Date: Sat, 19 Jun 2004 12:36:06 -0500
From: allen scult <allen.scult-AT-drake.edu>
Subject: Re: Questioning the Questioner


>In a message dated 18/06/2004 19:08:08 GMT Standard Time,
>_allen.scult-AT-drake.edu_ (mailto:allen.scult-AT-drake.edu)  writes:
>
>
>Allen writes:
>The following is submitted in a condition even more raw than usual:
>
>Jud:
>A person should steer clear of those sort of clubs.  The  older one gets the
>longer the weals take to heal, and one could end up  as the only one on the
>beach with his shirt on.  ;-)
>
>Allen:
>I'm reading Cavell on Wittgenstein and thinking about how community, 
>especially philosophical community-or more especially THIS community-- is 
>constituted to the extent that we can speak WITH one another at all. 
>By speaking  with
>one another, I mean that some of us presume that Heidegger speaks for us,  at
>least insofar as we presume he is not merely projecting his own way of being 
>conscious onto ours. He presumed a similar presumption which I 
>presume enabled 
>him to speak for himself as a Dasein in the way that he does. Jud: The
>hopeless  unquestioning cases Allen refers to - the ones that 
>presume that Heidegger
>  speaks for them are thankfully not the majority on this list. There are many
>  that question Heidegger and use his notions in their own modified version as
>a  way of understanding their own lives. The best example of a pragmatic, 
>constructive, questioning phenomemologist on this list is in my 
>opinion Malclom,
>  as his last message confirms. He has a great deal of commonsense.
>
>Jud:
>As to whether the conjunction of Heidegger's presumptions and Allen's 
>illations is an example of a felicitous confluence of two 
>independently  formed and
>arrived at Weltanschauungen based upon the acceptance of similar 
>circumstantial evidence thus concluding in analogous coincidental 
>conclusions, or an
>example of Heidegger successfully exerting his malign  influence on and
>overwhelming Allen's discriminatory faculties - I think  the latter.
>Once the neologic and obfuscatory argot of Heideggerianism is accepted and 
>utilised in philosophical discussion the victim is lost and can  virtually be
>written off as having a mind of his own. With certain notable 
>exceptions, what
>emerges from the conceptual chrysalis is a fully  fledged Heidegger-clone
>mindlessly mouthing metaphysical meaninglessness.  The result? 
>Continual attempts
>to discover additional aspects of the world that  can be successfully written
>about in order to cut the conceptual cloth to  new clothes, and there seems
>to be a never-ending search for new 'angles,' where  Heidegger's material can
>be made relevant to some new gimmicky  interpretation of the world.
>
>It is more likely that Allen, like most people, chanced upon and was  simply
>taken in by Heidegger's clever obnubilated and mythologic rhetoric.  Some
>people are more attracted to an ascendant or dominant other, and 
>subjugate their
>critical faculties in order to feel more secure in the bosom of  a perceived
>certainty. If, once the decision is made to throw in one's passive  lot with a
>dominant other or paramount leader, others [perhaps staff members or 
>students] in their peer group do the same, it reinforces and 
>provides confirmation
>that the choice of idol is the rightful one. It would  be a great mistake to
>believe that Heidegger was not projecting his own way of  being conscious as a
>cognitive exemplar, and was unconcerned as to whether or  not his ideas would
>influence others and be taken up by them, his whole style  [even his 
>questioning
>is a hectoring] is declamatory, and Basic Concepts is  sheer demagoguery in
>the style of the 'thinking man's thug - not to mention the 
>disgusting Rectoral
>Nazi diatribe.
>
>Allen:
>  What gives Heidegger the "right" to speak of Dasein as he does-as if  it's
>any more than a projection? More importantly, why do I trust him, 
>give him  the
>right, to "speak for me" at least most of the time. . . and Jud  doesn't?
>
>  Jud:
>Once one throws in one's lot with what amounts to no more than a 
>philosophical cult with 'Being' situated in place of God, giving the 
>right to  speak on
>one's behalf is natural and unquestioning.
>
>Although most people think of cults as being religious, they can also be 
>found in political, athletic, philosophical, racial or 
>psychotherapeutic arenas. 
>Compare these classical cult criteria with their attitudes of the committed 
>Heideggerians on this list
>
>(1) The acceptance of a charismatic leader [most often male] as being 
>dominant. Like Heidegger, many cult leaders truly are charismatic 
>people, and  are
>able to influence people to believe them.
>(2) The use of an esoteric  vocabulary of neologisms particular to the cult.
>(3) The continual use of  fear. "The end is nigh - Only God can help us now."
>(4) Evasive and  obfuscatory tactics when questioned by people outside of the
>  group.
>(5) Refuseniks who reject the doctrine are said to be not capable  of
>understanding rather than being percipient rejectionists.
>(6)  Opponents are seen as being evil [faggots] because they do not accept
>the  doctrines.
>(7) Opposing views are denigrated as false and 'untrustworthy.'  Allen:
>
>Allen:
>This is almost a "primal" matter of philosophy, one which Cavell suggests, 
>at another level, preoccupies Wittgenstein when he argues for the 
>impossibility
>  of a "private language." In Cavell's words: "What is the presumption which
>asks  us to look to ourselves to find whether we share another's secret
>consciousness?  What gives one the right?"
>
>Jud:
>No '"right" is required. It is a natural part of human behaviour to  evaluate
>the ideas of others and take up a position of agreement or  disagreement.
>There is no childishly conceived "secret consciousness" - a person  either
>reveals what he or she thinks - or does not. We may make guesses as 
>to  what is left
>unsaid based upon the way they behave in relation to other things,  and we do
>this in order to understand the other as part of our social  interaction and
>ultimately in relation to our survival as individuals.  'Philosophy' doesn't
>exist as such - it is simply the way that humans act - for  thinking is an
>action. Committed [unquestioning] Heideggerian cultists act in 
>similar ways to
>Heidegger, i. e., they copy the cognitive actions of the person  who 
>is for him
>the dominant [philosophical] male. That is not to say that they  also copy
>all of  his social or political actions, and run around  everywhere 
>Seig Heiling
>anything that moves and proclaiming His God Hitler as  the font of all wisdom.
>
>Allen:
>He goes on to say this line of questioning is wrong for philosophy, because 
>philosophy "ought to point away from the self not towards it." (20) But in
>this  very pointing away, the question is preserved, for it is 
>saying that the 
>philosophy of which it is a part is not mere projection. I may explain other 
>philosophizing as one kind of projection or another ( as Jud does 
>Heidegger's) 
>but not my own, nor those that speak for me. The presumption of those 
>philosophies, by the very fact that it is Heidegger's presumption, mine, and 
>perhaps yours, remains an open question--no, the open question-- 
>which is at the 
>core of said philosophies.
>
>Jud:
>Personally I find it difficult to imagine how it would be possible to 
>totally point away from 'the self' not towards it, or to comment on 
>the  world from
>any other standpoint other than their own neuronal  activity.  The ground of
>any feeling, thinking or cognitive pointing is the  embrained body or human
>holism [which is continually confused with the notion of  'self.'] 
>Even when we
>attempt to put our selves 'into the mind of another  person,'  it is our OWN
>version of what WE think is going on in  the 'mind' of the other. Most people
>address a subject as seen from their own  perspective, even when that subject
>is their favourite subject -  themselves.  Heidegger attempts [unsuccessfully]
>to universalise the  'self' with his creation of Dasein as a robot-like human
>cog in a revitalised  and idealised right-wing Germany based upon the Greek
>slave-based society he so  admired.
>
>Some people, of which the unthinking type Heideggerian is a prime  example,
>have a 'need' to 'belong' - to share a common presumption or  belief system
>with an extended  'family of fellow thinkers', to construct a  'togetherness'
>which is perhaps missing in other areas of their lives - I do  not.
>
>
>Best regards,
>
>Jud.
>
>

Dearest Jud,

Unsurprisingly predictable (which is not to say not endearing) until 
the your most interesting last paragraph which I can't wait to get 
to.  The rest misses the same point you're always missing--that is,
the be all and end all of the discourse on this list (which , by the 
way is the only reason why the some of us of whom you
speak write for it) is UNDERSTANDING THE QUESTION.

I'm not arguing a case, trying to prove anything,
I'm trying to clarify the question by asking it in a different way. 
This activity cannot possibly solve any problems in science,  even 
philosophy, and definitely not in my own life.  It's just talk, 
Judsy.  Nothing but talk.  That's the only reason we let you in. 
You're a good talker.  The fact that much of what you say is off the 
point is beside the point.

But now as to that last--well whatever its you were trying to do. 
Speaking only for myself, Jud,
not only is there something missing in the other areas of my life, 
the other areas of my life themselves
are missing.  But I really stopped looking for them.  I know we're 
somewhat the same age Judsy, but I think I'm ahead of you on this.

So the only reason I join any relationship even for a moment, is 
because of what it offers  or appears it will offer in that moment 
and perhaps the next.  I was on the bike trail this morning and 
coming the other way ( this seeing of one another during such a pass 
can last a relational lifetime) was a rather plump, rider attired to 
the nines in colorful biking tights , with a $200 helmet perched on 
his mostly bald head.
Our eyes met, and he started the smiling.  By time we got to the 
"hi," our smiles had reached the eyes and our hi's reflected the full 
warmth of it.

The list might not offer moments of this intensity, but for me its 
satisfactions are in the same dimension
of possibility, namely philosophy.

Stay off the road,
Allen

Henry,
  I really wanted to respond to your post which is very interested in 
the question, but here I wasted all this time, and I've gotta run. 
Hopefully tomorrow.  Don't go way.


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