Date: Sun, 8 Feb 1998 13:01:27 -0500
From: Daniel McGrady <dMcGrady-AT-Compuserve.Com>
Subject: Re:     _I am_ in ME's new article (2)


8-2-98

Michael Eldred wrote,

>Daniel, I=92d say, forget the mind game of logical impossibility or
otherwise. 
>Talking to oneself is not only possible, but is part of Dasein=92s essential

>constitution. 

Michael, I am quite surprised you said that.   How is this supposed to
square with the primordiality of being-with and sharing?   According to the
above scenario God could have made a clearing of the above sort with only
one individual and thus never the need for being with others nor for any
'we'.   

>Yes, now I follow. There=92s ticklish linguistic point here, because German
=93da=94 
>does not always translate as =93there=94. =93Ich bin da.=94 means =93I am here.=94;
=93Du bist 
>dort.=94 means =93You are there.=94 The =93da=94 of Da-sein is thus more properly a 
>=93here-being=94, not a =93there-being=94. So you=92re saying: Dasein individualizes
as 
>=91I=92 in its here-being?

I am not sure we should go down this road Michael.   I can understand the
temptation, because it would lead the analysis of Da-sein towards an
analysis which would fit 'I'.  I know the German is ambiguous here,
sometimes synonymous with 'dort' sometimes meaning 'here.'   'Da und dort',
but then again 'hier und da'.   But the ambiguity suits H down to the
ground.   It is the spatiality.   And then if one takes 'da-sein' in which
'sein' is infinitive rather than participial (which I find unsuitable) 'da'
can sometimes be taken with a sense of 'towards' of intentionality.   But
then as you note, 'I' is always going to be 'here'.   But taking it that
H's analysis of Da-sein begins with the 'they' or as I prefer it 'one',
'da' as ambiguously 'there' is possibly preferable.

>Which modality =93does not spatialize although it has temporality in its
form=94? 
>Here-being?? In hereing I am a unity holding the three temporal dimensions

>together and apart. 

Modalities, like God the Father are eternally generating.   If you take up,
or rather let a modality take you up, in order to become something, then
you can become that thing endlessly, as can any other individual who may be
so taken up.   E.g. the role of school-teacher is endlessly generating
school teachers without ever diminishing itself.  To each schoolteacher it
plays the eternal.   And as the eternal it imparts the condition for the
temporal dimensions and possibly for Da-sein's temporality.    But I think
I see how this must have stopped you in your tracks.  For each modal must
be present in spatialized form.   In the case cited it is obviously present
in each school teacher.   But I would say that it was so while the school
teacher is still mindful of it as a way.   When they go home they hang it
up on the rack along with the hat.


>The intentionality of =93the intentionality to individualize=94 is a 
>Sich-beziehen-auf..., a relating-oneself-to...? Individuality
individualizes in 
>relating to a modal?? I am then here in such-and-such a way. Are you
saying that 
>name has to do with invocation of an individual I, i.e. my name is what I
can be 
>called by?

Do you think we could take, for our own purposes  'sich beziehen auf' as
'to refer oneself to'?   I.e. the intentionality being both vertical and
horizontal (cf. other post) - requires that the individual refer oneself to
the vertical modality (subjective form) - with a view to referring oneself
to the object  - for the sake of placing oneself in the form of this
modality - for the sake of the entity being released (disclosed) to us. 
Yes,  I see what you mean by using someone's name in this sense.   It is
not used as an indexical, a logically proper name, but as a summons.  And
the summons is to their being who and what they are.   Thus in a school
class, to continue our metaphor, the school master calling out 'Daniel
McGrady' in the roll call, produces a summons for meso that I may announce
my presence.   But then there is the connection with how proper names
formerly had meanings.   'Daniel' as I was always reminded means 'The LORD
is Judge' which is virtually a summons to stop thinking for oneself.  
Names in this sense, contain both sense and reference.   And it has always
seemed to me that in the philosophy of language 'reference' has always been
used technically so as not to mean reference at all.  For something to
refer, it is necessary that it direct the one who is referred to the thing
referred to.   That which guides, directs, is the sense.

>'Daniel McGrady himself' is derivative from =91I myself=92, i.e. 'Daniel
McGrady 
>himself' already presupposes you in your self-relation as =91I=92, and reports
on 
>it. I can put myself into the mode of being as third person, but it is _I_
who 
>do this. It is not a matter of imagining (sich vor-stellen) =93a world where
there 
>is no =91I=92=94, but of trying to bring the phenomena of _this_ world to
language, in 
>which there is a fissuring or folding of being into first, second and
third 
>person. 

I agree that this is what we need.  But I don't agree that 'Daniel McGrady
himself' is derivative from =91I myself=92.   The former is not only quite
different, but it does not lead to the latter.   Imagine a world in which
beings (human beings if you like) have their public names stamped on their
foreheads so that others may refer to them thereby and their private names
(the same for everyone) stamped  on the inside of their wrists.   They
refer to themselves according to what is written on their own wrist.   This
scene does not require self-consciousness although it covers being able to
refer definitely to oneself.  In such a world there is no use for 'I
myself'.   The problem arises once we confuse I with Self.   But as I said
in the last post, I think that Self is a metaphysical invention and
Self-hood along with it.   Nor is 'I' an indexical like 'this' or 'that'.  
For those are based upon observation statements which require verification
whereas the announcement 'I ... '  is not an observation statement and
verification would be logically improper.

>> 'I' unlike 'Daniel' is not a name, not even a pronoun,
>> and yet a way to be. 

>I agree.

>I-hood and self-hood are ontological, i.e. existenzials. If there is a 
>difference between them at all, I can only see the difference that I-hood
is 
>restricted to the first person as individual, whereas self-hood allows the

>individuality of Dasein to appear in other modes of being-with as well,
i.e. as 
>=91you=92 and =91he/she=92. So, in this sense, =91I=92 is =93more specific=94 than self,
as you 
>say. 

Radically different I would say and somehow we need to see this better in
order to prepare for how to bring in 'thou'.  

>I see the danger of the shift from =91myself=92 to =91my self=92, since it slides
from 
>first person into third person, but, as far as I can presently see, this
is 
>because =91selfhood=92 is a broader existenzial than I-hood as you have been
using 
>it. 

>Heidegger did not trust grammar as far as he could throw it. He didn=92t pay
much 
>attention to the modalities of first, second and third person, however,
i.e. he 
>did not attempt a phenomenological analysis. 

This is what we need to do.   There is of course the difference between the
grammar produced by grammarians and what Wittgenstein calls 'philosophical
grammar'.  In the latter we are led by the onto-logic of the term, as in
e.g. 'I' in order to discover its logic and thereby discover our mode of
being, and not be led up the garden path by grammarians.   Isn't  this what
has happened with 'self'?   Not only are we led up the garden path by it
and construct uses for it, but then we mislead ourselves so much as to seek
to discover it and then practise our lives according to it.   Then we
smother terms like 'I' under it.   Another reason why this is done is by
mistaking 'subject' for 'self' or for an individual.

>Indexical naming is pointing out a particular individual thing, wheras
calling 
>out a name is invoking a particular Dasein as you. In calling for you, I
have 
>already understood you as you, i.e. in the mode of you-ness. 

Do I understand You as You or You as I?  Is there an order here?   Is it
the other that gradually pressurizes one back towards I?  First of all I
only become aware of myself through the other.   The infant sees itself
reflected in its mother's face.   The face is the indirect reflection of
oneself.   I only begin to know myself in and through these
self-reflections in others.   The comedian knows he is funny when the
audience are laughing, not funny when their faces are stony.

Great stuff Michael.   Look forward to hearing from you!

Daniel.




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