[lit-ideas] Re: Heidegger Is Bored
- From: Omar Kusturica <omarkusto@xxxxxxxxx>
- To: "lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx" <lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Sun, 6 Apr 2014 12:09:58 -0700 (PDT)
Yes, Schopenhauer had a a few things to say about boredom as well:
That human life must be a kind of mistake is sufficiently clear from the fact
that man is a compound of needs, which are difficult to satisfy; moreover, if
they are satisfied, all he is granted is a state of painlessness, in which he
can only give himself up to boredom. This is a precise proof that existence in
itself has no value, since boredom is merely the feeling of the emptiness of
life. If, for instance, life, the longing for which constitutes our very being,
had in itself any positive and real value, boredom could not exist; mere
existence in itself would supply us with everything, and therefore satisfy us.
(The Emptiness of Existence)
On Sunday, April 6, 2014 5:58 PM, Omar Kusturica <omarkusto@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
Test
On Sunday, April 6, 2014 5:54 PM, "Jlsperanza@xxxxxxx" <Jlsperanza@xxxxxxx>
wrote:
Yet perhaps not _to tears_.
P. Enns was quoting Davidson on 'unmediated touch' and applying it to
Heidegger's -- early and late -- views on language. The point was that
Heidegger
offered an unmediated view of language.
In Davidson -- and cfr. post by McEvoy on German Fries -- it's about the
'conceptual scheme', which he (Davidson) distinguishes from language
('sentences') and 'opinions' proper.
The point may now be applied to Heidegger, and I trust no ad-hominems!
For Heidegger is saying, as A. Palma notes, that he is bored, and may want
his students to find this out. Instead of hiking, or swimming, he just
feels _bored_. In German, this is a long while.
I submit that Omar K. is along the right tracks. Possibly 'boredom' is a
concept that applies to those who have it! I can imagine a Society in the
Southern Societies, which (the Society) lacks the idea of 'boredom' (or 'long
while').
This poses a philosophical problem, and A. Palma is perhaps not right in
minimising it. After all, _every_ topic, including 'boredom', should interest
the philosopher (or this or that philosopher).
I take it that for analytic
philosophers, boredom can be boring in that it
lacks propositional content.
E.g.
The fact that the cat sat on the mat bores me.
This does not sound too good.
The fact that the cat SITS on the mat bores me.
fares slightly better.
But yet, it would be quite a task to argue that 'boring' is something like
a propositional attitude (a term invented by Lord Russell) -- bored
regarding 'p' or 'q'. When we say that Sue minds her ps and qs, perhaps, by a
stretch, we can say that Sue is BORED by her ps and qs. In which case,
perhaps,
boredom MAY have propositional content.
I guess it's a philosophical concept with pedigree -- vide Schopenhauer and
the philosophically-minded novelist Camus --. Keywords are difficult to
find, but I would suggest 'weary', rather than 'bored', which I find too
metaphorical to my literalist mind
("In Oxford, we are all (boringly) literalist, and Austin was the worst at
that!" -- Grice).
Grice refers to boring turns of phrase that may lack this or that
implicature. One of his examples, in "Causal theory of perception" is:
"The pillar box seems red to me, and as a matter of fact it IS red;
furthermore, it is hardly my intention to have you believe that I doubt or deny
that it IS red."
This Grice finds a 'boring' thing to say.
In a message dated 4/5/2014 5:46:32 P.M. Eastern Daylight Time,
_omarkusto@yahoo.com_ (mailto:omarkusto@xxxxxxxxx) , entitled "Heidegger on
Boredom",
writes:
Boredom becomes oppressive when time becomes something whose duration one
has to endure, like ... reading ...
about boredom for your advisor...
I wonder if it relates to Sartre. Odd how all these feelings are
language-related, to German ('the long while') or French (as Sartre felt
them). I
guess Grice would have checked the implicatures in English!
It _is_ an implicature, at least in English. The Online Etymology reads
that 'boring' has been used to mean 'boring' in Heidegger's sense only as
from 1840. A more purist way of expressing this would thus be 'wearying'.
-- mid-15c., "action of piercing," from bore (v.). From 1853 in reference
to animals that bore; 1840 in the sense "wearying, causing ennui."
And we might just as well add Italian. In the Italian Wikipedia entry for
"Noia" we find a reference to both Heidegger and Sartre:
"Per Heidegger tra gli «stati d'animo fondamentali» va annoverata la noia
(Langeweile) che, come
l'angoscia (Angst), è in grado di rivelarci l'essere
nella sua autenticità."
"In tempi più recenti la ripresa del tema esistenzialistico della perdita
di significato dell'essere assume con Jean Paul Sartre il senso de La
nausea che è generata dalla «l'Esistenza che si svela»".
Two further quotes by Heidegger on Boredom in Wikipedia's entry for
Boredom:
Heidgger: "Profound boredom, drifting here and there in the abysses of our
existence like a muffling fog, removes all things and men and oneself
along with it into a remarkable indifference. This boredom reveals being as a
whole."
"Above and beyond taste and character, the universal case of boredom
consists in any instance of waiting, as Heidegger noted, such as in line, for
someone else to arrive or finish a task, or while one is travelling
somewhere. The automobile
requires fast reflexes, making its operator busy and
hence, perhaps for other reasons as well, making the ride more tedious despite
being over sooner."
Geary has analysed 'meta-boredom' (as he calls it): "you can be bored about
your boredom; I propose, alla Tarski, to call this meta-boredom"; he goes
on to precise that it is THIS sense of 'meta-boredom' that applied to
philosophers -- "especially of the Continental type".
Cheers,
Speranza
------------------------------------------------------------------
To change your Lit-Ideas settings (subscribe/unsub, vacation on/off,
digest on/off), visit www.andreas.com/faq-lit-ideas.html
Other related posts:
