Date: Wed, 26 Mar 2003 17:13:46 +0100
Subject: Re: the o/o gulf


At 16:36 25-3-03 +0000, Anthony Crifasi wrote:

>>>John look at your very words - "Don't you FEEL anxiety..." That is 
>>>blatantly ontic and factical, John! (Rene, do you see this?)

>>Yeh, Rene here. Feeling blatantly ontic and factical.
>>If not: how could Being ever be questionable?
>>You appear to be being-in-Being, and not in-the-world
>>
>>Heidegger, What is metaphysics?, 'Elaboration of the question':
>>
>>"Befindlichkeit of mood .... is the fundamental happening of our
>>Da-sein.
>>What we so call 'feelings', is neither a fleeting companying-appearance
>>of our discursive and voluntative behavior, nor a mere causing drive
>>to such, nor a mere occurrent state, to which we come to terms
>>one way or the other."
>
>Then Heidegger in THAT text is using "feelings" in an ontological sense,

Well, what he says is that we always again 'degrade' our own way of
being in terms of behavior or objectifiable states, which in everyday life 
is not good, nor bad, but inevitable. Like you did automatically
when you heard the word: feeling.  But what you so threw aside, *might*
contain sthing essential to anxiousness as mood: that it is felt. 
So what you did, when you wanted the ontological, was introducing
everydayness into thinking: moods in terms of controllable states.
That too is inevitable, so denying only makes it worse. Not being
against that (see below), that's the trick. Then it is no longer
inevitable.
 

>just as he uses anxiety, discourse, conscience, and falling in ontological 
>senses too and explicitly distinguishes these from their usual factical 
>meanings. 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.

I can only speak for myself. 

>> >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. 

In BT yes, apart from passages, that are also open for a 'reading
against the grain'. (Oudemans) But no as to GA29/30, where, while
reaching for deeper forms of Langeweile, he explicitly chooses
an alternative way, while pointing the risk of an ontological approach,
because forcing the phenomenon into an aprioristic understanding.
(the ontological as 'condition' of the ontic) 
The surprise is that when the everyday phenomena (e.g.: A book
is boring ; Being bored waiting for a train) is NOT ontologically
clarified ('dissolved'), but instead its holding back is focused,  
that then also the way everydayness hides, becomes more 'clear'.

As to Angst, it is the remotest from deadly fear. It is something not
noticed. "Ah, it was nothing". Such is the 'being' of (the) nothing:
it is as if it is nothing.  

Then, there would not be possible a *direct* discovering of the nothing,
by ontologically purifying Angst, but only an indirect approachment:
focusing on the normality of everydayness that always is immediately
restored, and the fundamental mood suppressed, in the nether regions,
where it belongs. Now one can ask: what is happening here? What is
happening in the dark nether regions of Dasein? Not by throwing onto-
logical light into it, tearing the mushroom out of the ground.
But by NOT being AGAINST the inevitable covering of everydayness.
 

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.

As to BT you're right. But being right is not much. Truth, according to
Heidegger,
is not, in the end, rightness (rectitudo), it is openness. And, also
according to
him, all comes down to finding a relation to it. But then come the
weisenheimers
and are going to be right about openness.... 

>>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

And earth. What is that? And nature? They belong to world too. 
In the "The origin of the work of art" things -paintings, temples-
appear that can hardly be called ontic. On the contrary, it is the
*thing* that collects earth and sky, gods and starvelings.
Here the od has become meaningless, and the way a thing is
in the Geviert, something else, than partaking in Being.
That's the way we're going from BT via GA 29/30 to the
Contributions. At least, I.


, 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.

Yes sofar.

 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 
>possibilities are still the possibilities only for things present-at-hand, 

No, Anthony. This makes no sense. Kant does not state conditions of
possibility for things-at-hand, even not for things as 'present' things.
That is Heidegger, Heidegger says that all metaphysics represents the
present-at-hand. But Kant asks how subjective conditions can have
objective validity, working towards a 'subjectivity', that he also does not
name as such, but calls, according to tradition, Verstand, Vernunft etc.

Kant says: Actus der Spontaneitaet, he is inside subjectivity like the Greeks
inside Aletheia.
Heidegger says: wirkende Wirklichkeit, and he is inside the Gestell

Too complicated for now. The Nietzsche volumes!

rene



>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






-----------------------------------
drs. Rene de Bakker
Universiteitsbibliotheek Amsterdam
Afdeling Catalogisering 
tel. 020-5252368              


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