File spoon-archives/heidegger.archive/heidegger_2001/heidegger.0104, message 18


Date: Tue, 10 Apr 2001 16:37:50 -0400 (EDT)
From: Gary Moore <gottlos45-AT-mail.com>
Subject: COMMENTARY: HEIDEGGER, THE BODY, AND THE FRENCH  PART 5


PART 5:
In the second volume of Nietzsche entitled The eternal Recurrence of the
Same, Heidegger quotes Nietzsche:



. . . To the ideal of the boldest, most vital, and most world-affirming
human being who has not only made his peace and learned to get along with
whatever was and is but who wills to have it again precisely as it was and
is into all eternity, calling insatiably da capo not only to himself but to
the entire play and spectacle, and not only to a spectacle but at bottom to
Him who has need of precisely this spectacle – who makes it necessary
because he forever has need of himself – and makes himself necessary. –
How’s that? Would this not be – circulus vitiosus deus? ( trans. David
Farrell Krell: refer Basic Writings of Nietzsche, ed. & trans. Kaufman,
Beyond Good and Evil, “What is Religious,” section 56, pg. 258)



And Heidegger comments:



We cannot believe our eyes and ears: “circulus vitiosus deus?” Circulus
means the circle and the ring, hence eternal recurrence, indeed as vitiosus;
vitium means defect, malady, something destructive; circulus vitiosus is the
ring that also necessarily brings this vitium. Is it deus?  . . . And the
sphere of this god – the world? The eternal recurrence of the same: the
collective character of being as a whole? . . . Are world and God thereby
the same? Such a doctrine, interpreted as plain fare, is called “pantheism.”
. . . What does the text say? “. . . Would this not be circulus vitiosus
deus?” Here a question is posed. If it were pantheism, we would first of all
still have to ask what pan – the universe, the whole – and what theos – God
– here mean. At all events, here we have a question! (“The Third
Communication of the Doctrine,” pg. 65)



And what this “question” is leading toward has already been discussed above
in the distinction between “the guiding question” of the meaning of Being
and “the grounding question.” The point is, as I said above, the “circle’
revolves, wobbles, ellipses (and we assume that, like a comet, it eventually
returns; how ever . . .), around a center that is only imagined to be fixed
(I mean, in the senses that Heidegger actually uses the term, it is the
Ptolemaic system that is perceptually primordial!) in defiance of Kant’s –
and Nietzsche’s – ‘Copernican’ revolution. That it is not, as the
hermeneutic circle, to be “degraded to a vitiosum, not even a tolerated
one,” is very much like Sartre’s affirmation of man as a sort of ‘leap of
faith’ in order to justify his whole project as a whole which is “A positive
possibility of the most primordial knowledge” which “grasped in a genuine
way” is “to guarantee the scientific theme by developing [conception] in
terms of the things themselves.” (SuZ 153) Heidegger immediately undermines
this with its “existential meaning” whereby “the ontological presuppositions
of historiographical knowledge transcend in principle the idea of rigor of
the most exact sciences,” but it shows that Heidegger leaves off Husserl’s
project hesitatingly and with regret as well as with some insecurity. It is
the passion of Husserl’s project that justifies Heidegger’s, yet Heidegger
is well aware in this case, “Wishing does not make it so.” Heidegger is
thrown into a circulus vitiosus deus. And eventually we will see the
hermeneutical circle as “idle talk” which at least Kierkegaard found
liberating as his own way of expression.



We are there in the realm of pure subjectivity, pure imagination. This is
why Heidegger says Kant became afraid of his own conclusion and pulled back
from it in the second edition as if from the edge of an abyss. But even so,
this ‘pull back’ of Kant was only partial, the mere omission of a few
passages that made the problem become overwhelmingly obvious, while other
passages that grounded that conclusion firmly but not obtrusively were still
retained. Objectivity of any and every sort is imaginary. Newton’s laws can
be discovered as objectively true but they are objective and true only
within the context of the fundamental faculty of imagination which is
being-in-the-world.



The grounding of metaphysics is the projection of the inner possibility of a
priori synthesis . . . Knowledge of beings is only possible on the grounds
of a prior knowledge, free of experience, of the constitution of the Being
of beings. Now finite knowledge (the finitude of which is in question) is
essentially an intuition of the being which it takes in stride and which is
determinative . . . For its own possibility, therefore, the finite knowledge
of beings requires a knowledge which does not take things in stride (and
which is apparently nonfinite), such as a “creative” intuiting. So the
question concerning the possibility of a priori synthesis narrows down to
this: How can a finite creature, which as such is delivered over to beings
and is directed by the taking-in-stride of these same beings, know, i.e.,
intuit, prior to all [instances of] taking the being in stride, without
being its “creator?” In other words: how must this finite creature be with
respect to the constitution of its own Being so that such a bringing-forward
of the constitution of the Being of beings which is free from experience,
i.e., an ontological synthesis, is possible?(Kant and the Problem of
Metaphysics, trans. Taft 4th ed. , pg. 25, Ger.36-37/5th ed. 26-27, Ger.
38-39)



Heidegger’s laying out of  “the grounding of metaphysics” is,  as William J.
Richardson says(Heidegger: Through Phenomenology to Thought, 2nd ed.,
Martinus Nijhoff, 1967, pp. 106-107):



If the closing section of KM is the best propaedeutic to SZ, the rest of the
book is the most authoritative interpretation of the major work. We wish to
examine it as such, and for several reasons. To begin with, since the author
sees his own effort as merely a retrieve of Kant’s fundamental problematic,
sc. The grounding of metaphysics, we find in KM the basic conception of
There-being, which was elaborated phenomenologically in SZ, articulated in
the more familiar context of Kant’s thought according to a language that is
more classical and (for most of us) more intelligible. This permits us not
only to understand better what Heidegger is trying to say but also to see
how we might incorporate his intuitions into other more traditional forms .
. . A second reason for the extensive treatment of KM lies in the fact that
it is the classic type of what Heidegger I  (1929) calls “retrieve”  and
what Heidegger II (1950) calls “dialogue,” one of the principle modes of
foundational thought. Conceived and executed by Heidegger at the height of
his powers, the interpretation lets us see his method in sharpest focus and
find in it at the same time both its weakness and its strength. Unless we
watch him go through the process at least once, we might be tempted to think
that the “rigor” (Strenge) of which he will speak later is either platitude
or sham. “Yes, yes, of course,” one might very well say, “but what does it
mean in the concrete?” This is what it means in the concrete:



Merleau-Ponty uses this text as the background for much of his understanding
of Heidegger. Kant and the Problem of Metaphysics, while on the one hand
dealing with the concepts of pure reason, on the other hand is constantly
using language of bodily movement and gesture. In the passage quoted above,
there is “finite knowledge . . . is essentially an intuition of a being that
takes it in stride . . .” and “a finite creature . . . delivered over to
beings and is directed by the taking-in-stride of these same beings . . .”
and “How can a finite creature . . . intuit, prior to all instances of
taking the being in stride . . . be with respect to the constitution of its
own Being so that such a bringing-forward of the constitution of the Being
of beings which is free from experience, i.e., and ontological synthesis, is
possible?” “Being” is very close to being literally manhandled here and, as
Richardson says, certainly concrete, especially when we understand
Transcendental Schematism and Kant’s ontological object X. True, the
phenomenal body is the most mysterious, and must be thoroughly rethought
from the ground up; but none the less the phenomenal body is in constant and
close intimacy with the ontological throughout this book.



To begin with, one of the fundamental misunderstandings Husserl has of the
book relates to the necessity of depicting the divine point of view. At
first this surprised me that such an imminent German philosopher could be so
ignorant of Kant’s declared purpose. This relates directly to the finite
nature of the fundamental faculty of the imagination. It cannot create out
of nothing. It can only redo information based on and already formed by
conception from sensation. Supposedly the divine imagination would have the
advantage here because God “always already” knows everything. But, as
William of Ockham argues, God cannot know, which with God simultaneously
means “do”, something that is irrational as true. So even God is limited to
the facts at-hand, in his case all of them, but none the less just the facts
at-hand. So then is even God’s imagination finite? With both Kant and
Heidegger, this becomes a problem because the person of human being seems to
have not only an empirical nature but also aspects of infinitude that,
however, only go so far, and then collapse. “Nonfinite” is not infinite.



I am doing some violence to both philosophers, but as I and Richardson think
of Heidegger’s “violence” to Kant, it accurately says what they wanted to
say. Kant approaches the finite fundamental faculty of the imagination from
the rationalist traditions of scholasticism and ‘Cartesian’ rationalism,
specifically Leibnitz as brought to him by Wolf and Baumgarten. Despite
Descartes’ ‘skepticism’ and trust in God’s goodness and faithfulness toward
human being, or actually because of that trust, rationalism actually assumed
a divine point of view, i.e., that when one knew objects, one knew them
essentially, or could know them exactly as they are. This means knowing them
completely, and completely outside any finite context, which means
necessarily from the divine point of view. One of Kant’s purposes is to
re-access Leibnitz in the light of Hume’s skepticism. But it is the thrust
of Leibnitz’s brilliant metaphysics that is the main motivation of Kant’s
whole philosophical project from the beginning. Now, Husserl’s problem was
he was committed to viewing Kant as an epistemologist, and refuses to
acknowledge Heidegger’s view that Kant is grounding metaphysics is valid.
But Kant states himself quite plainly that he is doing a “metaphysics of
metaphysics.” The whole project of the Transcendental Deduction becomes
nonsense if artificially limited to a merely epistemological context. So the
main and overwhelming problem for Heidegger is human finitude and therefore
the fundamental contingency of the ground of truth.



So, if we agree with Richardson, the whole thrust of Heidegger’s
philosophical project is, “How must this finite creature be with respect to
the constitution of its own Being so that such a bringing forward of the
constitution of Being of beings which is free from experience, i.e., and
ontological synthesis, is possible?” “By unveiling the essence of pure
synthesis from its ground, then, the insight first arises as to the extent
to which ontological knowledge can be the condition for the possibility of
ontic knowledge.” (pg.26/27/38?) Everything here revolves around the
importance of the word “possibility” again. Simply put, “ontological
knowledge” is “the possibility of ontic knowledge.” “Ontological knowledge”
as “the possibility of ontic knowledge” by definition would not be nor could
be knowledge of God. Ontology has nothing to do with God: Heidegger has said
this numerous times. “Finally, the indications concerning the ground for the
source for the basic sources of finite knowledge and its possible unity
leads to the unknown.” (Ibid.) When Heidegger says “unknown”, he literally
and only means “unknown.” It is not a blank spot for anyone to enter in
anything they want. And what he intends to show is that the seeming infinity
of the ontological synthesis only goes so far in its project, and then
collapses when confronted with the literal unknown. When discussing the
hermeneutic circle above, Heidegger states, “It is not a matter of
assimilating understanding and interpretation to a particular ideal of
knowledge which is itself only a degeneration of understanding which has
strayed into the legitimate grasping what is objectively present in its
essential unintelligibility.” He replies, “The fulfillment of the
fundamental conditions of possible interpretation rather lies in not
mistaking interpretation beforehand with regard to the essential conditions
of its being done.” That it is striving to achieve a “possible unity” is
acknowledged, but wanting does not make it so, a passionate desire does not
make it into actuality – that is taking on the divine point of view again -
and therefore it fundamentally “leads to the unknown.”



“This projecting freeing of the whole, which an ontology essentially makes
possible, brings metaphysics to the ground and soil [Grund und Boden] in
which it is rooted as a “haunting” * of human nature.” (28/29/42) First, the
“whole” is a unity but not in the sense of Parmenides’ completed sphere or
Hegel’s completed system. It is just a “possible unity” that “leads to the
unknown,” and though it includes the whole of “Reality” as is within
Da-sein, as also mentioned above, you are in turn “haunted” by the “real”
which cannot be known or not known after your death then, but that you feel
Now will linger after you nonetheless. In * note 57, Taft says, after giving
the reference in Kant’s introduction to the 2nd edition at B xv, “The German
Heimsuchung is translated by Kemp Smith as ‘visitation,’ but the term also
connotes a haunting or an obsession. I render it ‘haunting’ to show the
sense in which the questions Kant asks are an inescapable and lingering part
of human nature. At the same time we should be attuned to the literal sense
of the word, which suggests the seeking of a home.” The passion for a unity,
like metaphysics itself, is Da-sein. But “passion for” and truth at-hand are
two completely different things. Nonetheless, this is an excellent
illustration of Sartre’s dictums “God is man’s project” and “Man is a
useless passion” which he quite explicitly puts together as one.



“What is at issue is the essential possibility of ontological synthesis.
When unfolded, the question reads: How can finite human Da-sein pass beyond
(transcend) the being in advance when this being is not only something it
did not create itself, but something at which it must be directed in order
to exist as Dasein?” (28/30/42?) First, Heidegger is ontologically talking
about the ontic comportment of the body. “This being . . . at which it must
be directed in order to exist as Dasein” – the literal motion of directing
can only refer to the body! But, again, he wants to deal with perception
from the primordial standpoint which does mean from before the beginning of
conscious time from totally within the factical Situation of a finite being
in time that is going to die and has irrupted human history out of its
“throwness” as something it feels existed before Da-sein’s birth and will
exist after Da-sein’s death but which is absolutely beyond real experiencial
knowledge. Time is finite. All conscious finite things die. Time will die.
Husserl makes the marginal comment to his copy of Kant and the Problem of
Metaphysics:



But is this the right way to pose the question philosophically? Isn’t there
an entity already presupposed whereby the presupposed Being already
presupposes subjectivity? Is not man himself already pre-given, etc?
(Richard E. Palmer, “Husserl’s Debate with Heidegger,” vol. 30, 1997, pg.
19)



But that is the point Heidegger is trying to make about primordiality: There
is no entity presupposed “already given”! A child does not think of itself
as a physiological or sociological or psychological object. It thinks of
itself as “me,” and the primary thing about “me” is that it is what is most
mine, it is “mineness,” it is “ownmost.” As Ayn Rand says, “The basis of all
rights is property rights,” and the beginning of property is “me”: I own me.
This is what makes the debate about abortion an aporia (fundamental puzzle,
logical crux). Yes, it is literally murder. But is not a woman’s body her
own, her “ownmost”? If she cannot treat her own body as her own property, if
she cannot treat her self as her own property, inclusive of both aborting
that which is made from within it and is therefore part of it as well as
simply being totally dependent on it, as well as inclusive of self-murder –
again literal - suicide, all talk about political liberty becomes “prattle,”
“chatter,” ‘idle talk” which is Heidegger’s Gerede (SuZ 167-170, 173-175).
And yet if two kinds of ‘murder’ are condoned, do you not then have another
political aporia?  But it is precisely here that the transposition into
other human beings that we are born into, thrown into, as being-with, just
like the “unity,” the “whole” that is our passionate nature, completely
falls apart and the woman confronting abortion, the person confronting
self-murder, are as absolutely alone as God is – absolutely one of a kind,
and therefore not only outside genus but outside all comparison. This is the
true nature of aloneness I tried to write about in The Necessity for Debate.
To extrapolate from Camus’ The Rebel, all human Situation deconstructs down
to the Situation of murder. Now, in a sense, you have achieved an absolute
truth, but it certainly does not solve any problems does it? Wanting it not
to be so is just like “wanting it to be so” – it does not make it truth.
Truth is finite. All conscious finite things die. Truth dies. It seems to
have an infinite grasp, but on reaching a certain limit, it too falls apart.
Truth is as contingent as human being fundamentally is. There are
ontologically unsolvable, unresolvable problems! The only thing ‘infinite’
about them is their unresolvability. “Nonfinite” is not infinite. But is not
all modern, progressive culture built on the premise, “All problems can be
solved”? One of those problems - “Gerede” – is – the hermeneutical circle.
But more on that later.



“Space is represented as an infinite given magnitude.” (Kant, CPR, A 25 (B
39)  . . . “The quantum, wherein alone all quantity can be determined, is
indeterminate and continuous with respect to the number parts: space and
time.” (Kants handschriftlicher Nachla߼/I>, Vol. V, no.5846) . . .  To
say that this extensiveness is “infinite,” then, means as compared with the
determinate, particular parts space is not something different from the
degree and richness of the compound. Instead it is infinitely, i.e.,
essentially, different. It precedes all the parts as the limitable, unified
whole . . . Pure intuition, then, very much has its ‘something intuited,’
and indeed has it to the degree that it gives this intuited only in and
through the intuiting itself. The intuited is, of course, neither a being
which is at hand, nor is it thematically grasped in the pure intuiting
itself. (31/32-33/46-47)



It is crucial to understand that pure intuition that sets up the horizon
within which something can be perceived is an act of intuition itself, not a
concept of any sort. It is not a pre-set form or Gestalt that is then
applied to a formless material. It is not an image as template but is
imaging of and by itself. One might call it an ‘ability to image.’ Yet an
ability, in a sense, just sits there until it is ‘called out’ to be used. As
such, then, it would be “at hand” and “thematically grasped.” Rather, it
“always already” is in action, it is already thrown into the world of beings
and playing with them. Ergo, the pure intuition of space actually indicates
something even more fundamental.



But as pure intuition, space gives in advance merely the totality of those
relations according to which what is encountered in the external senses
would be ordered. At the same time, however, we find givens of the “inner
sense” which indicate no spatial shape and no spatial references. Instead,
they show themselves as a succession of states of our mind (representations,
drives, moods). What we look at in advance in the experience of these
appearances, although unobjective and unthematic, is pure succession.
Therefore, time is “the form of inner sense, i.e., of the intuiting of
ourselves and our inner state” (CPR, A 33, B 49). Time determines “the
relations of representations of our inner state” (A 33, B 50). “. . . time
cannot be a determination of outer appearances; it has to do with neither
shape nor position, etc” (A  33, B 49f.). In this way both pure intuitions,
space and time, are allotted to two [different] regions of experience, and
at first it appears to be impossible to find a pure intuition which
constitutes every instance of knowledge of the Being of experienceable
beings and which, therefore, permits the problem of ontological knowledge to
be formulated universally. Now to be sure, in addition to the association of
both pure intuitions with the two regions of appearances, Kant states this
thesis: “Time is the formal a priori condition of all appearances whatever”
(CPR A 34, B 50). As universal, pure intuition, it [time] for this reason
become the guiding and supporting  essential element of pure knowledge, of
the transcendence which forms knowledge. ( Taft 4th & 5th ed. 32/34/Ger. 4th
& 5th ed.45-46 & 48-49)



I always find it surprising and remarkable in Heidegger that when he seems
to be talking about pure ‘epistemology’ in a cold, neutral, and wholly
logical manner that there is almost always a hint at the emotional
subjectivity underneath that is really driving his project, i.e., “they show
themselves as a succession of states of our mind (representations, drives,
moods).” Heidegger is never neutral and unemotional precisely because he
understands the true importance of the emotions. Even logical detachment for
the purpose of judgment-less observation is only sustained by a powerful
passion to find out what is going on within himself. As Rene de Bakker said,
Heidegger is not an academic. This is a “creative” enterprise as passionate
as any poet’s.



If in general the grounding of the universality of time as pure intuition is
to be possible, [this can only happen if it can be shown that] although
space and time as pure intuitions both belong “to the subject,” time dwells
in the subject in a more original way than space. Time immediately reduced
to the givens of inner sense, however, is at the same time only
ontologically more universal if the subjectivity of the subject exists in
the openness for the being. The more subjective time is, the more original
and extensive is the expansiveness [Entschr䮫ung] of the subject. The
universal ontological function Kant assigns to time at the beginning of the
ground-laying can hence only be sufficiently justified because it is
precisely time itself, and indeed time in its ontological function (i.e., as
essential bit of pure ontological knowledge), which forces us to determine
the essence of subjectivity in a more original way. The “Transcendental
Aesthetic” has as its task to se forth the ontological áßóèçóéò (aesthesis)
which makes it possible “to disclose the a priori” the Being of beings. To
the extent that intuition retains the leading role in all knowledge, “one of
the pieces required for the solution of the general problem of
transcendental philosophy” (Ontology) has been attained. (CPR B 73) (33-34 &
35-36/48-49 & 50-51)



Several important things are done here. Kant calls his project
“transcendental philosophy” which, though that necessarily means metaphysics
– a term he does not shy from , deliberately, especially in the second
edition from which this quote comes, keeps him at arms length from having to
consider the full implications of calling his project an ‘ontology.’
Heidegger clearly indicates he does not reject “subjectivity” but wants “to
determine the essence of subjectivity in a more original way.” Also “time
dwells in the subject in a more original way than space” where time “is
immediately reduced to the givens of inner sense” so that it is seen time is
not only a static concept but a “way” of action but also the language of
being ‘inside’ oneself is not rejected either, though it is always
conditional upon Da-sein as meaning being out there disperse among beings.
“The subjectivity of the subject exists in the openness of the being” is a
definition of Da-sein as emotional “attunement” to the world, a literal
effort – which must be an act and not a concept of some sort – of literally
holding open the “whole” in which beings as a whole are to exist. These
terms sound metaphorical and ‘poetic’ because no concept is assigned to
them, and yet the effort as effort is still experientially real. Kant
himself helps clarify the situation:



Transcendental logic, on the other hand, has lying before it a manifold of a
priori sensibility which the transcendental aesthetic offered to it in order
to provide material for the concepts of pure understanding. Without this
material, those concepts would be without any content  and therefore would
be entirely empty. Now space and time contain a manifold of pure a priori
intuition , but at the same time they are the conditions for the receptivity
of our mind – conditions under which alone it can receive representations of
objects and which therefore must also always affect the concepts of those
objects. And yet the spontaneity of our thought requires that this manifold
first be gone through in a certain way, taken up, and bound together in
order to produce knowledge. This act I name synthesis. (CPR A 76f., B 102,
quoted by Heidegger at 41 & 43)



Empty concepts are nothing. Space and time are continuous and constant
active intuitions that are also the Situation and context by which the mind
can arise, i.e., “the conditions for the receptivity of the mind.” Mind that
is not receptive is not mind, but that makes the mind also an act instead of
a static in place concept. And it is mind “which therefore must also always
affect the concepts of those objects.” Affect, not effect. Therefore in Kant
also emotional attunement is the primary way of apprehending the world. And
then “the spontaneity of our thought requires that this manifold first be
gone through in a certain way, taken up, and bound together in order to
produce knowledge.” Knowledge is a product of an act of mind in a motion
that is “as if” a bodily gesture, i.e., “gone through in a certain way,
taken up, and bound together.” So, as Merleau-Ponty would say, the habitual
learned motions  of the body are constantly concordant with and constructive
of the receptivity and concepts of the mind. And if all “universality” is
learned from extrapolation from bodily gestures, then when Heidegger says
“ontological áßóèçóéò (aesthesis)” this is in no way metaphorical but is
dead serious literal. Why, then in fact, is he so down on the French
philosophers?


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