no difference between the words 'behavior' and
'comportment', then how can they be "fundamentally different"?
"The reason why we prefer the first way of describing the
matter will be revealed from the substantive interpretation itself."
INTERRUPTION:
That "substantive interpretation", other than being variations on the
above, I never found. Maybe someone can show me where it is.
" Being capable of . . . means being capable of behavior.
Capability
is instinctual, a driving forward and maintaining oneself in being driven
toward that which the capacity is capable of, toward a possible form of
behavior, a driveness toward a performance of a particular kind in each
case."
INTERRUPTION:
How can Heidegger know what is "instinctual" if he has never
experienced instinct himself? In one fundamental sense, this is an
'internal' experience of the animal. And if it is 'bound' or 'restrained',
condemned to a automatic pattern of behavior, isn't this also an internal
experience of the animal? Doesn't capability imply intent which would be
"comporting oneslf toward"? 'Instinct' is merely a concept invented by
scientists in order to find something repeatable for experiments, in fact
for 'experiments' that are not invariable but are
simply statistical because in actual but unscientific observation, many
'unscientific' observers say animals behave as individually or
idiosyncratically as so-called human beings. These observations are
disallowed in science because they are one time events without repetition.
But if they indulge in unique behavior like human beings, then should not
the same standard we judge individual human beings apply to individual
animals?
"The behavior of the animal is not DOING AND ACTING, as in human
comportment, but a DRIVEN PERFORMING [Treiben]."
INTERRUPTION:
Driven by what? Is not all of this terminology taken from describing
human experience and reflecting purely human states? Otherwise, how do you
know the animal is "driven"?
" In saying this we mean to suggest that an instinctual driveness, as
it were, characterizes all such animal performance.
Yet here again, from a purely linguistic point of view,we can see
that the terminology is arbitrary if we recall that we also talk about
'driving' snow when there is no question of anything organic announcing its
specific manner of being. This shows that language in all this is not
subject to logic, and that a certain inconsequentiality belongs rather to
the essence of language and its meanings. In other words, language is
something that belongs to the essence of man in his finitude. To imagine a
god expressing himself in speech is utterly meaningless." (Heidegger,
Martin, FUNDAMENTAL CONCEPTS OF DASEIN, trans. McNeill & Walker, Indiana
University Press, pp. 237-238)
RE: GARY C MOORE:
". . . A certain inconsequentiality belongs . . . to the essence of
language and its meanings."
Now, this is quite an unexpected curve ball, ESPECIALLY if all he is doing
"is just fixing some terminology in place" as Dr. Eldred says. This
statement of Heidegger's literally means to me there is no fixed
terminology
per se, as such, anywhere, ever. Then this "inconsequentiality" becomes
'fixed' to "man in his finitude" as opposed to "a god". The gods of Homer's
ILIAD considered man, called "brotos", i.e., 'mortal', to be utterly
'inconsequential' precisely because of its mortality, here today gone
tommorrow. Why bother with it other than as an idle pastime? There is no
point in taking them seriously. And Heidegger here is 'fixing' his
terminology 'inconsequentialy'. In other words, as he himself actually says
above, there is no difference between behavior and
comportment. We have been tricked. We have been fooled. Heidegger has
played
the worst of all things, a practical joke on us. There is no difference
between between 'men' and 'animals'.
Even "logos", which you would suppose as a fundamental difference,
Dr.
Eldred quotes from ARISTOTLE'S METAPHYSICS THETA 1-3, "The issue itself . .
.. demands that we do not deny the 'logos' to the animal without further
ado, that is, that we
leave the question open . . .' (Pg. 117ff German edition, English trans.
pg. 107). And then after that, Heidegger quotes Aristotle DE ANIMA, gamma 9,
432a30f, "No one may easily settle, with regard to the ability to perceive,
whether this is a capability without or a conversant capability" (trans.
Brogan & Warnek). The implication seems to be that "conversance" may reside
in the very nature of perception as such. And there is in sight a necessary
context, therefore order, and since both Aristotle and Heidegger say that
the animal "has 'to kritikon' (Gamma 9, beginning): the possibility of
raising something up and into relief " (the Brogand & Warnek translation has
"the possibility of SEPARATING OUT and BRINGING OUT of something", pg.106) .
.. . "The animal has thus the ability of reconnoitring. Is therefore the
animal _meta logu_ [with logos]?" (translation from Dr. Eldred's letter).
Dr. Eldred translation goes on: "Logos is not reason. The
Aristotlean problem only makes sense if _logos_ has a certain inner
relatedness with _aisthaesis_ which lies in the circumstance that both,
reconnoitring and having-knowledge just as perception as well, somehow
uncover and have unhidden something toward which they comport themselves;
_aisthaesis_ , just like _logos_, has a connection with _alaetheuein_."
(GA33:126, English trans. pg. 107)
Then Dr. Eldred, in his own words, goes on to say, "This last
sentence is quite astonishing. Only once _logos_ is understood as language
does the distinction between animal being and human being become more
decisive and decided."
But if it is _logos_ only as spoken/written language that is
"decisive", and if the animal does have a kind of _logos_ as stated above,
then it would seem the difference between man and animal in the traditional
view rather deminishes considerably. It is simply one speaks and the other
doesn't. But it is already admitted the animal has 'to kritikon',
essentially 'critical facility', so then just add on the ability to speak or
write words or use sign language and then is the animal still animal? and
"What is man?"
DR DE BAKKER:
> > So I'd vote for the last alternative: (dasein is) altogether different.
In "The
principle of ground", where he treats Silesius' "The rose is without a
why", he writes, that we should be like the rose, that is not concerned
about its ground, its image.
RE: GARY C MOORE:
A good point, and it is irresistible to agree except for "that we
should be". From where do we get the "should"? Would that not require a
deliberate choice, as Sartre would say, in "bad faith", and be a 'descent'
again into everydayness from authenticity where dasein contemplates infinite
possibilities but "always already" does NOT have any specific reason to
choose except by the promptings of 'magical' emotion? If dasein is by nature
metaphysical, as Heidegger says at the end of KANT AND THE PROBLEM OF
METAPHYSICS: "The necessary question for the laying of the ground for
metaphysics, namely, that of what man is, is taken over by the metaphysics
of Dasein . . . The Metaphysics of Dasein is not just metaphysics about
Dasein., but is metaphysics which occurs necessarily AS DASEIN. But for that
reason: it can never become metaphysics "about" Dasein, as for example
zoolology is about animals" (Heidegger, Martin, KANT AND THE PROBLEM OF
METAPHYSICS, trans. Taft, Indiana University Press, 1990, pp.157-158). So
essentially BOTH of us are right according to this. For you, "it can never
become metaphysics "about" Dasein", and for me, "metaphysics occurs
necessarily AS DASEIN".
RE:GARY C MOORE:
Time is running out, and I have said way too much. But it has helped ME
tremendously! Thank you again very, very much!
Gary C. Moore
> > -----------------------------------
> > drs. Ren de Bakker
> > Universiteitsbibliotheek Amsterdam
> > Afdeling Catalogisering Faculteiten
> > tel. 020-5252368
> >
> >
> > --- from list heidegger@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx ---
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> >
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