File spoon-archives/heidegger.archive/heidegger_2003/heidegger.0303, message 111


From: "Anthony Crifasi" <crifasi-AT-hotmail.com>
Subject: Re: Environmental Ethics, Heidegger, was Re: WtP and justice
Date: Wed, 12 Mar 2003 00:58:21 +0000


John Foster wrote:

>"Care, as a primordial structural totality, lies before
>EVERY factical
>attitude and situation of Dasein, and it does so
>existentially a priori;
>this means that it ALWAYS lies in them.... When we ascertain
>something
>present-at-hand by merely beholding it, THIS ACTIVITY HAS
>THE CHARACTER OF
>CARE JUST AS MUCH as does a 'political action' or taking
>rest and enjoying
>oneself. Theory and practice are possibilities of Being for
>an entity whose
>Being must be defined as care." (SuZ 193)
>
>Yes. This is correct; however you have determined that
>'plunder' is also has the same ontological character as
>care.

Where on earth do you get that from? To say that plunder (along with every 
other ontical facticity) has the character of care is not to say that 
plunder is care itself. I have been saying that plunder is "A" care - that 
it is a particular ontical possibility that has the character of care, and 
is therefore not UN-caring in the ontological sense, though it can be 
uncaring in the ontical sense of care.

>No. Plunder is ontical rather than a ontological
>feature of care. That is because plunder is dependent on the
>'subject' which means that there is no characteristic
>ontological modification of care which is phenomenological
>type of care.
>
>Spirit for instance is something which is dependent on the
>subject. Plunder cannot be a phenomenon since it depends on
>the interpretation of the subject. For instance, in war,
>plunder is a matter of opinion in as much as the acts which
>'resemble' plunder could also be other modifications of
>care. Spirit is not independent of the subject. Spirit has
>no phenomenological attributes but does point to the
>existence of something categorical (for instance Mind, or
>nous). Nous has no phenomenological being but can only be
>defined in an analogous way. For instance, Mind may mean or
>refer to a universal assertion regardin order and structure
>in the universe, an assertion that the universe is not a
>chimera, nor chaotic. Science can provide a means to arrive
>at a philosophical inference as to a possible (speculative
>form of ontology) origin and meaning. Speculative ontology
>is different than is ontology in that is also a
>onto-theology. Hence the notion of evil which is implicit in
>the act of plundering therefore subject to an evaluation of
>what is wrong and what is right. The explicit meaning of
>plunder is that it is a wrongful act for the other, and may
>be beneficial for the subject. So the existence of the
>subject is a ontically condition for the supposition, or
>assertion, that plundering is what it is. A wolve pack is
>perceived to plunder a herd of moose in winter, but the
>ontological modification which moose exhibit as care and
>concern is simply of herding, chasing, and capturing. There
>is no element of judgement involved necessitating a subject.
>
>Ethics has a deep relation to ontology since judgements
>arise from the existence of difference, evaluations based on
>conduct, character, et cetera. Evil is referred to as
>'non-being'; thus what is the ontological modification of
>care which is evil is that which is expressed by 'stillness'
>or at the biotic level 'death'. Stillness and movement
>therefore of the biotic are 'being' and 'non-being'; these
>are phenomenal metaphors (but really the ultimate indication
>of the difference between the 'anxiety of death' and
>'life'....The abiotic evaluation of stillness may extend to
>the whole universe since movement is the opposite to
>stillness. The supreme metaphor of being therefore is
>'movement' and this exactly what the ancient Greek
>philosophers have also stated in a range of 'multiple
>accounts'.
>
>For instance there is no act specifically phenomenal which
>has the intrinsic quality of plunder. Plunder is a
>'hermenutive' arising from facticity, but is not every
>factical. The factical is what is unequivocally what is
>disclosed. Another example is that plunder may be used to
>describe the legal actions of a fictive entity, a
>corporation, and it's acts in a certain situation. The
>corporation would not disclose it's acts of 'corporate
>takeover' as plundering an innocent nations resources, but
>it would be open to intrepretation. Plundering the earth's
>resources also falls within that paradigm of response to a
>situation, whether it is economical, social or ecological.
>Plundering is highly dependent apon criteria, secondary, to
>the real acts. These real acts are not ontological
>modifications of care or uncaring since they are apparently
>both dependent apon an hermenuetic.
>
>Interrogating, discussing, giving up, et cetera are
>ontological modifications of care...When I see a group
>'discussing' then this act has no immediate hermenuetive
>attached to it. Care is a 'pure notion' and it is expressed
>as a modification (mode of being) only; interrogating,
>discussion is 'against interpretation' in that all would
>agree on this modes of concering ourselves.
>
>For instance no one disagree that a person is 'relaxing' on
>the beach lounge before the pool or relaxing in a hottub
>unless they knew something of the subject relaxing. They may
>say that the subject is not really relaxing at all, but may
>be in fact worring over an anxious situation in the near
>future. There is no ontological modification of care called
>anxiety since this is emotive state dependent on many
>temporal and possible situations. Anxiety arises from an
>evaluation, although Heidegger relates that anxiety is
>always there in the foreground as the awareness of death,
>specifically one's own death.
>
>The environmental and metaphysical ground of ethics
>therefore is not about specifically one's own death, but
>rather about non-being of the whole, in that ethics is both
>being moved (erotic) and thinking critically (noetic) in an
>involvement with the environment/organism complex.

And you have done it yet again, this time with "anxiety" about the non-being 
of the "whole." The non-being of the "whole" about which we are "anxious" is 
not what you refer to as the "environment/organism complex. What we are 
anxious about is that Dasein "itself" is "nothing but" authentic 
potentiality-for-Being-in-the-world. So "grasping" what Dasein "is" entails 
drawing back from "actually" being IN the world at all (all involvements, 
all definite beings, etc.), including being in an environment/organism 
complex. So you cannot base an ethics on anxiety about the non-being of the 
whole by appealing to involvement with the environment/organism complex, 
because anxiety shrinks back from that too. ALL involvements fall away in 
anxiety, and anxiety is a basic state-of-mind of Dasein, and is therefore 
ALWAYS there - Deep Ecology or no.

Anthony Crifasi

_________________________________________________________________
The new MSN 8: smart spam protection and 2 months FREE*  
http://join.msn.com/?page=features/junkmail



     --- from list heidegger-AT-lists.village.virginia.edu ---

   

Driftline Main Page

 

Display software: ArchTracker © Malgosia Askanas, 2000-2005