And I still think it's remarkable that this has to even be spelled out, let alone that it be a cause of such hostility. — Wayfarer
I apologise for the facetious comment above. In humans alone, the mind reaches the point of being able to consider such issues. That marks humans off from other sentient creatures. And I still think it's remarkable that this has to even be spelled out, let alone that it be a cause of such hostility. — Wayfarer
But you can make this distinction without distorting "being" and "existence" — jamalrob
You have a pet usage scheme, perhaps deriving from pop culture--"the being from another world"- — jamalrob
Why are you literally lying? — StreetlightX
It supports just the kind of distinction between the Greek use of the verb 'to be', and their conception of the nature of being, how that differs from, and is broader than, the modern definition of 'existence'. — Wayfarer
Yes, but this thread is about ontology, which is using "being" very differently than exclusively for sentient entities.
— Xtrix
I don't think it provides the liberty to re-define the term according to your preference. — Wayfarer
I'd honestly like to understand why the distinction between beings and things is considered controversial, and also why it is not considered. It's an honest question. I'm really not trying to pick a fight — Wayfarer
Isn't there an in-principle difference between the kind of being that numbers represent, and the kind of being that rocks represent? And apes? They are beings of different kinds - not just different kinds of object or thing, but their natures have differences, don't they? — Wayfarer
Sometimes Quine is lumped in with the pragmatists, I'm not sure why. — Manuel
:up:So please stop lying, and then shifting the goal posts when you are called out for lying. — StreetlightX
I don’t see “becoming of time” meaning anything. Time— temporality— is, essentially, us. It’s dasein’s being as ecstatic openness. Things persist and change, sure, but first they’re here, they are.
— Xtrix
This sounds like the view of time Heidegger is critiquing
— Joshs
It's not a view of time. Persistence and becoming both presuppose being. They are also thought of in terms of the present-at-hand, as things that persist or change "in time," as I think you agree, and this itself rests on an interpretation of time which is also present-at-hand. When looked at phenomenologically, this doesn't appear to be dasein's state of being, for the most part. Dasein seems much more engaged with and coping with a world than seeing things as objects that persist or "become." This distinction is an old one, of course, but itself rests on a present-at-hand mode of being -- beginning with Plato's characterization of Parmenides and Heraclitus.
We’ ‘are’ only as being changed.
— Joshs
We are only as being temporal. He's not saying we're embodied change, he's saying we're embodied time/temporality. He is not equating temporality with change. How can we think or "know" change in the first place? We first have to "be" before we can even comprehend change.
— Xtrix
What’s the difference between being in general and the totality of being of dasein?
— Joshs
What do you mean by the totality of being of dasein? Remember the title: being and time. If dasein is essentially time, and is the entity that interprets being and questions being, then we begin to understand why in the West being was interpreted as "presence." But Heidegger doesn't himself offer an interpretation of being, only the human being. — Xtrix
This sounds a lot more like Kant than Heidegger (Thoughts without content are empty, intuitions without concepts are blind). Understood most primordially, there is no presence of something objective, no — Joshs
:up:Philosophy operates with essentialities not with empirical generalizations. — waarala
As an Epicurean-Spinozist, I agree with you, sir, that they are different discourses, but in this way: "the study of what exists" (re: atoms; natura naturata) concerns entities dependent ultimately upon less-dependent, or more fundamental, entities which are (or entity which is) the only concern of "the study of being" (re: void; natura naturans). "Sentient" entities (i.e. subjects) exist ineluctably dependent upon, or grounded by, more fundamental entities and therefore are not synonymous with being. So whatever else your quixotic 'subjectivism' might be, sir, it's conspicuously not (an) ontology as even the earliest philosophers had conceived of it.I maintain that this is a meaningful distinction, and so, 'the study of being' is different from 'the study of what exists'. — Wayfarer
Just as only the initiates of Heidegger can understand or interpret his words. — Ciceronianus
If what the term "idealism" says, amounts to the understanding that Being can never be explained by entities but is already that which is 'transcendental' for every entity, then idealism affords the only correct possibility for a philosophical problematic. If so, Aristotle was no less an idealist than Kant." B&T p. 208 — waarala
there are essential characteristics of phenomena which make possible in the first place to access something and observe it and make generalizations. Instead of Kantian categorical, logical functions ordering the natural world there are essential characteristics of the human historical existence and which can differ from case or phenomena to other. They don't make any rigid system (for logical deductions). For Heidegger to intuite essentialities behind facticities or what is empirically given is a genuine philosophical way to address these phenomena — waarala
There is not made generalizations from the observed data and then theoretically deduced something but instead there are essential characteristics of phenomena which make possible in the first place to access something and observe it and make generalizations. — waarala
Let me see if I’m understanding what you mean when you say persistence and becoming both presuppose being.
Are you arguing that we need both the concept of persistence and that of becoming in order to understand being? — Joshs
Heidegger asks, why does change require the notion of something sitting still as itself for a moment? Instead of founding the idea of change on sequences of things that sit still for a moment, (which is really founding change on bits of stasis that we cobble together), why not recognize that there are no things that sit still. Why not found the illusion of stasis on change , rather than the other way around? — Joshs
Heidegger didn’t consider Dasein as just a human being, which is an empirical concept . He wasn’t anthropomorphizing Dasein. Dasein is priori to the thinking of human beings or living things. In this he was following Husserl. — Joshs
It deals with your question: how can we understand change and becoming without beginning from objects which are present for a least a moment ? — Joshs
“I propose an expanded model of time. Time does not consist only of nows.” Linear time consists merely of positions on an observer's time line. The positions are supposed to be external and independent of what happens. Linear time is an empty frame.“ — Joshs
, I don't see stasis as being an "illusion" any more than change is. Yes, things change. Things also stay the same. We talk about matter changing forms but never being created or destroyed, so matter itself doesn't change...and all of that jazz. Again, we don't want to get caught in the restriction of "being and becoming," where we associated being with permanence. But we also don't want to say being is becoming — Xtrix
Haven’t you thought about the origins of logic? Wouldnt a primordial theory of Being have to begin with the conditions of possibility for logic rather than simply presuppose it as a starting point? — Joshs
Of course apes are different from rocks. But they’re still entities, beings. To say an ape isn’t a thing or a rock isn’t a being is simply assuming your definition, — Xtrix
Beings here refers to everything— all entities, all phenomena. Not exclusively to sentient beings. I can’t make it clearer. — Xtrix
"Sentient" entities (i.e. subjects) exist ineluctably dependent upon, or grounded by, more fundamental entities and therefore are not synonymous with being. — 180 Proof
I don't think this is fair. It can be said of Kant and Hegel as well. — Xtrix
Ontology is fascinating to me, and I don't think you can be really serious about it unless you hear Heidegger out in good faith. — Xtrix
regarding Heidegger as Nazi and villain and all that: who knows. That's debated, but frankly I'm in the group who doesn't really care all that much. — Xtrix
whatever else your quixotic 'subjectivism' might be, sir, it's conspicuously not (an) ontology as even the earliest philosophers had conceived of it. — 180 Proof
when Spinoza – in his first piece of philosophical writing, the Treatise on the Emendation of the Intellect – speaks of the vanity of mundane existence and his longing for a supreme joy independent of the vicissitudes of daily life, we know he is speaking from the heart: “After experience had taught me the hollowness and futility of everything that is ordinarily encountered in daily life […], I resolved at length to enquire whether there existed a true good […] whose discovery and acquisition would afford me a continuous and supreme joy to all eternity.” (Treatise on the Emendation of the Intellect, para.1)
The problem, as Spinoza goes on to diagnose, is that people normally desire “perishable things” which “can be reduced to these three headings: riches, honour, and sensual pleasure” (idem: para.3&9). As these things are “perishable”, they cannot afford lasting happiness; in fact, they worsen our existential situation, since their acquisition more often than not requires compromising behaviour and their consumptions makes us even more dependent on perishable goods. “But love towards a thing eternal and infinite feeds the mind with joy alone, unmixed with any sadness.” (Idem: para.10) Thus, in his mature masterpiece, the Ethics, Spinoza finds lasting happiness only in the “intellectual love of God”, which is the mystical, non-dual vision of the single “Substance” underlying everything and everyone. The non-dual nature of this vision is clearly announced by Spinoza when he says that “[t]he mind’s intellectual love of God is the very love of God by which God loves himself” (Ethics, Part 5, Prop. 36). Since, for Spinoza, God is the Whole that includes everything, it also includes your love for God, and thus God can be said to love Itself through you.
But it seems there are good Nazis, or perhaps that a certain Nazi is, shall we say, "beyond good and evil." — Ciceronianus
Of course apes are different from rocks. But they’re still entities, beings. To say an ape isn’t a thing or a rock isn’t a being is simply assuming your definition,
— Xtrix
It's not 'my' definition, it's the definition. Objects are not beings, as they are not subject of experience. — Wayfarer
Beings here refers to everything— all entities, all phenomena. Not exclusively to sentient beings. I can’t make it clearer.
— Xtrix
Where do abstract objects fit into this? Numbers, scientific principles, and the like? — Wayfarer
their nature is noumenal i.e. they're intelligible objects, not sense objects. — Wayfarer
And your analysis completely misses that distinction. If you label them all as 'existents' or 'phenomena' then you're not accounting for the fundamental distinctions that ontology is concerned with. — Wayfarer
I'm happy to grant them cult status as well. — Ciceronianus
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