Have you met American politicians? — StreetlightX

Yes. And they don't give a fuck about non-voters like you, who stay home because, you know, "both parties bad."

Any progress made occurred as the result of people abiding his advice. — James Riley

He has no advice. No alternatives, no solutions, no strategy. It's stupid to vote against the worst candidate, because both candidates are awful. Activism is stupid, voting (or not voting) is paramount -- that'll teach 'em. Typical establishment propaganda.

you just can't do anything whatsoever to hold him materially accountable for the suffering he causes"). — StreetlightX

Imagine thinking that withholding a vote is the only way to hold someone to account. :rofl:

Mmm, your point wasn't at all that one must, deapite it all, vote for Joe Biden, because not doing so would be like giving up on the civil rights movement. — StreetlightX

That wasn't the point, correct. The point is that, like the civil rights movement, the Sunrise Movement continues on, whether we take the five minutes to vote against the worst every four years or not. Setbacks are going to occur either way.

What we don't do is what you're promoting: everything's the same and activism is stupid. Brilliant.

I think there's a legitimate and fundamental distinction to be made between beings and objects — Wayfarer

Sentient beings and objects, you mean. Which is like saying human beings aren't simply objects. Fine. Noted. Move on.

Biden is indeed better than Trump on the environment, and the pushing of environmental activists — like the Sunrise Movement — will continue, despite predictable setbacks. The civil rights movement had many setbacks as well
— Xtrix

Are you OK? — StreetlightX

Are you? Let me help: Notice the "and." Then: "The pushing of environment activists -- like the Sunrise Movement -- will continue, despite predictable setbacks." I wonder if the next sentence about the civil rights movement was referring to Joe Biden, an individual, or the Sunrise Movement, also a movement.

Could have been the one that makes no sense whatsoever. Guess I was unclear. :roll:

A perfectly viable choice might be to shoot both in the head. — StreetlightX

Yeah, that's brilliant. Problem solved. Here, let me try: let's shoot them all in the head and start anew. Excellent. Satisfying.

Now back to the real world.

Goebbels is better than Hitler, so I'll throw my lot in with Goebbels" — StreetlightX

If those were the only choices, and there was even a chance that Goebbels would be less damaging than Hitler, or that there would be even a slightly better chance of stopping atrocities with him in power, then yes of course. If they’re equally awful and there’s no discernible difference, then there’s no pointing voting either way.

But voting is hardly the only thing to consider. It’s actually a fairly trivial choice. Do it and get back to that stupid activism. But what do I know? I’m no Zizek.

entirely projection. — StreetlightX

Almost like the claim that I compared Joe Biden to the civil rights movement. :chin:

Hence the designation, "being". — Wayfarer

See if you can understand this for now the 100th time:

Being in ontology does NOT refer exclusively to sentient entities.

But feel free to go on ignoring this over and over and over again. You’re truly a dead end.

not at all a stupid comparison — StreetlightX

It is indeed a stupid comparison- but you’re the only one making it.

people voting for him regardless of how much he damage he causes. — StreetlightX

Trump was more damaging, so the easy choice is to vote against Trump. Doesn’t mean Biden isn’t damaging. You’ve demonstrated you’re not capable of making this distinction — fine. Then don’t vote at all, or vote third party — whatever you like.

For those capable of thinking beyond Zizek soundbites, it’s an easy decision. Also for those not buying into the establishment propaganda that voting is our sole way of changing anything because “activism is stupid.”

Voting is like a needle: It's either scary or it's inconvenient. — James Riley

It’s a trivial decision that takes a few seconds. The important work of activism, educating, organizing, unionizing, protesting, creating programs, etc., continues. Trump was the worst of two choices, especially on the environment. Biden has already been pushed leftward, thanks to Sunrise and others— not nearly enough and so far without major legislation — and the work goes on.

Those who can’t differentiate between parties simply want to sound intelligent, when in reality it’s intellectual laziness.

Y'know - the one who you constantly run apologetics for. — StreetlightX

:rofl:

Imagine still being confused about how to vote.

Yes, we know taking three seconds to vote against Trump was too hard a choice for you.

Biden is indeed better than Trump on the environment, and the pushing of environmental activists — like the Sunrise Movement — will continue, despite predictable setbacks.

The civil rights movement had many setbacks as well— a shame you weren’t around to tell them to give up. I’m sure they could have used the enlightenment of an Internet philosophy forum poster.

I wonder what Zizek would say. :chin:

values are generated based on promoting one’s wealth,

:lol: I like a lot of what Rand said but she’s very simplistic indeed. Imagine equating with values and happiness with wealth creation. No wonder she was a capitalist. That and a negative experience in Russia, I suppose. What a pity.

Thought is used to make values manifest in action.

Again, way too simple and formulaic. This is far from how we function as human beings most of the time — it rarely happens, if at all.

Where exactly are these quotes from? Please cite the source.

What I have not seen first hand is anything like the kind of behavior you ascribe to doctors -- "screwing portions of the population into submission to a system that exploits them, and if drugging you or driving you insane". Frankly, that just sounds like capitalism at work. — Bitter Crank

Well said. But capitalism is “natural,” so therefore it’s good. I mean, at least it’s not - gasp - socialism! :scream:

A socialist utopia is an unnatural fantasy. Unnatural things are unhealthy because we are natural beings. — Miller

:rofl:

Cynicism, writing it all off as hopeless, is just another way to abandon any hope of change. — Wayfarer

Very true, although I’d argue I’m being realistic. Nevertheless, as I said, I’m not by any means using it as an excuse to give up, because I never really thought much would come of it anyway. Same with this reconciliation bill being negotiated in congress— everything worthwhile has been removed. So it’s a matter of simply continuing on.

ship is sinking and it’s being purposely steered by those on top, those on the bottom are the only ones left to stop it-but we can’t and the capitalists have made sure we can’t. — Albero

We can. We have far more power and privilege than other people in the world today and throughout history, who have fought under much harsher conditions.

I’m not saying I’m hopeless, or that nothing can be done —I’m saying that like anything else in history, change will have to come from below. That means you and I, and those around us. It means joining together. Educating ourselves and others, creating solutions and programs, and pressing for those programs.

Plenty of organizations. The Sunrise Movement is incredible— Fridays for Future, likewise. 350.org, the divestment movement, Extinction Rebellion, Greenpeace, the NRDC, etc. All very important.

It’s local involvement as well. The Sierra Club has many local chapters. Labor unions are crucial to all of this too because it’s business that will need to change, and if workers have no say then not only will the status quo continue, but people will increasingly be too poor and too exhausted to care.

With the above, it appears that Sartre has also tapped into Locke’s tabula rasa, which, of late, has been opposed by Chomsky’s theory of deep speech which, in his declarations, arises from genetic hard-wiring. That’s why, according to Chomsky, toddlers are such apt pupils of language. — ucarr

What Chomsky points out is trivial -- he's saying there's a genetic component to language, and that's all. I've never understood why this is controversial. Of course it's hard-wired into us somehow, in the same way our visual system is. How could it be otherwise? I don't think Locke would ever truly argue that we're completely a blank slate, which as absurd as saying we have no genetic structure whatsoever. If we have genetic structure, we're not a blank slate. The environment is necessary to acquire language, yes -- just as stimulation of the retina in early years is important to the development of vision.

So it's not that toddlers are apt pupils of language any more than they're apt pupils of vision -- it's something that simply develops under normal conditions. An ape isn't a "bad pupil" of language, for example, any more than a starfish is an inept pupil of seeing.

Great essay, by the way.

Another interesting passage worth mulling over:

Yet the Greeks have managed to interpret Being in this way without any explicit knowledge of the clues which function here, without any acquaintance with the fundamental ontological function of time or even any understanding of it, and without any insight into the reason why this function is possible. On the contrary, they take time itself as one entity among other entities, and try to grasp it in the structure of its Being, though that way of understanding Being which they have taken as their horizon is one which is itself naively and inexplicitly oriented towards time.

So again, from the very beginning of Western thought, we've been oriented towards thinking as presence, and so later beings can be frozen and objectified, objects for a thinking subject. As @Janus mentioned, it's no wonder it eventually devolves into scientism and capitalism.

Yeah, but that sounds like ordinary people -- who I don't necessarily blame. I blame the people at the top, the corporate, political, and intellectual leaders who have duped the vast majority of the population with their bullshit belief/value system. For them it's more like: "We're heading for destruction, but our job is to raise profit and share prices every quarter or we're out on our ass, so let someone else handle it." Or they deny it all together, as the fossil fuel industry did for decades.

Awareness , apprehension and perception may be a bit too close to the passivity of subject-object oppositionality. I noticed that, surprisingly, he doesnt use the word ‘awareness’ a single time in Being and Time , openness is used only a handful of times, and he’s not too crazy about perception either. I think he loves terms like disclosure. thrownnes and projection because they get away from the idea of a subject over here staring at a pre-existing object over there. — Joshs

There's an important point where he uses awareness -- or at least that's how the Robinson version translates it:

λεγειν itself -- or rather νοειν, that simple awareness of something present-at-hand in its sheer presence-at-hand, which Parmenides had already taken to guide him in his own interpretation of Being -- has the Temporal structure of a pure 'making-present' of something. Those entities which show themselves in this and for it, and which are understood as entities in the most authentic sense, thus get interpreted with regard to the Present; that is, they are conceived as presence (ουσια).

(p. 48 H26, B&T)

This entire passage is fascinating.

Remember what gets translated as "thinking" is actually "apprehension" (noein), so when Parmenides says "to gar auto noein estin te kai einai" he's saying being and apprehension are one (this is a point Heidegger delves into in Intro to Metaphysics), not being and thinking.

So it's a complex story. There's the inception that begins with Anaxamander, Parmenides, and Heraclitus, and "ends" with Plato and Aristotle. But the "end" sets the stage for everything else, and the beginning gets forgotten. Idea, logic, substance -- ιδεα, λογοσ, ουσια -- come to dominate, and does "thinking" (as logic), of which everything else becomes an object for. Then of course we have mind/body of Descartes and subject/object of Kant and others.

But originally, phusis was the word for beings in the sense of this blooming, emerging.

I see him saying we need to re-discover the beginning in order to overcome it, and the beginning is two things: this simple present-at-hand awareness as phusis and noein, and the ontological difference: the distinction of being and beings. From there we can begin to find to footing.

So nearly nothing came out of COP26, as about expected, and we're almost certainly facing an unparalleled destruction in human history. In other words, this conference was a death knell.

Should be headline news all over the world. I'm not giving up, of course, but this seems to be the reality. Who knew we'd eventually die from capitalism? One would have thought radical fundamentalism, but I repeat myself.

Don’t forget Marxism, and its associated dialectical materialism. — Joshs

Sure, but Marx's influence has been rather diminished as well. Frankly I never cared much about Hegel's influence or Marx's philosophical positions -- more about his analysis of class and how it functions. On that point there's hardly a more penetrating analyst.

Dasein is not a consciousness. — Joshs

Right, in the same way "human being" isn't used. The terms are too loaded to use. But if we throw out the subject/object distinction, and read it more as "awareness" or "openness" or "perception" or "apprehension" (words he prefers), then of course that's happening. Dasein is an activity, a being-in-the-world, a caring entity pressing into the future. Difficult to describe because we have so little language for it.

No. I'll reflect your level of politeness.

2. The absolute presence of the thinking subject and its object. Although the absent is still lurking in the form of the transcendent. — Janus

Unpack what you mean in the second sentence for me a bit, if you please.

3. I'm reminded of the other thread re Collingwood and the idea of absolute presuppositions that we are unaware we are making at our peril. — Janus

Yes. How many people truly question anything? This gets said a lot, I'm sure, but it's absolutely true. If you're not a philosopher, scientist, theologian, perhaps psychologist or psychotherapist, you may encounter these questions a handful of times over the course of several years, if at all. It doesn't have to be all that profound, either -- it's simple questions. Socrates asked simple questions too. But what they do is uncover the hidden beliefs and decisions we're acting on.

The rise of science, technology and colonialism in the West (which was around the 10th century well behind China technologically) — Janus

I wonder why you say the 10th century...the Carolingian renaissance?

The twin evils of scientism and capitalism, with their total disregard for nature, stand in the way of any new socialist order which would seem to be the only hope for civilization going forward. That our destinies are determined by a tiny cabal of individuals and giant corporations who would rather see the world burn than give up their power and privilege is quite an horrific scenario to contemplate. — Janus

Very well said. Our secular age, with its scientism and capitalism is ultimately based on "naturalism" and "materialism," or even "physicalism." Two other -isms branch off from these: hedonism and consumerism. That's a lot of -isms. But if we look around, this explains a large part of our world. It shows up in the "American Dream" of basically aspiring to be nothing more than a wage slave who can maybe one day own a house and a little land (property, assets -- "stuff"). It shows up in our addictions to technology, the most obvious being smart phones.

There's also Christianity lingering in the background. But the Church is nearly irrelevant, and the evangelicals are first and foremost Republican "free enterprise" capitalists, more willing to go with Trump than Jesus. So whatever they profess, they live their lives like everyone else: capitalists.

The United States is the ruling nation in the world today, and so whoever controls the United States essentially controls the world and the future of humanity. That control is currently in the hands of big business, and in particular the financial sector. Obviously Big Tech, Big Oil, Big Pharma, all are powerful -- but I'd say the banks and investment firms and asset managers hold the most power. They're the only industry that can get propped up by creating money by fiat -- which the Fed happily does, since they're "too big to fail."

Financial corporations are structured in the same way as any corporation. So these CEOs and the board of directors who make the decisions regarding what to do with the company and, most importantly, where to distribute the profits -- these are the people who run the companies that buy and run the government that runs the country that rules and runs the world. Quite a linear narrative, I realize, but I'm a simple man.

So who are these people, and what do they believe? Just look. They're all capitalists too. They go to fancy schools, most were raised wealthy themselves, they've all been baptized at the Church of Capitalism, growing up imbibing the values of their class and the preachings of their prophets -- Hayek, Friedman, Rand, etc.

The question of being, like many philosophical questions, ends up exposing quite a bit about the world we live in today, why it is how it is, how it happened, what decisions were made and policies created to shape it, and out of what belief system. In the age of nuclear weapons and climate disaster, the people driving the car either don't care that we're going over a cliff, or believe they're going to heaven anyway, or both...turns out that beliefs and an understanding/interpetation of what it means to be human really matters.

Thanks. I screwed it up somehow…

Do you have an example of what you would call an ontological distinction? — Wayfarer

Yes, the ontological distinction: being and beings.

The former is what we’re inquiring about.

The "is" discussion isn't of that much interest to me. The main points I wanted to make are as follows:

(1) From the Greek inception onward, being has been interpreted as presence. Starting at the end of this inception, with Plato and Aristotle, being becomes associated with idea and ousia and sets the stage thereafter for "thinking" being the predominant issue, with man seen as the animal with reason and logos (as assertion) and eventually leading to the modern era in Descartes and Kant.

(2) A conscious (thinking) subject contemplating objects ignores absence -- it ignores the fact that most of the time we are acting unconsciously, and that thinking itself (as philosophical or scientific thinking) is but one mode of human activity.

(3) We should question what being is and thus, and more importantly, what we are -- which means where we're going and what we're doing in the world. Because every action, choice, routine, speech, etc., operates with a "pre-ontological" or "pre-theoretical" understanding of both (the Christian era being a good example).

(4) Our current pre-theoretical understanding seems to be a nihilistic one, largely thanks to the end of Christianity and the rising of scientism, technology and capitalism. There's no common understanding of what we are. It's a very anxiety-provoking, rootless, and directionless understanding of being.

I see all of this as ultimately relevant to both individuals and society as a whole. It's hard to look around and be an optimist, but if real change is going to happen we have to wake up or re-awaken our questioning.

I'm content with my contributions — Banno

Glad to understand your standards. :up:

Sure. Doesn't have to be a time limit. I sent a challenge for three days.

I can't divorce myself of the impression that Heidegger's style is an affectation. — Banno

:yawn:

Yes, we know. Very original take.

This thread isn't about Heidegger. If you have nothing to contribute, then there's no sense continuing. Go start a more interesting thread. I've tried explaining things several times, and this was ignored. So I assume you're here just to bitch. Talk about "affectation."

All existents are entities. So yeah, objects are entities. But beings are reserved for those with subjective perception. — Caldwell

No, they aren't.

Objects are beings, like everything else.
— Xtrix

Objects are entities. — Caldwell

And entities are 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,
— Xtrix

It's not 'my' definition, it's the definition. Objects are not beings, as they are not subject of experience. — Wayfarer

It's not the definition in ontology. Objects are beings, like everything else.

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

Where do abstract objects fit into this? Numbers, scientific principles, and the like? — Wayfarer

They're beings.

their nature is noumenal i.e. they're intelligible objects, not sense objects. — Wayfarer

That's not what "noumenal" means. Numbers are not "noumenal." Numbers are beings, like everything else.

And your analysis completely misses that distinction. If you label them all as 'existents' or 'phenomena' then you're not accounting for the fundamental distinctions that ontology is concerned with. — Wayfarer

As I already said, there are plenty of distinctions among beings. All kinds. They're still beings.

I'm happy to grant them cult status as well. — Ciceronianus

So every philosopher has a cult following?

Want a game? We should coordinate a time if you're interested. I'm "seinsfrage."

However entering the economic system itself was a forced game. Yes it has to be played to survive but the fact that we are forced to play it at all lest we die an agonizing slow death by starvation or scary prospect of outright suicide makes it a legitimate injustice to be philosophically and personally against. Any forced, inescapable game is a legitimate target for moral scrutiny and criticism. This is quite independent to post facto subjective evaluations of liking the game. Like the happy slave, the laborer has no other choice. — schopenhauer1

This is excellent. I'm surprised I've missed this thread for so long.

Two small points:

1) I'd differentiate "work" from a "job." You seem to be using "work" to mean a job, and it's important to differentiate. Why? Because I find it's simply part of human nature to want to do creative/productive work. Commuting into a building to do a Bullshit Job for a wage, on the other hand, is a specifically modern phenomenon.

2) Starvation, suicide, being stigmatized, homelessness -- all real possibilities. But there's another that's more common for average folks like me: destruction of credit. So while I might not literally starve or be homeless (I have friends/family to rely on), since they've gotten rid of debtor's prisons, and since there are charities, food pantries, and a weak social safety net, the major consequence of rejecting a "job" is the "red flag" placed on your record -- you won't get credit anywhere, whether a mortgage or personal/car loan or credit card. This stays on your record a long time indeed, and bankruptcy doesn't always wipe it all away (student loans, for example) and, even if it did, it too stays on your record for several years.

So it's a forced game indeed, and you're absolutely correct in raising it for criticism.

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.