[H]ow do we shift from the everyday mode to the ontological mode? — ZzzoneiroCosm

By paying attention to, for instance, "the negligent and the insignificant" (J. Miller) – "the immensity of the particular" (G. Steiner) – to begin with. IME, Heidegger makes a distinction without a difference: the "ontological mode" corresponds to limit-situations (K. Jaspers) of "the everyday mode". To wit:

Before enlightenment; chop wood, carry water. After enlightenment; chop wood, carry water. — Zen Kōan

NB: Closer to the pragmatic sense of wu wei, I prefer ecstasy to the term "enlightenment".

But how do we shift from the everyday mode to the ontological mode? — ZzzoneiroCosm

I'd first need to be convinced that the two modes exist and that they are compartmentalised in precisely this way. From my own subjective experience, the ontological and the everyday don't feel separated quite this dramatically and I think the quotidian is often a prompt to consider deeper matters of being sometimes from an initial springboard of absurdity.

There is no shift, it is not a jump, a next level. Rather, you can always try to be better, to think better, to behave better, assuming, while nobody is able to prove it, that we can improve, that we can perform some kind of freedom, of active and intelligent contribution. If you do this, which means, you are working on it, then you are already in the next level: the arrival point is the way, the path, the becoming.

You seem to be seeing this as a self-improvement narrative. I wonder if that's what the OP was getting at.

In teh same respect Husserl often liked to look at the ‘obvious’.

It does take a certain perspective to see the mundane as phenomenal (in both senses of the word!). I have been in tears at the sheer beauty of a cracked pavement. That level is not too common, but it is everywhere potentially. The awe and wonder in the experiences of life are right under out noses.

I think a key point is to recognise an object as an arbitrary delineation, and the term ‘object’ as such an object too. Heidegger was mostly concerned with the worded concepts than the sensory explication, likely because when we talk of sensation/perception we do so through these here worded terms.

The true phenomenological path is freewheeling subjectivity. The scramble to communicate these ideas to others will always fall short - but that is okay.

we are filled with wonderment that things are in the world. — ZzzoneiroCosm

Why, and when, would we wonder that things are in the world? What else would be "in the world"?

What would we expect to be the case if there were no things in the world? What would we think to be an alternative? "Gee, if nothing existed, then....." Then what?

But how do we shift from the everyday mode to the ontological mode? — ZzzoneiroCosm

Why would anyone want to do that? To learn what, to know what, for what purpose?

You seem to be seeing this as a self-improvement narrative. I wonder if that's what the OP was getting at. — Tom Storm

Irvin Yalom is an existential psychiatrist at Stanford. The OP quote comes from his book, The Gift of Therapy.

Irvin Yalom is an existential psychiatrist at Stanford. — ZzzoneiroCosm

I know IY. Not sure if this is a response to my comments.

When we exist in the ontological mode—the realm beyond everyday concerns—we are in a state of particular readiness for personal change. — ZzzoneiroCosm

This?

IME, Heidegger makes a distinction without a difference: the "ontological mode" corresponds to limit-situations (K. Jaspers) of "the everyday mode". — 180 Proof

The experience of a limit situation within the everday - this seems to be the very difference you claim the distinction lacks. A difference of experience.





James G. Hart described that encounters with limit situations unsettle individuals, break them out of their inauthentic identifications, remove them from the social bond, and force them to come alive and find new ways of communicating.[3] They can be compared to the similarly generative experience of the sense of bewilderment in Zen.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Limit_situation#:~:text=A%20limit%20situation%20(German%3A%20Grenzsituation,those%20arising%20from%20ordinary%20situations.

NB: Closer to the pragmatic sense of wu wei, I prefer ecstasy to the term "enlightenment". — 180 Proof

While I enjoy and appreciate your description of ecstasy, I don't believe it's accurate to treat enlightenment and ecstasy as in any way interchangeable


I don't put much stock in notions of sudden, permanent enlightenment. For the spiritual seeker, ecstasy comes and goes. Enlightenment builds gradually over the lifespan - unless you have a special spiritual gift: a spiritual olympian.

we are filled with wonderment that things are in the world.
— ZzzoneiroCosm

Why, and when, would we wonder that things are in the world? What else would be "in the world"? — Ciceronianus

Heidegger believes that we dont simply experience a world, each of us produces a world. For each of us, all of the particular objects and events that we experience are interwoven as a totality of relevant relations. When we recognize an object as something , it is already familiar
to us at some level in its belonging to our larger pragmatic dealings with the world. From time to time , these overarching schemes by which we interpret our world undergo transformation. We re-frame the frame. When we do this , we wonder anew at the world, because now we look at all its particulars with fresh eyes. This is how science evolves, through such gestalt shifts in outlook.

But how do we shift from the everyday mode to the ontological mode?
— ZzzoneiroCosm

Why would anyone want to do that? To learn what, to know what, for what purpose? — Ciceronianus

Because this allows us to question our presuppositions that often imprison us.

Heidegger believes that we dont simply experience a world, each of us produces a world. For each of us, all of the particular objects and events that we experience are interwoven as a totality of relevant relations. When we recognize an object as something , it is already familiar
to us at some level in its belonging to our larger pragmatic dealings with the world. From time to time , these overarching schemes by which we interpret our world undergo transformation. We re-frame the frame. When we do this , we wonder anew at the world, because now we look at all its particulars with fresh eyes. This is how science evolves, through such gestalt shifts in outlook. — Joshs

I don't think this constitutes wondering that there are things in the world, which seems more along the lines of "wondering why there is something rather than nothing." That's what my questions addressed, for what they're worth.

I don't think this constitutes wondering that there are things in the world, which seems more along the lines of "wondering why there is something rather than nothing." That's what my questions addressed, for what they're worth. — Ciceronianus

Well, in of support your observation, Heidegger uses your wording rather than Yalom’s.

“For by nature, my friend, man's mind dwells in philosophy” (Plato, Phaedrus, 279a). So long as man exists, philosophizing of some sort occurs. Philosophy — what we call philosophy — is metaphysics getting under way, in which philosophy comes to itself and to its explicit tasks. Philosophy gets under way only by a peculiar insertion of our own existence into the fundamental possibilities of Dasein as a whole. For this insertion it is of decisive importance, first, that we allow space for beings as a whole; second, that we release ourselves into the nothing, which is to say, that we liberate ourselves from those idols everyone has and to which he is wont to go cringing; and finally, that we let the sweep of our suspense take its full course, so that it swings back into the basic question of metaphysics which the nothing itself compels: ‘Why are there beings at all, and why not rather nothing?( Heidegger, What is Metaphysics)

Heidegger spoke of two modes of existence: the everyday mode and the ontological mode. — ZzzoneiroCosm

I like Yalom a lot, but the link he finds to therapy is his own. The above wording isn't exactly right, either. The terms are ready-to-hand and present-at-hand modes of being. Both happen in our average everyday world, although it is argued that the ready-to-hand activities (especially our use of equipment) are primary.

What I think Yalom is doing is trying to take Heidegger and fit it into his often-discussed "here and now" emphasis of individual therapy. To not flee the fear of death, to look at oneself clearly, to put down everyday distractions and concerns. All that is fine, but links to Heidegger should be taken with a grain of salt.

All that is fine, but links to Heidegger should be taken with a grain of salt. — Xtrix

Thanks for the insight. :smile:

Heidegger spoke of two modes of existence — ZzzoneiroCosm

Only two? What of the mode of complete involvement with an action in which we lose sense of self and immerse in the flow? Is this part of one of the two modes? I wouldn't equate it with ecstasy, however.

Only two? What of the mode of complete involvement with an action in which we lose sense of self and immerse in the flow? Is this part of one of the two modes? I wouldn't equate it with ecstasy, however. — jgill

The connection between ecstasy and flow is addressed here.

https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/12741/orgasm-ecstasy-and-flow-merleau-ponty

The connection between ecstasy and flow is addressed here — ZzzoneiroCosm

Not sure about the connection. When I speak of flow in action I'm talking of the phenomenon that a one-time acquaintance, Mihály Csíkszentmihályi , defined years ago. We climbed at Devils Lake and he observed flow there I suspect, as well as in other forms of artistic athletics. Not ecstasy.

The experience of a limit situation within the everday - this seems to be the very difference you claim the distinction lacks. A difference of experience. — ZzzoneiroCosm

A difference in – not "of" – experience. A difference in degree, for sure, not in kind as Heidegger proposes..

While I enjoy and appreciate your description of ecstasy, I don't believe it's accurate to treat enlightenment and ecstasy as in any way interchangeable.

You've misread what I wrote, Zzz. I do not claim or imply that they are "interchangeable", only that I prefer to use the term ecstasy instead of enlightenment to indicate non-ordinary states-of-mind/consciousness (re: limit-situations).

The only conjunction of wonderment and Heidegger that I know of is the wonderment that Heidegger continues to be worshiped as much as he is.

You've misread what I wrote, Zzz. I do not claim or imply that they are "interchangeable", only that I prefer to use the term ecstasy instead of enlightenment to indicate non-ordinary states-of-mind/consciousness (re: limit-situations). — 180 Proof

Gotcha. :cool:

All that is fine, but links to Heidegger should be taken with a grain of salt. — Xtrix

Do you imagine Yalom is mistaken in his understanding of Heidegger, or is he being somewhat deceptive in order to add some kind of prestige to his model?

By paying attention to, for instance, "the negligent and the insignificant" (J. Miller) – "the immensity of the particular" (G. Steiner) – to begin with. IME, Heidegger makes a distinction without a difference: the "ontological mode" corresponds to limit-situations (K. Jaspers) of "the everyday mode". To wit:
Before enlightenment; chop wood, carry water. After enlightenment; chop wood, carry water.
— Zen Kōan
NB: Closer to the pragmatic sense of wu wei, I prefer ecstasy to the term "enlightenment" — 180 Proof

Everyday mode? Is that like a normal person's life? A set of ideas, a method à la Sherlock Holmes, simply put a compass for navigation in the ocean of life? Create a favorable mileu. Make roads.

Ontological mode: Forget all that stuff you learned in school, college, from friend, foes, family, etc, includes Heidegger's own teachings (?) and just immerse yourself in Being. The opposite of the feeling just die a**hole!, to make explicit, just live a**hole (still)!. Find a favorable mileu. Find roads.

:chin:

model — Tom Storm

Model? What model?! I don't want a model!! I want a super model!!! :lol: I hope s/he comes free!

‘Why are there beings at all, and why not rather nothing?( — Joshs

I think "how" there is something may be an answerable question but one to be resolved, if at all, by science rather than by philosophy. "Why" can't even be considered until we know how.

Do you imagine Yalom is mistaken in his understanding of Heidegger, or is he being somewhat deceptive in order to add some kind of prestige to his model? — Tom Storm

I think he's taking some liberties and simplifying a little too much. But he's not completely wrong, in my view.