The contention is “constructs” not “construes”. — Mww

Chosen consciously - 'Construe' is the same root as 'construct' but pertains to language and meaning, in particular.

Construe: "to arrange the words of (a translation) in their natural order," hence "to interpret, explain, understand the meaning of," from Late Latin construere "to relate grammatically," in classical Latin "to build up, pile together," from assimilated form of com "with, together" (see con-) + struere "to pile up" (from PIE root *stere- "to spread").

Specific sense in law, "to explain or interpret for legal purposes," is from 1580s. Compare construction and construct (v.), which is a later doublet. Related: Construed; construing; construal.

Agreed on understanding/judgement, but perception is the source of that which is empirically knowable, but it is not the source of empirical knowledge. It is possible to perceive a thing and not know what it is. — Mww

Just the point I was making, thank you.

Construe' is the same root as 'construct' but pertains to language and meaning, in particular. — Wayfarer

Agreed, in principle. But the originating assertion is operating under the auspices of transcendental idealism, as stipulated by its author herein. As such, to construe carries the implication of understanding, as you say, but understanding presupposes that which is to be understood, which is an antecedent construction, in the Kantian sense, called synthesis, and that is the purview of the faculty of imagination alone, having nothing whatsoever to do with perception in and of itself.

Hopefully we agree that perception does not construct anything at all. Or, if it does, that I may be shown how such should be the case.

That would be ego, and conditioned thought, and discursive reasoning, in my reading. — Wayfarer

But this ego is a slippery discussion. If it is taken to mean the assertive self, with confidence and even aggression behind it, as if in competition, then the ego is, by my lights, something objectionable, in need of a good critical censure. But if the ego is beyond this, an agency that is "other-worldly" then the best we can do is construct arguments and descriptions that are in the field of where this transcendence leaves the mundane. It's like ethics: we don't know what it IS, but we do know how we experience it and talk about it, and these can be objects of analysis. Ethics is an injunction to do or not to do something, and this is grounded in the "givenness" of experience, ande THIS is not reducible, or, if it is reducible, it is so in the language that constructs the idea that can be talked about, NOT in the injunction and its palpable counterpart: the OUCH! experience.
We can talk around it, about it, how it fits, is contextualized; we just can't interpretatively nail it down like I can nail down what a bank teller is or an igneous rock.

Well, the individuals you refer to are philosophers and theologians. They purport to explain things, or justify claims. No doubt I should have been clearer, but the religion I refer to (including the ancient mystery religions) generated a profound feeling of understanding through very emotive rituals and dramatic revelations of sacred objects or displays. Art, also, shows rather than explains.

Augustine was a very odd person. There's something strange about his eagerness to confess his sins and misdeeds. He seems to revel in them in a bizarre way, rather like Rousseau does. But like Rousseau he appears to think he's better and wiser than others for having been a sinner and proclaiming his sins to the world.

We can talk around it, about it, how it fits, is contextualized; we just can't interpretatively nail it down like I can nail down what a bank teller is or an igneous rock. — Constance

One of the qualities Kierkegaard exhibited in The Concept of Anxiety is that the "self" who loves or not is always represented as a result of a process geared toward completing a certain end. The possibility of being an agent is presented in contrast to that.

The prospect of selecting between "competing" desires is interrupted by another dimension where the options are not easily laid side by side.

Hopefully we agree that perception does not construct anything at all. — Mww

I agree! I was trying to elucidate the point you made to that effect, but sidetracked it by my idiosyncratic terminology.

But this ego is a slippery discussion. If it is taken to mean the assertive self, with confidence and even aggression behind it, as if in competition, then the ego is, by my lights, something objectionable, in need of a good critical censure. But if the ego is beyond this, an agency that is "other-worldly" then the best we can do is construct arguments and descriptions that are in the field of where this transcendence leaves the mundane. — Constance

This is suggesting of the idea of 'higher self' or 'higher consciousness'. You find that in Fichte, who distinguished the finite or empirical ego from the pure or infinite ego. The activity of this "pure ego" can be discovered by a "higher intuition". It is also reminiscent of Schelling's 'intellectual intuition' or Jacques Maritain's 'intuition of being'. (Dermot Moran says that the German idealists retained some fragments of the 'doctrine of illumination' which had othewise died out in Western philosophy during the preceeding centuries; Maritain, of course, was a Catholic philosopher.)

I'm receptive to the idea; I think the term 'transcendental ego' is a plausible synonym for the 'higher self'. But it's hardly respectable in current philosophical circles; you will find it in Rudolf Steiner or theosophy but not in existentialism or phenomenology where it will usually be rejected as occult and or new age.

If you read Vedanta, the ego is precisely what has to be 'slayed' by the aspirant (chela) so as to awaken to the Self (see The Teachings of Ramana Maharishi). There is a parallel in New Testament in that the disciple is urged to 'lose his life for My sake', where Adam is the personification of ego and Jesus the higher consciousness. Buddhism rejects the idea of 'higher self', or any self, altogether, although arguably the Buddha Nature teachings can be mapped against it (with strict caveats).

It's like ethics: we don't know what it IS, but we do know how we experience it and talk about it, and these can be objects of analysis. — Constance

In my view, the problem of ethics is in the constitution of modernity itself. 'Being modern', apart from being born at a particular moment in history, is also a distinctive and novel form of consciousness, based on a new conception of what it means to be an individual. This article about Max Weber casts some light:

Values were increasingly the property of the individual, not society. So instead of humanly warm contact, based on a shared, intuitively obvious understanding of right and wrong, public behaviour was cool, reserved, hard and sober, governed by strict personal self-control. Correct behaviour lay in the observance of correct procedures. Most obviously, it obeyed the letter of the law (for who could say what its spirit was?) and it was rational. It was logical, consistent, and coherent; or else it obeyed unquestioned modern realities such as the power of numbers, market forces and technology.

And also this one on Emile Durkheim:

An heir of the Enlightenment, Durkheim championed the liberation of individuals from religious dogmas, but he also feared that with their release from tradition individuals would fall into a state of anomie — a condition that is best thought of as “normlessness” — which he believed to be a core pathology of modern life.

I noticed, when studying Buddhism, that one of the supreme virtues of the Buddha was yathābhūtaṃ, 'to see things as they truly are'. It was simply assumed that this was one of the attributes of the Buddha's omniscience. Whereas in techno-culture, 'how things truly are' is devoid of value, meaningless, as 'what truly is' are the elemental particles or forces of physics, within which the individual has emerged due to fortuitous circumstances.

Food for thought, that's all.

YEA!!!!

Whereas in techno-culture, 'how things truly are' is devoid of value, meaningless, as 'what truly is' are the elemental particles or forces of physics, within which the individual has emerged due to fortuitous circumstances. — Wayfarer

Why this widespread prejudice against "the composite"? Why isn't matter magical and spiritual? Why assume a soul separate from matter is better than matter? All these are assumptions from dualism

This is suggesting of the idea of 'higher self' or 'higher consciousness'. You find that in Fichte, who distinguished the finite or empirical ego from the pure or infinite ego. The activity of this "pure ego" can be discovered by a "higher intuition". It is also reminiscent of Schelling's 'intellectual intuition' or Jacques Maritain's 'intuition of being'. (Dermot Moran says that the German idealists retained some fragments of the 'doctrine of illumination' which had othewise died out in Western philosophy during the preceeding centuries; Maritain, of course, was a Catholic philosopher.) — Wayfarer

But you will have to deal with objections that come in later. If there is to be a true phenomenological description of what unfolds before us, the "no show" of this higher consciousness, and here just think apophatically, so that when the inventory of what is "there" is all there is to be accounted for, cognitive, eidetic, structural, and so on, never shows up. This is why meaningful talk about this is usually cast int he negative. As Kant reasoned, by extrapolating from what IS apparent in experience, to what has to be the case in order for this to be. Reason, is there, and it presents itself in the forms of judgments we make in a regular way. But where does this come from? Even if you are a Kantian about the "soul" and its rational functions, you realize that when we look upon these functions, you're perspective is circular for to affirm the rational form of judgment occurs IN judgment. There is no third perspective that is removed fromt he very condition you are trying to affirm. Can the eye "see" the eye, so to speak? This is what Wittgenstein was very clear on. Transcendental reality cannot be conceived, for the understanding can only understand itself, and to speak of a "beyond" of this is nonsense.
But on the other hand, ASSUME that our power of reason is an absolute, say, a "function" of the mind of God, and assume that when a function of the mind of God, through the agency of a person, a transcendental Unity of Apperception, if you like, conceives itself, this is an absolute conception, for what else can the mind of God produce? That is, God's judgment cannot beg questions.
But this is a very tough row to hoe. Here is where Wittgenstein comes in, for in order for a concept to make any sense at all, its opposite has to be conceivable, and the opposite of thought and its logic is not conceivable.
But then, how do account for these apodictic intuitions? they are at best, representations of something we cannot conceive. But it is my view that while we cannot conceive of the nature of logic (btw, Kant didn't call logic an intuition, but only a discursive function. But how do these discursive maneuvers work? Well, intuitively. What else?), we certainly can talk around it, look closely at how our conception of logic and other intuitions are engendered, get in proximity to the generative source. This is what Eugen Fink does in his Sixth Meditation. He follows Kant (or the Kantian Fichte) through to further reaches: the "enworlding" of the world.

I'm receptive to the idea; I think the term 'transcendental ego' is a plausible synonym for the 'higher self'. But it's hardly respectable in current philosophical circles; you will find it in Rudolf Steiner or theosophy but not in existentialism or phenomenology where it will usually be rejected as occult and or new age. — Wayfarer

No, theosophy is off the table in respectable philosophy, and I think there is good reason for this; but then, it is not WHAT is said, but the intuitions behind saying. The disagreement is in the justification for positing something, and this always goes badly extravagant metaphysics, systems of unseen ontologies.
What circles are you talking about? Phenomenology? No. The issue of a transcendentla ego in phenomenology goes back at least to Kant (Plotinus and Christian metaphysics, and lots more, of course) in serious contemporary philosophy, but this is sin continental philosophy, where Kant never died an untimely death. He was never refuted, only ignored. there is Kant, then the three H's, Husserl, Hegel and Heidegger, and everyone else in the system of this thinking. Check out, for example, The Transcendedntal Ego by Sartre, his refutation of Husserl on the nature of the ego.

If you read Vedanta, the ego is precisely what has to be 'slayed' by the aspirant (chela) so as to awaken to the Self (see The Teachings of Ramana Maharishi). There is a parallel in New Testament in that the disciple is urged to 'lose his life for My sake', where Adam is the personification of ego and Jesus the higher consciousness. Buddhism rejects the idea of 'higher self', or any self, altogether, although arguably the Buddha Nature teachings can be mapped against it (with strict caveats). — Wayfarer

I don't read much Eastern metaphysics, because it's metaphysics. That goes for explicit Christianity as well. But I am willing to read "around" these thoughts. Kierkegaard, Otto, Buber, then Husserl, and oward, these articulate the matter very well, better than their popular counterparts.

In my view, the problem of ethics is in the constitution of modernity itself. 'Being modern', apart from being born at a particular moment in history, is also a distinctive and novel form of consciousness, based on a new conception of what it means to be an individual. This article about Max Weber casts some light: — Wayfarer

I don't really agree with this kind of thinking, on either side. Reason is not cold and calculating; it's not anything at all! Just the form of judgment. And the humanistic dimension of our existence is better handled by Levinas. But most if not all really miss the boat on ethics. The business of philosophy is to get as far into basic assuptions as possible, and this means ethics has to be revealed for its "parts". It has parts, and is not irreducible. What is MEANING?? This is the question. Not Frege's "sense" but meaning, like this lance in my kidney, or my love of Ravel. Value is the center of philosophical concern. It is first philosophy. Ask, what is the Good? This is where an inquiry into human existence begins. NOT what is reality? This begs the question: why do you care what reality is? It is a performative QBing, this asking the question is motivated, concerned, there os a mood, an affect that makes it all important.

And also this one on Emile Durkheim — Wayfarer

I do get this. But I want to take the matter where philosophy goes, and not stop where issues are so entangled.

I noticed, when studying Buddhism, that one of the supreme virtues of the Buddha was yathābhūtaṃ, 'to see things as they truly are'. It was simply assumed that this was one of the attributes of the Buddha's omniscience. Whereas in techno-culture, 'how things truly are' is devoid of value, meaningless, as 'what truly is' are the elemental particles or forces of physics, within which the individual has emerged due to fortuitous circumstances.

Food for thought, that's all. — Wayfarer

A feast, really. Read the Abhidhamma and there is talk about confronting ultimate reality. The trouble is, there is no real explanatory concepts that reveals what this is. Like ethics, it cannot be spoken, but one CAN speak around it, of it, and phenomenology offers the vessel for just this. Heidegger's language of Being, dasein, hermeneutics, time, space, authenticity and so forth opens doors. Husserl, too. Kierkegaard, and Levinas, and there are so many who present the case, provide a contextual framework for serious discussions about what enlightenment and liberation really are.

Husserl, too. Kierkegaard, and Levinas, and there are so many who present the case, provide a contextual framework for serious discussions about what enlightenment and liberation really are. — Constance

This issue is fraught by the tension between spiritual enlightenment and The Enlightenment. Ultimately there has to be some form of rapprochement with religion, which for historical reasons, Western philosophy is deeply unwilling to consider. ‘Not believing in religion’ is a powerful undercurrent in Western philosophy - there’s an implicit barrier between secular and religious, and you have to be very mindful of where you step.

Another tension is that in the West, with its characteristic belief in Progress, there is a constant sense that a new philosophy or a new solution to the predicament of existence has to be invented. It's constantly struggling to come up with novel forms, new expressions, ideas that haven't been heard before - the impilcation being that 'liberation and enlightenment' are presumed to be conditions or states which have never been previously understood.

These are deep problems, I'm not proposing any solution. But I think what has to be worked out is, if enlightenment and liberation are the goals, what do they mean? Christianity doesn't often utilise that kind of terminology, especially Protestant Christianity, which casts everything in the light of sin and redemption, rather than ignorance and enlightenment. That's a shadow to the whole enterprise and whatever philosophical proposal is made to address these issues has to navigate these treachorous seas!

(In the early 00's, Jurgen Habermas had a series of dialogues with Cardinal Ratzinger, later Pope Benedict XVI, on the dialectics of secularisation. There's an interesting OP on that here.)

What is MEANING?? This is the question. Not Frege's "sense" but meaning, like this lance in my kidney, or my love of Ravel. Value is the center of philosophical concern. It is first philosophy. Ask, what is the Good? This is where an inquiry into human existence begins. NOT what is reality? This begs the question: why do you care what reality is? — Constance

:clap: :100: But there is a response to your rhetorical question: we care about what reality is, because, in Aristotle's phrase, 'we seek to know'. The desire to know, to understand, to make sense out of existence, is surely a deep drive.

But again, the philosophical issue, in my opinion, revolves around the conception of knowledge that develops out of the Enlightenment. Actually, a lot of that is covered by Husserl in Crisis of the European Sciences - his critiques of Galileo and Descartes. And then that leads to Heidegger, so I can see the trajectory of your thinking there.

I think the challenge is to come up with a fresh perspective taking all these factors into account. Tough row to hoe!

Secularism can be seen an animism in its infancy. To me, animism regards animals as gods and nature as THEIR home. We are intruders who must show respect, who feel like we don't belong here. I think pure pantheism morphs into animism, and modern secularism too perhaps. The two heavens conceivable by the intellect are 1) the beatific vision of Aquinas (you can listen to "99 essential Gregorian chants" of youtube to get the flavor of this vision) or 2) the Houris of paradise (Islam). If you don't have faith in one of these destinations, I feel like all you can have is a vague hope for something unknown, which is what most secularists have. Animalists don't conceptualize the afterlife, and since securalists don't either, maybe the future if the West, in religious terms, will look more like the onto-theology of the Huns and Mongols instead of some kind of Christian Renaissance

These are deep problems, I'm not proposing any solution. But I think what has to be worked out is, if enlightenment and liberation are the goals, what do they mean? Christianity doesn't often utilise that kind of terminology, especially Protestant Christianity, which casts everything in the light of sin and redemption, rather than ignorance and enlightenment. That's a shadow to the whole enterprise and whatever philosophical proposal is made to address these issues has to navigate these treachorous seas! — Wayfarer

But I do propose a solution. It lies with phenomenology. And Wittgenstein. And Husserl. and others. The point is not that any one has put their finger precisely where it needs to be, but that once the Husserlian epoche is is understood, one can finally see where philosophy is supposed to go. the reason there continues to be so much controversy is not that philosophical understanding has yet to achieve this monumental task, but that people are all put together so differently/ If you ask me, the Buddha had it right, and that was long ago, but he didn't have the theoretical tools to talk about it, to provide a phenomenological exposition on the actual descriptive features of enlightenment. As I said, such things are notoriously unsayable, but what is sayable are the contextual features, and phenomenology shows just this. But still, it does depend literally on how a person is put together to acknowledge this. Not all can, and this I affirm from discussions and reading. Not all are math wizards, nor artistic geniuses, or acrobatically inclined and so on. This is just the way it goes, and it is the fundamental reason why what I will call existential aptitude is not universal: it is not like the ability to understand the basics of logic or experiential intuitions, what every person simply knows. It takes a talent, if you like. Don't really care how this sounds, but I am convinced this is just the way it is.
Sin, redemption? See Kierkegaard's Concept of Anxiety.
As far as I]'m concerned, philosophy is done, already reached its end, and in theory, this would be Derrida. But Derrida is just pointing to something that remains a complete mystery, and I think he was a remarkable thinking person, but likely too smart to see that it was the intellectualizing that finally had to be dropped. It's fun to be brilliant, but to put it in Buddha's language, it does encourage attachment.
I'm am done with navigating: Calm the breath, suspend thought and its moods, attitudes, affect, and just put it all down, and here is where one stands close to something really profound, which is the eternal present, a Kierkegaardian idea that found its full expression in Heidegger, who sought passionately for a new grounding in human existence, and thought perhaps the answer could lie with....Buddhism. (see his famous Spiegel interview). Of course, the Buddhists have been light years ahead of everyone for a very long time, but they were never good at telling people why. Not that I've read.

But there is a response to your rhetorical question: we care about what reality is, because, in Aristotle's phrase, 'we seek to know'. The desire to know, to understand, to make sense out of existence, is surely a deep drive. — Wayfarer

Case in point: why does one seek to know? Seeking is not a logical move, it is a passionate one. One cares, wants, desires, as you say, but these are not "reality" terms. Not ontological categorical terms. I am saying that every act ever committed by anyone is performative question begged when the purpose is made known, for the purpose is bound to motivation, desire and the rest. None of this? Then there is no substantive meaning to what is done. WE bring meaning into the world of facts, ways Wittgenstein. Every utterance, thought, moment of experience may have its own end and content, explicitly stated, but underpinning this the quest for meaning, the foundation of all things.

Hey thanks, I found that Der Spiegel interview you refer to. Obviously a very important cultural artifact. I’ve never read Being and Time, although many decades ago, I was friends with someone in whom it triggered an intense cathartic realisation, and I formed the view that it is probably an important book. On the other hand, like a lot of people, I have been put off by Heidegger’s involvement with Nazism and the suggestion that his philosophy leans towards fascism. I think about reading it, but I haven’t taken the time yet.

There’s a few gems in that interview.

my conviction is that only in the same place where the modern technical world took its origin can we also prepare a conversion (Umkehr) of it. In other words, this cannot happen by taking over Zen Buddhism or other Eastern experiences of the world. For this conversion of thought we need the help of the European tradition and a new appropriation of it. Thought will be transformed only through thought that has the same origin and determination. — Heidegger

I gloomily suspect that this is true, but I have no inkling if it is being done. If any of Heidegger’s successors are doing that, I’d like to know, but I suspect not. I am familiar with the anecdote of Heidegger being caught reading from D T Suzuki and saying ‘if I understand this man aright, this is what I’ve been trying to say all along’. But I take his point that we can’t assimilate Zen Buddhism tout courte. We - westerners - have created the cultural predicament which we suffer from, and we have to find a way out of it on those terms. I think that’s what he’s saying.

In my case, I have been quite involved with Buddhism during my adult years, mainly as a result of some excellent Buddhist books and advocates, including Suzuki. In fact I self-identify as Buddhist but am also painfully aware of the ‘problem of cultural appropriation’ and my own native unsuitability for the kinds of discipline that Buddhism enjoins.

(Have a look at David Loy's articles, http://www.davidloy.org/articles.html)

philosophy will be unable to effect any immediate change in the current state of the world. This is true not only of philosophy but of all purely human reflection and endeavor. Only a god can save us.

Might as well have said ‘only a miracle’. I think he’s right, which concerns me, as I have grandchildren, and I honestly don’t know what kind of world they’ll be facing. I think what he’s saying is that man has created a world over which s/he has no control, or even any real understanding. A ‘reset’ of any such world must needs be an immensely traumatic affair.

And this one:

SPIEGEL: You attribute to the Germans a special task?

Heidegger: Yes, in the sense explained in the dialogues with Hölderlin.

SPIEGEL: Do you believe that Germans have a special qualification for this conversion?

Heidegger: I am thinking of the special inner kinship between the German language and the language of the Greeks and their thought. This is something that the French confirm for me again and again today. When they begin to think, they speak German. They assure [me] that they do not succeed with their own language.

Gee, I bet the French just loved that. :blush:

Sorry for the digression.

When they begin to think, they speak German.

This guy was so naïve, so simplistic sometimes... It really makes one wonder about the lack of street wisdom of some overly theoretical philosophers, who don't have much patience for empirical facts, nor any awareness of their own cultural biases apparently. Also there is this "manifest destiny" of the German volk here, as the "thinking volk"... Ja ja. My grandfather really liked their metaphysics in the camps.

The consequent moral realist has suspended all self-doubt and anything that could induce it.

The consequent moral realist has suspended all self-doubt and anything that could induce it. — baker

But the proof is in the pudding, a conversation about doubt, moral realism and the rest. Otherwise, it is just a generic complaint. Do you think the Buddha in his phenomenological prime, had doubts?

This guy was so naïve, so simplistic sometimes... It really makes one wonder about the lack of street wisdom of some overly theoretical philosophers, who don't have much patience for empirical facts, nor any awareness of their own cultural biases apparently. Also there is this "manifest destiny" of the German volk here, as the "thinking volk"... Ja ja. My grandfather really liked their metaphysics in the camps. — Olivier5

You have to see that Heidegger believed that language is an integral part of the construction of Being, and so, when you examine works of philosophy, literature, poetry, rhetoric, and then, even in the hard sciences (think Kuhn's Structures of Scientific Revolutions), you are FIRST looking at language possibilities, meanings as that which can be brought to bear on any novel affair. I don't speak German or ancient Greek, but who knows, Heidegger could have a point. I leave it up to the philosogists. As to Heidegger's bout with Nazism in the 30's , it is universally agreed that it was despicable.

But then, he know nothing at all about what they were doing in the camps. But then again, he never properly condemned all of this afterwards. So, do what Hubert Dreyfus did: take what is there and just put aside the rest as irrelevant to the philosophy, which was absolutely amazing.

Naive is the last term I can imagine that would apply to Heidegger. On the other hand, at the time there was this infatuation with volkism, wasn't there? Himmler and the rest took it seriously, that there were ancient divisions between the pure races that were corrupted by "foul practices". I don't think he bought into this at all, but he did buy into the spirit of a German rebirth which he thought the Nazis could pull off. But then, they went sideways.

Hey thanks, I found that Der Spiegel interview you refer to. Obviously a very important cultural artifact. I’ve never read Being and Time, although many decades ago, I was friends with someone in whom it triggered an intense cathartic realisation, and I formed the view that it is probably an important book. On the other hand, like a lot of people, I have been put off by Heidegger’s involvement with Nazism and the suggestion that his philosophy leans towards fascism. I think about reading it, but I haven’t taken the time yet. — Wayfarer

Everybody is put off by that. But I think, if it were discovered that Louis Pasteur were, say, a child molester, would we simply stop taking vaccines? Heidegger was the greatest philosopher of the 20th century, and to bypass him is to miss something essential to understanding the world.

I gloomily suspect that this is true, but I have no inkling if it is being done. If any of Heidegger’s successors are doing that, I’d like to know, but I suspect not. I am familiar with the anecdote of Heidegger being caught reading from D T Suzuki and saying ‘if I understand this man aright, this is what I’ve been trying to say all along’. But I take his point that we can’t assimilate Zen Buddhism tout courte. We - westerners - have created the cultural predicament which we suffer from, and we have to find a way out of it on those terms. I think that’s what he’s saying. — Wayfarer

The gloomy part is in the way culture has yielded to technological attitudes, and the world becomes more and more like "standing reserve", enframing, I think he called it, which amounts to, in my thinking, a complaint similar to Kierkegaard's regarding Christendom: what is meaningful and originary is lost, so we are alienated in the world, no longer "at home" because our lives are now made out of utility concerns and is not responsive to this primordial part of what we are (alienation from God, said Kierkegaard. And for him, it was this cultural fascination that was the essence of sin). See how the Marxist's frame this in terms of class exploitation and alienating capital. Nietzsche went after Christian resentment against the greatness of certain men, and this resentment became a metaphysical institution. Everyone has their terms of alienation, but all seek redemption somewhere in the body of thought they inherit. I tout the Buddhist approach because it is a method (as is Husserl's epoche, I should add) of liberation from all structures of thinking. Husserl and Heidegger laid a foundation for discussing what this is about.
As to Heidegger's successors, well, that would be what I am reading now. Right now, I am reading Being and Time again, critical works on this by Michel Henry, Eugene Fink's Sixth Cartesian Meditaion, I go back to Kierkegaard often to remind me that Christianity doesn't have to be so nitwitted, and as well, I read Meister Eckhart, Buber, Levinas, Caputo (see his Radical Hermeneutics!), I review Kant sometimes, never read Hegel's The Phenomenology of Spirit but I've been meaning to, Marion (On Givenness which extends the thinking of Husserl, as does Fink. I am fascinated by the idea of presence. Reading Heidegger put the framework of being human as Time, but it was Kierkegaard who inspired this: his Concept of Anxiety is a bit hard to read, but if you stick with it, it reveals the basis of existentialist thinking, and you can see why Heidegger goes back to the Greek, where Being was a central issue, that is, being and becoming, Parmenides and Heraclitus. Derrida. Can't say I understand him well, and I don't have the patience to read Grammatology, but I have read Differance and others, and I think he puts the nail in the coffin of analytic philosophy.
Why do I find all of this so important? Because of hermeneutics, for one thing. This makes the system open. Open to what? Truth? What is truth? This lies in a description of the world as it is, and this is phenomenology: dismissing the natural attitude, making a qualitative move to enlightenment. to move forward from here, onw has to inquire and read.

SPIEGEL: You attribute to the Germans a special task?

Heidegger: Yes, in the sense explained in the dialogues with Hölderlin.

SPIEGEL: Do you believe that Germans have a special qualification for this conversion?

Heidegger: I am thinking of the special inner kinship between the German language and the language of the Greeks and their thought. This is something that the French confirm for me again and again today. When they begin to think, they speak German. They assure [me] that they do not succeed with their own language.

Gee, I bet the French just loved that. :blush:

Sorry for the digression. — Wayfarer

It does sound like a weird thing to say. I think it is as I commented above, Heidegger believed enlightenment is forged out of language, and there is some primordial way to disclose the world and erase its alienation that is the brass ring of philosophy. He had a lot of confidence in the Greeks, used their original terms a lot. I don't know, maybe he was right about something here.

I read in some edition to the Tibetan Book of the Dead that Tibetan monks, in their day, and now, as well, I think, for this is not a publishable affair, anyway, they would discuss their "subterranean" experiences in language that is very exclusive, esoteric. I wonder....

Might as well have said ‘only a miracle’. — Wayfarer

Or "only a Fuhrer." But for him, it seems that "god" and "Fuhrer" were much the same.

You have to see that Heidegger believed that language is an integral part of the construction of Being, — Constance

That is fine, and not what my disagreement is about. My point is about the idea that he "attributes to the Germans a special task" via the German language. Which strikes me as nationalo-centric.

To illustrate my disagreement, IF language is an integral part of the construction of Being, in my interpretation of this sentence, it would imply that a human being speaking several languages is a more complete being than one who speaks only one language. But this is not the conclusion Heidegger draws. Rather for him, who to my knowledge spoke only German, perhaps with a smattering of greek, learning another language such as English or French would have been closer to a compromission with lower forms of thought than those possible in German. There is a striking parallel with the idea that racial diversity is a problem rather than an asset.

His philosophy, his world-view, was consistent with nazism, which he adhered to voluntarily. The Dasein is Hitler-compatible. THAT is the problem.

One aspect of this whole game -- and a reason why I think his Spiegel interview remark about French philosophers speaking German was a kind of joke but a telling one -- is that a great deal of 19th century German philosophy can be seen as a response to 18th century French philosophy, the time when Voltaire was advising Frederick the Great in Prussia. Followed by the revolution and napoleonic empire which swept over Prussia. By the 1950s though, the relation was reversed and many French philosophers spoke of Dasein, Umwelt and Gestalt... Here too I see a parallel between Hitler's revenge after the humiliation of WW1.

One of the qualities Kierkegaard exhibited in The Concept of Anxiety is that the "self" who loves or not is always represented as a result of a process geared toward completing a certain end. The possibility of being an agent is presented in contrast to that.

The prospect of selecting between "competing" desires is interrupted by another dimension where the options are not easily laid side by side. — Valentinus

That really is the issue. I think of it in terms of Heraclitus and Parmenides: the ego that is conversing here with you is memory that seizes the present, and this is a constant process, this generative and generated self. But there is that mysterious present, isn't there? This is not an abstraction, not a Zenoistic contrived play with time and space. The Kierkegaardian analysis has two fronts that I see. One is the remembrance that we actually exist, and existence is not an idea, and Hegel thereby misrepresents what it is to be a person, for we are apart from the conceptual agreement that circulates and steals our identity. The other is the paradox of sin: We are only sinful when we posit spirit, for in this positing we see our alienation from the eternal. His Knight of Faith is one (beyond what K is capable of) who can make this qualitative movement into faith, and be here, in the world, a baker, a butcher, but reside with God as well. As I understand it, this is understood in a temporal analysis of our existence. A long story having to do with historical sin and culture and the turning away from our primordial relationship with God.

So how does one even conceive of the soul and God? As I see it, apophatically. the soul is this ineffable essence that is our eternal reality, and is revealed only as the sin of our obsessions (our historical/cultural fixations) yields to the eternal present, and this present (which Wittgenstein takes seriously) is the true eternity.

I look at what meditation is, and I find precisely this analysis. Turn off the imposition of culture and its temptations and engagements, i.e., turn off thought and affections, and time vanishes. The eternal present.

That is fine, and not what my disagreement is about. My point is about the idea that he "attributes to the Germans a special task" via the German language. Which strikes me as nationalo-centric.

To illustrate my disagreement, IF language is an integral part of the construction of Being, in my interpretation of this sentence, it would imply that a human being speaking several languages is a more complete being than one who speaks only one language. But this is not the conclusion Heidegger draws. Rather for him, who to my knowledge spoke only German, perhaps with a smattering of greek, learning another language such as English or French would have been closer to a compromission with lower forms of thought than those possible in German. There is a striking parallel with the idea that racial diversity is a problem rather than an asset.

His philosophy, his world-view, was consistent with nazism, which he adhered to voluntarily. The Dasein is Hitler-compatible. THAT is the problem. — Olivier5

Yeah, that is annoying. But I don't know why he makes this claim about German and Greek so I just leave it alone. On the other hand, how is it that he can make claims about other languages' deficit in meaning possibilities if such a thing can only be understood by native speakers, and he is NOT a native speaker of French or English or Swahili anything else? After all, the difference he must have in mind must be nuanced, what only a native speaker could know.
Oh well.

One aspect of this all game -- and a reason why I think his Spiegel interview remark about French philosophers speaking German was a kind of joke but a telling one -- is that a great deal of 19th century German philosophy can be seen as a response to 18th century French philosophy, the time when Voltaire was advising Frederick the Great in Prussia. Followed by the revolution and napoleonic empire which swept over Prussia. By the 1950s though, the relation was reversed and many French philosophers spoke of Dasein, Umwelt and Gestalt... Here too I see a parallel between Hitler's revenge after the humiliation of WW1. — Olivier5

I suppose. But Being and Time carries none of this resentment itself. Was it in the background? You know, it is speculated that B&T does open this door, after all, dasein is an historical construct, so this invites a competition between cultures and their languages. But I still say, who cares. His phenomenology is an extraordinary reinterpretation the world. Powerful and compelling. F*** the rest of it.

What the "ego" may seen to be in these different psychologies that you refer to is not self explanatory from my point of view. Noting the limits in each theory makes me less inclined to state what is true for everybody than to see the works collectively pointing to one thing.

I despise Kierkegaard and not just because he hated Hegel. I've seen no intelligence in any of what I've read from him. For me he is just a small minded Christian trying to he profound, like Chesterton but without the literary skill. As for Heidegger, he is not Sevitri Devi or Miguel Serrano. His philosophy stands on its own and the Nazi stuff should be buried in history. Many Germans have believed their language is especially adopt at presenting Greek philosophy and many considered Hegel to be the greatest of the new generation because he made philosophy speak German. I don't have a problem with these ideas. (Lots of cultures think they are special)

What have you read of Kierkegaard?

No full works, just extracts now and then. I never get anything from them, and for me that's rare with a philosopher. Sorry if I put him down. This whole thing about "superiority" is good to address, since we all feel it. I don't mind if straights feel superior to gays, if men feel superior to women, or if Germans feel superior to everyone. It just depends on how far they take it, and usually someone's sense of superiority will eventually be tested and the truth revealed

It sounds like you are mainly interested in finding echoes of what you already have concluded.

Possibly, but Kierkegaard doesn't present a philosophy that I find philosophical. He went to lectures by Schelling (as did Engel) who was arguing that Hegel stole his philosophy and Schelling was probably right about that. However Schelling and Hegel present avalanches of thought that create many dimensions in my mind. To me that is true philosophy, and I don't think Kierkegaard learned very much from Schelling at the end of the day

I don't get how you could assert such a claim with only having a passing familiarity with what Kierkegaard actually said.