Says the person who doesn't understand. — Xtrix

Aristotle and all the ulterior metaphysics because they conceal it and became “blind and perverted” in Heidegger’s words.

Not to go through them and point out how they're all "wrong," — Xtrix

Of course, it only says what interpretation is blind, perverted and concealing. Which is not the same as saying it' s wrong, according to you. Where' s the difference? I don't see it anywhere. Please explain it.

Anyway, your maniacal repetition that Heidegger does not present the understanding of Being in the sense of right and wrong, is strongly refuted by this little phrase:

Only by presenting this entity in the right way can we have any understanding of its Being. No matter how provisional our analysis may be, it always requires the assurance that we have started correctly. — Heidegger: (T&B, 43/69)

There is no "knowledge of the truth" mentioned, at all. — Xtrix

It is impossible to understand something without having knowledge about it. If the early Greeks had a primordial understanding of the question of Being, they knew something important about it, which lost the later metaphysics. This is Heidegger’s Bible.

I

n the age of the first and definitive unfolding of Western philosophy among the Greeks, when questioning about beings as such and as a whole received its true inception, beings were called phusis.
This fundamental Greek word for beings is usually translated as "nature." We use the Latin translation natura, which really means "to be born," ''birth." But with this Latin translation, the originary content of the Greek word phusis is already thrust aside, the authentic philosophical naming force of the Greek word is destroyed. This is true not only of the Latin translation of this word but of all other translations of Greek philosophical language into Roman — Heidegger: ItM:10/14

Heraclitus, to whom one ascribes the doctrine of becoming, in stark contrast to Parmenides, in truth says the same as Parmenides. He would not be one of the greatest of the great Greeks if he said anything else. One simply must not interpret his doctrine of becoming according to the notions of a nineteenth-century Darwinist. Certainly, subsequent presentations of the opposition between Being and becoming never attained the uniquely self-contained self-sufficiency of Parmenides' saying. In that great era, the saying of the Being of beings contained within itself the [concealed] essence of Being of which it spoke. The secret of greatness consists in such historical necessity. — Ibid: 74/103

If we pay attention to what has been said, then we will discover the inner connection between Being and seeming. But we can grasp this connection fully only if we understand "Being" in a correspondingly originary way, and here this means in a Greek way. — Ibid:76/106

Heidegger never puts it as "truth of being." — Xtrix

With those or similar words he says it repeatedly. If the truth is the unveiling of Being, the Presocratics were much closer to it. That's why Heidegger comes back and interprets his texts over and over again. If not, why does he do it? Is it not because he hopes to regain a path (beginning or way in his words) that has been lost? In the texts I have quoted here he says that the "Greeks" were closer to Being than anything that came after. Isn't proximity to Being a criterion of truth in Heideger? Of course it is.
Once again, that primordial knowledge does not imply that they fully knew Being, because even Heidegger himself does not claim it for his philosophy. But they were closer, on a correct path than the later philosophy.

Aquinas is just as "wrong" as Parmenides. They both view being as something present-at-hand. — Xtrix

Absolutely not. I have you presented a Heidegger's text against the perversion of Parmenides and Heraclitus by the Latin metaphysics (see above). Aquinas is a perfect example of substantialism that is the main concealment of Being in the Medieval philosophy. You cannot put them at the same level.

Heidegger says (T&B: 26/48) that Parmenides is guided by things for his interpretation of Being. Let us leave aside that this phrase is quite strange, since Parmenides denies the existence of everything that is not the unique Being. In any case, this does not allow him to be equated with Aquinas except at this point. Not in the essence of his theory.


About the presence-at-hand things you should read this.

Heidegger, then, denies that the categories of subject and object characterize our most basic way of encountering entities. He maintains, however, that they apply to a derivative kind of encounter. When Dasein engages in, for example, the practices of natural science, when sensing takes place purely in the service of reflective or philosophical contemplation, or when philosophers claim to have identified certain context-free metaphysical building blocks of the universe (e.g., points of pure extension, monads), the entities under study are phenomenologically removed from the settings of everyday equipmental practice and are thereby revealed as fully fledged independent objects, that is, as the bearers of certain context-general determinate or measurable properties (size in metres, weight in kilos etc.). Heidegger calls this mode of Being presence-at-hand, and he sometimes refers to present-at-hand entities as ‘Things’. — Wheeler, Michael, Martin Heidegger, The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy

That is, a secondary knowledge because Being that is obviously not a “thing” and the knowledge of Being is the sine quanon condition, the most universal, etc. As Heidegger is never clear I am not sure if presence-at-hand and readiness-to-hand knowledge can be preliminary steps to Being. But what they are not is the primordial knowledge that conditions everything else, that is, the knowledge of Being.



...Oh, I forgot. I don't know what your cryptic reference to time is about. It's not what we're discussing.

Continental Divide is a great book about the Cassier-Heidegger debate at Davos (there have been other books written about it too). I struggled to see a clear and distinct divide between their positions though. I think Heidegger might have been a relativist in a sense

Anyway, your maniacal repetition that Heidegger does not present the understanding of Being in the sense of right and wrong, is strongly refuted by this little phrase:

Only by presenting this entity in the right way can we have any understanding of its Being. No matter how provisional our analysis may be, it always requires the assurance that we have started correctly.
— Heidegger: (T&B, 43/69) — David Mo

Thankfully, because I have read Being and Time multiple times, especially part 1, it's very easy for me to see -- without even looking at it -- that this, once again, has nothing to do with your claim. Why? Because here Heidegger is talking about Dasein, and specifically about how to analyze it -- namely, through phenomenology, which he argues is the proper method for doing so. A couple of sentences above, which you deliberately leave out:


"Dasein does not have the kind of being which belongs to something merely present-at-hand within the world, nor does it ever have it. So neither is it to be presented thematically as something we come across in the same way as we come across what is present-at-hand. The right way of presenting it is so far from self-evident that to determine what form it shall take is itself an essential part of the ontological analytic of this entity. Only by presenting this entity in the right way..." [Italics mine -- p 43/68-69)


So again, that has NOTHING whatsoever to do with the "pre-ontological understanding of Being," it has to do with the method of analyzing Dasein; furthermore, it has absolutely nothing to do with the claim that Western metaphysics (philosophy) is "wrong" ("in the main"). Even if Heidegger had believed what you're projecting onto him, this quotation tells us nothing about it.

It's almost as if you're searching for something to prove your thesis, context be damned. My suggestion: try reading the first two introductions in their entirety. And then read them again. It's helpful to do so. Stop combing the first 100 pages for something that proves your thesis -- you won't find it. Trust me. Why? Because it isn't there, and never has been. You're misunderstanding Heidegger.

There is no "knowledge of the truth" mentioned, at all.
— Xtrix

It is impossible to understand something without having knowledge about it. If the early Greeks had a primordial understanding of the question of Being, they knew something important about it, which lost the later metaphysics. This is Heidegger’s Bible. — David Mo

He doesn't use the word "knowledge" for many reasons, as I mentioned above. Mainly because it's been understood, since a least Descartes and the dominance of epistemology, in the context of a subject "knowing" an object. But leaving that aside -- it's quite true that the early Greeks questioned Being, and that this questioning has been forgotten.

I'm not sure why "Bible" comes into play, besides being part of your project to paint Heidegger as a closet Christian who wants to set himself up as philosophy's savior. Which is very strange.

n the age of the first and definitive unfolding of Western philosophy among the Greeks, when questioning about beings as such and as a whole received its true inception, beings were called phusis.
This fundamental Greek word for beings is usually translated as "nature." We use the Latin translation natura, which really means "to be born," ''birth." But with this Latin translation, the originary content of the Greek word phusis is already thrust aside, the authentic philosophical naming force of the Greek word is destroyed. This is true not only of the Latin translation of this word but of all other translations of Greek philosophical language into Roman — Heidegger: ItM:10/14

I noticed you bolded the first "true," but not the second. Might as well bold the word any time he uses it -- it would be just as relevant. Which is to say, not at all.

The above is absolutely correct. The fact that you believe this supports your thesis is baffling. I've said over and over again that translations can certainly be "wrong."

If we pay attention to what has been said, then we will discover the inner connection between Being and seeming. But we can grasp this connection fully only if we understand "Being" in a correspondingly originary way, and here this means in a Greek way. — Ibid:76/106

Absolutely.

Heidegger never puts it as "truth of being."
— Xtrix
With those or similar words he says it repeatedly. — David Mo

No; he doesn't.

If the truth is the unveiling of Being, — David Mo

It isn't.

That's why Heidegger comes back and interprets his texts over and over again. If not, why does he do it? Is it not because he hopes to regain a path (beginning or way in his words) that has been lost? — David Mo

Yes, he hopes to re-awaken the question of the meaning of Being, which the early Greeks had and which has since been forgotten. Their interpretation of Being as "presence," however, is exactly what permeates all of Western thought, through multiple variations. So what gets lost/degenerated? The questioning itself. Which we should return to by understanding our tradition's origins in Parmenides/Heraclitus/Anaximander.

Or we can interpret this as his saying "The Greeks had the truth of being, and the truth has been lost." But this isn't supported by the text.

Aquinas is just as "wrong" as Parmenides. They both view being as something present-at-hand.
— Xtrix

Absolutely not. I have you presented a Heidegger's text against the perversion of Parmenides and Heraclitus by the Latin metaphysics (see above). Aquinas is a perfect example of substantialism that is the main concealment of Being in the Medieval philosophy. You cannot put them at the same level. — David Mo

You most certainly can, because that's in essence the heart of Western philosophy: presence. Heidegger says so himself -- i.e., that this has been how Being has been interpreted since the early Greeks. Thus, if substantialism is "wrong," then Parmenides is fundamentally "wrong" as well. You see how silly this reading of Heidegger is, I think.

Neither are "wrong." Parmenides questioned being; Aquinas was stuck in a tradition laid down by the Greeks, as was all of Scholasticism. In that sense, Parmenides is clearly the more "originary" thinker.

Heidegger says (T&B: 26/48) that Parmenides is guided by things for his interpretation of Being. Let us leave aside that this phrase is quite strange, since Parmenides denies the existence of everything that is not the unique Being. — David Mo

"Denies the existence of everything"? Everything has being. All that "exists" has being. Whatever "is" has being. What you're talking about is incoherent. The phrase "the unique Being" is also completely meaningless.

And no, Parmenides is not "guided by things." The claim in that passage is that he is guided by legein, or "noein," which is the simple awareness of something present-at-hand. This of course has the temporal structure of "making present." Once again, presence is emphasized -- just as I had indicated above. Later, beings are conceived as ousia. This is all right in the very passage you cite.

About the presence-at-hand things you should read this.

Heidegger, then, denies that the categories of subject and object characterize our most basic way of encountering entities. He maintains, however, that they apply to a derivative kind of encounter. When Dasein engages in, for example, the practices of natural science, when sensing takes place purely in the service of reflective or philosophical contemplation, or when philosophers claim to have identified certain context-free metaphysical building blocks of the universe (e.g., points of pure extension, monads), the entities under study are phenomenologically removed from the settings of everyday equipmental practice and are thereby revealed as fully fledged independent objects, that is, as the bearers of certain context-general determinate or measurable properties (size in metres, weight in kilos etc.). Heidegger calls this mode of Being presence-at-hand, and he sometimes refers to present-at-hand entities as ‘Things’.
— Wheeler, Michael, Martin Heidegger, The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy — David Mo

That's absolutely right. I prefer "entities" over "things," but the point is the same.

That is, a secondary knowledge because Being that is obviously not a “thing” and the knowledge of Being is the sine quanon condition, the most universal, etc. As Heidegger is never clear I am not sure if presence-at-hand and readiness-to-hand knowledge can be preliminary steps to Being. But what they are not is the primordial knowledge that conditions everything else, that is, the knowledge of Being. — David Mo

(1) It's not "knowledge" at all. Stop projecting your own words -- Heidegger eschews them for good reason.

(2) "Preliminary steps to Being" is completely meaningless.

(3) What exactly are you arguing against? Being gets interpreted on the basis of time -- i.e., the present. Presence-at-hand is the mode of being we are in, as human beings, usually when things break down or we're in "reflective or philosophical contemplation," as Wheeler (correctly) says above. This mode of interpreting Being has been the dominant one since the beginning. This is the entire thesis. This is why the book is called "Being and Time." It has nothing to do with "knowledge," or "right and wrong," or "properties of Being," or some kind of ultimate, supreme, supernatural "force" out there that we can "know" somehow. All of that is added on by you, and is a complete misunderstanding.

...Oh, I forgot. I don't know what your cryptic reference to time is about. It's not what we're discussing. — David Mo

It's exactly what we're discussing, because we're discussing Heidegger, and you cannot possibly understand him if you don't understand his claims about time. It's not surprising you have no clue what it means. See (3) above.

Worth repeating:

"We have already intimated that Dasein has a pre-ontological Being as its optically constitutive state. Dasein is in such a way as to be something which understands something like Being. Keeping this interconnection firmly in mind, we shall show that whenever Dasein tacitly understands and interprets something like Being, it does so with time as its standpoint. Time must be brought to light -- and genuinely conceived --as the horizon for all understanding of Being and for any way of interpreting it. In order for us to discern this, time needs to be explicated primordially as the horizon for the understanding of Being, and in terms of temporality as the Being of Dasein, which understands Being." -- p. 17/39 —

Do you really understand this?

Xtrix,

You may not credit this, but I actually greatly appreciate your disinterest.

What is a phenomenon? Does Heidegger use the term “phenomenology” in the same sense Hegel does in his major work? And does Heidegger's sense of it owe anything to the tradition, predating Hegel, from which it arises? Prior to the rise of the phenomenon, the powers that claimed authority over the human mind insisted, and often violently enforced, the notion that all that is real in this world must only be perceived through religious texts, canon, and myth. It was over a very arduous and dangerous road that these enforcers of dogma relented to the observations and careful analyses of those who proposed the phenomenon as a representation or manifestation of divine presence in this world. But the most pertinent reality to any phenomenon is not that it follow formal law, but that it itself exists at all. If you've read Heidegger as thoroughly as you claim, then you know the first part of B&T promises to rectify this flaw. Others before him thought they had. Leibniz came up with the monad, identified as a unique confluence of otherwise formally analyzable traits or attributes. But this is merely a numerical identification, not much more of an identifier than a serial number on an otherwise identical part off an assembly line, or the tattoo forced upon victims of the Holocaust. It is a system designed to distinguish without really identifying or in any way knowing who a person really is. Rousseau, on the other hand, argues that we are not a monad, but a member of a community, and that our being who we are is determined by our participation in that community. Doesn't Heidegger merely sort of mix these two together? The one amongst the many, similar to each but ultimately itself only so distinguished itself from them that only “Being” can save it from the aloneness of the monad and the 'them' of the world? But it's still a numbers game. As if we could address the contradiction between one and many by become obsessed with math!

This is not impertinent. Heidegger was a poor boy, with a working life looming ahead of him, so when an opportunity ('potentiality'?) comes up for a good education he jumps at it. This is where he was introduced to thinkers like Duns Scotus, and Victor Erigenus (or some such), and was steeped in the culture of piety and the Christian myth. But then he learned that he could avoid the obligation of taking holy orders (you see, he was sort of conscripted, a bit like ROTC) by switching his studies to math. That is, the Church at that time had fully swallowed the theme of the phenomenon as representation of divine order and presence in the world, and math was thought of as the embodiment of that representation. But in reality, he was just dodging the draft. Shafting his mentors was a way of life for him.

Hegel could not write explicitly, the Kaiser, his boss and a stern censor, would have taken a dim view of his claiming that human participation in the world could have any impact upon the ways in which power are imposed upon it. So he portrayed the world a personality, that developed and evolved over time. But what part the person in the midst of this evolution, and what part does its role in it play in its own identity? Is it the one isolated from the many, and so distinguished numerically from it, or its part in the many, and so indistinguishable from it?

Around the same time as Heidegger, an English thinker, C S Lewis, was grappling with his wife's terminal disease. He found he was not sufficient to solace her. From this feeling of inadequacy he derived a thesis that no individual was enough in himself, and needed a personal 'Being' to appeal to for solace from the contradiction between a numerical identifier and a mass or community identity. Heidegger is doing precisely the same in his notion of “Being”.

I mentioned my questioning my instructor in the meaning of 'ownmost', to which I received the answer “crowded”. “Ownmost potentialities for being”. What exactly does that mean? Surely it does not mean an intimate interest in each other! Even Heidegger's hints at a social life are very much of unilateral or 'ownmost' interests. 'Care and concern', 'mitsein', and the like, never tread beyond the lines drawn between the monad and 'them'. And as such he has achieved not a whit of impact upon the contradiction between one and many in losing us from our own identity, reality, and existence. It is not, therefore, an impertinence to raise the issue of uniqueness, the uniqueness that only person is, that is only the personal, that neither the isolated monad nor immersion into the world can name.

It's become impossible in such an overpopulated world, but a name is meant to be unique, even the means of recognition of the very idea of uniqueness, that no analysis can hope to explicate. And quite aside from the fact that Heidegger's later works make any claim of analytic phenomenology quite laughable, the meaning of a name, the most fundamental energy in language, is completely ignored in all his work. Because uniqueness, the uniqueness each person is, is neither its ownmost potentiality for being, nor its being in a world. It is a departure that is opportune to others. This may be nothing more than a change of tone in a philosophical discussion that does not alter each party's views, but merely recognizes a difference in mood that those views are otherwise meant to exclude from discourse. In other words, that gives us a name and welcomes the personal. The eradication of person in the life of mind has become the mission of philosophy, especially as practiced in our schools and publishing houses, and Heidegger is steeped in this mission.

[

has nothing to do with your claim. Why? Because here Heidegger is talking about Dasein, and specifically about how to analyze it — Xtrix

I'm sorry to say you didn't understand the meaning of my quote. I had included it so that you would see that your idea that Heidegger does not speak of a knowledge, interpretation, etc. that is "right" is false. The term "right", although rarely used in Being and Time, also appears in the sense of "correct".


I take this opportunity to remind you that Dasein's Being is the center of the research on Being in the mentioned book, to the point that it displaces other considerations of Being.
"Understanding of Being is itself a definite characteristic of Dasein's Being". (T&B: 12/32)

He doesn't use the word "knowledge" for many reasons, as I mentioned above — Xtrix

I'm not doing an exegesis of Heidegger, but a critique. This criticism refers to his use and abuse of language. If he says that to understand is not to know, I would think it was nonsense. Can you separate the two things?
But Heidegger doesn't seem to support you in this. Consider the following text:

Any interpretation which is to contribute understanding, must already have understood what is to be interpreted. This is a fact that has always been remarked, even if only in the area of derivative ways of understanding and interpretation, such as philological Interpretation. The latter belongs within the range of scientific knowledge. — T&B: 151/192

Before you start your litany on "context" I will explain why I have brought this text: because it makes a clear connection between interpretation, understanding and knowledge. Have you noticed? As here with interpretation and knowledge:

The logos of the phenomenology of Dasein has the character of a herménuein, through which the authentic meaning of Being, and also those basic structures of Being which Dasein itself possesses, are made known to Dasein's understanding of Being. — B&T: 37/62)

Or we can interpret this as his saying "The Greeks had the truth of being, — Xtrix

Who said that? I am not. It is one thing for them to be closer to the knowledge of Being and another for them to have the knowledge of Being. My on words: "If the truth is the unveiling of Being, the Presocratics were much closer to it".

Does it have to be explained?

If the truth is the unveiling of Being, — David Mo

It isn't. — Xtrix

It is.

The 'Being-true' of the lógos as aletheia means that inlegéin as apophaínesthai, the entities of which one is talking must be taken out of their hiddenness ; one must let them be seen as something unbidden that is, they must be discovered. — Ibid, 32/56

Translators’ note (J. Macquarrie & E. Robinson): "The Greek words for 'truth' are compounded of the privative prefix à.- ('not') and the verbal stem lath-('to escape notice', 'to be concealed'). The truth may thus be looked upon as that which is un-concealed, that which gets discovered or uncovered ('entdeckt')".

(I regret the transliteration from the Greek. I haven't had time to put the Greek keyboard on).

And this one:
Every disclosure of Being as the transcendens is transcendental knowledge.
Phenomenological truth (the disclosedness of Being) is veritas transcendentalis. (B&T:38/62)
Knowledge and truth together. What do yo think?

It's exactly what we're discussing, because we're discussing Heidegger, and you cannot possibly understand him if you don't understand his claims about time. — Xtrix

We are not discussing the meaning of Heidegger's philosophy, but a series of partial issues that do not need the understanding of time to be resolved.

The preeminence of Greek thought.
The concept of truth.
The criticism of Western metaphysics.

To bring up the subject of time now is to try to deflect the question.

And no, Parmenides is not "guided by things." The claim in that passage is that he is guided by legein, or "noein," which is the simple awareness of something present-at-hand. — Xtrix

Heidegger calls this mode of Being presence-at-hand, and he sometimes refers to present-at-hand entities as ‘Things’. — Wheeler, Michael, Martin Heidegger, The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy

Is it clear enough?
As you can see in the previous text, present-at-hand is equivalent to beings or things in the empirical world.
For Parmenides there are two different ways of knowledge: that of reason and that of opinion. The one of reason affirms that only the Being exists. That of opinion says that multiple and different things exist, but this is what the Goddess advises against as mere appearance.
Heidegger says that Parmenides is guided by things (“presents-at-hand”; see above!). There is a contradiction with Parmenides’ theory that he does not explain.
That from the things present-at-hand cannot be passed to Being or Dasein, is clearly expressed in a text that we have already commented.

You most certainly can, because that's in essence the heart of Western philosophy: presence. Heidegger says so himself -- i.e., that this has been how Being has been interpreted since the early Greeks. — Xtrix

And perverted because of its interpretation as substance.

Greece after the Presocratics, Rome, the Middle Ages, modernity—has asserted a metaphysics and, therefore, is placed in a specific relationship to what-is as a whole. Metaphysics inquires about the being of beings, but it reduces being to a being; it does not think of being as being. Insofar as being itself is obliterated in it, metaphysics is nihilism. The metaphysics of Plato is no less nihilistic than that of Nietzsche. Consequently, Heidegger tries to demonstrate the nihilism of metaphysics in his account of the history of being, which he considers as the history of being’s oblivion. His attempt to overcome metaphysics is not based on a common-sense positing of a different set of values or the setting out of an alternative worldview, but rather is related to his concept of history, the central theme of which is the repetition of the possibilities for existence. This repetition consists in thinking being back to the primordial beginning of the West—to the early Greek experience of being as presencing—and repeating this beginning, so that the Western world can begin anew. — W. J. Korab-Karpowicz: Martin Heidegger (1889—1976), Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy

***********


Look, you can go round and round in your "goodistic" interpretation of Heidegger, but you cannot respond to the texts that I have been putting out for days where he talks about the blindness and perversion that Western metaphysics subjected to the world of the dazzling and powerful intuitions and words of the early Greeks.

There is a very simple question that you will never answer: What is the difference between being wrong and being blind and hiding the question that really matters? Is not the wrong question a mistake that prevents you from giving the right answer?

Remember that "Basically, all ontology, no matter how rich and firmly compacted a system of categories it has at its disposal, remains blind and per­ verted from its ownmost aim, if it has not first adequately clarified the meaning of Being, and conceived this clarification as its fundamental task".
I bet you are unable to answer this simple and straightforward question without beating about the bush.

has nothing to do with your claim. Why? Because here Heidegger is talking about Dasein, and specifically about how to analyze it
— Xtrix
I'm sorry to say you didn't understand the meaning of my quote. I had included it so that you would see that your idea that Heidegger does not speak of a knowledge, interpretation, etc. that is "right" is false. The term "right", although rarely used in Being and Time, also appears in the sense of "correct".


I take this opportunity to remind you that Dasein's Being is the center of the research on Being in the mentioned book, to the point that it displaces other considerations of Being.
"Understanding of Being is itself a definite characteristic of Dasein's Being". (T&B: 12/32) — David Mo

Yes? I really don't see what you're driving at anymore.

I'm not doing an exegesis of Heidegger, but a critique. This criticism refers to his use and abuse of language. If he says that to understand is not to know, I would think it was nonsense. Can you separate the two things? — David Mo

I think you can, yes. One may speak of an "understanding" of driving or hammering. To claim that these activities, when conducted in a ready-to-hand manner (in a sense "unconsciously" or transparently), involve "knowledge" is misleading. Because to "know" something, traditionally, is something a conscious, thinking mind does or has. But what if the thinking mind were playing no part whatsoever in the activity? So that one does not need to "recall" knowledge or even be thinking about what one is doing at all. Should we still call this "knowledge"? Ultimately, we have to ask what is meant by "knowledge," and that takes us into history and etymology. Which is why I mentioned using the word is complicated and why Heidegger eschews it.

Or we can interpret this as his saying "The Greeks had the truth of being,
— Xtrix

Who said that? I am not. It is one thing for them to be closer to the knowledge of Being and another for them to have the knowledge of Being. My on words: "If the truth is the unveiling of Being, the Presocratics were much closer to it". — David Mo

I understand. But again, what on earth is "knowledge of Being"? Again, this leads us off into Heidegger's (unconventional) definitions of "truth" and "knowledge." I suppose if truth is unconealedness, than the early Greeks were perhaps less "concealing" of being, and hence somehow (in this idiosyncratic usage) "more in the truth" than others -- but I don't see Heidegger ever really saying that explicitly. I can see now where you might think that, but again it comes down to textual evidence. I don't see it in Being and Time or in Heidegger generally, as you do, but we have to ask ourselves if this is a better way to think about it. I think it just shows that the Greeks and the later Greeks (and then Romans and Christians) had very different meanings for "truth," and nothing more. Interpretations on truth, like that on "being," "time," or any of the other (originally Greek) concepts and words, are varied and evolve in time (in history).

If Heidegger makes any kind of value judgment, I think he does so in relation to the questioning of being. The questioning was greatest with the originary thinkers, he believes. He often says that the inception was the greatest era, and it ended with Plato and Aristotle (thus they are part of this great inception), and that it has "degenerated' ever since in terms of the core aim of philosophy (ontology), which is the question of being. But I do not believe he thinks of this in terms of "right and wrong" or "true and false," even in his own usage.

He does, however, believe the results of various understandings (results in terms of what "shows up" in a culture which holds this understanding/interpretation of being), which he says in our own epoch have resulted in technological nihilism (chasing of beings without any grounding in or sense of being whatsoever), are certainly open to moral judgment -- and if we consider our present age as "bad" in the Nietzschean sense of "decline," then we must overcome it by overcoming what has led to it, which is our traditional, philosophical/religious "background." This is background goes back to the Greeks and, however great they were and however great the "inception" is, it still needs to be examined and ultimately overcome (although we at least need to first get back to their questioning, which we don't even do anymore).

If the truth is the unveiling of Being, — David Mo

It isn't.
— Xtrix
It is. — David Mo

Truth is what is unconcealed. Only beings become unconcealed. Being itself isn't an object to be un-concealed. If you mean that being permeates all beings, and is "revealed" in its being-ness through beings, then yes, truth is the unveiling of Being. I wonder if that's what you meant, though.

We are not discussing the meaning of Heidegger's philosophy, but a series of partial issues that do not need the understanding of time to be resolved.

The preeminence of Greek thought.
The concept of truth.
The criticism of Western metaphysics. — David Mo

Time is related to all three.

To bring up the subject of time now is to try to deflect the question. — David Mo

No, it's to show that you don't understand the entire context of Heidegger's thinking. I do this only to demonstrate why you're so often misunderstanding various passages.

And no, Parmenides is not "guided by things." The claim in that passage is that he is guided by legein, or "noein," which is the simple awareness of something present-at-hand.
— Xtrix
Heidegger calls this mode of Being presence-at-hand, and he sometimes refers to present-at-hand entities as ‘Things’.
— Wheeler, Michael, Martin Heidegger, The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy
Is it clear enough?
As you can see in the previous text, present-at-hand is equivalent to beings or things in the empirical world.
For Parmenides there are two different ways of knowledge: that of reason and that of opinion. The one of reason affirms that only the Being exists. That of opinion says that multiple and different things exist, but this is what the Goddess advises against as mere appearance.
Heidegger says that Parmenides is guided by things (“presents-at-hand”; see above!). There is a contradiction with Parmenides’ theory that he does not explain.
That from the things present-at-hand cannot be passed to Being or Dasein, is clearly expressed in a text that we have already commented. — David Mo

As I've said before, this is actually difficult and interesting. You bring up a good point and it's now given me pause. Here's my take: presence-at-hand is the mode of being of objects (things), yes. But it's certainly true that Parmenides also thinks/questions Being "in general", not simply beings (things). That has to be true, based on everything we've seen Heidegger say about Parmenides. I'm sure you agree. So while later thinkers may interpret Being as A being, as a "thing" like a substance or God or the totality of things in "nature," Parmenides thinks being, but is still guided in his interpretation of it by temporality (as anyone has to be, as Dasein -- who's meaning is temporality), in the sense of "presencing", which has dominated ever since.

I can't say for certain if Heidegger is clear on this, because I haven't read all of the "Parmenides" lectures. He certainly does revere Parmenides, and wants us to get back to this "great inception" and to the questioning of Being, but I think it's also true that he believes we need to do so in order to overcome it, as this is the "birth certificate" of our tradition, which dominates to this very day.

You most certainly can, because that's in essence the heart of Western philosophy: presence. Heidegger says so himself -- i.e., that this has been how Being has been interpreted since the early Greeks.
— Xtrix
And perverted because of its interpretation as substance.

Greece after the Presocratics, Rome, the Middle Ages, modernity—has asserted a metaphysics and, therefore, is placed in a specific relationship to what-is as a whole. Metaphysics inquires about the being of beings, but it reduces being to a being; it does not think of being as being. Insofar as being itself is obliterated in it, metaphysics is nihilism. The metaphysics of Plato is no less nihilistic than that of Nietzsche. Consequently, Heidegger tries to demonstrate the nihilism of metaphysics in his account of the history of being, which he considers as the history of being’s oblivion. His attempt to overcome metaphysics is not based on a common-sense positing of a different set of values or the setting out of an alternative worldview, but rather is related to his concept of history, the central theme of which is the repetition of the possibilities for existence. This repetition consists in thinking being back to the primordial beginning of the West—to the early Greek experience of being as presencing—and repeating this beginning, so that the Western world can begin anew.
— W. J. Korab-Karpowicz: Martin Heidegger (1889—1976), Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy

*********** — David Mo

OK, try to hear me: I'm distinguishing between two claims. One is that every interpretation of being (including as "substance") since the early Greeks is essentially "wrong," and the other is that the Greek understanding of being has been "perverted," "diminished," etc. I agree he says the latter, I disagree about the former. Why? Because while an interpretation may very well be perverted regarding it's interpretation of what the Greeks originally believed (and hence "wrong" as incorrect, inaccurate, etc), in and of itself it is just as "valid" to interpret Being as "God," -- or Brahmin, for that matter (in Hinduism). Despite nothing like what the Greeks meant, these interpretations are nevertheless essentially Greek. Heidegger says this many times. So if they're "perverted," there's also something fundamentally "Greek" about them as well. What is it that's remained? That temporal standpoint -- the interpreting of Being in terms of time (namely, the present). This is why I keep bringing up time.

So it does no good to say "Descartes has a perverted interpretation of Being," or anything like that -- unless it's in comparison to what the Greeks believed (according to Heidegger) and described as "phusis," just as our later sense of "truth" is perverted in this case. Doesn't that mean logic is "wrong" or perverted? I don't think so, no. Nor is science, for that matter. Heidegger is not against science or technology. He's not against God or substance, either. But he is against looking back at the Greeks and interpreting them as being the "first scientists" retroactively, holding our current conceptions in mind. That's a completely wrong thing to do.

Maybe that helps. Again, fairly trivial because even if we go with your interpretation, what makes the early Greeks "right" besides their questioning? Because they too interpret Being as "presence," according to Heidegger. We should go back to them in order to shake off our pre-conceptions and all the baggage of our tradition so that we may "begin anew," as Korab-Karpowicz correctly says above -- but I don't think he's according that any ultimate truth lies in their interpretation.

There is a very simple question that you will never answer: What is the difference between being wrong and being blind and hiding the question that really matters? Is not the wrong question a mistake that prevents you from giving the right answer? — David Mo

I tried answering above. I don't think there *IS* a "right answer." If we are really doing ontology, then the aim of ontology is the question of being, so in that case to question being is the "correct" method of ontology (phenomenology). The early Greeks had the question right, and so were doing ontology -- their answers aren't a matter of right or wrong, however. So, again, is science "wrong" in its answers? Not at all. But it does not ask the question of being -- it studies beings (entities, things). According to you, all of science would be "wrong" because it doesn't question being. I do not see Heidegger saying that, nor do I think you believe that. Science never claims to be ontology. Even if it did, it wouldn't falsify its answers and results.

Two relevant passage:

"Since the essence of man, for the Greeks, is not determined as subject, a knowledge of the historical beginning of the Occident is difficult and unsettling for modern "thought," assuming that modern "lived experience" is not simply interpreted back into the Greek world, as if modern man enjoyed a relation of personal intimacy with Hellenism for the simple reason that he organizes "Olympic games" periodically in the main cities of the planet. For here only the facade of the borrowed word is Greek. This is not in any way meant to be derogatory toward the Olympics themselves; it is only censorious of the mistaken opinion that they bear an relation to the Greek essence." (Parmenides, p 165 -- emphasis mine) —

Replace "Olympics" here with "logic," "truth," "substance," etc. The same applies -- our modern conceptions are NOT Greek, just as our modern Olympics are not (except in word only), but in themselves they're fine. Heidegger only is "censorious" of the attributing to the Greeks this modern meaning and thus to the belief that what we believe is what the Greeks believed.

"In thus demonstrating the origin of our basic ontological concepts by an investigation in which their 'birth certificate' is displayed, we have nothing to do with a viscous relativizing of ontological standpoints. But this destruction is just as far from having the negative sense of shaking off the ontological tradition. We must, on the contrary, stake out the positive possibilities of that tradition, and this always means keeping it within its limits; these in turn are given facticly in the way the question is formulated at the time, and in the way the possible field for investigation is thus bounded off. On its negative side, this destruction does not relate itself towards the past; its criticism is aimed at 'today' and at the prevalent way of treating the history of ontology, whether it is headed towards doxography, towards intellectual history, or towards a history of problems. But to bury the past in nullity is not the purpose of this destruction; its aim is positive; its negative function remains unexpressed and indirect." B/T p. 23/44 —

Remember that "Basically, all ontology, no matter how rich and firmly compacted a system of categories it has at its disposal, remains blind and per­ verted from its ownmost aim, if it has not first adequately clarified the meaning of Being, and conceived this clarification as its fundamental task".
I bet you are unable to answer this simple and straightforward question without beating about the bush. — David Mo

Ok, straightforward answer: there is no difference. But where we apply "wrong" and "blind" is what matters. Do we apply it to science? I don't think we do. Do we apply it to ontology? Yes, in the context of it's goal. So if we define ontology's "aim" as clarifying the meaning of Being, and it doesn't do so, then it is indeed "blind and perverted to its ownmost aim." I don't see how we can jump from this to saying "Descartes' interpretation of Being as essentially ens infitinum is wrong, blind and perverted." It's a powerful ontology, and a very useful one-- at least in terms of the mind/body, subject/object duality (which is still a dominant view in the sciences). It does overlook a number of things, but so do the early Greeks (they overlook their guiding line of temporality). It is also hampered by much more traditional baggage and rather than question being, it 'takes over' a medieval understanding of being.

The sciences are also limited and also don't raise the ontological question. Does this make it all "wrong"? No. Does it make Descartes interpretations "wrong"? Again, I don't think so -- because what would be right? Phusis is "right" and the res cogitans is "wrong"? I don't think so. Furthermore, Heidegger never puts it like this.

Heidegger says that Parmenides is guided by things (“presents-at-hand”; see above!). There is a contradiction with Parmenides’ theory that he does not explain. — David Mo

You obviously haven't read Parmenides's poem. The goddess guides him to pure Being through beings of the world

You obviously haven't read Parmenides's poem. The goddess guides him to pure Being through beings of the world — Gregory

I'm sorry to say, but the one who hasn't read it (or hasn't understood it) is you.

I have read and reread quite a few fragments of Parmenides' poem and comments because my professor of history of philosophy had written a book about him (Fernando Montero Moliner: Parmenides, Madrid, Gredos, 1960). I have a copy signed by him and I will stick to his translation, although not to his interpretation which is quite risky -say it with all the respect and admiration he deserves.

(2.1.)Come now, I will tell thee - and do thou hearken to my saying and carry it away - the only two ways of search that can be thought of. The first, namely, that It is, and that it is impossible for anything not to be, is the way of conviction, (2.5.)for truth is its companion. The other, namely, that It is not, and that something must needs not be, - that, I tell thee, is a wholly untrustworthy path.

(…) (7.1.)For this shall never be proved, that the things that are not are; and do thou restrain thy thought from this way of inquiry. Nor let habit force thee to cast a wandering eye upon this devious track, or to turn thither thy resounding ear or thy (7.5.) tongue; but do thou judge the subtle refutation of their discourse uttered by me. — Parmenides' Poem

Since Plato, it is a unanimous comment that Parmenides recommends a path based on reason (thought) and strongly advises against those who, based on the senses or on the unreason, pretend that multiplicity and things exist.

Therefore, you will not find a single commentator to support your belief that Parmenides bases the way of Truth on the things of the world. Nor will you be able to support your belief in the text itself.

In general, the reason he speaks about is considered to be a primitive version of the principle of identity (from which it draws metaphysical consequences):

(6.1.)It needs to be that what can be thought and spoken of is; for it is possible for it to be, and it is not possible for, what is nothing to be. — Ibid

I hope I have convinced you that I do know something about Parmenides' poem.

I didn't mean to hurt your feelings. I was just pointing out that Heidegger was right that Parmenides found being thru presence-at-hand. This is because the goddess told him to consider the world and how change doesn't make sense. That's how I took the Heidegger quote but you seem to think he didn't understand Parmenides

I would like to save intelligent young people some time. You can forgo Heidegger, he was essentially something very strange (a philosophical mystic?). Can't say that I ever encountered this before him. If it's an aesthetic intellectualism you're after, by all means dig in and enjoy yourself, but I do not advise it for those who are trying to go somewhere with thought. Read Adorno or anyone else from the early Frankfurt School, but leave Heidegger to the mystics. (Also, Adorno has two books on Heidegger, one is a set of lectures).

This is because the goddess told him to consider the world and how change doesn't make sense. — Gregory

But he does this to discredit the "habit" of the senses and to deny that the things we see are real. How can Parmenides base his doctrine on things that are not?
The only truth is achieved with reason itself and is Being that is eternal, immobile, unique and "well rounded". The latter sounds shocking, but it is a consequence of the perfection attributed to circularity in the Greek world.

This radical doctrine of being will be supported by Zeno's aporias that oppose reason to the variable world of the senses in favor of the former. Plato will start from the same ontological assumption, although correcting it considerably with the plurality of Forms.

Heidegger ignores all this olympically. Among other things because he quotes in his own way the Greeks he is interested in and forgets those he does not consider "Greeks". Zeno is a case, to my knowledge.

.

Good points. The Eleatics were too abstract for Heidegger, and remember that his Catholic upbringing poisoned Aristotle and Plato for Heidegger, as they did for me. Nowadays, I like Heidegger

To claim that these activities, when conducted in a ready-to-hand manner (in a sense "unconsciously" or transparently), involve "knowledge" is misleading — Xtrix

You are not aware of all the movements that allow you to drive a car. But you know how to drive a car. And that goes for a lot of knowledge that you are not aware of.

That's as far as the common use of the word goes. Philosophy includes unconscious intuition as knowledge. In many schools of an intellectualist or phenomenological nature this intuition is even superior or primordial knowledge. I am thinking, among others, of Sartre and Merleau-Ponty, which I read recently.

Of course they give different names to that intuition, but the concept is the same: a pre-reflective knowledge.

The fact that Heidegger does not expressly call pre-ontological knowledge "knowledge" does not prevent him from talking about it.

I understand. But again, what on earth is "knowledge of Being"? — Xtrix

Put "understanding of Being" if you like it better. Or "un-concealing". You won't deny that these are Heideggerian terms.

If you prefer more confusing and poetic expressions, Heidegger says that the truth of Being is revealed in the clearing of Being, when man shepherds Being. But since I believe that this is like a provocation to the intelligence, but nothing that can be discussed, I think it is better to stick to what can be discussed.

f Heidegger makes any kind of value judgment, — Xtrix

Of course "degenerated" implies a value judgment, but it is not moral, as you suppose. You can make mistakes in the Mont Blanc path and never reach the top, but that does not mean you are a bad person.
The error that Heidegger points out with an abundance of value terms that I have already pointed out here several times does not concern morality. At least not directly, although in some cases it seems implicit. It is expressly a metaphysical or philosophical condemnation.
Therefore, philosophical error does not imply a total or moral condemnation. Not necessarily, at least. You should understand this because it seems to me that it is at the basis of your misunderstanding of Heidegger.

Parmenides thinks being, but is still guided in his interpretation of it by temporality (as anyone has to be, as Dasein -- who's meaning is temporality), in the sense of "presencing", which has dominated ever since. — Xtrix

Look at my previous comment to Gregory. Parmenides does not think in terms of temporality since Being is immobile and eternal. And time and space are pure illusions. See Zeno's contribution of Achilles and turtle. Or rather that of the arrow that never reaches its target... thinking rationally.

+++++++++++++++++++

You misinterpret the quote about the Olympics. It actually refers to the vindication of the Greek world which was very common in the Europe of his time and especially in Germany. Heidegger criticizes that recovery because it was superficial and did not reach the true heart of Greek thought. The paradigm of Hellenistic superficiality is the modern Olympics, but it encompasses almost the entire phenomenon in general

Heidegger does not think that the solution lies in simply repeating the thought of the Greeks. Like all attempts, including his own, they do not definitively resolve the question of being. But their approach to them is closer to the fundamental question of any thought, then he recommends that we must go back to take it as a starting point for a new beginning.

Why not start from the post-Greek metaphysics? Because it does not apply to what is fundamental to all thought: the understanding of Being. Of course, one can find in it partial successes. As you say, Heidegger has nothing against science or technology (this latter question is more confusing; let's leave it alone). As long as they keep to their limits, which are the issues of the ontic. Heidegger is radically against positivist thinking because he makes a fundamental mistake: he claims to apply science to ontological issues. This is the same mistake that Descartes makes.

That is why Descartes is a bad example of usefulness for the ontology of Being. Heidegger disqualifies him in every possible way. In Being and Time there is a good battery of these "destructive" criticisms

In the course of this history certain distinctive domains of Being
have come into view and have served as the primary guides for subsequent
problematics : the ego cogito of Descartes, the subject, the "I", reason,
spirit, person. But these all remain uninterrogated as to their Being and
its structure, in accordance with the thoroughgoing way in which the
question of Being has been neglected. (22/44)

With the 'cogito sum' Descartes had claimed that he was putting philo­
sophy on a new and firm footing. But what he left undetermined when he
began in this 'radical' way, was the kind of Being which belongs to the
res cogitans, or-more precisely-the meaning of the Being of the 'sum'. (...)The seemingly new beginning which Descartes proposed for philosophizing has revealed
itself as the implantation of a baleful prejudice, which has kept later
generations from making any thematic ontological analytic of the 'mind'
such as would take the question of Being as a clue and
would at the same time come to grips critically with the traditional
ancient ontology (24-25/45-46)

If, however, this is not possible, we must then demonstrate explicitly not only that Descartes' conception of the world is ontologically defective, but that his Interpretation and the foundations
on which it is based have led him to pass over both the phenomenon of the world and the Being of those entities within-the-world which are proximally ready-to-hand. (95/128)

I think that's enough of a sample.

Because while an interpretation may very well be perverted regarding it's interpretation of what the Greeks originally believed (and hence "wrong" as incorrect, inaccurate, etc), in and of itself it is just as "valid" to interpret Being as "God," — Xtrix

Greek thought is not wrong like that of metaphysics in general. But I doubt that Heidegger thought it was "valid" to interpret Being as God. Heidegger's theological position in his final stage is confusing enough to reach any convincing conclusions. His followers have found in it a poetic license or a theology. It may be one or the other. But I don't think there is a quote in Being and Time that supports the idea you expound. I'm almost certain of it. Nor later either, except in some marginal writing. Can you provide a quotation on this? It would be interesting to discuss this subject.

Heidegger is not against science or technology. He's not against God or substance, either. — Xtrix

In short, the difference between the correct ontology of the Greeks and the erroneous one of the later metaphysicists is well condensed in this quotation:

Because something ontical is made to underlie the ontological, the expression "substantia" functions sometimes with a signification which is ontological, sometimes with one which is ontical, but mostly with one which is hazily ontico-ontological. Behind this slight difference of signification, however, there lies hidden a failure to master the basic problem of Being. To treat this adequately, we must 'track down' the equivocations in the right way. (94/127)

Like Zeno, I think Heidegger started with the world and thru it's deficiency found Existence (a clearer word than Being). This was the path of Parmenides. The latter did not espouse thinking about existence, initially, apart from the world

Like Zeno, I think Heidegger started with the world — Gregory

If you say starter in a psychological sense you are right. Every knowledge begins in our experience.
In an epistemological sense it is not true. Some knowledge are founded on reason. This is what Parmenides and Zeno thought, at least. Zeno opposed mathematical rationality to the senses.

I've never read Heideggers lectures on Parmenides. Would Zeno's paradox demonstrate a concealment of being for him? The Eleatics didn't like space or time as concepts so I know he rejected that part of their philosophy

I found B&T quite difficult. — path

What is the purpose of philosophy? If the mission of philosophy is defined as service to human beings, then it seems reasonable to question the value of works which can not be accessed by most human beings, even most college educated human beings.

If the mission of philosophy is defined as being in service to the careers of philosophers, then it can be said that obscure fancy talk projects an image of authority which helps the philosopher justify his claim to expert status, and the salary he obtains from the suckers, I mean, the book buying tax paying public.

What is the purpose of philosophy? — Hippyhead

I don't think you can say that philosophy is in the service of people. Not in a direct way, at least.
Human activities have two kinds of usefulness for people who don't practice them.
One is direct. For example, medicine or technologies.
The other is not direct for those who do not practice it. This is the case with philosophy or the practice of a sport.
If philosophy has any usefulness it is for the one who practices it and only and in any case indirectly for the people who do not practice it.

The problem is that while many people learn to practice a sport more or less effectively, few people practice philosophy. People who have tried to devote themselves to it in a non-professional way often say that they cannot do it because it is difficult. Naturally, it is also difficult to run 100m in 10'', but you can manage to run regularly without so much effort. But the impression that many trainees get is that with philosophy you can't even begin.

The problem is that while many people learn to practice a sport more or less effectively, few people practice the philosophy. People who have tried to devote themselves to it in a non-professional way often say that they cannot do it because it is difficult. Naturally, it is also difficult to run 100m in 10'', but you can manage to run regularly without so much effort. But the impression that many trainees get is that with philosophy you can't even begin.

Of course, medicine is also a difficult subject. It requires a lot of effort, a lot of prior knowledge, a lot of intelligence and a lot of money (at least in our society). But the difficulty of philosophy, although it also requires some of these things, is of another nature. It is said that philosophy is difficult because it is obscure. What does this mean?

This means that when you open a book on philosophy, before the first paragraph you begin to feel that you do not understand anything.

This happens because even common words seem to have another meaning and sentences are often constructed with a grammar that is not normal. Not to mention the amount of new words that are not explained.

Of course that discourages anyone.

You can resort to philosophy dictionaries. But it happens that to define a word the dictionaries need four pages that are understood less than the original word.
You can also go to handbooks, which are a little more understandable. But also the manuals are sometimes lost in strange lucubrations. Besides, sooner or later you find out that what is written is a simplifying summary of the "true" doctrine of the master philosopher. And, at best, it serves to take the first step.

Maybe you are satisfied with this first step. In this case we can leave it here.

But you may want to go further (you are curious!) and sooner or later you will wonder why philosophy has to be so obscure? If you are interested we can continue.

I've never read Heideggers lectures on Parmenides. Would Zeno's paradox demonstrate a concealment of being for him? — Gregory

I haven't read it either. I have it on my desk, but it's a little heavy for me to read. I'm not interested in philology fiction and I'm saturated with Heidegger. But I used a search tool and I didn't find any mention of Zeno. I don't think he ever considered him. He's not the only Greek he despises. I don't think important thinkers like Democritus, Empedocles or the Pythagoreans deserved his attention either. Not to mention the Stoics who were like Romans. Puaff.

Zeno' idea (basically it was one idea, which btw didn't necessarily lead to the One I don't think) was so profound that I feel people usually don't get it. Many say it's just a spoof, and that's it's been solved. I thinks is solved in a sense by dividing numerical infinite by a mathematical formulation of finitude (the finite). Yes, this intuitively makes sense to me. Objects seem to be that, but sometimes I still point at an object (like my desk) and say "how is it possible that I can divide that endlessly!"

But you may want to go further (you are curious!) and sooner or later you will wonder why philosophy has to be so obscure? If you are interested we can continue. — David Mo

I see the obscurity as being a function of a couple things.

1) An inability to think the issue through to the bottom line, which can almost always be expressed in every day language.

2) A property of the philosophy business, where obscurity is used as a way to persuade funders that the writer is an expert, and thus merits funding.

3) A love of obscurity for itself. You know, that's just the writing style of some writers.

I think the only item that can be seriously discussed is the first one. Deciding whether the philosopher's obscurantism is a guru's ruse or a genuine yearning for darkness seems impossible to me. It would only be possible if we knew the person well enough. Yet much we could say would be presumption based on indications. That gives little room for anything more than malicious suspicion.

As for the first one: the defenders of obscure writers, such as Hegel, Heidegger or Lacan, answer that the obscurity is given by the complex and often unsolvable nature of the problems. People who abandon the study of these authors are either because they are prejudiced that all knowledge can be acquired without effort or because they have no capacity for abstraction. Seeing the level of sharpness of everyday thinking that manifests itself in youtubers, twitters (Include some President of a certain state) and trash TV, can one pretend that most people can understand Hegel? How many people are able to understand the theory of general relativity? So why do we pretend that they understand Kant?

Deciding whether the philosopher's obscurantism is a guru's ruse or a genuine yearning for darkness seems impossible to me. — David Mo

Yes, it wasn't my intention to evaluate a particular writer, but the field at large.

It's my sense that obscure philosophers are typically not engaged in a conscious deliberate business agenda, but are rather just swimming with the tide, doing what everyone else is doing, doing what they think their peers expect of them etc. That is, imho, not really doing philosophy.

That gives little room for anything more than malicious suspicion. — David Mo

I plead guilty to exaggerated attention seeking rhetoric which sometimes falls in to the malicious suspicion trap. I sincerely believe the points to be valid and useful, but the packaging they come in could sometimes use an upgrade.

As for the first one: the defenders of obscure writers, such as Hegel, Heidegger or Lacan, answer that the obscurity is given by the complex and often unsolvable nature of the problems. — David Mo

I would counter that many things are complicated on the surface, but if one digs deep enough the bottom line is usually pretty straightforward and can be expressed in every day language. At the least, that's the destination I strive for, not claiming I always get there. Partly this is just my blue collar aesthetic, but also I sincerely believe the purpose of philosophy is to serve human beings, and if only a relative handful people know what we're talking about, we aren't serving very well.

It's my sense — Hippyhead

I assume that you are not providing a reasoning or evidence, but a feeling. I can share that feeling more or less, but it's not a basis on which we can argue.

I would counter that many things are complicated on the surface, but if one digs deep enough the bottom line is usually pretty straightforward and can be expressed in every day language. — Hippyhead

And many others become more and more complicated when we go deeper into them. For example: I intuitively understand Rutherford's atomic model, but when we go deeper into quantum mechanics I read more and understand less. Is it Niels Bohr's fault or the complexity of the theories about the atom?

Surely you and I would find some philosophical theory that can be simplified without losing depth - I'm not quite sure, but it can happen. It's another thing if this is the case with all of them.

but also I sincerely believe the purpose of philosophy is to serve human beings — Hippyhead

I wouldn't say the purpose, but I would say that philosophy can support people, including ordinary people. For that I don't think they need to read Hegel's Phenomenology of the Spirit. Now, making philosophy popular is as difficult as making people enjoy Kandinsky's paintings. (I don't even like them!)

Parmenides thinks being, but is still guided in his interpretation of it by temporality (as anyone has to be, as Dasein -- who's meaning is temporality), in the sense of "presencing", which has dominated ever since.
— Xtrix

Look at my previous comment to Gregory. Parmenides does not think in terms of temporality since Being is immobile and eternal. — David Mo

He does indeed interpret being in temporal terms -- not in the common understanding of "time," but in "presencing" (as Heidegger mentions) in terms of the present-at-hand, he certainly does. Heidegger believes this is the ontological structure of Dasein, who asks the question of being. It's not a criticism of Parmenides, who was a human being.

"Temporality" (in Heidegger) does not equate with "becoming" or have anything to do with "mobility."

You misinterpret the quote about the Olympics. — David Mo

No, you're misinterpreting it. Again:

"Since the essence of man, for the Greeks, is not determined as subject, a knowledge of the historical beginning of the Occident is difficult and unsettling for modern "thought," assuming that modern "lived experience" is not simply interpreted back into the Greek world, as if modern man enjoyed a relation of personal intimacy with Hellenism for the simple reason that he organizes "Olympic games" periodically in the main cities of the planet. For here only the facade of the borrowed word is Greek. This is not in any way meant to be derogatory toward the Olympics themselves; it is only censorious of the mistaken opinion that they bear any relation to the Greek essence."

He is using the Olympics as an example only, to demonstrate our distance from the Greeks (hence why "modern 'thought'" finds it difficult to comprehend the Greek's notion of the essence of man -- as it was not "determined as subject.").

I don't see anything controversial or very hard to understand about the above passage.

Heidegger does not think that the solution lies in simply repeating the thought of the Greeks. Like all attempts, including his own, they do not definitively resolve the question of being. But their approach to them is closer to the fundamental question of any thought, then he recommends that we must go back to take it as a starting point for a new beginning. — David Mo

Approach to "them"? I'm not sure about what that refers to -- the problems of philosophy generally?

Regardless, I'm glad you agree. We need to go back to the beginning in order to find new horizons.

Because while an interpretation may very well be perverted regarding it's interpretation of what the Greeks originally believed (and hence "wrong" as incorrect, inaccurate, etc), in and of itself it is just as "valid" to interpret Being as "God,"
— Xtrix

Greek thought is not wrong like that of metaphysics in general. But I doubt that Heidegger thought it was "valid" to interpret Being as God. Heidegger's theological position in his final stage is confusing enough to reach any convincing conclusions. His followers have found in it a poetic license or a theology. It may be one or the other. But I don't think there is a quote in Being and Time that supports the idea you expound. I'm almost certain of it. Nor later either, except in some marginal writing. Can you provide a quotation on this? It would be interesting to discuss this subject. — David Mo

Perhaps "valid" is the wrong word. It depends of course on what we mean by "God," which as you know is a complicated history. I don't think that Spinoza's God or Anselm's God would "bother" him much. But who knows -- the only point is that this is one possible interpretation, and one word for basically the same thing (using the philosopher's notion, not an invisible sky-father) as "being," as an infinite entity of some kind.

Heidegger is not against science or technology. He's not against God or substance, either.
— Xtrix

In short, the difference between the correct ontology of the Greeks and the erroneous one of the later metaphysicists is well condensed in this quotation:

Because something ontical is made to underlie the ontological, the expression "substantia" functions sometimes with a signification which is ontological, sometimes with one which is ontical, but mostly with one which is hazily ontico-ontological. Behind this slight difference of signification, however, there lies hidden a failure to master the basic problem of Being. To treat this adequately, we must 'track down' the equivocations in the right way. (94/127) — David Mo

You're simply misreading it. But I feel like we're going in circles, and it's boring. Interpret it your way; I remain unconvinced.

He does indeed interpret being in temporal terms -- not in the common understanding of "time," but in "presencing" (as Heidegger mentions) in terms of the present-at-hand — Xtrix

Can you define what this "presence-at-hand" is and what it has to do with time and Parmenides?

He does indeed interpret being in temporal terms -- not in the common understanding of "time," but in "presencing" (as Heidegger mentions) in terms of the present-at-hand
— Xtrix
Can you define what this "presence-at-hand" is and what it has to do with time and Parmenides? — David Mo

Presence-at-hand (Vorhandenheit) means the theoretical attitude we take when viewing the world, detached from everyday involvement and engagement. It's the basis for science but also for (Western) philosophy -- it emphasizes things as they are present before for us, as something to analyze, as a problem, etc. Normally this occurs when a piece of equipment (e.g., a hammer) breaks down -- it stops becoming something we use transparently, and now becomes an object with properties that we must fix. Ditto a car, bicycle, computer, etc.

Shamefully, due to time constraints, I'll quote Wikipedia, as in this case they're pretty accurate:

In Being and Time (1927; transl. 1962), Martin Heidegger argues that the concept of time prevalent in all Western thought has largely remained unchanged since the definition offered by Aristotle in the Physics. Heidegger says, "Aristotle's essay on time is the first detailed Interpretation of this phenomenon [time] which has come down to us. Every subsequent account of time, including Henri Bergson's, has been essentially determined by it."[2] Aristotle defined time as "the number of movement in respect of before and after".[3] By defining time in this way Aristotle privileges what is present-at-hand, namely the "presence" of time. Heidegger argues in response that "entities are grasped in their Being as 'presence'; this means that they are understood with regard to a definite mode of time – the 'Present'".[2] Central to Heidegger's own philosophical project is the attempt to gain a more authentic understanding of time. Heidegger considers time to be the unity of three ecstases: the past, the present, and the future. —

Heidegger sees Parmenides as already conducting his thinking on this background of the present-at-hand.

I would like to save intelligent young people some time. You can forgo Heidegger, he was essentially something very strange (a philosophical mystic?). — JerseyFlight

Says many other people who haven't read a word of Heidegger. I'll save intelligent people more time: before forming an opinion about a thinker, best to read him carefully. Otherwise, best not to comment.

From what ive learned about Heidegger, he doesn't seem to believe in or put much respect towards the Law of the Excluded Middle. The style he writes even speaks of this. This alleged law seems to come to us from knowledge of the world. If I said someone had "unbridled restraint", that's almost a violation of the LEM. Internal things can be themselves and their opposites at the same time. Maybe not so with the external world. Quantum physics on this question seems, to me, ambiguous. Maybe someday we will make something that is both entirely white and entirely black. Who is to say for sure? Hippies in the 60's said they saw round triangles on LSD