Date: Wed, 07 Aug 2002 14:13:49 +0800
Subject: Re: Section 3-4, BT


Hi Jeremy,

> What evidence does he offer that this understanding is pre-theoretical? I
> used to have a geography professor who spent the last ten years of his life
> with Heidegger (his name was Peter Gould) and he used to say that we don't
> need a theory to cross the road. But it seems unclear to me how we can have
> understanding without theory.

As far as evidence goes you could read the entire first division of Being
and Time for Heidegger's account of practical understanding. A very useful
version of this is given in Hubert Dreyfus' work 'Being in the World',
although there are a number of specific interpretations he makes there that
are somewhat contentious, at least in terms of Heidegger scholarship.

In a general sense the debate revolves around the distinction between
practical and theoretical understanding. Is practice something that is
always first directed by a rational ego, as in Descartes' cogito sum? Or
does practical understanding arise out of our embodied interaction with the
world which also gives rise to thought?

For instance, while absorbed in typing up your email did you have to keep
thinking about how you were using the chair you sat on, or the keyboard, or
for that matter the dwelling you were in. I assume you were thinking about
the problem of practical and theoretical understanding while still
practically interacting with everything around you that was 'ready to hand'
in order for you to get down to the task of writing.

Heidegger contends that our everyday understanding in which we go about our
work from dawn to dusk is not something that is completely mediated by
theory. It's a mode of understanding that is not first rationally planned
out although of course once we wake up we start making plans. I don't know
about you but I don't need to tell myself how to get out of bed, or how to
stumble into my clothes and down to the kitchen to make a cup of coffee and
smoke a cigarette. I can do all this without thinking about it and in fact
while doing it I'll be thinking about the work I have to do that day, or
wishing I could just go back to sleep, or even perhaps that it's time to
give up smoking  :)

Did your geography professor have anything else to say about Heidegger?
Sounds like an interesting fellow.

Regards,

Malcolm Riddoch



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