How can a whole be MERELY that which divides into parts? Are we not somehow obliged to account for this prior unity as such? And if, at bottom, propositions are (or even merely signify ---feel free to clarify which--) "what is the case, that is, parts of the world", then what are we to call that "language" which refers to the world and which would otherwise SEEM identical in form to the proposition? Or in other words, how are we to define a proposition if the assertion "The world is not something 'about which' propositions are formed" is not a proposition. And finally, what accounts for its SEMBLANCE as a proposition?
Pseudonoma's confinement of our discussion of Wittgenstein is pretty generous: the point to which he would limit us is the same point to which the Tractatus itself and (by the addition of a sign of negation) Wittgenstein's whole career were confined. In addressing Pseudonoma's questions, I will give myself free range over Wittgenstein's writings which do nothing but clarify and develop the statement that "The world is all that is the case."
I beg you to have patience with this statement, the clear truth of which lies in its eventual renunciation (and now I begin to wonder why Pseudonoma takes it to be 'obvious' that the dialectic of Plato is to be preferred here to that of Hegel). And I do wish this "eventual" to be taken seriously as belonging to the renunciation. The Tractatus tries to renounce the statement ahead of time and this is its most serious error.
"I beg you to have patience with this statement, the clear truth of which lies in its eventual renunciation (and now I begin to wonder why Pseudonoma takes it to be 'obvious' that the dialectic of Plato is to be preferred here to that of Hegel). And I do wish this "eventual" to be taken seriously as belonging to the renunciation. The Tractatus tries to renounce the statement ahead of time and this is its most serious error."
ReplyDeleteI would say 2 things in response to this as I eagerly await your full exposition.
1.)Such a post-Hegelian concept of renunciation which *returns* to Platonic dialectic, along with that concept's relation to the obvious, should not sound strange coming from my neck of the woods; after all, this notion of renunciation is what was meant in the title "towards a *renunciation* of the principle of non-contradiction as an historical principle" (the 'explanatory' side of the 'colon-thesis title' of my undergrad thesis). On the other hand, I never intended to suggest that the matter is one of mere "preference"; the matter is instead one of what "the obvious" truly is --a matter which I had sought in that thesis to investigate through a renunciation of the "most obvious of all principles", i.e. the principle of non-contradiction.
2.) When you speak of taking seriously the "eventual", and of the confinement of Wittgenstein's whole career to the thought of the whole, and of the need, expressed in the beginning of this thought, to renounce the beginning ahead of time, I cannot help but be returned to Heidegger's sache des denkens, and to what was discussed in the "Ereignis" post at Seynsgeschichte:
"..it is the radical confinement of thinking to what it already has to think; the proper matter always comes too late to thinking, refusing thinking the luxury of "forging ahead", compelling it to retract itself from the outset, *taking back* its very beginning. Therefore, it must be vigilantly recalled that the preliminary nature of thinking is a consequence of its dilatory arrival. The thoughtful word hesitates. Otherwise, what there is for thinking to first of all think would be missed entirely."
My question, preliminary to your exposition of Wittgensteinian totality, is this: how do you propose to distinguish a Wittgensteinian confinement from a Heideggerian confinement? Or do you propose they are the same? I am disinclined to read the tractatus in the latter manner, for certain fundamental reasons. Or perhaps you have in mind something that would indicate Wittgenstein's "equivalent" to Heidegger's "auf ein stern zu gehen"? I mean, is there anything that would distinguish this "most serious error" from Heidegger's understanding of errrancy?
Anyhow, I look forward to your exposition IN TOTO of wittgenstein's totality, as I am sure it will hit upon the uniqueness of his thought that I currently am at a loss to anticipate!
Your questions of the penultimate paragraph presuppose that I already have clear and distinct ideas of Wittgensteinian and Heideggerian confinements. On the contrary I hoped that the ensuing discussion would be an occasion for further clarification of both. I especially do not at present have any clear sense of Heidegger's understanding of errancy, but the vague sense which I do have leads me to make comparisons.
ReplyDeleteThat is a fair assessment, and I do not mean at all to act as though I opposed the motion you once again make to let the ensuing discussion decide for itself (I am very fond of such dialectical devotions)...I just thought that speaking of Wittgenstein in nearly the same terms as we have previously spoken of Heidegger seemed, without --at very least --the justification of a close reading of Wittgenstein on precisely these matters, a little hasty...Let us not forget/neglect Heidegger's famous saying from Aus der Erfahrung des Denkens: "To think is to confine oneself to a single thought that one day stands still like a star in the world's sky"...and again, famously: "Every thinker thinks only one thought"
ReplyDelete(But, on the other hand, to hold myself to my own principle, surely even these sayings-that-teeter-on-the-brink-of-aphorism are in need of much elucidation and are widely misinterpreted)
why Pseudonoma takes it to be 'obvious' that the dialectic of Plato is to be preferred here to that of Hegel
ReplyDeleteI can't speak for Herr Pseud. but the efficiency and order of the platonic schema probably appeals to some--a platonist treats of a few timeless Forms, related to geometry, logic, Justice, Beauty, the State, etc. The Hegelian system, on the other hand, complicates matters greatly by bringing in humans, and therefore politics, dialectical history, economics, warfare, corruption, so forth.
J, I can't fathom what you mean by "efficiency and order" in Plato. Never mind the alleged omission of the human.
ReplyDeletePseudonoma, I take it that the aphorism you quote, "Every thinker thinks only one thought," authorizes in advance any attempt to follow the destiny of any thinker, if there is any warrant to take him as a thinker. I have not found it to fail in any other case. I don't see why it should be suspicious to suggest from the outset that Wittgenstein's famous renunciation of the thought called "logical atomism" should be regarded as a furthering of his original thinking.
here's a hint: platonism offered an orderly metaphysics grounded in Reason and geometry. The politics (ie the Republic) affirms that rational order (to some it may seem "too rational", if not a type of totalitarianism)
ReplyDeleteAristotle--or the Aristotelian school, really-- seems a bit more...human, and empirical (for better or worse), organic in a sense--Hegel was also in that tradition (tho' with differences)--and not lacking the stoical elements (as you pointed out via the Nico.Ethics).
The natural world exists for Ari., though read via the older causality--form, substance, etc (efficient cause really not so far from mechanistic conceptions). Platonists generally don't want to dirty their hands with nature (or politics, or history, etc), preferring the grand abstractions and contemplation of the Forms.
So the battle of rationalists vs empiricists might be said (paraphrasing Whitehead) to concern the footnotes to Plato AND Aristotle--and while Hegelian dialectic has idealist elements (GWFH had read his Republic--and his Kant, tho' GWFH does not love Kant as much as some think), the Hegelian, like Aristotle, never doubts the world, ie matter exists, dynamically. World history exists--including politics, warfare, and the rise and fall of...empires.
I say to that question, Amos, that its interpretation of the "aphorism" does not duely consider Heidegger's equally important claim that the thinking of today is schicklos.
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ReplyDeleteSchicklos--in normal german, like style-free? inelegant? In Heideggerian not sure, but Im one who thinks that Heidegger's...psychological project does damage (even great damage) to even his forefathers Kant and Hegel, certainly Hegel the historical-minded filosophe ...
ReplyDeletebut Pseudo's probably correct Wittgenstein does not really engage the metaphysical tradition, and ... "Die Welt ist alles was der Fall ist" sounds...faintly positivist (tho' Witt. of the TLP does at times seem rather Fregean, affirms the holy a priori, etc...whether by hook or crook he's still with Tradition in the TLP)
(Spengler, AJ. Yr guide to applied philosophy)
Schick-los, from schicken (to send), which Heidegger finds already residing in the word geschichte, and which is, along with schicksal, a word for "destiny" and "fate"
ReplyDeleteSchicklos is thus translated as "without destiny"
But, J, you never cease to amaze me...what "psychological" project could you possibly be referring to in connection with Heidegger?
And to add to the last question...surely you don't mean to suggest that Hegel is historically minded while Heidegger is not?? I mean, the famous Destruktion, and well beyond that, Seynsegeschichte itself, to say nothing of Being an *TIME* or *TIME* and Being....surely even the most cursory glance over the titles of the Gesamtausgabe would reveal an unflagging effort made by Heidegger to think what time and history are...And not as a "side question" but as THE question
ReplyDeleteschicken is the verb translated as "to send", true, but Schick is...style, mein Herr. My german wortbuch--fairly thorough-- does not have schicklos, but schicksal, as in destiny (and related terms).
ReplyDeleteHeidegger may be in the tradition of Hegel, and temporality is one of his concerns (as is Being, of course), but he also follows from Kierkegaard (and that talented ..psychologist Husserl). I have read some of Sein und Zeit (and Basic Writings), and again, I don't think he's a historically-minded thinker, as much as an existenz-oriented thinker--Heidegger's not discussing the State (or World History),; he's concerned with...Dasein, with being-towards-death, which...(to be brief, and probably too brief) seems primarily related to the individual, and to...theology. Or Heidegger's caught between the two--yet sides more with Parmenides than with Heraclitus (Hegel's spiritual mentor).
If you want Heidegger on the State you simply have to look beyond SZ...to Einfuhrung In die Metaphysik--the (in)famous 1935 lecture --but see all of Heidegger's interpretations of Antigone as well as his "Elucidations of Holderlin" as they regard the notions of Heimkunt and Heimat. In fact quite a bit of literature has been generated on Heidegger's "geo-politics" (See especially the excellent Theodore Kisiel's contribution to the "Companion to Heidegger's Introduction to Metaphysics" on this matter as well as Iain Thomson's indispensable "Heidegger on Ontotheology: Technology and the Politics of Education")...
ReplyDeleteAs far as schicklos goes, allow me to be a little more clear...as something whick lacks facility and style...or perhaps even better, as you put it well, is "inelegant" Heidegger certainly intends the word schicklos...since, for Heidegger, today's thinking is distinguished by the fact that it is not great enough to bring the sache des denkens into clear and defined form. However, in using schicklos, Heidegger's is also saying that this inelegance of thought is not accidental or external, but is due to the manner in which there is no longer granted to thinking that which, in the history of philosophy, has been thought. Thinking in the present time is thus SCHICKLOS in the manner in which the schichken of seynsgeschichte is refused to it --and this in a unique and unprecedented way. For this reason, in Heidegger, schicklos is translated as "without a destiny," but the german reader has the benefit of not losing the intital meaning which is intended in conjunction with this, namely, what is clumsy and inelegant
Typo correction: Heimkunft, not Heimkunt (entirely unintentional)
ReplyDeleteAs regards your reference to Husserl's psychology, to which I would add Brentano's Descriptive Psychology...I would caution you from hastily dragging the psychological predjudices of Husserl (if even these can be justifiably recognized in Husserl, which I might be willing to concede) into Phenomenology as it is expounded in SZ (section 7). It seems to me that many people, hungry to trace the influences allegedly constituting the genealogy of Sein und Zeit, are all too quick to blur the very sharp and original way in which Heidegger's phenomenology departs from all things Husserlian, and certainly all things psychological (if you want superficial and easily reference-able proof on this matter, I think Husserl's own reading of and reaction to SZ, as a betrayal and a radical departure is good historiographical testimony)...unless that is we want to decontextualize and grossly misinterpret the Dasein Analytik as Heidegger painstakingly situated it in and after Sein und Zeit. But that point we are no longer talking about Heidegger, we are merely using our own misreading as a spin off into thinking about something else, call it psychology or whatever (much like Sartre famously did)
ReplyDeleteYes, but...the discussions of Angst, authenticity, "thrownness", Dasein itself lend themselves to psychological interpretations do they not?....that is, unless one prefers the theological or mystical interpretation.
ReplyDeleteYou are obviously more adept with the Heideggerian schema (and jargon) than am I, P.-- yet is it completely mistaken to read the project of "Destruktion" as ... hinting at a certain anti-rationalism (Nietzsche another influence)? And Hegel was a target (or at least something to be overcome) as were other philosophers.
For that matter, the analytical school were reacting to German idealism (mainly Hegel--tho' Frege also has words for Kant). Heidegger provided more fuel for the fire--
while some might agree with you in regard to negative and reductionist aspects of positivism and anal.-phil.--schicklos, or Techne, really--we are not thereby obligated to get on board the Heidegger Zug; there were other ways to salvage certain elements of german idealism and Hegel--the pragmatists, for example, had some understanding of Hegelian process, as did Whitehead. In a more extreme, politicized form, german idealism morphed into...marxism (Adorno, I believe, did not see eye to eye with the Heideggerian schema).
As usual, your questions are worth responding to, J...I hope Amos doesn't mind our populating his comment space with something of a tangent...I am gonna try to keep things short...
ReplyDelete"Yes, but...the discussions of Angst, authenticity, "thrownness", Dasein itself lend themselves to psychological interpretations do they not?....that is, unless one prefers the theological or mystical interpretation."
The short answer to this is: Definitely not. Heidegger spends quite a bit of time even before he first introduces the initial concept of weltlichkeit in Chapter III of SZ, demonstrating the ways in which anthropology, epistemology, and psychology are all fundamentally different from the approach to human existenz that fundamental ontology takes ---and takes merely for the preparation of the possibility of raising die frage nach dem sinn von sein UBERHAUPT (i.e. NOT the question even of human existence but of Being itself, whose unified meaning must not only make possible Dasein's seinsverstandnis but also the Being of all other beings (that are NOT Dasein). But I don't mean to rattle off terminology, and so to get to the point: Phenomena that have been treated by psychology, such as Angst or even so-called "authenticity" are treated in the opposite direction, and are understood as preliminary parts of a completely different field of investigation. Heidegger took things that would otherwise be calimed by psychology and said that not only were they not the sole possession of such "sciences of man" but that they were not even PRIMARILY proper to such sciences. (Among the many reasons for this one is the claim that "Dasein ist nie vorhanden" --a claim I spent some time reflecting on over at Seynsgeschichte back in the posts on "Heideggerian Hyperbole").This non-psychological approach is perhaps never clearer than with eigentlichkeit, which, contra any psychological approach, is referred to in Being and Time as a possibility in which human existence can catch sight of and gradually make explicit the seinsverstandnis which conditions it through and through, and which lies at the basis as an unthought presupposition of all scientific endeavors (INCLUDING PSYCHOLOGY). But the same goes for Angst, or in general Heidegger's reinterpretation of what we usually call "moods"; SZ seeks to show how such things are actually manifestations of of the finitude of Dasein's facticity...I could go on, but you probably get the point...
Heidegger may follow Hegelian tradition to some extent (Dasein as Being, opposed to ...not-being, like .nature, more or less, or at least not-human..or was that facticity), yet the existenz material does not seem particularly Hegelian, but ..mystical. I hesitate to call it theological, but it's not...apparent.
ReplyDeleteHeidegger offers a grand conceptual schema--as did Hegel (and Kant for that matter). Yet Hegel, for all of his abstractions, still upholds a certain...realism--"Existents must appear". He's not exactly a materialist, but not Kantian-transcendent either; Hegel at times approaches something like Spinozaistic conceptions, immanence in the usual college-BS session jargon, or is it pantheism of a sort. Heidegger's schema does not seem immanent but...obscure, gnostic in a sense, contemplative-- thrownness for example, or "concern", angst, death. If not psychological, then mystical--and according to the analytical people, mostly incapable of verification (then granted, so is much of Hegel's system). I don't entirely agree, but I do think Hei.'s system presents problems in terms of proof in any ordinary sense. I doubt Hegel, as much the historian and political thinker as he was metaphysician, would have approved.
Carry on, gentlemen, although I don't know whether I get the drift of your conversation, but I have a few questions that may or may not help. If psychology, mysticism, and theology can be treated as a raft of "anti-rationalistic" attitudes, what would you call an attitude that turns reason's attention to the basis of the rationalistic attitude? What is at stake in the question of whether Hegel would approve of Heidegger? How can a "non-psychological" approach fail to be determined by psychology?
ReplyDeleteAnd if I may return for a moment to the original thread, I wonder how broad should be the application of Heidegger's judgment of the thinking of today. Does that include Heidegger? If not, why does it have to include Wittgenstein? I think I can understand why it might be said of Bertrand Russell, who so little thought of his logical work as a destiny that he became increasingly inclined to "leave it to Wittgenstein." The whole concept of philosophy as a science of accrual or a collegial enterprise which could be delegated in this way is foreign, however, to Wittgenstein's thinking.
Two very brief answers, "A.J.":
ReplyDelete1.) The term non-psychological as I employed in the cited post was not applied strictly, but only insofar as J had already thrown psychology on the table as a starting point of our discussion. Strictly speaking, fundamental ontology depends on the prior establishment of psychology even less then it depends on the metaphysics from which all psychology derives. On the other hand, insofar as something like fundamental ontology is only possible at such a time where what has been thought metaphysically is no longer thinkable --a circumstance which indicates that a thinking of what is before metaphysics is also a thinking after metaphysics -- to this extent it is possible to speak of psychology preceding fundamental ontology (but surely this far more subtle point would only have complicated what needed to be said clearly at the time: that fundamental ontology is in no wise identifiable with psychology, and that human existence has no need to forfeit its truth to the research of the latter discipline.
2.) Secondly I want to answer this question:
"I wonder how broad should be the application of Heidegger's judgment of the thinking of today. Does that include Heidegger?"
Answer: Yes. And, indeed, if this inclusion is missed so is the entire point of Heidegger's "judgment". The question that then returns back to my raising the issue of Heidegger's claim about the schicklos thinking of the present time must accordingly be: How does your attempt to apply the interpretation that "Every thinker thinks only one thought," authorizes in advance any attempt to follow the destiny of any thinker, if there is any warrant to take him as a thinker" to Wittgenstein, if indeed Wittgenstein is a schicklos denker. If on the other hand, he is not, then it becomes necessary to admit that he does not think in accord with Heidegger's denken.
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ReplyDelete--Psychologists tend to address mental processes such as "angst", and philosophers, even of the idealist sort haven't--Frege, for one, objected to Husserl's phenomenology as a type of psychologizing. There are differences between Huss.and Heidegger, yet--certainly Heidegger's existenz study rates closer to Huss. than to Fregean analysis, and the abstract objects of logic and mathematics (and Frege still carrying on platonic tradition, arguably--).
ReplyDelete--Witt. of the TLP is not doing metaphysics or phenomenology either: he follows Fregean logicism (and Russ.), with some important differences--Witt. also shows positivist inclinations in TLP, tho', ignored by many academics who prefer theological-mystical readings...recall his points that nothing can be said about ethics, induction, aesthetics, etc--Hume was an influence as well.
--Pseudo. knows his Kant up and down, and he probably recalls Kant's admonitions against introspection. The Categories are not introspection; Kant's insistence that the understanding and concepts depend on phenomena, knowledge via experience--not introspection (really a type of rational-empiricism, but many tend to "mysticize" Kant as well).
--Hei. does not seem so similar to the historical-or dialectical-oriented study of Hegelians (I'm not saying "Hegelianism is better" really--just a comparison...). There is a concern with Being , and hegelian jargon---...that poses rather complex issues, but Hei's concern with temporality seems quite different than World History and the development of the Idea... Im not a Hegelian, btw, but find some "process-thinking" slightly interesting.
--while I don't claim to have mastered SZ, the Dasein-contemplation (thrownness, "care," being-towards-death, facticity etc) does seem to affirm introspection, and...psychology--it's primarily subjective, and also with Kierkegaardian aspects (which is to say, those who object to psychological readings of existentialism generally affirm the theological).
So, alas, I would agree that analytical criticisms of Hei.and existentialism were warranted, in most cases--as with Carnap's points that Hei. misused negation as a type of Being itself, or shall we say hypostasis-- also relevant to Hegel (and let's not forget that many orthodox marxists and hegelians, however freaky they might seem, did NOT always agree to Heidegger either--Le Grand Hotel Abyss...)
reality..in a nutshell
@ J: I want to respond to your whole comment, but by way of anticipation let me say simply this. Regarding your remark that "psychologists tend to address mental processes" I can hardly argue. My only response to such a statement is that it completely ignores the reasons I gave previously for the absoloutely non-psychological character of the fundamental ontology of SZ. Let me put it extremely succinctly:
ReplyDeleteAngst is NOT in the first place a "mental process", or an "emotion" or an "inner experience".
ALL of these are denied in the exposition of Angst in SZ. Heidegger took things that would commonly and without a second thought be called "psychological" and he attempted to show that this was not their primary significance ---and indeed that, only after we had passed over the more primordial meaning of this phenomena could one ever come across such things as "psychological".
Yes, I slightly recall Herr Doktor Heidegger's harsh condemnation of the Sartreans (not that I am defending them either), his loud insistence that he was not a humanist, that Being was not psychological, and so on. OK. Then it would seem to be transcendental--at any rate's it's a claim about Mind, yet we cannot directly perceive what Angst (even granting it exists) reveals (which Hei. suggests--angst, dread, fear of death, etc. supposedly reveal-- the "aletheia" bit--..something).
ReplyDeleteI'm not necessarily siding with nominalists of the Quinean variety (who more or less dismissed any notion of ideas, or Res Cogito for lack of a better term), but some of us were taught that like a philosopher should prove that such and such exists, or holds, or is the case.
However basic, or vull-gar it sounds, existentialists don't really ...prove things. They tend to work with the Hegelian schema or perhaps Descartes). Their points may be plausible, as Descartes's were. But they are not necessarily true--ie mathematical or logically speaking--and that was the analytical move--
@ Pseudonoma: How would you compare Heidegger's not-mental-process understanding with Wittgenstein's rejection of the picture of a mental process in the Philosophical Investigations? E.g., his investigation of "knowing how to go on," of which he says, "Just for once, don't think of understanding as a 'mental process' at all! - For that is the way of talking which confuses you. Instead, ask yourself: in what sort of case, in what kind of circumstances, do we say "Now I know how to go on"? I mean, if the formula has occurred to me. - In the sense in which there are processes (including mental processes) which are characteristic of understanding, understanding is not a mental process. (A pain's increasing or decreasing, listening to a tune or a sentence - mental processes.)
ReplyDelete@J: Thinking only what is necessarily true... In this criterion analysis shows its Hegelian heritage.
More Kantian really...the division between necessary and contingent, aka analytic a priori and synthetic a posteriori statements, tho Kant also allowed synthetic a priori (analytical types--even St Ludvig were aware of the issue). Or relations of ideas/matters of fact in HumeSpeak
ReplyDeleteThat said, I am not rejecting Heidegger out of hand-- heideggerians, like Hegelians claim their ontology is First Philosophy, before logic, or science, or even metaphysics really. Being/not-being, or Being-for-itself/in-itself forms their "Grundrisse". It's rather difficult to argue against--though even Pseudo. would probably agree Kant's KrV is not really ontology in that Hegelian sense. But they generally posit their system, don't really ...justify it, at least axiomatically...
I am fairly convinced no First Philosophy--Hegelian, Kantian-rationalist, or empiricist (say Hume's "no ideas with antecedent impressions"--), or otherwise-- can be established, "beyond a reasonable doubt." At the same time, I would say the burden of proof remains with any who posit a priori starting points (even "Being"). However diabolical or reductionist Humean empiricism may seem to some in college-town, DH doesn't sell a bogus bill of goods, philosophically speaking....
I'm finished here, AJ--you and Pseu. have brought up some interesting points.
ReplyDeleteReally, I find most german idealism closer to dogma--or mysticism--tho will play a long for a while (tho' still consider Kant a bit closer to empiricism than ...rationalism/mysticism). and TLP....well, about half of it works, though as you say, Guru Witt. finally tells us we should recognize it as nonsense...maybe he should have included that in the preface....
aufwiedersehen.
@ the one they call A.J.:
ReplyDeleteI am afraid that I alone will definitely not be able to answer your question; at best I can only lead it along certain lines in which it will have to come once again under your custody as well. I simply know nothing of Wittgenstein well enough to be anything but at the mercy of the context you yourself provide in this question. On the other hand, I think it somewhat fitting that Wittgenstein should be discussed with reference to SZ since, when I (about 7 years ago) read Wittgenstein's Über Gewissheit, I was under the distinct impression that the late Wittgenstein was on the trail of the early Heidegger...but alas, that was a long time ago, and I do not know what I would think now.
Perhaps I can however, indicate a certain criterion upheld by SZ regarding the departure from all ontic sciences of man (anthropology, psychology, etc.)--a criterion the satisfaction of which it is questionable whether Wittgenstein's thought did or could ever aspire to. This alone, however, is not intended as some simple-minded condemnation of Wittgenstein's thought.
Regarding "mental processes", then, Heidegger's SZ is, despite groundless charges of mysticism, quite thorough, and indeed,in a certain sense systematic. Everything, indeed, depends upon our fore-conception of the phenomenon in question; we can certainly greet stimmungen as instances of "psychological moods" or "inner experiences" but the question is: what fore-conception enables this greeting? Certainly not one that just fell from the sky but one that was ESTABLISHED with the very foundations of the science of psychology. So the real question about "mental processes", because it is dependent upon that forum in which the identification of something *AS* mental process is made possible, is reducible to the question of how sciences get founded. More specifically, a science is only capable of being founded if a certain domain is granted to it in advance as that which it must subsequently discover. For example, in the broadest sense, biology, before it even begins, must be granted the possibility of treating anything whatsoever precisely with an eye toward whether it is living or non-living. At a certain point, it may even try to procure a certain"working" definition of life to offer in Chapter one of the biology student's textbook, but it has only come up with this definition by examining living and non-living things. It is clear, then, that biology is made possible by a fore-conception of life that is presupposed in its most basic concepts and that therefore unifies the foundation of that science. (will continue in next post)
If, in the fore-conception in terms of which a science establishes its basic concepts, the inherent unity of its task and the extent and limit of its objective domain is established, then accompanying this establishment a discernible rank and priority necessarily presents itself in the fore-conceptual interrelations that already obtain between the fundamental concepts of entirely distinct sciences: one science must inherently presuppose another if in the objective domain of that other science can be included the fore-conception which makes possible the fore-conception of the first. (I will relate this all back to the question about mental processes in Wittgenstein in the next and last comment)
ReplyDeleteCorrection: "that other science can be included the fore-conception which makes possible the fore-conception of the first."
ReplyDeletethis should read:
that other science can be included the fore-conception which makes possible the fundamental concepts of the first.
This rank and priority among the sciences, based solely on the manner of each field's fore-conceptual founding, necessarily leads to the possibility of a science the fundamental concepts of which alone constitute that same science's pre-given objective domain of investigation. Heidegger in SZ calls this necessity "der ontlogische vorrang des seinsfrage". Vor-rang is here given according to the inherent capacity of an inquiry to pursue its own Vor-begriff, fore-conception. Such a science whose most proper object is also its origin, and whose proper conceptuality must not only be rooted in but must also thematize its fore-conceptual basis Heidegger calls (for obvious reasons) FUNDAMENTAL ontology. This science relates to its objective domain for one reason and one reason alone: to make explicit the fore-conception in terms of which that objective domain gets founded.
ReplyDeleteNow, in fundamental ontology this aforementioned objective domain is constituted by that being (seiende)which serves as the condition for the possibility of the explicit establishment of any fundamental concepts whatsoever. Ontically speaking, such a being is called man (mensch). Both psychology and fundamental ontology look to man as to the being which occupies their respective objective domains, but they take this object in entirely different ways. In what does this difference consist? The object of psychology, man, is found within an objective domain constituted by an already established fundamental concepts of the psychic, consciousness (and perhaps the unconscious, etc), but these are dependent upon a fore-conception of human existence which is determined based on an understanding of "an underlying", i.e.the subjectum of subjectivity in terms of which e.g. the ego, id, and super-ego would ne found. Such a fore-conception predetermines man as a "bearer of mental processes" which processes can in tun be investigated in their own right. And here we see the main difference: for while man as psychic is taken as an object according to fundamental concepts that have already been established in keeping with certain fore-conceptions, man as Dasein is taken as an object precisely to the extent that it is capable of being taken as a pre-conceptual condition for the possibility of all fundamental concepts, i.e. insofar as the man is that being in terms of which the fore-conception of Being itself may be made conceptual. Angst, eigentlichkeit, sein-zum-tode, langeweile, grundstimmungen etc are all inquired into strictly in terms of the way they illuminate the foreconception of that very inquiry ---a foreconception which is ultimately Sein itself. It is for this reason that man is called, in fundamental ontology, Da-sein.
So the question is: according to what necessity does Wittgenstein suggest that we not think of "understanding according to mental processes." Is this a fundamental necessity? In the domain of what investigation is such a methodological imperative to be honored? If not as mental processes than as what? I do not see Wittgenstein's suggestion guided by the conceptual necessity which serves as Heidegger's criterion...
You're probably right about the difference in conceptual necessity. I don't know if it's possible to chalk anything in the PI up to any conceptual necessity at all. Or at least it would depend on taking the term "concept" fairly liberally.
ReplyDeleteLuckily, Wittgenstein is not wholly silent about the necessity under which he renounces the picture of mental processes: it is a matter of "show[ing] the fly the way out of the fly-bottle." This quotation is of course much applied without reference to its context, which is nothing other than a description of the investigation in which the picture of mental processes (and with it the necessity of dispelling this picture) arises:
"How does the philosophical problem about mental processes and states and about behaviourism arise? -- The first step is the one that altogether escapes notice. We talk of processes and states, and leave their nature undecided. Sometime perhaps we'll know more about them -- we think. But that's just what commits us to a particular way of looking at the matter. For we have a certain conception of what it means to learn to know a process better. (The decisive moment in the conjuring trick has been made, and it was the very one that seemed to us quite innocent.) -- And now the analogy which was to make us understand our thoughts falls to pieces. So we have to deny the yet uncomprehended process in the yet unexplored medium. And now it looks as if we had denied mental processes. And naturally we don't want to deny them."
[(rather to "set our face against the picture.")]
The fly-bottle: the restriction we place on the domain within which it expects to find the nature of understanding. Our entrapment in this fly-bottle Wittgenstein attributes to a breakdown of analogy. He leaves it to us to draw the further conclusion, that the context within which the problem of mental processes and states arises is the investigation into how it is possible to say what we cannot assert or deny. Analogy fails as a solution to this problem if it leads us to transfer expectations from one domain into another.
Let me know if I'm on the wrong track here in answering your question. I am afraid that my comprehension of it does not equal the care you have taken in articulating it.
the first sentence of the penultimate paragraph should read: "The fly-bottle: the restriction we place on the domain within which we expect to find the nature of understanding."
ReplyDeleteIt seems to me your answer is entirely appropriate to the matter under discussion and, for me, certainly educational. In fact, I think that the adequacy of your answer might go a long way towards sketching the inadequacy of Wittgenstein's ---for to me, the real crux of the matter lies in the question as to whether conceptual necessity is necessary or not. What it takes to resolve this question and discover its proper answer is easily underestimated, for it entails not only a sufficient consideration of the necessity of conceptuality, but even beforehand it requires that we seize upon the proper concept of necessity. Or does it? Indeed, and perhaps predictably, the very approach to the dilemma is the dilemma. And it seems to me that question of the necessity of conceptual necessity casts its shadow especially over the "legend" to the PI's language you provide in your penultimate paragraph:
ReplyDelete"The fly-bottle: the restriction we place on the domain within which we expect to find the nature of understanding"
After all, when you digest the PI's picture of the fly bottle and push it through an expanatory colon, aren't you translating Wittgenstein's colorful picture into the monotone of conceptuality? Why do such a thing at all unless it is at some point completely necessary?
Now before these considerations, I think it would also be important to be clear and fully explicit about what Wittgenstein means by a "breakdown of analogy" How does this notion of analogy compare to, say, a scholastic Aristotelian grasp of analogy? Is this "breakdown" a rigorous conception? Can it be given a clear account? What causes it?
These and things like them are the questions I have...but I do thank you for the very interesting introduction to the PI and I look forward to learning more...