File spoon-archives/heidegger.archive/heidegger_2001/heidegger.0111, message 41


From: "Michael Staples" <michael-AT-intersubjectivestudies.com>
Subject: RE: Zollikon: Unconscious
Date: Thu, 8 Nov 2001 18:14:45 -0800





ME:

I stumbled over your phrases "presenced significance" and "presencing of
significance". Significance is the meaning of something, i.e. how we
understand
something that is present. The presencing (and absencing) of beings is prior
to
(not temporally) understanding them.

>>> --i.e., they can still be present even if I don't understand them. Or,
they can still be present even if their significance is not present to me.


Re: "order to this being in the world" and "ordering principle". Here I
suppose
you mean in part the distinction between background and foreground? There is
no
"objective background". Foreground is the opening of world that is the focus
of
my attention. My focus of attention can shift, thus making what was
background
into foreground and vice versa. My attention is absorbed by what has to be
done
(how I have cast myself into the future), but can, for instance, be
deflected by
something going wrong (e.g. discovering that only water is coming out of the
espresso machine).

>>> No argument from me here. I thought I said "as-if" it were objective.
But in the struggle to eradicate all notion of the objective, perhaps even
this is too loose.

Getting back to the example of coffee-making as a parapraxis: It was my
individual action and omission, and my individual discovery that I had
forgotten
to put coffee into the metal strainer. All this has to pass through my
individual Dasein. But the process of making coffee using an espresso
machine is
not only individual. There are certain general steps to follow to achieve
the
desired product, a cup of coffee. So anyone familiar with espresso machines
will
immediately understand the example, and understand what went wrong. The
technique of how to make espresso coffee is a shared 'productive' knowledge,
and
insofar not at all individual. (To say this in an Hegelian way, the
particular
act of  making coffee involves also a universal or general moment which has
to
pass through my singularity in a specific instance to be real.)

>>>Yes.

Further down in your post it seems that "ordering principle" means something
like a guiding principle for Dasein leading its life.

>>>Well, I suppose we need to be careful here. I do not mean a guiding
principle as a secondary subject who guides me. Although, I made a point out
of saying that this ordering principle can quite often seem as if it were
such. Surely you could not argue against the kind of ordering principle that
manages, or alows me to manage (a reciprocal relationship?) the practice of
hammering a nail. There is an order to this activity.

But is there an "ordering principle" ordering my existence? A principle
(Gk.:
_archae_) is a point of origin governing what comes thereafter. Is there
such a
point of origin governing the direction my existence takes?

The direction my
existence takes is its meaning (in German 'Sinn' is 'meaning', from
'sinnen',
which also means etymologically 'to take a direction'). My existence's sense
is
its meaning in the sense of taking a direction in life. But is the direction
taken governed by a point of origin? Or must the element of a free choice,
which
can radically change the direction of my existence, be given a place in
becoming
my self?

>>>Perhaps a little of both. I don't care much for the point of origin
thing. Does the ordering of my actions involved with hammering a nail have
to be thought of as having a point of origin?


Existence being governed by a point of origin (principle) would imply some
sort
of continuity and consistency, but it could be that the world suddenly opens
up
for me in such a way that it demands a radical change of course, a rupture,
for
me to take on my ownmost task in life and be my self. An "ordering
principle" to
existence implies some sort of necessity for the course my existence takes,
but
as Dasein I am finite, i.e. relative, not absolute. An accident, a
coincidence,
what Aristotle calls _to symbebaekos_, might contingently cross my path and
open
up the possibility of another course for my existence, another direction for
my
self. Whereas metaphysics always aimed at necessity as the highest mode of
being, post-metaphysically, for finite beings exposed to the opening of
world,
it is possibility which is the highest instance in enabling of our being,
opening up unforeseen possibilities of existing.

>>>Maybe a bit too either/or here, Michael -- i.e., either deterministic, or
entirely free. There is a kind of deterministic feature to hammering a nail.
If you dont pick up the hammer, you ain't going to be a hammerin on the
nail. And yet, I have considerable freedom in many respects. There are
certain absolutes with regard to my existance. If I hammer the nail into my
head, I will absolutly have a headache.

But perhaps we could find a happy medium here.

Michael S.




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