There's need to be insulting. I may be aligned to Dewey, however, who knew this and wrote of it before Heidegger. — Ciceronianus

Heidegger is radically different. He is an embodiment of the entire history of philosophy as he critiques and rejects many of its central claims. The pragmatic event, for example, is not what defines understanding, and affect is not sidelined as incidental merely, but given full examination and fit into an inclusive phenomenological concept. Dewey, from my readings of Nature and Experience and Art and Experience, along with marlinal readings in education and elsewhere, is still fixated on general concepts familiar in nature and material accounts. This is not at the basic level.
Heidegger is more like the Greeks, Husserl, Kierkegaard, Nietzsche, Hegel, Kant combined. The pragmatic end, his ready-to-hand is, in my thinking, well complimented by Dewey and the hypothetical deductive method; but Dewey is seriously deficient in describing the world at the basc level. For all I know, Heidegger read Dewey prior to Being and Time. He also read the Greeks. It doesn't matter.

The question I would ask, myself, is--When and in what circumstances do we, or anyone else, ask "What is a pen?" Or for that matter, "What is a cup?" I think the answer would be only in very isolated, contrived, artificial circumstances. The context in which such "questions" arise is significant, and when we ask them we're playing something like "Let's Pretend." Let's pretend, in other words, that we don't know what a pen or cup is, or whether they differ from us.

That should suggest to us that these aren't real questions; we have no doubt what they are, nor do we have any doubt that we're not pens, or cups. Why ask them, then? I'm inclined to think this is one of the non-problems which are fabricated when we accept dualisms and the concept of an "external world." — Ciceronianus

Well, that's hardly fitting. I mean, asking what a pen is at the level of basic questions, is just an example of the openness of inquiry of all things at this level. It is not about fabricated dualisms, but about the world and what is THERE in authentic inquiry. That is all. It's a matter of observing the world at the level of basic questions. Just that. I see a cup,I know what it is, but I don't know what it means to know what something is. Now I am in the philosophical mode.

This is a second order of thinking, a reflection on meanings as they are given, not at all unlike what science does when it makes its way through the openness of established paradigms. We know how this works, but we, I mean the general thinking, do not know how this works philosophically: questions about the presuppositions of our knowing, about the presuppositions of science and everydayness.
So then, why bother with this? You can't say philosophical questions are not real questions and this is because they issue from the world, not our imaginations. Ancient cultures did not invent and hand down to us the incompleteness of all knowledge claims. Such a thing is a solid fact of our existence. All you have to do is follow through on inquiry. Consider that you can take Einstein's time and space, ask him how his observations of the world make it into perceptual schemes at all, and he will have nothing to say. He's a physicist, not a philosopher. But then Kant''s Space, Hegel's Time, Heidegger's Being: these are not definitive, but neither is science. They DO give extraordinary insight into the nature of the inquiry and give paradigmatic theories that are AS spot on as plate tectonics or chromosomal theory, given the nature of their field.

Which takes us to metaphysics, that which nearly ALL of 20th philosophy, on both sides of the Atlantic, have attempted to tear down. Philosophy does not make cell phones. It is interested in foundational truth, and even if this is impossible, it reveals, in the process of discovery, that the real, foundational questions are not at all what we thought when we were just reading scientific journals. It opens inquiry at the threshold of knowledge.

There is a wall between philosophical understanding and the general pov. A wall of unfamiliarity. One does have to read to know that it is interesting at all.

Of course that's not to say that contemplation of the fact a ball of wax melts when placed near a fire isn't, in itself, a worthy endeavor for a philosopher, and certainly as worthy as contemplating the fact that ice does so as well.

Thar joke isn't all that funny. Needs work.

Heidegger is radically different. He is an embodiment of the entire history of philosophy as he critiques and rejects many of its central claims. — Constance

Yes, and also the world's greatest unrepentant Nazi. We've been over this before.

This is not at the basic level. — Constance

What is, and what for that matter is "the basic level"?

t. I see a cup,I know what it is, but I don't know what it means to know what something is. Now I am in the philosophical mode. — Constance

Do you know what it means to not know what it means to know what something is? That would seem the pertinent question if that's the case. Presumably, that's something you know now. Please explain why you think you don't know what it means to know what something is, and what you think it would be you would know if you did know what it means to know what something is.

Needs work. — frank

Like so much else, alas.

Yes, and also the world's greatest unrepentant Nazi. We've been over this before. — Ciceronianus

its a vacuous reply. A fallacy that is so obvious it has a name: ad hominem.

What is, and what for that matter is "the basic level"? — Ciceronianus

I gave you an example: I know what an apple is in a ready to hand way, but I don't know what it is to know something in this way. This knowledge relationship, what is it? What are concepts and how they relate to the world? Affect we call emotions, but emotions are certainly not concepts. And on and on. Philosophy is about basic questions. It is not how fast light travels, but what it means make a claim of any kind at all. You could say, as Dewey does, it is basically about experience (edging toward idealism, but, as with Heidegger, idealism is a thesis that comes AFTER the most basic inquiry. The most basic puts the relationships and meanings first, for these are first encountered, logically, that is, prior to any thematic undertaking (what is this or that as such, simpliciter?)). Phenomenology is a descriptive account that asks very simply: prior to our categorical knowledge (sciences, everydayness) there is already there, in place, a foundation for this. As you say, the wax example: this is not how we think about wax and there is nothing in the way wax turns up in our sciences, in our conversations, this question about the "existence behind the appearance" has no referent in the world at all, a complete fiction. Heidegger completely agrees, and his discussion of Descartes is a refutation. It is not this metaphysics of the object, it is what is there in the clearest way describable. Where this comes from is Husserl. You might want some day to look into his Ideas, Cartesian Meditations, and others. Husserl gets it from Brentano.
Empirical science is the greatest! That is, for what it does, and it does not do philosophy.

Do you know what it means to not know what it means to know what something is? That would seem the pertinent question if that's the case. Presumably, that's something you know now. Please explain why you think you don't know what it means to know what something is, and what you think it would be you would know if you did know what it means to know what something is. — Ciceronianus

Because knowing my cat is on the couch is different from knowing what it is to know my cat is on the couch. Simple. My car stops when the pedal is pressed and I know this. But I don't know the analysis of this: talk about brakes, brake fluid, pressure, and so on, is very different. This is because braking is, if you will, a thing of parts, it is analyzable.

To make a very long story short, the entire matter turns finally to ethics/aesthetics. You ask "what you think it would be you would know if you did know what it means to know what something is and the key to this lies in value, or metavalue, and discussion in metavalue, metaethics, metaaesthetics (meta here means an thematizing of the analysis of the nature of value; ethics and aesthetics are inherently value affairs: e.g., no value, no ethics) are where the final inquiry must go. The analysis of knowledge is inherently an analysis of value (that's Dewey), and it is value that is the existential core of meaning in the world. Knowledge ABOUT something, my cat or stocks' daily yield, is reducible to an ontology of value and cognition, and cognition, assessed in itself, bears no actual. Or: epistemological analyses utterly fail because there is no foundational dimension; they always begin with the relation, and relations are justificatory and justifications are discursive such that the foundation is always at a distance from t he affirmation sought: P is always on the other side of S. This is why Husserl is so important: that Cartesian bit about res extensa is out the window, but the immediacy of the Cartesian center is not, for it is here where, and I disagree intensely with many on this, our existence and existence itself is disclosed. Existence IS value. That is Dewey, even if not in so many words.

THIS takes the matter full swing towards the egoic center, where the much sought after justification for P finds its home, and P is US all along.

THIS takes the matter full swing towards the egoic center, where the much sought after justification for P finds its home, and P is US all along. — Constance

Just to add, Dewey is a part of my thinking only. As is Witt, Heidegger and the rest. So don't take to the letter anything I say as I USE them, to be a representation of what one might encounter in some expository course. Husserl, for example, and intentionality, I present here as a problem.

There may be a typo or two up there

its a vacuous reply. A fallacy that is so obvious it has a name: ad hominem. — Constance

Well, he was an unrepentant Nazi, and you say he was great, so in what way is the statement untrue? But of course it's a silly reply to a silly statement, i.e. that he's an "embodiment of the entire history of philosophy"; philosophy incarnate, as it were, philosophy made flesh as Jesus was the Word made flesh.

My car stops when the pedal is pressed and I know this. But I don't know the analysis of this: talk about brakes, brake fluid, pressure, and so on, is very different. This is because braking is, if you will, a thing of parts, it is analyzable. — Constance

So you want to know the mechanics of cognition, what happens when we think?

The analysis of knowledge is inherently an analysis of value (that's Dewey), and it is value that is the existential core of meaning in the world. Knowledge ABOUT something, my cat or stocks' daily yield, is reducible to an ontology of value and cognition, and cognition, assessed in itself, bears no actual. Or: epistemological analyses utterly fail because there is no foundational dimension; they always begin with the relation, and relations are justificatory and justifications are discursive such that the foundation is always at a distance from t he affirmation sought: P is always on the other side of S. — Constance

But you seem to be saying that we can't know what it is to know, in abstract, and without context, without relations, etc. If that's the case, we don't disagree.

Just to add, Dewey is a part of my thinking only. As is Witt, Heidegger and the rest. So don't take to the letter anything I say as I USE them, to be a representation of what one might encounter in some expository course. — Constance

Ok.

Well, he was an unrepentant Nazi, and you say he was great, so in what way is the statement untrue? But of course it's a silly reply to a silly statement, i.e. that he's an "embodiment of the entire history of philosophy"; philosophy incarnate, as it were, philosophy made flesh as Jesus was the Word made flesh. — Ciceronianus

Ad hominem fallacies go to the person rather than the argument. Everyone knows this. And then the straw person argument that because Heidegger embodies the history of Western philosophy, he as untenable as Christian metaphysics. Curious. Why not simply look at the discussion and figure it out?

So you want to know the mechanics of cognition, what happens when we think? — Ciceronianus

Me? I want to know what it is to be a existing person in the middle of reality, "thrown into" a world of suffering and joy. I mean, thrown in this qua thrown. Popular theories do not touch this. Evolution, for example, tells you nothing about this. It simply gives a justified account of how it got here, which no reasonable person disagrees with. No, the question is philosophico-theological. Justifications here are apriori, so we look at, say, pain, its presence. What IS this AS pain, not as a science would simply contextualize it. It is first a descriptive matter.

But you seem to be saying that we can't know what it is to know, in abstract, and without context, without relations, etc. If that's the case, we don't disagree. — Ciceronianus

Well, there is nothing without context. Nothing abstract about this. Take my cat on the couch. Nothing abstract about my knowing she is on the couch at all. Now, ask what does it mean to know something at all? How is this any more abstract than inquiring about how brakes work, knowing full well how to use them? Asking how knowledge works is an inquiry that in no way steps beyond the boundaries natural inquiry.
So I am saying an inquiry into the nature of knowledge is not an abstract matter at all.

Ad hominem fallacies go to the person rather than the argument. Everyone knows this. And then the straw person argument that because Heidegger embodies the history of Western philosophy, he as untenable as Christian metaphysics. Curious. Why not simply look at the discussion and figure it out? — Constance

You take me far too literally. I'm saying that calling Heidegger philosophy incarnate is like claiming Jesus was the Word made flesh. It's a substantial, I would say greatly exaggerated, claim. To that claim (which I think preposterous) I made a response which I thought responded, sarcastically, to such a claim, noting that philosophy incarnate was also in that case an unrepentant Nazi.

Me? I want to know what it is to be a existing person in the middle of reality, "thrown into" a world of suffering and joy. — Constance

Well, we all know that, do we not? If not, in what sense don't we know it? I think you're looking for some kind of a religious or mystical revelation.

How is this any more abstract than inquiring about how brakes work, knowing full well how to use them? Asking how knowledge works is an inquiry that in no way steps beyond the boundaries natural inquiry.
So I am saying an inquiry into the nature of knowledge is not an abstract matter at all. — Constance

If we knew how brakes work (I don't, not really) why would we ask how they work? If we ask how we know how they work, wouldn't the answer be based on our experience with brakes and making or fixing them? What else could the answer be, except perhaps a neurological or biological one addressing the functioning of the brain?

You take me far too literally. I'm saying that calling Heidegger philosophy incarnate is like claiming Jesus was the Word made flesh. It's a substantial, I would say greatly exaggerated, claim. To that claim (which I think preposterous) I made a response which I thought responded, sarcastically, to such a claim, noting that philosophy incarnate was also in that case an unrepentant Nazi. — Ciceronianus

He should have denounced the Nazis. Beyond this, I don't see anything substantive.

Well, we all know that, do we not? If not, in what sense don't we know it? I think you're looking for some kind of a religious or mystical revelation. — Ciceronianus

Not for me to say what people see when they spend a lot of time second guessing the nature of the world. The world is, after all, structured by those very ideas that are assailed in deep scrutiny. In a letter Husserl wrote, he told that his students were turning toward religion to come to grips with the phenomenological reduction, which is a method of doing phenomenology that suspends most knowledge claims in order to get at the "thing itself". Husserl, then, was not himself very religious.

Taking this reduction to its ultimate expression, and this gives you meditation yoga, which is an complete suspension of all explicit knowing and experiencing (though underlying, there must be a construct of the self to constitute agency, I would hazard. What is NOT so constituted , a transcendental self, is entirely another matter). The Abidhamma speaks of profound intuitive revelations. Not a popular life's choice these days.

For me, sure, the more the familiar is made unfamiliar, whcih is what questioning things like this does, one is left with an openness that was closed in the tyranny of ordinary affairs, to borrow a phrase. The world is seen differently, perhaps radically so.

Philosophy, when at its best, can show us how to live, but I don't think it's a route by which we can satisfy ourselves regarding our purpose and place in the universe, or our salvation, by addressing "ultimate questions." I think there may be other ways to do that, but think they're evocative, and address emotion and the spiritual. Art, music, poetry, religion may be evocative in this sense, but not philosophy, or so I think.

I am rather on the other end of this.

Philosophy does not show us how to live. It's not a what to do? kind of thinking, but a what Is it all about? kind. But no doubt, philosophy as a method is absolutely essential to producing an enlightened mind, and this has the crucial role of delivering us from bad thinking, bad metaphysics, indefensible ideas. But it is mostly a critical enterprise, tearing down irrational institutions. It gives us the ability to think critically at the basic level of things, which is certainly useful, but this kind of thing turns to specific areas of involvement, and once a person sees how an argument works regarding, say, human rights and third world exploitation, then more sound moral thinking displaces messy, parochial thinking. An examination of how well an idea stands up under scrutiny is, of course, a very common thing, and philosophy, the method, steps in, bypassing extraneous incidentals. A "philosophy of" some particular area follows along these lines.

But philosophy proper is all about moving away from particular areas, and into the threshold thinking at the level of the most basic assumptions that are presupposed in all things. Having a philosophical outlook on many things is obviously a good thing, but this is not philosophy proper. It is just an extension of the particular. Talk about the philosophy I have of cooking for large parties is not the philosophy of the presocratics through postmodernism.

For me, philosophy at its best is concerned with how best to live. That's a view of philosophy which held in ancient times. I favor the Stoic position in that respect. I know philosophy over time became less and less concerned with our lives as we live them from day to day, to the point that now it seems, deliberately and even literally, otherworldly (there's that external world). To his credit (I think) Dewey felt philosophy should be a method cultivated to address the "problems of men" rather than the "problems of philosophy."