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levinas12
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Are there any Heideggerians left in this forum? Or even anti-Heideggerians?
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Cyclophile
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any…what??
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vera_dicere
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I think its like Haggis.
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levinas12
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the reponse so far and the level of philosophical sophistication is overwhelming … keep it coming …
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Touchstone
Guest
I’m familiar enough to identify your user name as a student/peer of Heidegger who was a noted critic of the guy. Does that make me a “Heideggerian”? Not.
Why is there anything at all as opposed to nothing at all?
Good question.
drums fingers
Now what?
Dasein.
Oh, well that isn’t really getting us anywhere either. Like so many parts of philosophy, the only effective parts are it’s negations. Dasein is a good framework for laying dualism’s problems bare, but as a positive framework… meh.
“Meh” is the right word, I guess. He gains some ground Cartesian dichotomies, then gives most of it back with his retreat into mystery, disclosure and revelation – all part of “being there”.
Where Nietzsche idolized the Knower, the man defining himself and his world around him though whatever language he pleases, Heidegger comes along behind and… I dunno, uncouples the Knower from his defintions, the man from his values? Feh. Even if it’s “right”, it’s so squishy and uneven (and I think now quite obsolete), it’s hard to care. Nietzsche was at least stark, ascetic.
So why did I respond? I’m not a “Heideggerian” or an “anti-Heideggerian”, it seems. I’m just “being there” and this is what happened.
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levinas12
Guest
I guess you’re not impressed … what do you think of Husserl, Merleau-Ponty, Sartre … Foucault and Derrida … Lacan … Irigaray and Kristeva
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Touchstone
Guest
I find the Phenomenologist camp that developed in the wake of Kant much more interesting than the Structuralist camp, so the names you throw out (and Levinas is in there, too, right?) are engaging in their willingness to approach consciousness and subjective experience from a more objective perspective.
But that, I think, will ultimately be seen as a transitional step toward a thoroughgoing objectivity in looking at these issues – science, with neuroscience obviating this part of phenomenology. That makes these guys interesting (and I realize phenomenology is not the only theme at work in the names you cited, or even the primary one), but while they have some very good instincts, they’ve been “thinking without the proper tools” on the subject, and consciousness and theory of mind is very difficult to make headway on even with sophisticated tools.
With the advent of computers in the 50s, 60s, and 70s, functionalism has taken over, and continues to gain ground as computing machinery demonstrates as the technology advances the economy and efficacy of materialist/monist theory of mind, paired with the first real push into neuroscience in the last 30 years, phenomenology seems to have run of steam. What commends it now is largely its mystical/religious temptations.
Sartre, for example, was a dogmatic(!) atheist, but embraced a superstitious sense of free will and an existentialist ethic that was as much at odds with man as an evolved biological machine in a particular environment as any Catholic or muslim, just as religious in his convictions.
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levinas12
Guest
I’d like to learn more about cognitive science or neuroscience - especially how it accounts for first person experience. Is there a book you can recommend - one that perhaps addresses both phenomenology and cognitive science?
What does cognitive science say about the human face? This was an important theme of Levinas … he called the face both a visitation and a transcendence. Roger Scruton mentions this in his 2010 Gifford lectures (if you google Scruton and Gifford, the audio of the talk should come up).
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Touchstone
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You might get something out of this – Daniel Dennett’s take on phenomenology, which he calls “heterophenomonology”:
ase.tufts.edu/cogstud/papers/JCSarticle.pdf
As for books, I have only read two that I can recommend (and there are probably better ones, I just haven’t read them):
Action in Perception by Alva Noe
How the Body Shapes the Mind by Shaun Gallagher
Both of these cover phenomenology as it interacts with neuroscience, with the Noe book tilting more materialist, and the Gallagher book being more sympathetic to the mystical/existential side of phenomenology.
The human face is the most well read book in human history. Humans are extraordinarily skilled at pattern recognition, and the human face is one of man’s most important “reads”, for reasons that should be clear if you think about it.
Yes, and here is where we reconcile that kind of wonder/fascination with hard science. The face is an object of extraordinary interest as it’s the locus of so many cues and signals we depend on and seek after in our lives. Like so many other areas in our mental lives, the objects of intense attention, focus, impact and passion we tend to elevate into mystical and poetic forms – like the way “visitation” is used here.
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Betterave
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I sympathize with Heidegger, with the idea that questioning is the virtue of thinking. I think anti-Heideggerians tend to be afraid of (certain) questions. They prefer to stamp out questions, to treat them as a kind of technical difficulty that must simply be dealt with and liquidated as questions.
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levinas12
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To Cyclophile and vera dicere:
I apologize for my sarcastic response to your positings …
I apologize for my sarcastic response to your positings …
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levinas12
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Thanks for the recommendations … I’m tracking down the books …
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levinas12
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Heidegger had a new take on traditional philosophical issues … with brilliant and controversial and, at times, none-too-clear readings of the great texts (from the Pre-Socratics to Nietzsche) … a philosophy major’s delight …
But Heidegger was involved with a great evil … Nazism …
His later, shall I say, “religious” perspective has its own ambiguity … with positives and negatives …
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levinas12
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Sorry, I meant “postings” …
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Cyclophile
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Gno worries.
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levinas12
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Touchstone:
Thank you for the book tips … I ordered How the Body Shapes the Mind (Gallagher) and a related book The Phenomenological Mind: An Introduction to Philosophy of Mind and Cognitive Science (Gallagher, Zahavi) … I probably will also get Alva Noe … do you know of any books on cognitive science that address gender differences in perception … the French feminist Irigaray has some interesting things to say about how the gendered body influences consciousness …
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Touchstone
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You know I don’t have anything worth your consideration offhand (especially since you’ve taken the steps of engaging the other recommendations I made!), but I would say that’s an area I’m interested in reading about and learning more about, myself. I think we are at a point in the development of scientific models now that there is some substance to work from in terms of just the physical evidence and neurological models, but I’m a noob on that subject.
If you find How the Body Shapes the Mind interesting and want to discuss it, I have my copy on the shelf, and would be happy to bat ideas in that book back and forth if you like. If you tell me a book you find on the neuroscience of gender, I’d be inclined to go take a look at that, and benefit from your recommendation. If you find something cool, post it, or PM me, please.
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mosher
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If we’re talking Philosophy of Mind I think you guys would be remiss if you didn’t include John Searle.
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levinas12
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Searle starts off on a good track in some of his discussions of “intentionality” … that “consciousness” is “about” or “refers to” something … but then he blithely says that biological processes cause “consciousness” … with the implication that “intentionality” can be reduced to biological processses … this seems to beg the question … how can neurons firing “make” us aware of the sun or Caesar crossing the Rubicon or anything else … the medievals distinguished between the medium quo (that by which) and the medium quod (that which) … in a very rough analogous sense, neurons firing may be the medium quo … but how does one explain the medium quod (that which we are aware of) … put simply, where does the “truth dimension” figure into the equation … or how can brain electricity reveal “how it is with beings” … biology cannot explain biology the science
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levinas12
Guest
I’m going through the books now … I’ll try to post something as soon as I can … the neuroscience of gender is proving more elusive …
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