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From: "Edward Greig" <rdc41@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
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Date: Tue, 18 May 1999 22:22:51 +0100
-----Original Message-----
From: Anthony Crifasi <crifasi@xxxxxxxxx>
To: heidegger@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
<heidegger@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Date: 17 May 1999 21:45
Subject: the subject/object dichotomy
Traditionally, it was assumed that we discover beings most
essentially while we are thinking about them or oberving them. For
example, upon analysis we may discover beings as material
objects made of atoms, and upon further analysis, we may
discover beings (as you said) as mere appearances in the mind.
Thus, it was assumed that this is what beings fundamentally are,
because only when we conceptually analyze them and observe
them scientifically do we truly discover what they really are.
Heidegger turned this on its head by saying that it is when we are
NOT thinking about beings or observing them (ie, when we are
dealing with them or "absorbed" with them) that we discover them
most essentially. So if Heidegger is right, then he escapes the
pitfalls of the subject/object dichotomy, since the entire
presentation of beings as objects appearing to a subject or as
material objects made of atoms (or as individual substances for
that matter) depends upon conceptual analysis of some kind.
Rather, they are more fundamentally the way they appear when we
are dealing with them without thinking about them or observing
them - as equipment good for doing.
Anthony Crifasi
Thank you for this. However I am still not clear :).
What you seem to be saying is that it is when we are dealing with equipment
as "ready-to-hand" (Zuhanden) that we discover it most essentially. However
it appears to me that equipment is only "ready-to-hand" when there is a
Dasein to deal with it. If the world was without Dasein there would still be
equipment but it would only be as "present-at-hand" (Vorhanden) things.
Therefore it still needs a subject to reveal these bits of equipment or
entities as Vorhanden and therefore there is still a subject/ object
dichotomy.
I suspect there is some flaw in this argument and I would be grateful if
anyone could show me what it is.
Edward
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