Date: Sat, 07 Mar 1998 13:51:53 +0100
From: Henk van Tuijl <Henk.van.Tuijl-AT-net.HCC.nl>
Subject: Re: Archetypes


Steven E. Callihan wrote:
> My point I was trying to
> make was that we see a thing (a "something") that we have all (English
> speakers anyway) conventionally agreed is a "tree." It is a "tree" for us,
> thus, in the sense that it is a thing that belongs to a group we have
> designated as "tree" (be it an oak tree, palm tree, Christmas tree). The
> thing, in other words, exists outside of and apart from whatever designation
> we might apply to it. That's why I said it was _something_ that we called a
> "tree." No tree, in other words, is ever simply or purely a tree--there are
> no pure and simple trees, except maybe on paper. What one sees is always a
> particular tree, but never a general tree.

Some thoughts, based more or less directly on Kisiel.

It is a wellknown fact that there is a transition from
from Being to time in Heidegger's thinking - without 
losing Being completely out of sight, since Being is
Heidegger's central question.
An example of this transition is the decrease of the
importance of "Jemeinigkeit" in the later Heidegger 
and the increase of the importance of "Jeweiligkeit".
Dasein refers to the "jeweilige" DA and "jeweilige" 
NOW of a "jeweilig" SELF.
In other words, SELF (the beholder) is "jeweilig" - 
let alone the "world" it is in and the "tree" that it
shares its "world" with.

You ask how amidst all the "jeweiligkeit" something 
like a category "tree" might be perceived, i.e. be
present.

Heidegger indicates that the potentiality of the 
presence of a "tree" is "present" in the presencing 
of things. In other words, the possibility of seeing
a "tree" is given with its presencing.
However, when a "jeweilig" says what it sees, the
"tree" stops being a tree because one tends to say
what one sees:

As Foti writes in her book on Heidegger: 
"Mortal _legein_ [...] is poetic in _essence_ as 
the donation of the traces [...] of the clear 
space of the opening" (12).

Note the word "traces" - a poetic form of the
word "abstractum"?  

In other words, the word "tree" may be seen as an 
aprioristic structure (Henry Sholar's "poetic"
archetype if it is "said" instead of "spoken").

Kindest regards,
Henk



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