Let me see if I’m understanding what you mean when you say persistence and becoming both presuppose being.

Are you arguing that we need both the concept of persistence and that of becoming in order to understand being? — Joshs

No, I'm saying persistence and becoming, stability and change, are "in" being themselves. There's the being of stasis and the being of change. So being is presupposed.

Remember Heidegger's "restriction of being" chapter in Intro to Metaphysics: being and becoming is the first restriction he analyzes, as being one of the most ancient. He talks about how Parmenides and Heraclitus get incorrectly interpreted as opposing one another, and how in Plato this problem (and the problem of "being and seeming") is solved through the Forms -- the Forms being the enduring prototypes. Thus "being" becomes "constancy" and "permanence," the un-changing, as opposed to all that is transient, perishing, unstable -- becoming.

But later he'll say "Becoming -- is it nothing?" "Seeming -- is it nothing?" His is "No, it's not nothing." So if it's not nothing, it's something -- and so belongs just as much "in" being as anything else does. He'll also go on to explain how these concepts were originally a unity and how they got disjoined.

I hope that's perhaps a bit clearer.

Heidegger asks, why does change require the notion of something sitting still as itself for a moment? Instead of founding the idea of change on sequences of things that sit still for a moment, (which is really founding change on bits of stasis that we cobble together), why not recognize that there are no things that sit still. Why not found the illusion of stasis on change , rather than the other way around? — Joshs

I see what you're arguing but I'm not convinced by it. When you say "sequences of things," the "things" you're referring to he will describe as "now-points." That's why I find the use of "now" to be a problem.

Also, I don't see stasis as being an "illusion" any more than change is. Yes, things change. Things also stay the same. We talk about matter changing forms but never being created or destroyed, so matter itself doesn't change...and all of that jazz. Again, we don't want to get caught in the restriction of "being and becoming," where we associated being with permanence. But we also don't want to say being is becoming.

In any case, if change isn't nothing, then it's part of being. To equate it with being is an interpretation, and not a bad one -- it's claimed that Heraclitus did so, and the Buddhists do so in a sense, etc. -- but it's still just that, an interpretation. An interpretation "grounded" in what? In dasein, who cares about being and interprets being (including itself).

You seem to be saying: in the West, being has been interpreted as "presence," as constancy/stasis, and everything, including change, has been grounded on this basis; let's instead ground stasis on change.

I don't think this is what Heidegger is getting at. He's much more cautious than to give any interpretations or recommendations. He is always emphasizing questioning, opening new lines of analysis -- and frequently talks about how a lot of this is probably off track, that new obstacles will arise, etc. He wants to reawaken the question of being.

If anything, I see his main attack being against the objectification of the world and its implications for the future in terms of nihilism and technology. One way to combat this nihilism, according to him, is precisely to stop "staggering" in history, to reawaken the question -- to wake up from our mesmerization with beings and our forgetfulness of being itself.

Heidegger didn’t consider Dasein as just a human being, which is an empirical concept . He wasn’t anthropomorphizing Dasein. Dasein is priori to the thinking of human beings or living things. In this he was following Husserl. — Joshs

Agreed, but I'm running out of ways to talk about "us." So if I say "human being," don't take me to mean anthropologically -- Heidegger is avoiding that, which is why he uses "dasein" to begin with. Take me to me "us," the entity which we are.

It deals with your question: how can we understand change and becoming without beginning from objects which are present for a least a moment ? — Joshs

But that isn't my question at all.

“I propose an expanded model of time. Time does not consist only of nows.” Linear time consists merely of positions on an observer's time line. The positions are supposed to be external and independent of what happens. Linear time is an empty frame.“ — Joshs

I agree.

Just as only the initiates of Heidegger can understand or interpret his words. — Ciceronianus

I don't think this is fair. It can be said of Kant and Hegel as well. Heidegger is difficult, yes, but open to everyone. If I can make sense of it, anyone can (and I mean that), if one is so inclined to devote some time and energy into it. Ontology is fascinating to me, and I don't think you can be really serious about it unless you hear Heidegger out in good faith.

Regarding Heidegger as Nazi and villain and all that: who knows. That's debated, but frankly I'm in the group who doesn't really care all that much.

Isn't there an in-principle difference between the kind of being that numbers represent, and the kind of being that rocks represent? And apes? They are beings of different kinds - not just different kinds of object or thing, but their natures have differences, don't they? — Wayfarer

No one is saying that there aren’t differences between beings. Of course apes are different from rocks. But they’re still entities, beings. To say an ape isn’t a thing or a rock isn’t a being is simply assuming your definition, which as I’ve stated repeatedly is not how the term is being used here.

I'd honestly like to understand why the distinction between beings and things is considered controversial, and also why it is not considered. It's an honest question. I'm really not trying to pick a fight — Wayfarer

I don’t consider it controversial, I consider it irrelevant to ontology.

If we define beings as sentient beings and “things”as everything else, there’s nothing left to say — that’s fine — but it’s not ontology. If we define “work” as the job we go to, that’s fine too — but not in a physics class.

Beings here refers to everything— all entities, all phenomena. Not exclusively to sentient beings. I can’t make it clearer.

Yes, but this thread is about ontology, which is using "being" very differently than exclusively for sentient entities.
— Xtrix

I don't think it provides the liberty to re-define the term according to your preference. — Wayfarer

I’m not re-defining the term. This is the historical usage. If you want to restrict the meaning of beings exclusively to human being (or sentient beings), you can — but that’s not how I’m using the term. I’m using it in the context of ontology.

:rofl:

But, my argument is that we deploy the word 'being' with respect to beings such as ourselves, because it designates something which is absent in rocks — Wayfarer

Yes, but this thread is about ontology, which is using "being" very differently than exclusively for sentient entities.

I don’t see “becoming of time” meaning anything. Time— temporality— is, essentially, us. It’s dasein’s being as ecstatic openness. Things persist and change, sure, but first they’re here, they are.
— Xtrix

This sounds like the view of time Heidegger is critiquing — Joshs

It's not a view of time. Persistence and becoming both presuppose being. They are also thought of in terms of the present-at-hand, as things that persist or change "in time," as I think you agree, and this itself rests on an interpretation of time which is also present-at-hand. When looked at phenomenologically, this doesn't appear to be dasein's state of being, for the most part. Dasein seems much more engaged with and coping with a world than seeing things as objects that persist or "become." This distinction is an old one, of course, but itself rests on a present-at-hand mode of being -- beginning with Plato's characterization of Parmenides and Heraclitus.

Temporality for Heidegger isnt simply ‘us’ as ecstatic openness. — Joshs

Dasein is ecstatic openness. Temporality is a unity of these ecstasies. That's what I gather. He's trying to re-interpret time and human beings as temporality and dasein, respectively, and in terms of ecstatic openness. The ecstatic refers to the ecstases of temporality, the openness to dasein's "disclosure," aletheia.

It is what is happening to us NOW as a future ( a totality of relevance) which is in the process of having been. — Joshs

It's odd that you use "now," which Heidegger explicitly says is the move Aristotle makes and which the tradition has taken ever since, when thinking about time: as a series of now-points.

‘We’ ‘are’ only as being changed. — Joshs

We are only as being temporal. He's not saying we're embodied change, he's saying we're embodied time/temporality. He is not equating temporality with change. How can we think or "know" change in the first place? We first have to "be" before we can even comprehend change.

I should add that your reading is consistent with a number of Heidegger scholars, including Dreyfus. Mine is consonant with Derrida’s reading. — Joshs

I can't say I've dived deep into Derrida, but from what I have read and heard I'm not terribly impressed. I could be wrong about that. I find Dreyfus far more honest and more careful. Most of my opinion comes from reading the texts several times, particularly Being and Being, Introduction to Metaphysics, Basic Problems, and an underrated 'book' called "Basic Questions of Philosophy," which is well worth the read. His interviews (available on YouTube) are also very helpful, I think, because he's forced to condense his material and give an overview. Many don't take these very seriously, but I don't know why -- they seem very consistent with the written work that I've encountered.

The being of dasein is temporality, which interprets being. Not being in general.
— Xtrix

What’s the difference between being in general and the totality of being of dasein? — Joshs

What do you mean by the totality of being of dasein? Remember the title: being and time. If dasein is essentially time, and is the entity that interprets being and questions being, then we begin to understand why in the West being was interpreted as "presence." But Heidegger doesn't himself offer an interpretation of being, only the human being.

The distinction between ‘beings’ and ‘things’ is a fundamental ontological distinction. If you lose sight of that then what ontological distinctions are there? Why are ‘beings’ called beings and not things? — Wayfarer

Beings are things, yes. Rocks, trees, particles, love, music, toothpaste, apes, snakes, numbers...you get the point. The fundamental ontological distinction is between being and beings, not beings and things. Beings and things are interchangeable.

Heidegger is not offering an interpretation himself, for example that being = time.
— Xtrix

He certainly is, if you are referring to the ontological understanding of the being of Dasein. — Joshs

The being of dasein is temporality, which interprets being. Not being in general.

I'm not convinced of that — Manuel

I fail to see how, if it’s a matter of definition, but so be it.

Just like you get intense in political stuff, — Manuel

I like to think I’m intense with everything I care about. :strong:

If stasis is equivalent to objectively present , enduring , subsisting , self-identical, inhering, then he is determining stasis as an inadequate way to think about existing. Becoming isnt at one pole and stasis at the other, and neither is becoming the sequential movement of things becoming present ( stasis) in time and then passing away. Rather , the becoming of time is a single unified occurrence that is future, present and having been in the same moment. There is no room for stasis or objective presence here. — Joshs

In that case there isn’t room for becoming, either.

Thinking of being as becoming is just as inadequate as thinking of being as constant presence.

I don’t see “becoming of time” meaning anything. Time— temporality— is, essentially, us. It’s dasein’s being as ecstatic openness. Things persist and change, sure, but first they’re here, they are.

As if wealth can be accumulated to this degree without a state. The state giveth, the state can taketh.

I'd like to redirect the conversation to something I pointed out earlier. I'm surprised no one took issue with it. It's crucial to the OP and (my reading of) Heidegger:

The pretence is that somehow being - treated apparently as a thing - is structured by time.

Explain that. — Banno

Being is not treated as a thing. I would also take issue with "structured" by time. Being is interpreted by human beings, and human beings, in Heidegger, are "embodied time" -- what he calls temporality. The claim is that in the West, since the Greeks, being was taken as phusis and, later, ousia -- that which is constantly present.

The "present" in this case is simply an interpretation based on one mode of the human being: what he calls the "present-at-hand." This is the mode we're in, for example, when things break down, the case he uses being a piece of equipment, like a hammer. When the hammer breaks down, or a doorknob sticks, or something goes wrong with our car, we look at these entities differently -- more theoretically, one could say -- than we do when using this equipment (what he calls the "ready-to-hand"); in this latter case, the hammer "withdraws"...or the door, or the car. They go unnoticed, they're absent. I like the example of breathing. It's constantly going on, but how often are we aware of it until something negative happens? Most of the time, breathing is absent -- we're unconscious of it, take it for granted; it withdraws. So in this ready-to-hand mode, these examples are not present-at-hand objects -- they're transparent to us.

We notice the hammer as an object with properties (weighing one pound, being of x length, having this color and shape, etc) usually when it breaks down or we're in a more theoretical (or "scientific") mood. This is the present-at-hand mode of being. It's this mode, Heidegger argues, that is the basis for the West's interpretation of being as "constantly present," as idea, ousia, substance.

This may all be uninteresting or unconvincing, but I hope it at least clears away some misconceptions. Again, being is not an entity/thing, as odd as that sounds -- and Heidegger is not offering an interpretation himself, for example that being = time.
-----------

I think this sums it up well enough. Plenty to dive into there.

Are they? I had thought that primarily humans, and some of the other higher animals, are referred to as 'beings', and that tables are 'artifacts', rivers, 'natural phenomena'. Surely there's a distinction to be made there, isn't there? — Wayfarer

In ontology, being is not restricted to human beings or sentient beings. It's a matter of terminology. We can make all kinds of distinctions, and we do. But within this context, we're talking about what's usually thought of as the most "universal" of concepts.

That a colour is not a "thing" does not mean a colour is nothing. — Manuel

If it is, it is a being. If it's not nothing, it's something. True, it's not a "thing" like a rock or tree, but neither is justice and sound and numbers.

Again, do people say "I saw a red" or "I'm seeing a yellow"? No, because they colours aren't recognized as things. — Manuel

Come on. Do we really have to continue this? "I'm seeing red," "I see green" gets used all the time. "The sky is blue," "I like the color yellow," etc. If it's not nothing, it has being. Qualities have being, numbers have being, sound has being, light has being, love has being, a unicorn has being. This is a matter of nomenclature. If you define "thing" or "being" as something physical, then none of this is true. But as I've stated many times, this is not what I mean when I'm discussing beings. Think of it as "phenomena," if you like. There's all kinds of phenomena -- mental phenomena, physical phenomena, for example -- a common distinction in our culture.

All have being.

Yep. True wealth creation comes from using leverage. — ssu

Right -- remember what Trump said once, that he's the "king of debt." Borrowing, debt, bankruptcy, bailouts. I admire the way the wealthy have rigged the system into becoming a no-lose casino, all right in front of our eyes.

Or to say it otherwise, people are sentenced into povetry when they don't have the ability to take loans for buying a house or starting a business, and/or the loans aren't affordable to be paid back by normal income. — ssu

Yeah, the credit system we have is also designed to favor the wealthy. Less risk, better interest rates. Bad credit score, unstable income, high debt-to-income ratio, etc., and you won't get a loan -- or not a loan at a decent rate anyway, since you're a risky bet. Which makes it more likely that you'll default, as the interest will usually crush you.

It's true that for many people, their biggest debt (and biggest asset) are their homes. We all saw what happened in 2008 with the banks subprime lending. Its approaching bubble territory again -- as are stocks and bonds. When they burst, as they will, the Fed will step in and save the banks...again. Too big to fail, after all. Don't want another depression (which is true) -- but don't bother passing any laws or taking over the companies.

There isn’t such a distinction for Heidegger. To exist is movement and becoming, not static presence to self. — Joshs

I wouldn't say that to exist means becoming and not stasis. In that case we're in the being/becoming distinction again, only taking the side of the latter. But Heidegger rejects that as a false choice, as you know. Not sure what you're saying here.

"Buy, borrow, die."

This is what the rich do to avoid taxes. They avoid income taxes because they don't have "income," they mostly have stock. They borrow money off of this stock -- and because it's borrowing, they pay no taxes on that either, they pay (a usually very low) interest rate on the money.

If you own $100 billion in stocks, you can go to Goldman Sachs and borrow $20 billion with the stock as collateral. That $20 billion isn't taxed. Meanwhile your stocks keep growing in value, and you hold on to them. When you croak, you hand them off to your kids. If your kids go to sell, they pay ____ in capital gains. Anyone want to venture a guess?

That's right: 0%. Stepped-up basis.

All a wonderful system for the rich.

When he sells his stocks (which, on a cursory glance, he just did) he will be subject to taxes you or I could never pay in many lifetimes. They don’t mention that. — NOS4A2

What a joke. Capital gains tax is less than income and payroll taxes for ordinary Americans, when looking at percentage of income, not absolute number -- which is pointless to use. You have Warren Buffet saying the same thing for God's sake.

Someone selling $400K in stock pay $50k in taxes. Someone with an income of $400K pays $110K in taxes. It's rigged for the rich, as usual. But by all means keep fighting the good fight for those poor billionaires.

It's not a thing, it's a quality — Manuel

A quality is nothing? Sounds like something to me.

It has been marketed in the West as a success of neoliberalism as the US has had this false idea that China opening up would bring also political change (and make it more like, uh, Taiwan). — ssu

You're right that it has been marketed as success. You noticed every time capitalism is criticized, there's inevitably the line of "it's lifted more people out of poverty than any system in history." Knowing that China is overwhelmingly responsible for this fact, and that China is hardly a capitalist country, with massive state intervention/interference/direction on every level, it's disingenuous at best.

Nah, just you specifically because you make things up which are the literal opposite of reality. — StreetlightX

Don't forget me, buddy. Or am I just a Biden lackey? I forgot. :kiss:

If I could end my relationship with the state like I can with a business, by simply walking out the door, I would. — NOS4A2

No, you can't, because the state is run by business, as I said before. I know reading comprehension isn't your strength.

The Chinese and Vietnamese rejected neoliberalism. So the example makes little sense.
— Xtrix
On the contrary, it's the crucial building block here just why things are the way they are. — ssu

No, it isn’t, because China and Vietnam rejected neoliberalism. So your statement to the contrary makes no sense, because it isn’t true.

Neoliberals praise free markets and free trade in the West while countries like China eagerly exploit the openings, but in no way endorse neoliberalism. — ssu

It has nothing to do with endorsing. Either the various policies of neoliberalism were enacted or they weren’t.

And here you again with one narrative from the US, which put one memo from the U.S. Chamber of Commerce from 1971 as the pinnacle thing here, which is eagerly promoted by leftist thinkers who want to have culprits to accuse. (Just looking at the actual memo just shows how things were viewed in the 1970s) — ssu

Culprits to accuse? Yes, I’d say the most powerful business lobby in the US giving a blueprint for the policies of the next several decades is a fairly big deal. It was a call to arms. It has nothing to do with left or right.

The US centric view simply doesn't explain the globalization and the present "neoliberalism" of today. — ssu

It isn’t US centric. But considering the US is the major power in the world, they’re far more influential than Chile et al.

while doing everything in their power to support — StreetlightX

:rofl:

Having gained more knowledge over the years, I think there must always be another for "being", because something can only know what it interacts with. — Philosophim

This may be true for beings, but seems unlikely for being, which is not itself a being. Beings are individual entities, and are numerous.

I'm still trying to understand why it matters at all what anyone's understanding of being is. What does it can it do for us? — Tom Storm

This is a good question. "Who gives a damn?" Well, for me it's getting at the basic assumptions that underlie our modern world. It would be as if we're discussing the nature of God in the middle ages -- something nearly everyone just "knew," and to question would seem rather absurd. In today's "secular" age, religions of course still exist, but there are other dogmas afoot -- even in science. (The belief in the results of science, for example, has largely "replaced," in some respects, the faith in gods.)

Still -- so what? It helps make sense of the world, of people in the world, of the beliefs, values, choices, and behavior of these people -- up to and including those in power, who control humanity's future and fate. I think capitalism, for example, can ultimately be seen as an outgrowth of this long philosophical (ontological) tradition.

Is red a thing? — Manuel

Is it no-thing? I would say it's something. It "is."

Its sole purpose is the exploitation of one class by another, and to secure its interests from insurrection from within and without. It doesn’t matter who wields it or pulls its levers — NOS4A2

It does matter who pulls the levers. What you're describing is the state being controlled by the capitalists, and so you generalize this to all states. A nation-state is a kind of social organization, and there are various forms. Just as there are various forms of business. It would be nice if we tried democratic participation in both. You rail against the former while defending the latter, and so you forfeit any right to be taken seriously.

Abolish the state? Fine. Let's first abolish capitalism.

Heidegger says it is the structure of temporality.
— Joshs

I would also take issue with "structured" by time.
— Xtrix

Well... have at it. Sort this out. I'll get the beers in. — Banno

I think Josh was referring to "use" there, not being.

As I mentioned in the OP, the claim is that being gets interpreted, from the Greeks on, as presence.
— Xtrix

So what? That is, what does this mean, if not that things commence, endure and pass? — Banno

That's the thing -- being is interpreted as presence, meaning the enduring, the constant. Which is opposed to all "becoming," all passing away, all transigence.

there are authors who rejoice in their obscurity, who do not intend to be understood by their readers, but to balkanise intellectual space for their own benefit. Is Heidegger amongst these? The evidence points that way. — Banno

What evidence?
— Xtrix

Hmmm. His biography. The common wisdom was that the life of a philosopher is of no account in evaluating his ideas. Should that view be continued when the dasein leads to the anti-dasein of the Black Notebooks? — Banno

What does his biography have to do with his alleged "rejoicing in obscurity"?

Nowhere am I saying being is *a* being/object.
— Xtrix

The "is" in the sentence "What is being" is apparently referring to something,
— Xtrix

...? — Banno

"Apparently." Which, in context, should be clear that I'm not making a claim but rather, as I stated:

The "is" in the sentence "What is being" is apparently referring to something, "being." But the "is" itself presupposes being. Nowhere am I saying being is *a* being/object. In this case I'm discussing the difficulty of even asking the question. — Xtrix

What *is* being? seems to indicate that "being" is an object, but it isn't.

It's too broad. I'm far from being a prescriptivist with language use, but if the word is used that amply, its meaning can lead to mistakes. — Manuel

Heidegger anticipates all this:

On the basis of the Greeks' initial contributions towards an Interpretation of Being, a dogma has been developed which not only declares the question about the meaning of Being to be superfluous, but sanctions its complete neglect. It is said that 'Being' is the most universal and the emptiest of concepts. As such it resists every attempt at definition. Nor does this most universal and hence indefinable concept require any definition, for everyone uses it constantly and already understands what he means by it. In this way, that which the ancient philosophers found continually disturbing as something obscure and hidden has taken on a clarity and self-evidence such that if anyone continues to ask about it he is charged with an error of method.

Being and Time, page 2.

The apple has no red being, we add that on to the apple. — Manuel

"Red" isn't a thing? Of course it is. A thing is a being. Red, concepts, numbers, music, feelings, dirt, justice, words, Proust, and Boston are all beings.

Unless you can say why it's a wrong way to think about colour experience. — Manuel

I don't think it's necessarily "wrong" to separate the property "red" from the apple, but then we're off into secondary and primary qualities. Locke wasn't an idiot -- there's plenty of merit to this view. All I'm saying is that the term "being" certainly applies to all of this.

Is Heidegger amongst these? The evidence points that way. — Banno

What evidence? You've already made two claims which are complete misinterpretations. If that's the evidence, I don't blame you for thinking this. But I would hope once that's clarified, you'd perhaps reconsider. Like I said, if you're settled in your opinion of Heidegger, fine -- then deal directly with me. If you're not interested in any of it, why continue here at all?

One kind of "thinking", whatever this may be, is to try and find what's the nature of the world, mind independently. The best approach we have for that are theories as postulated by the sciences, as (I believe remembering) you say. — Manuel

Certainly.

Tables and rivers are beings. In that respect, they do indeed share a commonality: being.
— Xtrix

Do ghosts have being? Does Winston Smith have being? What about that red colour I caught off the able, does that have being? — Manuel

Yes indeed. How could it be otherwise? Unless, of course, we're taking "being" to mean something more restricted, like "empirically verified" or "physical" or something to that effect. But that's not how I'm using it. Any particular being has being.

Sometimes Quine is lumped in with the pragmatists, I'm not sure why. — Manuel

This is the first I've ever heard that, yeah.

Others speak with greater clarity, and with less baggage. — Banno

I don't get this attitude. I myself have shared this judgment -- for example, with "thinkers" like Zizek. But it's not because I couldn't find much of interest in reading/listening to them, it's because their adherents couldn't begin to explain anything interesting about them either. At that point, I'm left with no other conclusion. So take Heidegger out of the equation and talk to me. If I'm failing to convince you, then that's my fault, and it would help to know where I'm failing. I'm still not sure, though...once the misunderstandings are cleared away, that is.

But it remains very unclear just what is being asserted about being. — Banno

Nothing is being asserted about it. We're questioning what it is -- if anything.

At the least, give us a reason to think it worth our time to read the bloody text. — Banno

Perfectly fair.

The pretence is that somehow being - treated apparently as a thing - is structured by time.

Explain that. — Banno

Being is not treated as a thing. I would also take issue with "structured" by time. Being is interpreted by human beings, and human beings, in Heidegger, are "embodied time" -- what he calls temporality. The claim is that in the West, since the Greeks, being was taken as phusis and, later, ousia -- that which is constantly present.

The "present" in this case is simply an interpretation based on one mode of the human being: what he calls the "present-at-hand." This is the mode we're in, for example, when things break down, the case he uses being a piece of equipment, like a hammer. When the hammer breaks down, or a doorknob sticks, or something goes wrong with our car, we look at these entities differently -- more theoretically, one could say -- than we do when using this equipment (what he calls the "ready-to-hand"); in this latter case, the hammer "withdraws"...or the door, or the car. They go unnoticed, they're absent. I like the example of breathing. It's constantly going on, but how often are we aware of it until something negative happens? Most of the time, breathing is absent -- we're unconscious of it, take it for granted; it withdraws. So in this ready-to-hand mode, these examples are not present-at-hand objects -- they're transparent to us.

We notice the hammer as an object with properties (weighing one pound, being of x length, having this color and shape, etc) usually when it breaks down or we're in a more theoretical (or "scientific") mood. This is the present-at-hand mode of being. It's this mode, Heidegger argues, that is the basis for the West's interpretation of being as "constantly present," as idea, ousia, substance.

This may all be uninteresting or unconvincing, but I hope it at least clears away some misconceptions. Again, being is not an entity/thing, as odd as that sounds -- and Heidegger is not offering an interpretation himself, for example that being = time.

Heidegger does not treat being as a thing; but there is no point trying to explain that to someone who has not read his work.
— Janus

But that is what is done in the OP:
The "is" in this sentence is apparently referring to being, but being is presupposed with when using the "is." So it's almost like asking "What is 'is-ness'?"
— Xtrix
...so at the least you might critique the OP for misrepresenting Heidegger. — Banno

I fail to see how this suggests being is a being. The "is" in the sentence "What is being" is apparently referring to something, "being." But the "is" itself presupposes being. Nowhere am I saying being is *a* being/object. In this case I'm discussing the difficulty of even asking the question.

Hmmm. Indeed. Logic doesn't seem to go with phenomenology of your sort.
— Banno

Haven’t you thought about the origins of logic? — Joshs

An important point.

Just as the Nothing nothings, Being, being Being, itself beings. — Ciceronianus

:rofl: This was great.

"Being" means "being labeled". — Heiko

So only that which is labeled "is"? Oddly enough that's close to the traditional Western view -- although this would be more like "only that which is thought."

Being doesn't exist - cars, chairs and people exist. — Banno

Being is not a being, yes. Cars, chairs, and people are beings. That doesn't make being a car, or chair, or person.

Where he is original, talking of being as temporal, his ideas become confused. — Banno

I don't recall him once claiming that being "is" temporal. Being gets interpreted in terms of time, yes. That's not the same thing.

If he is saying no more than that things come into existence and cease to exist, then we would all agree, and puzzle over why he phrased something so simple in such a constipated fashion. — Banno

Indeed, which is why you should contemplate the "if."

If the goal of philosophy is conceptual clarification — Banno

Again, if...there's a role for that, of course. To say that's the goal of philosophy is not very interesting, in my view.

Some folk find him enlightening, I find him muddled. — Banno

He's difficult, and again I don't fault anyone for thinking so, or not wanting to spend time getting involved in him. Remember similar things get said about Hegel, Spinoza, Kant, Aquinas, etc. For many people, it gets said about all of them, from Plato to Nietzsche. So this isn't saying much either, really. But since I started this thread, the onus is on me to explain/defend my reading of Heidegger, and I'm willing to do so, provided it's approached in good faith. If you're unwavering in your belief that Heidegger is a charlatan, then there's no sense in continuing and, again, no hard feelings.

I appreciate that his ideas are difficult to grasp, but I think the muddle is in your reading rather than in his ideas.
— Joshs

I'll second that. — Janus

I'll "third" that.

I think it's spectacularly silly to study or treat being as if it is a thing — Ciceronianus

Me too. Which is why I have repeatedly said: being is not a being.

And we can be pretty specific here: what more is there to the analysis of being in Heidegger. than is found in the analysis of existence from Frege on down? — Banno

I haven't read Frege. If Frege asserts that being, since the Greeks, has been interpreted in terms of time -- specifically as presence (and thus the "present"), that time itself has been interpreted as something present (as a sequence of now-points), and that this has lead to both to an interpretation of the human being as the zoon echon logon, the rational animal, the animal with language, the res cogitans (the thinking substance), and the "world" as an object, "nature" as matter in motion -- all of this is the basis for our modern technological/nihilistic understanding of being, then yes, perhaps they're saying the same thing. From the little I've heard, second-hand, this doesn't seem to be Frege's concern. Happy to be corrected.

In the beginning there is existence. Existence is not a property of anything, it simply is, eternally. It is what is. Existence has properties. — EnPassant

I prefer "being" rather than "existence," although I do use both occasionally. To say being is eternal or has other properties is a mistake, in my view. It's one interpretation, yes, but is confusing being with a being (with an entity).

Shout out to Xtrix for starting this expansive thread. Your detailed consideration of being gives me much to think about in the coming days.

Looks like I'll be paying additional visits to that neologizing esoteric, the ever fearsome Heidegger. — ucarr

A very generous thing to say, considering it was your thread that stimulated it.

As for Heidegger as "fearsome" -- I don't think there's so much need for trepidation, it just takes a little dedication and some time to get familiar with his peculiar language, but once you do it's very interesting indeed. The question itself gets at the heart of philosophy and, arguably, defines philosophy.

Asking "what is being?" is asking "How do we use the word 'being'?";
— Banno

Better yet , from a Heideggerian perspective , asking ‘what is being’ is asking ‘what is the condition of possibility of ‘use’? — Joshs

Right -- the very method of analysis, a linguistic or grammatical analysis, has plenty of assumptions behind it on the nature of language, truth, meaning, usage, etc. etc. The sciences, including linguistics, and the philosophy of language often overlook their own ontological foundations.

In "What is Metaphysics" he says it's what we experience when we contemplate the void. I guess it's a matter of which "Being" we're talking about. — frank

Being is experienced when we "contemplate the void"? You'll have to cite the passages you're thinking about...this looks completely wrong.

I think the title is not very clear: "Being" with a capital raises questioning and ambiguity. E.g. "What does 'being' mean?" would be something more concrete and could be easier discussed. So, I will stick to your first clear-cut (to me) question: — Alkis Piskas

No, it's a good point. I only capitalized "Being" because it's in the title. Notice I don't capitalize it elsewhere. So just ignore that.

I would describe "is-ness" as apparency of existence. It refers to something that apparently exists as true or fact. It persists in time and we agree upon that it exists, i.e. it is real for us. — Alkis Piskas

You describe being as "apparency," as truth and fact, as persisting in time and agreed to be "real." There's a lot there to unpack!

So being is that which is real, true, factual?

Two examples:
1) When I say "My name is Alkis", I state that the name "Alkis" exists and this is how I am called. Usually such a statement is not disputed and we expect that the other person agrees! :smile:
2) If I say "This tree is big", I state that 1) a tree exists somewhere near and that 2) I consider a fact (true) that it is big. However, either of these two premises can be disputed: one may disagree that it is a "tree" (he would call it a "plant") and/or that it is "big" (he may found it "medium-size" or even "small"). — Alkis Piskas

It sounds to me like what you're describing are substances with properties which we may agree upon. But remember, when you say "This tree is big," or "My name is Alkis," what we're asking about is the "is." The is-ness, the being, of the tree, of Alkis, of bigness, of redness, etc. All the beings you can think of, every property and action and process, "are," yes?

That's the question.

Whatever else it may be, you are going to get stuck on the word "is" and try to find some "essence" or a common attribute common to the word which may not (dare I say it?) exist. "Is" can only make sense in relation to something else. So what is "is-ness" cannot be answered unless it's connected with something else. — Manuel

But it has been answered in many ways, throughout history. Remember I'm not looking for an attribute or property. But "what is "is-ness"" I'm saying, "What is being?" All beings, whether trees or rocks or humans, "are." Being is not a being (a particular entity), nor a property of a being (green, large, soft). Historically, the being of beings has been defined as substance (ousia).

What I'm arguing (using Heidegger as a launching point) is that Western philosophy has interpreted being as variations of presence, since the Greeks. Thinking, in the sense of theory and, later, mathematical physics, comes to dominate -- it defines the human being (rational animal, animal with reason/language) as a subject that thinks and the world (nature) as its object.

But you aren't going to find something common to "is" by saying that a table is or a river is. — Manuel

Tables and rivers are beings. In that respect, they do indeed share a commonality: being.

I agree, traditional pragmatism can help for a lot of these issues. — Manuel

To associate Quine with pragmatism and oppose this to Heidegger somehow seems awfully strange to me. Heidegger is far more "pragmatic" than Quine in any sense of the word.

Why the Heideggerian preoccupation with time? — Banno

As I mentioned in the OP, the claim is that being gets interpreted, from the Greeks on, as presence.

It would seem that being is nothing at all, except as the one for whom it is a concern says it is. For me, beings are whatever I encounter: no encounter, no being. — tim wood

That's interesting, because it represents the above view rather well -- that of "presence." That which is present before you, as an "encountering." Everything else is absent -- a kind of "nothing."

Being seems very similar to no-thing indeed. Because it isn't a "thing" at all.

"What is the Being of beings?" And I suspect the answer to that is analagous to questions as to truth. — tim wood

Exactly. So if we go back to the Greeks, where being of beings is phusis and truth is aletheia, but have similar meanings: disclosure, openness, emergence. This loops back to what you mentioned about the concern of the questioner -- that's exactly right. If we are this "openness" -- if we are world-disclosers, so to speak, then we "are" truth in the same way as we "are" beings.

When we're concerned about this question, we're in a specific mode of being --- a theoretical, abstract mode. But we walk around with a pre-theoretical understanding of being all the time. Our existence doesn't stop when we stop thinking, any more than life stops when we're sleeping or our breathing stops when we're not paying noticing it.

What is Being?
Nothing but an empty name. — 180 Proof

A "vapor," as Nietzsche says. Indeed. But as Heidegger argues, and I agree with, is that this is currently the case and often argued because the question of being has been completely forgotten. What was so fascinating to the Greeks has become taken as self-evident, trivial, empty, or meaningless.

To say it's an empty name ignores, however, that we're all walking around with an understanding of it, even if pre-theoretical and pre-linguistic. Much the same way as to say that "human being" is an empty name, or "culture" is an empty name; perhaps, but that doesn't negate our (largely unconscious) views about ourselves, our place in the world, and the social and physical environment that has shaped our beliefs, values, and behavior.

(Look at how "being" is used in any language-game.) — 180 Proof

From your linked response a while back:

However, if this read of him uncharitably misses the mark, why didn't he just come right out and say, paraphrasing Laozi's nameless dao and Buddha's anatta-anicca, or Schopenhauer's noumenon (à la natura naturans), that "the meaning of Being" is ... Bergson's la durée? Why the (crypto-augustinian re: "time") mystery-mongerer's career? — 180 Proof

My response is worth looking over again -- I stand by that. But to add something I didn't before: Heidegger isn't offering another interpretation of being. The talk about time, in my view, is his Kantian moment minus the subject/object distinction. Aletheia, "truth," is our being, which is temporal. We cannot help interpret being in terms of time -- and for the Greeks it was interpreted as presence, ousia.

I'm happy to get into it more, but if you're convinced that it's all nonsense and Heidegger is basically a charlatan, no hard feelings -- I don't fault anyone for that view.

Asking "what is being?" is asking "How do we use the word 'being'?" — Banno

It's not simply a matter of words or definitions, though. It's undoubtedly the case that being, like other things, can be (and has been) interpreted and defined in many ways. A linguistic analysis of the word itself is interesting, but doesn't get us too far. The perspective for this analysis has plenty of assumptions and a long history behind it as well, which is itself grounded in a very definite interpretation of being -- specifically, in this case, the being of words and grammar.

Here are two puzzles, from Frege and Russell, that must be explained if one is to treating "exists" as a property. — Banno

But recall that being isn't a property, really. This is only an analogy, but consider a chair. The chair has properties, but we don't say one of those properties of the chair is light. Yet without the light, we'd see no chair.

1. What is the difference between a sweet, juicy, red apple and a sweet, juicy red apple that exists? The difference between a red apple and a green apple, or a sweet apple and a sour apple, is pretty clear. But explaining clearly what is added to an apple by existing...?

2. It's not difficult to understand an apple that is not sweet, or an apple that is not red - but an apple that does not exist? What is it? — Banno

(1) An apple is a being, yes? As I said above, being is not some property that's added or subtracted.
(2) An apple that does not exist is not a being at all.

This goes for the sentence at the beginning of the puzzlement expressed in the OP: "There is something" has no straightforward translation in logic. — Banno

What we call "logic" has quite a history as well, which we can get into if you'd like, but analyzing being in terms of the kind of logic I assume you're talking about is a dead end.

But "what is being?" is best answered with "Yes, being is what is". An alternative and even more informative response would be "Being is, and nothing happens." That is to say that being refers to the static state at a moment in time, and nothing to the continuous flow and transformation that being undergoes from one moment to the next. — unenlightened

This reminds me of something similar to Plato's forms, in a sense: the unchanging prototype. The constant and permanent as opposed to all becoming and impermanence/change, yes?

The idea that America can fund things like universal healthcare out of the defense budget just doesn't make sense. — Count Timothy von Icarus

This isn't what's being claimed. When the grotesquely bloated defense budget is brought up, it's done so to expose the utter hypocrisy and stupidity of those who suddenly worry about deficits and "fiscal responsibility" whenever social services are brought up. They don't care about deficits or the debt, or about spending -- provided the money is spent on their interests, and they use other people's money (taxpayers) while avoiding paying much themselves. That's the capitalist class for you.

My point is that since you have such a multitude of different actors in this, it simply isn't so that all actors adhered to one "socioeconomic program" of neoliberalism. I doubt that the Chinese or Vietnamese leaders were preaching the same mantra as people in the US, but they were keen to have a growing export sector. — ssu

The Chinese and Vietnamese rejected neoliberalism. So the example makes little sense. There’s good scholarship on this — Ha Joon Chang is one.

For some reason you’re insisting on thinking about neoliberalism as a religion with card-carrying followers. It’s a set of policies enacted over roughly 40 years. The name is given to this shift of policy. Deregulation, tax cuts, privatization, etc. The push came out of the corporate sector, who rallied together in the 70s very openly. The Powell memo is partly the catalyst.

You’re arguing against a straw man.

I've actually created an entirely new thread partly in response to this here, if you're interested.

The old GOP and Trumpists are way further apart on policy than the progressive and center Dems, right? — Count Timothy von Icarus

Trump had no policies and no ideology. He was happy to go along with whatever McConnell, Ryan, and the others wanted to do -- reshape the courts for a generation, give massive tax cuts, and repeal the ACA without anything to replace it. 2/3 -- a huge success for them. (You could argue 3/3, since the ACA was weakened -- and was never great to begin with.)

it arrived at a time when people were nervous about having to pay the just penalty of their collective ignorance and greed. — NOS4A2

"People" did indeed pay a penalty for the greed and stupidity of the capitalist class who caused the depression, yes.

The biggest and most deadly being capitalism
— Xtrix

I think that is demonstrably untrue, by a very large margin. — Tzeentch

For those with eyes closed, I guess.

I believe that power can be justified and legitimate. Some forms of social organization is important -- not necessarily a nation-state, but some kind of organization. The way US society is organized now is that there is very limited representative democracy for our political system and a neo-feudal, wage-slavery economic system where there is no democracy allowed.

Libertarians want to shift power away from "big government," and endlessly yap about how big government limits our "freedom," and are completely silent about the economic system. It's striking.

None of these things are true. — The Opposite

It is true. Heaven and hell are nonsense— there’s no evidence for that whatsoever.