In the span of one individual's life, there can be much understood that went into the behaviours of a given individual. We can be more intelligent and compassionate when we have concepts that are at least acknowledge about the complexity of it all. Can we afford such speculations when dealing with those who break the rules, I don't think society is going to real soon. Unlike yourself, I believe it can be somewhat possible, certainly to a greater degree than is presently realized.

I haven't said if it is possible or not I asked how it is done.

What I have in mind specifically is his analysis of what he calls the statement in B&T. He refers to this as an extreme of interpretation and of the present to hand. He derives the ‘is’ from the ‘as’ structure, in which we take something as something. I consider the following analysis to inextricably link the ‘is’ to the ‘as’ , the ‘as’ to temporality, and temporality to being ( the ‘is’). — Joshs

This has of course to do with Heidegger's concept of truth and his critique of the traditional conception of truth i.e. that the truth is "situated" in the logical judgment or statement. Husserl could be an influence here. Husserl tried to "ontologize" the logical judgment as a part of his scheme consisting of an act of judgment, the content of the judgment and the object of the judgment. Logical judging happens i n the "reality" or Being where it expresses some experience. It (or logicality in general) is not just a separate given form but it presupposes certain phenomenological-ontological structures. Logical relations or forms presuppose phenomenologically described ontological relations of "foundations" (phenomena are founded in each other essentially = philosophical logic). Heidegger however transfers Husserl's position from the "consciousness" into an "hermeneutical situation". "World" as hermeneutical situation.

"as" is precisely that what is called "transcending"? Experiencing something as "as" is to be "in" the world of "relevant" references. Judgement is an particular expression for this experience. But it, or its form, tends to somehow distort the original experience. Is the language in itself already a "distortion" of an experience? Language should express as closely as possible (truly) the articulations of the as-structures? Language or discourse expresses and stores more or less confidently these original articulations. To be in the truth means, according to Heidegger, that the discourse and being are one.

Being and Time chapter 33 "Assertion [statement, judgment] as a Derivative Mode of Interpretation" is essential reading in this connection. (Following chapter 34 is entitled "Being-there and Discourse. Language".)


Interesting quotes and comments. Is the Heidegger 2010b his 1925 lectures?

2) A conscious (thinking) subject contemplating objects ignores absence -- it ignores the fact that most of the time we are acting unconsciously, and that thinking itself (as philosophical or scientific thinking) is but one mode of human activity. — Xtrix

I agree in general with your points. I would just say about 2) that Heidegger doesn’t. accept the concept of consciousness. Dasein is not a consciousness.
The reason for this is that consciousness implies
self-reflexivity and sel-affection on the part of the subject. To be a conscious subject is to reflect back on the previous moment of awareness without this reflection altering and transforming the immediately prior self. For Heidegger we are never conscious to ourselves , because reflection is transformation. So absence for Heidegger makes its way into the heart of experiencing every moment, in that the self is never present to itself as consciousness, self-reflexivity and self-awareness. We are fundamentally absent to ourselves.

As far as ‘thinking’ , Heidegger seems to use it in an idiosyncratic way to cover any and all sorts of experiencing.

Is the Heidegger 2010b his 1925 lectures? — waarala

Yes.It’s ‘Logic: The Question of Truth’(1925-26)

I imagine there might be endless possible readings of a given person in the context of sociological, historical and psychological influences. How do you determine you have an appropriate reading of these influences in constructing an explanatory system? — Tom Storm

Is that even the aim?

Look at the academic texts published about other (academic) texts, people, and events. In one sense, academia exists in order to produce a vast variety of views of the same things.

(I was once at an introductory lecture of a new professor. His doctoral thesis and so his lecture was on the application of systems theory in literary studies. The head of the department, his immediate boss, a woman in her 40's/50's, gave him the approval for the position of lecturer, but on the topic of systems theory, she made a derisive remark to the effect of "But we both know that's not true, and that's not how to approach literature." She was old-school like that. It was both funny and sad to watch.)


If your quest is in more general terms: Most people are confident that they can quickly know the truth about another person, and they insist in this to the point of being willing to publicly criticize the person for it, up to and including killing them.

Just look at this forum. One would think that people with advanced degrees in philosophy or people who are at least interested in philosophy would care about whether they have the correct idea about another poster's views. But for the most part, they don't. Most people function by the principle "You are whatever I say that you are. I define you. I am the arbiter of your reality. And you better comply, or I will punish you."

IOW, people ordinarily don't ask the question you do, they find it absurd.


That said, I, personally, wouldn't ask myself that question either, but would just focus on the interaction at hand, rather than seeking to get a definitive idea of who the other person is.

It's interesting to watch her wander around the coop; she's never not had company. One wonders what, if any, sense of absence is there when she doesn't have to compete for the grain thrown on the floor, or when she finds herself alone on the perch at roost. — Banno

They're social animals, like almost all animals are.
The notion of "absence" -- many animals possess this. That notion is very strong when they first realized it -- elephants, cats, dogs for example. Then, of course, there's decay of that notion after certain amount of time.

No. I'll reflect your level of politeness.

2. The absolute presence of the thinking subject and its object. Although the absent is still lurking in the form of the transcendent. — Janus

Unpack what you mean in the second sentence for me a bit, if you please.

3. I'm reminded of the other thread re Collingwood and the idea of absolute presuppositions that we are unaware we are making at our peril. — Janus

Yes. How many people truly question anything? This gets said a lot, I'm sure, but it's absolutely true. If you're not a philosopher, scientist, theologian, perhaps psychologist or psychotherapist, you may encounter these questions a handful of times over the course of several years, if at all. It doesn't have to be all that profound, either -- it's simple questions. Socrates asked simple questions too. But what they do is uncover the hidden beliefs and decisions we're acting on.

The rise of science, technology and colonialism in the West (which was around the 10th century well behind China technologically) — Janus

I wonder why you say the 10th century...the Carolingian renaissance?

The twin evils of scientism and capitalism, with their total disregard for nature, stand in the way of any new socialist order which would seem to be the only hope for civilization going forward. That our destinies are determined by a tiny cabal of individuals and giant corporations who would rather see the world burn than give up their power and privilege is quite an horrific scenario to contemplate. — Janus

Very well said. Our secular age, with its scientism and capitalism is ultimately based on "naturalism" and "materialism," or even "physicalism." Two other -isms branch off from these: hedonism and consumerism. That's a lot of -isms. But if we look around, this explains a large part of our world. It shows up in the "American Dream" of basically aspiring to be nothing more than a wage slave who can maybe one day own a house and a little land (property, assets -- "stuff"). It shows up in our addictions to technology, the most obvious being smart phones.

There's also Christianity lingering in the background. But the Church is nearly irrelevant, and the evangelicals are first and foremost Republican "free enterprise" capitalists, more willing to go with Trump than Jesus. So whatever they profess, they live their lives like everyone else: capitalists.

The United States is the ruling nation in the world today, and so whoever controls the United States essentially controls the world and the future of humanity. That control is currently in the hands of big business, and in particular the financial sector. Obviously Big Tech, Big Oil, Big Pharma, all are powerful -- but I'd say the banks and investment firms and asset managers hold the most power. They're the only industry that can get propped up by creating money by fiat -- which the Fed happily does, since they're "too big to fail."

Financial corporations are structured in the same way as any corporation. So these CEOs and the board of directors who make the decisions regarding what to do with the company and, most importantly, where to distribute the profits -- these are the people who run the companies that buy and run the government that runs the country that rules and runs the world. Quite a linear narrative, I realize, but I'm a simple man.

So who are these people, and what do they believe? Just look. They're all capitalists too. They go to fancy schools, most were raised wealthy themselves, they've all been baptized at the Church of Capitalism, growing up imbibing the values of their class and the preachings of their prophets -- Hayek, Friedman, Rand, etc.

The question of being, like many philosophical questions, ends up exposing quite a bit about the world we live in today, why it is how it is, how it happened, what decisions were made and policies created to shape it, and out of what belief system. In the age of nuclear weapons and climate disaster, the people driving the car either don't care that we're going over a cliff, or believe they're going to heaven anyway, or both...turns out that beliefs and an understanding/interpetation of what it means to be human really matters.

Our secular age, with its scientism and capitalism is ultimately based on "naturalism" and "materialism," or even "physicalism." Two other -isms branch off from these: hedonism and consumerism. — Xtrix

Don’t forget Marxism, and its associated dialectical materialism.

Dasein is not a consciousness. — Joshs

Right, in the same way "human being" isn't used. The terms are too loaded to use. But if we throw out the subject/object distinction, and read it more as "awareness" or "openness" or "perception" or "apprehension" (words he prefers), then of course that's happening. Dasein is an activity, a being-in-the-world, a caring entity pressing into the future. Difficult to describe because we have so little language for it.

Don’t forget Marxism, and its associated dialectical materialism. — Joshs

Sure, but Marx's influence has been rather diminished as well. Frankly I never cared much about Hegel's influence or Marx's philosophical positions -- more about his analysis of class and how it functions. On that point there's hardly a more penetrating analyst.

No. I'll reflect your level of politeness. — Xtrix

Stay safe.

if we throw out the subject/object distinction, and read it more as "awareness" or "openness" or "perception" or "apprehension" (words he prefers), then of course that's happening. Dasein is an activity, a being-in-the-world, a caring entity pressing into the future. Difficult to describe because we have so little language for it. — Xtrix

Awareness , apprehension and perception may be a bit too close to the passivity of subject-object oppositionality. I noticed that, surprisingly, he doesnt use the word ‘awareness’ a single time in Being and Time , openness is used only a handful of times, and he’s not too crazy about perception either. I think he loves terms like disclosure. thrownnes and projection because they get away from the idea of a subject over here staring at a pre-existing object over there.

@Janus That is close to the distinction that I am getting at. I think there has to be a distinction between the verbs 'to exist' and 'to be'. So 'existent' or 'phenomenon' don't have precisely the same meaning as 'being'. Furthermore, living beings embody the dynamic nature of being more so than minerals and inorganic substances, because their being is something that is dynamically enacted moment by moment. That is why I question whether it's meaningful to refer to any kind of thing as a being. — Wayfarer

So parsing this into Sartre's ontology, being-in-itself is explicitly definable, while being-for-itself is a process of self-definition - or more clearly, we can set out explicitly what it is to be an igneous rock, but we can't set out explicitly what it is to be Wayfarer; and this is because what it is to be Wayfarer is in a state of flux as Wayfarer makes his way through the world. An igneous rock does not make itself in the way a person does.

So we can reply to

...but nonetheless even apparently 'static' entities are be-ings. They are also, despite their apparent stasis, becomings. — Janus

Static entities do not get to choose what to do. This is the relevant sense of "becoming".

:up: That's very close to the mark. ‘Being’ is a verb, ‘object’ a noun. The discussion to date doesn’t account for that.

It seems to me that this shows time to be incidental here - a point I made earlier. The difference between being-in-itself and being-for-itself is in the way their essence is constructed, as it where. A rock has no say in what it is, but @Joshs has a say in what Joshs is. And while that does take place over time, it is not

...the structure of temporality. — Joshs

IOW, people ordinarily don't ask the question you do, they find it absurd.

That said, I, personally, wouldn't ask myself that question either, but would just focus on the interaction at hand, rather than seeking to get a definitive idea of who the other person is. — baker

I hear you and largely agree. But my question came out of the debate earlier around interpretations of Heidegger as a man who appeared to make choices and what might be a more useful method of conducting such an exegetical task - an approach focusing on a man's politics/morality, or one that bundles historical/psychological influences to make an interpretation. I generally take the view that if this activity is worth doing it should lead somewhere and was trying to understand this and the methodology of the task better.

Back to being....

I'd be interested in how such views are compatible with Heidegger's work on being (and no I am not trying to be a dick) I am always curious how complex theoretical positions translate into or are compatible with world-views such as these. — Tom Storm

As I read it, Heidegger's analysis of beings as ready-to-hand and present-at-hand offers a way t understand the rise of technology and capitalism. Heidegger says that entities are ready to hand for dasein, meaning that primordially they present themselves to us as to-be-used. This is not conscious, we just use things for our purposes, and this is normal, both for humans and animals.

When things go wrong or we have nothing to do, we may begin to contemplate entities as "present at hand"; something to be wondered about, analyzed and understood. This is where science begins. The understanding that comes from this ever more complex present at hand analysis of entities leads to more advanced technologies which. accompanied with the basic unreflective ready to hand view of entities as "to-be-used" leads to the idea of nature as a "standing reserve: to be exploited at will. Thus capitalism arises.

being-in-itself is explicitly definable, while being-for-itself is a process of self-definition - or more clearly, we can set out explicitly what it is to be an igneous rock, but we can't set out explicitly what it is to be Wayfarer; and this is because what it is to be Wayfarer is in a state of flux as Wayfarer makes his way through the world. An igneous rock does not make itself in the way a person does. — Banno

Merleau-Ponty and many other phenomenologists critiqued Sartre’s distinction between the in-self and the for-itself as an unsustainable remnant of Kantian dualism .

Yep. And I criticised it as an inadequate account of the being of chickens.

What next?

2. The absolute presence of the thinking subject and its object. Although the absent is still lurking in the form of the transcendent. — Janus


Unpack what you mean in the second sentence for me a bit, if you please. — Xtrix

I probably should have used the term 'transcendental'. We understand the world through our models; thus it is present to us in the "vorhanden" sense. In our self-understandings we are also present to ourselves in this kind of sense. In the senses of zuhanden and dasein the world and ourselves are transcendental. " The map is never the territory".

So we can reply to

...but nonetheless even apparently 'static' entities are be-ings. They are also, despite their apparent stasis, becomings. — Janus

Static entities do not get to choose what to do. This is the relevant sense of "becoming". — Banno

If any static entities, entities which don't change at all, exist, then by definition they are not becoming."Apparently static" entities, however, are only relatively static; so they do change and thus can be said to be "becomings". The point you have highlighted is the difference between entities which self-organize their becoming to some extent and those which don't. I have no argument with that.

I have no argument with that. — Janus

Me, neither. What about you, @Joshs? It's just that even if the distinction between the in-self and the for-itself is a remnant of Kantian dualism, it might still be of some use.

Awareness , apprehension and perception may be a bit too close to the passivity of subject-object oppositionality. I noticed that, surprisingly, he doesnt use the word ‘awareness’ a single time in Being and Time , openness is used only a handful of times, and he’s not too crazy about perception either. I think he loves terms like disclosure. thrownnes and projection because they get away from the idea of a subject over here staring at a pre-existing object over there. — Joshs

There's an important point where he uses awareness -- or at least that's how the Robinson version translates it:

λεγειν itself -- or rather νοειν, that simple awareness of something present-at-hand in its sheer presence-at-hand, which Parmenides had already taken to guide him in his own interpretation of Being -- has the Temporal structure of a pure 'making-present' of something. Those entities which show themselves in this and for it, and which are understood as entities in the most authentic sense, thus get interpreted with regard to the Present; that is, they are conceived as presence (ουσια).

(p. 48 H26, B&T)

This entire passage is fascinating.

Remember what gets translated as "thinking" is actually "apprehension" (noein), so when Parmenides says "to gar auto noein estin te kai einai" he's saying being and apprehension are one (this is a point Heidegger delves into in Intro to Metaphysics), not being and thinking.

So it's a complex story. There's the inception that begins with Anaxamander, Parmenides, and Heraclitus, and "ends" with Plato and Aristotle. But the "end" sets the stage for everything else, and the beginning gets forgotten. Idea, logic, substance -- ιδεα, λογοσ, ουσια -- come to dominate, and does "thinking" (as logic), of which everything else becomes an object for. Then of course we have mind/body of Descartes and subject/object of Kant and others.

But originally, phusis was the word for beings in the sense of this blooming, emerging.

I see him saying we need to re-discover the beginning in order to overcome it, and the beginning is two things: this simple present-at-hand awareness as phusis and noein, and the ontological difference: the distinction of being and beings. From there we can begin to find to footing.

Another interesting passage worth mulling over:

Yet the Greeks have managed to interpret Being in this way without any explicit knowledge of the clues which function here, without any acquaintance with the fundamental ontological function of time or even any understanding of it, and without any insight into the reason why this function is possible. On the contrary, they take time itself as one entity among other entities, and try to grasp it in the structure of its Being, though that way of understanding Being which they have taken as their horizon is one which is itself naively and inexplicitly oriented towards time.

So again, from the very beginning of Western thought, we've been oriented towards thinking as presence, and so later beings can be frozen and objectified, objects for a thinking subject. As @Janus mentioned, it's no wonder it eventually devolves into scientism and capitalism.

it's no wonder it eventually devolves into scientism and capitalism. — Xtrix

I mean, this approach has its merits. Him stressing the present at hand and our day to day absorbed dealing in the world and points out (as I read him, nowhere near yours or Joshs or Janus' level) that it's only on occasion that we stop and deal with items as objects.

Nevertheless, while we did get capitalism which shows a kind of detachment from nature in many instances, we also got science, modern philosophy, art and much else of good value. The scientism, I don't think has much to do with this, that is taking into account time.

It's the way science works, it advances through a specific mode of investigation. And a good one for what it aims to do: provide theoretical explanations of the world.

I think scientism has more to do with us being stuck in physics for a long time and not properly incorporating QM, as Russell and Whitehead did, as they later described the world in terms of events and not objects. Events "temporalize" everything we deal with. But many others still speak of objects and speak of "mind" and "matter", as if those are metaphysical distinctions, they're not.

So we have to take this into consideration, apart from our ordinary experience of the world. I believe the "manifest image" as described by Sellars, is something that needs to be fleshed out. Raymond Tallis (somewhat a Heideggerian to some degree) has done good work here.

Sorry if I was out of topic, but I had to comment.

For Heidegger we are never conscious to ourselves , because reflection is transformation. So absence for Heidegger makes its way into the heart of experiencing every moment, in that the self is never present to itself as consciousness, self-reflexivity and self-awareness. We are fundamentally absent to ourselves. — Joshs

Dasein has always a certain "sight" (not just a "feel") of itself in its interaction with beings. It can also attain a "Durchsichtigkeit" (transparency, literally a "see-through-ness") of itself or its hermeneutical situation. For normal everyday Dasein his state doesn't appear as hermeneutical situation, as a situation, where Dasein is more or less "conscious" of the context of the interpretation. Transparent grasp of one's situation means "reflecting" or explicating its "formal structure", that is, its fore-having (Vorhabe), fore-sight (Vorsicht) and fore-conception (Vorgriff) i.e the sense implied in one's understanding or interpretation of the current situation (cf. Being and Time Chapter 32. Understanding and Interpretation). Making the situation more transparent means going beyond the immediate understanding of the "ready-to-hand" we are currently dealing with. The disclosedness (Erschlossenheit), which opens up the truth of the situation, is reflected or made more explicite in itself. Heidegger's own literal existence, his philosophical reflection, means to make more transparent his (and at the same time ours) situation. In the end it is a certain historical situation which we have to try to elucidate.

I think that for Heidegger we are absent to ourselves when we are completely identifying ourselves with the "things" or entities we are dealing with. That is, in "normal" everyday "falling" (Verfallenheit) we are basically absent to ourselves. But then we are in a danger to interpret ourselves as mere things or tools i.e. as something present-of-hand or ready-to-hand and not as an human historical existence.

Very well said. Our secular age, with its scientism and capitalism is ultimately based on "naturalism" and "materialism," or even "physicalism." Two other -isms branch off from these: hedonism and consumerism. That's a lot of -isms. But if we look around, this explains a large part of our world. It shows up in the "American Dream" of basically aspiring to be nothing more than a wage slave who can maybe one day own a house and a little land (property, assets -- "stuff"). It shows up in our addictions to technology, the most obvious being smart phones. — Xtrix

In this line Herbert Marcuse's Heideggerian Marxism from the 20's and 30's is interesting reading. Marcuse was more like an active communist than mere a critic of capitalist society though. For Marcuse Marxism represents a historical project to which one has to "resolutely" (Heidegger's Entschossenheit) commit oneself. The view is that the disclosedness of the modern world is characteristically a capitalistic one. The production of commodities or exchange values determine our "free" transcendence. Being = capitalistic society and its life form.

https://www.amazon.com/Heideggerian-Marxism-European-Horizons-Herbert/dp/0803283121


"The Frankfurt School philosopher Herbert Marcuse (1898–1979) studied with Martin Heidegger at Freiburg University from 1928 to 1932 and completed a dissertation on Hegel’s theory of historicity under Heidegger’s supervision. During these years, Marcuse wrote a number of provocative philosophical essays experimenting with the possibilities of Heideggerian Marxism. For a time he believed that Heidegger’s ideas could revitalize Marxism, providing a dimension of experiential concreteness that was sorely lacking in the German Idealist tradition. Ultimately, two events deterred Marcuse from completing this program: the 1932 publication of Marx’s early economic and philosophical manuscripts, and Heidegger’s conversion to Nazism a year later. Heideggerian Marxism offers rich and fascinating testimony concerning the first attempt to fuse Marxism and existentialism.

These essays offer invaluable insight concerning Marcuse’s early philosophical evolution. They document one of the century’s most important Marxist philosophers attempting to respond to the “crisis of Marxism”: the failure of the European revolution coupled with the growing repression in the USSR. In response, Marcuse contrived an imaginative and original theoretical synthesis: “existential Marxism.”"

I think that for Heidegger we are absent to ourselves when we are completely identifying ourselves with the "things" or entities we are dealing with. That is, in "normal" everyday "falling" (Verfallenheit) we are basically absent to ourselves. But then we are in a danger to interpret ourselves as mere things or tools i.e. as something present-of-hand or ready-to-hand and not as an human historical existence. — waarala

I disagree. Average everydayness covers over the uncanniness and fundamental absencing of Dasein.

"Uncanniness is the fundamental kind of being-in-the-world, although it is covered over in everydayness. Tranquillized, familiar being-in-the-world is a mode of the uncanniness of Dasein, not the other way around. Not-being-at-home must be conceived existentially and ontologically as the more primordial phenomenon." "The publicness of the they suppresses everything unfamiliar"
"Even as covered over, the familiar is a mode of the unfamiliar.”


I agree with William McNeil’s analysis of Heideggerian ‘absence’ as the in-between of the ontological
difference, that is , the structure of temporality itself.

“…human beings are necessarily held in and drawn into this possibility. Their presence can only ever be a presence that has already been; their future presence will be a presence that will have been: with respect to the presence of what is present, they exist in an essential absence. And this is the possibility and necessity of their actions, of their existing futurally and, from out of what has been, bringing forth in their actions what has never yet been-of their being an origin that remains
indebted to a historical world as a world of others. In the concluding remarks of the course, Heidegger characterizes the occurrence of this held presence, of the moment of human existing and as the happening of an essential absence that is at once worldly, historical, and finite.”

“ Man is that inability to remain and is yet unable to leave his place. In projecting, the Da-sein in him constantly throws him into possibilities and thereby keeps him subjected to what is actual. In the occurrence of projection world is formed, i.e., in projecting something erupts and irrupts toward possibilities, thereby irrupting into what is actual as such, so as to experience itself as having irrupted as an actual being in the midst of what can now be manifest as beings. It is a being of a properly primordial kind, which has irrupted to that way of being which we call Da-sein, and to that being which we say exists, i.e., ex-sists, is an exiting from itself in the essence of its being, yet without abandoning itself.

“Thus thrown in this throw, man is a transition, transition as the fundamental essence of occurrence. Man is history, or better, history is man. Man is enraptured in this transition therefore essentially 'absent'. Absent in a fundamental sense-never simply at hand, but absent in his essence, in his essentially being away, removed into essential having been and future-essentially absencing and never at hand, yet existent in his essential absence. Transposed into the possible, he must constantly be mistaken concerning what is actual. And only because he is thus mistaken and transposed can he become seized by terror. And only where there is the perilousness of being seized by terror do we find the bliss of astonishment-being torn away in that wakeful manner that is the breath of all philosophizing.”( Fundamental Concepts of Metaphysics)

I have no argument with that.
— Janus

Me, neither. What about you, Joshs? It's just that even if the distinction between the in-self and the for-itself is a remnant of Kantian dualism, it might still be of some use. — Banno

In one sense , Heidegger may agree with you. He made a distinction between human Dasein and rocks. He said that inanimate objects were ‘devoid of world’. By this he meant that only human Dasein could be said to experience a world in terms of a present that was informed and guided by a past.

Meanwhile , we have the phenomenologist Dan Zahavi who makes a distinction between for-meness and relation to objects.

“Any convincing theory of consciousness has to respect the difference between our consciousness of an object, and our consciousness of our own subjectivity, and must be able to explain the distinction between intentionality, which is characterized by a difference between the subject and the object of experience, and self-awareness, which implies some form of identity.”(Zahavi 2004)

“Unless phenomenology were able to show that there is in fact a decisive and radical difference between the phenomenality of constituted objects and the phenomenality of constituting subjectivity, i.e., a radical difference between object-manifestation and self-manifestation, its entire project would be threatened.”