File spoon-archives/heidegger.archive/heidegger_1998/heidegger.9803, message 193


Date: Tue, 31 Mar 1998 00:59:55 +0800
From: Malcolm Riddoch <riddoch-AT-central.murdoch.edu.au>
Subject: Re: Heidegger, Husserl and perception


Back online after a rather unfortunate ecstasis in which my
powerbook-thing gave itself in a deficient mode of
presence-at-hand...but such is life in sunny Perth, burglary capital of
Australia :(


>Cologne, 23 March 1998


>schlichte, sinnliche Vernehmen is _aisthaesis_, which is to be
distinguished

>from =ECpure _noein_=EE, i.e. =ECschlichtem hinsehenden Vernehmen=EE(SuZ:33).
Neither

>the one nor the other, however, are phenomenological, because neither

>depend on

>the _logos_....You don=EDt agree with the distinction between
=ECschlichtem,

>sinnlichem Vernehmen=EE and =ECreinem _noein_=EE i.e. =ECschlicht hinsehendem


>Vernehmen=EE? Look again!


Looked again...Could you please point out to me the distinction
Heidegger makes in the passage we are citing (S&Z, s.33) that begins
with "Aesthesis, the sheer sensory perception of something (schlichter
sinnlicher Vernehmen)" ... and ends in "pure noein etc." I think you
are just being playful...no? There is no distinction here or anywhere
else in S&Z as far as I can see. And as for:


>At the latest since Kant, the word =ECrein=EE (pure) has the

>connotation of indicating something independent of sensuous
experience, i.e. a

>priori seeing.


Sure thing Michael, but the 'independence' of transcendental
apperception doesn't mean a different sort of seeing that is completely
unrelated to the empirical senses...maybe one of the Kantians on this
list could explain it. But then we'd also have to go into the Kantian
distinction between subjective experience and the transcendental realm
of objects...which Heidegger, more or less following Husserl, calls
into question. And then of course according to Heidegger Kant (and also
Husserl) interprets existence and actuality as perception which means
in terms of presence-at-hand (eg. 'Basic Problems' p. 109). In this
sense aisthesis is the same as 'purely contemplative perception', or
noein in Parmenides' sense (p. 110), and yes, the early Husserl also
takes this traditional emphasis on perception as foundational...which
is a problem as I have been pointing out. 


>Moreover, what does the =ECschlicht hinsehende Vernehmen=EE see? It

>sees the =ECeinfachsten Seinsbestimmungen des Seienden als solchen=EE
(=ECthe >simplest ontological determinations of the being as such=EE) --
and this is >something that  can never be seen sensuously! (And
something Husserl does not >have in view _as  such_ -- but only
implicitly in his concern with the >objectivity of the object.)


Well I don't think it's that simple, the apriori here is traditionally
related to the uncoveredness as extantness (Vorhandenheit) of the thing
disclosed in straightforward sensuous perception (ie pure noein), and
so the disclosedness of being is interpreted as presence. And this is
precisely what Husserl does in describing the temporally constituted
'objectness' or 'bodily presence' of straightforward perceptions.
According to Heidegger, and in the context of a discussion about
perception, the ontological difference is prefigured in the tradition
in that the "uncoveredness of beings is dislcosed in the disclosedness
of being" (p. 72) where the present-at-hand is understood in its
presence. This is problematic in that of course the things themselves
first give themselves in "productive comportments" (p. 110), but these
comportments aren't then something unrelated to perception, as if there
can be some sort of disembodied knowing of things...for it is precisely
the greek notion of noein and the disclosedness belonging to it that
Heidegger draws upon in section 44 to outline the 'place' of
existential phenomenology. The question here is just what is the simple
disclosedness of the things themselves? On the one hand we have the
presence of things (the traditional focus) and on the other we have the
openness of the world within which things come to presence (first
tentatively posited in B&T as the openness of the ready-to-hand
totality)...this general distinction seems to motivate Heidegger's
entire path of thinking right through to the 'immanent critique' of S&Z
in the 'Task of Thinking' and the necessity of thinking the difference
between openness and presencing...the metaphysical tradition isn't
something that we just put aside, it has to be thought in terms of the
openness of being. Why else do you think Heidegger constantly returned
to the Greeks and the disclosedness of aletheia? And just what do you
make of his late assertion that:


What occurs for the phenomenology of the acts of consciousness as the
self-manifestation of phenomena is thought more originally by Aristotle
and in all Greek thinking and existence as
<underline>aletheia</underline>, as the unconcealedness of what-is
present, its being revealed, its showing itself. That which
phenomenological investigations rediscovered as the supporting attitude
of thought proves to be the fundamental trait of Greek thinking, if not
indeed of philosophy as such ('My way to phenomenology').


And yes, as far as the term 'perception' goes, there is:


>in addition, a translation problem that seems to be causing confusion,


>namely, =ECvernehmen=EE can mean =ECto perceive (hear sensuously)=EE, but it
can also

>mean =ECto receive knowledge (learn, hear) of=EE. The usual German
equivalent for

>=ECperception=EE is =ECWahrnehmen=EE or =ECWahrnehmung=EE, and this is always
sensuous,

>whereas =ECVernehmen=EE is not necessarily dependent on the senses, as the
passage

>referred to in SuZ shows.


This is rather confused I think, what does it mean to say that
Warhnehmung is always sensuous? It is also 'categorial' in that the
sensuous thing has an intentionally constituted presence...and
Wahrnehmung in Husserl is precisely a 'natural' seeing in which any
perceiving is already meaningful, and so as Heidegger points out
"seeing always discovers colours and hearing always discovers sounds"
(B&T, p. 57/33). In what sense do you see this notion of Vernehmen as
'non-sensuous'? Obviously the understanding of being, as the
disclosedness belonging to things given in straightforward perceptions,
is 'non-sensuous' in that it is nothing to be found 'in' sense
perception, but this doesn't mean that it is somehow completely bereft
of the senses...and this distinction is one made by Husserl in his LI
discussion of being and the 'is' in terms of the difference between
categorial and sensuous intuition...the one that Heidegger also cites
in the late seminars as the point at which Husserl comes closest to the
question of being.


>As Anthony Crifasi rightly points out, the =ECbesorgende Umsicht=EE
(concernful

>circumspection; this is a horrible translation, since what is meant is
the

>encompassing view that guides Dasein in its daily taking care of
things) is

>non-sensual.


So neither of you 'see' any actual thing when you are absorbed in work?
This is fine by me if by that you mean you do not thematize the
presence of things while working, we can leave that particular mode of
work up to the philosophers of presence. And this 'thematic or
theoretical seeing' as a methodological turning point is precisely what
Heidegger criticizes in the traditional emphasis on presence and
perception. So far so good. But you seem to be suggesting that things
don't present themselves to you even non-thematically while absorbed in
the in-order-to...what then becomes manifest in this non-perceptual
non-space? Not the things themselves I take it? I find both your and
Anthony's insistence on some sort of 'non-perceptual' seeing rather
absurd, especially where you confuse this with the apriori.


>The frequent recurrence of the phrase =ECflux of straightforward

>sensible perceptions=EE in your formulations shows, in fact, how far
Husserl (at

>least in your reading of him) is from SuZ, also with regard to the
issue of

>temporality. The temporality you describe in the above passage is a
temporality

>of sensuous presence and is fundamentally different from the ecstatic


>Zeitlichkeit of SuZ.


Again, I find Husserl's notion of perception very close to what
Heidegger calls greek noein and its disclosedness...if you think that
these latter notions have nothing to do with existential phenomenology
then that's fine by me, everyone is entitled to their own
interpretations, and what else do we have? My own reading of the
analytic would suggest however that you are both simply wrong as far as
the problem of perception is concerned because "the ecstasis of the
present is the foundation for the specifically intentional
transcendence of the perception of extant entities" ('Basic Problems',
p. 315). Perception belongs to the ecstatic present...and where else do
we ever find ourselves? And yes, this is a critique of the traditional
emphasis on perception and presence given that the 'directional sense'
of intentional comportments in general is that which first discloses
beings in their presence...ie the understanding of being as an openness
to the world is 'prior' or meaningfully sets up our perceptions of
things. For Husserl this 'directional sense' was 'horizontal
intentionality' or the self aware controlling ego of the _Ideen I_, for
Heidegger c. B&T it was practical comportments...Husserl's choice was
dictated by his traditional emphasis on perception in the LI and ITC;
yet these _pre-Ideen_ texts, as I have been arguing all along, although
not fundamental philosophy still seem to belong to the inner workings
of the existential analytic and most especially where the originary
source (Zeitlichkeit) of the unity (as presence) of perception is
concerned....And so, to return to the example of that hammer once
again:


>The =EBseeing=ED of the hammer in

>its being is essentially non-sensuous and has nothing to do with a
=ECflux of

>straightforward sensible perceptions=EE. To start from this latter
conception cuts

>you off from seeing the temporality of the hammer in Dasein=EDs
existence.


Inasmuch as a straightforward perception of the hammer belongs to the
ecstatic present I would say that authentically 'seeing' ie
understanding the hammer belongs to an actual non-thematic perception
of the hammer *as you use it*...


>If I plan to do a job tomorrow, say, fix the antenna on the roof, I
think of the

>tools I will need to do this, including the hammer which I will first
have to

>pick up from the friend I lent it to. The being of the hammer is thus
open to me

>_in the future_, its being-for-me is futural, withheld in the future.



So the authentically futural moment for you lies in a mere thinking
about the hammer? This is completely antithetical to my own
understanding of the futural ecstases which have nothing to do with
contemplating future events...and where are you when you plan ahead
like this? Are you sitting at your work bench? I assume it gives itself
in an unthematized flow of perception as does the chair on which you're
sitting, unless that is the chair has a wobbly leg. If so then it would
obtrude from out of its ready-at-handedness as something of a
problem...and then you could ecstatically plan ahead to use that hammer
on this chair also...but then isn't the absence of the hammer as a
'futural being-for-me' in contemplatory planning merely itself a
deficient mode of presence?


>The next

>day, when trying to fix the antenna in position, I notice that the
hammer is too

>light to hammer the studs into the brick.


This is a breakdown situation isn't it? The wrong hammer obtrudes, it
gives itself as this object-thing that is wrong for the work at hand
rather than something unproblematically ready to hand...apparently then
for you it is in these 'present-at-hand' situations that merely
thinking about another hammer opens up the ecstatic past such that:


>I recall that I have another,

>heavier hammer in the toolshed, which I used some time ago in laying
parquetry

>floors. This second hammer is thus open to me in its being _from the
past_. It

>is now refused to me in that past (since the laying of the parquetry
floor is

>over and done with), but it now offers itself to me _in its being_ as
suitable

>for my project, within which I can cast it in the role of the =EBheavier
hammer

>suitable for nailing studs into the brick=ED.


This all seems a bit representationalist to me, you reduce the past and
future ecstases to merely recalling or bringing something to mind, and
these even belong to separate moments...where is the Augenblick? Where
is the ecstatic present and its horizonality?


>The point is that the seeing of the hammer in the future and in the
past are

>both non-sensuous. And even seeing the hammer in the present _in its
being_ is

>also non-sensuous. The hammer being good for hammering, its Um-zu, is
nothing

>that can be seen with the senses. You can stare at the hammer all you
like and

>gather as much sense data as you like about it and from it, you will
never

>discover its being (its =ECsimplest ontological determinations=EE
(SuZ:33).


You can stare at the hammer like a good traditionalist and see it in
its disclosedness understood as presence, or perhaps presencing in
Husserl's case...and this presence is not 'in' the sensuous data but
rather belongs to the intentionality of perception as its temporally
constituted ideal objectness. I guess you had to stare at it and weigh
it in your hand at some time in order to 'see' it was no good for the
job...but then if it presented no problem you wouldn't thematize the
hammer itself would you? You would just use it, and how would it give
itself as suitable for the job? You would heft the thing wouldn't you?
And its 'heftiness' would feel so right that it wouldn't intrude on the
work at hand and present itself as a problem...and rather than merely
thinking about things future and past you would be absorbed in the
actual use, in the work at hand. But such is concernful
circumspection...keep your eye on the job now and don't lose your focus
cos I've cracked my thumb with a misdirected hammer before and it hurts
like buggery (errr...an old aussie colloquialism for those
international readers who might be wondering).


It had not occurred to me that I would need to argue the case for the
role of straightforward perception in the existential analytic, I had
thought that my most contentious suggestions were more likely to be the
role of Husserl's notion of temporality within the ecstatic temporality
of Dasein. Nonetheless, for Heidegger dealing with the problem of the
traditional ontology of presence (ie perception) "means putting the
Kantian problem on a phenomenological [ie temporal] basis" ('Basic
Problems', p. 318) and it is this problem that occupies centre stage in
the existential phenomenology in preparation for a 'phenomenological
Destruktion of the history of ontology with the problematic of
Temporalitaet as our clue'. This much seems obvious to me from my work
on _Being and Time_, and Heidegger explicitly works through this
perceptual problem in the lecture course on the 'Basic Problems of
Phenomenology'. So your strange notions of some sort of seemingly
representationalist mode of non-perceptual seeing, of an apriori
somehow dislocated from the sensuous, and of the ecstases of the past
and future torn away from the lived moment and its perceptual flux
grounded in the ecstatic present, all seem to confirm for me that
*not*


>putting =ECthe flux of perceptions ... at the very

>heart of the question of _Being and Time_=EE amounts to missing the
ontological

>difference, i.e. beings _in their being_, utterly.


I think I can continue to disagree with you on this Michael, although I
don't really think you 'utterly miss the ontological difference, i.e.
beings _in their being_'. However, I do think that ecstatic temporality
is somewhat complicated (to say the bleedingly obvious) and must be
approached with care so as not to obliterate its sense.


Regards,


Malcolm Riddoch




















     --- from list heidegger-AT-lists.village.virginia.edu ---

   

Driftline Main Page

 

Display software: ArchTracker © Malgosia Askanas, 2000-2005