No, but I don’t see “it” as separate from change either. I don’t really see it as anything. Yet there are all kinds of things in the world— obviously. Beings all over the place. When asking about the beingness of beings, I think all we can say is that there have been many interpretations, and perhaps ask about the human beings doing the interpreting. — Xtrix
"What is being" is one question among several of philosophical concern. Add "what is knowledge?", "What is beauty?", "What am I?"... and a few others. Each has at one time or another been claimed to be the prime, defining question in philosophy. — Banno
"What is being" is one question among several of philosophical concern. Add "what is knowledge?", "What is beauty?", "What am I?"... and a few others. Each has at one time or another been claimed to be the prime, defining question in philosophy. My favourite amongst these is "What ought I do?". — Banno
Few philosophers restrict themselves to one of these questions, after all. — Banno
But the question of being is the first in rank — as the broadest, deepest, and most originary. Here I agree with Heidegger. That’s not to say it is the only question, or that it’s the first one we ask in philosophy or in life. — Xtrix
It seems that beingness should be though of as a noun. — Janus
Can you think without 'language'? As in this worded stuff I'm using here? — I like sushi
Yet who’s noticing that— and how? What is it that recognizes thought as thought? — Xtrix
Even in the questions you posed, there’s the “is”. — Xtrix
It's this very move that is contended: treating existence as a state. As if there were things that do not exist, waiting to change their condition into one of existence. That is, treating existence as a first order predicate. — Banno
How can this be contended? '-ness' forms a noun from an adjective, expressing a state or condition. — Banno
Clarity is not always the aim; sometimes we can expand our more or less fuzzy 'feels' or intuitions, which themselves can constitute kinds of understanding; understandings which may be expressed more aptly in metaphor than in proposition. — Janus
they place one thing at the centre of philosophical discourse before the discourse begins — Banno
Better to look at what philosophy is in terms of it's method - critical analysis that seeks clarification - than in terms of this or that content. — Banno
My favourite amongst these is "What ought I do?". — Banno
Furthermore, in each case Dasein is mine to be in one way or another. Dasein has always made some sort of decision as to the way in which it is in each case mine. That entity which in its Being has this very Being as an issue, comports itself towards its Being as it ownmost possibility. In each case, Dasein is its possibility, and it ‘has’ this possibility, but not just as a property that something present-at-hand would. And because Dasein is in each case essentially its own possibility, it can, in its very Being, choose itself and win itself; it can also lose itself and never win itself; or it can only ‘seem’ to do so. But only in so far as it is essentially something which can be authentic — that, something of its own — can it have lost itself and not yet won itself. — H 42-43, M&R
We do not know what Being means. But even if we ask, ‘What is “Being”?’, we keep within an understanding of the ‘is’, though we are unable to fix conceptually what that ‘is’ signifies. We do not even know the horizon in terms of which that meaning is to be grasped and fixed. But this vague understanding of the meaning of Being is still a fact.
However much this understanding of Being (an understanding which is already available to us) may fluctuate and grow dim, and border on mere acquaintance with a word, its very indefiniteness is a positive phenomenon which needs to be clarified. An investigation of the meaning of Being cannot be expected to give this clarification at the outset. If we are to obtain the clue we need for Interpreting this average understanding of Being, we must first develop the concept of Being. — H 5-6, M&R
we can at least try to put parts of this conversation into a first-order predicate format, — Banno
But not by saying something like "There is something that is an apple and is imaginary", surely. — Srap Tasmaner
One would presumably take care to remain inside the intensional scope, sure; — Banno
If on the other hand we are talking about Mordor and surrounds, — Banno
If on the other hand we are talking about Mordor and surrounds, then "Frodo" does indeed refer, — Banno
Yet who’s noticing that— and how? What is it that recognizes thought as thought?
— Xtrix
I assume your answer is 'being'. — I like sushi
Even so, if this is your view then what exactly do you mean by 'being'? — I like sushi
I'm with Banno in regards to words. If Heidegger cannot make clear what 'dasein' means then the reader should have serious concerns about everything that follows. — I like sushi
Alarm bells should ring there for anyone looking critically at his work. — I like sushi
Earlier I returned the discussion to the OP: The OP asks the question "why is there something?"
Does the theory of being you are presenting answer this question? — Banno
How can this be contended? '-ness' forms a noun from an adjective, expressing a state or condition. — Banno
It simply no longer occurs to us that everything that we have all known for so long, and all too well, could be otherwise-- that these grammatical forms have not dissected and regulated language as such since eternity like an absolute, that instead, they grew out of a very definite interpretation of the Greek and Latin languages.
We also find the same relations in our word "Being" (das Sein). This substantive derives from the infinitive "to be" (sein), which belongs with the forms "you are," "he is," "we were," you have been." "Being" as a substantive came from the verb. We thus call the word "Being" a "verbal substantive." Once we have cited this grammatical form, the linguistic characterization of the word "Being" is complete. We are talking here at length about well-known and self-evident things. But let us speak better and more carefully: these linguistic, grammatical distinctions are worn out and common· place; they are by no means "self-evident." So we must turn an eye to the grammatical forms in question (verb, substantive, substantivization of the verb, infinitive, participle).
Above all we must consider the fact that the definitive differentiation the fundamental forms of words (noun and verb) in Greek form of onoma and rhema was worked out and first established in the most immediate and intimate connection with the conception and interpretation of Being that has been definitive for the entire West. This inner bond between these two happenings is accessible to us unimpaired and is carried out in full clarity in Plato's Sophist. The terms onoma and rhema were already known before Plato, of course. But at that time, and still in Plato, they were understood as terms denoting the use of words as a whole. Onoma means the linguistic name as distinguished from the named person or thing, and it also means the speaking of a word, which was conceived grammatically as rhema. And rhema in tum means the spoken word, speech; the rhetor is the speaker, the orator, who uses not only verbs but also onomata in the narrower meaning of substantive.
[...]
Thus the two terms onoma and rhema, which at first indicated all speaking, narrowed their meaning and became terms for the two main classes of words.
It's this very move that is contended: treating existence as a state. As if there were things that do not exist, waiting to change their condition into one of existence. That is, treating existence as a first order predicate. — Banno
it seems a rookie mistake for Heidegger to have made. I guess his attention was elsewhere. — Banno
Descartes not only evades the ontological question of substantiality altogether; he also emphasizes explicitly that substance as such-that is to say, its substantiality-is in and for itself inaccessible from the outset. 'Being' itself does not 'affect' us, and therefore cannot be perceived. 'Being is not a Real predicate,' says Kant, who is merely repeating Descartes' principle. Thus the possibility of a pure problematic of Being gets renounced in principle, and a way is sought for arriving at those definite characteristics of substance which we have designated above.
The 'scandal of philosophy' is not that this proof has yet to be given, but that such proofs are expected and attempted again and again. Such expectations, aims, and demands arise from an ontologically inadequate way of starting with something of such a character that independently of it and 'outside' of it a 'world' is to be proved as present-at-hand. It is not that the proofs are inadequate, but that the kind of Being of the entity which does the proving and makes requests for proofs has not been made definite enough. This is why a demonstration that two things which are present-at-hand are necessarily present-at-hand together, can give rise to the illusion that something has been proved, or even can be proved, about Dasein as Being-in-the-world. If Dasein is understood correctly, it defies such proofs, because, in its Being, it already is what subsequent proofs deem necessary to demonstrate for it.
Try this: one might argue that being, "is" and so on are of some import, but the whole purpose of philosophy is to answer the great question of what a man is to do with his life (sic.). Hence, such weeny whiny arguments are not for real men, but an indication of nerdish cowardice. — Banno
Better to look at what philosophy is in terms of it's method - critical analysis that seeks clarification - than in terms of this or that content. — Banno
Not for nothing, but Timothy Williamson, in his role as defender of the project of philosophy as a theoretical science, has relentlessly attacked your claim that philosophy is just conceptual clarification. — Srap Tasmaner
I would say the "method" of philosophy is really phenomenology — Xtrix
go on and explain why he appears to nevertheless use existence as a first order predicate: Beingness. — Banno
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