I suspect those who believe in such concepts most zealously are the most dangerous. — Joshs

the worst are full of passionate intensity...

@Joshs
To me this speaks to one kind of sentimental populist reaction to offensive creativity:
https://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/hegel/works/ph/phprefac.htm
...when instinctive philosophy follows the more secure course prescribed by healthy common sense, it treats us to a rhetorical mélange of commonplace truths. When it is charged with the triviality of what it offers, it assures us, in reply, that the fullness and richness of its meaning lie deep down in its own heart, and that others must feel this too, since with such phrases as the “heart’s natural innocence”, “purity of conscience”, and so on, it supposes it has expressed things that are ultimate and final, to which no one can take exception, and about which nothing further can be required. But the very problem in hand was just that the best must not be left behind hidden away in secret, but be brought out of the depths and set forth in the light of day. It could quite well from the start have spared itself the trouble of bringing forward ultimate and final truths of that sort; they were long since to be found, say, in the Catechism, in popular proverbs, etc. It is an easy matter to grasp such truths in their indefinite and crooked inaccurate form, and in many cases to point out that the mind convinced of them is conscious of the very opposite truths. When it struggles to get itself out of the mental embarrassment thereby produced, it will tumble into further confusion, and possibly burst out with the assertion that in short and in fine the matter is settled, the truth is so and so, and anything else is mere “sophistry” – a password used by plain common sense against cultivated critical reason, like the phrase “visionary dreaming”, by which those ignorant of philosophy sum up its character once for all. Since the man of common sense appeals to his feeling, to an oracle within his breast, he is done with any one who does not agree. He has just to explain that he has no more to say to any one who does not find and feel the same as himself. In other words, he tramples the roots of humanity underfoot. For the nature of humanity is to impel men to agree with one another, and its very existence lies simply in the explicit realisation of a community of conscious life. What is anti-human, the condition of mere animals, consists in keeping within the sphere of feeling pure and simple, and in being able to communicate only by way of feeling-states...

One might assume that with the term 'care' (Sorge) Heidegger has human well being first and foremost in mind. That is not the case.

The analytic of Dasein, which is proceeding towards the phenomenon of care, is to prepare the way for the problematic of fundamental ontology the question of the meaning of Being in general. (227)

His concern with human being is with regard to Dasein as the being that discloses Being. His concern is not the human condition, as the term is commonly used, but the question of Being.

To care belongs not only Being in-the-world but also Being alongside entities within-the-world.

Not humans or even sentient beings but entities. Man seems to be of concern only in so far as he is the ventriloquist dummy of Being.

Is there a concern for the human things in this more originary thinking? Where do we see it? — Fooloso4

In Heidegger's Letter on Humanism, he puts the matter this way:

The thinking that inquires into the truth of Being and so defines man's essential abode from Being and toward Being is neither ethics nor ontology. Thus the Thus the question about the relation of each to the other no longer has any basis in this sphere. Nonetheless, your question, thought in a more original way, retains a meaning and an essential importance.
For it must be asked: If the thinking that ponders the truth of Being defines the essence of humanitas as ek-sistence from the latter's belongingness to Being, then does thinking remain only a theoretical representation Being and of man; or can we obtain from such knowledge directives that can be readily applied to our active lives?

The answer is that such thinking is neither theoretical nor practical. It comes to pass before this distinction. Such thinking is, in so far as it is, recollection of Being and nothing else. Belonging to Being, because thrown by Being into the preservation of its truth and claimed for such preservation, it thinks Being. Such thinking has no result. It has no effect. It satisfies its essence in that it is. But it is by saying its matter. Historically, only saying [Sage] belongs to the matter of thinking, the one that is in each case appropriate to its matter. Its material relevance is essentially higher than the validity of the sciences, because it is freer. For it lets Being-be. — Basic Writings of Heidegger, translated by Capuzzi and Gray, page 259

The above would seem to place us on the verge of a kind of quietism but this is shown not to be the case shortly afterwards:

And yet thinking never creates the house of Being. Thinking conducts historical ek-sistence, that is, the humanitus of homo humanitus, into the realm of the upsurgence of healing [des Heilens].

With healing, evil appears all the more in the clearing of Being. The essence of evil does not consist in the mere baseness of human action, but rather in the malice of rage. Both of these, however, healing and raging, can essentially occur only in Being, in so far as Being itself is what is contested. It it is concealed the essential provenance of nihilation. What nihilates illuminates itself as the negative. This can be addressed in the "no." The "not" in no way arise from the no-saying of negation. Every "no" that does not mistake itself as willful assertion of the positing power of subjectivity, but rather remains a letting be of ek-sistence, answers to the claim of of the nihilation illumined. Every "no" is simply the affirmation of the "not." Every affirmation consists in acknowledgment. Acknowledgment lets that toward which it goes come toward it. It is believed that nihilation is nowhere to be found in the beings themselves. This is correct as long as one seeks nihilation as some kind of being, as an existing quality in beings. But in so seeking, one is not seeking nihilation. Neither is Being any existing quality that allows itself to be fixed among beings. And yet Being is more in being than any being. Because nihilation occurs essentially in Being itself we can never discern it as a being among beings. Reference to this impossibility never in any way proves that the origin of the not is no-saying. This proof appears to carry only if one posits beings as what is objective for subjectivity.

[Skipping to next two paragraph to reduce typing]

The nihilating in Being is the essence of what I call the nothing. Hence, because it thinks Being, thinking thinks the nothing.

To healing Being first grants ascent into grace, to raging its compulsion to malignancy. — ibid. page 260-261

The benefit of grace and the suffering of a compulsion to malignancy seems to be a "human" thing but Heidegger says we will not benefit from knowing about this condition until we reach one not yet experienced:

More essential than instituting rules is that man find the way to his abode in the truth of Being. — ibid. 262

It can be a long time between trains.

One might assume that with the term 'care' (Sorge) Heidegger has human well being first and foremost in mind. That is not the case. — Fooloso4

One [ das Man ] may well assume such a thing, assuming also that B&T is trying to do the same kind of thing as Chicken Soup for the Soul. That is not the case.

Man seems to be of concern only in so far as he is the ventriloquist dummy of Being. — Fooloso4

So says one such ventriloquist dummy telling us how it is ?

We find in our struggle to talk about what is (including what 'is' is) that we must talk about that which wants and is able to talk about what is. We must appropriate the hermeneutic situation. Phenomenology sees the 'how' of our seeing, sees that seeing itself --- but soon discovers that 'language is an organ of perception,' that a sediment of interpretedness (stinky quilt of grandpa certainties) obstructs what might otherwise be (what we assumed was possible in our having been thrown into this contingent metaphysical tradition) a simple unbiased gazing at the world.

One stab at it: Dasein 'is' interpretation 'is' prejudice-confronting-itself 'is' time.

Historicity of interpretation, that's the ticket.

https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/gadamer/#PosPre

*********
Gadamer redeploys the notion of our prior hermeneutical situatedness ... in terms of the ‘fore-structures’ of understanding, that is, in terms of the anticipatory structures that allow what is to be interpreted or understood to be grasped in a preliminary fashion. The fact that understanding operates by means of such anticipatory structures means that understanding always involves what Gadamer terms the ‘anticipation of completeness’—it always involves the revisable presupposition that what is to be understood constitutes something that is understandable, that is, something that is constituted as a coherent, and therefore meaningful, whole.
...
In this respect, all interpretation, even of the past, is necessarily ‘prejudgmental’ in the sense that it is always oriented to present concerns and interests, and it is those present concerns and interests that allow us to enter into the dialogue with the matter at issue.
...
The prejudicial character of understanding means that, whenever we understand, we are necessarily involved in a dialogue that encompasses both our own self-understanding and our understanding of the matter at issue (and there is, it should be added, an essential alterity that obtains even in those cases where our engagement is primarily textual). In the dialogue of understanding our prejudices come to the fore, both inasmuch as they play a crucial role in opening up what is to be understood, and inasmuch as they themselves become evident in that process. As our prejudices thereby become apparent to us, so they can also become the focus of questioning in their own turn.

Thrown as prejudice, thrown as projection.

More essential than instituting rules is that man find the way to his abode in the truth of Being. — ibid. 262

A ponderous way of saying he's lost.

It can be a long time between trains. — Paine

Waiting for Begot.

One [[i]das Man[/i]] may well assume such a thing, and that B&T is trying to do the same kind of thing as Chicken Soup for the Soul. — plaque flag

And one might assume the former without the latter. Why reduce the concern for human things to a nostrum?

So says one such ventriloquist dummy telling us how it is ? — plaque flag

I make no grandiose claims about Being.

We find in our struggle to talk about what is — plaque flag

What's the point? Are you making excuses for not being able to explain Heidegger? Or anything at all? Are you attempting to free yourself for

offensive creativity — plaque flag

?

Spinning dross is not an adequate substitute for not paying attention to what is said and struggling to understand it.

Well said.

The basis of Dasien’s being-in-the-world is care. By care, Heidegger does not mean sentimental concern. He means that our connection with other people and things ( the things we experienced are understood by reference to their relevance to our human relationships) is one of pragmatic involvement — Joshs

It is often difficult for some (especially those whose native tongue is English) to get a grasp on Heidegger's concept of care. One could care very much about being a good Nazi.

One could care very much about being a good Nazi. — Arne

Isn't that the problem? Heidegger's 'care' does not answer the question raised:

Is there a concern for the human things in this more originary thinking? — Fooloso4

Is care about being a good Nazi compatible with caring about human beings?

Yes, I can see how the gap between evaluations involves the experience of being lost. I brought up the gap, however, in order to address this challenge in regard to the politics involved:

Nietzsche has played that role for decades. Apart from the political aspect, the question is, is there any evidence that such readings get the philosophy right? — Joshs

Whatever Heidegger hoped for or feared in his political actions, the interim between the point of departure and the true "abode" provides no register for taking responsibility for any 'compulsion to malignancy' he may have participated in.

That gap is there in the things he said, not merely an interpretation of what he meant.

Isn't that the problem? Heidegger's 'care' does not answer the question raised: — Fooloso4

No. That is not the problem. I raised the question and the question was not being asked of Heidegger. There seems to be an unstated and essentially unargued claim that philosophical works may be dismissed if their authors fail to meet a heightened standard of morality.

Heidegger was not a good person for many reasons with his Nazism foremost among those reasons. But that does not render invalid everything he has to say about the meaning of being anymore than Nazism renders invalid every significant cinematic idea of Leni Riefenstahl or engineering principle of SS Officer Wernher von Braun.

I suspect that Being and Time was fated to be a major philosophical work regardless of the fortunes of the Nazis.

no register for taking responsibility — Paine

I agree.

I don't know if he was just unable to admit he was wrong and take responsibility or if he thought he did nothing wrong either because he thought what he did was right or if he thought he was answering the call of Being and thus acting resolutely.

There seems to be an unstated and essentially unargued claim that philosophical works may be dismissed if their authors fail to meet a heightened standard of morality. — Arne

It was unstated and not argued because that is not my position. I have read Heidegger. I have used his work when teaching. I think he should be read if for no other reason than his considerable influence.

But that does not render invalid everything he has to saying about the meaning of being. — Arne

I agree and have said nothing to the contrary. As I suggested in another post, we can put his involvement with the Nazis aside for a moment and look at two related issues. The first is what his contribution to ethics might be. I don't see anything in his discussion of care that applies to ethics. Or the concern for human life except with regard to the question of Being. The second is how we are to understand es gibt.

This post on the question of the good and values and this on history and es gibt, what comes to be and the call to hearken to Being.

It was unstated and not argued because that is not my position. — Fooloso4

I did not mean to suggest otherwise. I was speaking about the the thread in general.

The first is what his contribution to ethics might be. I don't see anything in his discussion of care that applies to ethics. — Fooloso4

I agree. I am unaware of any significant contribution to ethics on the part of Heidegger.

My primary interest in Heidegger is Division One of Being and Time. I am far more interested in the nature of being than I am in either prosecuting or defending Heidegger.

Not humans or even sentient beings but entities. Man seems to be of concern only in so far as he is the ventriloquist dummy of Being — Fooloso4

As far as I’m concerned, the very heart of human relations is the connection between feeling and thinking, affect and cognition, mood and intention.
And there is no philosopher I know of other than Derrida who understood the exquisitely intimate, intricate , contextually changing affective workings of human psychological functioning better than Heidegger , which is why many of today’s most advanced theoretical models of emotion, mood and affect in its relation to cognition rely on Heidegger’s analyses of Befindlichkeit. Who do you rely on for your understanding of these crucial aspects of human functioning?

One could care very much about being a good Nazi — Arne

If I were a Nazi, I would want to be the best Nazi possible. Otherwise, why bother?

@Mikie @plaque flag @Arne @Joshs

Basic to the philosophy of Plato and Aristotle is the desire for and pursuit of the good. This must be understood at the most ordinary level, not as a theory but simply as what we want both for ourselves and those we care about. It is not only basic to their philosophy but basic to their understanding of who we are as human beings.

Phronesis, often translated as practical wisdom, is not simply a matter of reasoning toward
achieving ends, but of deliberation about good ends.

For Heidegger consideration of the good is replaced with the call of conscience. The call of conscience is not about what is good or bad, it is the call for authenticity. Its primary concern is not oneself or others but Being. He sees Plato's elevation of the Good above being, that is, as the source of both being and being known, as a move away from, a forgetting of Being.

In more general terms, how severing reason from the good is nihilism can be seen in the ideal of objectivity and the sequestering of "value judgments". Political philosophy, for example, is shunned in favor of political science. The question of how best to live has no place in a science of politics whose concerns are structural and deal with power differentials. — Fooloso4

:fire: :100:

My own less learned supplement to your wise précis, Fooloso4:

As specifically relates to H, "resolute" (i.e. subjectivist aka "ownmost") "being-towards-death" makes for "authentic Dasein", reminiscent of soldiering (kamikazi-like), that resonates with a Kierkegaardian "knight of faith's" fervor rationalized by the theodicy of death at the drum-beating heart of H's SuZ. "Authenticity" – purportedly the highest subjectivist (and historicist) goal – is the hymn of this Absolute (which for H's Dasein is (my) "death") invoked as en-chanting (i.e. "jargoning" Adorno suggests) in lieu of, or over above, public reasoning. — 180 Proof

I don't see anything in his discussion of care that applies to ethics. Or the concern for human life except with regard to the question of Being. The second is how we are to understand es gibt. — Fooloso4

i suspect you aren’t too crazy about Foucault , Rorty, social constructionism, Derrida, Deleuze, Nietzsche or Husserl either when it comes to ethics. You would likely consider their approaches , like Heidegger’s, as ‘lacking’ an ethics, as if the ossified old school notion of respectable philosophy requires it to check off all the usual categories such as metaphysics, epistemology, ethics, aesthetic and logic. The fact is none of these writers is lacking an ethical impetus in their work in the most fundamental sense of the term. On the contrary, their work is profoundly ethical i. this sense. What they reject is reducing the concept of ethics to a normative or prescriptive category of thought or behavior, which is what happens when we separate ought from is, feeling from thought, value from fact. I suspect that the kind of treatment of the ethical you are looking for can be argued, from the perspective of these writers, to be profoundly unethical. Welcome to the postmodern

How does this relate to the social? The political? The ethical?

Is there a recognition of responsibility to and for others?

i suspect you aren’t too crazy about Foucault , Rorty, social constructionism, Derrida, Deleuze, Nietzsche or Husserl either when it comes to ethics. — Joshs

Name dropping does not answer the question.

... as if the ossified old school notion of respectable philosophy requires it to check off all the usual categories such as metaphysics, epistemology, ethics, aesthetic and logic. — Joshs

None of this has anything to do with what I have said or with what or how I think.

The fact is none of these writers is lacking an ethical impetus in their work in the most fundamental sense of the term. — Joshs

That's nice, but I am asking about Heidegger.

I am far more interested in the nature of being — Arne

:up:

...which is to say in the matter itself and not the gossip around it and an excuse to do something easier, something routine, like attack or defend (as I have) obscurity.

For Heidegger consideration of the good is replaced with the call of conscience. The call of conscience is not about what is good or bad, it is the call for authenticity. Its primary concern is not oneself or others but Being. He sees Plato's elevation of the Good above being, that is, as the source of both being and being known, as a move away from, a forgetting of Being. — Fooloso4

I’ve almost never been impressed by attempts to explain Heidegger’s notions of conscience or authenticity, and this is no exception. To determine if it’s even approaching truth would require some clear quotations from the texts and a lot of analysis. Probably not worth it.

But statements like “[The call of conscience]’s primary concern is not oneself or others but being” has absolutely no meaning to me. It may be said that thinkers (in the sense of philosophers) “think being,” or are primarily concerned with existence itself. I see that. But as for what being is? Heidegger, as far as I’ve seen, never really says. That’s worth remembering before we go on making connections between being and conscience or authenticity.

i suspect you aren’t too crazy about Foucault, Rorty, social constructionism, Derrida, Deleuze, Nietzsche or Husserl either when it comes to ethics. — Joshs

Clearly, you're mistaken, Joshs. Foucault, Nietzsche & Deleuze have much to say about ethics (re: "care of the self", "master / slave morality & revaluation of all values" and "anti-oedipal desiring-production", respectively).

If I were a Nazi, I would want to be the best Nazi possible. Otherwise, why bother? — Joshs

<grin>
I do appreciate a dark sense of humor.

.

I’ve almost never been impressed by attempts to explain Heidegger’s notions of conscience or authenticity, and this is no exception. — Mikie

:up:

That's maybe the murkiest stuff in B&T.

To determine if it’s even approaching truth would require some clear quotations from the texts and a lot of analysis. — Mikie

Not something you are likely to see Heidegger fans here doing.

But as for what being is? Heidegger, as far as I’ve seen, never really says. — Mikie

I don't think he ever is honest enough to come out and say it. Being is God. The problem is, on the one hand, the layers of meaning that have piled on, and, on the other, what he is actually saying looses its aura of profundity and mystery. He does, however, give us some clues in his references to the gods in Heraclitus and Parmenides.

But as for what being is? Heidegger, as far as I’ve seen, never really says. — Mikie

"Being [is] that upon the basis of which entities are already understood." Being and Time, pp. 25-26.

As for the "meaning" of being, William Blattner argues that Heidegger is after the "structure" of being. And Heidegger most definitely has something to say about that.

Yes, I’m very familiar with that one line. Once context is put back, it’s not necessarily Heidegger’s claim. And it would be very odd indeed if this casual sentence is the final word on it.

I don't think he ever is honest enough to come out and say it. Being is God. — Fooloso4

I don’t see that. He’s pretty clearly un-Christian. He says in a number of places that god as uncreated substance is simply more substance ontology, and that Christians can’t do philosophy almost by definition.

But who knows.

Clearly, you're mistaken, Joshs. Foucault, Nietzsche & Deleuze have much to say about ethics (re: "care of the self", "master / slave morality & revaluation of all values" and "anti-oedipal desiring-production", respectively). — 180 Proof

If you look at how Deleuze translates Nietzsche’s Eternal
Return via his desiring-production model, the ensuing ethical imperative ( using the revolutionary potential of philosophy, art and science to free ourselves of fascist social productions) is quite compatible with Heidegger’s embrace of Nietzschean becoming.