[lit-ideas] Re: WAS IST DING?
- From: "Walter C. Okshevsky" <wokshevs@xxxxxx>
- To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx, Mike Geary <atlas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Thu, 24 Sep 2009 15:47:23 -0230
Matters of logical validity and excoriations of philosophy professors
notwithstanding, Geary's account below may inadvertently be perpetuating the
myth that human agents, including Geary himself, originally interact directly
with things (and perhaps by extension, with states of affairs, events and other
worldly phenomena.)
In doing so, he occludes the very complex social and cognitive machinery (i.e.,
conceptual schemes)at work in the individuation of "things." Things don't just
grow on trees after all. Heidegger (HIM again) believed that our competence as
agents to understand and use instruments is conditioned for its possibility by
an understanding of "contexts of referential relations of signification." Such
understanding - yes, he claimed it was a transcendental condition of human
agency - is presupposed by, and mediates any particular encounter with or use
of, such entities as bottles
And clearly, Geary's metaphysics is not at all applicable to our interactions
with persons - interactions mediated by maxims we "reflectively endorse,"
and act upon - or to practical deliberation on the justifiability
of norms and policies.
From the man in the burgundy beret,
Walter O.
Quoting Mike Geary <atlas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>:
> Clang, clang, clang went the trolley,
> Ding, ding, ding went the bell....
>
> > And it definitely took Heidegger alot of thinging to write *What is a
> > thing?*
>
> You better believe it. Once outside the womb, it is impossible not to
> interact with things for even a moment -- unless one is naked and without
> tools and in the middle of a jungle or a desert -- thinging is interacting
> with things. Reading a book is thinging. I'm thinging on a computer right
> now -- some would say I'm obviously not thinking, but that's them. In my
> one Heidegger course the professor asked: "What kind of being does a bottle
> have?" He called on me. "Bottle being," I said. 'Zuhanden' was the
> correct answer. Zuhanden is just another way of saying "Instrumental." I
> would never ever say instrumental. A bus is an instrumental thing, but a
> bus is nothing whatsoever like a bottle. A professor of philosophy can't
> see that???? What damn good is philosophy?
>
> Mike Geary
> Memphis
>
>
>
>
>
>
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "Walter C. Okshevsky" <wokshevs@xxxxxx>
> To: <lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>; "Mike Geary" <atlas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
> Sent: Tuesday, September 22, 2009 10:30 AM
> Subject: [lit-ideas] Re: Geary on Instrumental Technological Rationality
>
>
> > And it definitely took Heidegger alot of thinging to write *What is a
> > thing?*
> >
> > Messin' with Geary's conventional onto-theological categories of thinking,
> >
> >
> > Walter O. (still sort a' on vacation .... until somebody notices. No
> > Margaret
> > Wente, I don't like sherry.)
> >
> >
> > Quoting Mike Geary <atlas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>:
> >
> >> Hi, JL, good to see you're still operating. I used to date a woman named
> >> Lucia, who was named after the Opera, but she couldn't sing worth a damn.
> >> She was good on the piano though. Even made he livelihood teaching
> >> piano.
> >> She was much more Mozart than Beethoven, while I've always been more "dum
> >> dum dum dum" -- but, following after Beethoven, Lucia's mostly deaf now,
> >> still teaches piano though. I guess she just watches the kids'
> >> fingering.
> >>
> >> Funny thing is that you of all people would object to thingism when all
> >> your
> >>
> >> music is thinged to you. There's almost nothing we experience in our
> >> lives
> >> that's not through the agency of thingery -- except when we have
> >> transcendental thoughts, of course -- Walter must be proud! Of course
> >> once
> >> the sound waves hit your ear drums and make it to your brain, well then,
> >> it's no thingamaging then, that's purely you youing patterns of sound
> >> into
> >> you-meaningfulness. That's were the magic of being a human being begins.
> >> Thinging -- technology -- means that you don't have to be a European
> >> aristocrat to hear the most beautiful music that we humans have been
> >> able
> >> to produce to date (there's more to come). Thinking is thinging when you
> >> turn your mind over to knowing a thing inside out. Doctors thing us. I
> >> thing certain machines. Doctors make a lot more money. : )
> >>
> >> Mike Geary
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >> ----- 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
> >> > Rationality
> >> >
> >> >
> >> >> jlsperanza@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.
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