enowning
Monday, October 10, 2011
 
In Huffington Post, Dimitri Hamlin on transparent keyboards, obtrusive computers, and dealing with skepticism:
Things can develop existentially different meanings according to how they are experienced. To conclude that real meaning does not exist by indicating the breakdown of a particular value system is like claiming that computers are stupid because I do not know how to turn one on, with my car keys. This describes my confusion, not that I am lacking something (which is more than I can say about the second part of Being & Time). I do not want to humor pessimism about the real existence of things in general because solutions to incorrectly stated problems seem trivial at best. Being is (something) even the solipsist cannot deny. As Heidegger says of the burden required by the extreme skeptic:
"The 'scandal of philosophy' is not that this proof has yet to be given, but that such proofs are expected and attempted again and again [...] If Dasein is understood correctly, it defies such proofs, because, in it's Being, it already is what subsequent proofs deem necessary to demonstrate for it." (Being & Time 205, 249)
Just before the above, on the same page, Heidegger explains one of the wrong turns we took, historically, that led to our confusion. He specifically faults Kant, and implicitly condemns Descartes and Plato for promulgating an essentially incorrect interpretation of experience. This does not mean that they are not awesome thinkers, however, it does explain why the first post ended with Parmenides, to hint at pre-Socratic thought. Heidegger says it seems Kant had give-up on the notion of Cartesian dualism, only to presuppose it again. This dualism spawns the skeptic, for which no proof suffices.
 
Comments:
This comment has been removed by the author.
 
I was considering the difference between binary opposites (0 or 1) and the gray areas in-between, but you've removed your comment, so I'll just keep mulling.
 
Post a Comment

<< Home
For when Ereignis is not sufficient.

Appropriation appropriates! Send your appropriations to enowning at gmail.com.

View mobile version