enowning
Tuesday, December 21, 2010
 
Spring 1963, Taormina, Sicily, comparing psychoanalysis to phenomenology.
Medard Boss: But according to psychoanalytic theory, the act of leaving something behind, for instance, a purse, in leaving an acquaintance's room, expresses the unconscious wish to return there. How is such a "leaving behind" to be described phenomenologically?

Martin Heidegger: There is no unconscious intention when the purse is left behind. On the contrary, in this case leaving [the room] is entirely different from leaving the hairdresser. Precisely because the man she visited was not indifferent to her, her leaving is such that in leaving she is still present, more present, and ever the more present. While leaving, she is still with the man so much so that the purse is not there at all. In this kind of leaving, the purse was left behind because even while being in the room, she was with her friend so much that the purse was not there at all. At that tune there was no leaving-for-somewhere.
    If the same woman were to leave someone to whom she was indifferent in order to go shopping in the city, then she would not forget the purse. Rather, she would take it with her because the purse belongs to shopping, to the relationship in which the woman would actually be involved. Here, the leaving is a leaving for the city. Only leaving for the city matters here. This having been with the acquaintance to whom she is indifferent is finished.
    The matter [attributed to] unconscious intention is an explanation as opposed to a phenomenological interpretation. This explanation is a pure hypothesis that in no way advances the understanding of the phenomenon itself and, as such, of leaving [the purse] behind.
    In the Freudian hypothesis leaving [the purse] behind is stressed as a fact which must then be explained. We ascertain this fact of leaving [the purse] behind from the outside. The woman herself does not leave the purse behind unconsciously because the purse is not there [for her] at all, and one can only leave something behind when it is there.

Pp. 168-9
 
Comments:
Brushing aside the profound for the obvious. Heidegger's use of "there" would be accused of being jargon, but this is a great example of Heidegger beating social sciences at their own game.
 
Is there any prospect for understanding MH by making a distinction between "here" and "there." Somewhere recently I saw his complaint that French translate Dasein as "being here" rather than "being there."

Might it be correct to say that only for Dasein "being there" applies while for other animals "being here" applies?
 
OK. Working my way through the archives, trying to catch up, found the following back in 6/01.

In A Paradigm Shift in Heidegger Research Thomas Sheehan notes that there's no there in dasein.

"Heidegger understands the Da not as "the there" but as "the open." As such, the Da is not only the same as Welt and Lichtung but is also equivalent to all the other terms that Heidegger used for die Sache selbst. The Da is the Es of Es gibt Sein: it is aletheia, Ereignis, and die Wahrheit des Seins selbst."

Welt is world. Lichtung is clearing. Es gibt Sein is "it gives." Aletheia is truth as disclosure. Die Sache selbst are the things themselves. Die Wahrheit des Seins selbst is the truth in being itself. And Ereignis is enowning.
 
Opps. 06/04.
 
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