From: "Anthony Crifasi" <crifasi-AT-hotmail.com>
Subject: Re: Shock'N'Awe
Date: Thu, 27 Mar 2003 02:01:11 +0000


Jason, John Foster knows Heidegger about as well as the average 
undergraduate, who continually and inauthentically interprets every 
ontological term ontically. Observe:

John Foster wrote:

>>Well! My interpretation of authenticity is derived from BT. I have not 
>>read the whole work for over 15 years so I am 'rusty' on the terminology. 
>>However I have reread portions of BT and have come to view that 
>>authenticity is being referred to by Heidegger as - in his words- the 
>>subjects 'ownmost' situations, ie., (these situations belong on to me: 
>>moods, states of mind which individuate) there is a Kierkegaardian 
>>emphasis here on what is a 'subject' in the sense of 'anxiety' 'dread' and 
>>other 'felt' moods or states of mind. In anxiety there is an 'authentic' 
>>relationship about the self, or disclosure for the self. In fact Heidegger 
>>writes that 'anxiety individualizes', makes the individual real.

And what John Foster conveniently skips is that Heidegger explicitly says 
that Dasein is individualized through anxiety precisely by WITHDRAWING FROM 
INDIVIDUAL ENTITIES. In other words, Dasein is "individaulized" precisely in 
that it is NOT AN INDIVIDUAL ENTITY IN THE WORLD, and this is seen when all 
involvement with entities collapses in anxiety. Heidegger says over and over 
and over and over again that anxiety is not about ANY ENTITY IN THE WORLD, 
and John over and over and over and over again says that anxiety IS about 
some entity in the world (a mother's child, the ecosystem, etc.). This is an 
undergraduate level mistake that permeates all of John's views concerning 
the war, concerning the environment - and it's all based on a very simple 
mistake.

>>Where there is no acute anxiety there is no self- as felt (simply an id). 
>>In the realm of everyday irrationality, or public life, the self is not 
>>felt so acutely.

And what, John, is Dasein as revealed by anxiety? PURE POTENTIALITY FOR 
BEING, JOHN! NOT a being in the world, but being-in-the-world AS SUCH. He 
explicitly says that over and over!

>>For instance 'idle talk' is a feature of everydayness (this theme is 
>>specifically part of BT and somewhat so in The History of the Concept of 
>>Time - which I have read recently). For Heidegger if he had been an 
>>American/Canadian writing today he would have referred to the 'shopping 
>>diversion' which many people engage in, a sort of 'inauthenticity of 
>>libidinous' engagement with new shiny objects. Even 'political talk' would 
>>fall within the subject of everyday engagement and discourse, since there 
>>is little time to really engage in 'positive research'.

And here we have a shining example of John's once again colossal conflation 
of the ontological and the ontic. Heideggerian discourse has absolutely 
nothing to do with "positive research" or any such ontic activity. John's 
reading is rabidly inauthentic, and his entire worldview is based on it.

>>Anyway the threat that has progressed recently on this list has been about 
>>'authenticity' and what is 'anxiety' at least it's existential-ontological 
>>interpretation. And in that nexus of 'subject' felt experience (even 
>>Anthony has alluded to this phenomenon) is something 'transcendental' for 
>>the subject.

John you are now mischaracterizing not only Heidegger, but also me. I said 
that the positive existentiell-ontical phenomenon which reveals Dasein is 
the turning-away of FALLING, not some mere feeling! THAT is what Heidegger 
said, just a few lines after the very text you cited!

>>Why does 'anxiety' appear'? This question requires an 
>>ontological-existential interpretation whereas 'anxiety for the child' 
>>does not require a 'ontologico-existential' interpretation except as a 
>>'supporting' subjective phenomenon. The 'ontico-existentiell' 
>>characterization is essential to the discussion of the phenomenon (anxiety 
>>is a universal subjective phenomenon because it is felt as ontic 'dread', 
>>as 'ontologico' indefiniteness, the absolutely 'uncertainty of existence 
>>in the face of a catastrophic risk' (I might add as an ecologist).

JOHN HOW MANY TIMES DO I HAVE TO THROW THE TEXTS IN YOUR FACE BEFORE YOU 
REALIZE THAT WHAT YOU ARE TALKING ABOUT HERE IS NOT ANXIETY??? Heidegger 
says that FEAR is about an entity in the world, and that ANXIETY IS NOT!!! 
Are you STILL going to repeat in the future that anxiety is about something 
in the world, like some ecosystem????

John, you have got to do a post-Heidegger-101 reading of Heidegger before 
you are qualified to preach to others about your supposedly enlightened 
Heideggerian based philosophy of life. Neither your environmental nor 
anti-war beliefs have any ontological justification from Heidegger 
whatsoever, because Heidegger's ontology is of ANY and EVERY being in the 
world, not just yours! Your continual conflations of ontic theys (the UN, 
the Geneva Convention) and non-ontic They are a blaring example of your 
superficial and inauthentic reading. So once again, the question I have 
asked over and over again and which you NEVER HAVE ANSWERED:

How can an ontology of any and every being in the world possibly be opposed 
to or exclude any way of being in the world, such as being-warlike, or 
being-capitalist?

Anthony Crifasi

>>There is a section in BT that specifically assigns the ultimate importance 
>>on this point, ie., that only the subject whose authentic dread 
>>individuates can understand what dread, or the 'uncanny' is 
>>'interpretatively'. That means that the ontological interpretation, the 
>>question concerning Being, can only be 'authenticated' by those persons 
>>who know (rather than have knowledge) what it is to have this 'state of 
>>mind' called dread. Dread is not an objective phenomenon, no overt 
>>behaviour observed in another indicates anxiety nor dread, unless it is 
>>first 'felt' in the inquiring subject; hence the importance of the 
>>sympathetic imagination (cf. Kants, 3rd faculty of understanding -which is 
>>largely unexplored in modern philosophy except precursorily in Sartre and 
>>in Bradly). Certainly Suzanne K. Langer elaborates extensively on this 3rd 
>>capacity, but she does not do this except through her Cassir-esque 
>>analysis, and she does not analyze this feature of human understanding in 
>>any 'existential-ontologico' fashion. Or does she?
>
>This is why I have related issues and factors which impact on 'US foreign 
>Policy' since it is actually pertinent and necessary for this list. 
>Certainly if one were to reread Kiergekaards "Works of Love" at this moment 
>in time, and if all Xtians would read the first 10 pages, then it would be 
>obvious what I am referring to. There is nothing 'positive' in my 
>recommendation since it is 'ontological work' of the heart, and hearth.
>
>I have been listening to the Blues since I was only 10. I first listened to 
>Josh White over and over again. I visited the deep south, places like 
>Memphis perhaps before most on this list were out of diapers. I saw the 
>poverty and the repression of African Americans, and I felt their pain 
>through their music. I remember when J. F Kennedy was killed. We were all 
>sent home and we all grieved here in my small town in British Columbia, 
>Canada. But our feelings about the US government, and its involvement in 
>imperial wars for power and prestige later afte Kent State were different. 
>I have read and looked closely at the student year books showing the 
>difference in the US student population there before and after the Kent 
>State massacre. This document is the most amazing document in the history 
>of the US because it is a graphic depiction of the incredible brutality of 
>a regime, a mindset, a bias against the individual and their sovereignty. 
>There is nothing in US history more graphic....that is why the 'war 
>movement' became a world wide movement to safeguard individual rights. Yes 
>I know that there are all these conventions, et cetera, which safeguard 
>rights, but something else must safeguard rights. It has to be. There has 
>to be something like a modern crucifix which the young must regard as 
>'emblematic' in intent and meaning.



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