Date: Sun, 02 Dec 2001 23:56:37 +0100
Subject: Re: Zollikon: Unconscious


Cologne 02-Dec-2001

Michael Staples schrieb   Sun, 2 Dec 2001 10:23:35 -0800:

> ME:
>
> So, whilst it may be advisable to tweak with Prosac under some circumstances
> or
> in some cases, one also has to be aware of how this could block the way to
> getting to know one's self (one's self-deceptions, for instance) by removing
> the
> indications lying embedded in moods.
>
> MS:
>
> OK. So again it seems that you are uncovering the either-or, subject-object
> nature of my question. Here, you suggest that being out of tune with the
> world (e.g., depression) could be organic...or it could be inorganic.
> Neither conclusion is necessarily "wrong." What would be wrong is to divide
> Being into the organic versus the inorganic (e.g., science on the one hand,
> religion on the other) and assume that one must take priority over the other
> in all cases. As you say, the depression might be organic -- in which case
> you might turn to Prosac -- or it might involve something inorganic embedded
> within the mood. And I suppose the processing of discovering which or what
> mix exists would most likely call for a hermeneutic phenomenology.
>

Michael,
I'd like to be careful here with how things are said. I wouldn't say "that being
out of tune with the
world (e.g., depression) could be organic...or it could be inorganic" Being out
of tune (depressed) is a phenomenon in itself and is neither organic nor
inorganic. To say so is really to assert that the mood has causes, which could
be either organic or inorganic. But that is already to look at the phenomenon in
a particular way, viz. to regard it as something that has a reason, a cause. The
hermeneutic of the phenomenon of specific attunements, i.e. its interpretation,
means first and foremost looking to see what it shows or covers up. That is not
asking for causes. By looking for causes, one is always looking _away_ from the
phenomenon itself. One needs to learn to nestle up to the phenomenon of mood.

The use of medication to affect moods by no means implies that the mood is
caused organically. It only means that putting drugs into the body affects mood.
E.g. take someone who is suffering heavily in a phase of mourning from the death
of someone close. They may need some sort of sedative or Prosac(?) for a time.
The mood of mourning, however, has intrinsically nothing to do with organic
causes and has to be dealt with more communicatively. Or something terrible
happens that shakes my nerves and I need a strong drink to calm them.

Maybe we could risk saying that moods are not in the first place things that are
caused, but rather are ways in which the world opens for Dasein and, although
these 'ways' are ultimately unfathomable, they go hand in hand with a
world-understanding that can be interpretively unfolded (hermeneutics).

It would also be wrong to regard moods as subjective states that have objective
causes (organic or inorganic) which could be somehow discovered and manipulated.
A mood is always a whole, a totality of how the world opens in a given
situation, neither 'subjective', nor 'objective'. The weather, for instance, is
not something objective that can 'cause' subjective feelings or moods 'in'
someone. Rather, the weather is an overall way in which the day opens _for_
Dasein and, as this whole, is itself mood-like.

Make any sense?
Michael
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