This is a well known fact. Heidegger's short "explanation" or "self criticism" of his interpretation can be found in a preface to second edition of his Kant book (1950). Heidegger speaks here about endeavour/experiment which tries to start/set in motion a thinking dialogue/discussion (Gespräch) between thinkers; in difference to the methods of historical philology, which has its own task, thinking dialogue (Zwiegespräch) is under different laws (and which are more vulnerable to lacks and neglects).

[Heidegger writes in German: "Diese ("laws of thinking dialogue") sind verletzlicher. Das Verfehlende ist in der Zwiesprache drohender, das Fehlende häufiger."]

As expected, none of them mention Heidegger, which reinforces my initial statement: Heidegger's Greece is only suitable for Heidegger fans. — David Mo

I'm not a "fan" of his per se, but I have read him and have concluded that he's accurate and deep. But taking myself out of the equation: don't you think there's something more than luck or charlatanism involved in Heidegger's name still being around, books being published about him still, etc., if there wasn't something important there? I would check it out more for yourself, make a real effort to understand it, and then see if the critics are correct.

Of course they do. — David Mo

Fine -- one reference on where "logos" isn't also "gathering," etc. I've read nothing of the kind. The fact that he's unconventional is well established, and known even by him.

but they say that what Heidegger sees in the text is not in it. — David Mo

No, they don't. At least that's not what I've seen. What they do is disagree with his nuanced way of translating -- which isn't surprising. But I think they're just wrong: take a look at the texts, even those in Intro to Metaphysics, that he discusses. He makes a very convincing case, if one firsts understands the background thought -- otherwise it looks insane.

So here we both, not as philologists, have a choice: go with one group saying one thing, or another group saying another. There is debate about this. I have preferred to read Heidegger, and I've concluded that he's very clear and very illuminating indeed. His neologisms and funny language, which he also injects into his translations (after a lot of explanation and background), are not that difficult once you learn them.

It happens that they are not "his critics", it is practically all the experts on the subject. — David Mo

If that were true, Heidegger wouldn't be but a faint memory. It's not settled, and even if it were one still has to ask: did they truly engage with his thought? Nietzsche faces similar problems, as you know -- being anti-semitic, being used by the Nazis, etc. Hegel faces enormous criticism for his supposed incomprehension, etc. Even if Heidegger was way off in some respects -- and if so, I haven't been presented any evidence of this, just appeals to vague authorities -- that's missing the point really. Take "ousia," conventionally translated "substance." Whether Heidegger is completely wrong in highlighting a nuanced meaning of "ousia," his entire critique is based on how its been translated (and thus interpreted) as what it is. Who could argue with that? He thinks it gets further away from what the word meant in Aristotle's day, but we all agree on how it was translated.

So perhaps first get the general sense of what he's describing, and then we can get into the weeds about accuracy of his own translation.

I'm quite open to the fact that Heidegger could be completely wrong about everything he said. No sunk-cost fallacy here. But it will take some evidence, and I'm not yet convinced with yours. I would be really shocked, too, given my understanding of his thought.

Now you're shifted tone a bit, feigning expertise
— Xtrix
I haven't pretended any such thing at all. I'm not an expert on Heidegger and I've said so several times. My knowledge of Heidegger is limited to three books of him, two monographs and about four articles on him. Regarding Introduction to Metaphysics, I am reading it now -due to your kind recommendation- and I comment on what I am reading. — David Mo

Eh, it sounds to me like you're hit this particular issue more to "refute" than learn. And you may be right, but that attitude is never conducive to truly hearing -- that requires an openness, not blind but deliberate.

I am sorry I cannot continue this interesting debate right now. But I'll be back, as Patton said. — David Mo

"God is." "The earth is." "The lecture is in the auditorium." "This man is from Swabia." "The cup is of silver.'' "The peasant is in the fields." "The book is mine." "He is dead." "Red is the port side." "In Russia there is famine." "The enemy is in retreat." "The vine disease is in the vineyards." "The dog is in the garden." "Over all the peaks / is peace." (ItM: 68/93)

These examples are offered by Heidegger to demonstrate his thesis that "Being" is not an empty word, but is paradoxical since it is intuitively understood in its daily use, but mysteriously resists being defined. This is in spite of the fact that, according to him, the term "Sein" is the most "high", that is to say the most general, and is presupposed in every language in such a way that, if it were not understood, the language itself would disappear. Heidegger's analysis of his own examples is disappointing for several reasons.


First of all because it is not true that the use of a term means any defined "intuitive" understanding. Nor is it true that without a perfect understanding of "is" there would be no language. Words are learned through successive trials and errors until they reach an acceptable use by the community of speakers. This does not imply that our use or "understanding" of that word is "defined", nor that there is a universal community of speakers. On the contrary, both children and adults are often called upon to misuse a word they thought they were using correctly. Therefore, the question of "Being" does not make much sense if we do not look at the uses of "being" in various communities of speakers. It is not true, then, that in order to use the word "tree" one must have a knowledge of its meaning independent of the particular trees that have been presented to the speaking subject. The concept is formed from them and used in a process of continuous variation. It does not exist as an immutable entity and prior to the use of language achieved by who knows what mysterious intellectual intuition. The same with "tree" as with "being".


There are some fundamental observations in the examples Heidegger proposes that he "surprisingly" overlooks. First, they involve three different uses of the word "being" that correspond to three different language communities. Most are simple copulations that attach a predicate to the subject of the sentence. Ex: "The cup is of silver". These are the ones that correspond to the common language and do not offer any metaphysical difficulty. Another, "Over all the peaks / is peace" is a poetic language that, as is well known, is not descriptive but metaphorical and emotional. We can park it because it does not enter into the subject.
But the first two sentences are properly metaphysical or theological. In ordinary language no one says "The dog is". But a metaphysician will say "God is."

As Carnap says, the problem with Heidegger is that he makes a jumble of all these uses to build a fictional "entity", which is-but is not-one thing or a "fact": the " Being". In the Heideggerian explanation any use of "is" is confused with "exist". Now, when a theologian speaks of God's "being" he can say two things: his existence or his essence. God exists or God is immutable, eternal, etc. When a normal person wants to say that a communist exists or is in the garden he uses expressions like "there is," "is in" (or he names it while pointing it out!), but he does not make "Existence" a problem. In fact, the problem of the existence of something is easily solved because it is understood as the "absolute position of the thing"--I think the phrase is from Kant--the relationship that is established between one thing or event and others in the world. When I say that "there is a communist in my garden," I am not referring to a mysterious quality of being of that communist, but I am putting it in relation to the context of the world of speakers. If I say that God exists, it is because I establish some relationship between God and my world.

If what is spoken of is the essence of God, what is mentioned is the set of attributes that define the word "God". It's the same as if I say "That communist is honest". But it is important not to confuse the two things.

Said in this way, the problem of "Being" loses all its semantic mystery. It is nothing ineffable, unless we understand that the only words with meaning are those that refer to "something". When we understand that language is a mechanism for using words in very different ways -relations, copulations, commands, expressions, etc.- so that they are shared by a community of speakers, the problem of Being becomes a pseudo-problem.

Heidegger's conclusion is totally fantastic. He assumes that "being" implies the designation of something (a substantive use of the word) and that there must be a common essence to that something. That the word is polysemic does not even occur to him. What a lack of imagination!

Just because Heidegger makes a pseudo-problem his modus vivendi doesn't make him a charlatan. I would say it's some sophisticated form of delusion. Much less when he's able to transfer his monomania to many intelligent people. Complicating one's life with false problems seems to be part of the human condition and the smartest are not exempt. So I see no reason to insult anyone for it, unless their monomania becomes a danger to others. That Heideggerian monomania necessarily led to the justification of Nazism is an interesting subject that we can leave for another time.

It is not true, then, that in order to use the word "tree" one must have a knowledge of its meaning independent of the particular trees that have been presented to the speaking subject. The concept is formed from them and used in a process of continuous variation. It does not exist as an immutable entity and prior to the use of language achieved by who knows what mysterious intellectual intuition. The same with "tree" as with "being". — David Mo

Who's claiming that one must have a "knowledge of its meaning independent of the particular trees"? Or to translate: Where does Heidegger say we have an "independent knowledge" of being when we talk about any particular being? He's not echoing Plato.

It's not independent knowledge -- but it is a kind of understanding, which he calls the a pre-ontological understanding of being.

You get at it better here:

First of all because it is not true that the use of a term means any defined "intuitive" understanding. — David Mo

Not "defined," and not just any term -- but when speaking of anything at all, in fact. What else could be presupposed but the "is"-ness, "such"-ness, or "being"-ness of what is talked about? It doesn't mean there's a special knowledge about something "behind" or "beyond" things, as with Plato's Ideas, but it does indeed signify a pre-theoretical understanding that something is there. In any culture and in any language. This is not profound -- it's a truism. It's like saying there's an awake human being, or consciousness, uttering the sentence. Big deal. That shouldn't be controversial. The question is: what IS a human being, and what IS consciousness? Likewise, what is this "pre-theoretical, pre-conceptual" understanding of being?

As Carnap says, the problem with Heidegger is that he makes a jumble of all these uses to build a fictional "entity", which is-but is not-one thing or a "fact": the " Being". — David Mo

This is just way off. A pretty common misunderstanding. Being isn't a "fact" or an "entity" at all. That does indeed seem strange, admittedly, and can make sense only in the context of his philosophy. Read in isolation, it's almost gibberish.

In the Heideggerian explanation any use of "is" is confused with "exist". — David Mo

I can't think of any examples where "is" doesn't imply that something appears, is there, or "exists" (as in being) in some respect. So I fail to see how it's confused.

Now, when a theologian speaks of God's "being" he can say two things: his existence or his essence. God exists or God is immutable, eternal, etc. When a normal person wants to say that a communist exists or is in the garden he uses expressions like "there is," "is in" (or he names it while pointing it out!), but he does not make "Existence" a problem. In fact, the problem of the existence of something is easily solved because it is understood as the "absolute position of the thing"--I think the phrase is from Kant--the relationship that is established between one thing or event and others in the world. When I say that "there is a communist in my garden," I am not referring to a mysterious quality of being of that communist, but I am putting it in relation to the context of the world of speakers. If I say that God exists, it is because I establish some relationship between God and my world. — David Mo

I'm afraid I don't see how any of this is relevant. From Intro to Metaphysics, p 62:

"In these lectures, we constantly return to the Greek conception of Being because this conception, though entirely flattened out and rendered unrecognizable, is the conception that still rules even today in the West--not only in the doctrines of philosophy but in the most everyday routines. Because of this, we want to characterize the Greek conception of Being in its first fundamental traits as we follow the Greek treatment of language.
This approach has been chosen intentionally in order to show, through an example from grammar, how the experience, conception, and interpretation of language that set the standard for the West grew out of a very definite understanding of Being."

From 64 (so there's no mystery):

"What grounds and holds together all the determinations of Being we have listed is what the Greeks experienced without question as the meaning of Being, which they called ousia, or more fully parousia. The usual thoughtlessness translates ousia as "substance" and thereby misses its sense entirely. In German, we have an appropriate expression for parousia in our word An-wesen <coming-to-presence>. We use Anwesen as a name for a self-contained farm or homestead. In Aristotle's times, too, ousia was still used in this sense as well as in its meaning as a basic philosophical word. Something comes to presence. It stands in itself and thus puts itself forth. It is. For the Greeks, "Being" fundamentally means presence."

This is the thesis, and in this context regarding language speficially (the chapter title being "The Grammar and Etymology of 'Being'").

Said in this way, the problem of "Being" loses all its semantic mystery. It is nothing ineffable, unless we understand that the only words with meaning are those that refer to "something". When we understand that language is a mechanism for using words in very different ways -relations, copulations, commands, expressions, etc.- so that they are shared by a community of speakers, the problem of Being becomes a pseudo-problem. — David Mo

What "problem"?

In fact, Heidegger's claim is that "Being" has been discussed and interpreted in many different ways. That's hardly "ineffable." It's either taken, theoretically and abstractly, as something "present" - like a substance, or God, or energy, or an "object," or "will," or else tacitly assumed in everyday life and discernible based on average, everyday actions and routines (what it means to be a human, what it means to be anything at all, etc -- just as looking at what ants do will tell you something about their pre-theoretical nature).

The point is to re-awaken the question.

Heidegger's conclusion is totally fantastic. He assumes that "being" implies the designation of something (a substantive use of the word) and that there must be a common essence to that something. That the word is polysemic does not even occur to him. What a lack of imagination! — David Mo

No, this is your own interpretation (apparently), which is a misunderstanding. Which is easy to demonstrate: nowhere, not ever, will Heidegger claim that "being" means a being. I would challenge you to provide textual evidence if you believe it so. Thus, to say he "assumes that 'being' implies the designation of something" is itself rather "fantastic," assuming one's read Heidegger. Perhaps it's due to a lack of imagination?

Just because Heidegger makes a pseudo-problem his modus vivendi doesn't make him a charlatan. I would say it's some sophisticated form of delusion. Much less when he's able to transfer his monomania to many intelligent people. Complicating one's life with false problems seems to be part of the human condition and the smartest are not exempt. So I see no reason to insult anyone for it, unless their monomania becomes a danger to others. — David Mo

It's fairly clear to me, however, that you don't really understand what the "problem" is -- thus, hardly in a position to talk of a "pseudo-problem." Because if, in your interpretation, the "problem" is one of defining being, or attempting to link being with A being, etc., then you've completely missed the point.

I repeat myself:

it sounds to me like you're hit this particular issue more to "refute" than learn. — Xtrix

"For the Greeks, ..." — Xtrix

So Heidi says.

"'Being' fundamentally means presence."

"Presence" of ???

Perhaps it's my stumbling-block too, Xtrix, like Heidi's references to "what is" - what is ???

His tedious ruminations on vague, indefineable, underdetermined 'utterances' are framed - reimagined by him - in a context of epochal "forgetting" which I, like many others, suspect is an alibi for Heidi's own peculiarly evocative, though nonetheless, inchoate misunderstandings (and, thereby, antiquarian, syntax-tortured, misappropriations). However, if this read of him uncharitably misses the mark, why didn't he just come right out and say, paraphrasing Laozi's nameless dao and Buddha's anatta-anicca, or Schopenhauer's noumenon (à la natura naturans), that "the meaning of Being" is ... Bergson's la durée? Why the (crypto-augustinian re: "time") mystery-mongerer's career? All that rambling, oracular, mystagogy just buried the lead, as they say, making it easier for everyone (even old Marty at the end mumbling, bumbling & stumbling through 'das Geviert') to lose the plot.

The true world — we have abolished. What world has remained? The apparent one perhaps? But no! With the true world we have also abolished the apparent one.

(Noon; moment of the briefest shadow; end of the longest error; high point of humanity; INCIPIT ZARATHUSTRA.) — Twilight of the Idols, How the True World Finally Became A Fable. The History of an Error.

The essence of Buddhist philosophy of nature is that everything is completely impermanent. These Buddhist thinkers say there is nothing underlying every thing. The principle at the bottom of the universe is that A causes B, B causes C, and C causes A. So a circle. This takes the bottom out of the universe. I'm wondering how far Heidegger would agree with considering that he thinks Being is real

P.S. Being and Time, in my opinion, was written as a response to Aquinas, who had said that actuality is prior to potentiality. Heidegger seems to say that opposite in the book. But saying there is actuality/Being seems to reject Buddhism. I still don't understand what Heidegger's position on nothingness is

Hegel wrote: "Nature has presented itself as the Idea in the form of otherness. Since in nature the Idea is as the negative of itself or is external to itself, nature is not merely external in relation to this idea, but the externality constitutes the determination in which nature as nature exists."

Hegel posits nothing and being as the abstract form of the Idea which sublate each other into the world, which is pure becoming (Shunyata). I am very interested in reconciling Buddhism, Hegel, and Heidegger

So Heidi says. — 180 Proof

Yes, with reasoning and evidence which is quite convincing, at least to me.

"'Being' fundamentally means presence."
"Presence" of ???

Perhaps it's my stumbling-block too, Xtrix, like Heidi's references to "what is" - what is ??? — 180 Proof

The presence of whatever is before us, whether numbers or trees. Whatever persists (or "holds sway"). To say "presence of" you may be implying a subject/object distinction, but I'm not sure -- if that's the case, perhaps that's the stumbling block. It was for me as well. It's just hard not to think of any phenomenon as an object or representation for a "subject" or a "thinking thing" (res cogitans). This is why he emphasizes "being and thinking" as the fundamental way we "relate to" and thus "interpret" being:

"The entire Western tradition and conception of Being, and accordingly the fundamental relation to Being that is still dominant today, is summed up in the title Being and thinking." - p. 220 (Intro to Metaphysics)

BTW, I'm well aware of how Heidegger looks from the outside. I'm sure it must appear like Zizek or Derrida appear to me. I'd be very skeptical as well, especially if you peruse their "work." All I can say is that, for me, once I took the time (over a year) to do a careful study of his thought, the more and more I've learned and the more convinced I am that he has a very simple (when boiled down), but very deep, analysis of history, of time, and of our interpretation and relation to "being" itself. I've found it very useful indeed -- though not in the same way as studying physics, mathematics, biology, economics, or world history. But he's not intending to shed direct light on any of those subjects anyway.

However, if this read of him uncharitably misses the mark, why didn't he just come right out and say, paraphrasing Laozi's nameless dao and Buddha's anatta-anicca, or Schopenhauer's noumenon (à la natura naturans), that "the meaning of Being" is ... Bergson's la durée? Why the (crypto-augustinian re: "time") mystery-mongerer's career? All that rambling, oracular, mystagogy just buried the lead, as they say, making it easier for everyone (even old Marty at the end mumbling, bumbling & stumbling through 'das Geviert') to lose the plot. — 180 Proof

Good questions: because those are all interpretations of being. The Dao, nirvana, the will to live (which Schopenhauer associates with Kant's noumenon, but not completely -- even he says it's simply the "closest" we can get to it while still "within" time), are all dealing with similar things, it is true -- as is "God," for that matter. They all interpret beings and being. Heidegger isn't interested in interpreting it by way of a definition himself, but in reawakening the questioning of being, and so our interpretation of it (and thus human being).

As far as Bergson, Heidegger actually mentions him often enough, as one thinker in a chain (since Aristotle) who has tried interpreting time. Needless to say, he does not think Bergson gets it right with duration. Spinoza's natura naturans, from what I understand of it, seems very close to Heidegger's treatment of phusis -- which shouldn't be a surprise, as the Latin "natura" is how phusis was translated. But again, my reading of Spinoza is restricted only to the Ethics. If you care to say more about it, I'd be interested.

Heidegger will talk much about "time," as you know. From his perspective, there's "time" as a sequence of "nows," since Aristotle, and there's temporality, or as someone one here said "existential time," which is essentially the structure of how we live: thrown, anticipating, and absorbed (past, future, present). He will say being, but also time itself (as ordinarily understood), has been interpreted from the "perspective" of one aspect of temporality: the present.

"But this 'time' still has not been unfolded in its essence, nor can it be unfolded (on the basis and within the purview of 'physics'). For as soon as meditation on the essence of time begins, at the end of Greek philosophy with Aristotle, time itself must be taken as something that is somehow coming to presence, ousia tis. This is expressed in the fact that time is conceived on the basis of the 'now,' that which is in each case uniquely present." (p 220)

The true world — Twilight of the Idols, How the True World Finally Became A Fable. The History of an Error.

I think Heidegger would agree wholeheartedly with Nietzsche here. Heidegger wants to get outside the tradition which Kant himself (whom Nietzsche is essentially referring to here, along with Plato) is still very much a part of. Thus all the examples of "hammering" and "average everydayness." This is the pragmatic part of Heidegger, and why he carries on so much about phenomenology and the "hidden" and "concealed" aspects of life, which philosophers have nearly always ignored (in his view).

The essence of Buddhist philosophy of nature is that everything is completely impermanent. These Buddhist thinkers say there is nothing underlying every thing. The principle at the bottom of the universe is that A causes B, B causes C, and C causes A. So a circle. This takes the bottom out of the universe. I'm wondering how far Heidegger would agree with considering that he thinks Being is real — Gregory

I myself see a number of parallels to Buddhism and Daoism in Heidegger. But when you say he thinkers Being is "real," I'm not sure what you mean. He has a lot to say about the concept of "reality" in Being and Time, in fact. It's true that a core principle in Buddhist philosophy is the concept of anicca[/i (Pali), impermanence, but I don't see how this is rejecting "reality" while Heidegger is somehow accepting it.

Hegel posits nothing and being as the abstract form of the Idea which sublate each other into the world, which is pure becoming (Shunyata). I am very interested in reconciling Buddhism, Hegel, and Heidegger — Gregory

Heidegger has much respect for Hegel and published a great deal of lectures on him. He sees has as the end of the Western tradition from the inside. Nietzsche marks the end of it completely (although Heidegger will argue his "eternal recurrence" is simply his interpretation of 'being').

If we're to reconcile them, I think Heidegger would agree with the Buddhists (and Daoists) that we need to "get in touch" with our being again. Buddhists will do so through the practice of meditation (vipassana), while Heidegger wants to "reawaken the question of being" approached as a thinker. He sees this as necessary to creat a new interpretation of being, since our current interpretation (which has its roots with the Greeks) as resulted in nihilism (here he agrees with Nietzsche) and has been completely forgotten.

As far as Hegel goes -- Heidegger is certainly historical and likewise interested in the presocratics. Where Hegel's dialectic fits in with Heidegger, or his ideas of Being and Nothing, I don't feel confident enough to comment on -- I'm only in the beginning stages of reading Hegel, and I can't from memory recall much of what Heidegger says about him, unfortunately.

I don't see how this is rejecting "reality" while Heidegger is somehow accepting it. — Xtrix

My understanding is that being reveals itself to us (according to Heidegger), while there is nothing to be revealed for a Buddhist

Heidegger has much respect for Hegel and published a great deal of lectures on him. — Xtrix

Where can I get those lectures?

Who's claiming that one must have a "knowledge of its meaning independent of the particular trees"? Or to translate: Where does Heidegger say we have an "independent knowledge" of being when we talk about any particular being? — Xtrix

How are we supposed to discover the much-invoked particular, the individual trees as such, as trees—how are we supposed to be able even to look for such things as trees, unless the representation of what a tree is in general is already lighting our way in advance? (…) Earlier we stressed that we must already know in advance what "tree" means in order to be able to seek and find what is particular, the species of trees and individual trees as such. This is all the more decisively true of Being. — Martin Heidegger: Introduction ot Metaphysics, Yale University Press, 2000, p. 84

It is obvious that the postulation of a special Being whose meaning does not depend on particular entities forces Heidegger to invent an extra rational knowledge that I have called "intuition" to make it intelligible. To speak of "pre-ontological", as Heidegger does, seems to me to introduce an unnecessary neologism for what classical philosophy defined as what is neither empirical nor discursive: intellectual intuition.

Not "defined," and not just any term -- but when speaking of anything at all, in fact. What else could be presupposed but the "is"-ness, "such"-ness, or "being"-ness of what is talked about? It doesn't mean there's a special knowledge about something "behind" or "beyond" things, as with Plato's Ideas, but it does indeed signify a pre-theoretical understanding that something is there. In any culture and in any language. — Xtrix

The word "Being" is thus indefinite in its meaning, and nevertheless we understand it definitely. "Being" proves to be extremely definite and completely indefinite. According to the usual logic, we have here an obvious contradiction. — Heidegger, Op. Cit., p. 82

Therefore, there is a special knowledge ("pre-ontological") that goes beyond the individual entities.
This means opposing the empirical to the irrational intuitive which is becoming more and more complicated. Because if Heidegger recognizes here a logical contradiction he does not have any other choice but to impugn the own logic, which he does in another part of the book. He has already challenged philology and the history of philosophy. Now logic and experience fall. Open field for irrationalism.

I can't think of any examples where "is" doesn't imply that something appears, is there, or "exists" (as in being) in some respect. — Xtrix

Said in this way, the problem of "Being" loses all its semantic mystery. It is nothing ineffable, unless we understand that the only words with meaning are those that refer to "something". When we understand that language is a mechanism for using words in very different ways -relations, copulations, commands, expressions, etc.- so that they are shared by a community of speakers, the problem of Being becomes a pseudo-problem. — David Mo

What "problem"? — Xtrix

Being isn't a "fact" or an "entity" at all. — Xtrix

In fact, Heidegger's claim is that "Being" has been discussed and interpreted in many different ways. That's hardly "ineffable." It's either taken, theoretically and abstractly, as something "present" - like a substance, or God, or energy, or an "object," or "will," — Xtrix

... he "assumes that 'being' implies the designation of something" is itself rather "fantastic," assuming one's read Heidegger. — Xtrix

I would say that the problem is not only with Heidegger, but also with you (so much love gets contagious). You cannot deny that Heidegger speaks of Being as " something " and say at the same time that it implies the designation of " something ". In fact, Heidegger is forced to adopt a substantialist language to define Being. But as he had said before that it was "ineffable" he now has to camouflage it as a "common horizon" to all the diverse meanings of being (this is just what meaning is):

The boundary drawn around the sense of "Being" stays within the sphere of presentness and presence, subsistence and substance, staying and coming forth. — Op. Cit., p. 96

Didn't you say that Being has nothing to do with substance? Well, here it is said with all the letters. And from contradiction to contradiction this Being is becoming more and more like God: ineffable, an entity different from the entities but by which the entities are what they are, the object of an intuitive knowledge and the end to which all things must tend. Without God, I mean without Being, even nations sink into the darkest decadence. And, of course, this Being also has his prophet: Heidegger.

In short:
Heidegger is forced to assume an irrationalist position because of all the confusion introduced by his lack of a semantic analysis of the concept of being. You affirm, with Heidegger, that the concept of being has a meaning ("horizon", he says) only that you assimilate to the existence. Heidegger, who never wants to be clear, adds to the existence ( presence ) the substance. It would be necessary to conclude that this Being is something with substance (then definable) and existence (then detectable). But, obviously, all of us who are not Heidegger or related do not have such capacity of a "pre-ontological" knowledge, it appears that is justified only by the supposed capacity of all languages to use intuitively the word being in a "defined" way.

Against this claim I wrote in a previous comment. In short, my arguments were basically two:
The word "is" does not exist in all languages. It is not universal in that sense.
Nor in all languages does "to be" mean the same thing.
When used as a copulation, for example, "is" does not mean that something exists, but rather that a property is linked to a subject. It can be said that there are things that exist or not, but this is not said in common language with "is", but by "exists", " there is", etc. The confusion between being as existing and being as a logical link is caused by the twisted use of the same word. In some languages, especially the logical ones, but also common ones, there are resources to express this difference without resorting to a common term like "is". Of course, you can pretend it's “implied”, but that's cheating. First, because we're talking about the meaning, not the circumstantial implications. Second, because if even the absence of Being – Nothingness – , is Being, Everything is Being and the concept of Being lacks meaning, sorry “horizon”. Not to mention that we have killed Parmenides, who was supposedly a venerable idol. You know, what the goddess forbade Parmenides in the first place, the way of foolishness: Not-being is. (Let us not talk about Heraclitus, who is worse).

When we understand that language is a mechanism for using words in very different ways -relations, copulations, commands, expressions, etc.- so that they are shared by a community of speakers, the problem of Being becomes a pseudo-problem. — David Mo

How Witty of you. :up:

Heidegger's conclusion is totally fantastic. He assumes that "being" implies the designation of something (a substantive use of the word) and that there must be a common essence to that something. That the word is polysemic does not even occur to him. What a lack of imagination.

A reification fallacy common to platonists & sophists alike.

Just because Heidegger makes a pseudo-problem his modus vivendi doesn't make him a charlatan. [ ... ] Complicating one's life with false problems seems to be part of the human condition and the smartest are not exempt.

Well, "smarts" isn't mutually exclusive with respect to stupidity - often it's the enabler (re: Kahneman-Tversky, Dunning-Kruger). I agree that Heidi isn't a "charlatan"; rather he was a 'great philosopher' who, like e.g. Hegel, IMO, shows another way how not to do philosophy.

Good questions: because those are all interpretations of being. — Xtrix

And poor Heidi adds nothing - yeah, he's interpreting it too, don't believe his hype - that either improves upon or invalidates these other 'ontologies'; that there are so many (much more than I'd care to list) both within the European philosphical tradition and other traditions, makes it clear that the "forgetting of being" is only, or mostly, a parochial Wilhelmine anomaly which, no doubt, the Nazi movement under the spiritual guidance of the good Herr Rektorführer was "called by destiny" to remind das Herrendasein, das Man und andere Üntermenschen that  “das Nichts nichtet". :eyes:

"'Being' fundamentally means presence."
"Presence" of ??? — 180 Proof

Participle presencing. Whole different animal.

A reification fallacy common to platonists & sophists alike. — 180 Proof

Not all sophists, I think. Gorgias: "Being is not; if it were it could not be known and if it were known it could not be expressed".(I quote from memory). This is a direct attack on Parmenides and his Platonic aftermath.

In general, sophists establish an interesting distinction between physis and nomos and are sceptical about the former in some/ quite a few cases. "Man is the measure of all things; of things that are in so far as they are and of things that are not in so far as they are not" (Protagoras), also gives cause for thought.

In your criticism of Heidegger I think we agree very much.

My understanding is that being reveals itself to us (according to Heidegger), while there is nothing to be revealed for a Buddhist — Gregory

Well beings reveal themselves, anyway. Buddhists certainly "believe" that there are beings (or phenomena).

Where can I get those lectures? — Gregory

Online or at your library. Some are PDF, but I haven't searched -- I have the book itself. There were others, but the one I have is "Hegel's phenomenology of spirit."

I've read this, and it's rife with confusion. I'll respond in detail when I have time.

I'll respond in detail when I have time. — Xtrix

I look forward to it.

Who's claiming that one must have a "knowledge of its meaning independent of the particular trees"? Or to translate: Where does Heidegger say we have an "independent knowledge" of being when we talk about any particular being?
— Xtrix

How are we supposed to discover the much-invoked particular, the individual trees as such, as trees—how are we supposed to be able even to look for such things as trees, unless the representation of what a tree is in general is already lighting our way in advance? (…) Earlier we stressed that we must already know in advance what "tree" means in order to be able to seek and find what is particular, the species of trees and individual trees as such. This is all the more decisively true of Being.
— Martin Heidegger: Introduction ot Metaphysics, Yale University Press, 2000, p. 84

It is obvious that the postulation of a special Being whose meaning does not depend on particular entities forces Heidegger to invent an extra rational knowledge that I have called "intuition" to make it intelligible. To speak of "pre-ontological", as Heidegger does, seems to me to introduce an unnecessary neologism for what classical philosophy defined as what is neither empirical nor discursive: intellectual intuition. — David Mo

If we want to equate "pre-ontological understanding of being" to "knowledge" or "intuition," that's very misleading -- in Heidegger's context. Which his why he doesn't use either term.

The quote you gave was part of the chapter "The Question of the Essence of Being," which is worth keeping in mind, and was used as an example of Being's uniqueness, in that it is implied in any particular being whatsoever. In the same way that "treeness" is understood before we look at individual trees, so being is understood before we look at any particular being. He'll go on to say that the analogy is limited:

"Consequently, it remains questionable whether an individual being can ever count as an example of Being at all, as this oak does for 'tree in general.' It is questionable whether the ways of Being (Being as nature, Being as history) represent 'species' of the genus 'Being.'" (IM, p. 85)

So to read into all this that Heidegger is advocating a kind of Platonism is just wrong. There is no "independent knowledge," as you claimed -- being is simply understood when referring to any entity. The last sentence of your quote captures it. It's a very simple point, really. Basically a truism dressed up. That's on Heidegger, though, and his confusing circuitousness.

Not "defined," and not just any term -- but when speaking of anything at all, in fact. What else could be presupposed but the "is"-ness, "such"-ness, or "being"-ness of what is talked about? It doesn't mean there's a special knowledge about something "behind" or "beyond" things, as with Plato's Ideas, but it does indeed signify a pre-theoretical understanding that something is there. In any culture and in any language.
— Xtrix

The word "Being" is thus indefinite in its meaning, and nevertheless we understand it definitely. "Being" proves to be extremely definite and completely indefinite. According to the usual logic, we have here an obvious contradiction.
— Heidegger, Op. Cit., p. 82

Therefore, there is a special knowledge ("pre-ontological") that goes beyond the individual entities.
This means opposing the empirical to the irrational intuitive which is becoming more and more complicated. Because if Heidegger recognizes here a logical contradiction he does not have any other choice but to impugn the own logic, which he does in another part of the book. He has already challenged philology and the history of philosophy. Now logic and experience fall. Open field for irrationalism. — David Mo

Let's be clear about what's being said, which I believe you're overthinking: being is "indefinite" in that we can't define it, but yet we "understand" it -- why? In the same way we understand "tree" beforehand, only in this case (re: Being) without any definition. To put it another way: the being of any object or entity whatsoever is presupposed or implied when talking about anything at all: Bach's fugues, mineral baths, rocks, trees, people, suntan lotion, justice, anger, cars, etc. But yet when we ask about "Being" in general, we can't give an answer. This is what makes it unique, and quite different from trees (or dogs, or any other entity). From page 85:

"The word 'Being' is a universal name, it is true, and seemingly one word among others. But this seeming is deceptive. The name and what it names are one of a kind. Therefore, we distort it fundamentally if we try to illustrate it by examples--presicely because every example in this case manifests not too much, as one might say, but always too little. Earlier we stressed that we must already know in advance what 'tree' means in order to be able to seek and find what is particular, the species of trees and individual trees as such. This is all the more decisively true of Being. The necessity for us already to understand the word 'Being' is the highest and is incomparable. So the 'universality' of 'Being' in regard to all beings does not imply that we should turn away from this universality as fast as possible and turn to the particular; instead, it implies the opposite, that we should remain there, and raise the uniqueness of this name and its naming to the level of knowledge."

There's nothing irrational about this. It only appears to be contradictory. He will go on to say, in fact, that "Being" has indeed been interpreted -- as ousia, at the end of Greek philosophy.

"Being, from which we set out as an empty label, must therefore have a definite meaning, contrary to this semblance of emptiness." (p. 216)

Also: babies and animals have an innate sense of causality. Is that entering the realm of the "irrational intuitive"? Just because something cannot be defined, or is held tacitly, doesn't necessarily mean it's irrational. If we choose to define it this way, fine -- but in that case, nearly everything we do is irrational. So it goes with any pre-theoretical understanding of being as well, by definition. But that doesn't progress the conversation at all.

"Suppose that there were no indeterminate meaning of Being, and that we did not understand what this meaning signifies. Then what? Would there just be one noun and one verb less in our language? No. Then there would be no language at all." (86)

In fact, Heidegger's claim is that "Being" has been discussed and interpreted in many different ways. That's hardly "ineffable." It's either taken, theoretically and abstractly, as something "present" - like a substance, or God, or energy, or an "object," or "will,"
— Xtrix
... he "assumes that 'being' implies the designation of something" is itself rather "fantastic," assuming one's read Heidegger.
— Xtrix

I would say that the problem is not only with Heidegger, but also with you (so much love gets contagious). You cannot deny that Heidegger speaks of Being as " something " and say at the same time that it implies the designation of " something ". — David Mo

That's precisely what I'm denying, because there's no evidence of it and, in fact, quite the contrary: he emphatically states, over and over again, that Being is not a being. Being has certainly been interpreted throughout the ages, explicitly (substance, God, energy, will, etc), but that has nothing to do with Heidegger -- he offers no interpretation whatsoever. His goal is to reawaken the question and to describe the history of how its been interpreted -- which he could be completely wrong about, it's true, but let's first be clear about what he's doing.

In fact, Heidegger is forced to adopt a substantialist language to define Being. But as he had said before that it was "ineffable" he now has to camouflage it as a "common horizon" to all the diverse meanings of being (this is just what meaning is):

The boundary drawn around the sense of "Being" stays within the sphere of presentness and presence, subsistence and substance, staying and coming forth.
— Op. Cit., p. 96

Didn't you say that Being has nothing to do with substance? Well, here it is said with all the letters. — David Mo

I'll give you the benefit of the doubt and say you've misunderstood this, rather than accuse you of deliberately taking it out of context. Based on my study of Heidegger, I can easily see what he's describing here is not his view at all, even without referencing the book in this case, but from the quotation itself one might believe it. So let me quote in full:

"However, a definite, unitary trait runs through all these meanings. It points our understanding of 'to be' toward a definite horizon by which the understanding is fulfilled. The boundary drawn around the sense of 'Being' stays within the sphere of presentness and presence, subsistence and substance, staying and coming forth.
This all points in the direction of what we ran into when we first characterized the Greek experience and interpretation of Being. If we follow the usual explication of the infinitive, then the expression 'to be' gets its sense from the unity and definiteness of the horizon that guides our understanding. IN short, we thus understand the verbatim noun 'Being' on the basis of the infinitive, which in turn remains linked to the 'is' and to the manifoldness we have pointed out in this 'is.'
[...]
Accordingly, 'Being' has the meaning we have indicated, which recalls the Greek conception of the essence of Being -- a definiteness, then, which has not come to us from just anywhere, but which has long ruled our historical Dasein. At one blow, our search for the definiteness of the meaning of the word 'Being' thus becomes explicitly what it is: a meditation on the provenance of our concealed history."

He'll then go on to discuss the history of being, from the Greeks onward, and conclude that being has been interpreted as "constant presence, on as ousia." (p. 216) To confuse this as being his own view is just a misunderstanding. Understandable, given his way of lecturing, where it's not always clear if he's speak from the perspective of the Greeks or giving his own thoughts. In this case, it's certainly not his own thought, it's precisely what he's trying to un-do by pointing out that time (temporality) is the perspective that guides the Western way of interpreting Being (as presence).

And from contradiction to contradiction this Being is becoming more and more like God: ineffable, an entity different from the entities but by which the entities are what they are, the object of an intuitive knowledge and the end to which all things must tend. Without God, I mean without Being, even nations sink into the darkest decadence. And, of course, this Being also has his prophet: Heidegger. — David Mo

God is one interpretation of being, yes. That's Anselm, Spinoza (in my understanding), etc. Call it "Christian ontology," as Heidegger does in various places in his writings. But you'll never hear him say Being is anything like a "supreme Being," which the capitalization itself may indicate -- and which we discussed before.

You affirm, with Heidegger, that the concept of being has a meaning ("horizon", he says) only that you assimilate to the existence. Heidegger, who never wants to be clear, adds to the existence ( presence ) the substance. — David Mo

This is only barely coherent to me, but as I mentioned above, Heidegger does discuss the history of the interpretation of Being as substance and presence. This is not, however, his position. "Horizon" is used to refer to time, not as a "meaning" of being. He will argue that time is the "horizon for any understanding whatsoever of Being" (Being and Time, p. 1) -- but that's quite different.

Lastly, I appreciate the time you've taken to actually read Introduction to Metaphysics and your take on it. In case there's any doubt, I do respect your views. I happen to disagree with you in this case, but your observations are not so easily dismissed -- I did have to take some time to think about them in some cases, and even go back to the text itself. That's worth pointing out.

Cheers.

Good questions: because those are all interpretations of being.
— Xtrix

And poor Heidi adds nothing - yeah, he's interpreting it too, don't believe his hype - that either improves upon or invalidates these other 'ontologies'; that there are so many (much more than I'd care to list) both within the European philosphical tradition and other traditions, makes it clear that the "forgetting of being" is only, or mostly, a parochial Wilhelmina anomaly which, no doubt, the Nazi movement under the spiritual guidance of the good Herr Rektorführer was "called by destiny" to remind das Herrendasein, das Man und andere Üntermenschen that  “das Nichts nichtet". :eyes: — 180 Proof

He's not interpreting being, no.

As far as improving upon or invalidating other interpretations -- I think he contributes a great deal to understanding the history of the interpretation of being, and it's important to our current age.

The rest of this paragraph is pretty jumbled -- I don't know if you're deliberately trying to be unclear, or why all the strange references ("Wilhelmina anomaly"?), but what do you mean by "there are so many (much more than I'd care to list)"? So many ontologies?

If that's what you meant, then in his view, there have been several: the Greek interpretation/ontology, the Roman variation, the Christian variation, and the modern (Cartesian) variation. We're standing now, he'd argue, in a technological/nihilistic understanding of being. But in my reading, he's never dogmatic about a set number. Perhaps there are indeed "so many" (and I'd encourage you to give at least a few examples) interpretations, that doesn't really impact his thinking.

There is no "independent knowledge," as you claimed -- being is simply understood when referring to any entity. — Xtrix

To put it another way: the being of any object or entity whatsoever is presupposed or implied when talking about anything at all: — Xtrix

Also: babies and animals have an innate sense of causality. Is that entering the realm of the "irrational intuitive"? — Xtrix

Lastly, I appreciate the time you've taken to actually read Introduction to Metaphysics and your take on it. In case there's any doubt, I do respect your views. — Xtrix

I also appreciate your efforts to answer my questions, even when I feel they are not correct or as inextricably confused as Heidegger himself.
I also appreciate your recognition that Heidegger is not "always clear". I would say that he is almost always confused. But I am predisposed to give the benefit of the doubt and to think that this confusion is not a deliberate device to leave the door open to a possible retreat, but the result of a basic misguided approach to metaphysical pseudo-problems.
What is interesting, however, is your interpretation of these confusing points.

o confuse this as being his own view is just a misunderstanding. Understandable, given his way of lecturing, where it's not always clear if he's speak from the perspective of the Greeks or giving his own thoughts. In this case, it's certainly not his own thought, — Xtrix

You're getting lost here. Why is Heidegger making this long journey to the Greeks' vision of Being? Is this just to leave them when it's over? That would be absurd.

There's a general reason and a particular reason for that.
In general Heidegger thinks that the Greek philosophy - Parmenides and Heraclitus especially - was in the right direction and only with "lanitinization" Western philosophy lost its way.

In particular, this path is especially marked at the end of this chapter: The "horizon" of Being was "pointing our understanding" on the path of "presence and subsistence". It is not necessary for him to write the word, although he does: "substance". This is exactly what pressence and subsistence mean.

Strong arguments are needed to change this conclusion. I do not see them.

The above seems clear to me, even if you don't like it. It is not so clear, or rather, it is very confusing, why don't you admit that the knowledge of Being that is obtained through language is - or pretends to be - some kind of intuition.
As far as I know, there are three forms of knowledge: rational discursive, empirical -- also known as empirical intuition -- and intuitive. It is obvious that Heidegger's "pre-ontological" knowledge of Being matches the third type.

Said in his confused way of writing:

Because the understanding of Being fades away, at first and for the most part, in an indefinite meaning, and nonetheless remains certain and definite in this knowledge—because consequently the understanding of Being, despite all its rank, is dark, confused, covered over and concealed—it must be illuminated, disentangled, and ripped away from concealment. — Heidegger: Introduction to Meatphysics, p. 63/87

This is simply incomprehensible. It is impossible to get any "definite" knowledge of anything we don't know what is ("indefinite meaning"). The first step of any knowledge is to precise its terms. And confusion is increased when he adds that this "definite" knowledge is "dark, confused, covered over and concealed". My God, what a words dance!

Your example does not add any clarification. Babies and animals have no "definite" knowledge of the causes. They are simply conditioned to respond to certain stimuli with certain behaviours. Something like a pre-concept of cause slowly makes its way into children's minds through a repeated process of generalising responses. We have to wait for the formation of abstract language to talk about a "definite" knowledge of the concept of cause that is accompanied by a defined understanding of the word "cause". Dissociating one thing from the other is impossible.

I don't even talk about animals. I don't think Heidegger was thinking about Pavlovian conditioning.


I think your effort to personally interpret Heidegger is most interesting assuming you are willing to defend Heidegger's theory of Being. In this assumption I would ask you what the Self means to you. Why is it so important?

He's not interpreting being, no. — Xtrix

How can one not when "being" is only a word (undefined, no less) and not a definite object or fact? Heidi conjures up "the meaning of" and meaning is synonomous with interpretation. And then, in a tediously long way around, goes nowhere with it.

I also appreciate your efforts to answer my questions, even when I feel they are not correct or as inextricably confused as Heidegger himself.
I also appreciate your recognition that Heidegger is not "always clear". I would say that he is almost always confused. But I am predisposed to give the benefit of the doubt and to think that this confusion is not a deliberate device to leave the door open to a possible retreat, but the result of a basic misguided approach to metaphysical pseudo-problems. — David Mo

Fair enough.

o confuse this as being his own view is just a misunderstanding. Understandable, given his way of lecturing, where it's not always clear if he's speak from the perspective of the Greeks or giving his own thoughts. In this case, it's certainly not his own thought,
— Xtrix

You're getting lost here. Why is Heidegger making this long journey to the Greeks' vision of Being? — David Mo

Because he argues it's the Greek way of interpreting Being (I'm using capitalization now simply for clarity) that determines all other interpretations in the West, down to the present age. He says this many times. He will say that it starts with phusis and ends with ousia in the Greek era. He will then go on to say that ousia (translated as "substance") is an interpretation from the perspective of time, namely the present. Hence the "metaphysics of presence" as the history of Western philosophy. This is one major part of Being and Time and the Intro to Metaphysics -- the "historical" part, or the "deconstruction" part (which was never written for Being and Time but which does should up in other works).

In general Heidegger thinks that the Greek philosophy - Parmenides and Heraclitus especially - was in the right direction and only with "lanitinization" Western philosophy lost its way. — David Mo

There's debate in Heidegger scholarship about this, but from my reading I don't see Heidegger necessarily thinking Parmenides or Heraclitus somehow got it "right" while Plato and Aristotle didn't. True, their thought was prior to the almost immediate disjoining of "being" from "becoming"/"seeming" -- but they both were still very much within the Western tradition of interpreting being from the perspective of time as "presence." They were "presencing" as well. He will say that this is the inception, and the inception ends (in greatness) with Plato and Aristotle.

Regardless, I'm not seeing the relevance in bringing Parmenides or Heraclitus in to the discussion at this point. Remember, what set this digression off was the following:

The boundary drawn around the sense of "Being" stays within the sphere of presentness and presence, subsistence and substance, staying and coming forth. — David Mo

Didn't you say that Being has nothing to do with substance? Well, here it is said with all the letters. — David Mo

Based on my study of Heidegger, I can easily see what he's describing here is not his view at all, even without referencing the book in this case, but from the quotation itself one might believe it. — Xtrix

He'll then go on to discuss the history of being, from the Greeks onward, and conclude that being has been interpreted as "constant presence, on as ousia." (p. 216) To confuse this as being his own view is just a misunderstanding. Understandable, given his way of lecturing, where it's not always clear if he's speak from the perspective of the Greeks or giving his own thoughts. In this case, it's certainly not his own thought, it's precisely what he's trying to un-do by pointing out that time (temporality) is the perspective that guides the Western way of interpreting Being (as presence). — Xtrix

So again, what you quoted is not Heidegger's position -- he's describing what has been thought. There's no way he himself is claiming that "being" is "substance." He wants to get outside this interpretation, in fact.

As far as I know, there are three forms of knowledge: rational discursive, empirical -- also known as empirical intuition -- and intuitive. It is obvious that Heidegger's "pre-ontological" knowledge of Being matches the third type. — David Mo

That's fine -- if we want to describe it as a kind of "intuition," I don't have anything against it, as long as we remember it's not what Heidegger says and has potentially some rather problematic connotations. So call it the "intuition of being" if you'd like, as long as what we mean is a pre-theoretical understanding I think that's safe enough.

In particular, this path is especially marked at the end of this chapter: The "horizon" of Being was "pointing our understanding" on the path of "presence and subsistence". It is not necessary for him to write the word, although he does: "substance". This is exactly what pressure and subsistence mean.

Strong arguments are needed to change this conclusion. I do not see them. — David Mo

Well don't take my word for it, just keep reading. I'm pretty confident on this point, and it's all over his writing: he does not believe "being" is a substance. His entire philosophy wouldn't make the slightest it of sense if he did, in the same way it wouldn't if he suddenly described the world in Cartesian terms. So really, strong arguments need to be made to the contrary -- and so far you've quote one sentence which, as I've said, you're mistakingly (but understandably) attributing to Heidegger himself. I gave a rather lengthy explanation and quotation in my last post, as well.

Your example does not add any clarification. Babies and animals have no "definite" knowledge of the causes. They are simply conditioned to respond to certain stimuli with certain behaviours. Something like a pre-concept of cause slowly makes its way into children's minds through a repeated process of generalising responses. We have to wait for the formation of abstract language to talk about a "definite" knowledge of the concept of cause that is accompanied by a defined understanding of the word "cause". Dissociating one thing from the other is impossible. — David Mo

I didn't say it was a "definite" knowledge, though -- just that it was present. Again, use "intuitive" understanding of causality, if you'd prefer. It's exactly not abstract, linguistic, or theoretical -- yet still there. That's the point.

I think your effort to personally interpret Heidegger is most interesting assuming you are willing to defend Heidegger's theory of Being. In this assumption I would ask you what the Self means to you. Why is it so important? — David Mo

But I don't think Heidegger does have a theory of Being.

As far as the self goes -- I have thoughts on the self, but what's the connection to Heidegger? As far as I know he doesn't talk very much about it.

As far as the self goes -- I have thoughts on the self, but what's the connection to Heidegger?. — Xtrix

Nothing. I think I explained that. It's a dirty trick of the word processor program of auto-correction. It has a mania for change "Being" for "Self". Also "pressence" for "pressure". Although I correct its mistakes, sometimes I miss one. I should take out the auto-corrector, but sometimes it comes in handy.

I don't see Heidegger necessarily thinking Parmenides or Heraclitus somehow got it "right" — Xtrix

There are many Heidegger's passages on the capital importance of correctly understand the "concealed" message of Greeks. An example:

Once again, we will rely on the two definitive thinkers Parmenides and Heraclitus, and we will try once again to find entry into the Greek world, whose basic traits, though distorted and repressed, displaced and covered up, still sustain our own world. — Heidegger: Int to Meta, p. 96/132

I think it is impossible to understand Heidegger without his personal version of them. However, it is possible to discuss Heidegger's philosophy without Heraclitus and Parmenides if someone wants to defend him. I am not sure you want to do so.

Anyway, I will repeat my answer properly corrected:

What Being means to you? Why is it so important?

But I don't think Heidegger does have a theory of Being. — Xtrix

This is Heidegger's problem for me:
There is no definition of "Being".
There is no intersubjective method of knowing Being.
No theory of Being...

... And a continuous insistence in rejecting every opponent because he does not understand or despises this mysterious (though essential) Being.

In my frustrated attempts to understand Heidegger I have read many times the word "mystic". That, I think I understand. But I don't like it.

This is Heidegger's problem for me:
There is no definition of "Being".
There is no intersubjective method of knowing Being.
No theory of Being...

... And a continuous insistence in rejecting every opponent because he does not understand or despises this mysterious (though essential) Being. — David Mo

Here ya go :point: Seyn ...

As far as the self goes -- I have thoughts on the self, but what's the connection to Heidegger?.
— Xtrix
Nothing. I think I explained that. It's a dirty trick of the word processor program of auto-correction. It has a mania for change "Being" for "Self". Also "pressence" for "pressure". Although I correct its mistakes, sometimes I miss one. I should take out the auto-corrector, but sometimes it comes in handy. — David Mo

Right, that's partly my fault, I completely forgot.

I don't see Heidegger necessarily thinking Parmenides or Heraclitus somehow got it "right"
— Xtrix

There are many Heidegger's passages on the capital importance of correctly understand the "concealed" message of Greeks. An example:
Once again, we will rely on the two definitive thinkers Parmenides and Heraclitus, and we will try once again to find entry into the Greek world, whose basic traits, though distorted and repressed, displaced and covered up, still sustain our own world.
— Heidegger: Int to Meta, p. 96/132
I think it is impossible to understand Heidegger without his personal version of them. However, it is possible to discuss Heidegger's philosophy without Heraclitus and Parmenides if someone wants to defend him. I am not sure you want to do so. — David Mo

But that's all different from saying they're "right," remember. He does indeed think their thinking has been concealed and covered over, etc. But as I said, from my reading anyway (and I can give you references if you'd like), I see him as saying they're both still part of the "metaphysics of presence" -- they're still presencing. This is why Being has been interpreted this way from then onwards, and why it "had to be" -- because the seed was already there at the beginning. So in Plato and Aristotle Being becomes Idea and Ousia, respectively, as the Romans and Christians it becomes substance and God, and through Descartes as the res, also a substance. "Being" then becomes a mistake, a vapor, an error, empty, meaningless, etc., and the question of its meaning becomes completely forgotten, ignored, or dismissed as senseless.

This is the point in history where Heidegger comes in, in the 1910s, inspired by "phenomenology." During a time in history where technology was advancing exponentially, physics and chemistry were being transformed, and mathematics was undergoing a "crisis" of foundations. It's a time when Russell and "analytic philosophy" was emerging and mathematics was attempted to be "reduced" to logic. A lot of influence from Kierkegaard and Nietzsche too. Worth keeping all this in mind when reading him, of course.

So you have it exactly right -- I'm only challenging the idea that Heidegger judges Parmenides and Heraclitus as "right" per se. He no doubt has the highest respect for both thinkers (and Anaximander) and, as you rightly quoted, believes their thinking was the inception of philosophy and still "sustains" our own world today.

What Being means to you? Why is it so important? — David Mo

I think it means what we want it to mean -- how we interpret it. I think history bears this out, in fact, in terms of the history of ontology. Here it's "substance," there it's "idea," or it's "god," it's "energy," it's "will," it's perhaps the "thing in itself," it's rationality, it's "nature," etc etc etc. It corresponds with the meaning of being human, too -- which is most important and a crucial point in Heidegger (and why he bothers with the question at all, in the end).

What "is" being apart from our interpreting it? Well, it's not a "thing" (a being) at all, or an object at all. That's why the confusing statement that "Being is not a being." Is it a kind of "nothing," then? Sure, but even the idea of "nothing" is something. Nihilism is a big problem, and here he agrees with Nietzsche -- but it permeates this part of the modern age. We're technological/nihilist. A way to get beyond this is to confront Nothing and Being.

This is all very anxiety-provoking in the modern age. It feels groundless. But as Heidegger says, if we don't "flee" from it, we can achieve a kind of liberation (like the Buddhists often talk about), and that can transform our way of being/living. By accepting the groundlessness of life, you don't have to "grasp" a hold of something as the "ultimate truth" or the ground of all being, etc. This is needed now more than ever, because we as humanity are killing ourselves, heading right for destruction (this is in the nuclear age, even prior to climate change).

Now is this itself an interpretation of "being"? Not that I see -- because it's not a definition of "it." It's simply an acknowledgment that we as human beings question and interpret things. We're "ontological," in the sense of questioning being and beings, and "hermeneutical" in the sense of interpretation. Since at heart we're historical/temporal beings, it is from the standard of time that we interpret or question anything at all, including "being" itself. Let me digress a bit to fill this out before you respond...

Most of us, most of the time, are not doing ontology or thinking philosophically or scientifically, or even "abstractly." Once we see that -- which we all agree is true, I think, and only need to examine ourselves in our "average everydayness" (as Heidegger puts it) to remember it -- then we see that what we DO (most of the time) in this everydayness gives us plenty of clues as to what our "pre-theoretical" (assumed, tacitly held) understanding of life, being human, and Being generally, is.

There's a whole story there, too -- about the "world" and our "Being-in-the-world." Turns out by looking at what we do for the most part (when not being theoretical or "the rational animal"), using Heidegger's analysis and terminology -- that what we are, as the entities that ask about being and have an understanding of being, is "care" (Sorge).

We're caring beings acting in the world towards goals, projecting out into the future towards which we go, anticipating, moving towards something now for the sake of something later (a tacit plan or goal). Crude example: if we're hammering, we're doing so as part of a whole totality of other beings and equipment which only make sense in the context of house-building, which only makes sense in terms of the human need for shelter, etc.

That's only a rough sketch of his ideas. I only digress here a bit to round out the picture a little, because if you dwell on any one aspect of his philosophy it can look insane (especially when approaching it from, as example only, more of an analytic point of view -- which is far more clear and precise), so it's good to give a cartoon-like overview.

Turns out, of course, that our average everydayness, which is not theoretical, and which represents "care," -- turns out that this is really "time" in the sense of lived time or existential time. It's on the basis of this meaning of time that "world time" (clocks, calandras, a series of "nows", etc) is derived, through measurement and counting.

Heidegger calls this lived time "temporality."

One thing I like about Mr. Heidegger is his simple examples to illustrate all of this -- liking hammering, or turning a doorknob, or being a professor and lecturing. We could use driving or any often skill or activity to demonstrate what he's getting at too. Turns out that these obvious things, in his hands, undermine 2,500 years of tradition. That's a big claim to make. So why?

Because he will claim that temporality (the caring being-in-th-world that is a 'there' [dasein], which we see in these average behaviors) is essentially how a human being interprets anything at all and, therefore, includes the activity of philosophy and science. How does this undermine the tradition?

Because this has been overlooked and concealed. Because he will claim that since the dawn of philosophy in Anaximander, Parmenides, and Heraclitus, Western thinking (philosophy) has been dominated by one aspect of lived-time (temporality): the present. Hence we interpret Being and TIME ITSELF from the perspective of the present, as something "present-at-hand" (the permanent, an enduring prototype, substance, an object that persists, a particular entity). If we're staggering in history, we're staggering in part for this reason. So a new perspective should be opened up in which we can interpret ourselves. Later Heidegger says it's the poets and artists that can lead the way on this. Kind of ironic.

I hope this makes sense. I realize on first glance it sounds like a lot of confused, jumbled bullshit. Please know I'm quite aware of that and am thus always reluctant to give condensed accounts like this -- always also with the awareness that this is only one reading of Heidegger, which he himself may have thought was completely wrong. But I feel it's only fair to give my own synopsis, given your (difficult) question. Quoting Heidegger all day would be more time-consuming and a bit of a cop out.

My own personal view is that turning to the Eastern tradition is an important move in the right direction. Bringing back a sense of the "divine" in life (not supernatural), perhaps like the Hindu or Greek-religious interpretation, would be a good thing for humanity right now. When it comes to ideas of this sort, I'm much more in agreement with Nietzsche and much more drawn to Marx, Chomsky, and Wolf -- who I think are on the right track in emphasizing politics and economics.

Cheers.

But that's all different from saying they're "right," — Xtrix

I will quote you one last text:

The primordial phenomenon of truth has been covered up by Dasein' s very understanding of Being-that understanding which is proximally the one that prevails, and which even today has not been surmounted explicitly and in principle.
At the same time, however, we must not overlook the fact that while this way of understanding Being (the way which is closest to us) is one which the Greeks were the first to develop as a branch of knowledge and to master, the primordial understanding of truth was simultaneously alive among them, even if pre-ontologically, and it even held its own against the concealment implicit in their ontology-at least in Aristotle. — Heidegger: Being and Time, Oxford, 2001, p. 225/268

If after this quotation you continue affirming that for Heidegger Heraclitus, Parmenides and the Greeks who were in this line were not right, it is that we do not understand the same for "being right".

I will continue with the rest of your commentary when I have time to read it.

I think it means what we want it to mean -- how we interpret it. I think history bears this out, in fact, in terms of the history of ontology. Here it's "substance," there it's "idea," or it's "god," it's "energy," it's "will," it's perhaps the "thing in itself," it's rationality, it's "nature," etc etc etc. — Xtrix

What "is" being apart from our interpreting it? Well, it's not a "thing" (a being) at all, or an object at all. That's why the confusing statement that "Being is not a being." Is it a kind of "nothing," then? Sure, but even the idea of "nothing" is something. — Xtrix

Your first two paragraphs have a lot to talk about. You'll allow me to stand on them.

You define the method of interpretation as going anywhere in any way. That's very Heideggerian, but it doesn't work for me. The act of knowing is supposed to be reasonably shared, but if all is fair the result can be chaos and confrontations can take us anywhere. I don't think you're serious about this.

The proof that you don't seriously mean it is that in the next paragraph you put "apart from the interpretation". But here too you are remarkably confusing. From what you write next I get nothing. That Being is neither this nor that. The conclusion does not seem to be very conclusive, truth be told. Besides, how do you arrive at the question of what Being really is apart from the interpretation? Is there any other method that you have not told us about? I hope it would be more precise that interpretation.

If after this quotation you continue affirming that for Heidegger Heraclitus, Parmenides and the Greeks who were in this line were not right, it is that we do not understand the same for "being right". — David Mo

Exactly. It's not that Hegel, or Kant, or Descartes, or Augustine, or Greeks (presocratic or not) were wrong. Likewise, science isn't "wrong" either -- if Heidegger ever claimed that he'd be laughed out of the room, rightfully. If Heidegger is doing anything he's pointing out that there has been something overlooked (and then not even questioned) in our tradition. If we want to say that this is the same as not being "right," I think that's a little misleading. I don't think Heidegger would be that presumptuous, and is why he almost always speaks highly of these thinkers.

I will continue with the rest of your commentary when I have time to read it. — David Mo

Your first two paragraphs have a lot to talk about. You'll allow me to stand on them. — David Mo

Very true, and please do.

You define the method of interpretation as going anywhere in any way. That's very Heideggerian, but it doesn't work for me. The act of knowing is supposed to be reasonably shared, but if all is fair the result can be chaos and confrontations can take us anywhere. I don't think you're serious about this. — David Mo

Well I'm not sure what you mean by the first sentence, but I'm not advocating for irrationalism or mysticism if that's what you're hinting at. But if you could elaborate I'd rather wait until I respond to something I don't fully understand yet.

The proof that you don't seriously mean it is that in the next paragraph you put "apart from the interpretation". But here too you are remarkably confusing. From what you write next I get nothing. That Being is neither this nor that. The conclusion does not seem to be very conclusive, truth be told. Besides, how do you arrive at the question of what Being really is apart from the interpretation? Is there any other method that you have not told us about? I hope it would be more precise that interpretation. — David Mo

I don't think I've fully understood you here, either. But as for the first question: I don't think there is an answer to what Being really is. There are plenty of interpretations and tacit assumptions, etc., but nothing I can define, measure, or formalize with confidence -- far more brilliant minds than mine have done so, and I'd simply defer to their interpretations, which is not very interesting.

If Heidegger is doing anything he's pointing out that there has been something overlooked — Xtrix

It is evident that we speak different languages. According to Heidegger there is an essential question: What is being? He dedicated several books and many lectures to it. He considered that Western philosophy had overlooked, deformed, degenerated, etc. this question since the time of the Greeks. If overlooking, deforming and degenerating a main subject is not to be wrong, what does it mean to be wrong for you? I'm afraid you speak a language that I don't know. And it's not English.

Well I'm not sure what you mean by the first sentence, but I'm not advocating for irrationalism or mysticism if that's what you're hinting at. — Xtrix

Irrationalism or extreme relativism, which is the same thing. You refuse to defend your point because "there are many theories", "I don't know what Being is", etc.

Two don't discuss if one doesn't want.