Date: Sun, 1 Mar 98 17:59:57 UT
From: "j md" <jmdnmnm-AT-classic.msn.com>
Subject: RE: Heidegger on Husserl


In response to your response to Malcolm, Michael, I have to ask wheth
er or not there is simply a semantical problem here.
Specifically, your following claims seem to ascribe views based on th
e usage of the word "intentionality":    

... concentrate on just one issue: intentionality, which I can now se
e is functioning as a bridge 
for you to link Husserl with Heidegger. There is no such thing as an 
Intentionality of care?, nor is there such a thing as Intentionality 
as Verhalten?, since Dasein as such is not intentional at all.

It seems to me that Michael is saddling Malcolm with a VIEW or ACCOUN
T of Intentionality -- perhaps a Husserlian VIEW or ACCOUNT -- by vir
tue of using the term. Granted H didn't use the term -- only twice ac
tually in SuZ. However, one reason for this refusal was that H reject
ed the very (phenomenonlogical?) taxonomy of the (Western) philosophi
cal tradition which classified such-and-such aspects of human life as
 Intentional phenomena, from at least Duns Scotus to Brentano, Meinon
g, and Husserl; another reason, of course, was to avoid being read as
 formulating just another ACCOUNT of what that tradition had characte
rized as the phenomenon of Intentionalty.

On my reading of H (SuZ, 1), with respect to so-called Intentionality
, H would endorse the claim that there is a "What" or an X of human l
ife -- to put it as neutrally as I can -- which the tradition failed 
to philosophically understand, a failure due to its deeper failure no
t only to recognize it did implement a phenomenological taxonomy, but
 also to recognize that this taxonomy was anchored in its ignor-ance 
of the Seinsfrage. What is more, it seems that SuZ expresses an ACCOU
NT of what this "What" or X, and the taxonomy which H elaborated to i
ndividuate and identify this "What" or X are divisions which he modif
ied from Aristotle.

Granted, this is why it is so difficult to engage (post Zeit-Begriff)
 Heidegger in dialogue with the tradition. However, any attempt to do
 so, which is couched in terms made familiar from the tradition, is n
ot thereby committed to some one philosophical ACCOUNT of the traditi
on. For example, Thompson Clarke at Berkeley used to always focus on 
the apparently intractable meaning of such philosophical terms as "ph
ysical object," "knowledge," "external world," "mind," "independent e
xistence": the words can be used in exactly the same sentences (types
) to express radically different meanings, depending on one's "place,
" if you will: in the philosophical study (of which Hume so often tal
ked) or outside amidst 'the human' (the psychiatrist, who assuages th
e nightmarish fears of his 'client' that only the client's mind exist
, that physical objects don't, etc., does not send a letter to Russel
l with a note not to worry, that she, the psychiatrist, can assure hi
m that there are physical objects, and thereby resolve all of Russell
's philosophical troubles; the psychiatrist can freely engage in phil
osophical dialogue with Russell about whether or not physcial objects
 exist and also engage in therpeutic reassurance with her client that
 they do, and still not contradict herself).

We should engage H in a dialogue in the same way; after all, philosop
hy is just another Human, human practice, meaning by that that the sh
ape of philosophy is Human: it is human and it is self-adjudicating.

It seems that the "What" or X for H is Verhalten; Sorge is its shape.
 In other words, it does not seem inappropriate -- perhaps misleading
 for persons uninitiated in H's vocabulary -- to say that for H there
 is as much intentionality in reaching for a hammer and hammering as 
there is in thinking that the this modem is too slow. Whatever was it
 that led the tradition to characterize the intentional as intrinsica
lly mental, as the mark of the mental, to the exclusion of a bodily U
mgang?

Many good illustrations of a H-type ACCOUNT of this What or X (or Int
entionality -- trying to use a word neutrally, but made familiar from
 the tradition) can be found in Japanese culture, for example, with t
he concept of human being, expressed "nin-gen," the first syllable sp
elled with the Chinese character for 'person', and the second syllabl
e, with the character for 'between'-- the suggestion being that a hum
an is a person which exists in the between (and more). Similarly, the
 concept of 'heirloom', translated "Kata-mi," and the tradition which
 carries it, expresses the view that the deceased survives in the Kat
ami -- usually an item of significant role in the life of the decease
d, and bequethed to a significant survivor. In short, we aren't suppo
sed to see the human as bounded or locatable. Rather, the human is co
nstituted by significant amorphous patches of the world. Some of thos
e patches assume careers in the life of the human; after the human di
es, the patches which constituted the human survives (kata-mi). And s
ince any particular patch is the patch it is by virtue of the life of
 the human being in which it played a significant role, the human sur
vives in the patches. What's more, if that patch should assume a care
er in the life of an Other, that human survives in that Other, i.e., 
on this view, humans are not only fissiparous, but they can also fuse
; they are Dasein. The human being, qua Dasein, spills out into the e
nvirons, is spread out in a Between-ness. The spilling and the spread
ing IS Intentionality, and must assume the shape of existentials (thi
nk of the diachronic picture of the human on this view).

On this reading of H, "Daseining" is full of Intentionality, but ther
e is nothing traditionally "mental" about Intentionality; and its str
ucture is Care.

On this reading of H, Michael, I don't understand your following clai
ms to Malcolm:

Thus Dasein does not intend anything (Zeug) in the world, but is alwa
ys already in the world with beings (Sein-bei...). There is no room? 
or Time? for intentionality because being has always already opened i
tself to Dasein in its Da.

Perhaps, you see the usage of the word "intentionality" as having no 
possible neutral usage? That is why I think that your dispute may be 
semantical.

Regards,
jim    







 


----------
From: 	owner-heidegger-AT-jefferson.village.Virginia.EDU on behalf of Mi
chael Eldred
Sent: 	Saturday, February 28, 1998 2:03 AM
To: 	heidegger-AT-jefferson.village.virginia.edu
Subject: 	Re: Heidegger on Husserl










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