From: HealantHenry-AT-aol.com
Date: Tue, 26 Feb 2002 09:40:05 EST
Subject: Re: Method



In a message dated 24/02/2002 10:47:28 AM, crifasi-AT-hotmail.com writes:

<< Yes, but this sense of how being-with is "founded" is not the sense I am 
talking about. You are talking about what Heidegger says being-with is 
"actually" (so to speak) founded on -- temporality, involvements, cultural 
practices, etc. But I am talking about how Heidegger establishes being-with 
as fundamental for Dasein in the first place near the beginning of SuZ 
(which I unfortunately do not have with me because I am away from home right 
now). Only after making clear that being-with is fundamental for Dasein does 
Heidegger then go on to explicate its "actual foundation" in terms of 
temporality, involvements, etc. >>


Anthony,
I can appreciate the distinction, and can reckon with my confusion as to your 
issues (onward with Michael E!). I am now watching you-with Michael E-, 
indeed, trace the logic of Heidegger's introduction of the concept of Dasein 
rather than the inner consistency of the phenomenology of Dasein, whether Mit
sein, and other 'practicalities'. 

I have spent the last couple of days in B&T I.4, rereading this chapter on 
Being-with. I think what was in the back of my mind in puzzling your 
essence/existent language is clarified in this passage, and ones similar:

[H119] When Others are encountered, it is not the case that one's own subject 
is proximally present-at-hand and that the rest of the subjects, which are 
likewise concurrents, get discriminated beforehand and then apprehended; nor 
are they encountered by a primary act of looking at oneself in such a way 
that the opposite pole of a distinction first gets ascertained.  They are 
encountered from out of the world, in which concernful circumspective Dasein 
essentially dwells. Theoretically concocted 'explanations' of the 
Being-present-at-hand of Others urge themselves upon us all too easily; but 
over against such explanations we must hold fast to the phenomenal facts of 
the case which we have pointed out, namely, that Others are encountered 
environmentally. This elementary worldly kind of encountering, which belongs 
to Dasein and is closest to it, goes so far that even one's own Dasein 
becomes something that it can itself proximally 'come across' only when it 
looks away from 'Experiences' and the 'centre of its actions', or does not as 
yet 'see' them at all. Dasein finds 'itself' proximally in what it does, 
uses, expects, avoids—in those things environmentally ready-to-hand with 
which it is proximally concerned.  --#--


The environmentally, circumspectively concerned encountering of Others is 
part of the background and 'foundation' for all derived and posited theories 
of human nature/knowledge/essence/etc, whether DesCartes' or anyone's. 
Heidegger above alludes to the ease by which we can formulate ourselves and 
others as present-to-hand entities. And he reminds that such formulations are 
only available out of the more proximal understandings we have in what we do 
in the world and the with-whom of that circumspective concern. 

One can get to objectifying humanity as an essence from circumspective 
concern, but one cannot gain that 'attribute' from a present-at-hand profile 
of human existence, eg, Cartesian solipsism. This what I think Heidegger 
means by present-at-hand in relation to Dasein. All philosophical stories of 
the essence of humanity are present-at-hand, but can be revealed more 
clearly, concretely, and in fact helpfully, when placed against the 
background of circumspective concern as Dasein's mode of existence. Indeed, I 
am thinking that the terms 'Experiences' and 'centre of its actions' may be 
allusions to such essentialisms that may have come from Husserl and Scheler 
(to guess).

You said (the pique of my question) that environmentally, circumspectively 
concerned Being-in-the-world is "only existence" over and against an 
"essence."  And my (now trivial) issue is this: to call the description above 
"only existence" is a little bit low-balling. In the paragraph quoted above 
one sees that "world" is this fundamental principle of method as much as 
"only existence," and, of course, what matters is what Heidegger means by the 
terms existence and world.

However, now that I see your theme is outside the phenomenological analysis 
of Mitsein, dialoguing, as it were, with Michael, Aristotle and Heidegger, I 
better understand your concerns. Though they at first seemed a little 
backwards to me, one must go in all directions with regard to environmentally 
circumspective concern, eh?

Thanks,
and kindest regards,
Hen


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