This persistent presence could be understood to be dependent on consciousness, on the perceiver, or it could be taken, as it is with materialist metaphysics, to be prior to consciousness. a persistent presence that is "there" regardless of whether it is being perceived or not — Janus

The way I read Heidegger, the experience of persisting presence is a kind of illusion , or better yet, distortion, flattening, closing off of the what happens when we experience something as something. Experiencing the world is not accomplished by a subject directing itself toward objects. Dasein is not a consciousness but an in-between. Heidegger traces the modern idea of being as persisting presence to Descartes:

“Thus what can be shown to have the character of constantly remaining, as remanens capax mutationem, constitutes the true being of beings which can be experienced in the world. What enduringly remains truly is. This is the sort of thing that mathematics knows. What mathematics makes accessible in beings constitutes their being.”

“Thus the being of the "world" is, so to speak, dictated to it in terms of a definite idea of being which is embedded in the concept of substantiality and in terms of an idea of knowledge which cognizes beings in this way. Descartes does not allow the kind of being of innerworldly beings to present itself, but rather prescribes to the world, so to speak, its "true" being on the basis of an idea of being (being = constant objective presence) the source of which has not been revealed and the justification of which has not been demonstrated.

It is therefore not primarily his dependence upon a science, mathematics, which just happens to be especially esteemed, that determines his ontology of the world, rather his ontology is determined by a basic ontological orientation toward being as constant objective presence, which mathematical knowledge is exceptionally well suited to grasp.”(Heidegger 2010)


Heidegger explains that in taking something to be the case in a propositional judgement (for instance, S is P) , we are taking something as something within a wider context of pragmatic relevance.(The ‘as' structure designates the peculiar ‘between-ness' of Dasein that Heidegger also describes as the ontological difference between Being and beings). Making sense of something is an act that always has the ‘as' structure, as Heidegger tells us, but this structure of relevanting is covered over and flattened down in causal models.

“The most immediate state of affairs is, in fact, that we simply see and take things as they are: board, bench, house, policeman. Yes, of course. However, this taking is always a taking within the context of dealing-with something, and therefore is always a taking-as, but in such a way that the as-character does not become explicit in the act. The non-explicitness of this “as” is precisely what constitutes the act's so-called directness. Yes, the thing that is understood can be apprehended directly as it is in itself. But this directness regarding the thing apprehended does not inhibit the act from having a developed structure. Moreover, what is structural and necessary in the act of [direct] understanding need not be found, or co-apprehended, or expressly named in the thing understood. I repeat: The [primary] as-structure does not belong to something thematically understood. It certainly can be understood, but not directly in the process of focally understanding a table, a chair, or the like.

Acts of directly taking something, having something, dealing with it “as something,” are so original that trying to understand anything without employing the “as” requires (if it's possible at all) a peculiar inversion of the natural order. Understanding something without the “as”—in a pure sensation, for example—can be carried out only “reductively,” by “pulling back” from an as-structured experience. And we must say: far from being primordial, we have to designate it as an artificially worked-up act. Most important, such an experience is per se possible only as the privation of an as-structured experience. It occurs only within an as-structured experience and by prescinding from the “as”— which is the same as admitting that as-structured experience is primary, since it is what one must first of all prescind from.” (Logic,The Question of Truth,p.122).

How Heidegger came to the idea of "persisting presence"?? Here is my interpretation (which applies more to earlier Heidegger): Aristotle used "ousia" as the philosophical term for being. Heidegger noticed that ousia had in Greek language the common meaning of Anwesen i.e. it had the meaning of being-there-constantly-accessible like one's property "laying there ready to serve". This side meaning diffused, already modified, into Aristotle's much more formal-philosophical discourse. Later in the Latin period ousia was translated as substance whereby the suggestion to a specific experience (of specific culture) disappears. Only now the Being as presence can begin its unquestionable dominance. Being as substance or as persisting presence begins to live its own life (the discourse is freed from its source or original horizon). However, the static world view of antique Greeks is still present in the traditional metaphysical discourse, even in the idea of logic. But: the original Greek world view is not static in the sense of an ideal order, it is a w o r l d in a certain state or situation. It is a historical world that has a stable, finished, existence instead of eternal, timeless order. Latin, and on this basis modern, interpretations transform the antique Greek, relatively, because historical, stable existence or stability into an ideal, eternal order (it is sought security or assurance through absolutely certain knowledge). This was further helped by the fact that already Aristotle had begun to idealize the ousia's original sense as an accessible world order. In Aristotle's metaphysical-ontological discourse the historicity i.e. certain temporality of the original experience is already blurred.

This persistent presence could be understood to be dependent on consciousness, on the perceiver, or it could be taken, as it is with materialist metaphysics, to be prior to consciousness. a persistent presence that is "there" regardless of whether it is being perceived or not. — Janus

I think this is the subject/object thing again. I don’t think it’s either. There’s simply being in the world. However, once in a present-at-hand mode of being, a subject contemplating an object makes sense. In that case, sure, it’s dependent on consciousness — and everything Kant says rings true, etc.

Heidegger traces the modern idea of being as persisting presence to Descartes — Joshs

But being as constant presence isn’t a modern idea really. It goes back to the Greeks. I think he’s quite clear about that. Ousia, etc.

Maybe I’m misunderstanding your wording.

I think this is the subject/object thing again. I don’t think it’s either. There’s simply being in the world. However, once in a present-at-hand mode of being, a subject contemplating an object makes sense. In that case, sure, it’s dependent on consciousness — and everything Kant says rings true, etc. — Mikie

I think all our thinking is in dualsitic terms, and, inter alia, in terms of subject/object, substance/mode and so on. Even "being in the world" is dualistic; whereas simply "being" is not.

I think all our thinking is in dualsitic terms — Janus

Well it depends on what kind of thought. My junk thought doesn’t seem dualistic in any sense. When I’m contemplating myself or my world I’ll schematize the world that way, but that’s not my typical state.

Even "being in the world" is dualistic; whereas simply "being" is not. — Janus

I think the point is that being is being-in-the-world-as-time-spirit-etc. Equiprimordiality may be the key thought ?

Well it depends on what kind of thought. My junk thought doesn’t seem dualistic in any sense. When I’m contemplating myself or my world I’ll schematize the world that way, but that’s not my typical state. — Mikie

I agree; I think our experience is not dualistic, but is inevitably discursively framed to be so due to the inherently dualistic nature of language.

I think the point is that being is being-in-the-world-as-time-spirit-etc. Equiprimordiality may be the key thought ? — green flag

"Being-in-the-world-as-time-spirit" is dualistic: Being as X: substance and mode. I don't understand what you mean by saying equiprimordiality may be the key thought.

The way I read Heidegger, the experience of persisting presence is a kind of illusion , or better yet, distortion, flattening, closing off of the what happens when we experience something as something. Experiencing the world is not accomplished by a subject directing itself toward objects. Dasein is not a consciousness but an in-between. Heidegger traces the modern idea of being as persisting presence to Descartes: — Joshs

Sorry I missed your response earlier.

I understand dasein as "being there"; it must be a kind of awareness, even if not reflexively self-aware. I agree that the separation of subject and object only obtains discursively; it is not the primordial nature of human experience.

I understand dasein as "being there"; it must be a kind of awareness, even if not reflexively self-aware. I agree that the separation of subject and object only obtains discursively; it is not the primordial nature of human experience. — Janus

:up: :up:

"Being-in-the-world-as-time-spirit" is dualistic: Being as X: substance and mode. I don't understand what you mean by saying equiprimordiality may be the key thought. — Janus

The world, the self, the others, language...are all equally foundational or primordial..are in fact a unitary phenomenon.

the separation of subject and object only obtains discursively; it is not the primordial nature of human experience. — Janus

Yes. This is about what I mean. So 'experience' is even misleading here, as you will perhaps admit. If the subject is a function of language, then so is the mind/matter distinction, etc.

is inevitably discursively framed to be so due to the inherently dualistic nature of language. — Janus

This is a whiff of the structuralism I was arguing for elsewhere. Concepts are contrastive, a system of differences.

You might like this:
https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/14172/a-simple-theory-of-human-operation/p1

I'd like to ask the Forum what they think of Mr. Heidegger's thought. — Mikie

I think Heidegger's "being-in-the-world" as a unitary mode of being is revolutionary.

I think Heidegger's "being-in-the-world" as a unitary mode of being is revolutionary. — Arne

:up:

Perhaps he's making Hegel more explicit (?), so he had his sources, but his fusion is so coherent and direct that it cut through the noise.

All I know about H is that for a human being to be is to exist temporally in the stretch between birth and death. Being is time. How in essence does Heidegger understand being-in-the-world as a unitary mode? Is it held in the notion that I am my world?

Is it held in the notion that I am my world? — Tom Storm

:up:
Yes. Of course any cute summary is liable to objections, but that's part of it. I am not locked behind some screen in a control room. Beingthere is not an object for a subject. I am not hidden away from others in my own immaterial infinitely private bubble. I am in fact mostly the others in terms of 'software,' in terms of tribal norms of what makes sense.

A lot of things can go wrong in the introspection phase it seem to me...

A lot of things can go wrong in the introspection phase it seem to me... — Tom Storm

Certain metaphors became dominant until young men in 2023, having inherited those hardened and venerated metaphors, think it makes sense that maybe there's really no world and no other people 'out there' beyond their Sensations. And this they say in the name of logic and caution and epistemological responsibility. But they don't see that they take these norms for granted. That amuses and frustrates me, yet I was guilty of that harmless insanity myself once.

That amuses and frustrates me, yet I was guilty of that harmless insanity myself once. — plaque flag

It's a phase for some and a psychological affliction for others. I had a stage when I was around 10-11 of thinking everything was a simulation - although I lacked the wording for this back in the 1970's. I thought of it as a movie being run in my brain by parties unknown.

It's a phase for some and a psychological affliction for others. I had a stage when I was around 10-11 of thinking everything was a simulation - although I lacked the wording for this back in the 1970's. I thought of it as a movie being run in my brain by parties unknown. — Tom Storm

Wild ! I'm glad you came out of it. It really does permeate our culture. As we've discussed before, Plato's cave is one possible major source. A certain kind of philosophy is sanctified madness, conspiracy theory made venerable by the distance of centuries, perhaps becomes it gets enough right at times that we ignore its excesses. Or because we need the sci fi.

I think Heidegger's "being-in-the-world" as a unitary mode of being is revolutionary. — Arne

Yes, but this concept is not new (except as a cryptic formulation by Heidegger). Read e.g. the Daoists, Confucians, Epicureans, Stoics ... Spinozists, Humeans, Kantians (e.g. Schopenhauer), Nietzscheans, and Heidegger's contemporarieqs: Peirceans-Deweyans, Jaspers & Wittgenstein.

(e.g. Schopenhauer), — 180 Proof

yep

I totally agree that it's not so new (being-in-the-world), but I gotta stick up for Heidegger's early stuff before he took up that tiresome style. I'm talking The Concept of Time, Ontology : Hermeneutics of Facticity, stuff like that, made available much later, though written before B&T. Though some of Being and Time, in my view, is actually well written --- I mean the English is enjoyable, words aren't wasted. I'm a bit surprised to see Hume on the list. I totally agree about Witt.

I'm a bit surprised to see Hume on the list. — plaque flag

I don't think Hume is a dualist (or Cartesian), do you?

I don't think Hume is a dualist (or Cartesian), do you? — 180 Proof

It's been awhile, honestly. But am I wrong to remember him building everything from impressions of various distinctness ? (So maybe he's a monist like Mach ?)

I'm a bit surprised to see Hume on the list. — plaque flag

I wouldn’t pay attention to it. Regarding in-der-Welt-sein, there’s some evidence of similarities with Daoism. That’s about it.

I wouldn’t pay attention to it. Regarding in-der-Welt-sein, there’s some evidence of similarities with Daoism. That’s about it. — Mikie

I'm wondering if it's about a kind of monism of prepsychic impressions that get sorted tentatively into self and world ?

Personally I've never seen anything so decisive and explicit on this topic as Heidegger was at his best. I do think the later Wittgenstein is compatible, but (for better or worse) he doesn't methodically lay out theses.

I do think the later Wittgenstein is compatible — plaque flag

Wittgenstein has some similarities, especially in terms of “average everydayness,” but I see little similarity with Heidegger’s conception of being-in-the-world.

I see little similarity with Heidegger’s conception of being-in-the-world. — Mikie

Fair enough ! W is so elusive that I can only argue for one assimilation among others equally reasonable. Have you looked at Braver's Groundless Grounds ? He fishes out similarities.