PHIL4205 - Heidegger and difference of world

The discussion today centered mostly around Agamben's "The Open" and its criticism of Heidegger's Fundemental Concepts of Metaphysics. Agamben emphasizes in his response to Heidegger, who supposedly is parting ways with Cartisian idealism, that he relies on the subject centered tradition that priveleges the objective capacity to observe things in their being "as such". Although Heidegger's intention is to distinguish man in his essential difference from animal or stone, one must conceed that there is, in posing the question, some assurance that a world or world formation is a possibility for man. However, Agamben cautions that this world perspective disregards man's biological being, which is distinct from the being-in-the-world that is formed existentially for Dasein. Rather than relying on the weight place on cognition, Agamben suggests that the condition that underline man's beingin-the-world can be formed by his substansive essential existence - what he refers to as "bare life". But even in light of this emphasis on the preconitive present in Agamben's work, the perspective of world cannot be divorced entirely because it comes out of man's being. It seems to be up to the reader to decide whether his treatment is truely balanced or if his argument relies on the same selective process designed to disable its idle operation of the antropmorphic machine. In otherwords, Agamben has a particular agenda and doesn't make light of his intention when he states that we could potential jam the machinery of homogenity of animal and man.

While Heidegger priveledges the "as such" observance of being as a distinguishable difference between man and animal, it seems difficult for us to avoid the possibility of man in the ontological fact of Dasein's awareness. Even if we were capable of returning to the point of a primordial origin, there would still be the problem of our own prejudice that cannot be disarmed. Moreover, the assurance of any self, as Hanna Arendt suggests, is only possible by our being in relation to others. Therefore it is a combintion of physical and cognitive being that limit our access to any bare being - what we are calling animal. In and through the act of language our seperation from animals is quite notable and distinct. And yet does this fact alone warrent the division that empowers one and not the other?

Agamben describes the meaning of human as being shaped in its contrast to animal. Throughout many cultures and traditions, there has been care taken to seperate man from the being of animals. This represents for Agamben an overarching project where the world has been informed by the anthroporic perspective that gives first the highest priority to Man. Agamben seems to suggest that while man has been a constructed concept, it has not altogether eliminated our bare life that is shared with the animal.

In Heidegger's text, he does not claim that the animal is without world, for it is there existing in relation to things and man. He supports his claim that animal is poor by its inability to comport itself to being(s) with the curious qualification of regarding them "as such". The animal is in a sense draw by its various drives, or what is refered to as the state of captivation, that represents both a possibility and the limit of the animal's experience of world. It does not regard the being or beingness of what it encounters it is only shows interest in as much as it satisfies or continues to captivate it. He goes on further to regard the occurance of captivation takes place when the animal is disinhibitted that changes, quite forcefully and suddenly, to change its comportment in the world. But yet it is still denied of the world or anything in it by the precondition of this capacity to regard a thing "as such".

In my initial reading of Heidegger, I was struck by the way in which this sets up a type of hierarchy in which the capacity of man is held in high esteem over those poorer capacities of the animal. I suppose, in my nievity, that I wanted him to find an essence that was common to both that was beyond categorization - a sense of a shared being-in-the-world. Now that I think of this expectation, did Heidegger really privelage the human over animal? Are his distinction of "poor in world" and "world forming" not demonstrate the reliance on the anthropomorphic perspective that biases human understanding of animal and man? What then is the alternative? Is there some sort of reconciliation possible within the divide that has been produced by an anthropological machine?

Professor Jowette, with good reason, is right to be suspicious of this emphasis on equalization between the status of man and animal that is neither the project of Heidegger or Agamben. In fact, Agamben earlier on in the open makes reference to this as the classical form of anthropomorphism, which denies the animal its own distinction by means of collapsing the animal and human together as has been a feature in Christian escotological myth - a reconcilation of animal and spiritual nature. The differences between animal and man, though imparted by a process of anthropomorism, nonetheless represent a noteable point of distinction. The fact that animal or man is even questionable, whether one claims this is only a product of language, can be taken into account as siginificant. But I would venture to ask whether there was not still the hint of the thing which is prereflective. A commonality that is so general a basis of life that categorization fails to capture it fully - in otherwords, what Agamben calls "bare life".

What then would follow this regard for bare life, how would the relation to human or animal life change? As Agamben mentions in his closing statement, the objective is to stop the machine or announce the "Shabbat" of both man and animal. This is not however an elimination of the differences or even the thing which produces these differences, rather in observing the operation of the machine we gather a sense of its processes and where it has been employed. Will this understanding of the categorization of man and animal fundementally change anything? Hardely. The level at which this anthropomorphic perspective that forms the world that man appears in overwelms our efforts and cannot be all together removed without disolving man as we know it. Is there an existence for man beyond this knowledge, I would have to argue that there is. In a way, what I take from Agamben is that he is not suggesting we could be on equal status with animals but rather it is to be conscious of the limitations of our knowledge of animals. In a way by recognize how outside knowledge is from what consistutes our basic relation to animals, our earlier presuppositions become accessible when their limitations are unconcealed. Because the animal cannot object to being assessed through human standards, we take responsility for the consequences of such a capacity that makes possible the tyranny of Man.

POLI 3306 - Heidegger on Subjectivism

In today's class, I got the impression that many of the students regarded Heidegger's treatment of art and thinking as a confirmation of subjectivity as individual autonomy. I find that this reading does not agree with Heidegger's body of work as there seems to be a very distinct historical argument being put forward that is in fact counter to the subjectivist thesis (as it was articulated in the Letter on Humanism). To regard a subjectivism as emerging from nothing, an essence that proceeds existence, is the impossibility of a precondition of nothing. What point would there be of the subjective if in its essence it were of nothing? Does it not resemble a metaphysical and even contradictory assertion? Even if we so charitably concede in favor of the “autonomous subjective” as possibility, there must be some origin to allow for such an exchange. The subjective is restricted to a place and time in the world. It is this limitation that therefore structures our experiences within history through the subjective. In otherwords, we cannot use the language to signify the thing, in the act of speaking, without confessing at the same time our relation to it.

Historically there have been a number of claims to what is to be considered truth through metaphysics, whether in the Platonic or Christian traditions. Though there was a significant inversion of metaphysics by existentialism in the mid 20th century both of these narratives share a fate as truth. Modern autonomy is rooted in the act of the will as truth and the failure of essentialism, but let us not forget that this perspective was itself conditioned by the particular historical tension it was formed in.

Heidegger invites us to focus in on what "withdraws" from our understanding, for in regarding what withdraws we are immediately placed not only within a historical perspective but we can begin the meticulous work of tracing what has been forgotten. This however does not remove us from history, it definitively situates us within as contributing to its formation. Subjectivism is itself only a byproduct of historical circumstance and not at all the impetus for which historical change emerges. There is something much nearer to our everyday experience that is indeed a point of origin, what Heidegger calls Being.

POLI3306: Heidegger and the Seperation Between Ontics and Ontology

In today's class we reviewed two heavily contrasted works, Sartre's Existentialism is a Humanism and Heidegger's Letter on Humanism. Often when these two texts are compared it is done to draw attention to the differences between metaphysics, in its most sympathetic articulation, and ontology. However, despite the best efforts of today's presenter, this point was not brought to the surface. As I stood by, resisting the temptation to interject, I allowed this misrepresentation of Heidegger to gloss over my own foggy impressions.

The error that seemed to reemerge, like an exposed sore, centers around the objectification of the term Being. This is not an uncommon error due to a peculiar choice made by the original English translators to include the capitalized "Being" to make reference to the ontological structure of existence and the term "being" to represent worldly ontic existence. With the words spelling and context so similar, Being is often equated with being although the two are dramatically different. As a result, readers tend to regard Being through objective language as a thing or state of being, although these qualities are not something denied of being(s) in themselves. Moreover, there may even be confusion of Being as the divine but this is also a misunderstanding of Heidegger's intention to focus on the everydayness of existence in the world. So then what is Being? How does Being impart itself on being(s)?

This is indeed the very question that we are urged to re-encounter by Heidegger, for it is not only a concern for the conditions of subject/object relations in the world but even refers to what is necessary for the act of questioning to occur. We do not only come to Being through rationality, but interestingly it is in our standing already in Being that we can begin to observe it. If we are to understand the way each being, as a thing in itself, standing in Being, then each being must exhibit whether through actions or words something about this essence. Heidegger adopts the strategy of description as a means of accessing this essential knowledge that the subject may have forgot or do not acknowledge themselves. Description as a form of analysis avoids the error of falsely attributing ideals and regards the way each thing displays an inherent knowledge of its own essence. Being is for Heidegger a necessary assumption of any possible ontology.

To illustrate this perspective, Heidegger makes reference to language as "the house of Being" that presents an image of our existence in based within Being. We do not need to seek Being as some sort of mystical or primordial origin, it is the condition of existence as a whole. His image of language as a house is particularly evocative in the way that it shows a connection to the past manifestations of Being that are the results of its previous guardians and creators. Man "dwells" within this home of language, and through thought man's relation to Being is made manifest in language. However, thinking is not some action because of an effect or is applied. "Thinking acts insofar as it thinks" and is given from the unfolding of Being (p.217). This is where Heidegger's criticism of humanism lies, for in giving thinking over to the technical interpretation, that stretches back to the Greeks and their emphasis on praxis and poesis, it strips thinking of its observance of the truth of Being. According to Heidegger, our views of thinking have even been reduced to the level where non-purposive thought, or theoria, has a determined the function and place in the discipline of philosophy.

The question that remains is how do we give way to a presuppositionless philosophy when our understanding of its purpose has been the result of invasive interpretation of thinking? The presenter concluded with a similar question by asking whether such a regard for Being was possible and if so what would it represent? Heidegger does not speak much about what it is and I believe this is an intentional device. For if we are to preclude what Being is, then everything that would follow would be conditional. This is precisely the criticism put forward in Letter on Humanism concerning the role of metaphysics and its tyranny of Being. When man is placed in terms of a defined essence, then he is made to be an object fixed in the world. The way Marxism regards man as social, or how Christianity regards man as part divine, both of these preclude man to a projected fate - one that is irreversible and confined a metaphysical interpretation. How are we to question metaphysics if it is the very point of departure for our inquiry? Admittedly, although there may be changes throughout history as to what is or not considered an essence of man, these changes are not anything substantially different from the overall metaphysical structure. We come to the conclusion, along with Heidegger, that existentialism as a humanism that has inverted its essence still retains a metaphysical character in its binary structure. What is needed is a regard for Being, as the foreknowledge of essence, known in the unfolding through being(s) - Dasein.