Date: Thu, 27 Mar 2003 13:54:07 +0100
Subject: Re: the o/o gulf (1)


At 20:04 26-3-03 +0000, Antony Crifasi  wrote:

>Rene where exactly is this quote:
>
>> >>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."

Appreciating the conversation very much, Anthony.

In my book "The elaboration of the question is 6 pages long.
It is at the end of p. 4, just after the joy at the presence 
of the Dasein of a loved human/Mensch, a joy, that also would
be revealing beings as a whole

>> >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.
>
>I want to see the context of the quote you cite above.
>
>>Like you did automatically
>>when you heard the word: feeling.
>
>I never said that feelings are good or bad!

I mean: you conceived of them as occurrent the split
second before you disregarded them.

>I simply said that they are FACTICAL

Even and foremost the term 'factical' is ambiguous. 
Seinsverstaendnis, for which the whole of BT is there,
is, in the beginning of the book, introduced as a 'fact'.
What that means, what kind of fact it is, is in no way
determined or determinable with the o/o distinction, when
this distinction itself is formulated in terms of factical/
ontological. While it will be obvious, that the factual understanding
of Being   -everybody succeeds, as everybody succeeds in dying-
is another kind of fact than the fact that now the sun shines, or the
last/first fact that WtP is, in Nietzsche's view.


 unless the term is used in some ontological sense in the same way 
>that he uses discourse, call, conscience, and falling in ontological senses 
>and clearly distinguishes these from their usual factical senses. What I am 
>objecting to is not feelings per se (as if I were saying that feelings 
>themselves are "bad"), but rather the conflation of our constitutive 
>ontological structures with feelings and other such facticities. To 
>distinguish these is not the same as to say that the ontic is "bad" or "not 
>worthy of" the ontological or any such thing!

Maybe we can agree that the relation of the ontic and the ontological
is never a priori clear. When you say they should not be conflated a priori,
I agree, but only when is added that they should also not be distinguished
a priori. 

(We don't even have a distinct idea of o/o relation in metaphysics
btw, 'ambiguity', 'opaqueness' a.o. are not at all negative valuations,
when I use them, Anthony)

For instance the love above. 
It is love at the presence (Gegenwart) of the DASEIN (my capitals) 
of a loved human, not, writes H, at the presence of a mere person.
You could say: Dasein is ontological, person is ontic. And I think,
to begin with, that's something. One always has to begin with an
opposition, otherwise there is only the staring at something
massive and abstract, like "love".
Now when we go for the ontological, does that mean that the
person is disregarded? H takes love as Augustinus: I want
you to be, volo ut sis. But who is the you? I mean, it cannot 
be some abstract entity, like humanity, or 'our fellow-man',
or our comrades-in-species etc. The problem is precisely,
that those who use these ontological qualifications (widest
sense) are ducking the concrete person. Crede experto:
Naumburger virtue. Nietzsche is always there, because
behind the ontological lurks will-to-power. 

>>But what you so threw aside, *might*
>>contain sthing essential to anxiousness as mood: that it is felt.
>
>Look, do you or do you not grant that according to what Heidegger says at 
>least 7 or 8 times, anxiety CANNOT be about any factical entity in the world 
>(since it is about Dasein)? That is what I am objecting to, because John is 
>reducing anxiety to worry about the collapse of some ontic facticity, such 
>as a mother's child or the ecosystem.

Why sticking to rightness? I'm not gonna spoil my reading of John Foster
with this sort of rigidity. Sometimes he writes blatantly false statements
like: "Heidegger is above all a ski-teacher". Haha, you want to dispute that?

You share the old metaphysical fear to be wrong. It is in all of us,
incorporated. Like the Widerwille against time, it cannot be overcome.
(ueberwunden) But when that is seen, it can be twisted (verwunden)

rene

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


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