Date: Sun, 10 May 1998 11:56:58 +0100
From: jmd <jmd-AT-dasein.demon.co.uk>
Subject: Re: R: thinker and thought


In message <3554A424.46CD-AT-net.HCC.nl>, Henk van Tuijl
<Henk.van.Tuijl-AT-net.HCC.nl> writes
>Anthony Crifasi wrote:
>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.
>
>Wasn't it Russell who reported meeting someone who claimed to be a
>solipsist and was surprised to notice that she was the only one?
>Anxiety is a distinctive state-of-mind. It individualizes Dasein and
>shows it as solus ipse. Heidegger calls this mode of being existential
>solipsism. It does occur in Jaspersian limit- situations. Heidegger
>argues that under ultimate breakdown conditions Dasein is confronted
>with the world as world. Dasein is (at the same time?) brought face to
>face with itself as Being-in-the-world. He does seem to believe that
>this suffices to take away the impression that Dasein is solipsistic in
>the ordinary sense of the word. However, the preceding passage still
>puzzles me:
>
>"That _about which_ anxiety is anxious reveals itself as that _in the
>face of which_ it is anxious - namely, Being-in-the- world. The
>selfsameness of that in the face of which and that about which one has
>anxiety, extends even to anxiousness itself. For, as a state-of-mind,
>anxiousness is a basic kind of Being-in-the-world (SZ 188)."
>
>Kindest regards,
>Henk
>
>
>
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   It seems that woven through this discussion there is a certain
equivocation/ambiguity between two employments of "solipsism," for it seems
clear that "existential solipsism" (the kind which Henk mentioned) and what we
might be able to call "traditional" metaphysical/epistemological solipsism are
distinct. The two seem to be polar opposites with respect to the Existence of
the Other.
   Doesn't the solipsist of the 'traditional' variety 'comprehend' the problematic of
Other "minds" (the kind to which Russell was referring, and the kind which the
later Wittgenstein was attacking), and see the Existence of the Other
(thematized Das Man?) as being either empty or at best conjectural,
hypothetical, or analogically or inductively inferred?
   Doesn't the solipsist of the existential variety 'comprehend' the problematic of
her own Existence (this Dasein), and see it almost threateningly inundated by a
plethora of 'pre-thematically' and, thus,  non-problematically Existing others --
that characteristic suspicion to which Derrida refers? In this latter case, isn't the
very Dasein, who one oneself is, confronted by its utter Replaceability by
numerous other Das Man Dasein, and so seem to itself to be, for that very
reason, utterly isolated from Being-in-the-World and Mit-Sein?
   For example, I am merely one more item amidst numerous others. The 'one'
who I am (in no philosophically ambitious sense at all) stands to the many others
around me just as one light bulb on a store shelf, say, compares to the many
others (of the same wattage) on the very same shelf. There is nothing intrinsic to
one bulb compelling its selection over all the others. One is as good as, will do
just as well as any other one.
   Similarly, doesn't the anxiety of the existential solipsist involve a recognition of
herself which is similar in kind to the recognition of the bulbs on the shelf? In her
capacity/role as teacher, office clerk, student, consumer, business man, lover,
father or mother even, sibling or offspring even, doesn't she recognize not only
that she occupies just another "place on the shelf," as it were, but also that some
one other could equally well have occupied her place? The various activities
which characterize her 'place' and which engage her are activities which could
just as well have engaged any one other. There is nothing intrinsic about HER or
HER OWN Existence that neccessitates that SHE HERSELF engage in these
activities, rather than some one else. It could have been the case that some one
other was engaged in just these activites, and not SHE HERSELF. As an
occupant of this place in the nexus of Being-in-the-World and Mit-Sein, within
the purview of this kind of recognition,  she is not only perfectly replaceable by
any other, but perfectly isolated from all others as well.
   I think professor Thomas Nagel has a much better formulation than my feeble
attempt here. He invites one, say me, to envisage having a complete up-to-date
biography of myself, in the following sense: up-to-date, all aspects of my life are
written in the book, and all sentences in the book truly record an aspect of my
life. However, as Nagel points out, among the pages of this biography, I can
find no account/explanation of or justification for -- what have you -- this
biography's being MY biography. It's no use claiming that the biography could
read that "this story is the life of the readers'" because any one else could have
been the reader -- which is merely the same possibility in different words. Of
course, this biography is jmd's biography, but why should this biography be
MINE, be this person's who I am? Equivalently, why is jmd ME, this person?
   There are, it seems, two consequences to these reflections. On the one hand,
THAT the 'social item', jmd, whose career is recorded in this biography is the
very person who I am, seems to be the case for no reason intrinsic to MY
existence, the the existence of THIS PERSON, ME HERE NOW. For that
very reason, I seem to myself to be completely replaceable by any other, being
merely one 'social item' among a plethora of others. It could have been the case
that some else assumed this biography which, as a matter of utterly groundless
fact, I, THIS Dasein, THIS ONE assumes. Some one else could have been
fixed in my social socket. On the other hand, for the very reason of this
replaceability, I seem to myself to occupy no 'place' essentially, to be
completely, and utterly, "metaphysically isolated" (to borrow from Cavel):
homeless, alienated from Being-in-the-World and from Mit-Sein.
   If my Existence were not necessarily one admidst essentially, intrinsically
replaceable others -- a token in Mit-Sein, a Das Man, one count of "in-the-
world" Being  -- I would not suffer the anxiety of being 'replaceable in isolation',
if you will.
   This is a state of mind; but it is not the problematic comprehended by the
solipsist of the 'traditional' variety -- perhaps, these two simply cannot
communicate. 

Could that be what H was voicing in the quotation from Henk???? 

Cheers,
jmd


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