File spoon-archives/heidegger.archive/heidegger_2003/heidegger.0303, message 354


From: "John Foster" <borealis-AT-mercuryspeed.com>
Subject: Re: Anxious to
Date: Mon, 24 Mar 2003 12:04:41 -0800


Anthony,

when you are trying to interpret Heidegger you need to refer
to your own understanding, otherwise you risk being
'detached' from the subject matter. I have training in
philosophy as well as ecology. I can appreciate your
frustration over the lack of communication you experience in
your conveyances to this list. It can be tough trying to
convey meaning in a 'pluralistic' universe.

Whatever Heidegger states about the ontology of anxiety,
anxiety remains a state of mind. That is, anxiety is not
involved in the ready to hand nor the presence to hand, it
is found in dealings with the factical (entities and their
facts, positively) but also in the numinous.

So now you are saying that all 'involvement' collapses into
a state of mind, called anxiety. Are you sure?

What about the dual meaning of 'awe' and 'fascination'.
<Tremendum et fascinam> (cf. Otto)

This interpretation of yours is that mental states have
greater reality than the external world, that ideas about
the world, and internal states (moods) are the only
ultimately real nature, simply and truly.

What you are suggesting of course is that all is 'vanity and
vexation' in this world, something akin to the
Ecclesiastical belief, and Job-esque forlorn-ment.

Of course there is the 'ekstatic' and that is what makes
life worth living for, that is fascination for others, in
the sense of 'enactment' of love, being, and life (Eckhardt
would say: God, Being, and Love).

I hope that your world is not that bleak,

chao

john



Here is a recent example of Malthus' Thomistic Philosophy
(Social Darwinism) by the notorious former World Bank Chief
economist and US Treasury Secretary Lawrence H. Summers:

 "I think the economic logic behind dumping a load of toxic
waste in the lowest wage country is impeccable... because
foregone earnings from increased morbidity" are low. He adds
that "the underpopulated countries in Africa are vastly
underpolluted; their air quality is probably vastly
inefficiently low compared to Los Angeles.... "

----- Original Message -----
From: "Anthony Crifasi" <crifasi-AT-hotmail.com>
To: <heidegger-AT-lists.village.virginia.edu>
Sent: Monday, March 24, 2003 11:06 AM
Subject: Re: Anxious to


John Foster wrote:

>Gee Willikers, Athony, your quote really has nothing to do
>with your paraphrase. Anxiety is about something
>'indefinite' - which means that once the source of anxiety
>becomes apparent and operative, that anxiety (say in the
>final face of death) is about the indefinate. Anxiety
arises
>from a sense of finality, ones' own finality, and death.
>
>Thus the anxiety of the ecologist which is anxiety for the
>undefined, non-being, and finitude, death and collapse of
an
>ecosystem.

John the quote said that ALL involvement (simply) collapses
in anxiety, not
just involvements with some ecosystem. That is an
astoundingly superficial
and ontic reading! Heidegger explicitly says that what we
are anxious about
is that Dasein is PURE POTENTIALITY FOR BEING (i.e., that
Dasein is not a
thing in the world), and this is disclosed in the collapse
of ALL
involvements, since the collapse of beings leaves "just"
pure potentiality
for being. So he is talking about being-in-the-world AS
SUCH, not just
being-in-an-ecosystem!

>Your presumption is that anxiety cannot arise
>from an involvement in the world at all. Anxiety does arise
>from an involvement in the world; the anxiety of a
>frightened parent in Baghdad after the B52's have bombed;
>the anxiety of a hunter lost in the forest; the anxiety of
a
>child who has lost his parents, et cetera.
>
>All these involvements with others and entities in the
world
>are sources for anxiety. Anxiety has the character of a
>'worry' about some outcome; Heidegger is correct about
>anxiety when he writes
>
>"...threatening does not have the character of a definite
>detrimentality which reaches what is threatened...."
>
>Anxiety has the same character whether it arises from the
>worry a parent has or whether it is a worry which arises
>from the anticipation of an ecologist.

Yes they do both have the same character - because they are
both ONTIC. The
worry about a parent is the death of their child. That is an
ontic worry
because the child is an ontic facticity. The worry of an
ecologist is the
death of an ecosystem. That is an ontic worry because the
ecosystem is an
ontic facticity. Heidegger is talking about the collapse of
all involvement
SIMPLY, not just some ecosystem! It is a point infinitely
deeper than what
you are talking about. To "glimpse" oneself as pure
potentiality for being
(with the collapse of all involvement and therefore of all
beings) is to
glimpse oneself as no-thing, and THAT is what anxiety is
anxious about, and
it has nothing to do with some ontic "worry"! And it CANNOT
be mitigated and
much less eliminated by some kind of ontic activity such as
saving the
ecosystem, because you would be saving the wrong thing. You
would have to
"save" Dasein from its own authentic pure potentiality for
being, which is
impossible because that is what Dasein is!

>Here is what the young Heidegger states about Anxiety:
>
>"Dasein speaks of itself, it sees itself as such and such,
>and yet it is only a mask that it holds before itself, in
>order not to be frightened by itself. Defense against 'the'
>anxiety."
>
>Here the reference is to the indefinate which is what
>happens in 'death' and 'non-identity'. One is a death of
the
>body, the later the death of the self.

Do you see that you are interpreting death in a completely
ONTIC way here?
What "frightens" Dasein (note - ONTOLOGICAL meaning of
"frighten" here, not
some ontic fear) is that everything Dasein sees itself "as"
turns out to be
just an ontic mask, which means that "underneath" it all, it
is NOTHING, but
pure potentiality for being. THAT is the object of "the"
anxiety. It has
absolutely nothing to do with anxiety about some ontic
thing, like an
ecosystem!

>In 1921-22
>
>"(I)n it's relational sense taken in the widest sense, life
>is: caring for, being anxious for [sorgen um] one's 'daily
>bread'."
>
>"If factical life is wholly anxious concern [Besorgnis],
>then such a thing as that which plaques (plaguing
[Qualen]),
>a gnawing, or boring can be factically encountered."
>
>Existential anxiety also has the form of the 'uncanny' or
>the 'awesome' in that there is 'no involvement' with other
>entities; however there is an 'uncertainty', and a 'dread'
>involving some danger or misfortune.

Not in the existential sense, John. Existential anxiety has
NOTHING to do
with any kind of "real" danger or misfortune, but only with
the ultimate
UN-real danger - that Dasein is pure potentiality for being.
That is
precisely the difference between existential anxiety and
everyday ontic
anxiety.

Anthony Crifasi

>From different levels of interpretation 'anxiety' has both
a
>depth dimension and a dimension of breath; at the
relational
>sense, anxiety is a 'caring' and 'concern' for something;
in
>a meaning sense anxiety is a state of mind involving
>'uncertainty'.
>
>For instance: "anxiety for her father's safety."
>
>For instance: "anxious about a friend's safety."
>
>This is an interesting quote:
>
>"The bravest men are...the most anxious to avoid quarrels."
>[Mathews, "Getting On in the World"]


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