Date: Sun, 22 Feb 98 13:50:54 UT
From: "j md" <jmdnmnm-AT-classic.msn.com>
Subject: Mr. Eldred's formulations?


Dear Michael Eldred,
   I've been trying to follow the long discussion you've been having 
with others, but I am always discouraged. Your comments always seem t
o pivot on views to which H himself avoided commitment. It may be the
 case that you intend your comments only as loose formulations, howev
er, that doesn't seem clear.
   For example, in recently posted messages you made a claim involvin
g the following characterizations:

       "...Greek and German as languages of thought, since they can b
e very concise and thus precise:

   What can it mean to characterize a language in such terms? What do
 you mean by suggesting that a medium, as a "language of thought," is
 precise? Granted, some formulations in one language are clearer or m
ore precise than others. However, how can we characterize a language 
as such as being "very concise and thus precise," as a language of th
ought? I.e., is there a language-independent realm of Thought (some v
ariety of Fregean Thoughts?) which some languages can express more pr
ecisely than others, one in virtue of a correspondence to or an agree
ment with which our expressions or claims are true? Isn't this precis
ely the picture of language-world relations from which H was so wont 
to exorcise us -- not to mention Witt and Mauthner, so-called corresp
ondence or picture views?
   I suspect that these are not views which you would endorse. Howeve
r, they seem to ground your formulations? (parenthetically, if I were
 to choose a modern language for the formulation and communication of
 Heideggerian positions, I would choose Japanese, a language which so
 many people - native and non-native speaking alike - describe as hop
elessly vague and imprecise).
   On another occasion, you made the following claim:

       Chairing? is a mode in which being itself opens itself to Dase
in; it is not the chair, the being which does this, but only the chai
r in its belonging to being. Being _itself_ opens itself up, dis-clos
es itself as chairing in the chair.

   This claim seems to suggest that, in some sense, there is a certai
n Dasein-independently individuatable object, chair, which does somet
hing; and it is through its doing this something that being opens its
elf to Dasein. However, this seems to be another formulation of the v
iew that there are genuinely external, objectively existing physical 
objects, by way of the 'activities' of which we learn about being. In
 other words, it suggests that Vorhandensein is somehow more primordi
al or fundamental or 'ontologically prior' to Zuhandensein. Again, th
e formulation invites misunderstanding and discourages discussion.
   Another claim that I find discouraging is the following:

The so-called think tanks of the Western world are far, far removed f
rom anything that could genuinely be called thinking. 

   If this is the case, then the terms in which we actually express o
ur views - e.g., your view of "languages of thought" - cannot mean wh
at we, as native speakers of those terms, think they mean. We are in 
a predicament which could be described by terms borrowed from Cavell:
 being native speakers failing to see our native mastery failing us. 
However, if whatever it is we are doing, when we are doing what we th
ink is 'thinking', is not "genuinely [to] be called thinking," then, 
given the holistic constraints on the life of lexical meaning, wouldn
't we also have to say that whatever it is we are doing, when we are 
doing what we think is 'feeling', 'desiring', 'loving', 'caring', 'pr
ojecting', or according 'solicitude', is not genuinely to be thus cal
led? Again, your formulation suggests some species of a Dasein-indepe
ndent realm.
   Finally, there was a claim you made about Wittgenstein and the his
tory of Western philosophy, a claim which involved such terms as "Ger
man traditions," "Anglo-Saxon philosophy," etc. I cannot remember the
 date of the posting, but I was surprised at, what I would call, this
 popular understanding of, at least, 20th century Western philosophy,
 especially given that an understanding of the history of Philosophy 
is so important for an appreciation of H's thought.
   We are all familiar with the 'schism', if you will, between the so
-called Continental tradition and the so-called Analytical tradition.
 However, both traditions arose from the same species of philosophica
l orientation to the same set of problems: logic, epistemology (of ma
thematics), and metaphysics. More specifically, there was a web of co
mmon philosophical concerns which enmeshed Bolzano, Brentano, Husserl
, Cantor, Frege, Wittgenstein, Meinong, Heidegger, Russell, Godel, Hi
lbert, Heyting, Dedekind, Spengler, and numerous others I can't here 
recall. The foundation of the house we inhabit is knitted from that w
eb (the recent publication of Godel's papers include papers on Husser
l; I haven't read them, but have been told that he speaks highly of H
usserl). Perhaps, many of our current problems derive from a failure 
to know that 19th-20th century paradigm which constrained their formu
lations and positions. It is rather different from a history with "Ge
rman traditions" and "Anglo-Saxon philosophy."
   Are these simply loose formulations? In any case, they seem to dis
courage dialogue.
Regards,
jim



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