Combining Texts

Ideas for 'Being and Time', 'On Female Body Experience' and 'Mind and World'

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11 ideas

7. Existence / A. Nature of Existence / 3. Being / a. Nature of Being
Reducing being to the study of beings too readily accepts the modern scientific view [Heidegger, by May]
     Full Idea: Continental philosophers, following Heidegger, see in the attempt to reduce the question of being to that of beings a symptom of an age that is too ready to accept the terms in which science conceives the world.
     From: report of Martin Heidegger (Being and Time [1927]) by Todd May - Gilles Deleuze 1.04
     A reaction: Interesting. I take the idea that this is a failing of the modern age to be ridiculous, since I take it to be the key metaphysical move made by Aristotle. Neverthless, Aristotle is closely in tune with modern science. For 'beings', read 'objects'.
For us, Being is constituted by awareness of other sorts of Being [Heidegger]
     Full Idea: We are Dasein - the entity who possesses - as constitutive for its understanding of existence - an understanding of the Being of all entities of a character other than its own.
     From: Martin Heidegger (Being and Time [1927], 34/13), quoted by Richard Polt - Heidegger: an introduction 3.§4
     A reaction: This seems to connect to the emerging 'externalist' view of mind that comes with the external view of content coming from Purnam's Twin Earth idea.
7. Existence / A. Nature of Existence / 3. Being / h. Dasein (being human)
Heidegger turns to 'Being' to affirm the uniqueness of humans in the world [Heidegger, by Gray]
     Full Idea: Heidegger turns to 'Being' for the same reason that Christians turn to God - to affirm the unique place of humans in the world.
     From: report of Martin Heidegger (Being and Time [1927]) by John Gray - Straw Dogs 2.4
     A reaction: This is the first remark I have encountered that makes sense of Heidegger's Being to me! It places Heidegger as a modernist philosopher, trying to grapple with the decline of religion. I'll stick with Bertrand Russell on that.
Dasein is a mode of Being distinguished by concern for its own Being [Heidegger]
     Full Idea: Dasein is an entity which does not just occur among other entities. Rather it is ontically distinguished by the fact that, in its very Being, that Being is an issue for it.
     From: Martin Heidegger (Being and Time [1927], Intro I.04)
     A reaction: How do you distinguish the Being of normal humans from the Being of someone in a deep coma, who has no existential issues? Has that Dasein ceased to be? Why does angst create a new mode of Being, but flying doesn't?
Dasein is ahead of itself in the world, and alongside encountered entities [Heidegger]
     Full Idea: The formal existential totality of Dasein's ontological structural whole is: the Being of Dasein means ahead-of-itself-Being-already-in-(the-world) as Being-alongside (entities encountered within-the-world).
     From: Martin Heidegger (Being and Time [1927], I.6 41)
     A reaction: If you find that thought really illuminating, you are probably on the wrong website. However, the thought that we exist 'ahead of ourselves' might be a fruitful line for existentialists to explore.
In company with others one's Dasein dissolves, and even the others themselves dissolve [Heidegger]
     Full Idea: This being-with-one-another dissolves one's own Dasein completely into the kind of being of 'the others', in such a way, indeed, that the others, as distinguishable and explicit, vanish more and more.
     From: Martin Heidegger (Being and Time [1927], p.164), quoted by Mark Wrathall - Heidegger: how to read 5
     A reaction: He seems to be describing the psychology of someone who joins a small crowd which gradually increases in size. I take this relation to others to be the basic existential dilemma, of retaining individual authenticity within a community.
'Dasein' expresses not 'what' the entity is, but its being [Heidegger]
     Full Idea: When we designate this entity with the term 'Dasein' we are expressing not its 'what' (as if it were a table, house, or tree) but its being.
     From: Martin Heidegger (Being and Time [1927], p.297), quoted by Kevin Aho - Existentialism: an introduction 2 'Phenomenology'
     A reaction: Presumably analytic discussions of persons try to be too objective. Heidegger is trying to capture the thought at the heart of Kierkegaard's existentialism. Objectivity and subjectivity are never in conflict. Is there really a different mode of existence?
The word 'dasein' is used to mean 'the manner of Being which man possesses', and also the human creature [Heidegger, by Cooper,DE]
     Full Idea: Heidegger borrows a common German word 'dasein', meaning 'being' or 'existence', to refer both to 'the manner of Being which... man... possesses', and to the creature which possesses it.
     From: report of Martin Heidegger (Being and Time [1927], p.32) by David E. Cooper - Heidegger Ch.3
     A reaction: This just strikes me as an elementary ontological mistake. Because something has startling properties it doesn't follow that we have a different type of Being. Magnets don't have a different type of being from ordinary iron.
'Dasein' is Being which is laid claim to, and which matters to its owner [Heidegger, by Cooper,DE]
     Full Idea: We each of us not only have Dasein (our kind of Being), but we can lay claim to it. Also the Dasein of a thing 'is an issue for it' - we care about the kinds of creatures we can make ourselves into.
     From: report of Martin Heidegger (Being and Time [1927], p.67) by David E. Cooper - Heidegger Ch.3
     A reaction: Heidegger says other more puzzling things about Dasein. The second half of the idea is what makes Heidegger an existentialist, and an inspiration for Sartre.
Dasein is being which can understand itself, and possess itself in a way allowing authenticity [Heidegger]
     Full Idea: Dasein is an entity which, in its very being, comports itself understandingly towards that being. ...Mineness belongs to an existent Dasein, and belongs to it as the condition which makes authenticity and inauthenticity possible.
     From: Martin Heidegger (Being and Time [1927], p.78), quoted by Mark Wrathall - Heidegger: how to read 1
     A reaction: He might eventually persuade me that Dasein is so different from mere material being that it deserves a category of its own. But a reductive account of mind is also a reductive account of being.
7. Existence / A. Nature of Existence / 6. Criterion for Existence
Ontology is possible only as phenomenology [Heidegger]
     Full Idea: Ontology is possible only as phenomenology.
     From: Martin Heidegger (Being and Time [1927], p.31), quoted by Dale Jacquette - Ontology Ch.1
     A reaction: Jacquette argues against this claim. The idea seems to be the ultimate extension of Kant, and it is not a big move to say that the only real phenomenology we can discuss is our semantics. Wrong, wrong, wrong.