Have you ever experienced this? — frank

yeahh

That's an affirmative.

Yes.
Kierkegaard was a significant influence Heidegger.

Heidegger arrives at much the same conclusions through his analyses of Anxiety in section 40 of Being and Time.

I find it ironic that it is our sense of not feeling at home in the world that gives rise to the dread of losing that very world in which we do not feel at home.

I suppose everyone has unless they're brain dead maybe.

What a dumb question. Yes.

Birth trauma reawakened

the whole of what-is that presses in on us — frank

.

Birth trauma reawakened — unenlightened

that is funny.

@all: Hmm. Interesting.

I find it ironic that it is our sense of not feeling at home in the world that gives rise to the dread of losing that very world in which we do not feel at home. — Arne

Do we not feel the world as unheimlich precisely because we could lose it, and thus lose ourselves, at any moment? And on the other hand whenever choices are made are we not "being towards death" in the sense that we feel the death of all the possibilities that become closed off due to choice, and the existential dread that comes with that?

Do we not feel the world as unheimlich precisely because we could lose it, and thus lose ourselves, at any moment? And on the other hand whenever choices are made are we not "being towards death" in the sense that we feel the death of all the possibilities that become closed off due to choice, and the existential dread that comes with that? — Janus

Indeed.

And therein is the essence of the ironic nature of this matter.

"...being itself is essentially finite and shows up only in the transcendence of openness, held out into the nothing." -- What is Metaphysics

Heidegger doesn't mean by this that a human being holds openness out into the nothing. A human being is a species of that which only shows up in this way.

I'm not sure if he's talking about the recognition of being or the genesis of being itself.

So "the nothing" (which we must remember itself nothings, according to H) is nothing (pun intended) but a feeling, a state of mind? Which is, one would think, something.

He covers that issue at the outset.

So, what does he do with it?

He says the nothing can't be understood logically. He notes that we seem to claim knowledge of it anyway, for instance when we speak of what is not.

He continues on exploring the issue phenomenologically.

So "the nothing" (which we must remember itself nothings, according to H) is nothing (pun intended) but a feeling, a state of mind? Which is, one would think, something. — Ciceronianus the White

Well, I would be curious to see how a hardcore Heidegger apologist defends his bawdy use of language in phrases like Das Nichts nichtet - which needlessly undercuts what is otherwise largely a Dewey-style pragmatist message - but I think you're doomed to misunderstand him from the outset if you start with this misleading question. There's no connection between a "State-of-mind" and a "feeling" for Heidegger. For Heidegger, what bad ontology calls "a state of mind" is better understood as something like Befindlichkeit or "so-found-ness" and a feeling is better understood as something like a Stimmung or self who is attuned to some aspect of a situation he finds himself in ("so-found-ness"). So it's important to keep in mind that Heidegger considers moods a fundamental method of human attunement to reality. If you have a problem with Heidegger on the question of "dread" it's probably the broader view which you're objecting to.

My assessment of this essay: H really is talking about negation in this essay contrary to the repetitive claim that he isn't. He's just treating negation in a more living sort of way as opposed to the dried up husk of it that might appear in a simple minus sign.

He equivocates and contradicts himself. I'm not sure why. Complete disregard for his audience I guess.

Still, the meat of the essay is fascinating. All is dependent on nothing.

The paralysis of the paradox is my favorite vertigo. I am able to compartmentalize it by pretensions to fiction, but I am, if only dissociatively, able to understand the deception. Nothing, nihil, and the other lingual representations of it is so robust because it cannot be transmuted into our paltry language. It is there only a silly exercise.

I invent words in order to better comprehend my consciousness and phaneron. Doing so bequeaths unto me a sensation of puissance. However, the most excruciating blow is the knowledge that this is merely a defensive method against dread. I think that I shall someday be paralyzed or maddened by the surrender of these notions, when I am no longer able to maintain my rituals, when I am no longer able to convince myself that my trials and traumas have made a contribution to sensible development and growth, and when quietus nears. The extension of every breath, inhalation, or thought only prolongs the inevitable. To be suspended in dread is to be ululated in a lifetime of demurring by felicitous illusions, and thenceforth, delusions. The notion that I will die must be suspended amidst the background of vacuous horrors, which I may temporarily ignore.

Nothing invites the enervating malediction of cursed or indignant sourness as does nothing else. The formation of the surreal, the nature of the intoxicating or corruptive caryatid which is ever present amidst the swallowing legends of protruding or protesting miscibilities of every and only philosophical conundrum, and the terrorscapes which contemplations of lethe evoke are as ceaselessly intoxicating as no joyful escapism. The nameless egresion of Nothing, of the haunted pitch which emanates from every absolute moore of some noetic wold, carries so excruciatingly the varied notions of indeterminate clash which must forever consume the wanderer after the formal invigoration of every clashing fugue, delirium, and offal of the waking world. Those awful nuances of pitiful clash- the moment wherein we might gesticulate and howl for the grief of every confounding draw and clash suffocates.

Nothing can better inspire the pessimist or nihilist than the representation of the unknowable. I found a childhood gambit in travelling to the edges of what I could find in the concept of an afterlife. I attempted to imagine myself in an eternity, day following day, and found myself stymied by an illimited Cosmicism. I was suborned by a need to investigate that which could only be semiotically understood, much as the search for the noumenonic God has possessed some. However, nothingness does not necessarily invite theological reconciliations. Such concepts are not benevolent for humanity, nor do they hold a prodigious unholiness. The infinite and absent are dreadful because they refute everything which comforts us. I never found comfort in the ideal of a deity.

I have always adored the bewilderment of Absence. The panic of absolute and utter contradiction is delightfully unbearable. Poetically, we could easily speculate that the paradox of nothingness, when it is brought into the object of consideration, is so disturbing because it cannot directly be accessed. We might only seek a brief envisioning of that nonsense before the unheimlich devours the notion of each unbearable thought. To think upon infinity or an infinitesimal evokes the bitter barrier of the imagination, and so drowns me in thrall of my intellectual limitations. The human mind is a flawed machine, and so, we are thence reminded of our banality. We are not exquisite, or elevated above other organisms and objects.

Nothingness is a horror which defies all of our attempts to rationalize, and we there are stripped of our psychological defenses. Thomas Ligotti superbly analyzes the human machine in his The Conspiracy Against the Human Race.

the nature of the intoxicating or corruptive caryatid which is ever present amidst the swallowing legends of protruding or protesting miscibilities of every and only philosophical conundrum — AR LaBaere

Why caryatid?

So "the nothing" (which we must remember itself nothings, according to H) is nothing (pun intended) but a feeling, a state of mind? — Ciceronianus the White

Lawyer like yourself oughta see that, in the quote quoted, he didn't say this, at all.

A lawyer like me has trouble understanding what he's saying at all, I'm afraid. We have our legal fictions, of course, but nowhere do we countenance "nothing."

I'll take your word for it, though I'll note that I don't think we ordinarily speak of "what is not."

It's not everybody's cup of tea. He doesn't rely much on the force of logic. It's more: does it ring true?

But note the question faced by those who do rely on logic: why should we accept its force? It's a subtle question, but important to some of us.

. For Heidegger, what bad ontology calls "a state of mind" is better understood as something like Befindlichkeit or "so-found-ness" and a feeling is better understood as something like a Stimmung or self who is attuned to some aspect of a situation he finds himself in ("so-found-ness"). So it's important to keep in mind that Heidegger considers moods a fundamental method of human attunement to reality. If you have a problem with Heidegger on the question of "dread" it's probably the broader view which you're objecting to. — John Doe

I have trouble thinking of feelings as a "self" though I find the idea that moods and feelings reflect our interaction with the rest of the world quite acceptable, even apparent. Just how the feeling or mood of dread (or whatever he may want to call it) might reveal "the nothing" is a mystery to me, though claiming that it does would seem to me to assert that our interaction with reality reveals "something" which presumably isn't real. Unless, of course, it is, or is "real" enough.

But enough. I begin to feel the dread I always feel when encountering Heidegger's work which, though potent enough to me, is evidently insufficient to reveal "the nothing."

I have trouble thinking of feelings as a "self" though I find the idea that moods and feelings reflect our interaction with the rest of the world quite acceptable, even apparent. — Ciceronianus the White

Good, because feelings are not a "self"; that would be a stupid position indeed and I'm not sure what I said in my crude characterization of Heidegger to make that seem sensible to attribute to him.

Your use of the word reflect in this context also suggests to me that you're likely having trouble appreciating how fully Heidegger rejects the notion of subjectivity.

Just how the feeling or mood of dread (or whatever he may want to call it) might reveal "the nothing" is a mystery to me, though claiming that it does would seem to me to assert that our interaction with reality reveals "something" which presumably isn't real. Unless, of course, it is, or is "real" enough. — Ciceronianus the White

In plain English it's more like: the nothing reveals itself to us in the mood of dread.

My original point was more that Heidegger flatly denies the plausibility of any attempt to explain the phenomena through equating the notion of feeling to mood -- in this context the notion of a "feeling" needs to be rejected outright since it implies an ontological story about a subject who feels.

But enough. I begin to feel the dread I always feel when encountering Heidegger's work which, though potent enough to me, is evidently insufficient to reveal "the nothing." — Ciceronianus the White

I'm pretty sympathetic to your loathing Heidegger but I'm fairly puzzled by what you're doing in this or any other Heidegger thread.

But note the question faced by those who do rely on logic: why should we accept its force? It's a subtle question, but important to some of us. — frank

I think we have good reason to do so, but here I'm referring to language use. Now, perhaps my ignorance of the German language prevents me from understanding this. However, when we speak of "what is not" we purport to refer to something; we speak as if there is a thing which "is not." But of course there is no such thing. So we misuse language when we do.

I'm pretty sympathetic to your loathing Heidegger but I'm fairly puzzled by what you're doing in this or any other Heidegger thread. — John Doe

Well, my last remark notwithstanding, I think I raise legitimate questions and would be inclined to raise them as to any philosopher. But if this thread is to be limited to those who understand what Heidegger is saying, I'm not among them and will withdraw.

Speech about illusions refers us to what is not. Per H these small cases of negation are secondary to "the nothing."

Why dont you read the essay? It's not long. You won't catch on fire.

Well, my last remark notwithstanding, I think I raise legitimate questions and would be inclined to raise them as to any philosopher. But if this thread is to be limited to those who understand what Heidegger is saying, I'm not among them and will withdraw. — Ciceronianus the White

Perhaps I misspeak. I like your polemics. But I guess I just assume that the purpose of raising legitimate questions is to understand what a philosopher is saying. And I'm literally puzzled as to whether that's your motive, or if your motive is to critique or vent about Heidegger or what. It seems like you hate him so much you don't want to take the time to read him -- fair enough! -- but then you also want to offer a critique of his ideas, so I'm a tad confused. Of course I agree with and would be really curious to read what you have to say after actually reading the essay.