File spoon-archives/heidegger.archive/heidegger_2003/heidegger.0312, message 355


From: "Anthony Crifasi" <crifasi-AT-hotmail.com>
Subject: Re: FYI/ bypassing freedom, making the sale
Date: Mon, 22 Dec 2003 19:23:58 +0000


Henry Sholar wrote:

> >>> "And how is Dasein this thrown basis? Only in that it projects itself
> >> upon
> >>> possibilities into which it has been thrown. The Self, which as such 
>has
> >> to
> >>> lay the basis for itself, CAN NEVER GET THAT BASIS INTO ITS POWER; and
> >> yet,
> >>> as existing, it must take over Being-a-basis. To be its own thrown 
>basis
> >> is
> >>> that potentiality-for-Being which is the issue for care.
> >>> >>> "In being a basis - that is, in existing as thrown - Dasein 
>constantly
> >> lags
> >>> behind its possibilities. It is never existent before its basis, but
> >> only
> >>> from it and as this basis. Thus "Being-a-basis" means NEVER TO HAVE
> >> POWER
> >>> OVER ONE'S OWNMOST BEING FROM THE GROUND UP." (SuZ 284)
> >> >> Gestell  is not an ontological pre-understanding.
> > > I realize that it is not an AUTHENTIC understanding, but even if it is 
>not,
> > it is still how we ALREADY understand the Being of beings in every case 
>in
> > our epoch. As such, we cannot possibly have power over it, for the very
> > reason Heidegger gives above. For example, As Henry (healant) said in 
>his
> > earlier discussion with Michael, Gestell is not an effect, product, or
> > activity of corporations (all of which which can be affected and 
>changed),
> > but the understanding in which corporations and their products, effects, 
>and
> > activities appear as what they are in the first place.
>
>I think that the creativity of Dasein: the artist,
>the philosopher, the poet, the statesman, the
>edgiest of science & tech folk, can all change Gestell.

How can that be the case if "Dasein constantly lags behind its 
possibilities," as Heidegger says above? To change Gestell would be to 
change precisely those possibilties, which would seem to imply precisely 
what Heidegger denies above - that Dasein does not constantly lag behind its 
possibilities, and therefore can have power over them. What the statesman 
(for example) can change is the thinking that already presupposes the 
(ontological) understanding that Heidegger is talking about (the everyday 
kind of thinking) through specific factical means (emotional appeal, media 
spin, putting a chip in your head, etc.) which have specific factical 
effects. So if Gestell is neither a factical effect nor the sum of all 
factical effects (both of which can be changed) nor any entity at all, but 
how these are all understood as the beings they are in the first place, then 
what could it possibly mean to "change" Gestell through the factical means 
available to us? Isn't this an equivocation of everyday thinking (which can 
be changed by such people through factical means) and the understanding 
which this presupposes in every case already (over which Heidegger says we 
never have power in any case)?

> > Where does Heidegger say that the lack of power is the hermeneutical 
>circle?
> > In SuZ section 63 he specifically describes the hermeneutical circle in
> > terms of thrown projection. He does the same at the end of section 32. 
>He
> > always describes it in terms of understanding - that all interpretation
> > presupposes understanding already, not in terms of power, since he says
> > exactly the opposite about power - that we do not choose how we are 
>thrown
> > in any case.
> > > Anthony Crifasi
>
>Knowledge is power.  What do you think ³power over X² means?

By this I assume you mean what you wrote to Tudor here:

>Interesting that you appear oddly to mirror Anthony in the powerlessness of
>our ceaseless mobilization of everything, arbitrarily, as inventory... As 
>if
>awareness of that ontological power weren't enough for glimmers of working
>thru it.

I agree that Heidegger obviously implies that we have such power - 
otherwise, why put forth the criticism he does at all? But at the same time, 
wouldn't this blatantly conflict with his explicit insistance above that 
"Dasein constantly lags behind its possibilities," and therefore "can never 
get that basis into its power"? Isn't this an equivocation between specific 
factical mobilizations (like those of Wal-Mart, or the "advertising chip," 
etc.) which CAN be changed, and mobilizatioN, or how everything is 
pre-understood as mobilized in the first place (i.e., Gestell)?

Anthony Crifasi

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