Date: Sat, 25 Jul 1998 15:08:40 +0200
Subject: Re: truth


Cologne, 25 July 1998

Anthony Crifasi schrieb:
> > What do you mean by “Heidegger's analytic itself”? 
>
> For example, would my interpretation of the shift from Aristotle to Descartes 
> imply that Dasein's essence is not existence, or that knowing is not a
>  derived mode?

The issue in question here concerns the history of being, which means also the 
temporality of Dasein, its historicity. A piecemeal interpretation of elements 
of SuZ will not suffice.

> Again, I am not arguing that "facts" are independent of fundamental ontology, 
> as the traditional interpretation of "scientific advancement" said. Nor am I 
> saying that "which fundamental ontology" doesn't matter. Rather, I am arguing 
> (from Aristotelian texts) that the same "fundamental ontology" which applies
>  in 
> the case of Descartes and Enlightenment science also applied in Aristotelian 
> science.

Fundamental ontology is a matter of the deep level of metaphysics, not merely of 
the regional ontology of natural science. The “rejection of Aristotle” by modern 
science (which you accept!), in particular, the rejection of the inner nature of 
physical beings, already amounts to a fundamental change in the being of beings 
since the understanding of physical being is based on the metaphysical 
understanding of _dynamis_ (Book Theta of the Metaphysics). Precisely this 
understanding of being is rejected in modernity for the sake of the metaphysics 
of subjectivity/objectivity and everything that goes along with it, including 
the essencing of truth as self-certainty of the subject. 

> We need only refer to the findings of a 
> powerful new science within the same "ontological casting of being."

I am only repeating myself in pointing out that this is untenable in the light 
of what I have already said in previous posts. You explicitly accept at other 
points that the ontological casting of being has changed, but trivialize this 
change with epithets such as “simply” and “merely”. 

> The "shift" in this case (from Aristotle to Enlightenment science) is rather a 
change 
> within the same fundamental ontology - that of certitude (not necessarily
>  SELF-certitude) throughout. 

As I pointed out in my last post, “certitude” is not enough to characterize a 
casting of being, but is only one moment of a whole articulated structure 
(Gefuege) of being. You truncate the understanding of being, that is, your way 
of arguing is consistently analytic in the sense that it dissolves the elements 
one from the other instead of having an insight into the whole. In picking out 
certitude and finding passages in Aristotle where something roughly resembling 
“certitude” can be read, all the other elements of the Gefuege of being 
disappear from sight, thus e.g. the shift from subject as _hypokeimenon_ to 
subject as “I think” and, more particularly, the shift from an inner nature of 
physical beings to “res extensa”, the dissolution of _ousia_. Thinning out the 
casting of being to an easily comparable element allows just that: easy 
comparisons which trivialize a casting of the being of beings as a whole. 

For a totally contrary account to your “explanations” of scientific progress cf. 
e.g. Heidegger “Die Frage nach dem Ding”, the lecture script from WS 1935/36 
esp. B 1.5 d) “Demarcation of the Greek Experience of Nature against that of 
Modernity” and the sections on “The Mathematical”.

If the modern world and the ancient Greek world were founded on the same 
fundamental casting of being, there would be no historical difference between 
these worlds i.e. no difference on the deepest level. The modern world would be 
Aristotle’s metaphysics “merely” and “simply” modified slightly in the light of 
new scientific discoveries. 

>> Aristotle rightly points out against the view (is it really Empedocles’ 
> > view?) 
> > that natural beings come about “automatically” (_apo tou automatou_ 
> > 198b30), i.e. here “by coincidence”,

> Empedocles fragment 61 is cited by Hippocrates G. Apostle in his commentary 
> on Aristotle's Phys. II.8.

Empedocles Fragment 61 in Diels/Kranz doesn’t make any sense here, since it 
concerns only the double “removal” or “exclusion” (_apechein_) of the moon and 
the sun from the earth. But this is only a minor point. 

> At Phys. 208b10-22, Aristotle argues that places differ from one another "not 
> only in position but also in power." Thus, up and down differ "not only in 
> position but also" in that they are the places to which fire and earth
>  naturally 
> tend, respectively. So if this idea of the power of place is rejected, then
>  place 
> will differ "only in position, not also in power," which is essentially the
>  notion 
> which emerged from the Newtonian revolution.

This is a mistranslation. The relevant passage reads:

_...ou monon daelousin hoti esti ti ho topos, all’ hoti kai echei tina dynamin_ 
(208b10)
“[the courses (phorai) of the simple physical bodies] not only make it clear 
that place is something but also that it has a power”

There is no mention of “places differing from one another” but of place _being_ 
something, i.e. _ousia_. The movements of the elements show that place as 
_ousia_ has its being as a power, a _dynamis_, which means nothing other than 
_topos_ is a “principle for the change in something else” (Met. Theta 1 
1046a10), namely for the movements of the simple elements. “Principle” is 
_archae_, i.e. a ruling centre of emanation that controls change in something 
else. If this understanding of _topos_ and its power is rejected, this goes 
along with a rejection of the metaphysics of _ousia_ and is only possible on the 
basis of an alternative metaphysical casting of the whole of being as outlined 
in Descartes’ _Meditatione_. A new cast of the dice as a whole, not  piecemeal 
modification. 

But this I have said already, at length and in detail. 

Michael
_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-  artefact text and translation _-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-
_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_- made by art  _-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-
http://www.webcom.com/artefact/ _-_-_-_-_-_-_-_ artefact-AT-t-online.de-_-_ 
_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_ Dr Michael Eldred -_-_-_
_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-




     --- from list heidegger-AT-lists.village.virginia.edu ---