I don’t see widespread objectification of the world as an emerging trend so much as a mystification of everything — Tom Storm

That’s true to a degree, but look at how people really behave. Everyone’s forced into jobs, more or less. And today’s jobs are mostly total crap. Cogs in a machine. Ironically, I think looking at material reality exposes just how materialistic we are.

I’m not sure that’s my experience but maybe Australia is somewhat kinder. There are certainly neoliberal trends along those lines but also opportunities not to participate. But maybe I’m experiencing a wave of optimism.

What’s the wealth distribution like in Australia? It’s likely better than the US, but I would expect about 70-80% of people there living fairly precarious lives too. I haven’t done a carful analysis of the economy of down under though.

The point I’m making goes beyond economics, of course— it’s a (mostly tacit) philosophy of life, of how we see ourselves and what we value. We’re living the answers to those questions.

I haven’t done a carful analysis of the economy of down under though. — Mikie

Nor me. But what we do have is free medical and hospital treatment and a guaranteed welfare payments and pensions. I work in the area of addiction and mental health so I’ve seen my fair share of disadvantage.

That’s a good point. The here and now of conscious awareness is the absolute starting point for Husserlian phenomenology. Heidegger and Derrida as well accept the absolute primacy of the experienced now. Their deconstruction of the metaphysics of presence aims to show that within the now itself there is a bifurcation or hinge even more intimate than pure presence. So they dont look outside of the now to what is beyond our immediate awareness, but within this assumed immediacy. — Joshs

Good!

I think of the things outside of our immediate awareness as scaffolding necessary to hold our attention to what's within our means to perceive the world.

I think of the things outside of our immediate awareness as scaffolding necessary to hold our attention to what's within our means to perceive the world. — L'éléphant

Like in dreams, we know there is a world beyond the immediate. Consciousness seems like a flashlight in a dark room. We move the flashlight around and come to know what was already there.

Like in dreams, we know there is a world beyond the immediate. Consciousness seems like a flashlight in a dark room. We move the flashlight around and come to know what was already there. — frank

This is a good example of the metaphysics of presence, where awareness is treated as our discovery of what was already there. A flashlight model assumes that the relation to the world is something added to a prior existing subject. But Heidegger rejects the idea that there is a self-contained subject who merely “lights up” pre-existing objects that are already there in themselves.

The world is not something present-at-hand which we merely observe; it is that within which Dasein already finds itself.(Being and Time)

Heidegger considers the encounter with objects in the world in an act of attention to be a creative process altering self and world in the same gesture.

"The essence of something is not at all to be discovered simply like a fact; on the contrary, it must be brought forth. To bring forth is a kind of making, and so there resides in all grasping and positing of the essence something creative…. To bring forth means to bring out into the light, to bring something in sight which was up to then not seen at all , and specifically such that the seeing of it is not simply a gaping at something already lying there but a seeing which, in seeing, first brings forth what is to be seen, i.e., a productive seeing. "

Beings (essences) are produced by Dasein in the act of taking something as something because the ground ( the totality of relevance) of their being is created anew in our encounter with them.

“Every “foundation” in the sense we discussed comes too late with regard to the positing of the essence, because the productive seeing of the essence is itself a productive seeing of that in which the essence has its ground—a productive seeing of what its ground is. Knowledge of the essence is in itself a ground-laying. It is the positing of what lies under as ground... It is not the subsequent adding of a ground for something already represented.“