There's an aspect of us that's unknown. Agree? — frank

There are lots of things we don't know.

True.

The image that comes to me is of waking up out of darkness. That darkness is like a background for consciousness of consciousness.

Do we then expect to fall back into that darkness or sleep?

Do we then expect to fall back into that darkness or sleep? — frank

A rather poetical way of describing life and death, but yes that is basically what it is all about.

That's what's weird about it: it's not death or sleep, but it's mindless, thus the need for a special word to refer to it. Its along the lines of the term "second-nature," except we're going to do a sort of ontological investigation of second nature. Crazy, huh?

Heidegger dispenses with some of assumptions that have been starting points for some philosophers such as explicitness.

"Every decision... bases itself on something not mastered, something concealed, confusing, else it would not be a decision."

So this would be a way to address the relationship between logic and the world: we actually don't use logic for most of the actions we take. The most important things we do may qualify as rational from an objective view, but there is likely no subjectivity at all in them. Logic only shows up when acting by second nature isn't working: a decision is called for.

Driving a car or riding a bike are obvious examples of mindless action. I find that when I look back, I catch glimpses of what I experienced. It is logical to speed into a curve to keep the car level, but I'm not thinking about the logic of it when I'm doing it.

Per Dreyfus, critical reflection presupposes something that can't be articulated. For instance, we can't have a theory about how theories are possible. We can't have a Theory theory. H goes from that insight to the idea that we must always start from somewhere within the hermeneutic circle.

Am I already operating from within the circle when I say that I can't articulate or model the way that I interact with the world as I drive the car? H says that laying out a scenario where I have innate logical understanding and that I use that to make decisions moment by moment is wrong. What is his vantage point when he makes that observation?

It works the other way: positing that which can't be articulated presupposes that critical reflection is valuable. And H doesn't deny that.

It's perpetual incompleteness. How is that not theoretical? Maybe incompleteness is like a negative theory.

I'll note that Cicero wrote: "To live is to think" (Latin: "Vivere est cogitare") I'm no fan of Heidegger and will leave what he may have meant unexplored. Thinking is something we do, though, while we live, but I'd say we don't reflect, or think analytically or critically, all that often. Dewey said we only think when confronted with a problem. We do a great deal by "habit", without reflection. I don't know what "unknown" is supposed to mean, here.

You're in agreement in Heidegger. Though we may imagine that beliefs explain our behavior, Heidegger says we spend a lot of time in a state where there is no subject/object distinction, and so there is no believing subject interacting with an object world.

The unknown I was talking about was this mindless state prior to waking up to critical reflection. But there's also another kind of unknown with Heidegger that has to do with pervasive and perpetual incompleteness when it comes to models and theories.

The unknown I was talking about was this mindless state prior to waking up to critical reflection — frank

I would say it is not a mindless state at all, but a state of pre-reflective, pre-critical self awareness or consciousness. It is only on the basis of this implicit consciousness that explicit awareness or consciousness are possible.

I think Dreyfus is saying "mindless" just to mean unreflective existence. As long as there's no reflection of the sort that implies withdrawal from the world to some inner sanctum where we encounter representations, I think we mean the same thing.

What is your answer to where we stand when we talk about the hermeneutic circle? Are we in it? Just a sort of philosophical anti-realist vantage point?

That's fair enough; it might be merely a terminological disagreement. My take on it though is that it is better (more in accordance with common usage and understanding, that is) not to confine the terms 'mind' or 'consciousness' to states of explicit or thematized awareness. I can make up my mind for example without being explicitly aware of doing so at all.

Are we in the hermeneutic circle? If experience is always already interpreted, then I would say we are. Everything that is understood is understood against a background of enculturated understanding, a context which consists in a web of conceptual relations, of pre-established meanings and interpretations. You could say that the hermeneutic circle is the oceanic sphere, or fishbowl perhaps, within which we swim through our lives. As Robert Brandom would have it, the task is to make the implicit understandings explicit, at which point they can be modified and built upon, or corrected.

That's fair enough; it might be merely a terminological disagreement. My take on it though is that it is better (more in accordance with common usage and understanding, that is) not to confine the terms 'mind' or 'consciousness' to states of explicit or thematized awareness. I can make up my mind for example without being explicitly aware of doing so at all. — Janus

That makes sense. The reason "mindless" is resonating with me is that I've long thought of analysis as the primary activity of mind. It's the part of us that separates good from evil, me from not-me, subject from object. The body doesn't do that. The body doesn't understand negativity (like not-red or not-soft). It deals in positives. Maybe rationality is what we could call it instead of mind?

You could say that the hermeneutic circle is the oceanic sphere, or fishbowl perhaps, within which we swim through our lives. — Janus

So how are we positioned psychologically when we talk about that fishbowl? Talking about it implies some vantage point, doesn't it? Outside it?

That makes sense. The reason "mindless" is resonating with me is that I've long thought of analysis as the primary activity of mind. It's the part of us that separates good from evil, me from not-me, subject from object. The body doesn't do that. The body doesn't understand negativity (like not-red or not-soft). It deals in positives. Maybe rationality is what we could call it instead of mind? — frank

I see analysis as the (perhaps) primary activity of the discursive intellect. On the other hand all analysis presupposes prior syntheses, and should also, ideally, lead to new syntheses. It is never either/ or, though, or black and white, when it comes to synthesis and analysis, as I see it. I think the pre-reflective body/ mind implicitly distinguishes good and evil, self and not-self, and thus subject and object. These distinctions as explicit rely on their implicit pre-objectified counterparts. I also think rationality has its implicit and explicit dimensions; rationality, 'ratio' involves comparison, measuring, and I have no doubt we measure and deliberate without being explicitly aware of it.. In terms of pre-reflective pattern recognition I would say that difference and sameness are primordially cognized. I would also say the (enminded) body understands absence (negativity, difference) as well as presence (positivity, identity).

So how are we positioned psychologically when we talk about that fishbowl? Talking about it implies some vantage point, doesn't it? Outside it? — frank

I don't know. Maybe at some point we just reflect and recognize "Oh, I am in this medium", in media res, in the middle of things. Never "outside it", except perhaps in some rarefied, abstract, imaginary sense. Each of us has a unique "vantage point" which is "mine", but this presupposes being-with the other, as Heidegger would say.

I think the pre-reflective body/ mind implicitly distinguishes good and evil, self and not-self, and thus subject and object. These distinctions as explicit rely on their implicit pre-objectified counterparts — Janus

But Dreyfus says: "Heidegger does not deny that we sometimes experience ourselves as conscious subjects relating to objects by way of intentional states such as desires, beliefs, perceptions, intentions, etc., but he thinks of this as a derivative and intermittent condition that presupposes a more fundamental way of being in the world that cannot be understood in subject/object terms." Are you agreeing or disagreeing with Dreyfus? Heidegger?

BTW, I'm not trying to become a Heidegger disciple, it's more that the anti-realism and the idea of emergence from an state where there is no analysis (and therefore strictly speaking, no synthesis) is where my pondering has sort of naturally ended up. I think your outlook is different. You don't really recognize a mindless state that acts as a background. And maybe that's where the crux is. That background is an element of language use. If you had to think about every action you're taking when you talk, it would take forever to say anything. And yet we think of speech as the epitome of critical reflection. ?

Are you agreeing or disagreeing with Dreyfus? Heidegger? — frank

I'm not sure I agree with Dreyfus' interpretation of Heidegger. As I said I agree the "fundamental way of being in the world" is prior to the explicit positing of subject and object. But the explicit positing of subject and object is derived from that fundamental way of being, a way of being wherein I would say that subject and object are "always already" implicit. So, does that mean that the fundamental way of being can be understood in terms of subject and object?

Well, I guess it depends on what you mean. Once you have explicitated subject and object you have attained a state that is different from that fundamental state, and yet the new state relies on and presupposes the primordial state. In other words if there were no pre-reflective understanding of self and other could we ever arrive at the explicit position of self and other? Is the new explicit understanding not then,in that sense, precisely an understanding of the "fundamental" pre-reflective state?

Alright, you are, but wherefore you think you are?

In other words if there were no pre-reflective understanding of self and other could we ever arrive at the explicit position of self and other? Is the new explicit understanding not then,in that sense, precisely an understanding of the "fundamental" pre-reflective state? — Janus

I think what's key here, from Dreyfus' vantage point, is how you mean to interpret the transition from "pre-reflective" to "explicit". If you mean to say that a conceptual understanding of self-other merely makes explicit our pre-objective/pre-reflective experience, then I think you're disagreeing significantly with Dreyfus. If you mean to say that this transition is transformative of our experience, then I don't think Dreyfus would disagree with you at all. This is why Dreyfus is sometimes accused of a sort of dualism.

BTW, I suspect a thread on the Dreyfus-McDowell debate would probably be a huge help in sussing out the issues you two are running up against. They're fascinating issues, and I have no fixed views, though I wish I did.

But the explicit positing of subject and object is derived from that fundamental way of being, a way of being wherein I would say that subject and object are "always already" implicit — Janus

It may be that Heidegger meant this. I'll take the question with me as I continue my book. If that is Heidegger's view, then I'll be a little disappointed.

I suspect a thread on the Dreyfus-McDowell debate would probably be a huge help in sussing out the issues you two are running up against. — Ilyosha

That would be great!

So this would be a way to address the relationship between logic and the world: we actually don't use logic for most of the actions we take...
Driving a car or riding a bike are obvious examples of mindless action. — frank

Hi. Great examples. The following may not at all be new to you, but in that case we can at least enjoy sharing awareness/agreement.

What do we know when we know how to ride a bike with no hands, for example? It is not propositional or linguistic knowledge. It is 'knowhow.'

And how does the bike exist for this knowhow? I don't think we can capture that propositionally either. Sometimes the bike is 'transparent.' I forget about it and look at the fox I saw tonight on my ride. Sometimes there's an obstacle to look out for, and I am conscious of the bike as I carefully turn it without using my hands. But the no-longer-transparent bike is not tranformed into a theoretical object but rather into a tool consciously employed.

Is the same true for personality? Is the 'true' philosophy a knowhow as opposed to a knowthat? Of course we need plenty of knowthats in life, but perhaps you see what I'm getting at. The philosophers for whom practice was primary and the supporting theory of that practice secondary come to mind.

This a perspective Heiddeger shared with Kierkegaard. It means that the conscious me is understood to ____ from a mindless state of established practices. I left the verb blank because I'm not sure how to describe it. — frank

This is a great theme too. I think of the 'I' emerging from the 'We' both ecstatically and anxiously (like a little boy wandering away from his mother to explore or demonstrate independence?)

...a mindless state of established practices... — frank

I don't agree they're mindless. We talk about know-how and 'knowing how' because we move about the world with embodied knowledge, inculcated in us by ourselves or our carers/teachers, through logical rule-making, rule-explanation, reflection and repetition. A lot of mind is embedded in bikes, and embodied in bike-riding. To me the match to Heidegger then is in his idea that we are 'thrown into the world' - Dasein finds itself flung into in a sea of established practices before it has even learnt to think, to grasp or have revealed to it what thinking might be.

This relates then, if we want, to ethics, or so I see it: to the Aristotelian model of virtues that we learn by habit, in pursuit of a notion of eudaimonia or well-being that already is present in our polis/society, and which we then contribute to in our virtuous action and our thoughtful reflection. Of course it's not clear in the modern world what binds us together, so angst becomes a typical and certainly Heidegerrian description of our fundamental (individualised) state, whereas Aristotle founds his ethics on the inevitability of the wonderful Athenian state, and on the deep philia that we feel for a few others.

H goes from that insight to the idea that we must always start from somewhere within the hermeneutic circle. — frank

The way I tend to understand this is that language itself is another 'bike' most of the time. It is 'transparent' while we use it. When we double back on our own language to question it, the questioning language is 'transparent' while the questioned language has become translucent or opaque.

Can any of us remember 'fading in' to this basic knowhow. I sure can't. For me the fact of always already possessing this We-dependent-knowhow is our thrown-ness into the hermeneutic circle.

I don't agree they're mindless. We talk about know-how and 'knowing how' because we move about the world with embodied knowledge, inculcated in us by ourselves or our carers/teachers, through logical rule-making, rule-explanation, reflection and repetition — mcdoodle

"Theoretical Holism. Plato's view that everything human beings do that makes any sense at all is based on an implicit theory, combined with the Descartes/Husserl view that this theory is represented in our minds as intentional states and rules for relating them, leads to the view that even if a background of shared practices is necessary for intelligibility, one can rest assured that one will be able to analyze that background in terms of further mental states. Insofar as background practices contain knowledge, they must be based on implicit beliefs; insofar as they are skills, they must be generated by tacit rules. This leads to the notion of a holistic network of intentional states, a tacit belief system, that is supposed to underlie every aspect of orderly human activity, even everyday background practices. Tacit knowledge-what Husserl calls "horizontal intentionality" in his answer to Being and Times-has always been the fallback position of consistent cognitivists.

"Heidegger opposes this philosophical move. He denies the traditional assumption that there must be a theory of every orderly domain-specifically that there can be a theory of the commonsense world. He insists we return to the phenomenon of everyday human activity and stop ringing changes on the traditional oppositions of immanent/transcendent, representation/represented, subject/ object, as well as such oppositions within the subject as conscious/ unconscious, explicit/tacit, reflective/unreflective. Heidegger is definitely not saying what Peter Strawson rather condescendingly finds "plausible" in Heidegger's works, namely, that we each have an "unreflective and largely unconscious grasp of the basic general structure of interconnected concepts or categories in terms of which we think about the world and ourselves."6 This would make our understanding of the world into a belief system entertained by a subject, exactly the view that Husserl and all cognitivists hold and that Heidegger rejects." --Being-in-the-World, Dreyfus

Do you disagree with Dreyfus' view?

I think what's key here, from Dreyfus' vantage point, is how you mean to interpret the transition from "pre-reflective" to "explicit". If you mean to say that a conceptual understanding of self-other merely makes explicit our pre-objective/pre-reflective experience, then I think you're disagreeing significantly with Dreyfus. If you mean to say that this transition is transformative of our experience, then I don't think Dreyfus would disagree with you at all. — Ilyosha

Would it not be possible to hold both views? If a conceptual understanding makes explicit our pre-reflective experience it seems natural enough to think that this making-explicit would also transform our experience. Still, I don't see any kind of gulf between the two 'modes' of experience, so no kind of troublesome "dualism" would seem to be involved.

BTW, I suspect a thread on the Dreyfus-McDowell debate would probably be a huge help in sussing out the issues you two are running up against. They're fascinating issues, and I have no fixed views, though I wish I did. — Ilyosha

That sounds interesting. I hadn't been aware of any debate between McDowell and Dreyfus. Will you start such a thread?

If that is Heidegger's view, then I'll be a little disappointed. — frank

Why would you find that disappointing?

Do you disagree with Dreyfus' view? — frank

As to whether Heidegger thought as Dreyfus suggests, or as to whether if her did think that, he was right?

On the first I am not sure, on the second I would disagree. I don't believe there is as much difference between Husserl and Heidegger as Heidegger perhaps and Dreyfus certainly imagines. Perhaps Heidegger mis-characterized Husserl as a 'Cartesian' thinker in order to claim original credit for ideas which are already present in Husserl.

I certainly don't agree with the idea that implicit understanding is the same as "tacit knowledge"; characterizing it as knowledge rather than understanding seems to introduce a cognitivist slant that may well be based on a misinterpretation of Husserl.

I would be disappointed because I've been turning into an anti-realist existentialist. I started reading about Heidegger because I thought he might shed some light. You said you think there has to be implicit distinction making in the pre-reflective state. Could you say more about that? What does it mean to discern distinctions without reflection?

It's like theories have some sort of inertia. They want to be completed. Or maybe it's built in to the idea of a theory that since it models the world and the world is completed, the theory is completable in principle. Imagine that theories are not completable. There's a difference between pondering that and actually accepting it. Do you find that?

I would be disappointed because I've been turning into an anti-realist existentialist. — frank

I'm not clear on what commitments that would involve. Husserl was the one who introduced the "Epoché" which is basically a suspension of concern over the question of realism. Is anti-realism, for you, something more than that; a definite rejection of realism, perhaps? It does seem to be that for some, but I have never been able to understand what that would look like.

You said you think there has to be implicit distinction making in the pre-reflective state. Could you say more about that? What does it mean to discern distinctions without reflection? — frank

I think the idea of implicit distinction making is self-contradictory. My idea is more that our pre-reflective lives and their activities work in ways that make thematic awareness of, and distinction between, self and other, possible. So the distinctions are implicit, but there is no implicit "distinction-making" because distinction making can only be explicit. We don't "discern distinctions without reflection" but rather we act in ways which the possibility of making such distinctions is inherent.

Think of riding a bike. You need have no reflective understanding of what you are doing at all in order to ride the bike, but your act of riding it inherently involves the possibility of a self-reflective understanding of what you are doing (given that you are a language-user, of course).

Would it not be possible to hold both views? If a conceptual understanding makes explicit our pre-reflective experience it seems natural enough to think that this making-explicit would also transform our experience. Still, I don't see any kind of gulf between the two 'modes' of experience, so no kind of troublesome "dualism" would seem to be involved. — Janus

Sorry, I don't think I wrote very well. I'm going to take another (short) crack at it, and if I'm still being ambiguous, I'll go back and take a thorough look at Dreyfus.

I think the idea is this. When Michael Jordan is playing basketball at his best, he is solicited by meaningful differences within the context of the game and acts accordingly (pass here, spin-move there). This presents his learned capacity to cope meaningfully within a certain sort of situation (say, an NBA championship game) through the exercise of non-conceptual capacities (e.g. perceptual capacities). I think that Dreyfus' point is that (a) Michael Jordan would not be able to do this (viz. play skillfully) if he were exercising his conceptual capacities while playing; (b) When Michael Jordan tries to conceptualize the experience of what it is like to play basketball at his best, this transforms the content of the experience. That is, there is not an isomorphic relationship between the activity and the conceptualization of the activity; any attempt to put that experience into conceptual shape necessary changes the content of the experience.

Sorry, that may be a bit of hand-wavey gobbledy gook.