This : "All rules for study are summed up in this one: learn only in order to create" can become the final, deepest lesson that one rubs like rosary beads in order to delay creating. — csalisbury
Maybe --- theres a beauty in that terrain, which is wistful and decadent and intricate, but I'm not totally sold on this, and something in Derrida seems, well, cowardly. — csalisbury
The Hamlet of the beginning is a coward (you see a theme arising, cowardice has been on my mind a while now) and in his self-monologue he knows this, but when he talks to the court he's ironic and clever and can't be caught, above them all. Still, it's all meaningless until he goes on his journey, then comes back with the real ability to avenge and restore. Before that, it's all the narcissistic flourishes of someone convincing himself of his own superiority in order to avoid his father's charge. — csalisbury
Regardless, can you give an example? — Xtrix
Heidegger argues that the sense of the irreversible propulsion of a life toward its end precedes and makes possible every unilateral array of means toward particular ends and every determinate action. But can death, which has no front lines and no dimensions, assign a determinate direction to one's life, and thereby impart a unilateral direction to the connections in the instrumental field? The anxiety that anticipates dying does not anticipate a last moment situated in the time of the world which my existence extends. Death is neither present nor future; it is imminent at any moment. How could death then fix the end and bring to flush the ends possible in the time that lies ahead?
Heidegger concedes that the path of one's own destiny, which unifies one's life and one's situation, cannot be drawn from the nothingness of death. He then argues that it is in the common world, in paths inscribed on the world by others, that one finds the possibilities left for one and for which one' s own powers are destined (B&T p. 434). Yet he would have to explain that the lives of others trace out paths of possibility which they leave for others because the path they actualized was an assignation put an them by death. The explanation only displaces the question.
In Heidegger's dialectic, anxiety, the most negative experience, experience of nothingness itself, converts into the most positive experience, positing my existence as my own, positing the world in its totality. The entry into the world as my home passes through the most extreme degree of alienation. ... [By contrast] to the dialectic that seeks to retrace the genesis of the world, Maurice Merleau-Ponty objected that distance, differentiation, gradation, pregnancy are primitive notions and that the facticity and nothingness with which dialectics constructs them are twin abstractions. — Lingis, Sensibility
there really isn't an "inner" world separated from an "outer" world. This is very hard for some people to accept, as is the subject/object dichotomy. We love our dualisms. — Xtrix
Nonetheless, in the spirit of laziness, here is a snippet from Lingis, whose argument basically boils down to the fact that being-toward-death cannot do the job that Heidegger wants it to do, — StreetlightX
say, with respect to the discussion of etymology more generally - it's probably a good rule of thumb not to trust philosophers with doing it 'accurately'. They all have some kind of agenda and I'd much rather trust an actual philologist or linguist whose discipline it is. — StreetlightX
think of our dualisms as useful practical tools that harden into metaphysical-strength concrete. — path
Living in the moment is even on our to-do list. — path
Anyway, I'd also like to hear what you have to say about time and about the question of being. — path
I think that time is like saying "life" - it has to be presupposed. It's the background, like light. — Xtrix
from B&T II.VIThrown and entangled, Dasein is initially and for the most part lost in what it takes care of.
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Spirit does not fall into time, but factical existence 'falls,' in falling prey, out of primordial, authentic temporality. — Heidegger
There seem to be two questions here. First, how can one conceive the "subject matter" (Sachverhalt) of the human sciences, i.e., human, historical life, without reducing it to a natural thing? Second, is the theoretical approach and manner of knowing that prevails in the modern sciences appropriate for understanding its subject matter? For Dilthey, both questions about the human being -- as subject matter of knowledge and as knower -- unite in the philosophic question about what he calls the "connectedness of mental life" (p. 4). Yorck, however, possesses a keener awareness that the domain of the "historical" differs "generically" from that of other entities (p. 7). Heidegger clearly means to suggest that an adequate treatment of these questions about the human being requires the analysis of the "ontological characteristics" of Dasein in its "historicity" (p. 73). Such a consideration of "Dasein," taken as the "subject matter" of inquiry, will then also address the question of how human, historical life is to be apprehended theoretically, for the analytic works out the ways in which Dasein is "disclosed" to itself (through, for example, its own, pretheoretical "autonomous self-interpretation" [pp. 32-33]).
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n the Concept of Time, the task of "understanding historicity" appears to be more central than it is in Being and Time. The account of "what time is" and the description of Dasein's "temporality" are presented as preparation for this problematic (pp. 2, 10). Accordingly, this text amplifies the importance of the insight into Dasein's historicity for our understanding of philosophy and science -- and that includes our understanding of the philosophic inquiry that is communicated in these texts. Heidegger thus praises Yorck for drawing the "ultimate conclusion" from "his insight into the historicity of Dasein" (p. 9). This conclusion is the need to "historicize philosophy," to, in other words, "understand philosophy as a manifestation of life" (p. 9). That Heidegger's own inquiry is historicized is confirmed later in Chapter 4: "If historicity co-determines Dasein's being, it follows that any investigation that aims to open this entity must be historical" (p. 81). — link
"Ontologically, Da-sein is in principle different from everything objectively present and real. It's 'content' is NOT founded in the substantiality of a substance, but in the 'self-constancy' of the existing self whose being was conceived as care... Along with this, we must establish what possible ontological questions are to be directed toward the 'self', if it is neither substance nor subject."
So again, it seems like action instead of being is the foundation of the world for him. Very modern. Also sounds Buddhistic — Gregory
Does this help illuminate my Heidegger passage?: "All our reasonings concerning matters of fact are founded on a species of Analogy." Hume — Gregory
Yorck seems like a pre-Heidegger, a John-the-baptist for Heidegger. — path
It's odd, isn't it, for a philosopher to be enamored by a thug, and thuggishness? I suspect this tells us something about him. The cerebral among us seem inclined to this kind of base attraction sometimes. Pound, Yeats and others were quite fond of Mussolini. — Ciceronianus the White
Ah, thank you for this analogy. Prepare ye the way of the Lord! — Ciceronianus the White
https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/yorck/That life is historical means that each person is always already outside his or her own individual “nature” and placed within the historical connection to predecessor- and successor-generations. For Yorck, living self-consciousness is, to use Hegel's fortuitous phrase, “the I that is we and the we that is I” (Hegel 1807, p. 140).
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Transcendental philosophy reduces historical life to the merely “subjective,” which misses the genuine characteristic of Geist, spirit or mind, namely its real, historical extension and connection. — link
Unlike sense experience, thought is essentially communicable. Thinking is not an activity performed by the individual person qua individual. It is the activity of spirit, to which Hegel famously referred in the Phenomenology as “‘I’ that is ‘We’ and ‘We’ that is ‘I’” (Hegel [1807] 1977: 110). Pure spirit is nothing but this thinking activity, in which the individual thinker participates without himself (or herself) being the principal thinking agent. — link
--But suppose the word "beetle" had a use in these people's language? --If so it would not be used as the name of a thing. The thing in the box has no place in the language-game at all; not even as a something: for the box might even be empty. --No, one can 'divide through' by the thing in the box; it cancels out, whatever it is.
That is to say: if we construe the grammar of the expression of sensation on the model of 'object and designation' the object drops out of consideration as irrelevant. — W
Heidegger explicitly called himself a theologian in a letter, so yeah! But this structure also haunts anti-religion. We see this in Stirner reading Feuerbach against Feuerbach. Any lingo can function metaphysically, spiritually, politically. The libertarian language of individual freedom can and is used in class war by the 'priests' of a ruling class. It seems to me that many lovers of Trump think of themselves as masters of suspicion as they wallow in conspiracy theory (the new opiate of the masses?) — path
'We need a strong man (singular) to cut through all the red tape and confusion.' The little people don't have the guts. They just chatter or cluck like hens. — path
At least he said "god" and not "fuhrer" that time. It's likely they're the same, to him, however. — Ciceronianus the White
is generally an expression of self-love or self-involvement. A kind of onanism. — Ciceronianus the White
But Dewey is an example of a philosopher--a modern one, even--who might be said to have tried to make philosophy applicable to public affairs, society and education, without evoking the destiny of some nation, race or group of peoples, and fuhrers and gods, and without demeaning other nations, races or groups of people, and some others have as well, so perhaps it can be done. The Stoics too, given their view that we're social beings, each carrying a bit of an immanent deity within us. But I doubt musings regarding the Nothing and daisen, technophobia and visions of hearty peasants lovingly placing seeds in nature's bosom will result in any true change. — Ciceronianus the White
I think you are right about a scientistic reading; the TLP's quasi-formalist expression, however, deliberately calls attention to the semantic form of it's own meta-language (i.e. nonsense) and, arguably, meta-discursivity in general.If one starts with the TLP and its scientistic form, however, and ends with homely reminders... — path
To be perfectly honest I'm simply intimidated by the Spheres trilogy. And everything else he puts out. He writes very big bloody books. Which has never stopped me before, but I need to space them out and there's so much I (feel I) "need" to get to before diving into Sloterdijk. Don't get me wrong, I want to read him, but it's just a bit of a matter of an economization of time. I'm still tossing up whether or not I'm going to do the three volumes of Capital by the end of the year.... — StreetlightX
And I've seen that Tyler Cohen interview. I think maybe part of the 'problem' is that Zizek is playing to many audiences at once, and, yes, it's hard to square all of what he attempts to do. It'd be interesting to me to see how Sloterdijk does it. But I think it's useful as a reader to try and take responsibility for what one gets out of him. Reading Zizek always puts my guard up. I'm more critical when I read him than other authors and I almost get more out of him precisely for that reason. A kind of pedagogy of suspicion that is all the more productive because you can't trust your source
I was thinking more about this and it's maybe the question of being. The beetle in the box is there.
Something 'is' behind the signs. But the signs can't grab it. The signs can't grab anything
It's a vapor? Does one awaken the question for the wrong reasons? Hard to tell. It's all caught up in sign-systems and politics, seems to me.
What is the difference if not this 'consciousness' or 'being'? Because if the planet-size computer can out-talk us eventually, it won't be clear. Your panpsychism is reasonable to me. It could genuinely become difficult to know for sure if our planet-size-AI is 'really' there. To defend ourselves against that thought we'd need to think that our biology is magical in some sense or get into some quantum woo. I don't know. It makes sense to me that 'being is not a being.' There's the metaphor of the light that makes things visible. Nicholas of Cusa was maybe saying something like this. It does get negative-theological. It's all so slippery that I'll just stop here. — path
I don't know Nicholas of Cusa (besides a few quick references in other books), and I don't mind negative theology, so I'd be curious to hear more. — csalisbury
I feel like what keeps happening is something like this: There is one pole and there is another pole One thing that can happen is this: The latter is seen as somehow pure, and what we want to get at, and defend against the suggestion that it, the latter, is just a species of the former. AI is not dasein.
Then there is the derridean approach: Both things are impossibly tangled up in one another, and the neat separation is something that is grounded in their entanglement, their entanglement is the condition of the separation. In reality, it's a play all the way down.
Both systems of thinking are operative, but blip on and off, depending on the situation. They flow into one another, and it's not always clear exactly what part is speaking. — csalisbury
I think what's happening is thought (a particular kind of thought) is trying to get out of thought by thinking (a particular kind of thinking.) At the limit, you can even know this, but still helplessly do it (this is where you get into stuff like using the term 'being' but crossing it out and all that) — csalisbury
You have to do something irl which is always casually textured and non-binary, wouldn't even think to draw attention to it, (what would it mean to learn to swim in a binary way? What would it mean to intentionally swim in a way that draws attention to itself as nonbinary swimming?) And then you can look back at these thought-patterns as all just part of it, not to be rejected, but not to be taken as seriously as they took themselves. They were one thing you did among others. — csalisbury
Right. I agree. And we can mention binary thinking versus non-binary thinking, which is of course more binary thinking. — path
To continue the ongoing conceit: Derrida is Hamlet pre Sea-Journey (Or Stephen at the beginning of Ulysses, walking along a beach spinning endless fine thoughts, while still bowing his head to Deasy and Buck Mulligan). Something has to be done, thinking won't do it. — csalisbury
The real Derrida was a globe-trotting womanizer,
famous enough to create a backlash, basically a wildly successful poet, a lovable more user-friendly Nietzsche for nice, respectable people. — path
To me Buck would be like some doctor on the front lines of the pandemic. He's not up his own ass. Chances are he can't keep up with Stephen/Hamlet at their verbal game, but he enacts a different stance on life, which he can also articulate in terms of 'irresponsible' or 'onanistic.' Or I think of the activist chiding the navel-gazer awash in his privilege. Do something, you lazy, selfish poet!
(Or I might chide myself to be more social irl. But my job is social (teaching), so I don't usually feel as lonely as a should, given how few people I really open up to.) — path
Sure, but we both know, I imagine, that womanizing is itself an addiction. It is a mark of desirability, for sure, but it is not an entry into a Ledger of those who succeeded. It is only a victory against being non-desirable, and anything like that will become a compulsion, so long as what-it's-a-victory-against haunts — csalisbury
I would like to take the chiding out of it, if possible. When I'm talking about doing, I don't mean it in an accusatory way. I mean it in a universal way : here's the problem, the way through is doing. I mean it 'beyond good and evil' or any moralizing. Like, 'I think I see a snare here, and I think this is the way out of it.'
Most simply said, something like: 'As someone who himself rarely did, this is how I've been thinking about this lately, and, having done a little doing, I think it's true. I would like to pass it on, because I think it can help, but I still find myself relying on long-worn ways of talking which I can see coming off as chiding, though that's not my intent. — csalisbury
This is why doing is so important. Without it, there is only the revolving door of opposed thoughts. Not swimming is not [not-swimming, which is of course more swimming.] Do you see what I mean? There is a trick and enchantment in thought, it's hard to see out of. — csalisbury
I'm not sure I feel what you mean. Is it more than being immersed in washing the dishes, chopping carrots, a walk in nice weather? — path
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