Let us pass to a specific context. We can analyze this text of Heidegger and you would have the opportunity to explain that Heidegger doesn't say that Western metaphysics is wrong ant that we shouldn't "destroy" it to regain the true way of Being. — David Mo

Notice he doesn't once say that Western metaphysics is "wrong." The question has been forgotten and concealed, and the "orignary" way the early Greeks thought about it has indeed been deformed and misinterpreted, etc. If we want to say that therefore Aristotle, Descartes, Suarez, Augustine, Aquinas, Spinoza, Kant, Hegel, and even Heidegger's mentor Husserl are all "wrong," then we can -- but as I said from the very beginning, that's pretty misleading and, as you've now shown, not in Heidegger.

Plato was not a metaphysician or an ontologist. He was a dramatist. Scholars universally miss this. — Gary M Washburn

Plato was all of those things, and more.

To say he was merely a dramatist is at best an understatement.

Deteriorated, dogmatic, concealment, misinterpretation, deformation, to destroy our genuine relation to things.

These are Heidegger's words. — David Mo

And without context, just that -- words. As I mentioned, from my reading these statements are almost always made in reference to translations of words and how the question of "Being" has been lost. I'd go through each one, but it's really not that interesting. You're taking a stand on this one narrow issue because you apparently have nothing left to discuss.

Being isn't a being, and it isn't in some mysterious "realm." It's any being whatsoever. It's the "is-ness" of any thing.
— Xtrix
You yourself are saying that the term being applies to all things. Therefore it is universal and we cannot find a "scope" that is restrictive. — David Mo

Substance. Or God. Or nature. All interpretations of Being, and all restrictive in their interpretations.

Being itself isn't restricted to any class of entities.

Heidegger has an entire chapter on this, titled "The Restriction of Being." He goes through four of them: being and becoming, being and seeming, being and thinking, being and the ought. This is how being has been historically interpreted and "set apart" from something else. Being "and not", etc.

You think. Enough to share it. Therefore there is. For you at least. — Outlander

No, there isn't. There's plenty of things I believe are true. "Ultimate truth" is meaningless.

nor his general thinking the ultimate Truth.
— Xtrix

Do you feel it leads you toward it or away from it? Not much more you can ask for these days really. — Outlander

Neither -- because I don't think there is an "ultimate truth."

But Heidegger doesn't think of it as "perverted" or "wrong."
— Xtrix

What kind of question is this? — David Mo

It's not a question.

Heidegger repeatedly accuses Western philosophy with negative concepts that imply falsity in many ways, — David Mo

"Falsity" in the sense of being concealed, covering-over, and forgetting.

The term "misinterpretation" applied to Western philosophy appears from the first pages (7/10) and throughout the work. — David Mo

"Applied to"...mainly in the context of how words are translated (and thus interpreted), yes.

Heidegger understands truth as aletheia. He describes it with various words that refer to a revelation or unveiling of the concealed. (Very poetic). Cf. Being and Time (223/265). That's what I'm talking about. I don't know what other sense you're talking about. — David Mo

No, that's correct. But if you know that, then how can you be interpreting "falsity" or "wrong" as anything other than a concealment and hiddenness?

But as I said before, I'll gladly capitulate: maybe Heidegger was "negative" about the Western tradition. He says repeatedly he does not mean to sound like he's making a condemnation, but regardless -- I'm not particularly interested in this line of discussion, as I said from the beginning I think it a fairly nit-picky type point. You've chosen to focus in on this point almost exclusively at this point. I think that itself is telling.

Exactly. Philosophers of the last 2,500 are right within the scope of "presencing."
— Xtrix
I don't know what scope that is. What do you mean by "presence"? — David Mo

That's a great question. There's plenty to talk about there. He has a lot to say in Being and Time about the "present-at-hand" relations to things in the world. This is the "mode" in which he believes nearly all philosophy has dwelled -- by seeing things as present before us, as substances or objects. This is the connection to the "time" part of the title -- that Being gets "interpreted" from the perspective of time. (Namely, the present.)

Heidegger is explicitly referring to the realm of that mysterious stuff called Being. At least it can be said that this Being is universal. He says so. He does not mention a restricted scope, — David Mo

Yes, but I didn't say that "Being" is restricted (it is indeed everything), but that the interpretation of Being certainly is. And that interpretation has been taken for granted for a long time. This is the entire thesis.

Heidegger is explicitly referring to the realm of that mysterious stuff called Being. — David Mo

Again, I don't think "realm" or "stuff" are appropriate here. Being isn't a being, and it isn't in some mysterious "realm." It's any being whatsoever. It's the "is-ness" of any thing. What "is it" apart from any individual being? This is the question: the meaning of "Being." Heidegger wants to re-awaken that question.

Again, was Newton "wrong"?
— Xtrix
Newton was (and is) right within the scope of his theory. — David Mo

Exactly. Philosophers of the last 2,500 are right within the scope of "presencing."

Then you go on to make a lot of assertions...

Nevertheless, Heidegger poses a question with a universal scope: Being. According to Heidegger, Western metaphysics perverted the correct questioning of the Greeks. Therefore, the Greeks were right and western metaphysics was wrong. — David Mo

No. The question has been forgotten, it's true. But Heidegger doesn't think of it as "perverted" or "wrong." He just doesn't. Your reading is just incorrect, I'm afraid. He will go on about how the interpretations have varied and how the "question of the meaning of being" has been concealed/forgotten or simply taken for granted.

So much so that philosophy needs to start again, which does not happen until Heidegger arrives. Of course. — David Mo

You keep insisting on painting a picture of Heidegger as having some kind of God-complex. I really don't see how this is justified from any reading of him. But yes, given the state of the world and the history (as he understands it) of Western thought, we should return to the questioning of the meaning of Being. This much he claims.

Hermeneutics, with Heidegger at the head, claims something confuse or contradictory: truth doesn't exist ("Truth is untruth", in Heidegger's words). They (you) don't say that absolute truth doesn't exist. This would be reasonable with some additional clarifications --I have done some above. They (you) claim an absolute truth against the truth. An absurdity. — David Mo

I claim none of those things.

The "truth is untruth" quote is, of course, a deliberately cheap thing to do. Of course it looks ridiculous without further explanation. I'm not interested in playing games like that, though. If you want to know what he means by that, I'd be happy to explain it -- or read it yourself, if you're interested.

If what you (or they) mean is that all truth fits within a scope, that is not denied by anyone outside the field of rationalist metaphysics. It is a rather trivial truth. But it does not prevent us from saying that, according to Heidegger's own words, the Greeks were right in the face of scholastic medieval metaphysics or Cartesian rationalism, for example. — David Mo

"Right" about what?

Of course, like every prophet, — David Mo

...

Heidegger changed his theory later because he wanted to and reserved the truth for poetry. — David Mo

What "truth"? In Heidegger, it means something very different.

Sorry to say, but this is once again sounding like something from a secondary source. The Cliffs Notes version of later Heidegger thought isn't of much interest to me.

Defend what point?
— Xtrix

There's an example up there. "It's either half empty or half full." Perfect hermeneutical relativism.To err in the wrong direction by degenerating the answers to the point of needing a "new beginning" is to be half right. — David Mo

"Hermeneutical relativism" is a redundancy. We're talking about interpretation. Interpretation presupposes a point of view, of course. So a kind of "relativism" is already implied in the word -- it's relative to a perspective. It doesn't mean that truth is relative. I gave the simple example of the glass simply to demonstrate that just because an interpretation, or description, doesn't account for all the data doesn't make it "wrong."

Again, was Newton "wrong"?

But this isn't very interesting -- if you want to use "right" and "wrong" in describing the history of philosophy, I won't object any further. As I said, it's a bit of a nit-pick. But it's of tertiary importance.

But you've given no indication here that you've read one word of Heidegger. If you're in the "ignore the man because he was a Nazi" group -- that's fine. Then why come here at all?

If Heidegger is doing anything he's pointing out that there has been something overlooked
— Xtrix

It is evident that we speak different languages. According to Heidegger there is an essential question: What is being? He dedicated several books and many lectures to it. He considered that Western philosophy had overlooked, deformed, degenerated, etc. this question since the time of the Greeks. If overlooking, deforming and degenerating a main subject is not to be wrong, what does it mean to be wrong for you? I'm afraid you speak a language that I don't know. And it's not English. — David Mo

Because it'd be like saying that if one states "the glass is half empty," it's "wrong." It's not wrong -- it's just as true as the opposite. There are various ways of interpreting things. Our way, in the West, is to interpret being in terms of time. This is the "metaphysics of presence." It's gone through various adaptations for 2,500 years. That's the thesis.

Again, if you want to say that this all amounts to Western thinking since 500 B.C being "wrong," you're welcome to. But it's not in Heidegger. Forgetting, overlooking, concealing, and taking for granted have very different connotations -- in English.

Well I'm not sure what you mean by the first sentence, but I'm not advocating for irrationalism or mysticism if that's what you're hinting at.
— Xtrix

Irrationalism or extreme relativism, which is the same thing. You refuse to defend your point because "there are many theories", "I don't know what Being is", etc. — David Mo

Defend what point?

If after this quotation you continue affirming that for Heidegger Heraclitus, Parmenides and the Greeks who were in this line were not right, it is that we do not understand the same for "being right". — David Mo

Exactly. It's not that Hegel, or Kant, or Descartes, or Augustine, or Greeks (presocratic or not) were wrong. Likewise, science isn't "wrong" either -- if Heidegger ever claimed that he'd be laughed out of the room, rightfully. If Heidegger is doing anything he's pointing out that there has been something overlooked (and then not even questioned) in our tradition. If we want to say that this is the same as not being "right," I think that's a little misleading. I don't think Heidegger would be that presumptuous, and is why he almost always speaks highly of these thinkers.

I will continue with the rest of your commentary when I have time to read it. — David Mo

Your first two paragraphs have a lot to talk about. You'll allow me to stand on them. — David Mo

Very true, and please do.

You define the method of interpretation as going anywhere in any way. That's very Heideggerian, but it doesn't work for me. The act of knowing is supposed to be reasonably shared, but if all is fair the result can be chaos and confrontations can take us anywhere. I don't think you're serious about this. — David Mo

Well I'm not sure what you mean by the first sentence, but I'm not advocating for irrationalism or mysticism if that's what you're hinting at. But if you could elaborate I'd rather wait until I respond to something I don't fully understand yet.

The proof that you don't seriously mean it is that in the next paragraph you put "apart from the interpretation". But here too you are remarkably confusing. From what you write next I get nothing. That Being is neither this nor that. The conclusion does not seem to be very conclusive, truth be told. Besides, how do you arrive at the question of what Being really is apart from the interpretation? Is there any other method that you have not told us about? I hope it would be more precise that interpretation. — David Mo

I don't think I've fully understood you here, either. But as for the first question: I don't think there is an answer to what Being really is. There are plenty of interpretations and tacit assumptions, etc., but nothing I can define, measure, or formalize with confidence -- far more brilliant minds than mine have done so, and I'd simply defer to their interpretations, which is not very interesting.

As far as the self goes -- I have thoughts on the self, but what's the connection to Heidegger?.
— Xtrix
Nothing. I think I explained that. It's a dirty trick of the word processor program of auto-correction. It has a mania for change "Being" for "Self". Also "pressence" for "pressure". Although I correct its mistakes, sometimes I miss one. I should take out the auto-corrector, but sometimes it comes in handy. — David Mo

Right, that's partly my fault, I completely forgot.

I don't see Heidegger necessarily thinking Parmenides or Heraclitus somehow got it "right"
— Xtrix

There are many Heidegger's passages on the capital importance of correctly understand the "concealed" message of Greeks. An example:
Once again, we will rely on the two definitive thinkers Parmenides and Heraclitus, and we will try once again to find entry into the Greek world, whose basic traits, though distorted and repressed, displaced and covered up, still sustain our own world.
— Heidegger: Int to Meta, p. 96/132
I think it is impossible to understand Heidegger without his personal version of them. However, it is possible to discuss Heidegger's philosophy without Heraclitus and Parmenides if someone wants to defend him. I am not sure you want to do so. — David Mo

But that's all different from saying they're "right," remember. He does indeed think their thinking has been concealed and covered over, etc. But as I said, from my reading anyway (and I can give you references if you'd like), I see him as saying they're both still part of the "metaphysics of presence" -- they're still presencing. This is why Being has been interpreted this way from then onwards, and why it "had to be" -- because the seed was already there at the beginning. So in Plato and Aristotle Being becomes Idea and Ousia, respectively, as the Romans and Christians it becomes substance and God, and through Descartes as the res, also a substance. "Being" then becomes a mistake, a vapor, an error, empty, meaningless, etc., and the question of its meaning becomes completely forgotten, ignored, or dismissed as senseless.

This is the point in history where Heidegger comes in, in the 1910s, inspired by "phenomenology." During a time in history where technology was advancing exponentially, physics and chemistry were being transformed, and mathematics was undergoing a "crisis" of foundations. It's a time when Russell and "analytic philosophy" was emerging and mathematics was attempted to be "reduced" to logic. A lot of influence from Kierkegaard and Nietzsche too. Worth keeping all this in mind when reading him, of course.

So you have it exactly right -- I'm only challenging the idea that Heidegger judges Parmenides and Heraclitus as "right" per se. He no doubt has the highest respect for both thinkers (and Anaximander) and, as you rightly quoted, believes their thinking was the inception of philosophy and still "sustains" our own world today.

What Being means to you? Why is it so important? — David Mo

I think it means what we want it to mean -- how we interpret it. I think history bears this out, in fact, in terms of the history of ontology. Here it's "substance," there it's "idea," or it's "god," it's "energy," it's "will," it's perhaps the "thing in itself," it's rationality, it's "nature," etc etc etc. It corresponds with the meaning of being human, too -- which is most important and a crucial point in Heidegger (and why he bothers with the question at all, in the end).

What "is" being apart from our interpreting it? Well, it's not a "thing" (a being) at all, or an object at all. That's why the confusing statement that "Being is not a being." Is it a kind of "nothing," then? Sure, but even the idea of "nothing" is something. Nihilism is a big problem, and here he agrees with Nietzsche -- but it permeates this part of the modern age. We're technological/nihilist. A way to get beyond this is to confront Nothing and Being.

This is all very anxiety-provoking in the modern age. It feels groundless. But as Heidegger says, if we don't "flee" from it, we can achieve a kind of liberation (like the Buddhists often talk about), and that can transform our way of being/living. By accepting the groundlessness of life, you don't have to "grasp" a hold of something as the "ultimate truth" or the ground of all being, etc. This is needed now more than ever, because we as humanity are killing ourselves, heading right for destruction (this is in the nuclear age, even prior to climate change).

Now is this itself an interpretation of "being"? Not that I see -- because it's not a definition of "it." It's simply an acknowledgment that we as human beings question and interpret things. We're "ontological," in the sense of questioning being and beings, and "hermeneutical" in the sense of interpretation. Since at heart we're historical/temporal beings, it is from the standard of time that we interpret or question anything at all, including "being" itself. Let me digress a bit to fill this out before you respond...

Most of us, most of the time, are not doing ontology or thinking philosophically or scientifically, or even "abstractly." Once we see that -- which we all agree is true, I think, and only need to examine ourselves in our "average everydayness" (as Heidegger puts it) to remember it -- then we see that what we DO (most of the time) in this everydayness gives us plenty of clues as to what our "pre-theoretical" (assumed, tacitly held) understanding of life, being human, and Being generally, is.

There's a whole story there, too -- about the "world" and our "Being-in-the-world." Turns out by looking at what we do for the most part (when not being theoretical or "the rational animal"), using Heidegger's analysis and terminology -- that what we are, as the entities that ask about being and have an understanding of being, is "care" (Sorge).

We're caring beings acting in the world towards goals, projecting out into the future towards which we go, anticipating, moving towards something now for the sake of something later (a tacit plan or goal). Crude example: if we're hammering, we're doing so as part of a whole totality of other beings and equipment which only make sense in the context of house-building, which only makes sense in terms of the human need for shelter, etc.

That's only a rough sketch of his ideas. I only digress here a bit to round out the picture a little, because if you dwell on any one aspect of his philosophy it can look insane (especially when approaching it from, as example only, more of an analytic point of view -- which is far more clear and precise), so it's good to give a cartoon-like overview.

Turns out, of course, that our average everydayness, which is not theoretical, and which represents "care," -- turns out that this is really "time" in the sense of lived time or existential time. It's on the basis of this meaning of time that "world time" (clocks, calandras, a series of "nows", etc) is derived, through measurement and counting.

Heidegger calls this lived time "temporality."

One thing I like about Mr. Heidegger is his simple examples to illustrate all of this -- liking hammering, or turning a doorknob, or being a professor and lecturing. We could use driving or any often skill or activity to demonstrate what he's getting at too. Turns out that these obvious things, in his hands, undermine 2,500 years of tradition. That's a big claim to make. So why?

Because he will claim that temporality (the caring being-in-th-world that is a 'there' [dasein], which we see in these average behaviors) is essentially how a human being interprets anything at all and, therefore, includes the activity of philosophy and science. How does this undermine the tradition?

Because this has been overlooked and concealed. Because he will claim that since the dawn of philosophy in Anaximander, Parmenides, and Heraclitus, Western thinking (philosophy) has been dominated by one aspect of lived-time (temporality): the present. Hence we interpret Being and TIME ITSELF from the perspective of the present, as something "present-at-hand" (the permanent, an enduring prototype, substance, an object that persists, a particular entity). If we're staggering in history, we're staggering in part for this reason. So a new perspective should be opened up in which we can interpret ourselves. Later Heidegger says it's the poets and artists that can lead the way on this. Kind of ironic.

I hope this makes sense. I realize on first glance it sounds like a lot of confused, jumbled bullshit. Please know I'm quite aware of that and am thus always reluctant to give condensed accounts like this -- always also with the awareness that this is only one reading of Heidegger, which he himself may have thought was completely wrong. But I feel it's only fair to give my own synopsis, given your (difficult) question. Quoting Heidegger all day would be more time-consuming and a bit of a cop out.

My own personal view is that turning to the Eastern tradition is an important move in the right direction. Bringing back a sense of the "divine" in life (not supernatural), perhaps like the Hindu or Greek-religious interpretation, would be a good thing for humanity right now. When it comes to ideas of this sort, I'm much more in agreement with Nietzsche and much more drawn to Marx, Chomsky, and Wolf -- who I think are on the right track in emphasizing politics and economics.

Cheers.

I also appreciate your efforts to answer my questions, even when I feel they are not correct or as inextricably confused as Heidegger himself.
I also appreciate your recognition that Heidegger is not "always clear". I would say that he is almost always confused. But I am predisposed to give the benefit of the doubt and to think that this confusion is not a deliberate device to leave the door open to a possible retreat, but the result of a basic misguided approach to metaphysical pseudo-problems. — David Mo

Fair enough.

o confuse this as being his own view is just a misunderstanding. Understandable, given his way of lecturing, where it's not always clear if he's speak from the perspective of the Greeks or giving his own thoughts. In this case, it's certainly not his own thought,
— Xtrix

You're getting lost here. Why is Heidegger making this long journey to the Greeks' vision of Being? — David Mo

Because he argues it's the Greek way of interpreting Being (I'm using capitalization now simply for clarity) that determines all other interpretations in the West, down to the present age. He says this many times. He will say that it starts with phusis and ends with ousia in the Greek era. He will then go on to say that ousia (translated as "substance") is an interpretation from the perspective of time, namely the present. Hence the "metaphysics of presence" as the history of Western philosophy. This is one major part of Being and Time and the Intro to Metaphysics -- the "historical" part, or the "deconstruction" part (which was never written for Being and Time but which does should up in other works).

In general Heidegger thinks that the Greek philosophy - Parmenides and Heraclitus especially - was in the right direction and only with "lanitinization" Western philosophy lost its way. — David Mo

There's debate in Heidegger scholarship about this, but from my reading I don't see Heidegger necessarily thinking Parmenides or Heraclitus somehow got it "right" while Plato and Aristotle didn't. True, their thought was prior to the almost immediate disjoining of "being" from "becoming"/"seeming" -- but they both were still very much within the Western tradition of interpreting being from the perspective of time as "presence." They were "presencing" as well. He will say that this is the inception, and the inception ends (in greatness) with Plato and Aristotle.

Regardless, I'm not seeing the relevance in bringing Parmenides or Heraclitus in to the discussion at this point. Remember, what set this digression off was the following:

The boundary drawn around the sense of "Being" stays within the sphere of presentness and presence, subsistence and substance, staying and coming forth. — David Mo

Didn't you say that Being has nothing to do with substance? Well, here it is said with all the letters. — David Mo

Based on my study of Heidegger, I can easily see what he's describing here is not his view at all, even without referencing the book in this case, but from the quotation itself one might believe it. — Xtrix

He'll then go on to discuss the history of being, from the Greeks onward, and conclude that being has been interpreted as "constant presence, on as ousia." (p. 216) To confuse this as being his own view is just a misunderstanding. Understandable, given his way of lecturing, where it's not always clear if he's speak from the perspective of the Greeks or giving his own thoughts. In this case, it's certainly not his own thought, it's precisely what he's trying to un-do by pointing out that time (temporality) is the perspective that guides the Western way of interpreting Being (as presence). — Xtrix

So again, what you quoted is not Heidegger's position -- he's describing what has been thought. There's no way he himself is claiming that "being" is "substance." He wants to get outside this interpretation, in fact.

As far as I know, there are three forms of knowledge: rational discursive, empirical -- also known as empirical intuition -- and intuitive. It is obvious that Heidegger's "pre-ontological" knowledge of Being matches the third type. — David Mo

That's fine -- if we want to describe it as a kind of "intuition," I don't have anything against it, as long as we remember it's not what Heidegger says and has potentially some rather problematic connotations. So call it the "intuition of being" if you'd like, as long as what we mean is a pre-theoretical understanding I think that's safe enough.

In particular, this path is especially marked at the end of this chapter: The "horizon" of Being was "pointing our understanding" on the path of "presence and subsistence". It is not necessary for him to write the word, although he does: "substance". This is exactly what pressure and subsistence mean.

Strong arguments are needed to change this conclusion. I do not see them. — David Mo

Well don't take my word for it, just keep reading. I'm pretty confident on this point, and it's all over his writing: he does not believe "being" is a substance. His entire philosophy wouldn't make the slightest it of sense if he did, in the same way it wouldn't if he suddenly described the world in Cartesian terms. So really, strong arguments need to be made to the contrary -- and so far you've quote one sentence which, as I've said, you're mistakingly (but understandably) attributing to Heidegger himself. I gave a rather lengthy explanation and quotation in my last post, as well.

Your example does not add any clarification. Babies and animals have no "definite" knowledge of the causes. They are simply conditioned to respond to certain stimuli with certain behaviours. Something like a pre-concept of cause slowly makes its way into children's minds through a repeated process of generalising responses. We have to wait for the formation of abstract language to talk about a "definite" knowledge of the concept of cause that is accompanied by a defined understanding of the word "cause". Dissociating one thing from the other is impossible. — David Mo

I didn't say it was a "definite" knowledge, though -- just that it was present. Again, use "intuitive" understanding of causality, if you'd prefer. It's exactly not abstract, linguistic, or theoretical -- yet still there. That's the point.

I think your effort to personally interpret Heidegger is most interesting assuming you are willing to defend Heidegger's theory of Being. In this assumption I would ask you what the Self means to you. Why is it so important? — David Mo

But I don't think Heidegger does have a theory of Being.

As far as the self goes -- I have thoughts on the self, but what's the connection to Heidegger? As far as I know he doesn't talk very much about it.

Good questions: because those are all interpretations of being.
— Xtrix

And poor Heidi adds nothing - yeah, he's interpreting it too, don't believe his hype - that either improves upon or invalidates these other 'ontologies'; that there are so many (much more than I'd care to list) both within the European philosphical tradition and other traditions, makes it clear that the "forgetting of being" is only, or mostly, a parochial Wilhelmina anomaly which, no doubt, the Nazi movement under the spiritual guidance of the good Herr Rektorführer was "called by destiny" to remind das Herrendasein, das Man und andere Üntermenschen that  “das Nichts nichtet". :eyes: — 180 Proof

He's not interpreting being, no.

As far as improving upon or invalidating other interpretations -- I think he contributes a great deal to understanding the history of the interpretation of being, and it's important to our current age.

The rest of this paragraph is pretty jumbled -- I don't know if you're deliberately trying to be unclear, or why all the strange references ("Wilhelmina anomaly"?), but what do you mean by "there are so many (much more than I'd care to list)"? So many ontologies?

If that's what you meant, then in his view, there have been several: the Greek interpretation/ontology, the Roman variation, the Christian variation, and the modern (Cartesian) variation. We're standing now, he'd argue, in a technological/nihilistic understanding of being. But in my reading, he's never dogmatic about a set number. Perhaps there are indeed "so many" (and I'd encourage you to give at least a few examples) interpretations, that doesn't really impact his thinking.

Who's claiming that one must have a "knowledge of its meaning independent of the particular trees"? Or to translate: Where does Heidegger say we have an "independent knowledge" of being when we talk about any particular being?
— Xtrix

How are we supposed to discover the much-invoked particular, the individual trees as such, as trees—how are we supposed to be able even to look for such things as trees, unless the representation of what a tree is in general is already lighting our way in advance? (…) Earlier we stressed that we must already know in advance what "tree" means in order to be able to seek and find what is particular, the species of trees and individual trees as such. This is all the more decisively true of Being.
— Martin Heidegger: Introduction ot Metaphysics, Yale University Press, 2000, p. 84

It is obvious that the postulation of a special Being whose meaning does not depend on particular entities forces Heidegger to invent an extra rational knowledge that I have called "intuition" to make it intelligible. To speak of "pre-ontological", as Heidegger does, seems to me to introduce an unnecessary neologism for what classical philosophy defined as what is neither empirical nor discursive: intellectual intuition. — David Mo

If we want to equate "pre-ontological understanding of being" to "knowledge" or "intuition," that's very misleading -- in Heidegger's context. Which his why he doesn't use either term.

The quote you gave was part of the chapter "The Question of the Essence of Being," which is worth keeping in mind, and was used as an example of Being's uniqueness, in that it is implied in any particular being whatsoever. In the same way that "treeness" is understood before we look at individual trees, so being is understood before we look at any particular being. He'll go on to say that the analogy is limited:

"Consequently, it remains questionable whether an individual being can ever count as an example of Being at all, as this oak does for 'tree in general.' It is questionable whether the ways of Being (Being as nature, Being as history) represent 'species' of the genus 'Being.'" (IM, p. 85)

So to read into all this that Heidegger is advocating a kind of Platonism is just wrong. There is no "independent knowledge," as you claimed -- being is simply understood when referring to any entity. The last sentence of your quote captures it. It's a very simple point, really. Basically a truism dressed up. That's on Heidegger, though, and his confusing circuitousness.

Not "defined," and not just any term -- but when speaking of anything at all, in fact. What else could be presupposed but the "is"-ness, "such"-ness, or "being"-ness of what is talked about? It doesn't mean there's a special knowledge about something "behind" or "beyond" things, as with Plato's Ideas, but it does indeed signify a pre-theoretical understanding that something is there. In any culture and in any language.
— Xtrix

The word "Being" is thus indefinite in its meaning, and nevertheless we understand it definitely. "Being" proves to be extremely definite and completely indefinite. According to the usual logic, we have here an obvious contradiction.
— Heidegger, Op. Cit., p. 82

Therefore, there is a special knowledge ("pre-ontological") that goes beyond the individual entities.
This means opposing the empirical to the irrational intuitive which is becoming more and more complicated. Because if Heidegger recognizes here a logical contradiction he does not have any other choice but to impugn the own logic, which he does in another part of the book. He has already challenged philology and the history of philosophy. Now logic and experience fall. Open field for irrationalism. — David Mo

Let's be clear about what's being said, which I believe you're overthinking: being is "indefinite" in that we can't define it, but yet we "understand" it -- why? In the same way we understand "tree" beforehand, only in this case (re: Being) without any definition. To put it another way: the being of any object or entity whatsoever is presupposed or implied when talking about anything at all: Bach's fugues, mineral baths, rocks, trees, people, suntan lotion, justice, anger, cars, etc. But yet when we ask about "Being" in general, we can't give an answer. This is what makes it unique, and quite different from trees (or dogs, or any other entity). From page 85:

"The word 'Being' is a universal name, it is true, and seemingly one word among others. But this seeming is deceptive. The name and what it names are one of a kind. Therefore, we distort it fundamentally if we try to illustrate it by examples--presicely because every example in this case manifests not too much, as one might say, but always too little. Earlier we stressed that we must already know in advance what 'tree' means in order to be able to seek and find what is particular, the species of trees and individual trees as such. This is all the more decisively true of Being. The necessity for us already to understand the word 'Being' is the highest and is incomparable. So the 'universality' of 'Being' in regard to all beings does not imply that we should turn away from this universality as fast as possible and turn to the particular; instead, it implies the opposite, that we should remain there, and raise the uniqueness of this name and its naming to the level of knowledge."

There's nothing irrational about this. It only appears to be contradictory. He will go on to say, in fact, that "Being" has indeed been interpreted -- as ousia, at the end of Greek philosophy.

"Being, from which we set out as an empty label, must therefore have a definite meaning, contrary to this semblance of emptiness." (p. 216)

Also: babies and animals have an innate sense of causality. Is that entering the realm of the "irrational intuitive"? Just because something cannot be defined, or is held tacitly, doesn't necessarily mean it's irrational. If we choose to define it this way, fine -- but in that case, nearly everything we do is irrational. So it goes with any pre-theoretical understanding of being as well, by definition. But that doesn't progress the conversation at all.

"Suppose that there were no indeterminate meaning of Being, and that we did not understand what this meaning signifies. Then what? Would there just be one noun and one verb less in our language? No. Then there would be no language at all." (86)

In fact, Heidegger's claim is that "Being" has been discussed and interpreted in many different ways. That's hardly "ineffable." It's either taken, theoretically and abstractly, as something "present" - like a substance, or God, or energy, or an "object," or "will,"
— Xtrix
... he "assumes that 'being' implies the designation of something" is itself rather "fantastic," assuming one's read Heidegger.
— Xtrix

I would say that the problem is not only with Heidegger, but also with you (so much love gets contagious). You cannot deny that Heidegger speaks of Being as " something " and say at the same time that it implies the designation of " something ". — David Mo

That's precisely what I'm denying, because there's no evidence of it and, in fact, quite the contrary: he emphatically states, over and over again, that Being is not a being. Being has certainly been interpreted throughout the ages, explicitly (substance, God, energy, will, etc), but that has nothing to do with Heidegger -- he offers no interpretation whatsoever. His goal is to reawaken the question and to describe the history of how its been interpreted -- which he could be completely wrong about, it's true, but let's first be clear about what he's doing.

In fact, Heidegger is forced to adopt a substantialist language to define Being. But as he had said before that it was "ineffable" he now has to camouflage it as a "common horizon" to all the diverse meanings of being (this is just what meaning is):

The boundary drawn around the sense of "Being" stays within the sphere of presentness and presence, subsistence and substance, staying and coming forth.
— Op. Cit., p. 96

Didn't you say that Being has nothing to do with substance? Well, here it is said with all the letters. — David Mo

I'll give you the benefit of the doubt and say you've misunderstood this, rather than accuse you of deliberately taking it out of context. Based on my study of Heidegger, I can easily see what he's describing here is not his view at all, even without referencing the book in this case, but from the quotation itself one might believe it. So let me quote in full:

"However, a definite, unitary trait runs through all these meanings. It points our understanding of 'to be' toward a definite horizon by which the understanding is fulfilled. The boundary drawn around the sense of 'Being' stays within the sphere of presentness and presence, subsistence and substance, staying and coming forth.
This all points in the direction of what we ran into when we first characterized the Greek experience and interpretation of Being. If we follow the usual explication of the infinitive, then the expression 'to be' gets its sense from the unity and definiteness of the horizon that guides our understanding. IN short, we thus understand the verbatim noun 'Being' on the basis of the infinitive, which in turn remains linked to the 'is' and to the manifoldness we have pointed out in this 'is.'
[...]
Accordingly, 'Being' has the meaning we have indicated, which recalls the Greek conception of the essence of Being -- a definiteness, then, which has not come to us from just anywhere, but which has long ruled our historical Dasein. At one blow, our search for the definiteness of the meaning of the word 'Being' thus becomes explicitly what it is: a meditation on the provenance of our concealed history."

He'll then go on to discuss the history of being, from the Greeks onward, and conclude that being has been interpreted as "constant presence, on as ousia." (p. 216) To confuse this as being his own view is just a misunderstanding. Understandable, given his way of lecturing, where it's not always clear if he's speak from the perspective of the Greeks or giving his own thoughts. In this case, it's certainly not his own thought, it's precisely what he's trying to un-do by pointing out that time (temporality) is the perspective that guides the Western way of interpreting Being (as presence).

And from contradiction to contradiction this Being is becoming more and more like God: ineffable, an entity different from the entities but by which the entities are what they are, the object of an intuitive knowledge and the end to which all things must tend. Without God, I mean without Being, even nations sink into the darkest decadence. And, of course, this Being also has his prophet: Heidegger. — David Mo

God is one interpretation of being, yes. That's Anselm, Spinoza (in my understanding), etc. Call it "Christian ontology," as Heidegger does in various places in his writings. But you'll never hear him say Being is anything like a "supreme Being," which the capitalization itself may indicate -- and which we discussed before.

You affirm, with Heidegger, that the concept of being has a meaning ("horizon", he says) only that you assimilate to the existence. Heidegger, who never wants to be clear, adds to the existence ( presence ) the substance. — David Mo

This is only barely coherent to me, but as I mentioned above, Heidegger does discuss the history of the interpretation of Being as substance and presence. This is not, however, his position. "Horizon" is used to refer to time, not as a "meaning" of being. He will argue that time is the "horizon for any understanding whatsoever of Being" (Being and Time, p. 1) -- but that's quite different.

Lastly, I appreciate the time you've taken to actually read Introduction to Metaphysics and your take on it. In case there's any doubt, I do respect your views. I happen to disagree with you in this case, but your observations are not so easily dismissed -- I did have to take some time to think about them in some cases, and even go back to the text itself. That's worth pointing out.

Cheers.

I've read this, and it's rife with confusion. I'll respond in detail when I have time.

My understanding is that being reveals itself to us (according to Heidegger), while there is nothing to be revealed for a Buddhist — Gregory

Well beings reveal themselves, anyway. Buddhists certainly "believe" that there are beings (or phenomena).

Where can I get those lectures? — Gregory

Online or at your library. Some are PDF, but I haven't searched -- I have the book itself. There were others, but the one I have is "Hegel's phenomenology of spirit."

The essence of Buddhist philosophy of nature is that everything is completely impermanent. These Buddhist thinkers say there is nothing underlying every thing. The principle at the bottom of the universe is that A causes B, B causes C, and C causes A. So a circle. This takes the bottom out of the universe. I'm wondering how far Heidegger would agree with considering that he thinks Being is real — Gregory

I myself see a number of parallels to Buddhism and Daoism in Heidegger. But when you say he thinkers Being is "real," I'm not sure what you mean. He has a lot to say about the concept of "reality" in Being and Time, in fact. It's true that a core principle in Buddhist philosophy is the concept of anicca[/i (Pali), impermanence, but I don't see how this is rejecting "reality" while Heidegger is somehow accepting it.

Hegel posits nothing and being as the abstract form of the Idea which sublate each other into the world, which is pure becoming (Shunyata). I am very interested in reconciling Buddhism, Hegel, and Heidegger — Gregory

Heidegger has much respect for Hegel and published a great deal of lectures on him. He sees has as the end of the Western tradition from the inside. Nietzsche marks the end of it completely (although Heidegger will argue his "eternal recurrence" is simply his interpretation of 'being').

If we're to reconcile them, I think Heidegger would agree with the Buddhists (and Daoists) that we need to "get in touch" with our being again. Buddhists will do so through the practice of meditation (vipassana), while Heidegger wants to "reawaken the question of being" approached as a thinker. He sees this as necessary to creat a new interpretation of being, since our current interpretation (which has its roots with the Greeks) as resulted in nihilism (here he agrees with Nietzsche) and has been completely forgotten.

As far as Hegel goes -- Heidegger is certainly historical and likewise interested in the presocratics. Where Hegel's dialectic fits in with Heidegger, or his ideas of Being and Nothing, I don't feel confident enough to comment on -- I'm only in the beginning stages of reading Hegel, and I can't from memory recall much of what Heidegger says about him, unfortunately.

So Heidi says. — 180 Proof

Yes, with reasoning and evidence which is quite convincing, at least to me.

"'Being' fundamentally means presence."
"Presence" of ???

Perhaps it's my stumbling-block too, Xtrix, like Heidi's references to "what is" - what is ??? — 180 Proof

The presence of whatever is before us, whether numbers or trees. Whatever persists (or "holds sway"). To say "presence of" you may be implying a subject/object distinction, but I'm not sure -- if that's the case, perhaps that's the stumbling block. It was for me as well. It's just hard not to think of any phenomenon as an object or representation for a "subject" or a "thinking thing" (res cogitans). This is why he emphasizes "being and thinking" as the fundamental way we "relate to" and thus "interpret" being:

"The entire Western tradition and conception of Being, and accordingly the fundamental relation to Being that is still dominant today, is summed up in the title Being and thinking." - p. 220 (Intro to Metaphysics)

BTW, I'm well aware of how Heidegger looks from the outside. I'm sure it must appear like Zizek or Derrida appear to me. I'd be very skeptical as well, especially if you peruse their "work." All I can say is that, for me, once I took the time (over a year) to do a careful study of his thought, the more and more I've learned and the more convinced I am that he has a very simple (when boiled down), but very deep, analysis of history, of time, and of our interpretation and relation to "being" itself. I've found it very useful indeed -- though not in the same way as studying physics, mathematics, biology, economics, or world history. But he's not intending to shed direct light on any of those subjects anyway.

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? All that rambling, oracular, mystagogy just buried the lead, as they say, making it easier for everyone (even old Marty at the end mumbling, bumbling & stumbling through 'das Geviert') to lose the plot. — 180 Proof

Good questions: because those are all interpretations of being. The Dao, nirvana, the will to live (which Schopenhauer associates with Kant's noumenon, but not completely -- even he says it's simply the "closest" we can get to it while still "within" time), are all dealing with similar things, it is true -- as is "God," for that matter. They all interpret beings and being. Heidegger isn't interested in interpreting it by way of a definition himself, but in reawakening the questioning of being, and so our interpretation of it (and thus human being).

As far as Bergson, Heidegger actually mentions him often enough, as one thinker in a chain (since Aristotle) who has tried interpreting time. Needless to say, he does not think Bergson gets it right with duration. Spinoza's natura naturans, from what I understand of it, seems very close to Heidegger's treatment of phusis -- which shouldn't be a surprise, as the Latin "natura" is how phusis was translated. But again, my reading of Spinoza is restricted only to the Ethics. If you care to say more about it, I'd be interested.

Heidegger will talk much about "time," as you know. From his perspective, there's "time" as a sequence of "nows," since Aristotle, and there's temporality, or as someone one here said "existential time," which is essentially the structure of how we live: thrown, anticipating, and absorbed (past, future, present). He will say being, but also time itself (as ordinarily understood), has been interpreted from the "perspective" of one aspect of temporality: the present.

"But this 'time' still has not been unfolded in its essence, nor can it be unfolded (on the basis and within the purview of 'physics'). For as soon as meditation on the essence of time begins, at the end of Greek philosophy with Aristotle, time itself must be taken as something that is somehow coming to presence, ousia tis. This is expressed in the fact that time is conceived on the basis of the 'now,' that which is in each case uniquely present." (p 220)

The true world — Twilight of the Idols, How the True World Finally Became A Fable. The History of an Error.

I think Heidegger would agree wholeheartedly with Nietzsche here. Heidegger wants to get outside the tradition which Kant himself (whom Nietzsche is essentially referring to here, along with Plato) is still very much a part of. Thus all the examples of "hammering" and "average everydayness." This is the pragmatic part of Heidegger, and why he carries on so much about phenomenology and the "hidden" and "concealed" aspects of life, which philosophers have nearly always ignored (in his view).

This is like asking what were our ancient hunter-gatherer ancestors doing when they learned about the animals in their environment, how to grow plants, etc. before "science" was even put forth in Galileo. Humans have done science and thought logically since our arrival on this planet, but not always. — Harry Hindu

Sure -- but it wasn't "science" or "logic" in the sense that was meant above. Hunter-gathers weren't conducting controlled experiments, nor were they doing syllogisms. Again, this is why I said the equating of "logic" to "thinking" is misleading. Thinking has gone on for millennia, just as language has. Logic and grammar are not that.

I think those who are voting "logic" are equating logic with thought. I don't see them as synonyms, however, any more than the rules of grammar is synonymous with language.
— Xtrix
No, we are equating logic with a particular type of thinking - correct thinking vs. incorrect thinking. — Harry Hindu

So "first philosophy" is such, and the basis for the others, when it's "correct thinking"?

If you're equating logic with correct/incorrect thinking, then that is in itself a rather narrow view of thought. Thinking happens all the time. To say thinking is "correct" because it conforms to the rules of logic just doesn't tell you much. Not all thought is logical, or mathematical, or even linguistic.

It is not true, then, that in order to use the word "tree" one must have a knowledge of its meaning independent of the particular trees that have been presented to the speaking subject. The concept is formed from them and used in a process of continuous variation. It does not exist as an immutable entity and prior to the use of language achieved by who knows what mysterious intellectual intuition. The same with "tree" as with "being". — David Mo

Who's claiming that one must have a "knowledge of its meaning independent of the particular trees"? Or to translate: Where does Heidegger say we have an "independent knowledge" of being when we talk about any particular being? He's not echoing Plato.

It's not independent knowledge -- but it is a kind of understanding, which he calls the a pre-ontological understanding of being.

You get at it better here:

First of all because it is not true that the use of a term means any defined "intuitive" understanding. — David Mo

Not "defined," and not just any term -- but when speaking of anything at all, in fact. What else could be presupposed but the "is"-ness, "such"-ness, or "being"-ness of what is talked about? It doesn't mean there's a special knowledge about something "behind" or "beyond" things, as with Plato's Ideas, but it does indeed signify a pre-theoretical understanding that something is there. In any culture and in any language. This is not profound -- it's a truism. It's like saying there's an awake human being, or consciousness, uttering the sentence. Big deal. That shouldn't be controversial. The question is: what IS a human being, and what IS consciousness? Likewise, what is this "pre-theoretical, pre-conceptual" understanding of being?

As Carnap says, the problem with Heidegger is that he makes a jumble of all these uses to build a fictional "entity", which is-but is not-one thing or a "fact": the " Being". — David Mo

This is just way off. A pretty common misunderstanding. Being isn't a "fact" or an "entity" at all. That does indeed seem strange, admittedly, and can make sense only in the context of his philosophy. Read in isolation, it's almost gibberish.

In the Heideggerian explanation any use of "is" is confused with "exist". — David Mo

I can't think of any examples where "is" doesn't imply that something appears, is there, or "exists" (as in being) in some respect. So I fail to see how it's confused.

Now, when a theologian speaks of God's "being" he can say two things: his existence or his essence. God exists or God is immutable, eternal, etc. When a normal person wants to say that a communist exists or is in the garden he uses expressions like "there is," "is in" (or he names it while pointing it out!), but he does not make "Existence" a problem. In fact, the problem of the existence of something is easily solved because it is understood as the "absolute position of the thing"--I think the phrase is from Kant--the relationship that is established between one thing or event and others in the world. When I say that "there is a communist in my garden," I am not referring to a mysterious quality of being of that communist, but I am putting it in relation to the context of the world of speakers. If I say that God exists, it is because I establish some relationship between God and my world. — David Mo

I'm afraid I don't see how any of this is relevant. From Intro to Metaphysics, p 62:

"In these lectures, we constantly return to the Greek conception of Being because this conception, though entirely flattened out and rendered unrecognizable, is the conception that still rules even today in the West--not only in the doctrines of philosophy but in the most everyday routines. Because of this, we want to characterize the Greek conception of Being in its first fundamental traits as we follow the Greek treatment of language.
This approach has been chosen intentionally in order to show, through an example from grammar, how the experience, conception, and interpretation of language that set the standard for the West grew out of a very definite understanding of Being."

From 64 (so there's no mystery):

"What grounds and holds together all the determinations of Being we have listed is what the Greeks experienced without question as the meaning of Being, which they called ousia, or more fully parousia. The usual thoughtlessness translates ousia as "substance" and thereby misses its sense entirely. In German, we have an appropriate expression for parousia in our word An-wesen <coming-to-presence>. We use Anwesen as a name for a self-contained farm or homestead. In Aristotle's times, too, ousia was still used in this sense as well as in its meaning as a basic philosophical word. Something comes to presence. It stands in itself and thus puts itself forth. It is. For the Greeks, "Being" fundamentally means presence."

This is the thesis, and in this context regarding language speficially (the chapter title being "The Grammar and Etymology of 'Being'").

Said in this way, the problem of "Being" loses all its semantic mystery. It is nothing ineffable, unless we understand that the only words with meaning are those that refer to "something". When we understand that language is a mechanism for using words in very different ways -relations, copulations, commands, expressions, etc.- so that they are shared by a community of speakers, the problem of Being becomes a pseudo-problem. — David Mo

What "problem"?

In fact, Heidegger's claim is that "Being" has been discussed and interpreted in many different ways. That's hardly "ineffable." It's either taken, theoretically and abstractly, as something "present" - like a substance, or God, or energy, or an "object," or "will," or else tacitly assumed in everyday life and discernible based on average, everyday actions and routines (what it means to be a human, what it means to be anything at all, etc -- just as looking at what ants do will tell you something about their pre-theoretical nature).

The point is to re-awaken the question.

Heidegger's conclusion is totally fantastic. He assumes that "being" implies the designation of something (a substantive use of the word) and that there must be a common essence to that something. That the word is polysemic does not even occur to him. What a lack of imagination! — David Mo

No, this is your own interpretation (apparently), which is a misunderstanding. Which is easy to demonstrate: nowhere, not ever, will Heidegger claim that "being" means a being. I would challenge you to provide textual evidence if you believe it so. Thus, to say he "assumes that 'being' implies the designation of something" is itself rather "fantastic," assuming one's read Heidegger. Perhaps it's due to a lack of imagination?

Just because Heidegger makes a pseudo-problem his modus vivendi doesn't make him a charlatan. I would say it's some sophisticated form of delusion. Much less when he's able to transfer his monomania to many intelligent people. Complicating one's life with false problems seems to be part of the human condition and the smartest are not exempt. So I see no reason to insult anyone for it, unless their monomania becomes a danger to others. — David Mo

It's fairly clear to me, however, that you don't really understand what the "problem" is -- thus, hardly in a position to talk of a "pseudo-problem." Because if, in your interpretation, the "problem" is one of defining being, or attempting to link being with A being, etc., then you've completely missed the point.

I repeat myself:

it sounds to me like you're hit this particular issue more to "refute" than learn. — Xtrix

I think those who are voting "logic" are equating logic with thought. I don't see them as synonyms, however, any more than the rules of grammar is synonymous with language.

Logic is the most fundamental branch of philosophy, as it is applied to all the other branches. Without logic, you can't make reasonable or sensible arguments in the other branches. You wouldn't even be able to make viable distinctions between the other branches. — Harry Hindu

But what your describing sounds more like thinking generally, not necessarily the subject of the rules of thought as propositions, etc., which is what logic is. Then we have to ask -- what were philosophers doing before the "logic" was even put forth in Aristotle?

I put "other," for ontology. Metaphysics is fine too. Asking about what "is," about being and beings, is first philosophy. It's why it begins when Western philosophy begins, in Anaximander, Parmenides, and Heraclitus.

Of course they do. — David Mo

Fine -- one reference on where "logos" isn't also "gathering," etc. I've read nothing of the kind. The fact that he's unconventional is well established, and known even by him.

but they say that what Heidegger sees in the text is not in it. — David Mo

No, they don't. At least that's not what I've seen. What they do is disagree with his nuanced way of translating -- which isn't surprising. But I think they're just wrong: take a look at the texts, even those in Intro to Metaphysics, that he discusses. He makes a very convincing case, if one firsts understands the background thought -- otherwise it looks insane.

So here we both, not as philologists, have a choice: go with one group saying one thing, or another group saying another. There is debate about this. I have preferred to read Heidegger, and I've concluded that he's very clear and very illuminating indeed. His neologisms and funny language, which he also injects into his translations (after a lot of explanation and background), are not that difficult once you learn them.

It happens that they are not "his critics", it is practically all the experts on the subject. — David Mo

If that were true, Heidegger wouldn't be but a faint memory. It's not settled, and even if it were one still has to ask: did they truly engage with his thought? Nietzsche faces similar problems, as you know -- being anti-semitic, being used by the Nazis, etc. Hegel faces enormous criticism for his supposed incomprehension, etc. Even if Heidegger was way off in some respects -- and if so, I haven't been presented any evidence of this, just appeals to vague authorities -- that's missing the point really. Take "ousia," conventionally translated "substance." Whether Heidegger is completely wrong in highlighting a nuanced meaning of "ousia," his entire critique is based on how its been translated (and thus interpreted) as what it is. Who could argue with that? He thinks it gets further away from what the word meant in Aristotle's day, but we all agree on how it was translated.

So perhaps first get the general sense of what he's describing, and then we can get into the weeds about accuracy of his own translation.

I'm quite open to the fact that Heidegger could be completely wrong about everything he said. No sunk-cost fallacy here. But it will take some evidence, and I'm not yet convinced with yours. I would be really shocked, too, given my understanding of his thought.

Now you're shifted tone a bit, feigning expertise
— Xtrix
I haven't pretended any such thing at all. I'm not an expert on Heidegger and I've said so several times. My knowledge of Heidegger is limited to three books of him, two monographs and about four articles on him. Regarding Introduction to Metaphysics, I am reading it now -due to your kind recommendation- and I comment on what I am reading. — David Mo

Eh, it sounds to me like you're hit this particular issue more to "refute" than learn. And you may be right, but that attitude is never conducive to truly hearing -- that requires an openness, not blind but deliberate.

As expected, none of them mention Heidegger, which reinforces my initial statement: Heidegger's Greece is only suitable for Heidegger fans. — David Mo

I'm not a "fan" of his per se, but I have read him and have concluded that he's accurate and deep. But taking myself out of the equation: don't you think there's something more than luck or charlatanism involved in Heidegger's name still being around, books being published about him still, etc., if there wasn't something important there? I would check it out more for yourself, make a real effort to understand it, and then see if the critics are correct.

We are all being screwed (to varying degrees) by the financial elites, in a system in which we are all hopelessly complicit. We expect our politicians to do something, but our politicians are too cowardly, or stupid, or "in the pockets of the plutocrats" or just plain impotent to do anything, other than make vague promises, about doing "something". — Janus

That captures it very succinctly. I'm in total agreement, and I think most people are -- both on this Forum and in the country. Polling reflects this, in fact.

Split this off into another thread if you like: I'd love to hear what the brightest minds have to say about our greatest problems and the one greatest problem that is behind them all; overpopulation. — Janus

I tend to agree with you: overpopulation is a problem and one of the causes of existential threats like climate change, but not a major one. In many ways, capitalism is more of a problem than overpopulation, in that respect. More urgent actions need to be taken for destroying or reforming capitalism, and of course on climate change, than anything about overpopulation.

There's also the problem, which barely gets mentioned anymore (since the early 90s), of nuclear weapons -- another existential threat.

Solutions to these problems lies in massive and collective action of world governments. The politicians that constitute the governments are indeed spineless and bought off by the true power of the world: the elites -- i.e., extreme wealth. (How did these extremely wealthy people come to power? That's a long history, but out of feudalism came the rise of big business -- so the merchants have essentially won out and taken over the world. The philosophy that develops with and underlies this rise is capitalism.)

In all this I think the analysis of Karl Marx is accurate and important, although even he couldn't have anticipated the 21st century. We have been living in the age of neoliberalism, the predominant economic philosophy of both major political parties in the world's greatest superpower for the last 40 years. The effects are seen all over the world.

All of this I'm sure you already know.

The solution to all this, as it has always been in any system, is not only to recognize and understand (I think most people do) but to organize. Unfortunately, that's like herding cats in this "individualist" culture, especially amongst more educated people. (They don't have an issue working for wages or taking orders from bosses in a privately owned tyranny, ironically.) They don't want to be robbed of their "individuality." And because of this fact, even though the collection of people that can solve these issues has the intelligence, education, resources, and numbers behind them, no action takes place and the system can afford to ignore them -- and has, repeatedly.

I don't know how to solve that problem, but there's glimmers of hope. I think the 2020s are going to see even more activism than the 2010s, rivaling the 1960s. Younger people are more engaged politically than in the past, and are organizing. People more and more are aware of income inequality and its effects; socialism is becoming less of a taboo, etc. etc.

The real question is: will we have enough time?

I feel fortunate to have read a genuinely philological philosopher's (scholarly, early) study of some 'Presocratics' - Philosophy in the Tragic Age of the Greeks - — 180 Proof

Yes, because Nietzsche's work on the Greeks aren't also controversial.

:roll:

Please give one example where he even implies Christian theology "perverts" the approach of Parmenides and Heraclitus.
— Xtrix

From what I've read, nearly all scholars recognize his accuracy in his translation of Greek words
— Xtrix

On the fidelity of Heidegger's translations:

"Hölderlin scholars, especially Berhard Böschenstein, have no trouble showing that Heidegger's readings are often unfounded (...)
In this case, as in the famous "translations" of the Presocratics, Heidegger takes to very violent extremes the hermeneutic paradox according to which the subject of interpretation can "go behind" the text”. George Steiner, Heidegger, 240-41.

“Now, given that Heidegger refuses to call on historical or philological evidence in any decisive way to support his readings, how does he go about establishing a position within the circle, getting into it in the right way, as he put it? He does so principally by summoning the metaphor, and perhaps more
than a metaphor, of hearing. (...) But how do we manage to give ourselves Greek ears? Not by familiarising ourselves with early Greek literature, since that would, once again, be to land in the domain of historiography and philology. Such hearing occurs when we are led by ‘that which calls on us to think in the words’ (WCT: 232)”. (Pattison, GuideBook to the Late Heidegger:138)

The experts I have consulted do not agree with you. — David Mo

Well you have to know what I'm saying before you can state whether they agree or disagree. And so far it's not clear that you do.

The two mentioned above are not saying he wasn't accurate, they're saying he's going to "extremes," etc. You left out, importantly, the rest of what I said. For example, no scholar I've come across disagrees that one meaning of "logos" -- at one point in history, at least -- was "gathering," which is what Heidegger emphasizes. In fact this is close to Proto-Indo-European. It's true that most scholars translate logos as "reason" or "discourse," etc., given the context -- Heidegger is well aware of that. But that's far different from claiming "gathering" is a false reading; it isn't, it's quite accurate.

I wonder how many of these translators have really taken the time to understand Heidegger's thinking -- because without doing so, critiquing his translations is a moot point. Of course his translations are outside the norm -- that's without question.

Gave a good example on this topic.

Regardless, in this context, whether or not his critics disagree with his translations says almost nothing. I'm sure most don't. I'm sure I could find many who do (the translators of IM often say his translations, though idiosyncratic and cumbersome, are fairly accurate). It's not a settled issue. But even if it were -- it doesn't tell you much about Heidegger's thinking. But if it turns out, for example, that "logos" never meant "gathering" at all, or that "aletheia" never meant "unconcealment" -- that would be a real problem indeed. But I'm not seeing that.

Some examples of Heidegger's "free interpretation" of the texts can be found in the Introduction to Metaphysics that you recommended, where the absence of any critical apparatus, essential in any serious philological study, is evident. — David Mo

For example? What "critical apparatus" are you talking about?

On his opposition to Christian theology, Heidegger maintains that historically the forgetfulness of the Greek ideals that he maintains begins from the moment one passes from Greek to Latin. That is, in the theology of the Western Church at least. Expressions contrary to Christianity can easily be found even in political texts. I am not an expert and I have found several. For example, in a speech in June 1933 Heidegger declared that ‘A fierce battle must be fought’ against the present university situation ‘in the national Socialist spirit, and this spirit cannot be allowed to be suffocated by humanising, Christian ideas that suppress its unconditionality’. — David Mo

That's not quite what you said. Politics is not ontology. Fortunately we have a record:

Heidegger did not consider the Greeks to be competitors. It was the period when, according to him, the question of the Being had been most correctly posed. It is precisely Christian theology that perverts this approach which, in its fairest form, comes from (his version of) Heraclitus and Parmenides. — David Mo

My response:

"Please give one example where he even implies Christian theology "perverts" the approach of Parmenides and Heraclitus."

Christianity as a whole (which can mean almost anything), Christian values, and Christian political "ideas" is not what you mentioned. "Perverted" also implies a negative judgment, where Heidegger is simply discussing changes in history (as he sees it). You'll find only the most respect for major Christian thinkers from Augustine to Suarez to Aquinas. But he will say that Christianity does misinterpreted/distort much of Greek philosophy, largely due to Roman translations.

This is to say nothing about Heraclitus and Parmenides, which you also leave out.

The best synopsis of the background history is from page 14:

"In 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 originally 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 fo Greek philosophical language into Roman. This translation of Greek into Roman was not an arbitrary and innocuous process but was the first stage in the isolation and alienation of the originally essence of Greek philosophy. The Roman translation then became definitive for Christianity and the Christian Middle Ages. The Middle Ages trans-lated themselves into modern philosophy, which moves within the conceptual world of the Middle Ages and then creates those familiar representations and conceptual terms that are used even today to understand the inception of Wester philosophy. This inception is taken as something that we have left behind long ago and supposedly overcome."

That's the background. Now to Christianity more specifically:

"Only with the sophists and Plato was seeming explained as, and thus reduced to, mere seeming. At the same time, Being as idea was elevated to a supersensory realm. The chasm, khorismos, was torn open between the merely apparent beings here below and the real Being somewhere up there. Christian doctrine then established itself in this chasm, while at the same time reinterpreting the Below as the created and the Above as the Creator, and with weapons thus reforged, it set itself against antiquity [as paganism] and distorted it. And so Nietzsche is right to say that Christianity is Platonism for the people."

(I don't need to tell you that Heraclitus, together with Parmenides, are the fundamental thinkers in the "recovery" of the Greek philosophy proposed by Heidegger). — David Mo

And Anaximander, yes. He considers those three the true "primordial" thinkers.

NOTE: I am surprised that you – who accused me of not reading Heidegger carefully – have overlooked these passages from a book you recommended. — David Mo

Hardly. See above.

Remember, you started by admitting you haven't read Heidegger widely, and didn't understand him, and never met someone (one of his "followers") who could explain him succinctly. Now you're shifted tone a bit, feigning expertise, and launching accusations before first demonstrating you have the facts right. There's no way, for example, that you've finished Introduction to Metaphysics -- which should be required reading for anyone new to Heidegger, and which is so dense as to take at least a couple weeks to really absorb.

Doing a Wikipedia search, scrolling down to "criticisms," and using that as a starting point already betrays the bias you have against Heidegger (it oddly cites exactly your "criticisms" and exactly the same critics). So again, if your mind is basically made up that he's a charlatan, so be it. I don't care to change your mind. If however you're sincere in what you originally said -- namely, that you want to understand his thinking -- then pointing to Ayer and Carnap's analytical problems with being as a "subject" is a pretty strange way to begin.

As for "capricious" -- it's hard to take that seriously coming from you (no offense meant),
— Xtrix
Gee, I didn't realize that attacking Heidegger could be an offense to you. You don't take it too personally? — David Mo

No, which is why I said "no offense meant." But then I go on to mention why: you claim his translations are capricious (which you're clearly not yet in a credible position to do, admittedly), but then misrepresenting "techne" as an example, which confirms the point.

If you take offense to that despite my saying "no offense" (and I mean it), I can't help that.

Techné, in platonic and post-platonic context does not mean "generating knowledge similar to physis (sic)", but in the sense of an inferior form of praxis. It is not true knowledge, science, which is attributed sensu stricto or by eminence to intellectual thought. It is a clearly derogatory term. To overlook this turns out to be a real manipulation. — David Mo

Being a "kind of knowledge" is very different from "knowledge," for reasons you just mentioned. He goes on:

"Techne means neither art nor skill, and it means nothing like technology in the modern sense. We translated techne as 'knowing.' But this requires explication. Knowing here does not mean the result of mere observations about something present at hand that was formerly unfamiliar. Such items of information are always just accessory, even if they are indispensable to knowing. Knowing, in the genuine sense of techne, means initially and constantly looking out beyond what, in each case, is directly present at hand." (p 169)

As far as "derogatory term" -- what are you talking about there? Heidegger's use of techne or what your claiming the Greeks use was?



Thank you for that, that was interesting indeed. I think he's exactly right about interpretation and translation. On the other hand, if many scholars thought his analysis of the Greek words was completely bogus, it would certainly give me pause. That's not what I'm seeing, though. Take logos as "gathering" -- scholars don't disagree with Heidegger on this, but they DO disagree with what they consider the appropriate context in which to give this particular meaning.

Ironically, I think Heidegger is the easiest continental thinker to merge with the analytic school in spite of his reputation. — Kmaca

Elaborate please, that's interesting. They seem worlds apart to me.

Heidegger did not consider the Greeks to be competitors. It was the period when, according to him, the question of the Being had been most correctly posed. It is precisely Christian theology that perverts this approach which, in its fairest form, comes from (his version of) Heraclitus and Parmenides. — David Mo

Why do you keep referring to "the Being"? Where does the "the" come in?

Please give one example where he even implies Christian theology "perverts" the approach of Parmenides and Heraclitus.

The translator of the edition of the book you recommended that I have consulted has to recognize that Heidegger's version of fragments 1 and 2 of Heraclitus, which is fundamental to him, is "deviated" from the "conventional" version. — David Mo

True.

"Conventional" means the one that true experts in classical philology give. — David Mo

From what I've read, nearly all scholars recognize his accuracy in his translation of Greek words but also recognize that it's a nuanced and unconventional way of translating things. He discusses logos as length, for example, and only then incorporates his language into a passage of Aristotle or Heraclitus.

The fact that it deviates from convention is irrelevant. HIs entire philosophy and interpretation of history also deviates from convention -- so what? If there's a specific point to be raised, then raise it. Otherwise appealing to authority is useless.

I would like to discuss what an archaic thinker like Heidegger can say to the men of the 21st century. — David Mo

I think there's a great deal to learn, in fact.

No. Stop craving, and becoming attached with, material. Seek what you want, but with equanimity and understanding. — Xtrix

it doesn't have to be material, for example it could be friends — Gitonga

Same thing applies. I was using your word because that's the example you chose.

One shouldn't be attached to family and friends either. One shouldn't be attached to anything in life. Why? Because (1) there's no good reason to be and (2) what good does it do? What does it add? Mostly it adds unnecessary, counterproductive sufferring, and we know this from experience.

So what is meant by "attachment"? It's a clinging to beings of any kind -- material, social, or abstract. What's "clinging"? Identifying with, and thus feeling "ownership" of something ("mine"), which is implies an idea of "me" (selfhood) and which ultimately betrays a belief in permanence.

Chasing pleasant sensations and emotions, or clinging to the phenomena of life, is a guaranteed way to be disappointed. Schopenhauer is pretty convincing here.

It does not mean, however, we have to drop all of our projects in life, become apathetic, commit suicide, withdraw, become passive, or turn into cold, bloodless zombies. I'm much more Aristotelian and Nietzschean when it comes to how one should or shouldn't live -- when it comes to morality.

The synthesis here, in my view, is this: by recognizing craving and aversion are two sides of the same coin, by facing up to this reality (and not fleeing from the reality), you can momentarily get outside of it. In this space of "simple awesome," which is often described in Buddhist literature, you can cultivate yourself -- it's freedom in a sense. Freedom from the past and its accumulation of habits and regrets, freedom from worry about death (the future), and freedom from thinking. You're just "being," and it's exactly the practice (the "exercise") of getting in touch with being that allows you to cultivate your life -- your thoughts, your emotions, and your actions.

Then you can choose your values, rather than have them choose you (in a poetic sense). Meaning you no longer have to fall "victim" to anything, good or bad -- whether depression, being a workaholic, anxiety, mood swings, laziness, lack of attention, sex addiction, being "overly nice," or any other habit or way of being that you've developed in your life.

Nearly everything we do is learned, despite there also being a real "nature" (genetic endowment), with its scope and its limits. If that's true, then if we can understand the process by which we come to acquire our various behaviors through experience, we can also harness and direct that process, shaping it in various ways. This is essentially the goal of psychotherapy, in fact.

Bottom line: don't be reactive, be responsive. Buddhist meditation fits right in with this, just as Hindu yoga fits in with the goal of a healthy body. Better to just do it than debate the philosophy of it.

Einstein wasn't "disqualifying" Newton any more than Heidegger is disqualifying the history of Western thought.
— Xtrix
According to the dictionaries I have consulted, disqualifying means rejecting someone from a "competition" because they have done something wrong. This is what Heidegger did with regard to all philosophy from the Greeks to him. — David Mo

No, he's not. At this point, I'll have to ask you for any textual evidence of this. From what you've given so far, you've misunderstood. See my previous remarks.

Things are not so drastic in science. Einstein only limited the field of application of Newtonian physics, he did not reject its validity. — David Mo

Likewise, Heidegger is not rejecting the validity of presence-at-hand. He'd be rejecting the entire enterprise of science if he did that, and he holds science in high regard (as he holds Aristotle in high regard).

Here's Heidegger himself (emphasis mine):

"Our immersion in the prior view and insight that sustains and guides all our understanding of being is all the more powerful, and at the same time all the more concealed, because the Greeks themselves no longer shed light on this prior line of sight as such. For essential reasons (not due to a failure), they could not shed light on it." (Intro to Metaphysics, bottom of page 124)

This is just one example, but very typical of Heidegger. He is not rejecting, disqualifying, or belittling the Greeks, nor the variations of Greek ontology in the form of Christian theology, modern philosophy since Descartes, or modern science, in any way. If this is what you gather from reading him, you're just mistaken. If you have concrete evidence, I'll take a look, but in all my reading of him I have never gotten the impression of "disqualifying" anything -- unless, as I mentioned, we describe Einstein of "disqualifying" Newton.

It cannot be said that Heidegger does not capitalize on the word "being" and that in German all nouns are capitalized. — David Mo

This is a very confusing sentence, but I'll try to respond: it certainly CAN be said that German nouns are all capitalized. I don't know what you're arguing here. All German nouns are capitalized -- that's just a fact.

If you're not arguing this, I'm not sure what the above is supposed to mean.

Many translators in English and other languages think — David Mo

Yes, and it's a mistake in my view, because of the connotations -- which are never implied in Heidegger.

Given Heidegger's admiration for the Greeks, — David Mo

Which he's supposedly disqualifying?

For example, the whole search for the Self leads, in his opinion, to the concept of ousía. — David Mo

"search for the Self"? What does this mean, and where is it in Intro to Metaphysics (or in Heidegger at all)?

But, either Heidegger is giving to this term [ousia] a particular sense or he is accepting a totally substantial concept of the Being (which is what ousía means). — David Mo

Heidegger has an entire analysis of ousia in that book. It has traditionally been translated as "substance," true. But he will say in Aristotle its meaning was "constant presence," basically -- that which appears and persists. See pages 33 and 61.

The former would not be surprising because Heidegger's translations of Greek are quite capricious (he goes so far as to translate techné into "knowledge", which is something any student of philosophy knows not to be the case). The second would be surprising. But, leaving both paths open, Heidegger reserves a possible escape route face of his critics, which may be very intelligent, but not very philosophical. — David Mo

The "former" what? "Particular sense"? Yes, I mentioned what Heidegger says about ousia.

As for "capricious" -- it's hard to take that seriously coming from you (no offense meant), based on your level of reading and understanding so far of Heidegger, but you're welcome to present an argument as to where he goes wrong. One reason I say this is based on the very example you gave, techne. Heidegger describes it as follows: "Techne is generating, building, as a knowing pro-ducing" (p 18). That requires further clarification, of course, but it's hardly him defining it as "knowledge."

It's easier to learn something if you're not dedicated to "debunking" it beforehand. Try to be open and hear, make sure you understand it, and then make up your mind. I'm not trying to persuade you to "follow" Heidegger; I'm assuming you want to learn about him, as you implied a while back. If you've settled in your mind that he's a charlatan from whom there's very little to learn, and who's not worth the time to read or understand, then this discussion becomes one of me correcting misunderstandings and mistakes. I'm not interested in doing that.

I agree here. My impression, in English translations, is that the capitalisation of “Being” is to set it apart from a “being”. Though it doesn’t seem to me to be very difficult to tell the difference. — Brett

Yes, that's certainly why. But people will mistake the capitalization in the sense of "God," a supreme Being of some kind -- and that's not what's meant. But I agree, it's not that difficult for me either, and in many translations (like Basic Problems of Phenomenology by Hofstadter) that doesn't capitalize it, it's easy to follow.

I think it’s virtually impossible to prove something to someone who actively does not believe. I have no trouble with the concept of “Being” and I find it hard to understand why others can’t or won’t. But in some ways you either get it or you don’t. — Brett

Maybe. But that's education and learning in general. Some people (myself include) will be able to grasp something, others won't. I'm a firm believer that ANYONE can, if the motivation is there to understand AND if they have a good teacher. I am decidedly NOT in favor of obscurantism, and am very sensitive to it; I feel I can very easily tell if someone knows what they're talking about or not, or if they have any interesting things to say. I went into Heidegger thinking that, like I did with Hegel, that he was nearly impossible to read, and not expecting to understand anything due to the convoluted language. But, like with Hegel, I was wrong.

Edit: I’m relatively new to Heidegger, but it seems to me that we do wonder about our existence, so that suggests that the meaning of Being is under question. How and why would we instinctively question something we don’t believe exists?

Heidegger is then saying that we should try to discover the meaning of Being through the way we exist and live. — Brett

Well we should distinguish two different aspects: 1) the pre-ontological (pre-theoretical, pre-reflective, pre-abstract) understanding of being, which you mentioned, and 2) the state we're in when we're analyzing our existence, spurred by the "wonder" you mentioned. (2) is the state all philosophers have been in, according to my reading of Heidegger. This is why they always interpret being from the one particular aspect of time, the present. Thus even "time" itself becomes an present-object, and itself gets interpreted as such (a succession of "nows").

As for (1), you're right: we do have a sense of being, but very rarely do we stop and ponder it intellectually. When we do, it's almost always in the way mentioned above.

The only way to be truly happy is to get what you want otherwise you're just living in self denial. It's how we've evolved. Happiness is a reward mechanism for when we do something to aid our survival which is the only reason you can never be happy permanently. — Gitonga

You're equating happiness with pleasure -- it's not the same thing, neither in Buddhism nor in Aristotle.

This is in reference to how Buddhist say no matter how much material you get you'll never be fully happy so stop chasing material. — Gitonga

No. Stop craving, and becoming attached with, material. Seek what you want, but with equanimity and understanding.

Lol. Well done.

Not once does he disqualify anyone for "not understanding what the Being is,"
— Xtrix
If to say that everyone has forgotten or trivialized the essential question of philosophy is not to disqualify, I do not understand what disqualify means. — David Mo

Disqualify from what? It's not meant to be derogatory, which he says many, many times. In fact he sees it as necessary given philosophy's inception. He has almost only praise for Aristotle, Suarez, Aquinas, Kant, Hegel, and Nietzsche.

Einstein wasn't "disqualifying" Newton any more than Heidegger is disqualifying the history of Western thought.

Heidegger argues we all not only have a tacit understanding of being, but that talk about "being" is taken for granted as something obvious;
— Xtrix
In Heidegger's usual contradictory way to have an immediate understanding of what it means to be seems that it is not in contradiction with having forgotten or trivialized the question of being. — David Mo

Sorry, but this is why it helps to read Heidegger. It's not contradictory at all once you get into his language, which I mentioned above. Having a "pre-ontological" understanding of being does not contradict the fact that philosophy, as ontology, and with it the question of the meaning of being, has been almost completely forgotten or trivialized. We can accept or reject Heidegger's argument, but let's at least be clear about the distinctions he's drawing (and then uses quite consistently throughout his works).

To get a brief summary of what?
— Xtrix
Obviously I was asking for a summary of what the fundamental concept of all Heidegger's philosophy can mean: the Being. That being with a capital letter that sometime comes to qualify as "divine". If I remember correctly. — David Mo

A summary of what "being" means -- which you mentioned before and which I thought I addressed already: Heidegger gives no definition. If that's what you're looking for, you won't find it from him or from me.

Regarding the capitalization: that's just a mistake, in my view. It's not capitalized in every text, and I believe it shouldn't be for exactly the reason you mention: it gives the connotation of a "super-thing" of some kind. In German, it's capitalized -- but all nouns are capitalized in German.

Western thought has interpreted being from the "horizon" (standpoint) of time, particularly the present.
— Xtrix
His thesis in Being and Time is that in the Western world, since the Greeks, "being" has been defined in terms of what's present before us,

It seems you're trying to give me the explanation I asked for. The Being would be the "present horizon", which obviously can mean anything. If that is all that can be said about the Being, it is tremendously vague to me. Poetic, but vague. — David Mo

I agree, it is vague. I know it's frustrating, but I have to nitpick here. It's not that being = the present horizon. Rather, it's being argued that in Western thought, it is from the standpoint of the present horizon that we interpret "being", and therefore all beings (plural, as in "entities" or "phenomena"). Hence why when Heidegger traces the history of Western thought, he sees only variations of "present-at-hand" ontologies which deal almost exclusively with beings rather than being itself (which he will, confusingly, call "fundamental ontology"), mainly substance ontology (as the "ousia" of Aristotle gets translated) and it's offshoot: the measurable, calculable ontology of Descartes (the "res" ofres cogitans and res extensa).

That's a mouthful, I'm aware. But it's worth reading a couple times, because it did take me a few minutes to re-read and edit, in all honesty.

But since you refer me to the Introduction to Metaphysics as a key text, I will take a look at it to see if I can find out better. Fortunately I have it at hand. — David Mo

That is fortunate, and please do. Let me know if you find it clearer than Being & Time -- or if my description of it is accurate.

Ayer and Carnap are analytical philosophers, who -- like Russell before them -- never showed they really bothered with Heidegger at all.
— Xtrix
Ayer mentions Heidegger's metaphysics as a "superstition" on page 49 of the Spanish edition of Lenguaje, Verdad y Lógica (Language, Truth and Logic) and refers to Carnap, who analyses the concept of Nothing in Heidegger in section 5 of his article "The Elimination of Metaphysics through Logical Analysis of Language" and concludes that it is the result of a "gross logical error".
I don't know if "bother" is the right word in English, but of course Heidegger's metaphysics didn't appeal to either of them. — David Mo

True, by "bother" there I meant really take him seriously enough to read carefully. Again, I don't blame them for that -- there's plenty of good reasons not to, least of all his Nazi involvement. But given that that's almost certainly true, the little they did write about him isn't all that challenging -- they simply misrepresent what he's saying. But it's been a while since I read either Ayer or Carnap, so I'll take another look -- but that was the impression I got when perusing years ago.

It's not even a "subject."
— Xtrix
Heidegger uses the term "Being" as a subject on countless occasions, adding to it the capital letter, which makes it especially substantial by making it a proper name. — David Mo

But he repeatedly says it's not a "being" (in the sense of an object or entity). It's presupposed in any sentence that uses "am," "is," "are," etc. He speaks of the copula a lot in Intro. to Metaphysics, in fact. And as I mentioned before, all nouns are capitalized in German, and I think it's misleading to capitalize it in translation, when we wouldn't capitalize "Chair" or "Rock."

It seems that the publication of the latest Black Notebooks has left little doubt about Heidegger's anti-Semitism, which had already been denounced by Husserl and Jaspers, among others. — David Mo

I'll take your word for it -- I haven't read them myself. If that's the case, that's disappointing.

Heidegger disqualifies his rivals and the entire universal philosophy for not having understood what the Being is. — David Mo

No, that's simply wrong.
— Xtrix

From the very beginning:

The Necessity for Explicitly Restating the Question of Being
This question has today been forgotten. Even though in our time we deem it progressive to give our approval to ‘metaphysics’ again, it is held that we have been exempted from the exertions of a newly rekindled gigantomakía peri tés ousías. Yet the question we are touching upon is not just any question. It is one which provided a stimulus for the researches of Plato and Aristotle, only to subside from then on or a theme for actual investigation. What these two men achieved was to persist through many alterations and 'retouchings’ down to the ‘logic’ of Hegel. And what they wrested with the utmost intellectual effort from the phenomena, fragmentary and incipient though it was, has long since become
trivialized.
— Heidegger, Being and Time, #1 — David Mo

Not once does he disqualify anyone for "not understanding what the Being is," in that quotation or anywhere else. Why? It should be obvious in what was said before: he himself provides no definition. But he's not talking about a definition. The very beginning of that paragraph -- and its section title -- explains clearly what he's getting at: the question today has been forgotten. That's not disqualifying anyone, and it's not about "understanding" -- in fact, as I said before, Heidegger argues we all not only have a tacit understanding of being, but that talk about "being" is taken for granted as something obvious; it's gone through many variations, right up to Hegel, as a "theme," and has now become trivialized.

This is what the above means. It has nothing to do with disqualifying anyone, nor about "understanding" being (especially not in your sense, which apparently means providing a definition).

His thesis in Being and Time is that in the Western world, since the Greeks, "being" has been defined in terms of what's present before us, present-at-hand (Vorhandenheit) -- he says at one point "presencing." This has given rise, in his view, to Western philosophy and science -- showing up as ousia in Aristotle to the res of Descartes -- a kind of substance ontology. Beings then become "objects," representations, etc.

He does indeed go through the history of this, thoroughly. — Xtrix

Do you have to read all 102 volumes of his complete works to get a brief summary? Gee, it is hard! — David Mo

To get a brief summary of what? The history of the interpretation of being? Because that's what I was referring to in this specific context.

As I mentioned, Introduction to Metaphysics is a good start. As far as "brief," I tried to do that above: Western thought has interpreted being from the "horizon" (standpoint) of time, particularly the present.

I can't make it any more brief without making it a cartoon version. Keep in mind this is one point -- but an important one, and the one I was talking about above.

Anyone who knows about a subject is supposed to be able to give a brief explanation of it, even if it is only approximate, but this is the typical response of Heidegger's followers to any request for clarification. It should not be stressed that I find it very unphilosophical. — David Mo

But you haven't asked anything. A brief explanation of what? His entire philosophy? The history of the interpretation of being? His thoughts about the relation of being and time? The history of the conception of time?

I gave at least one brief synopsis in the very response you're citing:

His thesis in Being and Time is that in the Western world, since the Greeks, "being" has been defined in terms of what's present before us, present-at-hand (Vorhandenheit) -- he says at one point "presencing." This has given rise, in his view, to Western philosophy and science -- showing up as ousia in Aristotle to the res of Descartes -- a kind of substance ontology. Beings then become "objects," representations, etc. —

Maybe you don't understand it, in which case the onus is on me to be more clear, but it's certainly brief.

Heidegger does not define or explain anything because there is nothing to define. Carnap and Ayer closed the problem in less than a page. Heidegger confuses the use of "being" as the subject of a sentence with a name of something. Basic logical error into which Parmenides already fell, by the way — David Mo

Ayer and Carnap are analytical philosophers, who -- like Russell before them -- never showed they really bothered with Heidegger at all.

Given that Heidegger says over and over again that being is not a being (an entity), I fail to see how he's "confusing [it] as the subject of a sentence with a name of something." It's not even a "subject."

"Something is happening out there."
"Something smells rotten in Denmark."

Then there is a stuff called "Something" that is at the origin of everything because we can say of everything that is "something". — David Mo

No, not a "stuff." But yes, any time we use "is," we're assuming the being of whatever phenomenon we're talking about. That's fairly trivial.

There's an entire chapter titled "The Grammar and Etymology of Being" in Intro to Metaphysics which you may find interesting. I keep recommending that book to you -- it's all online for free. Doesn't take that long to read, and it's what Heidegger recommends one reads in his preface to the 7th edition (or something close to that) of Being and Time.

But Heidegger makes an ontologically rude mistake. Too much influenced by Parmenides, he believes that the alternative is between Being and Non-Being, — David Mo

"He believes." Where? Where does he say that the "alternative is between being and non-being"?

Your characterization of Parmenides is wrong. Heidegger wrote an entire book on him (lectures), if you care to read about it before speculating about what he "believes." Feel free to cite the text if you find anything close to what you're claiming here.

Honestly, I get the sense you've made up your mind about Heidegger already. You claim you've tried reading him and couldn't make sense of "ten pages," etc. So you rely on secondary sources. That's fine -- be happy in that. But I don't think there's any sense pretending you care to learn anything here -- rather, everything you've said so far indicates an attitude of defending a position (and in my view a very weak one, given your level of study). I'm happy to keep discussing it, but it's worth pointing this out.

That had me laughing. Well done. lol