File spoon-archives/heidegger.archive/heidegger_1998/heidegger.9810, message 87


Date: Fri, 16 Oct 1998 19:49:24 +0000
From: jim <jmd-AT-dasein.demon.co.uk>
Subject: Re: Knowing the Ontological?


Michael,
Thanks very much for your comments.
They will -- as usual --require me to do much more thinking.
I haven't time to properly respond now, but I do have a further question
(or two). 

>This “in toto” (ibid. S.190) which reverberates through all 
>behaviour appears in daily life as the “incalculable and ungraspable” (ibid.) 
>and “can never be grasped”.
Does this mean that any attempt at grasping "the Entirety" would have to
house itself thematically and would, therefore, have to be a
'reading'/'interpretation' of the ontological AS ontic, NOT as ontological
-- even if the 'thematic' were poetic, eg, i'm thinking here of Blake's
"seeing the world in a grain of sand....," of that 'philosophic' seeing of
the world sub specie aeternitatis?

> This attuning in toto is “not nothing but an 
>encryption/hiding of beings in their totality” (ibid.) So Dasein is open to the 
>hiding and experiences this as attunement that outflanks the preoccupation with 
>particular beings.
>
>But even within SuZ, Sein opens up not only via a mediation of beings but, in 
>particular, in the fundamental attunement of Angst within which the 
>“insignificance of the world” and the “nullity of what has to be taken care of” 
>are “revealed” (SuZ:343)
>
>“Understanding” is only one mode of Erschliessung which is on a par with 
>attunement as the other “equiprimordial” mode in which being opens up and 
>calls 
>Dasein to its Da.

> Moreover, even understanding is never purely ontical, but 
>always also ontological, i.e. there is no understanding of any being at all 
>without an understanding of being and the being of the being. The understanding 
>of being is “at first and for the most part” overlooked, i.e. it is implicit. 
>E.g. in focussing attention on a particular being, say, a kettle, we understand 
>it “always already” as something, and this understanding as “something” is 
>ontological, not ontic. Without an understanding of being, there is no access to 
>beings on an ontic level either.

(i don't know whether i understand this, but) And even in a culture that
has no kettles, the "language" in which the 'in-toto attunement' would
call to Dasein would, in any case, be Zuhandensein? 
Ie, eg, even if Heidegger had been a Creek (Native American), the
Analytic of Dasein would still have assumed its current shape --
although the actual theme of investigation would be Sein, it would have
to be launched from an investigation into Zuhandensein
(which is, i hope, a point you are suggesting in the following:
>The difficulty lies in the “co-thematic” (SuZ:67) status of the beings whose 
>being is analyzed, namely “stuff” (Zeug, normally rendered as “equipment”). 
>The 
>stuff we have to do with in taking care of things (das Zu-besorgende) in daily 
>life, “stuff for writing, sewing, fixing, driving, measuring” (SuZ:68) is 
>ontically well-known, whereas “im eigentlichen Thema steht das Sein” (the 
>real 
>topic is being SuZ:67). The ontic and the ontological are always ‘there’ 
>together.
?). If i understand correclty (or at all), then it would not be incorrect to
say that the "in-toto attunement" is also what makes Zuhandensein
possible and, thus, also, Vorhandensein.

Gotta go ...
Thank you, again, Michael.
Cheers, 
jim

PS. You must be talking about the Ohashi who use to teach at KIT (Kyoto
Institute of Technology, where Elmar use to teach), no?


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