Thursday, November 3, 2011

More on Heidegger

Okay so let me see if I can make Heidegger's Metaphysical issues more clear.

Imagine someone asks "What is the essence of a tree?" It would make no sense to say "pine" or "oak." In the same manner, imagine someone saying "What is the essence of a human being?" And someone replied "Bob." Again, nonsense.

What this means is that the essence of something cannot be an example of the something. An essence must be that which traverses all somethings, i.e., what makes all trees trees - what Heidegger would call "tree-ness."

Following this same logic BEING (reality) cannot be explained in terms of an example of A BEING. This to Heidegger is what basically all explanations of reality from Plato to Nietzsche had in common - they had misunderstood the distinction between Being and beings, again what he calls ontological difference. (When Heidegger uses the term "Nothing" he usually means this difference, I think, which makes it confusing, to say the least.)

While this sounds really complicated - and it is - it's also pretty digestible if one can think that the essence of something cannot be an example of that something. Bob cannot be the essence of humans and oaks can't be what is essential about trees.

So what is the essence of Being for Heidegger? Care. Heidegger thinks that the being who questions his own Being (us) is constituted by Care. We engage in this or that - we are bored with this or that, but we care. Hopefully, this Care manifests itself as a project whereby one makes one life one's own. If not we're back in the land of despair.

(The whole notion of "essence" is problematic for other reasons - but that's for a later time.)

1 comment:

  1. Beautifully summarized! I know, there’s a lot to be discussed when one’s talking about Heidegger, and it’s usually very hard to say everything in just one or two sittings. I remember the agony I went through when I had to summarize Being and Time in just a page!
    What bothers me the most about Heidegger, especially in his Intro to Metaphysics, is that he claims that Being cannot be willed because Being is not an entity, just like you have mentioned in your post. So one cannot willfully think about or of Being, but that Being comes upon man as a grace. What I am confused about is that if Being is a grace and if it comes upon man on its own time, then is it through authenticity or, better still, is it by thinking through Being and not thinking about Being that Being may come upon us? (it sounds awfully confusing!) If such is the case and if we can never think about Being, as by doing so we would always correspond Being with some other entity, then thinking Being would mean thinking nothing or thinking everything, and this is the point where I think Heidegger’s paradoxical thinking kicks in. Being is abstract in the sense that it does not consist of a property, but that it is characterized by its ‘isness’, just like you mentioned ‘treeness.’ So it is a combination of nothingness and everythingness!
    At this point Heidegger’s Being as Existence or Time comes in too, where he says that by ‘Being in’ he means Time. But this Time is also paradoxical in nature because it is intertwined with the “eternal recurrence of the same.” It is just like Elan Vitale (I think. Please correct me if I am wrong) It is the march of life that continues without stopping, yet it changes forms. It is a combination of linearity and circularity, which are both interconnected. It is the play of nothingness and everythingness. Being is that nothingness that lets everything show up. It is the openness in which, through which, and from which beings phenomenalize themselves.
    It is a nullity, which from its null base lets things in the world emerge.
    I still don’t understand the role consciousness plays in Heidegger and how is it different from Sartre’s consciousness. I am also kind of curious about Sartre’s Being and Nothingness. I personally haven’t read the book, but the title suggests that his book might talk about nothingness, which I think is central in Heidegger’s thought (even though he doesn’t talk much about it.)
    Coming back to the unthinkableness of Being, if Being cannot be thought, then attributing it to nothingness or to nothingness and everythingness too would be wrong! As Being cannot be explained by language but it can only be thought. So to think Being do we basically have to wait for the grace to befall upon us?
    I think I should stop now, or else my comment will get even weirder!

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