Heidegger disqualifies his rivals and the entire universal philosophy for not having understood what the Being is. — David Mo
I have been searching uselessly in Being and Time for an answer to that question. I consulted several qualified commentators (not believers) of his work who told me that, precisely, Heidegger never made something similar to a definition of the Being and even recognized that the Being is an indefinable concept. — David Mo
But he ended up recognizing that he had been unable to give an explanation of the problem of Being. — David Mo
If you have an answer to what the Being is and you can base it on some text of Heidegger, I would be grateful if you could tell me. It will dispel the terrible suspicion that haunts me: that Heidegger did not know what he was talking about. — David Mo
NOTE: A text, please, not a simple quote. — David Mo
But he never said clearly what that stupidity consisted of. He never disavowed the assumptions of his philosophy that led him to that "stupidity". He never denied the political basis that led him to glorify Hitler and his party. He always abhorred the Jews, communism and democracy. — David Mo
I don't have the text in front of me, but thought I'd offer that in the beginning of BT, he gives at least one tentative definition of Being as "that which determines beings in their being," he suggests, as already noted, we already have a preontological understanding of being - ("what is being?" for example, presupposes a direction/horizon for the question and a sense of being in the "is" of the question we are asking), and from the start he repeatedly insists Being should not be thought of as 'a being,' and that Being can not be understood as 'objective presence' which is how philosophy/metaphysics has typically 'covered over/concealed' this character of Being. — Kevin
Eh, Heidi was a provincial philosopher with a couple of interesting ideas here and there. Would give away his entire corpus for a page of Hannah Arendt. — StreetlightX
he repeatedly insists Being should not be thought of as 'a being,' and that Being can not be understood as 'objective presence' which is how philosophy/metaphysics has typically 'covered over/concealed' this character of Being. — Kevin
Heidegger disqualifies his rivals and the entire universal philosophy for not having understood what the Being is. — David Mo
No, that's simply wrong. — Xtrix
The Necessity for Explicitly Restating the Question of Being
This question has today been forgotten. Even though in our time we deem it progressive to give our approval to ‘metaphysics’ again, it is held that we have been exempted from the exertions of a newly rekindled gigantomakía peri tés ousías. Yet the question we are touching upon is not just any question. It is one which provided a stimulus for the researches of Plato and Aristotle, only to subside from then on or a theme for actual investigation. What these two men achieved was to persist through many alterations and 'retouchings’ down to the ‘logic’ of Hegel. And what they wrested with the utmost intellectual effort from the phenomena, fragmentary and incipient though it was, has long since become
trivialized. — Heidegger, Being and Time, #1
I was not referring to you, whom I do not have the pleasure of knowing, but to a certain type of Heidegger followers who function as believers in a mystical sect.I don't know exactly why you accuse me of being a "believer" -- but that's nothing but a term of abuse. — Xtrix
Do you have to read all 102 volumes of his complete works to get a brief summary? Gee, it is hard!He does indeed go through the history of this, thoroughly. — Xtrix
I agree with everything except "always abhorred the Jews." Husserl and Arendt with both Jews, as you know. — Xtrix
Heidegger disqualifies his rivals and the entire universal philosophy for not having understood what the Being is. — David Mo
No, that's simply wrong.
— Xtrix
From the very beginning:
The Necessity for Explicitly Restating the Question of Being
This question has today been forgotten. Even though in our time we deem it progressive to give our approval to ‘metaphysics’ again, it is held that we have been exempted from the exertions of a newly rekindled gigantomakía peri tés ousías. Yet the question we are touching upon is not just any question. It is one which provided a stimulus for the researches of Plato and Aristotle, only to subside from then on or a theme for actual investigation. What these two men achieved was to persist through many alterations and 'retouchings’ down to the ‘logic’ of Hegel. And what they wrested with the utmost intellectual effort from the phenomena, fragmentary and incipient though it was, has long since become
trivialized.
— Heidegger, Being and Time, #1 — David Mo
His thesis in Being and Time is that in the Western world, since the Greeks, "being" has been defined in terms of what's present before us, present-at-hand (Vorhandenheit) -- he says at one point "presencing." This has given rise, in his view, to Western philosophy and science -- showing up as ousia in Aristotle to the res of Descartes -- a kind of substance ontology. Beings then become "objects," representations, etc.
He does indeed go through the history of this, thoroughly. — Xtrix
Do you have to read all 102 volumes of his complete works to get a brief summary? Gee, it is hard! — David Mo
Anyone who knows about a subject is supposed to be able to give a brief explanation of it, even if it is only approximate, but this is the typical response of Heidegger's followers to any request for clarification. It should not be stressed that I find it very unphilosophical. — David Mo
His thesis in Being and Time is that in the Western world, since the Greeks, "being" has been defined in terms of what's present before us, present-at-hand (Vorhandenheit) -- he says at one point "presencing." This has given rise, in his view, to Western philosophy and science -- showing up as ousia in Aristotle to the res of Descartes -- a kind of substance ontology. Beings then become "objects," representations, etc. —
Heidegger does not define or explain anything because there is nothing to define. Carnap and Ayer closed the problem in less than a page. Heidegger confuses the use of "being" as the subject of a sentence with a name of something. Basic logical error into which Parmenides already fell, by the way — David Mo
"Something is happening out there."
"Something smells rotten in Denmark."
Then there is a stuff called "Something" that is at the origin of everything because we can say of everything that is "something". — David Mo
But Heidegger makes an ontologically rude mistake. Too much influenced by Parmenides, he believes that the alternative is between Being and Non-Being, — David Mo
It seems that the publication of the latest Black Notebooks has left little doubt about Heidegger's anti-Semitism, which had already been denounced by Husserl and Jaspers, among others. — David Mo
If to say that everyone has forgotten or trivialized the essential question of philosophy is not to disqualify, I do not understand what disqualify means.Not once does he disqualify anyone for "not understanding what the Being is," — Xtrix
In Heidegger's usual contradictory way to have an immediate understanding of what it means to be seems that it is not in contradiction with having forgotten or trivialized the question of being. So that intuitive understanding seems to be quite trivial or ineffective for walking through philosophical life. As he themes it, it is truly trivial. In my opinion.Heidegger argues we all not only have a tacit understanding of being, but that talk about "being" is taken for granted as something obvious; — Xtrix
Obviously I was asking for a summary of what the fundamental concept of all Heidegger's philosophy can mean: the Being. That being with a capital letter that sometime comes to qualify as "divine". If I remember correctly.To get a brief summary of what? — Xtrix
Western thought has interpreted being from the "horizon" (standpoint) of time, particularly the present. — Xtrix
It seems you're trying to give me the explanation I asked for. The Being would be the "present horizon", which obviously can mean anything. If that is all that can be said about the Being, it is tremendously vague to me. Poetic, but vague. But since you refer me to the Introduction to Metaphysics as a key text, I will take a look at it to see if I can find out better. Fortunately I have it at hand.His thesis in Being and Time is that in the Western world, since the Greeks, "being" has been defined in terms of what's present before us,
Ayer mentions Heidegger's metaphysics as a "superstition" on page 49 of the Spanish edition of Lenguaje, Verdad y Lógica (Language, Truth and Logic) and refers to Carnap, who analyses the concept of Nothing in Heidegger in section 5 of his article "The Elimination of Metaphysics through Logical Analysis of Language" and concludes that it is the result of a "gross logical error".Ayer and Carnap are analytical philosophers, who -- like Russell before them -- never showed they really bothered with Heidegger at all. — Xtrix
Heidegger uses the term "Being" as a subject on countless occasions, adding to it the capital letter, which makes it especially substantial by making it a proper name.It's not even a "subject." — Xtrix
I prefer Karl Jasper's provocative conception of "The Being" as encompassing (i.e. 'nondual transcendence' - from his lectures titled Existenzphilosophie, published in 1938) for its much more direct expression and nearly pellucid explication than Heidi's mystagogic, etymologizing, logorrhea.The Being would be the "present horizon", which obviously can mean anything. If that is all that can be said about the Being, it is tremendously vague to me. Poetic, but vague. But since you [Xtrix] refer me to the Introduction to Metaphysics as a key text, I will take a look at it to see if I can find out better. — David Mo
Not once does he disqualify anyone for "not understanding what the Being is,"
— Xtrix
If to say that everyone has forgotten or trivialized the essential question of philosophy is not to disqualify, I do not understand what disqualify means. — David Mo
Heidegger argues we all not only have a tacit understanding of being, but that talk about "being" is taken for granted as something obvious;
— Xtrix
In Heidegger's usual contradictory way to have an immediate understanding of what it means to be seems that it is not in contradiction with having forgotten or trivialized the question of being. — David Mo
To get a brief summary of what?
— Xtrix
Obviously I was asking for a summary of what the fundamental concept of all Heidegger's philosophy can mean: the Being. That being with a capital letter that sometime comes to qualify as "divine". If I remember correctly. — David Mo
Western thought has interpreted being from the "horizon" (standpoint) of time, particularly the present.
— Xtrix
His thesis in Being and Time is that in the Western world, since the Greeks, "being" has been defined in terms of what's present before us,
It seems you're trying to give me the explanation I asked for. The Being would be the "present horizon", which obviously can mean anything. If that is all that can be said about the Being, it is tremendously vague to me. Poetic, but vague. — David Mo
But since you refer me to the Introduction to Metaphysics as a key text, I will take a look at it to see if I can find out better. Fortunately I have it at hand. — David Mo
Ayer and Carnap are analytical philosophers, who -- like Russell before them -- never showed they really bothered with Heidegger at all.
— Xtrix
Ayer mentions Heidegger's metaphysics as a "superstition" on page 49 of the Spanish edition of Lenguaje, Verdad y Lógica (Language, Truth and Logic) and refers to Carnap, who analyses the concept of Nothing in Heidegger in section 5 of his article "The Elimination of Metaphysics through Logical Analysis of Language" and concludes that it is the result of a "gross logical error".
I don't know if "bother" is the right word in English, but of course Heidegger's metaphysics didn't appeal to either of them. — David Mo
It's not even a "subject."
— Xtrix
Heidegger uses the term "Being" as a subject on countless occasions, adding to it the capital letter, which makes it especially substantial by making it a proper name. — David Mo
I agree here. My impression, in English translations, is that the capitalisation of “Being” is to set it apart from a “being”. Though it doesn’t seem to me to be very difficult to tell the difference.But he repeatedly says it's not a "being" — Xtrix
According to the dictionaries I have consulted, disqualifying means rejecting someone from a "competition" because they have done something wrong. This is what Heidegger did with regard to all philosophy from the Greeks to him. Things are not so drastic in science. Einstein only limited the field of application of Newtonian physics, he did not reject its validity.Einstein wasn't "disqualifying" Newton any more than Heidegger is disqualifying the history of Western thought. — Xtrix
It cannot be said that Heidegger does not capitalize on the word "being" and that in German all nouns are capitalized. Indeed this was my thesis: that the capitalization implies that the Being is used as subject by Heidegger in spite of his own refusal. Many translators in English and other languages think that Sein's substantivity is so evident in many passages that it deserves to be capitalized. Exactly the same way as Dasein. This is not a widespread whim but an insight of the ambiguity inherent in Heidegger's discourse.Regarding the capitalization: that's just a mistake, in my view. It's not capitalized in every text, and I believe it shouldn't be for exactly the reason you mention: — Xtrix
If you don't remember what Ayer and Carnap say about Heidegger, your accusation is a priori. Read it first. You will see that the Carnap article I mentioned does a thorough analysis of the concept of Nothing through Heidegger's article "What is Metaphysics? It is a clear case in which a concept is substantialized without logical foundation.True, by "bother" there I meant really take him seriously enough to read carefully. — Xtrix
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