Combining Texts

Ideas for 'Being and Time', 'Mirror Mirror - Is That All?' and 'Things and Their Parts'

unexpand these ideas     |    start again     |     choose another area for these texts

display all the ideas for this combination of texts


5 ideas

11. Knowledge Aims / A. Knowledge / 2. Understanding
Propositions don't provide understanding, because the understanding must come first [Heidegger, by Polt]
     Full Idea: Propositions are not a good clue to the essence of understanding, because we must already understand things before we formulate propositions about them.
     From: report of Martin Heidegger (Being and Time [1927], I.5.31) by Richard Polt - Heidegger: an introduction 3.§31-3
     A reaction: I like this, because I think the most important aspects of our thought and understanding are entirely non-verbal - even in cases where they seem to be highly specific and verbal. We don't understand ourselves at all!
In contrast with knowledge, the notion of understanding emphasizes practical engagement [Gulick]
     Full Idea: In contrast with standard notions of knowledge, the concept of understanding emphasizes the element of practical engagement from the outset.
     From: Robert van Gulick (Mirror Mirror - Is That All? [2006], §II)
     A reaction: This could be the very interesting germ of a huge revolution in our approach to epistemology, which I find rather appealing. Plato's desire that knowledge should have 'logos' seems to me in the same area. It sounds rather internalist, which is good.
11. Knowledge Aims / A. Knowledge / 6. Knowing How
Knowing-that is a much richer kind of knowing-how [Gulick]
     Full Idea: Knowing-that is a much richer kind of knowing-how.
     From: Robert van Gulick (Mirror Mirror - Is That All? [2006], §II)
     A reaction: This thought could rather rapidly revive the discredited notion of knowing-how. I think it might slot into an account of the mind in terms of levels, so that my internalist view of knowledge emerges at higher levels, built on more basic responses.
11. Knowledge Aims / B. Certain Knowledge / 5. Cogito Critique
If we posit 'I' as the starting point, we miss the mind's phenomenal content [Heidegger]
     Full Idea: One of our first tasks will be to prove that if we posit an 'I' or subject as that which is proximally given, we shall completely miss the phenomenal content of Dasein.
     From: Martin Heidegger (Being and Time [1927], I.1.10)
     A reaction: Descartes had thrown doubt on the informativeness of the phenomena, so presumably your phenomenologist is not interested in whether they reveal any truth. So why are unreliable phenomena of any interest?
11. Knowledge Aims / C. Knowing Reality / 1. Perceptual Realism / b. Direct realism
Our relationship to a hammer strengthens when we use [Heidegger]
     Full Idea: The less we stare at the hammer-Thing, and the more we seize hold of it and use it, the more primordial does our relationship to it become. ...The kind of Being which equipment possesses... we call 'readiness-to-hand' [Zuhandenheit].
     From: Martin Heidegger (Being and Time [1927], I.3.15)
     A reaction: This example would be well at home in the writings of the pragmatists. It is also an important example for existentialists. In analytic philosophy we might say the experience combines perception with direct exerience of causation.