This will sound evasive — Xtrix

No, it's A good answer. I'd have been disappointed in anything else. @Srap Tasmaner was looking for something more in the analytic tradition, I'm happy to point out that neither tradition has an answer for him - and that's as it should be.

...constant presence... — Xtrix

So now we have three ways of talking about existence: this; subject of a predicate; and and something like member of the domain of discourse.

My previously expressed qualm about "presence" is that it apparently preferences time over space - my prejudices, from my previous life as a student of physics, lead me to think that as far as possible we ought treat them in much the same way. So the being of this armchair extends back to when to was constructed, and forward to when it is destroyed. But also sideways to the bookcase and downwards to the floor.

Is there a preference for temporality, or is that a misunderstanding on my part? And if so, why?

My next criticism would be that presence reduces to being a member of a domain of discourse. That woudl need some filling out, but basically it is saying that the things we talk about ar in a sense given - a familiar notion for you, I suppose. But if I am right, nothing is added to the analysis of being by including presence.

Sorry, I thought both passages were clear enough.

The word that jumped out at me in the first passage was "decision". I remember reading this sort of thing as a young man and deciding immediately, as young men do, that I was an existentialist. This sense that your very existence is something you have to decide what to do with, and to understand what it means to have the kind of existence that needs to make those kinds of decisions -- that was thrilling stuff. A whole generation read Heidegger as helping them frame exactly the question "How should I live?" and take some steps towards answering it. The translation I'm quoting is by an existentialist theologian.

I'm not sure there's much to say about the second bit. As I just noted above, you can see the hermeneutic approach here: why our understanding is muddled is also interesting and part of what needs explaining.

Does that help at all?

An interesting passage:

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.

(p. 205)

I think many on this forum are largely operating within this purview as well -- which is to say, one oriented towards subjects representing objects, and a picture of the human being as an evolved animal with reason, or a mind. Zoon echon logon holds true to this day. — Xtrix

Another example of the sort of reply I criticised above. Quoting the sacred texts without interpretation is as good as useless to we heathens.

What proof (my bolding)?

Spoken with a certain amount of frustration.

Srap Tasmaner was looking for something more in the analytic tradition — Banno

?

What proof — Banno

I don't have a text on front of me, but from context I thought he was talking about 'proof of the external world', that sort of thing.

And his response is almost exactly Wittgenstein's.

But here... — Xtrix

...and the rest is special pleading.

The point was not to present an alternative but to critique the very idea of a core subject for philosophy.

I've in mnd my own sacred texts, in which it is shown that what counts as a simple ,as the core of a given language game, depends on that language game; and add that Philosophy is more than one game. Hence, what counts as a core depends on what one is doing.

t — Joshs

Is that a lost "not"?

Is that a lost "not"? — Banno

Yes, thank you for finding it. Hard to type and hike at the same time.

A whole generation read Heidegger... — Srap Tasmaner

My generation read Sartre to the same a ends. I have admitted some sympathy for that view.

Philosophy is more than one game. Hence, what counts as a core depends on what one is doing. — Banno

I don’t see a contradiction here with either Wittgenstein or Heidegger. They are both talking about ‘doingness’ and ‘use’ in general, as you are.

Here:

if the analytic approach — Frege, Russell, Quine — yields nothing, are we just done? Is there nothing to do unless it’s done this way? — Srap Tasmaner

Apparently yielding nothing is something @Xtrix and I have in common.

A quick point and my lunch break is done.

The best scientific theory tells you not just that earth in fact goes around the sun, but why it looks like the sun goes around the earth. That one might be straightforward, but not every case is.

Bah. Replies are arriving faster than I can write.

Sure, they are both talking about use. But @Xtrix seems to want to give a primacy to certain aspects that I find unacceptable - and my reply was directed at his account, not yours, which has a closer feel to WIti.

I now have three interrogators - you, Xtrix, and Srap; there's a need to keep the threads of each conversation clear. You and Xtrix are not in complete agreement. A critique of what he says is not a critique of what you say.

Nuh, you lost me entirely. Not sure what the relevance is. Might be my blood sugar - I'm going to have breakfast.

Cheers.

Is there a preference for temporality, or is that a misunderstanding on my part? And if so, why? — Banno

I think of neuro-cognitive models of the development of concepts of spatial relations which reveal perceived space as a product of a progressive process of coordinated activities between my body and objects in my environment. These activities are sensory-motor processes taking place over time , out of which we form the idealized abstractions of geometric space.
We are reminded of the temporal , embodied and subjective basis of space in studying the effects of brains injuries and pathologies like Schizophrenia, where fundamental aspects of spatial
concepts fragment.

Yeah, we work out what space is by moving around in it.

But is there a preference for temporality, or is that a misunderstanding on my part? And if so, why?

Is there a preference for temporality, or is that a misunderstanding on my part? And if so, why? — Banno

I’m not sure how to answer this. If we equate space with ‘use’ as contextual performance and interaction we can clearly see the fundamentally temporal nature of a language game , given that it rests on change, that a move ina game is itself a transformation.

So the being of this armchair extends back to when to was constructed, and forward to when it is destroyed. But also sideways to the bookcase and downwards to the floor. — Banno

Whether you want to view the origin of spatial localization , and space itself , in empirical or ideal terms, it is determinable as having an essence independent of time. But is this still the case if we construe the spatial relation between myself , the bookcase and the floor ( ‘sideways’ and ‘downwards’) as contextually useful and contingent doings? What then is left of what would be required to retain a concept of space as anything outside of contingent sense? Perhaps we could talk instead about space as space or horizon of possibilities.

One thing I really like is Heidegger's hermeneutic approach: you start from the asking of whatever question, and you don't skip right over how the question is asked, and why, and by whom, and what they think they're up to, but start there, with that vague understanding. And it's fascinating to see how he treats this not just as methodology but as part of the essential structure of the world: we ask vague questions about things we kinda already understand because some of what we understand or could understand is hidden, and that's part of what we investigate too. — Srap Tasmaner

Exactly, and with the emphasis on "hidden." I think the aim of phenomenology, in Heidegger's hands, is aimed precisely at that: what's hidden, what's concealed. There's much in life that we take for granted, after all.

He's aware of Kant's criticism - so go on and explain why he appears to nevertheless use existence as a first order predicate: Beingness. — Banno

But remember Heidegger is not doing mathematical logic, and so far as I know doesn't use "being-ness" - at least not in B/T or Intro to Metaphysics. I've invoked that term here, as I have "is-ness," but only in an attempt to understand. Heidegger isn't treating being as a predicate.

...constant presence...
— Xtrix
So now we have three ways of talking about existence: this; subject of a predicate; and something like member of the domain of discourse. — Banno

Well there are many more ways I'm sure, but the thesis is that underlying these various Western interpretations is a fundamentally Greek one: constant presence, ousia. That's the claim.

My previously expressed qualm about "presence" is that it apparently preferences time over space - my prejudices, from my previous life as a student of physics, lead me to think that as far as possible we ought treat them in much the same way. So the being of this armchair extends back to when to was constructed, and forward to when it is destroyed. But also sideways to the bookcase and downwards to the floor. — Banno

I agree with you that it should be treated the same way, from the purview of physics. But let's put that aside for a minute and just see if there's any truth in the claim itself (made above, about presence). I think there is, especially if we do a historical and "hermeneutical" analysis of Greek texts (in which this interpretation is said to originate).

If we do agree that there is truth to this claim, you then rightly anticipate the next question: what do we mean by "time"? But again, before we get into that I want to make sure we're on the same page, because it's a very big claim to make indeed.

Is there a preference for temporality, or is that a misunderstanding on my part? And if so, why? — Banno

Well here I have to nitpick a little bit, because in Heidegger "temporality" will not mean "time" exactly. But I think you mean time in the sense of physics, so in that case no, time isn't preferred. Temporality is preferred -- and we can get into that afterwards, it takes up a lot of pages in Heidegger as you know ("time" is right in the title, after all).

My next criticism would be that presence reduces to being a member of a domain of discourse. That woudl need some filling out, but basically it is saying that the things we talk about ar in a sense given - a familiar notion for you, I suppose. But if I am right, nothing is added to the analysis of being by including presence. — Banno

I'm not sure how to proceed here, because I'm not sure what "member of a domain of discourse" really means frankly. But just to be clear what the claim is: I'm not saying being is presence, I'm saying being was interpreted as essentially meaning that which is constant, stable, unchanging -- that which arises and is there before us, "present" before us. That is to say: Ousia -- this often gets translated as "substance" but it has connection to Plato's "idea."



You're right -- my fault. It's funny, because I was about to put what he was referring to in brackets, but had to run out. The "proof" he's referring to is the existence of the outside world. Here's the prior paragraph:

Kant presupposes both the distinction between the 'in me' and the 'outside of me', and also the connection between these; factically he is correct in doing so, but he is incorrect from the standpoint of the tendency of his proof. It has not been demonstrated that the sort of thing which gets established about the Being-present-at-hand-together of the changing and the permanent when one takes time as one's clue, will also apply to the connection between the 'in me' and the 'outside of me'. But if one were to see the whole distinction between the 'inside' and the 'outside' and the whole connection between them which Kant's proof presupposes, and if one were to have an ontological conception of what has been presupposed in this presupposition, then the possibility of holding that a proof of the 'Dasein of Things outside of me' is a necessary one which has yet to be given would collapse.

I don't want to be "quoting scripture" either. I posted this because I came across it when reading something else in the text, and thought it pertinent. I don't consider citing Heidegger to be settling anything -- but he does word things well on occasion.

Can't see that this helps, if the point is to defend a misuse of language. — Banno

I'd say you're thinking too much in terms of propositions if you think the point is about defending anything.

But remember, the question isn't "What kind of word is 'being'"? The question is what is "it"? What is the meaning of being? — Xtrix

When we ask 'what is being?' we are asking what being is for us, no? Surely the usages of the word and its relatives should give us some clues, Of course we can also extrapolate upon those usages and try to examine what it is to be a human, which is the work of phenomenology, so I agree that looking at language use alone is not enough.

I get that you don't respect Heidegger; it seems his work doesn't speak to you. That's alright, it's reasonable to expect that any philosopher will not appeal to everyone.

Give me a paper to read. — Banno

Past the Linguistic Turn?

I think this may have been his inaugural address on becoming Wykeham Professor of Logic.

I haven't read Grice, is his work worth exploring? — Janus

Grice fits in this little sub-discussion because he was unwilling to renounce his theoretical ambitions, so you get a very different version of some of what you find in the late Wittgenstein, some things that look enough like full-fledged theories in fact that they’ve been taken up variously in linguistics.

I get that you don't respect Heidegger — Janus

Respect? If I had to use that word I would say actively don't respect ANY philosopher!

Ideas are not for respecting though. They are for slapping sense into if possible.

Ideas are not for respecting though. They are for slapping sense into if possible. — I like sushi

When it comes to ideas you wouldn't be thinking about "slapping sense into them" if you respected them.

:ok: cheers

When it comes to ideas you wouldn't be thinking about "slapping sense into them" if you respected them. — Janus

I just said I don't 'respect' them though.

Frodo walked into Mordor. "Frodo walked into Mordor" is true. — Banno

You don't agree that in an extensional, referentially transparent context, all fiction is false?

...fundamentally temporal nature of a language game — Joshs

Language games take place in space, too.

Space has an essence independent of time? Essences are a very odd thing, modal or otherwise. There's much to be said about them. And placing space somehow independent of time would also be problematic - they have been together since Einstein. SO there's not much there I can make use of.

we ask vague questions about things we kinda already understand because some of what we understand or could understand is hidden, and that's part of what we investigate too. — Srap Tasmaner

That is Husserl. Good summation here:

Intentional content can be thought of along the lines of a description or set of information that the subject takes to characterize or be applicable to the intentional objects of her thought. Thus, in thinking that there is a red apple in the kitchen the subject entertains a certain presentation of her kitchen and of the apple that she takes to be in it and it is in virtue of this that she succeeds in directing her thought towards these things rather than something else or nothing at all. It is important to note, however, that for Husserl intentional content is not essentially linguistic. While intentional content always involves presenting an object in one way rather than another, Husserl maintained that the most basic kinds of intentionality, including perceptual intentionality, are not essentially linguistic. Indeed, for Husserl, meaningful use of language is itself to be analyzed in terms of more fundamental underlying intentional states (this can be seen, for example, throughout LI, I). For this reason characterizations of intentional content in terms of “descriptive content” have their limits in the context of Husserl’s thought.

https://iep.utm.edu/huss-int/#H1

Heidegger isn't treating being as a predicate. — Xtrix

OK - so let's drop "beingness".

the thesis is that underlying these various Western interpretations is a fundamentally Greek one: constant presence, ousia. — Xtrix

...and why should we fall back to this anachronistic greek interpretation when we have better ones in our formal logic?

Past the Linguistic Turn? — Srap Tasmaner

Cheers. I don't see much there that undermines my view of philosophy as conceptual clarification, especially given the conclusion. Perhaps I missed something?