Subject: Nor May We Overlook the Positive Phenomenal Basis
Date: Tue, 25 Mar 2003 12:03:07 -0800


Anthony wrote;
Then Heidegger in THAT text is using "feelings" in an
ontological sense,
just as he uses anxiety, discourse, conscience, and falling
in ontological
senses too and explicitly distinguishes these from their
usual factical
meanings.

John here,

You mean in an 'ontological-existential' interpretation of
Dasein? States of mind are modes.

Okay here is what Heidegger writes about Anxiety:

"Anxiety is not only anxiety about something, but, as a
state-of-mind, it is also anxiety about something. That
which anxiety is profoundly anxious about is not a definite
kind of Being for Dasein or a definite possibility for it."
[BT 187]

More importantly perhaps:

"If we Interpret Dasein's uncanniness from an
existential-ontological point of view as a threat which
reaches Dasein itself and which comes from Dasein itself, we
are not contending that in factical anxiety too it has
always been understood in this sense. When Dasein
'understands' uncanniness in the everyday manner, it does so
by turning away from it in falling; in this turning away,
the 'not-at-home' gets 'dimmed down'. Yet the everydayness
of this 'fleeing' shows phenomenally that anxiety, as a
basic state-of-mind, belongs to Dasein's uncanniness, not
the reverse. From an existential-ontological point of view,
the 'not-at-home' must be conceived as the more primordial
phenomenon....Fear is anxiety, fallen into the 'world',
inauthentic, and, as such, hidden from itself." [BT 189]

As you can see, Anthony, anxiety, interpreted from the
ontological-existential point of view is a 'threat' in which
"there lies the possibility of a disclosure which is quite
distinctive; for anxiety individualizes.

What you are unclear about is how phenomenological ontology
'interprets'. For instance, Heidegger provides 2 essential
methods of interpretation (which we need to be clear about,
but also the importance of positive phenomenon (a Baghdad
mother's anxiety over her US injured child); or a human
rights organization, OCHC, concerns about the US
contravention of the Geneva Convention, common article 3) :

"...we must be careful not to confuse ontico-existentiell
characteristics with the ontological-existential
Interpretation nor may we *overlook the positive phenomenal
bases provided for this Interpretation by such a
characterization.* It is the later oversight which you are
apparently uncertain about, and forms the basis of your
authenticated dispair (cf. John and Rene's emails). [BT
184]. You have apparently raised the ontical/ontological
distinction to the arena and heights of the
'onto-theological' or speculative ontology. As though one
form of interpretation (hermenuetic) is inauthentic and one
is authentic.

cheers

john








But John is using anxiety in a blatantly factical way,
because he
gives specific facticities about which his anxiety is
anxious (a mother's
anxiety over her child, an ecologist's anxiety about the
ecosystem). That is
just blatantly factical, which Heidegger explicitly says
anxiety
(ontological sense) is not about.

> >Heidegger explicitly says
> >that anxiety is not about any definite factical entity at
all. You are
> >talking about factical ontic anxiety, not ontological
anxiety! And you
>are
> >basing your whole anti-war worldview on this twisted
interpretation!
>
>Anxiety does not have a definite object, is not a specific
mood in the
>ontical
>sense. You see I don't deny o/o distinction. But this is
only a very
>preliminary
>and negative upshot.

But it is still necessary in order to point the way. If the
o/o distinction
is muddled from the start the way John is doing, then the
way gets cut off
from the start. What John is doing is conflating even the
initial
distinction between Being and beings.

>Even a bit annoying in its repetition......
>In BT Heidegger writes that in anxiety world itself or:
being-in-the-world
>itself, is disclosed.

But "world itself" here is not any factical world Rene.
Ontologically,
"world itself" means world AS SUCH, or the very POSSIBILITY
of the factical
world in the first place, which is Dasein's authentic
potentiality for
being. That is how Dasein is disclosed in anxiety, because
all involvement
with factical beings drops away, eliminating any possible
mis-interpretation
of Dasein in terms of beings. So Dasein is forced to "face"
its own factical
nothingness - THAT is what Dasein is anxious about (i.e.,
about its
no-thing-ness, its indefiniteness, etc.).

>Now to your accusation that I would have connections to the
>Enlightenment network. Kant, the mother of Enlightenment,
forbids
>theoretical
>knowledge of the world, because, unlike the table in front
of  me, 'world'
>cannot
>be representated, posed in front of me, vor-gestellt. It is
not a possible
>object
>of theoretical (empirical) knowledge, although it remains
to be a
>Gegenstand
>for the Vernunft, like God and soul. We need the idea, says
Kant. Right,
>what
>is a table without a world?

Yes but even for Kant, it is still the IDEA which is needed,
albeit in an a
priori sense. For Heidegger, the "world" which makes it
possible for the
table to be a table has nothing to do with an IDEA, a priori
or not.
Equipmentality, for Heidegger, does not involve ideas, even
in the Kantian
sense. I realize that for Kant, an a priori "idea" is not a
subjective
"thing" in a subjective "mind" or anything like that, but
his a priori
possibiltiies are still the possibilities only for things
present-at-hand,
which for Kant underlies any further "use" they may have.
For Heidegger, on
the other hand, the possibility for beings as equipment is
PRIOR to the
possibility for beings as present-at-hand. So Kant is still
essentially
interpreting Being as beings, because for Kant, the
encounter with beings as
PRESENT THINGS is still primary. This misinterpretation
continues all the
way to Husserl. But I agree that Kant is a step closer to
Heidegger, because
for him, empirical "beings" are not the same as the
transcendental idea of
Being, which is their possibility.

Anthony Crifasi

>(Nietzsche: and what a world without a God?)
>Kant here SAVES (unknowingly) ontological difference, that
is: metaphysics.
>The not-knowing is nothing negative: it is a hard and
time-demanding nut,
>for which
>most teeth are not fit.  All metaphysics is taking care of
ontological
>difference, it
>cannot do else, because it is the ground wherein the
metaphysical tree is
>rooted.
>That's easily said, copied, but where is the place, from
where such a thing
>is said?
>There are words of Heidegger for that too - the unthought -
but again
>......

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