Date: Fri, 8 May 1998 06:51:52 -0500
Subject: Re: R: thinker and thought


Michael Staples wrote:

> >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.

It depends on whether or not you believe that presence is prior to praxis. For 
traditional solipsism, there is no notion of praxis being prior to presence, so 
since they argue that solipsism results from the philosophy of presence (ie, 
traditional epistemological problems concerning how we can know things which 
are present to us), then solipsism is the *absolute* result of philosophy, not 
merely the result of considering things in the mode of presence (only). For 
Heidegger, on the other hand, presence is not the way of encountering beings 
which is most prior (philosophically speaking), so that even if solipsism were to 
be the "logical" result of the philosophy of presence, there would still be 
another way of encountering beings which is unaffected by that "logical" result 
(since logic itself is obviously derived only in the mode of presence). So I 
suppose that "we could all be solipsistic and still be Heideggerian," but only if 
we reject the traditional notion that presence is prior to praxis. 

Anthony Crifasi


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