Date: Sun, 10 May 1998 22:14:27 -0500
Subject: Re: R: thinker and thought


Jim wrote:

> Anthony,
> I don't understand your response to Michael. Accepting the position that praxis
> is prior to presence, not only ontologically prior, but logically prior -- in the
> sense that presense can be made no sense of, cannot cohere without praxis,
> cannot even be thematized without the assumptions of praxis -- then, accepting
> that position, it seems it would make no sense to "suppose that 'we could all be
> solipsistic and still be Heideggerian', but only if we reject the traditional notion
> that presence is prior to praxis." If you reject that traditional notion and endorse
> the VIEW that praxis is prior to presence in the ontological and logical sense,
> then from WITHIN, as it were, this VIEW solipsism would seem to be either
> self-refuting or simply not even THINKABLE.

I meant solipsism in the traditional (and most widely used) sense - the 
solipsism of presence, not one of praxis. Traditional solipsism generally 
reasoned as follows (I take solipsism to be the view that we cannot discover 
other beings):

1. If we can discover beings, it must primarily be by some mode of presence 
(sensation, perception, intellection, intuition, etc.).
2. Every mode of presence, upon examination, turns out to be unable to 
discover beings.
3. Therefore, we cannot discover beings.

Now, this argument has force if we grant premise 1. But premise 1 is precisely 
what Heidegger questions, since for him, the discovery of beings first and 
primarily occurs prior to any mode of presence. So whatever is revealed in the 
mode of presence (including solipsism IN THAT MODE), it still remains the 
case that beings have already been discovered in another, more primordial way.

Anthony Crifasi


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