Date: Sun, 6 Apr 2003 05:40:06 +0800
Subject: Re: state of mind
From: Malcolm Riddoch <riddoch-AT-central.murdoch.edu.au>



On Saturday, April 5, 2003, at 01:47  PM, John Foster wrote:

> All that you have stated here is that moods are something 'ontic'. If 
> we are
> never free of moods then they are clearly not 'temporary' not solely 
> ontic.
> Moods are essential for the disclosing of the there which is also a
> prerequisite for any kind of 'experiences' and that is what Heidegger 
> is
> relating. "Dasein can should, and must,  through knowledge and will, 
> become
> maste of *its* moods." [S und Z 136]

Hi John,

I agree with you on this. Heidegger's ontico-ontological distinction is 
certainly not a mutually exclusive one as Crifasi seems to be 
suggesting. Everything is 'ontic', even ontological questioning for 
which:

the roots of the existential analytic, on its part, are ultimately
existentiell, that is, ontical. Only if the inquiry of philosophical
research is itself seized upon in an existentiell manner as a
possibility of the Being of each existing Dasein, does it become at
all possible to disclose the existentiality of existence and to
undertake an adequately founded ontological problematic. But with
this, the ontical priority of the question of being has also become
plain (SZ, section 4, p. 11).

All it means is that when you come to ontologically consider existence 
you can only do that for yourself cos you are the one who exists and 
understands whatever phenomena you find yourself immersed in. It's a 
phenomenological method in which you describe what you yourself see and 
feel, how your perceptions, thoughts, words and actions relate to your 
worldly experience. But of course everything before you is an 
individual fact, your existence is 'factical', this light in this room 
in my house and so on. Everything to do with the actual phenomena that 
make up one's own world is the 'ontical', and there is nothing else 
besides that unless you want to start reifying some sort of 
transcendent ontological realm.

When Crifasi uses the term 'ontic' he seems to use it in the 'factical' 
sense only some of the time but as you are pointing out he's painting 
himself into another absurd corner by somehow using it as altogether 
distinct from the ontological, which in my opinion is a very confusing 
way to approach Heidegger. Authentic angst is a mood that Heidegger 
uses in a methodological sense to experience the phenomenon of 
'temporality'. In order to do this you have to follow his method for 
yourself and actually feel 'angst', and yes since this would be you 
yourself feeling or being angsty then it is 'ontical'. That definitely 
does not preclude your angst from disclosing the ontological structure 
of time, in fact it's absolutely necessary that your 'ontically' 
factical actual self does this otherwise how are you going to 
demonstrate or disclose for yourself the ontological structure of your 
own ontical existence?

Is this a bit clearer?

All the ontological/existential structures of your own 
ontical/existentiell existence are disclosed only by and for your 
'ontical' self. Befindlichkeit or 'state-of-mind' is an ontological 
structure, a 'category' if you like, as an abstract description of 
actual 'ontical' moods like joy or angst or boredom. So when Crifasi 
states:

>> Note first here that he specifically distinguishes a state-of-mind 
>> from
> any
>> psychical condition that we can reflect upon, and that any 
>> "experience"
>> (such as what you mean by a feeling) ALREADY presupposes disclosure 
>> of the
>> "there" through a state-of-mind.

he actually seems to be suggesting that Befindlichkeit is something 
other than feeling or mood, which is patently ridiculous. It's an 
ontological structure that manifests as this or that particular 
'ontical' moody experience. To confuse matters he has also been 
conflating this ontico-ontological distinction with Heidegger's 
critique of psychologism along with the problem of authentic, 
existential angst. I find his argumentation rather loosely confused a 
lot of the time, as in this conclusion to his above proposition:

>> That means that a state-of-mind is PRIOR
> TO
>> ANY POSSIBLE EXPERIENCE, and therefore is not the kind of thing that 
>> comes
>> and goes like experiences.

I guess he's suggesting that ontological structures are 'atemporal' but 
I have no idea what he means by "state-of-mind is PRIOR TO ANY POSSIBLE 
EXPERIENCE" or why this needs to be in CAPS. The apriori is related to 
how time is constitutive of the ontological structures like 
Befindlichkeit, so perhaps you could argue for temporal priority 
here... but is he talking about subjective experience, or ontical 
experience, or what? This is so general a statement it could really 
mean anything you want it to.

Generally speaking, Anthony seems to be conflating the critique of 
Cartesian psychological subjectivity with notions of ontical 
experience, as in this reference to Heidegger:

>> "Having a mood is not related to the psychical in the first instance, 
>> and
> is
>> not itself an inner condition which then reaches forth in an 
>> enigmatical
> way
>> and puts its mark on things and persons. It is in this that the second
>> essential characteristic of states-of-mind shows itself. We have seen 
>> that
>> the world, Dasein-with, and existence are equiprimordially disclosed; 
>> and
>> state-of-mind is a basic existential species of their disclosedness,
> BECAUSE
>> THIS DISCLOSEDNESS ITSELF IS ESSENTIALLY BEING-IN-THE-WORLD." (SuZ 
>> 137)
>>
>> Note that a state-of-mind is once again distinguished from any 
>> psychical
>> experience such as what you mean by "feeling," and also that it is a 
>> basic
>> existential species of the disclosedness that is essentially
>> Being-in-the-world itself.

Have you been suggesting that 'feeling' is an inner or subjective 
state, 'in your head' or something? Do you subscribe to a psychological 
model of feeling, of inner brain states that then are related to an 
external world? That's what Heidegger is distancing himself from here, 
cos phenomenology deals only with what is actually given, which is 
world and self as a whole, existence, unity, before we split it up into 
abstract notions of an isolated Cartesian subject and its external 
objective world.

Crifasi here seems to be stating that Befindlichkeit is not a 
psychological feeling, which is correct, but that does not then mean 
that it is unrelated to feeling. Befindlichkeit is manifested as actual 
'ontical' feelings or moods. We can either interpret a mood as the 
psychological property of a subject, or as a fundamental way in which 
we already understand self and world as a whole. From what you've been 
saying I take it you prefer the latter holistic approach, and I 
generally agree with your defence of this position in your to and fro 
with Anthony Crifasi, and especially his atemporal notion of 
ontological structure:

>> So a state-of-mind is not a temporary feeling, but the very "way of
>> mattering" which a feeling presupposes in the first place. A 
>> state-of-mind
>> is HOW specifically the world is disclosed to us, and it is CONSTANTLY
> there
>> - otherwise the world wouldn't be disclosed in the first place, since 
>> it
>> must be disclosed in a particular way in order to be disclosed at all.

For me this a very confused argument in which Anthony seems to reify 
'state-of-mind' as something 'CONSTANTLY there' and somehow distinct 
from actual feelings and moods that come and go. Another translation of 
Befindlichkeit could be 'moodedness', so we could translate the above 
as "So moodedness is not a temporary mood, but the very "way of 
mattering" which a mood presupposes in the first place. Moodedness is 
HOW specifically the world is disclosed to us, and it is CONSTANTLY 
there" which perhaps simplifies his formulation a bit. I would still 
have problems with the last part though about an ontological structure 
somehow existing in itself and being constantly anywhere... I think if 
you hammer away at this almost Kantian notion of atemporal structure 
you'll probably find he'll retreat and dig in someplace else. Trouble 
is unlike Baghdad, there is no centre in these shifting arguments and 
you'll probably just end up going in circles. Or is that a spiral?

> This "potentiality for being which is an issue" is anxiety, 
> existentially. The
> ontological interpretation of Dasein therefore is care and care is 
> related
> to Dasein, since anxiety authenticates the self. The psychical mood of 
> being
> anxious, however, is not an ontological structure of care, but the 
> ontic,
> rather it is a 'mood' which can be 'countered'.

I agree with your concluding remarks, it's one's own 'ontical 
facticity' in relation to the authentic (ownmost) description of 
ontological structure that is important here. For Heidegger in Being 
and Time the temporally articulated ontological structures of that 
facticity are disclosed in authentic angst, which is nonetheless 
something 'ontical' that is definitely to be felt and that falls away 
again into inauthentic angst about everyday matters. It's a 
hermeneutics of feeling, and for Heidegger the question of being can 
also be disclosed in joy, love, boredom and suchlike fundamental moods.

Cheers,

Malcolm



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