Re: will to will

From: "John Foster" <borealis@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
To: <heidegger@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Sent: Sunday, April 11, 2004 9:41 PM
Subject: Re: will to will


> Henk, God is many things to many people, as well as the others: birds,
> beasts and flowers. I think what I meant was that it is not a 'thought'
> which is alleged to vouch safe the existence of Being, something else,
> more accurately 'thoughts' and 'thinking' itself, the whole. Moreover
> to extend this I would argue that 'thinking', the _cogitationis_ rather
> than the _cogito_, has what we are searching for as an 'exchangeable
> term for the divine' or God, or Being. The entire unbroken term, in
> time, is Thinking, but it is not my thinking especially, but thinking
> which is authentic with respect to that which encompasses. Thinking if
> authentic is divine.

For the Heidegger I am interested in the main characteristic of the
divine is the fact that it is creative. Adaequatio is a judgement, not a
creation. Cogitationes are the creations of the cogito. Authenticity is a
mode of being - it may be favourable for creation but it doesn't create.

> The presence of a universal logos or Mind, or noosphere seems to accord
> radically with the individual accounts or logos of being, thus the
> Being of beings is a 'transcendens  pure and simple.' and thus the
ontic
> itself is the phenomenal aspect of the ontological, that which persists
> and subsists is the "thinking" itself, but not the 'thought' which only
> discloses from time to time with respect to the transcendens.

If I understand you correctly your definition of thinking could be my
definition of understanding of being (Seinsverstaendnis). The
qualification divine would mean that it is the foundation of our
knowledge - not that it creates beings.

> "That which we nothing about, we must pass over in silence." [alluding
> of course to Gevans experientialism in which authority is always
located
> in the self, and selfish appropriations]

Nevertheless we keep writing books about Being, God, the world, etc. etc.

> The underlayment consists of some unitive intuition regarding Being, or
> the Being of beings. In the traditional theology of western thinking,
the
> emphasis was to disclose a fundamental feature of Being, or God: "God
> is Love", "God is omniscient" and so on.

As Kant and Heidegger would add, we do so dogmatically ...

> Eventually appearances are not what things are in > themselves.
> Semblances are like specious arguements which 'resemble the
> appearance of realities' or 'truth'.

Traditionally appearance is doxa. True knowledge is episteme - pertaining
to the ideas (Plato) or based on the adaequatio rei et intellectus.
However, following Heidegger an appearance is what refers to the
transcendental object.


> Therefore while appearances are not the phenomenon, it is also the case
> there is often no opposition between appearances and the phenomenon as
> it regards authority.

I cannot follow you here. Appearances are always a phenomenon. Not all
phenomena are merely appearances.

> Yes. It was Descartes who really worked on this thinking of an idea
> most perfect [see Marion]. I see nothing in conflict with our thinking
as a
> ground for beliefs.

There is only a conflict if we don't accept dogmatic metaphysics

> Logic for Hegel is extremely exact and obtuse form of symbolic
> reasoning, and intuition. It is an order of difference removed
> from thinking as feeling. Intelligence though is not to be
> contrasted with feeling, rather intelligence is related to
> order in nature, but not simply as logic in thinking rational
> thoughts.

Hegel's Logik is criticized by Heidegger because of the fact that in the
realms of Logik nothing is hidden. Everything is known archetypically. In
Hegel's Logik there is no place for Dasein's finite knowledge.

> Hence we have to conclude that ecology is not a 'rock science' -
> it is much more complex. The features of a positive and
> qualitive nature are logical reflections, representations which
> represent, are highly suggestive of a Being as a Whole which is
> intelligible. Maybe....but I did not want to introduce cosmological
> criterion into nature, but it is there staring us in the face.

The whole of the world is indeed a cosmological notion - and therefore
unknowable.

> For me the terms Being, and Time and the I are ideal representations of
> hypothetical substances. For me time is the cyclic return of seasons,
> the movement of diurnal solus, la luna, and the estraellas [stars] and
> galaxies. Time is demarcated naturally in the ebb and flow of the
tides.

John, your point of view is that of traditional metaphysics.

I should add immediately that I have nothing against traditional
metaphysics. I love reading Aristotle, Thomas and Suarez - and I love
many of the Wolffian and Baumgartenian distinctions and concepts.

However, I cannot deny that Kant had a point when he decided that
metaphysics should be well founded - and I love the way Heidegger tries
to incorporate metaphysics in his fundamental ontology.

> As modern technology holds more sway in reforming our environment and
> in levelling off of any natural disturbances associated with climates,
and
> seasons, and geomorphological processes, then we are entrapped by
> chronic, static time, as calender, symbolic time denoted by the workday
schedule
> of indoors being. All times are the same, as such as we age we do not
> notice that while we are changing, the natural has not changed totally
but
> rather fluctuates, or so it should. Kairotic time versus chrono time
produces
> beings made manifest by rendering [modern technology]. Heidegger adds
> that rendering process to something basic useful and instrumental is
the
> essence of modern technology.

He goes one step further, maintaining that technology is our way of
aletheuein. It has become part of our ontological knowledge.

> Yes if language cannot produce new knowledge, but language can produce
> new artifacts, no?

The question is whether language creates or reveals what is already
there.

> Except for the _thancing_ aspect of thinking. I am not sure what is
> thinking but is is the continuum of all thoughts. Not necessarily what
> is the content of thoughts but thinking as a whole. What it passess
> over in the transcends....no? The individual thoughts are not that
> important, but the whole of thinking which appropriates and apprehends
> Being is. My stance on the sacred....

It is difficult for me to believe that all pure ontological knowledge put
together would refer to the sacred ...

> As for Heidgger Being has a sacred feature which persists and
> subsists in thinking, but not in the individual thoughts.

This is far too difficult for me to understand.

> The spiritual excercises of St. Ignations Loyola or of San de la Cruz
> are examples of a dialectic in which the soul is stripped of its ontic
> garments and brought forth in an ultimate confronting dis comfort with
Being.
> The purpose of the excercises is to purposely disrobe the ontic
structures
> of the self, as self love, and find what is logically present; in the
> ultimatum of dispair in which I have dispossessed myself of all ontic
> possessions, I am left with the unconditional love [thancing] even for
> the darkness and nakedness.

This is mystical thinking. It seems to work best in combination with
physical attrition or LSD. Aldous Huxley was highly interested in the
methods of de Loyola. Read for example his "Grey Eminence".

> I think there are gradients of being: some are completely
> "in-themselves" and some are incompletely "in-themsevles", and since
> time is relative to their being, some things which are of geologic time
> are more "in-themselves" such as rocks.

Gradients of being refers to the metaphysical participation theory
(participation in Being, in Goodness, in ...). You seem to add Time to
the traditional possibilities, i.e. beings participating in the highest
Time. Of course, the question remains whether there is such a thing as
Being, Time, Goodness, etc. etc.

> The universe as a whole is a noumenon. But it is one which is still
> changing, and reveals itself in increments to any perceiver. But it's
> existence is undoubted as to it's unity.

Reading your post, I wonder whether it is possible at all to speak about
nature from a fundamental ontological point of view.

> Only history and destiny will determine which things are totally 'in
> themselves'. I don't know for sure if there is such a cognition of
> something existing which is entirely in-itself. I think this may refer
to
> consciousness and awareness of inert things and what they might be
> entirely, but not something valid essentially. The ding an such is more
> likely essential thinking about the above: essence, potential or
possible.

What is in itself is by definition unknown. Inert things are by
definition present at hand. The difference between the two is like the
difference between what Heidegger calls Entstand and Gegenstand.

Henk




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