Subject: Re: Anxious to
Date: Tue, 25 Mar 2003 01:12:40 +0000


John Foster wrote:

>Whatever Heidegger states about the ontology of anxiety,
>anxiety remains a state of mind. That is, anxiety is not
>involved in the ready to hand nor the presence to hand, it
>is found in dealings with the factical (entities and their
>facts, positively) but also in the numinous.

Not sure what you mean by that last word, but anxiety DEFINITELY is NOT 
found in dealings with the factical; in the text I gave you, Heidegger says 
exactly the opposite. The anxiety that is found in dealings with the 
factical is ontic anxiety. The ontological form of anxiety is found 
precisely in the COLLAPSE of all dealing with the factical, thereby 
collapsing all interpretations of Dasein in terms of factical beings, 
thereby disclosing Dasein as pure potentiality for being as such.

>So now you are saying that all 'involvement' collapses into
>a state of mind, called anxiety. Are you sure?
>
>What about the dual meaning of 'awe' and 'fascination'.
><Tremendum et fascinam> (cf. Otto)
>
>This interpretation of yours is that mental states have
>greater reality than the external world, that ideas about
>the world, and internal states (moods) are the only
>ultimately real nature, simply and truly.

Oh geez you just can't keep yourself from interpreting every possible 
Heideggerian term ontically! "State of mind" (which you so ontically oppose 
to "the external world"), "moods" (which you so ontically label as "internal 
states") - you've got to snap out of this John!

Do you see this Rene (excuse me for just a minute, John)? This is what you 
are trying to defend as the ultimate dissolution of the o/o distinction? 
Can't you see that this is a confusion AT THE START?

Ok, back again John. Heidegger is using state of mind in an ONTOLOGICAL 
sense, whereas you are interpreting it factically - as a factical "state" of 
a factical "mind," which is opposed to a factical "external world." 
Similarly, you are interpreting mood as a factical "state" that is 
factically "internal" that is opposed to the factically "external." This is 
not what Heidegger means! By "state of mind," Heidegger is trying to convey 
that it is essentially constitutive of Dasein, not "mind" as opposed to 
"external world".

Anthony Crifasi

>What you are suggesting of course is that all is 'vanity and
>vexation' in this world, something akin to the
>Ecclesiastical belief, and Job-esque forlorn-ment.
>
>Of course there is the 'ekstatic' and that is what makes
>life worth living for, that is fascination for others, in
>the sense of 'enactment' of love, being, and life (Eckhardt
>would say: God, Being, and Love).
>
>I hope that your world is not that bleak,



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