Date: Mon, 04 May 1998 08:54:05 -0700
From: Mike Staples <mstaples-AT-argusqa.com>
Subject: Re: thinker and thought


Christopher Honey wrote:

> Even if the question does lead to solipsism, did Heidegger really
> address it (solipsism, I mean)?  Would it have mattered to his
> philosophy if this were all a solipsistic fantasy or not?  Surely
> most of his philosophy didn't care about solipsism or God or
> Cartesian malignant geniuses.  And since he began with phenomenology,
> we could all be, in a certain sense, solipsistic, and still be
> Heideggerian in dealing with whatever hallucinations our mind or our
> Cartesian demons threw at us in the guise of reality.

Christopher,

Perhaps there is an implicit interest, and an explicit admonition of
solipsism in Heidegger's work, don't you think?. Weather or not he set
out to combat solipsism directly is probably beside the point, though in
a way you could probably make a case for that. The topic of God is
entirely different, and I don't think this topic should be treated quite
the same way. But I don't think it is in fact possible that we could all
be solipsistic and still be Heideggerian.

Michael Staples




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