I wrote: "Human culture is aesthetic, philosophic and technological. We thing
the world every bit as much if not more than we think it or dream it. Life is a hoot."
Human culture is also radically contingent and deeply fearful and fiercely selfish and that makes life on earth increasingly tenuous. I worry for my grandkids. I hope they get to know the hoot of being human.
Mike Geary Memphis----- Original Message ----- From: "Mike Geary" <atlas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
To: <lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> Sent: Monday, September 21, 2009 11:32 PM Subject: [lit-ideas] Re: Geary on Instrumental Technological Rationality
Thank you, John. In fear of waking Palma, I dare say that Heidegger distinguished between zuhanden and vorhanden as the two forms of beings. Vorhanden being nature made, and simply put "there' for us as Oakland is not. Zuhanden being being of human artifact, or THING BEING, or that which we relate to not as "being there" but being puposeful to us. Most animals, except humans, seem to spend most of their lives relating to vorhanden being. Except domestic pets, of course, who in deference to us acknowledge such frivilous beinghoodness as zuhandenness and sometimes use a litterbox. Human life on the whole is zuhanden-engaged. Even such supposedly pure vorhanden relations as sexuality have become zuhanden for many of us -- not me, of course. Our human lives are so thoroughly immersed in zuhanden that we think of our thing-engaged lives as "natural". Anyone who's had more than one course in Heiddegger will no doubt straighten me out, but I don't care. Human culture is aesthetic, philosophic and technological. We thing the world every bit as much if not more than we think it or dream it. Life is a hoot.Mike Geary Memphis----- Original Message ----- From: "John Wager" <jwager@xxxxxxxxxx>To: <lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> Sent: Monday, September 21, 2009 10:37 PM Subject: [lit-ideas] Re: Geary on Instrumental Technological Rationalityjlsperanza@xxxxxxx wrote:This is important. I cannot conceive of a human being (not a thing, really) just thinging. Take an Air Conditioner Repair Man (or Person). Surely he needs permission (by a nonthing = person) to get in, and he´ll need the payment from the person (not thing).Both the Buddhists and the Kantians might say that we "thing." We create the appearance of a "thing" where none existed; without people there would be no "things" at all. The forms of apperception (or the law of dependent origination) require that we notice that the process of "thinging" be a human one, not one in the outside (noumenal) world.------------------------------------------------------------------ To change your Lit-Ideas settings (subscribe/unsub, vacation on/off, digest on/off), visit www.andreas.com/faq-lit-ideas.html------------------------------------------------------------------ To change your Lit-Ideas settings (subscribe/unsub, vacation on/off,digest on/off), visit www.andreas.com/faq-lit-ideas.html
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