What's good about Heidegger?

[gorski]

So, as I understand it so far, Heidegger's thought is based on the idea that we do not know how to *be*. That our very words and our society have masked our true essence and we are incapable of living 'authentic' lives. So, we have strive to be authentic, to cut through the distracting noise which masks our ability to see our true selves and follow our fate.

There's tons of Nietsche in there, is there not?

A fair reading?

Everyone who knows anything about Philosophy knows this to be true 1000000%, indeed. Nietzsche through Heidegger, plus Freud -> French PoMo shisters etc.

 

[gorski]

This would be a monstrous distortion of Heidegger. He is explicitly making a break with the Platonism and idealism of earlier philosophers. Husserl also attempted to define essences in a non-Platonic way, but Heidegger went evern further than that.

That is correct, when it comes to self-understanding of Heidegger: however one turns metaphysics it still is metaphysics, he kept saying. However, did he himself manage to escape it? I seriously doubt it.

 

[gorski]

It's kind of a very loose approximation of a small part of his early stuff.

The idea of (in)authenticity has been bigged up because that was the aspect that was taken up by later thinkers, especially Sartre, who misunderstood Heidegger in every important way (I'm parroting someone else here, I know very little of Sartre). Heidegger himself was very ambivalent about convention - he saw it as necessary to make our existence possible, but in the next moment railed against doing things just because that's what everyone else does.

But that is only a tiny, tiny part of it.

Quite an important one, though: in Hegel already we have similar need for mythology - but not for everybody... Similarly, Heidegger sees the need for such elements of life in community... But that, of course, is not for him and the ones capable of thinking authentically... He always saw a need for a "leader" in any "volk" etc. For that one needs the above.

 

[Spion]

That is correct, when it comes to self-understanding of Heidegger: however one turns metaphysics it still is metaphysics, he kept saying. However, did he himself manage to escape it? I seriously doubt it.

It's ludicrous to think anyone can escape metaphysics. Animals may live in that state but humans can't

 

[gorski]

I don't get your post at all...

One more thing: poiesis is not the same as 'poetry'!

 

[Spion]

I edited it. Try again

 

[Santino]

I guess. Like how the hell some hick nazi got excused for his appalling real life politics and what his rehabilitation says about the bankruptcy of post-WW2 'philosophy'.

That's my 'gloves-off' assessment

If he says true and interesting things, it matters not a whit whether he was a Nazi. I don't forgive him for being a cunt - in fact, whether or not I 'forgive' him is an irrelevance - I consider whether his philosophy is good. If you're going to start refusing to accept contributions from people who fail to come up to your moral standard, prepare to throw a lot of your library out.

 

[Spion]

If he says true and interesting things

Of course, that's the crucial thing. With Heidegger I didn't get any new truths, just a better appreciation of a deeply flawed thinker and his life and times.

 

[teahead]

As for his 'philosophy', to me he doesn't seem to have done much other than wrestle with the pretty banal fact that we are social beings, without really connecting to the social circumstances in which we live.

Right. Or to recognise that his own ideas about Being were shaped by the social values surrounding him. Did he choose to suggest such a solipsistic universe, or was that a socially determined direction for his philosophical development? OK there's a powerful liberal case for feeling disgusted with Mr H, but I wonder how he'd have approached the same questions today.

 

[Santino]

Did he choose to suggest such a solipsistic universe

The last thing Heidegger was was a solipsist. He was explicitly criticising the Cartesian notion of a person as an independent, self-sustaining entity that encounters sense-data which it may choose to interpret as beings similar to itself. Heidegger's very definition of what it is to be human was being with others - other humans are essential for us being what we are, not just in a banal 'I am my friends and family' sense, but in the way that the very possibilities of our experience are shaped by the actual and potential being of other humans.

 

[gorski]

The last thing Heidegger was was a solipsist.

Quite! A lot of normative stuff there and none "enlightened" and emancipatory, I'm afraid...

He was explicitly criticising the Cartesian notion of a person as an independent, self-sustaining entity that encounters sense-data which it may choose to interpret as beings similar to itself.

Actually, Modern Subject is forcing objects before itself and handles them in a forceful manner etc. etc. His "critique" was quite interesting to read...

Heidegger's very definition of what it is to be human was being with others - other humans are essential for us being what we are, not just in a banal 'I am my friends and family' sense, but in the way that the very possibilities of our experience are shaped by the actual and potential being of other humans.

Indeed. Pity it was so damn tribal and hell bent on mythology and leadership which embodied the spirit of the Volk etc. Which, btw, was exactly how he behaved, pointing a finger at his colleagues behind their backs, if they failed to conform to his understanding of Humanity, after having befriended them and whatnot... Jewish or not! He led, all right - but not exactly down the way I would want to see Humanity travel and explore...

 

[gorski]

Right. Or to recognise that his own ideas about Being were shaped by the social values surrounding him. Did he choose to suggest such a solipsistic universe, or was that a socially determined direction for his philosophical development? OK there's a powerful liberal case for feeling disgusted with Mr H, but I wonder how he'd have approached the same questions today.

Others living in the same time and space chose to act, think, feel, speak and write differently. Hence, yes, he chose to do what he did - no one pointed a gun to his forehead and dictated to him what to write and how to act against his colleagues - especially behind their backs - and so on...

 

[teahead]

Others living in the same time and space chose to act, think, feel, speak and write differently. Hence, yes, he chose to do what he did - no one pointed a gun to his forehead and dictated to him what to write and how to act against his colleagues - especially behind their backs - and so on...

Well maybe solipsism is too strong a term, but Dasein comes very close to being a transandental subject in a formal Platonic sense because it suggests an idealisation of the human condition itself. And Being-unto-Death again privileges personal experience within the context of absolutes rather than by reference to particular deaths and particular conceptions of what Death might be, mean, do, commence.

As far as the choices he made at the time... I don't find it particularly palatable to say it but hitching the man's intellectual capacity to his moral sensibility sounds pretty Victorian to me. I wouldn't trust a Nazi that I met, but with the privilege of a text between us, I might take the opportunity to pick over the many ways in which I could take on board what he had to say.

But in any case I think it's pretty rough not to take him for a historical figure in a detailed context. We simply don't have the data to consider why he chose to act and think the way he did. So I'll settle for a new historicist view and wonder about how what's written and attributed to the figure called Heidegger might be relevant to processes, systems, groups and institutions with which I'm involved now.

 

[Santino]

but Dasein comes very close to being a transandental subject in a formal Platonic sense because it suggests an idealisation of the human condition itself

What do you mean by a 'transcendental subject in a formal Platonic sense'?

I mean, literally, what do you mean by each of those words?

 

[teahead]

What do you mean by a 'transcendental subject in a formal Platonic sense'?

I mean, literally, what do you mean by each of those words?

I mean that Dasein is not a thing-in-the-world but simply an experience. Heidegger needs to idealise this sense of being as a means to get around earlier ontological formulations based on 1st the existence of god, then 2nd the existence of consciousness that's differentiated from sense data. I would have thought the concept of a transcendental subject - an ideal form on which Being-in-the-world could be predicated - is pretty straightforward as a philosophical concept.

I've no arguement with anyone here. I'm not meaning to pick any holes in your arguement Alex, I'm just curious. So why not get on with talking about Heidegger? And addressing the more serious points I made afterwards (I did at least qualify my term):
- you can't judge the truth of what a person says by what how they choose to act (because you don't have sufficient data to make a substantial judgement about their choice and establish a logical premise for their beliefs)
- a text can exist seperately from the person that wrote it, and any judgement about its quality is limited by the constraints of the consciousness of the person making that judgement (power-knowledge, relative economic and cutural language stuctural evaluations etc)

Which is a long way around to say that if Heidegger provides the material for thought, then you'd have to be a luddite to say "Don't listen to him coz he's a jew murderer." That's crap biggotted rubbish. The holocaust (and my ancestors) exist in the past. The words put together by Heidegger exist now, in this context, and independant of his intentions (unless you're desperate to know what the Author himself was trying to get at, and I'm not sure how you'd be able to prove that anyway. Making up fables about who created what is one thing. Epistemology isn't anything to do with that at all.

 

[Dillinger4]

good post, teahead.

I do have something to add here, but I think I will hold off for a little while.

 

[Santino]

I mean that Dasein is not a thing-in-the-world but simply an experience. Heidegger needs to idealise this sense of being as a means to get around earlier ontological formulations based on 1st the existence of god, then 2nd the existence of consciousness that's differentiated from sense data. I would have thought the concept of a transcendental subject - an ideal form on which Being-in-the-world could be predicated - is pretty straightforward as a philosophical concept.

I'm not being obtuse here, I still have no idea what you're on about. How is Dasein - which I understand as an entity that takes an attitude towards its own being - predicated on a 'Platonic' form? I see no reason why Heidegger needs to invoke any such concept.

 

[teahead]

I'm not being obtuse here, I still have no idea what you're on about. How is Dasein - which I understand as an entity that takes an attitude towards its own being - predicated on a 'Platonic' form? I see no reason why Heidegger needs to invoke any such concept.

Because Dasein has to act to exist. My understanding of its mode of function is that it leads Dasein (quoting Bernard N Schumacher) "back to the possibility of being itself and of living in authenticity". If thinking and acting are to happen, however, then there's an a priori object - a desiring self in time - that exists indepdendant of experience, and therefore belongs to the platonic ideal realm.

So going back a bit, it seems to me that Dasein points to solipsism, though it can also be part of a formulation that is entirely about experience. I suppose I think of it as a multi-functional symbol rather than a signified object.

 

[Santino]

If thinking and acting are to happen, however, then there's an a priori object - a desiring self in time - that exists indepdendant of experience, and therefore belongs to the platonic ideal realm.

You are simply admitting a Cartesian subject into a project that is specifically and explicitly anti-Cartesian. Dasein is an entity, a being in the world, but there is no justification for calling it an a priori object. I don't even understand what you mean by calling it that.

 

[Dillinger4]

You are simply admitting a Cartesian subject into a project that is specifically and explicitly anti-Cartesian. Dasein is an entity, a being in the world, but there is no justification for calling it an a priori object. I don't even understand what you mean by calling it that.

I think this is a key point that is (generally) being overlooked in this thread.

Phenomenology is a rejection of all the assumptions that much of Western Philosophy is based upon, Descartes and The Cogito in particular.

Just to answer the bit about the transcendental subject - you may have a point talking about a transcendental subject if you were talking about the phenomenology of Husserl.

But Heidegger explicitly rejects his 'pure' phenomenology, arguing that the epoche is impossible as we always exist as being-in-the-world. There is no transcendental ego since our existence is essentially one of engagement with the world.

The whole point of this is to examine what is presupposed by all tradition philosophy. And according to Heidegger, an awful lot is presupposed. Cartesianism seems to be one of the most insidious of those presuppositions.

 

[teahead]

You are simply admitting a Cartesian subject into a project that is specifically and explicitly anti-Cartesian. Dasein is an entity, a being in the world, but there is no justification for calling it an a priori object. I don't even understand what you mean by calling it that.

Sorry if I wasn't very clear pre-coffee. I meant to suggest that Dasein is dependant on an a priori object if it is to act at all. Where does the motivation to continued being-in-the-world - presuming that this is a state which incorporates change/development - come from, if not from a sense of having-been? Which isn't to say that Being-in-the-world is simply a momentary circumstance.

I'm wanting to get away from this as I'm writing something systemic right now, but wasn't Wim Wenders chewing of this in Wings of Desire (Angels over Berlin)? His formulation seems to be that existence is only Dasein, with history and time merely figures that allow humans to express that part of themselves that is appetite. I like the film but would put the priorities the other way: that this sense of being-in-the-world is itself a construct based on a desire to liberate ourselves from these appetites. That a continual state of being-in-the-world bears a similar relation to the actual that being-in-a-moving-car has to travelling from one point to another in it.

 

[Dillinger4]

Sorry if I wasn't very clear pre-coffee. I meant to suggest that Dasein is dependant on an a priori object if it is to act at all. Where does the motivation to continued being-in-the-world - presuming that this is a state which incorporates change/development - come from, if not from a sense of having-been? Which isn't to say that Being-in-the-world is simply a momentary circumstance.

I'm wanting to get away from this as I'm writing something systemic right now, but wasn't Wim Wenders chewing of this in Wings of Desire (Angels over Berlin)? His formulation seems to be that existence is only Dasein, with history and time merely figures that allow humans to express that part of themselves that is appetite. I like the film but would put the priorities the other way: that this sense of being-in-the-world is itself a construct based on a desire to liberate ourselves from these appetites. That a continual state of being-in-the-world bears a similar relation to the actual that being-in-a-moving-car has to travelling from one point to another in it.

I am sorry, but this makes absolutely no sense to me.

 

[Dillinger4]

... you are wildly misunderstanding 'Dasein' - at least as I understand it.

 

[Santino]

What Dill said.

I think you are mistaken to try and define Dasein as something else. Heidegger was attempting to describe Dasein, set down it's phenomenology, not account for why it is thus, or what it really is. Phenomenologically, Dasein is not meant to be reduced to anything else.

 

[gorski]

His basic answer to Historicity is that Past keeps coming at us from the Future and in that sense he jumps into his own stomach with both feet, with regards to the above assertions about no epoch is possible and so on... Sure, he tries but falls short every time and hence stays in the realm of metaphysical.

 

[teahead]

... and hence stays in the realm of metaphysical.

Yes indeed: representation.

But my mind's not properly on this, and out of respect for the better thinking here, excuse me for withdrawing back to the Wittgenstein world I'm framing around a family interaction for a paper I'm presenting. Hell, maybe I do have it wrong there somewhere...

*awaits expected spattering with tomatoes*

 

[gorski]

Good luck!!!

 

[adc069975]

Heidegger's very definition of what it is to be human was being with others [(- other humans_].

May be I have this wrong, but isn't that a bit deterministic as the 'very definition'? I can see how that gets to the cul-de-sac of post-modern identity politics (or the worst of it).

 

[gorski]

He didn't have the predicament in front of him to deal with... the lucky bugger... No PoMo for HeilDagger...

 

[Stobart Stopper]

Please enlighten me. Can anyone explain why I should give over any thinking time to works of Heidgegger. Clearly he was a cowardly nazi academic for much of his life, and his philosophy didn't prevent him from being a nazi, so what's he good for?

He was a theorist, like Freud, who put forward his ideas on peoples' mental illnesses and their way of life. "I'd rather be a Freudian motherlover than a Heidgegger Aryan theorist."