File spoon-archives/heidegger.archive/heidegger_2003/heidegger.0303, message 390


From: "John Foster" <borealis-AT-mercuryspeed.com>
Subject: US Army Worried About Civilian Deaths
Date: Tue, 25 Mar 2003 08:26:51 -0800


This is a multi-part message in MIME format.



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 7:04 PM
Subject: Re: Anxious to


John Foster wrote:

>anxiety DEFINITELY is NOT
>found in dealings with the factical; in the text I gave you,
>Heidegger says
>exactly the opposite. The anxiety that is found in dealings
>with the factical is ontic anxiety.
>
>Anthony, now that is a twist. What do I call ontological
>anxiety? Do you have a reference to that?

You are interpreting Heideggerian anxiety as anxiety about something
concrete. You gave examples like a mother's anxiety about her endangered 
child, and an ecologist's anxiety over the collapse of the ecosystem. Those
are both factical anxieties.

So you are opposed to interpretations? A mother''s anxiety over her child's US inflicted injuries in Baghdad are real. Her child may have been hit in the head by pieces of concrete dislodged by a cruise missile. This is a fact. And there are hundreds of anxious parents with injured children.

US taxpayer, the poor, the investor also are anxious about the additional $75 billion in spending this month for the purposes of dropping more cruise missiles. Next month there will be more money needed.

But Heidegger explicitly says, "That in the
face of which one has anxiety is not an entity within-the-world," and "That
in the face of which one is anxious is completely indefinite," and "Nothing
which is ready-to-hand or present-at-hand within the world functions as that
in the face of which anxiety is anxious," and "In anxiety one does nto
encounter this thing or that thing which, as something threatening, must 
have an involvement," and "That in teh face of which one has anxiety is
characterized by the fact taht what threatens is nowhere," and "Anxiety does
not know what that in the face of which it is anxious is." (SuZ 186) So he
is not talking about a factical anxiety about something factical at all.


Now you are loggin'. The ultimate threat associated with acute anxiety is death.  Death is indefinite. You must understand this very well.

Here is what Piotr writes:

"The all-pervasiveness and omnipresence of death's threat to an individual is captured by Heidegger with the term 'indefiniteness'. The possibility of death is indefinite, for it is not confined to any particular moment or time span. The possibility of death can materilize at any moment. Furthermore, since Heidegger argues (in section 70 of Being and Time) that space is encountered from within temporal project of Dasein, the indefiniteness of death's 'when' (BT 302) implies its lack of connection with any particular 'here' or 'there'. This is why the threat disclosed in anxiety - the threat of death (BT 310) - is perceived as coming at us from 'nowhere' (BT 231). Now, since due to its indefiniteness, the possibility of death is disclosed to us as a 'constant threat' (BT 310), the parallel we have drawn between the threat of the evil demon in Descartes and the threat of death in Heidegger is vindicated. Both threats are constant and all-pervasive; both threats reveal to the individual the powerlessness and the vulnerability of his condition."

Anxiety is a 'state of mind'.....


More on anxiety later.....john





>The ontological form of anxiety is found
>precisely in the COLLAPSE of all dealing with the factical,
>thereby
>collapsing all interpretations of Dasein in terms of
>factical beings,
>thereby disclosing Dasein as pure potentiality for being as
>such.
>
>Interesting Anthony, do you have a reference to this?

"That which anxiety is profoundly anxious about is not a definite kind of
Being for Dasein or a definite possibility for it. Indeed the threat itself
is indefinite, and therefore cannot penetrate threateningly to this or that
factically concrete potentiality-for-Being. That which anxiety is anxious
about is Being-in-the-world itself. In anxiety what is environmentally
ready-to-hand sinks away, and so in general do entities within-the-world.
The world can offer nothing more, and neither can teh Dasein-with of Others.
Anxiety thus takes away from Dasein the possibility of understanding itself,
as it falls, in tersm of the world and the way things have been publicly 
interpreted. Anxiety throws Dasein back upon that which it is anxious about
- ITS AUTHENTIC POTENTIALITY-FOR-BEING-IN-THE-WORLD, which as somethign that
understands, projects itself essentially upon possibilities. Therefore, with
that which it is anxious about, ANXIETY DISCLOSES DASEIN AS
BEING-POSSIBLE...." (SuZ 187)

Anthony Crifasi


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HTML VERSION:

 
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 7:04 PM
Subject: Re: Anxious to

John Foster wrote:

>anxiety DEFINITELY is NOT
>found in dealings with the factical; in the text I gave you,
>Heidegger says
>exactly the opposite. The anxiety that is found in dealings
>with the factical is ontic anxiety.
>
>Anthony, now that is a twist. What do I call ontological
>anxiety? Do you have a reference to that?

You are interpreting Heideggerian anxiety as anxiety about something
concrete. You gave examples like a mother's anxiety about her endangered
child, and an ecologist's anxiety over the collapse of the ecosystem. Those
are both factical anxieties.
 
So you are opposed to interpretations? A mother''s anxiety over her child's US inflicted injuries in Baghdad are real. Her child may have been hit in the head by pieces of concrete dislodged by a cruise missile. This is a fact. And there are hundreds of anxious parents with injured children.
 
US taxpayer, the poor, the investor also are anxious about the additional $75 billion in spending this month for the purposes of dropping more cruise missiles. Next month there will be more money needed.
 
But Heidegger explicitly says, "That in the
face of which one has anxiety is not an entity within-the-world," and "That
in the face of which one is anxious is completely indefinite," and "Nothing
which is ready-to-hand or present-at-hand within the world functions as that
in the face of which anxiety is anxious," and "In anxiety one does nto
encounter this thing or that thing which, as something threatening, must
have an involvement," and "That in teh face of which one has anxiety is
characterized by the fact taht what threatens is nowhere," and "Anxiety does
not know what that in the face of which it is anxious is." (SuZ 186) So he
is not talking about a factical anxiety about something factical at all.
 
 
Now you are loggin'. The ultimate threat associated with acute anxiety is death.  Death is indefinite. You must understand this very well.
 
Here is what Piotr writes:
 
"The all-pervasiveness and omnipresence of death's threat to an individual is captured by Heidegger with the term 'indefiniteness'. The possibility of death is indefinite, for it is not confined to any particular moment or time span. The possibility of death can materilize at any moment. Furthermore, since Heidegger argues (in section 70 of Being and Time) that space is encountered from within temporal project of Dasein, the indefiniteness of death's 'when' (BT 302) implies its lack of connection with any particular 'here' or 'there'. This is why the threat disclosed in anxiety - the threat of death (BT 310) - is perceived as coming at us from 'nowhere' (BT 231). Now, since due to its indefiniteness, the possibility of death is disclosed to us as a 'constant threat' (BT 310), the parallel we have drawn between the threat of the evil demon in Descartes and the threat of death in Heidegger is vindicated. Both threats are constant and all-pervasive; both threats reveal to the individual the powerlessness and the vulnerability of his condition."
 
Anxiety is a 'state of mind'.....
 
 
More on anxiety later.....john
 
 
 


>The ontological form of anxiety is found
>precisely in the COLLAPSE of all dealing with the factical,
>thereby
>collapsing all interpretations of Dasein in terms of
>factical beings,
>thereby disclosing Dasein as pure potentiality for being as
>such.
>
>Interesting Anthony, do you have a reference to this?

"That which anxiety is profoundly anxious about is not a definite kind of
Being for Dasein or a definite possibility for it. Indeed the threat itself
is indefinite, and therefore cannot penetrate threateningly to this or that
factically concrete potentiality-for-Being. That which anxiety is anxious
about is Being-in-the-world itself. In anxiety what is environmentally
ready-to-hand sinks away, and so in general do entities within-the-world.
The world can offer nothing more, and neither can teh Dasein-with of Others.
Anxiety thus takes away from Dasein the possibility of understanding itself,
as it falls, in tersm of the world and the way things have been publicly
interpreted. Anxiety throws Dasein back upon that which it is anxious about
- ITS AUTHENTIC POTENTIALITY-FOR-BEING-IN-THE-WORLD, which as somethign that
understands, projects itself essentially upon possibilities. Therefore, with
that which it is anxious about, ANXIETY DISCLOSES DASEIN AS
BEING-POSSIBLE...." (SuZ 187)

Anthony Crifasi


_________________________________________________________________
Add photos to your messages with MSN 8. Get 2 months FREE*. 
http://join.msn.com/?page=features/featuredemail



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