Thank you for your response.... And your questions. I don't want to bother the list with more thoughts on Heidegger and death at the moment so I am sending to you what I already wrote. It is not very well written but the basic points are there. I will send it off-line
The little piece I am sending offline is just one example of what I mean by the fact that most of Heidegger's notions can be reduced to attitudes. If you go through everything Heidegger says on death in Being and Time you will find that much of what he says can be reduced to trite truisms or "interesting" attitudes. That is what I try to show in the three points. I still have 5 or 6 more points to make on this subject since my reading on Heidegger's "being-toward-death" was extensive and I might as well write it up. But if I write the rest up I will post it at my weblog.
As for question #2 when I said "Is what the writer says true in any way that I can accept?" and you replied "(since anybody can find meaning and truth (at least truisms) almost anywhere)." Your point is taken and is well put. I was very tired and I did not state my own point aptly. What I mean is that there is no set of criteria either personal, psychological, or empirical by which you can say to yourself "How am I to know if Heidegger's views on existence are correct?" He gives us an account of Dasein and of the human relation to human existence, to "the world" and to the earth that backgrounds the world from Plato through modern "technological" society. Even if I accept such notional differences between Dasein, "the world", "the earth," and mans primal violence, etc, is there any way for me to tell whether he is correct in his deep history of being? Essentially I either accept his definitions or I don't. I either accept his readings of Plato, for example or I don't. There is really nothing to argue with because basically he is explicating what he takes to be the human relation to existence.
Now frankly I think that his interpretations of Plato are taken out of historical context. But I am used to reading Plato politically and historically, because one of my concerns is with rise of notions of the rule of law in Greek city states. Heidegger would say that my readings of Plato (and of Heidegger) are part of the problem of "instrumentalism" and "productionism" simply because I believe that Plato might be understood historically. To try to contrast some other kind of reading of Western Philosophy to Heidegger's reading from a Heideggerian point of view is wrong from the beginning. To not understand that Heidegger is writing about is the history of being itself, is not give existence (or the work of art for that matter) its full singularity as a mode of being, instead of a mode of knowledge.
The paradox is that if I don't accept one of Heidegger's readings of a work of art or Western Philosophy and I try to apply my knowledge and reason to refute it, then I am wrong from the beginning. This is because applying knowledge and reason to these subjects in my particular way, is doing violence to a mode of being that Heidegger is trying to uncover, a mode of being that is always violated by my kind of instrumentalist and productionist thinking.
What Heidegger says about "Being" doesn't seem to be true or false. It is simply an attitude toward existence or, in my terms, toward human experience. It is not an attitude that jives with what I know about human evolution or human history but there is no way to disprove Heidegger on this point, one way or another.
So my question remains: Is what Heidegger writes about Plato, or art, poetry, technology, violence, is any of it true? In Heideggerian terms can what Heidegger says on these subjects be judged either true or false (no matter how tentatively) if you don't accept his basic notions about covert being? In other words can you use your own criteria of judgement at all outside of his ontology?
Jerry Monaco
P.S. Mr. Doss, says that I was ridiculing Ravi and Justin. I don't see anywhere that I did that. I have only attacked Heidegger. I don't ever remember ridiculing Ravi or Justin. Just because I don't like Heidegger and attack his philosophy and they do like Heidegger and defend his philosophy, doesn't mean that I am ridiculing them. The distinction seems to be lost on Mr. Doss.
I think some of Heidegger's attitudes are dangerous. And I think a lot of what Heidegger says is simply silly. But all philosophers say silly things; it's in their mission statements. So what?
I have a lot of silly beliefs myself. For instance, I think that the world will be so much better if all men were banned from carrying guns and all women were required to carry guns at all times. I believe that this will help to solve most of the world problems including the ones Heidegger identifies and no one can convince me otherwise.
On 5/15/06, Louis Kontos <lkontos at mac.com> wrote:
> chris doss should probably take some medication for whatever
> condition makes him incapable of engaging others without calling them
> stupid. the desire to give the 'flat out D' to jerry monaco should be
> kept private, like impotence, not shared with others. having said
> that, i'd like to know what jerry means when he says (1) that what is
> of value in heidegger can be reduced to 'attitudes' (since i don't
> see it in h, and nothing jerry has said supports that statement), and
> (2) that when actually trying to make sense of a writer it is
> necessary to actually ask the simple question "Is what the writer
> says true in any way that I can accept?" (since anybody can find
> meaning and truth (at least truisms) almost anywhere).
> louis
>
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