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 ---
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