Re: "metaphysical and not phenomenology"?

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Michael E recently: "So you would admit that a builder is a being, but deny 
that being a builder is a mode of being?"

Tudor responds: A chair is not a thing; it is a mode of being. It has no 
other substantiality than that willingly conferred to it by the to be.

michaelP returns with: I hope I'm wrong but this sounds suspiciously like 
something, some thing (!), the noble Jud might have passed on to us :-(

Jud: A builder is a man or a woman or a beaver or a bird - a builder is 
somebody or something that builds something. A human builder is first and 
foremost a human, and as well as being a builder, [whether of houses, child's 
construction  sets, lego, dictionaries or motorways he or she is also a 
resident [of some place, a father or a mother, a member of the Women's 
Institute or the Ku Klux Klan. A part time builder may also be a medical 
doctor or a sky-diver. Mankind has tens of thousands of occupational 
existential modalities, ("ways of living their lives" to Michael Staples] and 
even a fully occupied working builder, [on a building site] is really 
part-time, for when he drives home he is a "motorist" too, and if he calls in 
for a beer on the way he is also a "customer." 

Tudor is quite correct when he says that strictly speaking a chair is not a 
thing - it is a mode of being, sadly he just neglected to complete the 
sentence, which suitably re-structured should be: "That which in English we 
call a "chair" is a mode of existing which we call a "chair." In other words 
the Gesamptsumme or modal totality of the material elements, 
[molecules/energy] and the spatial configurations thereof we name with the 
signifier "chair." 

Like all nouns, the single word: "chair" is a short-cut" - a small collection 
of phonemes or letters which allows us to identify the object quickly, rather 
than going into a more generalised description of the more obvious or 
prominent of the perceived modalities of its construction and appearance. To 
go into a thorough description of its modalic make-up would take two or three 
trillion years or more, and then we would not succeed of course, for the 
existential modalities are constantly changing as human bottoms deliver 
additional molecules and bear away others, and as the ultra violet rays of 
the sun change the surface structure and paintwork. If you are looking for 
REAL confusion on these matters - take a peek at the Aquinas list!

Michael:

Chairs, bulders, mountains,
stars, leaves and daseins are all beings, colloquially, "things", some of 
which can be said to 'have' "substantiality" (chairs, stars, etc), some not
(dasein).

Jud: 
Dasein of course is not a thing, nor is it a being - dasein is a grammatical 
structure that imparts the sense of [an unmentioned entity but obviously 
meant to represent a man] "being there" in the world, rather than NOT being 
there in the world.] "Dasein" is a synonym for "existing." So "dasein" is a 
trick-word meant to ontologically catapult or phenomenologically parachute an 
unknown entity into a circumstance of living a life, which, shorn of all 
historical responsibility and yesteryears explanatory baggage can act out a 
charade of Heidegger's Agony Aunt. 

Michael: 
In my last post I made the suggestion that there is an apocalyptic
difference between the being (the thing, the chair, the builder) and the 
be-ing of the being (these two de-signations are often confused and shortcut 
by the single de-signation of "being") and wondered whether this (fusion, 
this in-difference) could be the reason for manifold problems in this 
field... I think, from Tudor's response, that this might indeed be the case.

Jud: 
The word and concept of "Being" [as used in the sense of the "be-ing of the 
being" is a "convenience-word" like "cause" and "time" none of which exist 
but make life a little easier on the brain, [because THINKING is hard work] 
and "Being" provides a cognitive escape-route from the onerous and 
uncomfortable task of contemplation to the mental snooze-area of the 
tradition or religion..

Michael:

And, pardon me for leaving this so late, but what does Tudor mean by
"substantiality"? Aristotle's ousia? Jud's matterstuff? Heidegger's 
presence-at-hand? And, further, are "modes of being" a 'matter' of wilful 
conferring by dasein? Does not, on the contrary, the way a being is (mode of 
being) lie/be-long precisely in/with the being itself? 

Jud: If I wilfully refer to the colour of my car as being "garish," that does 
not mean that the "garish" colour of the car is a modality of the existing of 
the car. You on the other hand may wilfully refer to the colour of the car as 
being "tasteful," that does not mean that the "tasteful" colour of the car is 
a modality of the existing of the car. All it means is that you and I have 
both willingly conferred our OWN perceptions of the mode of being a car of 
the car.

Michael:
Such may be dis-covered and re-covered by dasein 

Jud: 
Such as may be discovered by dasein [Heidegger-wise] can be picked up in the 
pulp-dept shelves of any corner bookstore, or the "Problem Pages" of any 
women's magazine or "psychology for the masses" scrod, written this time in 
understandable English and shorn of the torturous references to Heidegger's 
interpretation of what Aristotle was claimed to have said or not said, as 
transacted and savagely argued about by his interpreters, and as perceived by 
us through the dense clouds of asphyxiating smoke and gasses that emerge from 
orifice of the oracle of Delphic competitory knowngnesses.

Michael: 
in its enquiries, or not... but surely the lunacy of the moon lies with the 
moon and not the dasein who stares longingly (with or without the determining 
telescoping) at it? 

Jud: 
The lunacy lies not in the moon, but in the mind of the man who created the 
lunatic dasein, who wilfully confers a modality of lunacy [an obsolete terms 
for legal insanity] upon an insensate entity that happens to be neither an 
innocent of guilty captive of the earth's gravity.

Michael: 
[I personally want the moon to be its own moon whatever my or my fellow 
humans' desires
(including this one just expressed :-) )].

Jud: Sure we all want that - we want it to be a "harvest moon" and a "new 
moon" and a "lover's moon " and a "full moon" and all the rest of the 
anthropocentric modalities that we impose on the moon - but the moon DOES NOT 
have these modes or characteristics they are modes or characteristics 
conferred upon an inanimate object BY US. Yes, I agree - Vive la difference - 
all the above is great for song-lyrics and love poetry etc,. which WE ALL 
ENJOY in our daily lives - we like chocolate bon-bons and a glass of claret 
with our evening meal, and grandmother's gefiltefische and sparkling lights 
on a Christmas tree, but it is not the sort of language that we should use 
when we are discussing serious ONTOLOGY. It is precisely this sort of thing 
that has made existentialism or Heideggerianism such a laughing stock, and 
put it under so much pressure to be removed as "Non-Philosophy" from the 
course-structures of so many universities. In the words of tennis-player John 
Mc Enroe "You can't be SERIOUS?"

Jud Evans

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<HTML><FONT FACE=arial,helvetica><FONT  COLOR="#400040" SIZE=2>Michael E recently: "So you would admit that a builder is a being, but deny that being a builder is a mode of being?"
<BR>
<BR>Tudor responds: A chair is not a thing; it is a mode of being. It has no other substantiality than that willingly conferred to it by the to be.
<BR>
<BR>michaelP returns with: I hope I'm wrong but this sounds suspiciously like something, some thing (!), the noble Jud might have passed on to us :-(
<BR>
<BR>Jud: A builder is a man or a woman or a beaver or a bird - a builder is somebody or something that builds something. A human builder is first and foremost a human, and as well as being a builder, [whether of houses, child's construction &nbsp;sets, lego, dictionaries or motorways he or she is also a resident [of some place, a father or a mother, a member of the <I>Women's Institute</I> or the <I>Ku Klux Klan</I>. A part time builder may also be a medical doctor or a sky-diver. Mankind has tens of thousands of occupational existential modalities, ("ways of living their lives" to Michael Staples] and even a fully occupied working builder, [on a building site] is really part-time, for when he drives home he is a "motorist" too, and if he calls in for a beer on the way he is also a "customer." 
<BR>
<BR>Tudor is quite correct when he says that strictly speaking a chair is not a thing - it is a mode of being, sadly he just neglected to complete the sentence, which suitably re-structured should be: "That which in English we call a "chair" is a mode of existing which we call a "chair." In other words the Gesamptsumme or modal totality of the material elements, [molecules/energy] and the spatial configurations thereof we name with the signifier "chair." 
<BR>
<BR>Like all nouns, the single word: "chair" is a short-cut" - a small collection of phonemes or letters which allows us to identify the object quickly, rather than going into a more generalised description of the more obvious or prominent of the perceived modalities of its construction and appearance. To go into a thorough description of its modalic make-up would take two or three trillion years or more, and then we would not succeed of course, for the existential modalities are constantly changing as human bottoms deliver additional molecules and bear away others, and as the ultra violet rays of the sun change the surface structure and paintwork. If you are looking for REAL confusion on these matters - take a peek at the Aquinas list!
<BR>
<BR>Michael:
<BR>
<BR>Chairs, bulders, mountains,
<BR>stars, leaves and daseins are all beings, colloquially, "things", some of which can be said to 'have' "substantiality" (chairs, stars, etc), some not
<BR>(dasein).
<BR>
<BR>Jud: 
<BR>Dasein of course is not a thing, nor is it a being - dasein is a grammatical structure that imparts the sense of [an unmentioned entity but obviously meant to represent a man] "being there" in the world, rather than NOT being there in the world.] "Dasein" is a synonym for "existing." So "dasein" is a trick-word meant to ontologically catapult or phenomenologically parachute an unknown entity into a circumstance of living a life, which, shorn of all historical responsibility and yesteryears explanatory baggage can act out a charade of Heidegger's Agony Aunt. 
<BR>
<BR>Michael: 
<BR>In my last post I made the suggestion that there is an apocalyptic
<BR>difference between the being (the thing, the chair, the builder) and the be-ing of the being (these two de-signations are often confused and shortcut by the single de-signation of "being") and wondered whether this (fusion, this in-difference) could be the reason for manifold problems in this field... I think, from Tudor's response, that this might indeed be the case.
<BR>
<BR>Jud: 
<BR>The word and concept of "Being" [as used in the sense of the "be-ing of the being" is a "convenience-word" like "cause" and "time" none of which exist but make life a little easier on the brain, [because THINKING is hard work] and "Being" provides a cognitive escape-route from the onerous and uncomfortable task of contemplation to the mental snooze-area of the tradition or religion..
<BR>
<BR>Michael:
<BR>
<BR>And, pardon me for leaving this so late, but what does Tudor mean by
<BR>"substantiality"? Aristotle's ousia? Jud's matterstuff? Heidegger's presence-at-hand? And, further, are "modes of being" a 'matter' of wilful conferring by dasein? Does not, on the contrary, the way a being is (mode of being) lie/be-long precisely in/with the being itself? 
<BR>
<BR>Jud: If I wilfully refer to the colour of my car as being "garish," that does not mean that the "garish" colour of the car is a modality of the existing of the car. You on the other hand may wilfully refer to the colour of the car as being "tasteful," that does not mean that the "tasteful" colour of the car is a modality of the existing of the car. All it means is that you and I have both willingly conferred our OWN perceptions of the mode of being a car of the car.
<BR>
<BR>Michael:
<BR>Such may be dis-covered and re-covered by dasein 
<BR>
<BR>Jud: 
<BR>Such as may be discovered by dasein [Heidegger-wise] can be picked up in the pulp-dept shelves of any corner bookstore, or the "Problem Pages" of any women's magazine or "psychology for the masses" scrod, written this time in understandable English and shorn of the torturous references to Heidegger's interpretation of what Aristotle was claimed to have said or not said, as transacted and savagely argued about by his interpreters, and as perceived by us through the dense clouds of asphyxiating smoke and gasses that emerge from orifice of the oracle of Delphic competitory knowngnesses.
<BR>
<BR>Michael: 
<BR>in its enquiries, or not... but surely the lunacy of the moon lies with the moon and not the dasein who stares longingly (with or without the determining telescoping) at it? 
<BR>
<BR>Jud: 
<BR>The lunacy lies not in the moon, but in the mind of the man who created the lunatic dasein, who wilfully confers a modality of lunacy [an obsolete terms for legal insanity] upon an insensate entity that happens to be neither an innocent of guilty captive of the earth's gravity.
<BR>
<BR>Michael: 
<BR>[I personally want the moon to be its own moon whatever my or my fellow humans' desires
<BR>(including this one just expressed :-) )].
<BR>
<BR>Jud: Sure we all want that - we want it to be a "harvest moon" and a "new moon" and a "lover's moon " and a "full moon" and all the rest of the anthropocentric modalities that we impose on the moon - but the moon DOES NOT have these modes or characteristics they are modes or characteristics conferred upon an inanimate object BY US. Yes, I agree - Vive la difference - all the above is great for song-lyrics and love poetry etc,. which WE ALL ENJOY in our daily lives - we like chocolate bon-bons and a glass of claret with our evening meal, and grandmother's gefiltefische and sparkling lights on a Christmas tree, but it is not the sort of language that we should use when we are discussing serious ONTOLOGY. It is precisely this sort of thing that has made existentialism or Heideggerianism such a laughing stock, and put it under so much pressure to be removed as "Non-Philosophy" from the course-structures of so many universities. In the words of tennis-player John Mc Enroe "You can't be SERIOUS?"
<BR>
<BR>Jud Evans</FONT></HTML>

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