Skip to main content

Heidegger and speculation

Been going through some elements of Heidegger's Destruktion in Being and Time to present a link between Husserl's phenomenology and Harman's withdrawal for my contemporary philosophy course. Heidegger's destruktion is operated by time and reveals it as the bouncer of what comes-to-being and what goes- from-being as gignomenon, and all of its existential effects, is a key to understand that there is a genuine gap that brings about the ontological difference. The role of time in this difference is not that difference is itself temporal or takes place in time, but that time reveals something structural about what exists, the ontological difference; time is a means of uncovering it, a guide or perhaps a symptom. It is, in a sense, a condition of possibility for us to access the ontological difference. In fact, what makes us arrive at the difference is our life in time, the analysis of Dasein as a creature entangled in time. The existence of Dasein is what opens to us a difference that would otherwise be obscure to us, and this existence is what is the object of Heidegger's reformed procedure of phenomenology - phenomenology ushers in ontology because it uncovers how Dasein relates with its temporal existential predicaments.

The procedure could be described therefore as a flight from the phenomenology of Dasein as existing in the world towards the ontology and primarily the ontological difference. It is not about Dasein unless in what it can uncover, in what it makes clear due to the central presence of time in its incompleteness its being thrown in the world - we look at something close, the phenomenology of our existence, to unveil something broader about ontology. The flight could be described as a speculative flight: we start from our phenomenological experience of existence and proceed to something that relates to existence in general, to its structural feature. It is not, nevertheless, strictly a speculative move because the overall view reached by the flight is not one where Dasein acts a departing example, merely as a basis to arrive beyond experience because it will appear as a special point in the overall view reached when the passage is taken from phenomenology to ontology. In other words, Heidegger conceives the Dasein not only as a starting point but also as somehow ontologically distinct (and not only ontically distinct, that is, not only a distinct thing that exists but something special in the very order of Being). This is a reason why Heidegger places himself in Meillassoux's the era of the correlate (likely as a strong correlationist). Dasein is not a point of departure assuring that correlation is primary, but a fundamentally distinct thing among what exists - the only possible point of departure and not only the only possible point of departure for us. It is the absolutely unique point of departure and this ought to be revealed in the overall ontological picture towards which we reach with Destruktion. The very idea of a flat ontology - or rather a flat ontic space - where all things that are exist in the same ontological status (preserving the crucial ontological difference) is anathema to the project of the book; it seems like the procedure recommended is only possible because the Dasein is in itself sui generis.

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Hunky, Gunky and Junky - all Funky Metaphysics

Been reading Bohn's recent papers on the possibility of junky worlds (and therefore of hunky worlds as hunky worlds are those that are gunky and junky - quite funky, as I said in the other post). He cites Whitehead (process philosophy tends to go hunky) but also Leibniz in his company - he wouldn't take up gunk as he believed in monads but would accept junky worlds (where everything that exists is a part of something). Bohn quotes Leibniz in On Nature Itself «For, although there are atoms of substance, namely monads, which lack parts, there are no atoms of bulk, that is, atoms of the least possible extension, nor are there any ultimate elements, since a continuum cannot be composed out of points. In just the same way, there is nothing greatest in bulk nor infinite in extension, even if there is always something bigger than anything else, though there is a being greatest in the intensity of its perfection, that is, a being infinite in power.» And New Essays: ... for there is nev...

Talk on ultrametaphysics

 This is the text of my seminar on ultrametaphysics on Friday here in Albuquerque. An attempt at a history of ultrametaphysics in five chapters Hilan Bensusan I begin with some of the words in the title. First, ‘ultrametaphysics’, then ‘history’ and ‘chapters’. ‘Ultrametaphysics’, which I discovered that in my mouth could sound like ‘ autre metaphysics’, intends to address what comes after metaphysics assuming that metaphysics is an endeavor – or an epoch, or a project, or an activity – that reaches an end, perhaps because it is consolidated, perhaps because it has reached its own limits, perhaps because it is accomplished, perhaps because it is misconceived. In this sense, other names could apply, first of all, ‘meta-metaphysics’ – that alludes to metaphysics coming after physics, the books of Aristotle that came after Physics , or the task that follows the attention to φύσις, or still what can be reached only if the nature of things is considered. ‘Me...

Memory assemblages

My talk here at Burque last winter I want to start by thanking you all and acknowledging the department of philosophy, the University of New Mexico and this land, as a visitor coming from the south of the border and from the land of many Macroje peoples who themselves live in a way that is constantly informed by memory, immortality and their ancestors, I strive to learn more about the Tiwas, the Sandia peoples and other indigenous communities of the area. I keep finding myself trying to find their marks around – and they seem quite well hidden. For reasons to do with this very talk, I welcome the gesture of directing our thoughts to the land where we are; both as an indication of our situated character and as an archive of the past which carries a proliferation of promises for the future. In this talk, I will try to elaborate and recommend the idea of memory assemblage, a central notion in my current project around specters and addition. I begin by saying that I ...