Last post lacked 'quotation marks' and might confuse. This is better:

On Sat, 26 Apr 2003 10:54:48 -0700, james lomax <[log in to unmask]>
wrote:

>> From:    Joseph Billings
>> <[log in to unmask]>
>> Subject: Re: heidegger and language and running
>> naked
>>
>> The fascinating thing about Heidegger is that once
>> you
>> interpret his opening move in Being and Time as a
>> reversal
>> of the traditional way of asking about being, that
>> is,
>> instead of asking "from 'what' does being arise?"
>> (or how
>> do we explain being (or any phenomenon)in terms of
>> things?)
>> we might ask, "what does being mean?" and then put
>> off the
>> question of "what things are?" --which otherwise
>> forces us
>> to assume and apply a very loaded metaphysics-- then
>> his
>> language becomes very transparent. His terms become
>> precise, informative, and surgical. And his way of
>> doing
>> things also helps to exemplify a view that I have
>> long
>> held, but could never quite articulate, that
>> philosophy is
>> an art, a practice, as much as an intellectual
>> enterprise.

Well yes, maybe. But on matters of 'being', non-being
etc. and related metaphysics, I see very little
insight in Western thought. Eastern thought has a more
sophisticated and coherent tradition (Vedanta,
Buddhism etc.)which addresses these kind of questions
as they ultimately only can be: not as endless
convoluted speculation - elegant or otherwise - but as
something that either 'is' or 'isn't'. That is, as a
process of phenomenological discovery which begins and
ends with ONESELF. As opposed to a widely prevalent
trend, where logical construction is assumed to
be/regarded as equivalent to 'the thing itself'. Which
it isn't.

Sometimes, elegant philosophical construction - and
the convoluted lengths it goes to - is ultimately no
more than a mind game. It may be good exercise, but
you are on a stationary exercise bicycle rather than a
bicycle on the road that actually takes you somewhere.


>make me want to run naked through the streets of
>> NYC
>> with an 8mm black and white loaded camera until I
>> drop!

Heh. Well there must be other film makers who would be
interested in recording that ;-)

>> In my view, H is simply describing the indescribable
>> mysterious present =
>> in necessarily obtuse/new/convoluted language.

Why is it *necessary*? I suspect the most profound
understanding of 'being' etc. is profoundly simple,
based on a recognition of the fact that mentation
cannot grasp it. In other words, you accept that there
is nothing to be achieved by any attempt at mental
apprehension.

>Here it is not so much determining
>> meaning by a =
>> Wittgensteinian analysis of use of language as a
>> tool but finding =
>> meaning in a clearing of mind through H's strange
>> set of goggles.


I regard this kind of question very simply: language
is not the 'thing itself'. Therefore, there is no
point in constructing impressive or elegant 'thought
structures' because however much you do it, you are
still (see above) on a stationary bicycle.


>Since no language cannot adequately
>> deal with the mystery
>> of being his convoluted striving  accentuates and
>> brings to the foreground
>> the precarious the human condition. Yes, H is a
>> never ending adventure.


Far out. But does he give any answers? Are *his*
answers the same as yours? And if he doesn't, 'where'
or 'how' can you find the answers? And what form can
they take, if we accept the limitations of mentation?