But Peircean semiotics gave a credible model of being as pure naked spontaneity. It supplies a mathematical, hence scientific, image. That gives a better purchase on the issue than a poetic description. The poetic view already presumes an experiencer as part of the equation - the story of this vague nothingness that is beyond any determinate somethingness. — apokrisis

But of course - Dasein is the allegedly-privileged mode of understanding Being. It is where the question of Being arises. At least in some.

"Spontaneity" has a metaphysical ring to it but fails to offer a suitable replacement for Heidegger's Sein. It's still ontic, it's still scientific and thus cannot fulfill the requirement necessary to answer the question of Being. Akin to using metal detectors to find plastics.

yet it is still "something" — darthbarracuda

This describes relative nothing, which is similar to, as you say, the hyper-thingness of God in Aquinas. God is not a thing, and so "nothing," but not non-existent either and so not absolutely nothing.

Most prominently in his magum opus Being and Time. — darthbarracuda

I found this work to be obscurantist drivel the first time I tried reading it. Maybe I will understand it better if I have something to look for in it, like the claim that being isn't a copula.

Sure, yeah. You could try reading Being and Time alongside a companion guide, Richard Polt's Heidegger: An Introduction is quite good in my opinion - you can probably even read that first without Being and Time, even.

Heidegger is obscure and could have written more clearly in some places. It is what it is, but I think the charge of obscurantism is over-inflated. Heidegger is hard to read but he's not that hard.

This describes relative nothing, which is similar to, as you say, the hyper-thingness of God in Aquinas. God is not a thing, and so "nothing," but not non-existent either and so not absolutely nothing. — Thorongil

I have never heard of relative nothing apart from in this discussion. But again, by comparing "relative" nothing to absolutely nothing, you are still making judgments as to what absolutely nothing is.

I have never heard of relative nothing apart from in this discussion. — darthbarracuda

This surprises me. It's a distinction found in Kant and Schopenhauer. It's crucial for Schopenhauer's soteriology in particular.

Well, color me embarrassed.

I think they use Latin terms, which may obscure the concepts. I can try looking it up.

In Kant, it's found in the CPR at the very end of the Remark on the Amphiboly of Concepts of Reflection.

Schopenhauer discusses it in WWR Vol. 1, pg. 409 (Payne translation). The distinction is between nihil privativum and nihil negativum.

Thanks, I'll check it out.