Graduate 161: BT 28: Sec. 21
Part I, Division 1, Chapter 3. The Worldhood of the World
Subdivision B. A Contrast between our Analysis of Worldhood and Descartes' Interpretation of the World
Section 21. Hermeneutical Discussion of the Cartesian Ontology of the 'World'
Toward the close of the last section, Heidegger writes, "Thus the ontological grounds for defining the 'world' as res extensa have been made plain: they lie in the idea of substantiality, which not only remains unclarified in the meaning of its Being, but gets passed off as something incapable of clarification, and gets represented indirectly by whatever substantial property belongs most pre-eminently to the particular substance." (BT 127/94) On this construal, 'substantiality' is, itself, taken to be a kind of entity so that the idea of "substance" comes to have a double-signification. Moreover, since each substance becomes understood in terms of its preeminent feature or property, it takes on a blurred ontico-ontological quality that is also a source of confusion. Heidegger turns to track down this fundamental 'equivocation' in section 21.
"The critical question now arises: does this ontology of the 'world' seek the phenomenon of the world at all, and if not, does it at least define some entity within-the-world fully enough so that the worldly character of this entity can be made visible in it? To both questions we must answer "No"." (BT 128/95) [1]
Descartes is trying to grasp Nature ontologically, and Heidegger thinks this can be done only by first taking up an entity within-the-world that is proximally ready-to-hand. If that approach will not work then progress might be made by "an ontology based upon a radical separation of God, the "I", and the 'world'," (BT 128/95) "If, however, this is not possible, we must then demonstrate explicitly not only that Descartes' conception of the world is ontologically defective, but that his Interpretation and the foundations on which it is based have led him to pass over both the phenomenon of the world and the Being of those entities within-the-world which are proximally ready-to-hand." (BT 128/95) This is what Heidegger proceeds to do.
Heidegger begins by asking about what starting point should be used to help us understand those entities whose being as extensio Descartes equates the Being of the 'world'. What kind of being that belongs to Dasein should we fix upon as our launching point? "The only genuine access to them [i.e. to those entities that Descartes focused on] lies in knowing [Erkennen], intellectio, in the sense of the kind of knowledge [Erkenntnis] we get in mathematics and physics." (BT 128/95)
Here is Heidegger's description of Descartes' view of mathematical knowledge: "Mathematical knowledge is regarded by Descartes as the one manner of papprehending entities which can always give assurance that their Being has been securely grasped. If anything measures up in its own kind of Being to the Being that is accessible in mathematical knowledge, then it is in the authentic sense. [2] Such entities are those which always are what they are." (BT 128/95) According to Heidegger, Descartes is attracted to mathematical knowledge because mathematical entities are constant and enduring in an important way. They always present themselves as they are and never as anything else. "That which enduringly remains, really is." (BT 128/95) So Descartes understands the being of entities in terms of the idea of knowledge and how such entities come to be known and thought about (cognized). Descartes seems to equate being roughly with what is constantly present-at-hand. He does not look to entities in the world to understand their being but imposes an understanding of being (one that has to do with persistence) on them. So even his leaning toward mathematics is not determinative for his understanding of being, "but rather by his ontological orientation in principle towards Being as constant presence-at-hand, which mathematical knowledge is exceptionally well suited to grasp." (BT 129/95) Heidegger sees in Descartes a shift from traditional ontology to a focus on modern mathematical physics and its transcendental foundations.
Since Descartes' understanding of being is grounded on the idea of knowledge and how entities can come to be known or cognized, he is automatically shut off from even considering the possibility that sensation and physical perception could grant insight into the essence of things. [3] NOEIN ('beholding') and DIANOEIN ('thinking') are just accepted as fundamental (owing to a long-standing traditional approach to ontology) and so, while sensatio (AISTHESIS, relating to perception) may still serve as a way of access to entities, as by a perceptual beholding, Descartes is mostly critical of that path to understanding. [4]
One may recall that in his meditation on the piece of wax, Descartes emphasizes that essence of the piece of wax cannot be known through its myriad of sensible properties (coloured, flavoured, hard, cold, and sounding when struck). The senses "tell us nothing about entities in their Being." (BT 129/97) Descartes concludes: "Quod agentes, percipiemus naturam materiae, sive corporis in universum spectati, non consistere in eo quod sit res dura, vel ponderosa, vel colorata, vel alio aliquo modo sensus afficiens: sed tantum in eo quod sit res extensa in longum, latum et profundum." (BT 129-130/97) "Which thing doing, we will perceive (regarding) the nature of matter, or body universally considered, that it does not consist in being something hard or heavy or colored, or the senses in some other way being affected; but so much [only] in being something extended in length, breadth, and depth."
But Heidegger is convinced that Descartes' analysis will not stand up to scrutiny. His method will not allow him to show what is present in sensation in its own kind of being. Descartes' approach cannot reveal the true character of those things. [5] Hardness, for instance, is interpreted as a kind of resistance, but neither of these is understood in a phenomenal sense, "as something experienced in itself whose nature can be determined in such an experience." (BT 130/97) Resistance is interpreted as the relationship between the locations of various entities and the variable rates of changes in the positions of those entities. "But when the experience of hardness is Interpreted this way, the kind of Being which belongs to sensory perception is obliterated, and so is any possibility that the entities encountered in such perceptions should be grasped in their Being. Descartes takes the kind of Being which belongs to the perception of something, and translates it into the only kind he knows: the perception of something becomes a definite way of Being-present-at-hand-side-by-side of two res extensae which are present-at-hand; the way in which their movements are related is itself a mode off that extensio by which the presence-at-hand of the corporeal Things is primarily characterized. Of course no behaviour in which one feels one's way by touch [eines tastenden Verhaltens] can be 'completed' unless what can thus be felt [des Betastbaren] has 'closeness' of a very special kind. But this does not mean that touching [Beruhrung] and the hardness which makes itself known in touching consist ontologically in different velocities of two corporeal Things. Hardness and resistance do not show themselves at all unless an entity has the kind of Being which Dasein--or at least something living--possesses." (BT 130/97)
So Descartes takes phenomenal experience and translates it in such a way that it is interpreted in terms of another kind of being; he then supposes that this translation/interpretation has disclosed the essence of those experiences and the entities experienced. But Heidegger resists this reduction. It may be useful for certain purposes or capture certain truths, but it is not the sum or whole.
"The idea of Being as permanent presence-at-hand not only gives Descartes a motive for identifying entities within-the-world with the world in general, and for providing so extreme a definition of their Being; it also keeps him from bringing Dasein's ways of behaving into view in a manner which is ontologically appropriate. But thus the road is completely blocked to seeing the founded character of all sensory and intellective awareness, and to understanding these as possibility of Being-in-the-world. On the contrary, he takes the Being of 'Dasein' (to whose basic constitution Being-in-the-world belongs) in the very same way as he takes the Being of the res extensa--namely, as substance." (BT 130-131/98) The idea that the essence of things should be interpreted in terms of permanence allows Descartes to identify the world with the sum total of entities within the world; he does not realize that the world is more like the context in which entities can emerge and appear in certain ways and as they do. It also allows him to ignore Dasein's various ways of interacting with entities in the world. Recall the Heidegger takes it that Dasein has a pretheoretical understanding of being that allows it to interact with various kinds of entities with various kinds of being in appropriate ways; that is why consideration of Dasein's ways of interacting in the world ('sensory and intellective awareness') is such an important clue for understanding the being of entities in the world and being in general. These reveal the character of Dasein as being-in-the-world. But Descartes treats the being of human beings in essentially the same way that he treats the being of all entities--in terms of substance.
But was Descartes even aware of these kinds of issues? How can we charge Descartes with 'identifying the world with certain entities within-the-world' if he did not even have the interpretation of within-the-world-ness on his mind? If he had no conception of the phenomenon of the world, how can we accuse him of having given a problematic interpretation of that phenomenon?
Heidegger acknowledges that Descartes does not explicitly address these kinds of issues but insists that one can still evaluate him in these terms by looking at the 'objective tendencies of the problematic'. He points out that in his treatment of the res cogitans and res extensa, Descartes claims to formulate and to solve the problem of the "I" and of the 'world'. He claims to have given certain grounds for the existence and the possibility of knowledge claims about both areas. But because he does not question his own presuppositions, "he has made it impossible to lay bare any primordial ontological problematic of Dasein; this has inevitably obstructed his view of the phenomenon of the world, and has made it possible for the ontology of the 'world' to be compressed into that of certain entities within-the-world. The foregoing discussion should have proved this." (BT 131/98) The essence of the critique, as I interpret Heidegger, is that though Descartes claimed to have disclosed what is essential about the "I" and the 'world,' in fact, he actually failed to account for huge parts of both. Granted, he may not have set out with the intention of revealing all the various dimensions of the "I" and the 'world,' but his conclusions were such that they eliminated any possibility of such an inquiry. One has distilled the essence of a thing who is able to, on that basis, account for all the various facets of that thing. But Descartes cannot do that by appeal to the res cogitans and res extensa. He cannot account for the various dimensions of our 'sensory and intellective awareness'. This is not, by itself, grounds for rejecting his view, but when it purports to be definitive in some way or cuts off further inquiry, then there is a problem. This is what Heidegger has tried to show.
Heidegger takes note of one objection according to which, "even if in point of fact both the problem of the world and the Being of the entities encountered environmentally as closest to us remain concealed, Descartes has still laid the basis for characterizing ontologically that entity within-the-world upon which, in its very Being, every other entity is founded--material Nature." (BT 131/98) According to this view, Descartes' characterization of the fundamental essence of physical things is the basis for every attribution of further characteristics to those entities--all of which are but quantitative modifications of the modes of the extensio itself. And these, in turn, would ground such qualities as "beautiful", and "in keeping", and "useful". If one is oriented primarily by Thinghood, these qualities are not quantifiable but if one is oriented by Descartes' extensio then we could 'build up' securely the structure of what is proximally ready-to-hand.
But Heidegger doubts that the being of the ready-to-hand really can be reached ontologically by this procedure--by treating extendedness as the most fundamental category. To posit a material thing is to posit a kind of being--"a constant presence-at-hand of Things" (BT 132/99)--and the valuation of such things as "beautiful", or "useful" "cannot tell us anything at all new about the Being of goods, but would merely presuppose again that goods have pure presence-at-hand as their kind of Being." (BT 132/99) But this presupposition of a pure presence-at-hand existence cannot be corroborated by careful reflection on experience. Heidegger writes, "But even pre-phenomenological experience shows that in an entity which is supposedly a Thing, there is something that will not become fully intelligible through Thinghood alone." (BT 132/99)
What do "values" amount to ontologically? And what does it mean ontologically to invest things with "value"? As long as the answers to these questions remain obscure, we cannot be sure that we have come to a full understanding of the real essence of things.
"Descartes has narrowed down the question of the world to that of Things of Nature [Naturdinglichkeit] as those entities within-the-world which are proximally accessible. He has confirmed the opinion that to know an entity in what is supposedly the most rigorous ontical manner is our only possible access to the primary Being of the entity which such knowledge reveals. But at the same time we must have the insight to see that in principle the 'roundings-out' of the Thing-ontology also operate on the same dogmatic basis as that which Descartes has adopted." (BT 133/100)
--
"We have already intimated in Section 14 that passing over the world and those entities which we proximally encounter is not accidental, not an overesight which it would be simple to correct, but that it is grounded in a kind of Being which belongs essentially to Dasein itself." (BT 133/100) Heidegger plans to lay out how this is the case after he has further developed his account of the main structures of Dasein and "when we have assigned [zugewiesen] to the concept of Being in general the horizon within which its intelligibility becomes possible". Then, he says, a thorough critique of the Cartesian ontology of the world can become possible. Unfortunately, this portion of Heidegger's project (Part One, Division Three) was never published. The plan would have been that through this account, Heidegger would be able to show why, in the earliest attempts to grapple with being, the phenomenon of the world was passed over and philosophers became fixated on entities (especially in 'Nature') as providing the key to a fundamental ontology.
The idea, then, is that while the world, Dasein, and entities within-the-world are the ontologically constitutive states which are closest to us, they cannot be encountered effectively as phenomena if one takes one's orientation fundamentally from Things in the world. [6]
However, this is not to say that Descartes' project is useless. Recall that spatiality is manifestly one of the constituents of entities within-the-world. Descartes' introduction of extensio allowed Kant to identify something more fundamental and a priori. "There is some phenomenal justification for regarding the extensio as a basic characteristic of the 'world', even if by recourse to this neither the spatiality of the world nor that of the entities we encounter in our envifronment (a spatiality which is proximally discovered) nor even that of Dasein itself, can be conceived ontologically." (BT 134/101)
Subdivision C will develop the connection between spatiality and Descartes' conception of the extensio.
--
[1] I will have to review to make sure that my impressions are right. When he asks whether Descartes has disclosed the phenomenon of the world, he is asking whether Descartes has reached a point where he can grasp the nature of 'worldhood'--that in virtue of which Dasein is able to encounter a world at all, that which must be present for the possibility of encountering any world as a unified, coherent, and intelligible whole.
[2] Note another instance of "authentic".
[3] "The problem of how to get appropriate access to entities within-the-world is one which Descartes feels no need to raise.
[4] NOEIN means 'perceive'. DIA- means 'through'. AISTHESIS is related to AISTHETA ('perceptible thing') and AISTHESTHAI ('perceive'), and to the English, 'aesthetic'.
[5] Heidegger indicates: (Cf. Section 19).
[6] "The world and Dasein and entities within-the-world are the ontologically constitutive states which are closest to us; but we have no guarantee that we can achieve the basis for meeting up with these as phenomena by the seemingly obvious procedure of starting with the Things of the world, still less by taking our orientation from what is supposedly the most rigorous knowledge of entities. Our observations on Descartes should have brought us this insight." (BT 134/101)
--
God is in this place,
And that reality, seen and understood by the grace of God in Christ Jesus through the work of the Holy Spirit, makes all the difference in the world.
Subdivision B. A Contrast between our Analysis of Worldhood and Descartes' Interpretation of the World
Section 21. Hermeneutical Discussion of the Cartesian Ontology of the 'World'
Toward the close of the last section, Heidegger writes, "Thus the ontological grounds for defining the 'world' as res extensa have been made plain: they lie in the idea of substantiality, which not only remains unclarified in the meaning of its Being, but gets passed off as something incapable of clarification, and gets represented indirectly by whatever substantial property belongs most pre-eminently to the particular substance." (BT 127/94) On this construal, 'substantiality' is, itself, taken to be a kind of entity so that the idea of "substance" comes to have a double-signification. Moreover, since each substance becomes understood in terms of its preeminent feature or property, it takes on a blurred ontico-ontological quality that is also a source of confusion. Heidegger turns to track down this fundamental 'equivocation' in section 21.
"The critical question now arises: does this ontology of the 'world' seek the phenomenon of the world at all, and if not, does it at least define some entity within-the-world fully enough so that the worldly character of this entity can be made visible in it? To both questions we must answer "No"." (BT 128/95) [1]
Descartes is trying to grasp Nature ontologically, and Heidegger thinks this can be done only by first taking up an entity within-the-world that is proximally ready-to-hand. If that approach will not work then progress might be made by "an ontology based upon a radical separation of God, the "I", and the 'world'," (BT 128/95) "If, however, this is not possible, we must then demonstrate explicitly not only that Descartes' conception of the world is ontologically defective, but that his Interpretation and the foundations on which it is based have led him to pass over both the phenomenon of the world and the Being of those entities within-the-world which are proximally ready-to-hand." (BT 128/95) This is what Heidegger proceeds to do.
Heidegger begins by asking about what starting point should be used to help us understand those entities whose being as extensio Descartes equates the Being of the 'world'. What kind of being that belongs to Dasein should we fix upon as our launching point? "The only genuine access to them [i.e. to those entities that Descartes focused on] lies in knowing [Erkennen], intellectio, in the sense of the kind of knowledge [Erkenntnis] we get in mathematics and physics." (BT 128/95)
Here is Heidegger's description of Descartes' view of mathematical knowledge: "Mathematical knowledge is regarded by Descartes as the one manner of papprehending entities which can always give assurance that their Being has been securely grasped. If anything measures up in its own kind of Being to the Being that is accessible in mathematical knowledge, then it is in the authentic sense. [2] Such entities are those which always are what they are." (BT 128/95) According to Heidegger, Descartes is attracted to mathematical knowledge because mathematical entities are constant and enduring in an important way. They always present themselves as they are and never as anything else. "That which enduringly remains, really is." (BT 128/95) So Descartes understands the being of entities in terms of the idea of knowledge and how such entities come to be known and thought about (cognized). Descartes seems to equate being roughly with what is constantly present-at-hand. He does not look to entities in the world to understand their being but imposes an understanding of being (one that has to do with persistence) on them. So even his leaning toward mathematics is not determinative for his understanding of being, "but rather by his ontological orientation in principle towards Being as constant presence-at-hand, which mathematical knowledge is exceptionally well suited to grasp." (BT 129/95) Heidegger sees in Descartes a shift from traditional ontology to a focus on modern mathematical physics and its transcendental foundations.
Since Descartes' understanding of being is grounded on the idea of knowledge and how entities can come to be known or cognized, he is automatically shut off from even considering the possibility that sensation and physical perception could grant insight into the essence of things. [3] NOEIN ('beholding') and DIANOEIN ('thinking') are just accepted as fundamental (owing to a long-standing traditional approach to ontology) and so, while sensatio (AISTHESIS, relating to perception) may still serve as a way of access to entities, as by a perceptual beholding, Descartes is mostly critical of that path to understanding. [4]
One may recall that in his meditation on the piece of wax, Descartes emphasizes that essence of the piece of wax cannot be known through its myriad of sensible properties (coloured, flavoured, hard, cold, and sounding when struck). The senses "tell us nothing about entities in their Being." (BT 129/97) Descartes concludes: "Quod agentes, percipiemus naturam materiae, sive corporis in universum spectati, non consistere in eo quod sit res dura, vel ponderosa, vel colorata, vel alio aliquo modo sensus afficiens: sed tantum in eo quod sit res extensa in longum, latum et profundum." (BT 129-130/97) "Which thing doing, we will perceive (regarding) the nature of matter, or body universally considered, that it does not consist in being something hard or heavy or colored, or the senses in some other way being affected; but so much [only] in being something extended in length, breadth, and depth."
But Heidegger is convinced that Descartes' analysis will not stand up to scrutiny. His method will not allow him to show what is present in sensation in its own kind of being. Descartes' approach cannot reveal the true character of those things. [5] Hardness, for instance, is interpreted as a kind of resistance, but neither of these is understood in a phenomenal sense, "as something experienced in itself whose nature can be determined in such an experience." (BT 130/97) Resistance is interpreted as the relationship between the locations of various entities and the variable rates of changes in the positions of those entities. "But when the experience of hardness is Interpreted this way, the kind of Being which belongs to sensory perception is obliterated, and so is any possibility that the entities encountered in such perceptions should be grasped in their Being. Descartes takes the kind of Being which belongs to the perception of something, and translates it into the only kind he knows: the perception of something becomes a definite way of Being-present-at-hand-side-by-side of two res extensae which are present-at-hand; the way in which their movements are related is itself a mode off that extensio by which the presence-at-hand of the corporeal Things is primarily characterized. Of course no behaviour in which one feels one's way by touch [eines tastenden Verhaltens] can be 'completed' unless what can thus be felt [des Betastbaren] has 'closeness' of a very special kind. But this does not mean that touching [Beruhrung] and the hardness which makes itself known in touching consist ontologically in different velocities of two corporeal Things. Hardness and resistance do not show themselves at all unless an entity has the kind of Being which Dasein--or at least something living--possesses." (BT 130/97)
So Descartes takes phenomenal experience and translates it in such a way that it is interpreted in terms of another kind of being; he then supposes that this translation/interpretation has disclosed the essence of those experiences and the entities experienced. But Heidegger resists this reduction. It may be useful for certain purposes or capture certain truths, but it is not the sum or whole.
"The idea of Being as permanent presence-at-hand not only gives Descartes a motive for identifying entities within-the-world with the world in general, and for providing so extreme a definition of their Being; it also keeps him from bringing Dasein's ways of behaving into view in a manner which is ontologically appropriate. But thus the road is completely blocked to seeing the founded character of all sensory and intellective awareness, and to understanding these as possibility of Being-in-the-world. On the contrary, he takes the Being of 'Dasein' (to whose basic constitution Being-in-the-world belongs) in the very same way as he takes the Being of the res extensa--namely, as substance." (BT 130-131/98) The idea that the essence of things should be interpreted in terms of permanence allows Descartes to identify the world with the sum total of entities within the world; he does not realize that the world is more like the context in which entities can emerge and appear in certain ways and as they do. It also allows him to ignore Dasein's various ways of interacting with entities in the world. Recall the Heidegger takes it that Dasein has a pretheoretical understanding of being that allows it to interact with various kinds of entities with various kinds of being in appropriate ways; that is why consideration of Dasein's ways of interacting in the world ('sensory and intellective awareness') is such an important clue for understanding the being of entities in the world and being in general. These reveal the character of Dasein as being-in-the-world. But Descartes treats the being of human beings in essentially the same way that he treats the being of all entities--in terms of substance.
But was Descartes even aware of these kinds of issues? How can we charge Descartes with 'identifying the world with certain entities within-the-world' if he did not even have the interpretation of within-the-world-ness on his mind? If he had no conception of the phenomenon of the world, how can we accuse him of having given a problematic interpretation of that phenomenon?
Heidegger acknowledges that Descartes does not explicitly address these kinds of issues but insists that one can still evaluate him in these terms by looking at the 'objective tendencies of the problematic'. He points out that in his treatment of the res cogitans and res extensa, Descartes claims to formulate and to solve the problem of the "I" and of the 'world'. He claims to have given certain grounds for the existence and the possibility of knowledge claims about both areas. But because he does not question his own presuppositions, "he has made it impossible to lay bare any primordial ontological problematic of Dasein; this has inevitably obstructed his view of the phenomenon of the world, and has made it possible for the ontology of the 'world' to be compressed into that of certain entities within-the-world. The foregoing discussion should have proved this." (BT 131/98) The essence of the critique, as I interpret Heidegger, is that though Descartes claimed to have disclosed what is essential about the "I" and the 'world,' in fact, he actually failed to account for huge parts of both. Granted, he may not have set out with the intention of revealing all the various dimensions of the "I" and the 'world,' but his conclusions were such that they eliminated any possibility of such an inquiry. One has distilled the essence of a thing who is able to, on that basis, account for all the various facets of that thing. But Descartes cannot do that by appeal to the res cogitans and res extensa. He cannot account for the various dimensions of our 'sensory and intellective awareness'. This is not, by itself, grounds for rejecting his view, but when it purports to be definitive in some way or cuts off further inquiry, then there is a problem. This is what Heidegger has tried to show.
Heidegger takes note of one objection according to which, "even if in point of fact both the problem of the world and the Being of the entities encountered environmentally as closest to us remain concealed, Descartes has still laid the basis for characterizing ontologically that entity within-the-world upon which, in its very Being, every other entity is founded--material Nature." (BT 131/98) According to this view, Descartes' characterization of the fundamental essence of physical things is the basis for every attribution of further characteristics to those entities--all of which are but quantitative modifications of the modes of the extensio itself. And these, in turn, would ground such qualities as "beautiful", and "in keeping", and "useful". If one is oriented primarily by Thinghood, these qualities are not quantifiable but if one is oriented by Descartes' extensio then we could 'build up' securely the structure of what is proximally ready-to-hand.
But Heidegger doubts that the being of the ready-to-hand really can be reached ontologically by this procedure--by treating extendedness as the most fundamental category. To posit a material thing is to posit a kind of being--"a constant presence-at-hand of Things" (BT 132/99)--and the valuation of such things as "beautiful", or "useful" "cannot tell us anything at all new about the Being of goods, but would merely presuppose again that goods have pure presence-at-hand as their kind of Being." (BT 132/99) But this presupposition of a pure presence-at-hand existence cannot be corroborated by careful reflection on experience. Heidegger writes, "But even pre-phenomenological experience shows that in an entity which is supposedly a Thing, there is something that will not become fully intelligible through Thinghood alone." (BT 132/99)
What do "values" amount to ontologically? And what does it mean ontologically to invest things with "value"? As long as the answers to these questions remain obscure, we cannot be sure that we have come to a full understanding of the real essence of things.
"Descartes has narrowed down the question of the world to that of Things of Nature [Naturdinglichkeit] as those entities within-the-world which are proximally accessible. He has confirmed the opinion that to know an entity in what is supposedly the most rigorous ontical manner is our only possible access to the primary Being of the entity which such knowledge reveals. But at the same time we must have the insight to see that in principle the 'roundings-out' of the Thing-ontology also operate on the same dogmatic basis as that which Descartes has adopted." (BT 133/100)
--
"We have already intimated in Section 14 that passing over the world and those entities which we proximally encounter is not accidental, not an overesight which it would be simple to correct, but that it is grounded in a kind of Being which belongs essentially to Dasein itself." (BT 133/100) Heidegger plans to lay out how this is the case after he has further developed his account of the main structures of Dasein and "when we have assigned [zugewiesen] to the concept of Being in general the horizon within which its intelligibility becomes possible". Then, he says, a thorough critique of the Cartesian ontology of the world can become possible. Unfortunately, this portion of Heidegger's project (Part One, Division Three) was never published. The plan would have been that through this account, Heidegger would be able to show why, in the earliest attempts to grapple with being, the phenomenon of the world was passed over and philosophers became fixated on entities (especially in 'Nature') as providing the key to a fundamental ontology.
The idea, then, is that while the world, Dasein, and entities within-the-world are the ontologically constitutive states which are closest to us, they cannot be encountered effectively as phenomena if one takes one's orientation fundamentally from Things in the world. [6]
However, this is not to say that Descartes' project is useless. Recall that spatiality is manifestly one of the constituents of entities within-the-world. Descartes' introduction of extensio allowed Kant to identify something more fundamental and a priori. "There is some phenomenal justification for regarding the extensio as a basic characteristic of the 'world', even if by recourse to this neither the spatiality of the world nor that of the entities we encounter in our envifronment (a spatiality which is proximally discovered) nor even that of Dasein itself, can be conceived ontologically." (BT 134/101)
Subdivision C will develop the connection between spatiality and Descartes' conception of the extensio.
--
[1] I will have to review to make sure that my impressions are right. When he asks whether Descartes has disclosed the phenomenon of the world, he is asking whether Descartes has reached a point where he can grasp the nature of 'worldhood'--that in virtue of which Dasein is able to encounter a world at all, that which must be present for the possibility of encountering any world as a unified, coherent, and intelligible whole.
[2] Note another instance of "authentic".
[3] "The problem of how to get appropriate access to entities within-the-world is one which Descartes feels no need to raise.
[4] NOEIN means 'perceive'. DIA- means 'through'. AISTHESIS is related to AISTHETA ('perceptible thing') and AISTHESTHAI ('perceive'), and to the English, 'aesthetic'.
[5] Heidegger indicates: (Cf. Section 19).
[6] "The world and Dasein and entities within-the-world are the ontologically constitutive states which are closest to us; but we have no guarantee that we can achieve the basis for meeting up with these as phenomena by the seemingly obvious procedure of starting with the Things of the world, still less by taking our orientation from what is supposedly the most rigorous knowledge of entities. Our observations on Descartes should have brought us this insight." (BT 134/101)
--
God is in this place,
And that reality, seen and understood by the grace of God in Christ Jesus through the work of the Holy Spirit, makes all the difference in the world.
posted by Metaphysician_delta | 9:28 AM
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