The debate about human nature and aggression is interesting but has nothing to do with Marx. Let us suppose that aggression is a natural characteristic of human beings. It is not the same as saying that a particular type of aggression - exploitation, for example - is a natural trait. It is difficult to present evidence of the former. It is almost impossible to prove the latter.

Do you have any ideas on how this could be countered? — JerseyFlight

Ideas, lots of them. But you know what Marx said: enough of thinking about the world. Now we have to change it.
And there, certainly, things are not easy.
We have to follow moral impulses rather than effective ones.

America has engaged in more wealth redistribution than all the Marxist and Socialist countries combined! — JerseyFlight

I don't get the idea. Socialism equals equality and the US is one of the most unequal countries. 30% of Afro-American children live on the edge of poverty. That's not socialism, as far as I know.

Are you being ironic?

The fact is that functioning capitalist societies have not impoverished the physician, the lawyer or even the man of science (with poets I don't know). — ssu

And that will be so as long as the capitalists can leave them some of the crumbs from the feast. If there are no crumbs left, white-collar workers will pay the price also. In fact, the degradation of working conditions is reaching the social strata you mention. Not all lawyers and doctors are like those on TV shows. There are overworked ones too. And not a few.
What is characteristic of advanced capitalist society is that, unlike the 19th century, where wealth and poverty lived side by side, it has managed to conceal the sewers. As I said in another commentary, sewers are at the marginal limits of the system.

We can all move to them easily. They are poor neighbourhoods full of rubbish on the streets, shanty towns where illegal farm workers survive, semi-ruined housing buildings, immigrant concentrational camps in Greece or Italy. You don't have to go to Gambia to see something like the worst of Africa. But that is also hidden: we don't see slums on TV, we see places where bad people sell drugs until the good policeman arrives and... But we don't stop to think that drugs are the crust of poverty. Behind them is the wealth of the upper classes and the crumbs they leave for us subordinates.

They may benefit from the current economic hegemony, — NOS4A2

If they defend capitalism, they can't be Marxists. It would be contradictory to everything Marx wrote and predicted. Whether or not they benefit from it is another matter. We're discussing whether Marx was right, not whether he was honest. Don't get off topic.

I denied that those parties that call themselves communist a) are communist (that is, to defend the communist revolution); b) have the slightest power to do so.

Are you a Marxist? — NOS4A2

Why do you want to know? Would anything happen if I was? I think you should know from what I've written. There are some things I think Marx was right about and some things I don't. Does that make me a Marxist?

Marx wanted class distinction to disappear by adjusting social and economic rules in such a way everyone becomes part of the same class. — Benkei

Correction: no private property, no classes. Not one or three. Marx believed that after a period of the dictatorship of the proletariat there would be no classes. This would imply the existence of the true unity among men -Humanity- which class division makes impossible. On how this would happen and what it would imply Marx was not very precise because he thought that this would not be the same history and he explained history.

We have had a lot of experience of these "other democracies" and how democracy is killed by this method when there isn't actual representation of any others than those firm believers of the right cause. — ssu

Democracy is also perverted when it is controlled by a social group. If all the candidates for elections represent the interests of the industrial-military complex, as Eisenhower called it, and the possibilities of an alternative are blocked by the system, democracy is nothing but a sham. We elect the same people to do what others we have not elected demand of them. This is capitalist democracy, according to Marx. Was he right? In large part, I'm afraid.

All I have to do is to look at my conservative party in this country and how it supports the welfare state — ssu

You live in the Land of Cocaigne, surely. All the efforts of the conservative parties in Europe, especially since the fall of the communist bloc, are aimed at widening the gap between the rich and the poor, at degrade working conditions and at dismantling social services. To put it euphemistically, this is the neoliberal programme. According to reports from international bodies, this is exactly what is happening.
If ever there was anything that resembled the welfare state, it was due to the push of trade unions and left-wing parties -communist among others. As these have less and less strength, we are heading towards a wild capitalism if capitalism does not finish the planet first. This seems more likely.

"Only by forcible overthrow" doesn't seem like this "disappearance" would be peaceful. — ssu

If you don't read what the rest of us write, the debate becomes a Marx's dialog -- Groucho Marx,of course. I repeat:

But he did not think that the process would be very peaceful. Exploiters don't like to have their means of exploitation taken away from them and they have enough power to defend themselves violently. The way he had done it in Europe (France especially during the communes of 1848 and 1871) made this very clear. — David Mo

There are plenty of communists. — NOS4A2

For God's sake! Apart from the Communist-Capitalist parties that are as Marxist as my aunt - well my aunt is quite a bit more than they are - the rest are just unimportant residues that fade away on their own. The world is capitalist, man. If you were afraid, you can relax.

Further, your objection, like so many other objections in this domain, begins with the false metaphysical assumption of the predestined evil of human nature. — JerseyFlight

If you're trying to claim a kind of genetic determinism, specifically social Darwinism, friend you have it all wrong. — JerseyFlight

Exactly! But it's even worse because the defenders of capitalism play with two cards: neo-Darwinism and contractualism. When it suits them, they appeal to the contractualist card to show off capitalism's pacifying virtues (Steve Pinker). When things don't work out, they claim the competitive Darwinian basis of capitalism. What are we left with? Can we or can we not?

In any case, Marx spoke very little about post-revolutionary society, but he never said it would be the end of all competition among men. He simply said it would be the end of a special kind of capitalist competition--the competition between exploiters and exploited.

And one wonders:
Why is the scarecrow of communism still being used when there are virtually no communists today? Why does it keep coming back to a 19th century thinker who's already quite old-fashioned?

I can think of only two possibilities:
1. To throw a smokescreen over the problems of capitalism.
2. Because Marx was right about a few basic points about capitalism.

They are not exclusive. There may be others I can't think of now, of course.

How Americans think income should be distributed, how they think it is distributed, and how it actually is distributed: — Pfhorrest

There has long been a large sample of surveys that say that what happens in capitalist countries (including "democratic" ones) is not what people think it should be in terms of social justice.

The defenders of the system (who are usually the ones who benefit from it) often argue that social justice is at odds with freedom. Therefore, there must be more freedom (for the riches) than social justice (for the poor).
If the argument is not convincing, they move on to the next line of argument: democratic systems are not good, but everything else is worse.
If the argument is not convincing, they move on to the next phase: There is no alternative. Capitalist liberalism is a natural necessity. Scientific economy and so. Besides the defenders of the system are very strong and very violent: you cannot go against the rich. It is our destiny to be subject to them.

Apart from these arguments there is the subliminal propaganda exercised by a multitude of advertisements, films and series that show the delights of capitalism (Greta Garbo and Melvyn Douglas type) and the horror of non-capitalist systems (terrorists, bombs, dictatorships, pest...).This is one of the most important gaps in the Marxist theory of revolution.

With all this battery of resources it is not difficult to understand why the reformist (social democratic, for example) road has always been a failure (and here Marx was right too).

Yet democracy was only a tool for the proletariat, to get power. Others classes have to fall under the lead of the proletariat. This shows clearly how Marx isn't at all a democrat or believes in democracy. — ssu

Obviously. Marx was not a liberal Democrat. He thought that parliamentary democracy was an instrument in the hands of the bourgeois class and that other types of democracy must be sought that would put an end to exploitation. This is the alphabet of Marxism.

"Communists must unremittingly struggle against these bourgeois socialists because they work for the enemies of communists and protect the society which communists aim to overthrow." — ssu

If one analyzes the role of European social democracy after Marx there is no doubt that he was right, from his assumptions.

And neither did the Communists that took up arms and were eager to kill the class enemy. — ssu

Don't be melodramatic: Marx didn't want to "kill" an entire class. He wanted the bourgeois class to disappear as a class because it was living off the exploitation of humanity. In his opinion this would happen "naturally" when private ownership of the means of production disappears. But he did not think that the process would be very peaceful. The exploiters don't like to have their means of exploitation taken away from them and they have enough power to defend themselves violently. The way he had done it in Europe (France especially during the communes of 1848 and 1871) made this very clear.

Here is some truth and some errors that we can discuss calmly, if you want to do so.

The daily press? The daily press is primarily a farce. — whollyrolling

You could say that. But you can find interesting things as long as you know how to separate the straw from the grain. And complement it with other sources. Information demands effort, it doesn't come to you like manna.

Let me just add here that the people I've heard complaining about the conditions of outsource factories are primarily "the 1% wealthy elite", — whollyrolling

That's weird. I haven't seen those people you say. My sources are journalists and activists who are not among the 1% who benefit from exploitation.

Again, you have no idea who you're speaking to and know nothing of my character. — whollyrolling

I was a "left-wing liberal" my entire life. — whollyrolling

I'm not interested in your character but in what you say. And there's nothing leftist in what you say.

As far as your commentary on media and the wealthy 1% "elite"--I agree with some of it, but that isn't what we were discussing. — whollyrolling

We are discussing that, because it is part of Marx's predictions about the evolution of capitalism. The worldwide concentration of capital is one of the few that has come true.

For one thing, and you need to be more specific about location, the nations to which these manufacturing tasks are outsourced are impoverished and in need of work, — whollyrolling

This is one of the classic excuses of the exploiter: I pay them a shitty salary, the working conditions are infamous, but they must thank me: I give them work. And I'm getting richer and richer. Everybody is happy, is it not?

And let me be clear that I do not condone sweatshops, but that's a whole other conversation. — whollyrolling

Well, it looks like you do. In any case, the maquiladoras and other industries established in the third world by Western companies are an essential part of capitalism. It's global capitalism, you know. In many of the corrupt countries what keep the business going it is the local bourgeois class (capitalism) that benefits along with the transnational corporations. And they are democracies endorsed by the American Friend and the rest of the gang. Nowadays you have to present things with a good facade, even if they are as rotten as ever underneath. Ballots are made, they are put in ballot boxes and the usual ones with different collars win. That's nice and it quiets down some well-meaning critics. "The People want it." This is what Marx rightly - in this case - denounced .

You don't see why. I've never spoken to someone who defends or promotes Marxism and also "sees why". — whollyrolling

Make no mistake. I do not defend or promote Marxism.
Firstly because I'm not talking about Marxism but about Marx.
Second, because I haven't read one of his books in a long time. More than you can boast, I suppose, but not enough to analyze an author in depth.
Thirdly because I do not defend Marx, but attack the assumptions of reactionaries and bourgeoisie from which you do. It's not Marx I'm worried about. It's a thing of the past. It is you and those like you that concern me because you are driving the planet into the abyss in the name of a class ideology that condemns the majority of humanity to a life of submission, subsistence, or worse.

I understand myself criticizing Marx with a heterodox Marxist, a socialist, an anarchist or a left-wing liberal. Not with you.

I don't know if I've made myself clear. English is not my language. But I think I'm understood.

Well, if you can't translate, here's an English version. Don't run away, it's the BBC!: https://www.bbc.com/news/business-42745853

To which territories or circumstances are you directing our attention? — whollyrolling

I think I've already mentioned two examples. A very simple one is to ask yourself how much of the price of the T-shirt you have bought Made in East or America (South) reaches the worker who made it. Another is who makes peasant leaders disappear in Colombia.There are many examples like these that I have not taken from any anti-capitalist pamphlet. They are in the daily press.

The West has used human nature to curb some of humanity's barbarism, to bring about a state of relative peace and order, as well as individual wealth and autonomy--and not exclusively in the West. — whollyrolling

This is the lesson taught by the media that produce bourgeois propaganda. There's another way of looking at it:

We don't know what human nature is. But we do know that 1% of humanity controls 82% of the World''s wealth. We know that this minority and those who work for them control the major media and use politicians who are sympathetic to their bourgeois ideology to control the various political systems and their servants (pseudo-democracy included). (In jargon they are called lobbies or, straightforwardly, corruption). And we know that when there is some part of the planet that wants to get out of the script they organize a little war or a coup d'etat and depose the unruly.

This corrupt system provokes an abyss of daily violence that doesn't usually appear on Fox Channel, etc. There remains hunger, poverty, police repression and the deaths from our bombings. These are also consequences of the fact that 1% of humanity controls 82% of the world's wealth. Pass the translator through this news (don't be afraid it doesn't come from a dangerous communist pamphlet, but from a Christian NGO): https://www.europapress.es/internacional/noticia-ciento-poblacion-mundial-acapara-82-ciento-riqueza-20180122154309.html https://www.europapress.es/internacional/noticia-ciento-poblacion-mundial-acapara-82-ciento-riqueza-20180122154309.html

I'll tell you for your information that I haven't read the Communist press since I was a kid. Now I read all kinds of press (little TV), especially on the web, because that's where you can find alternative visions to the official one. The human rights NGOs that I collaborate with usually provide me with good information to untangle the neurons. I especially recommend the reports of Amnesty International. They are somewhat shy and do not say everything but they do put the facts on the table. Then you can think about them. If you want.

It is as simple as when thinking to implement into reality Plato's ideal society, where people are divided into workers, soldiers and philosophy kings. You really are so naive to think that the class of the "philosopher kings" will be the most wise, virtuous and selfless and corruption can be rooted away by them living communally and modestly? — ssu

No, but Marx believed that if the working class provided itself with a system of internal democracy it could control its leaders. This was the theory of the workers' and soldiers' soviets that Lenin preached before he abandoned orthodox Marxism.
With the experience that history gives us, we know that didn't work. We may even have some explanation as to why.
But Marx did not have that experience and could afford to be somewhat more idealistic than we are.
The Republic of Plato's philosophers was something totally different. It didn't establish any elite control mechanism, because the wise were supposed to be good by nature. That doesn't hold up unless you look around.

Ah. We're not all as smart as you who can predict history very easily. Patent the method. You'll get rich.

hence it really isn't about democracy and the rights of minorities that Marx is interested about. — ssu

Right. He wasn't interested in minorities who exploit others. For him, a democracy that does not solve the problem of inequality, misery and hunger is not a true democracy. So is Athenian democracy, for example. The Marxists I knew spoke of "formal democracies". I don't know if the term is Marx's.

Capital owners can easily avoid the violence of communist revolutionaries — Pfhorrest

Go out to the countries of the Third World and the suburbs and you will see the violence of capitalism. Ask yourself how much they paid the people who made your shirt. Who pays the elites who keep the scarce money from the extraction of raw materials at a bargain price?
Etc., etc.
Capitalist violence exists, but on the fringes of the system.
This is not addressed to you, really, but at those who believe that they live in a brave new world.

If communism adheres to those tenets, then why does the state take everything for itself and leave common people destitute, and why are the state and its closest affiliates, for example organized crime syndicates and puppet CEO's, the only ones who benefit, and only as long as they are in total ideological alignment with the regime. — whollyrolling

If you employ this aggressive pamphlet tone it cannot be discussed. I don't know who you're trying to convince with that. Perhaps yourself.

No, what I'm talking about is armed military personnel fire a gun into your coworker's head so that you will get back to work. What I'm talking about is you're removed from your home at gunpoint, all your possessions are seized by a government of wealthy elitists, and you end up living in a ghetto, or in a gulag. — whollyrolling

Are you talking about the Palestinians? Or Pinochet? Or about...

You describe a Dantean scene as if it happened in a Superman cartoon or a B series cold war movie. Why don't you talk about reality, which is bad enough without turning it into a comic book?

To see how things happened in Stalinism I suggest Life and Fate by Vassily Grossman or Kira Georgievna by Viktor Nekrassov. A "little" more serious than your comics.

I’ll take him at his word. — NOS4A2

How naive of you!

I think it’s better to bring people up than to pull people down. — NOS4A2

This doesn't always work. What does " bring up Hitler" mean?

Perhaps it’s not the bourgeoisie that needs our attention. — NOS4A2

Given that the bourgeoisie controls the economy, culture and the capitalist state apparatus, and given that capitalism is primarily responsible for how bad things are for many people, this is what matters.

Unless you care more about watching the herons fly over the lake in the fall.
But that's another order of things.

I'm referring to the Communist Manifesto and the inhumanity which Marx, if he had even the sense of a goldfish, must have foreseen. — whollyrolling

I don't understand why Marx should have predicted Pol Pot. Is preaching the the struggle against the exploitation of man by man leading straightforwardly to Stalinism? I don't see why.

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!)

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.

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?

I'm not sure what you mean by "perversion" here. What violent overthrow of authority leaves in its wake is a violent regime. — whollyrolling

Do you mean George Washington or David Ben Gurion (I guess)?

You can't peaceably murder authority, peaceably rob a hundred million people of home and livelihood, and then peaceably persuade them into productivity on behalf of a state which just murdered their leaders and robbed them of all their possessions. — whollyrolling

As a description of what happened in China before and during the revolution I find it a bit simplistic and confusing.
Are you talking about the big landowners and warlords as innocent victims of communism? Or of the big international corporations that kept the Shanghai proletariat in misery?
Isn't it true that some layers of Chinese society benefited from collective ownership that they never had before?
These questions should be discussed at length.

I think the issue is Marx, not your stereotypes about communist revolution in China.

Mao was a devout Marxist — NOS4A2

I wouldn't be so sure. "He claimed to be a Marxist", it would be more correct.

But mostly I’m speaking about the concept of one class appropriating the land of another, the euphemism “nationalization”, which always brings about the contrary to Marx’s predictions. — NOS4A2

Liberal policies, too, have always led to the opposite of what they intended: destructive welfare for some and exploitation and war for others.

It seems that perversion is the fate of political theories on the road between them and their practices.

The problem is why and how.

About forcing something out of the bourgeoisie I would see no problem if what is taken out of it is its greed and power to exploit, its control of the instruments of justice and the perversion of democracy for the benefit of a minority.

True, that's not easy.

The nationalization of property does not mean the abnegation of private property. — JerseyFlight

Indeed.What Marx defends is the socialization of the collective means of production, not referring to the private property of use goods. That is, factories, not handkerchiefs.
If there is a natural right to individual property -I doubt it very much- this right would be preserved by personal property. That is why the so-called socialist states had no problem signing Article 17 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights which states that "Everyone has the right to own property alone as well as in association with others".

All states in the world have some limitations on the use of property. The perfect neoliberal state does not exist, thank God. Therefore, we can only discuss whether Marx's proposal of socialist limitations on private property was excessive or not. Natural rights have little to do here.

I don't know if it was excessive or not, but the alternative seems to me to be socialism or barbarism. Or worse, socialism or extinction. That's where we're going, I'm afraid.

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.

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.

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.

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)

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.

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.

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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.

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.

The Greeks did not have "knowledge of the truth" as if there's truth "out there" to be known. — Xtrix

Later it becomes a matter of logos as assertion, as correct propositions and correspondence of that which is present-at-hand. — Xtrix

Let us see:

At the same time, however, we must not overlook the fact that while this way of understanding Being (the way which is closest to us) is one which the Greeks were the first to develop as a branch of knowledge and to master, the primordial understanding of truth was simultaneously alive among them, even if pre-ontologically, and it even held its own against the concealment implicit in their ontology-at least in Aristotle. — Heidegger: Being and Time, Oxford, 2001, p. 225/268

(I have highlighted in bold letter some words that may help you understand what you seem unable to understand).

For Heidegger (except in his last phase of his life, which is not that of the text we are commenting) truth is revelation (aletheia). And the opposite of truth is concealment. The primordial truth is the truth of Being. That “primordial” means Heidegger's idea that Being can only be understood through what is everyday and "close" to us. That is not a subjective truth. It is the knowledge of something that is there. As the text clearly states, the early Greeks had an understanding of that truth in contrast to those who began to hide their ontology. Aristotle is mentioned in the text, although elsewhere Heidegger situates Plato as the first to begin the concealment. In this sense, the Aristotelian metaphysics and its consequences in all the western metaphysics are blind to the truth of Being.


Basically, all ontology, no matter how rich and firmly compacted a system of categories it has at its disposal, remains blind and perverted from its ownmost aim, if it has not first adequately clarified the meaning of Being, and conceived this clarification as its fundamental task. (Being and Time p. 11/31; italics by Heidegger)

And that's why I asked you what it means to be blind to one thing. How can a philosophy that's blind to the most fundamental be "correct"? What the hell do you think it means to be blind?

I wish, instead of beating around the bush, you'd answer this. And if you bring up your famous contexts, to explain what context might be there that makes being blind “correct”.

For a person who has spent many years studying Heidegger, you make primary mistakes. According Heidegger, present-at-hand is a deficient or secondary mode of knowledge. To put it as an example of “correct” knowledge is a macroscopic error on your part.

Any concealing or downgraded translation of Heraclitus and Parmenides in terms of substantia meant the loss of the right way of understanding Being. — David Mo

The "right way." It's almost laughable to put it like this. — Xtrix

Well, you're laughing at Heidegger himself.

The primordial phenomenon of truth has been covered up by Dasein' s very understanding of Being-that understanding which is proximally the one that prevails, and which even today has not been surmounted explicitly and in principle. At the same time, however, we must not overlook the fact that while this way of understanding Being (the way which is closest to us) is one which the Greeks were the first to develop as a branch of knowledge and to master, the primordial understanding of truth was simultaneously alive among them, even if pre-ontologically, and it even held its own against the concealment implicit in their ontology-at least in Aristotle. — Heidegger: Being and Time, Oxford, 2001, p. 225/268

It is clear from this text that the Greeks had a knowledge of truth that was later lost. That knowledge of truth is something like a way or pathway that was blocked. That this path was the right one and to which we must return Heidegger says so until he gets tired. It's absurd to have to repeat it so many times.

Objects and substances (beings) have properties. Being has no properties. — Xtrix

The advent of beings lies in the destiny of being. — Heidegger: Letter on Humanism, Op. Cit. p. 252

A property is nothing more than an attribute, a quality, like the ability to do something. If you say that X is y or that X possesses y, y is the property of X. Although Heidegger denies that Being is an entity like other entities, he attributes certain properties to it. For example: Being comes and Being is destiny. "Advent", which is the expression that Heidegger uses, means to arrive. Advent is an unusual archaism that today is used almost exclusively in the Christian liturgy to speak of the coming of Christ (so much so that my automatic corrector immediately puts a capital letter in front of me: Advent). That advent of Being is the destiny that governs history. Notice that it is not beings that rule that destiny, but Being, which as such is placed as something different and above them. That is, supernatural.

Therefore, despite Heidegger's statement that Being is not God, he speaks of it in such a way that one cannot conclude but that it is a kind of divinity. Perhaps not a personalized god, but an entity of supernatural powers.

Parmenides and Heraclitus had it "right" (though we're not sure what the "it" refers to), and those after them have it "wrong." Excellent analysis. But not once in Heidegger. — Xtrix

When you don't know what to say you resort to the supreme resource of the loser: the word "wrong" or "intuition" is not in the text.
Please, we have already discussed this. I seem to remember that on some occasions he does use that word, but this is not the case. Heidegger does not usually use the word "wrong". He uses at least a dozen words that have the same meaning. And I'm not going to repeat them because that's getting boring. You refuse to accept - I suppose if you understand - that to accuse someone of being blind or corrupting the matter is to be wrong. It really is not my problem and I am not going to go back over it.
And the same goes for intuition.