Date: Wed, 01 Jul 1998 06:59:36 -0700
From: Mike Staples <mstaples-AT-argusqa.com>
Subject: Re: Mind & Body, One More Time


henry sholar wrote:

> Reading the sentence in context helps.  We are refering here to the
> following
> which is located on page 175 in the Macquarrie transl of B&T:
>
> "Factically, Dasein can, should, and must,
> through knowledge and will, become master
> of its moods; in certain possible ways of existing,
> this may signify a priority of volition and cognition."
>
> (next sentence:  "Only we must not be misled by this
> into denying that ontologically mood is a primordial
> kind of Being for Dasein, in which Dasein is disclosed
> to itself *prior to* all cognition and volition, and
> *beyond* their range of disclosure.")

Michael Staples replied:

I read this passage too, but still found it difficult to make sense of
the "mastering moods" statement.

> "Mastering" moods may be an unfortunate
> choice of translated words --or it may not.

Sure confused the heck out of me.

> In this discussion, which i think has nothing to do (yet)
> with psychological therapy,

That's what I was looking for, henry!

> At the level of psychology, for one to not be "master"
> of their moods, would make them unaware of their
> thrownness, unaware of being-in-the-world as a whole,
> unaware of encountering "something."

That is pretty interesting, and pretty confusing. Seems to me this is
one of those times you need to figure out what a specific sentence means
by "placing" it properly into Heidegger's work as a whole. It's another
one of those "It's the only way things hang together" issue, mirroring
our interpretation-all-the-way-down dialogue. I feel much better now, my
Universe has been restored to order.

Michael Staples



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