[lit-ideas] Re: Beg to differ, say, about fractals

From: Donal McEvoy <donalmcevoyuk@xxxxxxxxxxx>
To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Date: Sun, 24 Oct 2010 22:43:29 +0100 (BST)

Before the metaphysics, may I pass comment on Walter's habit of breaking out in 
a rash of German?

For example: 
> Zum beispiel:  

Walter continues (even if I may, I've forgotten the comment):

>A creature who cannot but act under the
> presupposition of freedom
> of the will is in the same ontological position as a
> creature who is really, in
> its very an sichness, free. 

Now this is surely false. I can believe I am acting freely, that is "under the 
presupposition of freedom of the will", when I am acting under the compulsion 
of drugs or as a result of deterministic physical states. This shows the 
"ontological position" of being free is _not_ the "same" as believing oneself 
free. Our belief may be mistaken.

Walter continues:

>Or as Heidegger (him again)
> puts it: The being of
> Dasein does not exist independently of its understanding of
> (its) being. Here,
> there is no possibility of being "mistaken." Thus are we as
> we understand
> ourselves to be.

Leaving aside the use of the German words 'Heidegger' and 'Dasein' (see comment 
I forgot above), the "Or as...puts it" would seem to imply this point is 
equivalent to the previous. It seems to me that the first sentence possibly, if 
obscurely, expresses quite a different and more tenable point to the effect 
that there cannot be freedom without any possibility of the subject being 
aware, or conscious, of being free. This is not to claim such awareness need 
accompany every free act but that a person deprived of any possibility of being 
ever aware they are free cannot be truly free in the ethical sense, for ethical 
freedom requires some capacity for conscious self-reflection in the light of a 
"presupposition of freedom".

However, it would not follow that if this were the case "there is no 
possibility of being 'mistaken'" here. Why not? Back to the first point: we 
might think ourselves to be consciously self-reflecting in the light of a 
"presupposition of freedom" yet be acting under some kind of physical, chemical 
or psychological compulsion.

Nor would the somewhat facile conclusion, "Thus are we as we understand 
ourselves to be", follow from the Heidegger point as construed (by me, in a 
Kantian way) above.

Donal
SE England



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References:
- [lit-ideas] Re: Beg to differ, say, about fractals
  - From: Walter C. Okshevsky

[lit-ideas] Re: Beg to differ, say, about fractals

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