Subject: Re: Nor May We Overlook the Positive Phenomenal Basis
Date: Wed, 26 Mar 2003 03:28:58 +0000


John Foster wrote:

>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]

And how in the world is that supposed to help your case? He explicitly says 
here that anxiety is not about any definite kind of being or any definite 
possibility for it. It is simply about possibility AS SUCH - pure 
potentiality for being, not any definite possibility for any definite 
factical being. That is the opposite of what you are saying.

>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.

John please cite your quotes, because it took me a while to find that last 
sentence (SuZ 190). First of all, "fear is anxiety, fallen into the world" - 
that is PRECISELY the difference between fear and anxiety:

"In falling, Dasein turns away from ITSELF. That in the face of which it 
thus shrinks back must, in any case, be an entity with the character of 
threatening; YET THIS ENTITY HAS THE SAME KIND OF BEING AS THE ONE THAT 
SHRINKS BACK; IT IS DASEIN ITSELF. That in the face of which it thus shrinks 
back CANNOT BE TAKEN AS SOMETHING FEARSOME, for anything fearsome IS ALWAYS 
ENCOUNTERED AS AN ENTITY-WITHIN-THE-WORLD. The only threatening which can be 
fearsome and whcih gets discovered in fear always comes from entities 
within-the-world. Thus the turning-away of falling is NOT a fleeing that is 
founded upon a fear of entities within-the-world.... The turning away of 
falling is grounded rather in ANXIETY, which in turn is what first makes 
fear possible." (SuZ 185-186)

So the difference between fear and anxiety is precisely that fear shrinks 
back from some entity within-the-world, whereas the turning-away of falling 
is NOT from some entity-within-the-world, but rather from the very "same 
kind of being as the one that shrinks back: IT IS DASEIN ITSELF." Since 
Dasein is not an entity within the world, the turning-away from itself that 
is falling cannot be fear, since fear is only of entities within-the-world. 
That is what he means when he says that fear is anxiety fallen into the 
world - anxiety, like fear, is a turning-away or shrinking back, but unlike 
fear, it is not about an entity in the world at all.

Secondly, you are misunderstanding what he means when he says that anxiety 
individualizes:

"Of course it is esssential to every state of mind that in each case 
being-in-the-world should be fully disclosed in all those items which are 
constitutive for it - world, Being-in, Self. But in anxiety there lies the 
possibility fo a disclosure which is quite distinctive; for anxiety 
individualizes. This individualization brings Dasein BACK FROM ITS FALLING, 
and makes manifest to it that authenticity and inauthenticity (i.e., 
inauthentic Dasein = Dasein interpreting itself inauthentically as some 
entity within the world) are possibilities of its being. These basic 
possibilities of Dasein ... show themselves in anxiety as they are in 
themselves - UNDISGUISED BY ENTITIES WITHIN-THE-WORLD, to which, proximally 
and for the most part, Dasein clings." (SuZ 190-191)

So Dasein is individualized by anxiety precisely because in anxiety, Dasein 
cannot interpret itself as an individual entity at all (since all 
involvement with entities collapses), thereby forcing it to confront itself 
as pure potentiality for being - i.e., forcing it to confront itself 
authentically. In other words, he is doing a play with words: Dasein is 
individualized or distinguished from entities precisely in that it is NOT an 
individual entity in the world at all, but is pure potentiality for being. 
So you are misinterpreting what he means by indivualizes here! (Rene, do you 
see this? He just keeps doing this over and over and over again!)

>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.*

Oh John COME ON! All you had to do is read down a few more lines to see that 
the positive phenomenal bases to which he is referring has absolutely 
NOTHING TO DO WITH A MOTHER'S CHILD OR CONCERNS OVER VIOLATING SOME 
CONVENTION OR ANY SUCH THING! Read:

"Only to the extent that Dasein has been brought before itself in an 
ontologically essential manner through whatever disclosedness belongs to it 
CAN it flee in the face of that in the face of which it flees. To be sure, 
that in the face of which it flees is not grasped in thus turning away in 
falling; nor is it experienced even in turning thither. Rather, in turning 
away from it, it is disclosed there. This existentiell-ontical turning-away, 
by reason of its character as a disclosure, makes it phenomenally possible 
to grasp existential-ontologically that in the face of which Dasein flees, 
and to grasp it as such. Within the ontical away-from which such 
turning-away implies, that in the face of which Dasein flees can be 
understood and conceptualized by turning thither in a way which is 
phenomenologically interpretative." (SuZ 184-185)

So the "positive phenomenal bases" to which he is referring is PRECISELY 
Dasein's turning away from itself. That is a positive existentiell-ontical 
phenomenon - Dasein's own turning away from itself. He is not at all 
referring to what you are talking about above, some mother's child or some 
damn convention! Rene, HELP! HE'S FALLEN, AND HE CAN'T GET UP!

Anthony Crifasi

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