Jerry Monaco
monacojerry at gmail.com:
But the difference between Marx and Heidegger is that it is possible to express in "everyday" terms Marx's notion as a relation between human species "potential" (both individually and collectively, what we are and what we can be, as fully realized human beings) and the social relations that might allow for such a "development." This is not possible for Heidegger.
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Of course it's not. Heidegger would say that what constitutes "development" is historically determined.
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Heidegger's notion of authenticity is not an historical predication, nor is it an empirical conclusion about possible human development based on the nature of the human species.
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Right. It is a descriptive term, not a normative one (although obviously H himself prefers authenticity to to inauthenticity).
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For instance, it does no real harm to Marx's thought to assume a Darwinian notion of hominid evolution or a Chomskian notion of language. Marx would have welcomed (and as much as he understood Darwin did welcome) such "scientific" developments, if he was convinced that they were interpreted correctly and had not been over-generalized for ideological purposes. ("Social Darwinism" would be an example of such an over-generalization.) "Human potential" to reach the "true realm of freedom" was an historical and practical matter for Marx.
The same cannot be said for Heidegger in this regard.
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Right. Heideggerian Daseinsanalytik is science-neutral. It is irrelevant whether humen beings are the process of evolution, created by God or the products of space aliens. He is doing immediate analysis of experience. Science has no effect on the content of experience, except insofar as particular knowledge or beliefs "color" it, so that e.g. when Steven Gould looked at a snail he experienced a far different object than Thorg the Snail-Worshippine Neandertal Priest would have.
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This is an adequate definition but it deemphasizes the main point that Heidegger is trying to make, which is, in the first place, about human existence as such.
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It means that Dasein can choose to either be or not be itself, which means to acknowledge its real possibilities or not.
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There is nothing one could say about human psychology, consciousness, neurology, behavior, historical development, or biological constitution, which would, one way or another, change what Heidegger said about "authenticity". This was not true of Sartre's ontology or of Marx's notion about human freedom.
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I would definetly disagree about Sartre's ontology, which is if anything more detached from empiricism than Heidegger's. He is far more detached from experience -- e.g. I do not experience the "other" as a kind of blank void, I experience him/her as a person. Sartre objectivizes everything.
--- Thus when Chris Doss gives us the psychological examples that Carrol points to I think he is avoiding the primary "question of being" that matters most to Heidegger.
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I wasn't asked about the primary question.
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In short "real world" examples mattered to Marx. They didn't to Heidegger
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Evidence for this claim? SuZ is full of real-world examples.
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Heidegger's idea about "authenticity" is about Dasein's relation to itself and to "being-in-the-world" -- keeping in mind Heidegger's unique definition of "world" as being something like the horizon created by Dasein.
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Not really "created by Dasein." The Dasein-world interaction is recipricol (dialectical, come to think of it). The world would not exist without Dasein, but it is not produced by dasein (any more than the Kantian subject "creates" the world it experiences, even though it is an active participant in its construction).
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This is why in one of my previous posts I noted the Romantic reach toward authenticity in poets such as Wordsworth. In Wordsworth's terms, authenticity was a relation of an artist to himself, the integrity of his art, and the strength to create himself as a kind of work of art, through his art.
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I agree.
--- There is no way for one person to judge another person's authenticity except possibly in the negative. If you will notice Chris Doss's "everyday" examples are all examples of "inauthenticity," not of authenticity.
--- Uh, they would be the opposite. ;) ---
This brings up following question: What positive value does the ontological notion of authenticity actually have?
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Outside of the confines of the Heideggerian analysis and personal introspection (and perhaps theology), not much. It's not supposed to.
--- But to ask the following questions "So lack of Erschlossenheit is--practically speaking--a term of opprobrium for people who interpret their life situation in ways that seem implausible and/or inappropriate to you? The ethnocentrism and presentism of this is just breathtaking to me: should we define an Azande tribesman as "inauthentic" because he makes confident predictions about the future based on chicken entrails?" does not do justice to Heidegger. It is possible that the Azande tribesman is "authentic" in relation to Dasein and to being-in-the-world even when he is using chicken entrails as predicates for the future.
--- Yes. I think Miles was thinking in terms of the beliefs of the tribesman not coinciding with "objective" reality (because chicken entrails really can't predict the future), therefore being false, and therefore being inauthentic. Heidegger however is not concerned with "objective" reality (which he doesn't think exists), he is concerned with the content of experience. If the tribesman believes that reading chicken entrails can predict the future, that is all that matters.
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In fact, I am quite sure that Heidegger would say that it was more likely for a person living in such a "pastoral society" to reach toward such an authentic relation than a person living in a "technological society."
-- I am quite sure that you are quite right. ---
For Heidegger what we call "knowledge" in our "world" is simply another example of the evil of "productionist metaphysics."
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Here's where you go off the deep end... You're confusing knowledge and technological thinking (in the Heideggerian sense).
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In the end I think it can be shown that Heidegger's concept of Authenticity is a circular and incoherent notion that is simply a feeling or attitude about the self, less coherent and profound than what one can intuit from reading my favorite Romantic poets.
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And Heidegger would not argue with you either...
(Note that the notion of authenticity is not one of the things I find centrally attractive in Heidegger. It's a Ravi thing.)
Nu, zayats, pogodi!
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