Date: Sun, 20 Sep 1998 17:19:49 -0700
From: Mike Staples <mstaples-AT-argusqa.com>
Subject: Re: Jemeinigkeit


> David wrote:

> No, or only insofar as the thoughts that have come to mind were
> indirectly
> influenced by a very patchy and inexpert reading of certain parts of
> Being
> and Time several years ago and then reshaped by other concerns.

There are only a few experts on Heidegger here, and I ain't one of them.
So don't worry about that.

> . I guess I
> have taken a fragment from Heidegger and tried to apply it -
> mistakenly? -
> to the things that bother me. My own understanding of "mineness" is as
> a
> state of mind in which everything is basically unconfirmable, in the
> sense
> that we strive to think objectively about the world (and about
> ourselves -
> what Sartre describes as "reflection"?) but find that this "mineness"
> is
> permanently "in the way". Of course, this "mineness" *is* in fact "the
> way"
> itself..

Probably, "mineness" is not well characterized as a state-of-mind, and
you might get some argument about this notion about thinking objectively
about the world.

> As for "inside" and "outside": I suppose I use these terms as
> shorthand for
> ideas I haven't quite formularized - I am talking about "the inner
> life" and
> "the world", and I suspect this is a false dichotomy, particularly to
> Heidegger.

Yah, I think your suspicions are probably right. We use these divisions
of "inner life" versus "ourter world" so easily. As Michael E. once
said, the traditional metaphysics is so natural to us that it's like
breathing. But if you think about it for a while it seems, at least to
me, that this division readily breaks down. I am in the world...all of
me.

If you are interested, you might try picking up a copy of Dreyfus's
Being-in-the-World. He has a nice section on mineness. I realized the
other day (I'm slow, you know) that the title of this book means a great
deal with respect to what Dreyfus is especially interested in. His
position with respect to Artificial Intelligence revolves around the
notion that people are able to be in the world in a way that computers
are not. It is so central to his point that I don't know why I didn't
see it before. Anyway, all that asside, I have found Dreyfus to be very
clear (not that it seems to do me much good -- but at least one of us is
clear).

Michael S.



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