On Sunday, April 4, 2004, at 07:00 PM, Anthony Crifasi wrote:
That was according to your proposal to "define the good in terms of an
openness to being" - i.e., all good is an openness to being, or
authentic (All G is A). Add that the only authentic act is doing
philosophy (All A is P), and QED: all good acts are doing philosophy
(All G is P).
Gotta brush up on that childish reductivism.
No I don't think you need to brush up at all as you're a past master at
it as you show again above 'i.e., all good is an openness to being, or
authentic (All G is A)'. Human being is already an openness to being
whether it knows this or not. But not all human being is explicitly an
authentic relation to that openness. You keep conflating these and so
if O=G and O=A then it follows that all G is A, which is a fine example
of your definitional reductive approach to Heidegger's logic and
everything else follows in error. Perhaps you should try thinking about
what all these definitions actually mean, as in the phenomena we are
actually talking about then perhaps you won't confuse the matter so
much.
which is why I would never *define* either the good as prayer, or
prayer as the good. That would make only prayer good, and everything
else evil.
So as a Catholic you don't think god is the ultimate good and that
prayer is in itself a good act in that only in and through it do you
keep open a genuine relation to your god through communion in the holy
spirit? That would make you a heretic Anthony and liable for
excommunication. Can you think of no other acts that, rather than
precluding your openness to your god, on the contrary benefit and
nurture that openness? Apparently Jesus suggested that acts of
generosity for instance are good acts that bring you closer to Him. I
can think of a few others for you but you can always just have a quick
read of the Beatitudes.
That's the rub, since your past examples have clearly suggested that
you want to limit evil to only certain activities other than doing
philosophy (i.e., hurting the biosphere, causing suffering, invading
Iraq...), not all activities other than doing philosophy.
Evil would be the obliteration of openness and its manifestation would
be the will to will as machination along with the self-interested
destruction and suffering that follows from that. I'd say that all acts
that tend towards a closing off of the possibility of an authentic
relation to openness would then be 'evil', in principle. All other acts
that leave this possibility open would be 'good', in principle. Since
human being is the play of both openness and concealment together we
are caught between good and evil, in media res. Just as Heidegger asks
the question about how we ought to comport ourselves towards
technology, what modes of comportment will allow us to "use technical
devices as they ought to be used, and also let them alone as something
which does not affect our inner and real core"? What ways of being in
this world will help us not to fall under the domination of
technological thinking? That's Heidegger's open question.
Personally I'd say that all modes of existence that emphasise peace,
the good for all beings, that work against suffering and the three
great destroyers war, famine and pestilence, against bigotry, hatred,
fear and ignorance, are good ways to be. Happiness, basically, is
conducive of an openness towards beings, and you'll find most people
want peace and happiness in order to simply get on with their lives and
family. It's all very simple really, and as someone who attempts to
think philosophically I'm sure you also appreciate some quiet time to
think, free of cluster bombs, collapsing infrastructure, politicians
exhorting you to be terrorised and funerals for your loved ones taken
early by violence and so on.
Only if you define inauthenticity as 'evil', and on the contrary I
suggested that the obliteration of openness might be defined in
principle as evil, an obliteration that is apparently consummated in
the will to will as machination. So on the one hand we have a
meditation on openness that is itself by definition a 'good act' and
then on the other we have everyday acts in the world that conceal our
relation to that openness,
and isn't that openness concealed whenever we are absorbed in
practical involvement? In which case, we could be absorbed in helping
the biosphere, relieving suffering, and opposing the war? Then why
selectively limit your examples of "evil" to hurting the biosphere,
relieving suffering, and waging the war?
Mainly because helping the biosphere, relieving suffering, and opposing
the war aren't generally characterised by short sighted,
self-interested machination in order to secure power over others who
will inevitably fight back. These 'progressive' possibilities aren't
about nationalist struggles for power so much as working together to
confront problems that threaten humanity as a whole. On the
geopolitical stage it's a form of internationalism symbolised in our
recently terminated world order by the United Nations. And while
suggesting that we don't leave a festering poisonous toilet for future
generations to live in may not be very politically practical or
profitable in the short term it would certainly be good to at least
start grappling with the problems that may very well be already
threatening our survival in this generation. I personally think it's
the only intelligent way for humanity to go but it would require an
openness to dealing with things beyond the calculations of nationalist
will to power, and perhaps that openness would deny the technological
understanding of the will to will its 'right to dominate us, and so to
warp, confuse, and lay waste our nature'.
The definition of "ought" is of course entangled with the definition
of "good," which you limited to authentic acts (your proposal to
"DEFINE the gift of openness as THE GOOD"), which you in turn limited
to "the philosophical act of a disclosure of that openness."
No, that's your conflation of openness with authenticity again ... you
are getting into a tangle and according to this tangled conflation:
So if that is what "ought" means, then we ought NOT to do anything
other than philosophy, which would include not only dominating the
world militarily and economically, but also fighting that military and
economic dominance.
And so on. Like I said, "these are big questions Anthony, rather
complicated yet also strangely simple", I had thought that the
reference to Catholicism might tempt you out into an actual dialogue
but as always all you do is run around in circles chasing your own
reductive logical definitions such as:
Keep in mind that the will to not will would exclude, by that line of
thought, not only the will to will the factical expansion of factical
ordering, but also the will to will the factical resistance to
factical ordering (such as joining the fight against Hitler). Neither
would be authentic by your analysis above, and therefore neither would
be good - and in fact, both would be evil, since in neither is "the
philosohpical act".
You conflate so much here, from Heidegger's notions of Gelassenheit,
openness and authentic projection to geopolitical actions in the world,
Hitler's machination and the struggle for power that was WW2, that I'd
have to reiterate the whole logic of this debate over again just to
start to unravel your logic. But at least it's starting to make more
sense to me so thank you for that.
Cheers,
Malcolm
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