Yes, I find Erminia's post particularly attractive because it encourages faith in my own being. There are strong and traditionally held reasons for a definition of self based on transcendence. Indeed hope in God or the supernatural has been the understandable escape from these nihilistic complexities. Clusters is another perspective I haven't considered and may validate the illusion of the past.
Kind regards,
Peter Ridyard
Perth Western Australia
From: "david.bircumshaw" <
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To:
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Subject: Re: FW: AI's Elegies
Date: Thu, 18 Oct 2001 09:08:33 +0100
> I have re-read my original post (now four days old). What scares me is
not my ultimate inevitable demise but the notion of my non-self, that I am
merely an anticipatory function.
>
My own suspicions, for what they are worth, is that we are something of the
nature of 'clusters', while, at the same time, as much as we forget who we
are, or were, certain continuities of self do persist, like a background
hum, a central heating throb (which requires maintenance of course!)
One notices some of those persistencies in certain habits people have, like
poetry for instance.
Best
Dave
David Bircumshaw
Leicester, England
Home Page
A Chide's Alphabet
Painting Without Numbers
www.paintstuff.20m.com/index.htm
http://homepage.ntlworld.com/david.bircumshaw/index.htm
----- Original Message -----
From: "Peter Ridyard" <
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To: <
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Sent: Thursday, October 18, 2001 8:30 AM
Subject: Re: FW: AI's Elegies
> I have re-read my original post (now four days old). What scares me is
not my ultimate inevitable demise but the notion of my non-self, that I am
merely an anticipatory function.
>
> Both Martin's and Erminia's posts have been immensely helpful in this
regard but I can't escape the conclusion that being is subject to the same
naming conventions of any other object. Though I might seek comfort in this
I have no evidence to assume it is an ontological primum.
>
> Kind regards,
>
> Peter Ridyard
>
> Perth Western Australia
>
> From: Erminia Passannanti
>
> Reply-To: Poetryetc provides a venue for a dialogue relating to poetry and
poetics
> To:
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> Subject: Re: FW: AI's Elegies
> Date: Thu, 18 Oct 2001 05:32:58 +0100
> On Wed, 17 Oct 2001 14:58:11 -0700, Mark Weiss
> wrote:
> >Martin: I've read Heidegger on several occasions with various degrees of
> >incomprehension.
> I am not surprised, Heidegger is generally a philosopher speaking and
> writing for other philosophers who like that kind of extreme
> sophistications(the French got very enthusiastic about Heidegger).
> >Your little explanation is very helpful.
> .......but it can't be. Heidegger 's philosophy is too complex for anyone
> to find relief in our reductions.
> In Sein und Zeit, Heiddeger idea of the "self" as "being" (the being in
> process) dealt mainly with the dialectical relationship between language
> and the mind .
> Language has an intuition of the being, and attributes to this being a
> word, the self.
> The self as we understand it comes to us through language. But its meaning
> is not merely a linguistic effect. It is just the preliminary
understanding
> of what the self is - which happens in an extra-linguistic sphere - to
> make language possible.
> In Metaphysics, Heidegger states (sorry about the rough translation):
> "Let's suppose that this indeterminate meaning of the being is not given,
> and that we do not understand not even what it means. Which thing there
> would be then? Only one word less in our language? No. There would not be
> then - generally speaking - no language at all. "
> To maintain the sense of the being, at least in part, outside of
linguistic
> games was perhaps for Heidegger one necessary condition to safeguard the
> essence of language itself.
> So, to analyze the meaning of the self(in German Sinn), one must
understand
> the meaning of the word representing the being to the mind. To be able to
> ask oneself: What is the "being"?
> For Heidegger, as for every philosophy, the sense of this "being" is so
> central as to be the primary task of all our speculations: if we do not
> clarify what we mean with the word "being" than we cannot speak about a
> self at all.
> >question: it seems to me that our sense of individual selfhood is
> >conditioned by our sense of self-within-society.
> For Heidegger the problem concerning the being is not merely a linguistic
> problem but in fact is something that gradually identifies itself with
> linguistic issues. Being is an ontological primumn cognitum, it is
> phenomenologically given and it is not created by language, it pre-exist
> language. What is phenomenologically given can only be understood starting
> from the being itself and therefore pre-exist to any linguistic
> formulation. And yet, we are caught into the necessity to express it
> linguistically.
> >Even those of us who
> >believe that individual selfhood ends with the last breath often behave
as
> >if we assume that self-within-society continues (sorry for the shabby
> >terms), otherwise we wouldn't work so hard to influence events that will
> >only unfold after us, often at the risk of death. Does Heidegger ever
> >address this, or is he wedded to a sense of self in isolation? And if so
> >how does he deal with apparent altruism?
> The being escapes any speech and signification because it is that very
> beginning from which every speech and signification is made possible.
> Derrida Writes: Consider it as essence or existence [...], the being
> of "the being" does not belong to the field of speech, because it is
> already implied in every speech in a generalized manner and it renders
> speech possible. "
> In this light, the sense of the word "being" is not an effect of the
> linguistic articulation of the word representing it since it is the base
> itself on which the entire articulation of that very representative word
is
> based and is structured. The true sense of the being cannot be explained
by
> or through language. Therefore the sense of the being, the self, can only
> being explained outside language.
> The sense of the being, our "self" transcend language, but can only be
> communicated by language: so one must understand how to live within
> language to understand how indefinable the self is.
> In other words, because the self is unique, it cannot be really defined
> since definitions imply comparisons and the self in being unique cannot be
> satisfied by any definition. So, its meaning is identical to its being. It
> does not refer to anything else. Its real sense is not given by the
> language game, although we can only represent it to our mind with a word.
> You see how complicate and radically abstract this is?
> We can doubt of whichever ent, but we cannot doubt of that it means " to
> be " in contrast to what it is " not to be " in the Hegelian sense :so we
> can understand what to be is starting from our understanding of what not
to
> be will be.
> The issue is of the great importance, because it is this determination of
> the being that decides the essence of language. Either the being is
> absolutely indeterminate, to the point that its sense is the nothingness,
> as in Hegel 's theory, and therefore language, than stands on the sense of
> this word, the being, does not mean anything, and does not represent
> anything; or the being has a sense that is in toto opposed to "
> nothingness", and consequently language has a sense, in other word,
> language therefore can refer to something that is to outside of language
> itself. It is not therefore society or language that justify the self, as
> the being, but some pre-existing condition outside language and society
> themselves, in other word an ontological primum. Because it is very
> determinate, there is no possibility there for perspectives, points of
> view , interpretations of what the being is. The being cannot be
> interepreted, since it escapes the linguitic game of cross references.
> The self, the being is not an object that stands in front of us and offers
> itself to our interpretations.
> In a way, it is just the excess of evidence of the being - its mater of
> fact - that renders us blind to it. It is too determinate...
> Erminia
> >
> >Mark
> >
> >At 07:04 PM 10/17/2001 +0200, Martin J. Walker wrote:
> >>These are very knotty questions which are not as simple as saying "the
> self
> >>is an illusion, amen." For Heidegger, as I understand it, Being (das
Sein)
> >>is indefinable by being-there (Dasein), which all persons have in
common:
> >>their selves are constituted by that community & their language (based
on
> >>understanding,Verstehen, plus Rede, speech), both of which also imply
the
> >>project (Entwurf) & the care (Sorge), the latter comprehending the past
&
> >>present as the condition & the future as the field of self-realization
> which
> >>must end in death, thus my dread (Angst) until I affirm death as my most
> >>real possibility, thus devaluing in a sense all the projects etc of
> >>Being-there & attaining authentic existence, though Being is always far-
> off.
> >>The transcendent Self of the Upanishads is actually closer to Being than
> >>Being-there, thus only a logical step forward (and a lot of meditation)
> was
> >>necessary for Gautama to realize _sambodhi_ as the illumination that
> >>transcends the object-subject of normal consciousness: this results in
> >>_nirvana_, in which the distinctions of the normal self have vanished.
> >>Thus in both philosophies the normal self is something to be transcended
> as
> >>not finally constitutive of Being, but it is hardly a simple illusion.
> >>Heidegger would presumably frown on any belief in survival after death
as
> >>inauthentic.
> >>I can't understand why you find the implications of non-self scary>,
> >>as death (nothingness) will relieve you of your self in any case, a much
> >>scarier consideration I would have thought; I myself shall be quite
happy
> to
> >>wander around the Bardo or various reincarnations before being relieved
of
> >>self, if death is not the end. Amen.
> >>Martin
> >>
>
>
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