What? Wouldn't such an theory have to presuppose a logic, a grammar in which it might be set out? — Banno
To the extent I've warmed to phenomenology, I've been fascinated by various works of (those who come to mind) E. Levinas, M. Merleau-Ponty, J-L. Marion, F. Varela, D. Abrams, D. Dennett ("heterophenomenology") & T. Metzinger ("synthetic phenomenology").Phenomenology? Maybe it just doesn't do it for you. — Janus
No, but Groundless Grounds has been on my Amazon "List" for quite a while now. One regret, going back nearly forty years, is that I had read far too much of obscurant H before I studied gnomic W (which, nonetheless, affected me like "cult deprogramming"); had I engaged the latter first I would have been spared reading the former beyond "the introduction" of SuZ (to me H's most "lucid" work). Nonetheless, I still engage his oracular writing/rantings because H's influence is so pervasive and close reading of so many of "The Continentals" requires, for better or worse, some fluency with H's concerns.Have you looked at Braver's account of the commonalities between the early Heidegger and the late Wittgenstein?
In the beginning there is existence. Existence is not a property of anything, it simply is, eternally. It is what is. Existence has properties. — EnPassant
Shout out to Xtrix for starting this expansive thread. Your detailed consideration of being gives me much to think about in the coming days.
Looks like I'll be paying additional visits to that neologizing esoteric, the ever fearsome Heidegger. — ucarr
Asking "what is being?" is asking "How do we use the word 'being'?";
— Banno
Better yet , from a Heideggerian perspective , asking ‘what is being’ is asking ‘what is the condition of possibility of ‘use’? — Joshs
In "What is Metaphysics" he says it's what we experience when we contemplate the void. I guess it's a matter of which "Being" we're talking about. — frank
I think the title is not very clear: "Being" with a capital raises questioning and ambiguity. E.g. "What does 'being' mean?" would be something more concrete and could be easier discussed. So, I will stick to your first clear-cut (to me) question: — Alkis Piskas
I would describe "is-ness" as apparency of existence. It refers to something that apparently exists as true or fact. It persists in time and we agree upon that it exists, i.e. it is real for us. — Alkis Piskas
Two examples:
1) When I say "My name is Alkis", I state that the name "Alkis" exists and this is how I am called. Usually such a statement is not disputed and we expect that the other person agrees! :smile:
2) If I say "This tree is big", I state that 1) a tree exists somewhere near and that 2) I consider a fact (true) that it is big. However, either of these two premises can be disputed: one may disagree that it is a "tree" (he would call it a "plant") and/or that it is "big" (he may found it "medium-size" or even "small"). — Alkis Piskas
Whatever else it may be, you are going to get stuck on the word "is" and try to find some "essence" or a common attribute common to the word which may not (dare I say it?) exist. "Is" can only make sense in relation to something else. So what is "is-ness" cannot be answered unless it's connected with something else. — Manuel
But you aren't going to find something common to "is" by saying that a table is or a river is. — Manuel
I agree, traditional pragmatism can help for a lot of these issues. — Manuel
Why the Heideggerian preoccupation with time? — Banno
Just as the Nothing nothings, Being, being Being, itself beings. — Ciceronianus
"Being" means "being labeled". — Heiko
Being doesn't exist - cars, chairs and people exist. — Banno
Where he is original, talking of being as temporal, his ideas become confused. — Banno
If he is saying no more than that things come into existence and cease to exist, then we would all agree, and puzzle over why he phrased something so simple in such a constipated fashion. — Banno
If the goal of philosophy is conceptual clarification — Banno
Some folk find him enlightening, I find him muddled. — Banno
I appreciate that his ideas are difficult to grasp, but I think the muddle is in your reading rather than in his ideas.
— Joshs
I'll second that. — Janus
I think it's spectacularly silly to study or treat being as if it is a thing — Ciceronianus
And we can be pretty specific here: what more is there to the analysis of being in Heidegger. than is found in the analysis of existence from Frege on down? — Banno
[thinking]...it defines the human being (rational animal, animal with reason/language) as a subject that thinks and the world (nature) as its object. — Xtrix
Tables and rivers are beings. In that respect, they do indeed share a commonality: being. — Xtrix
To associate Quine with pragmatism and oppose this to Heidegger somehow seems awfully strange to me. Heidegger is far more "pragmatic" than Quine in any sense of the word. — Xtrix
But it remains very unclear just what is being asserted about being. — Banno
At the least, give us a reason to think it worth our time to read the bloody text. — Banno
The pretence is that somehow being - treated apparently as a thing - is structured by time.
Explain that. — Banno
Heidegger does not treat being as a thing; but there is no point trying to explain that to someone who has not read his work.
— Janus
But that is what is done in the OP:
The "is" in this sentence is apparently referring to being, but being is presupposed with when using the "is." So it's almost like asking "What is 'is-ness'?"
— Xtrix
...so at the least you might critique the OP for misrepresenting Heidegger. — Banno
Hmmm. Indeed. Logic doesn't seem to go with phenomenology of your sort.
— Banno
Haven’t you thought about the origins of logic? — Joshs
Wittgenstein said you could only show. Heidegger tried to tell — Joshs
One kind of "thinking", whatever this may be, is to try and find what's the nature of the world, mind independently. The best approach we have for that are theories as postulated by the sciences, as (I believe remembering) you say. — Manuel
Tables and rivers are beings. In that respect, they do indeed share a commonality: being.
— Xtrix
Do ghosts have being? Does Winston Smith have being? What about that red colour I caught off the able, does that have being? — Manuel
Sometimes Quine is lumped in with the pragmatists, I'm not sure why. — Manuel
Others speak with greater clarity, and with less baggage. — Banno
Remember similar things get said about Hegel, Spinoza, Kant, Aquinas, — Xtrix
Is Heidegger amongst these? The evidence points that way. — Banno
There's that germ of something not unlike Wittgenstein's showing in aletheia - unconcealment. But on top of that is so much apparent bullshit - using the word in it's technical sense - authenticity, angst, death... and anti-semitism. — Banno
Yes indeed. How could it be otherwise? Unless, of course, we're taking "being" to mean something more restricted, like "empirically verified" or "physical" or something to that effect. But that's not how I'm using it. Any particular being has being. — Xtrix
The "is" in the sentence "What is being" is apparently referring to something,
— Xtrix — Banno
Heidegger says it is the structure of temporality.
— Joshs
I would also take issue with "structured" by time.
— Xtrix
Well... have at it. Sort this out. I'll get the beers in. — Banno
As I mentioned in the OP, the claim is that being gets interpreted, from the Greeks on, as presence.
— Xtrix
So what? That is, what does this mean, if not that things commence, endure and pass? — Banno
there are authors who rejoice in their obscurity, who do not intend to be understood by their readers, but to balkanise intellectual space for their own benefit. Is Heidegger amongst these? The evidence points that way. — Banno
What evidence?
— Xtrix
Hmmm. His biography. The common wisdom was that the life of a philosopher is of no account in evaluating his ideas. Should that view be continued when the dasein leads to the anti-dasein of the Black Notebooks? — Banno
Nowhere am I saying being is *a* being/object.
— Xtrix
The "is" in the sentence "What is being" is apparently referring to something,
— Xtrix
...? — Banno
The "is" in the sentence "What is being" is apparently referring to something, "being." But the "is" itself presupposes being. Nowhere am I saying being is *a* being/object. In this case I'm discussing the difficulty of even asking the question. — Xtrix
It's too broad. I'm far from being a prescriptivist with language use, but if the word is used that amply, its meaning can lead to mistakes. — Manuel
On the basis of the Greeks' initial contributions towards an Interpretation of Being, a dogma has been developed which not only declares the question about the meaning of Being to be superfluous, but sanctions its complete neglect. It is said that 'Being' is the most universal and the emptiest of concepts. As such it resists every attempt at definition. Nor does this most universal and hence indefinable concept require any definition, for everyone uses it constantly and already understands what he means by it. In this way, that which the ancient philosophers found continually disturbing as something obscure and hidden has taken on a clarity and self-evidence such that if anyone continues to ask about it he is charged with an error of method.
The apple has no red being, we add that on to the apple. — Manuel
Unless you can say why it's a wrong way to think about colour experience. — Manuel
"Conclusion. Granted that the question of being-as-such is the overarching question of metaphysics, the question of the nothing proves to be one that encompasses the whole of metaphysics. The question of the nothing also pervades the whole of metaphysics insofar as it forces us to confront the problem of the origin of negation – that is, to finally decide whether the domination of metaphysics by “logic” is legitimate. Putting the questioner in question. The nothing ‘’gives” being." — frank
"Red" isn't a thing? Of course it is. A thing is a being. Red, concepts, numbers, music, feelings, dirt, justice, words, Proust, and Boston are all beings. — Xtrix
I don't think it's necessarily "wrong" to separate the property "red" from the apple, but then we're off into secondary and primary qualities. Locke wasn't an idiot -- there's plenty of merit to this view. All I'm saying is that the term "being" certainly applies to all of this. — Xtrix
The "as" structure is... seeing that x is p is seeing x as p, an intent. That intent is embedded in way of life, it's only understandable as a whole.
That gets me to about your fourth paragraph, and then it turns into mud. — Banno
Now what's the difference between an invisible, incorporeal, floating dragon who spits heatless fire and no dragon at all? — Carl Sagan (The Demon-Haunted World)
A bit of recursion - what it is to me for that thing to be a pencil depends not only on my previous experience of pencils but what I do with the pencil now.This is where it gets very tricky... — Joshs
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