I agree with Heidegger here, as I see concepts such as God, the One, or Being as ways to describe what is independent from our realities, and therefore concealed from us. The only way to get to the One, is through the Word, aka. the Logos, Jesus Christ, Language.

Also Heidegger had his fan club, whereas Nietzsche went it sickly and alone. And style matters, in my book. Nietzsche' style was not elitist. For all his ironic talk to the contrary, he was still after the Truth. But what philosopher isn't?

I suppose from a physics viewpoint you are right. But what sort of being could we be talking about, if we take ourselves from the picture? Because it seems to me that Being as understood by humans is made of language organizing sensation. It's the old issue of using consciousness to imagine a universe without consciousness. I can't help but feel that it's like waking up dead.

Heidegger gets from poiesis to alatheia by saying simply "Bringing-forth propriates only insofar as something concealed comes into unconcealment." To me this seems like the biggest jump.

But this is not the thread to go on about Nietzsche so I will make that comment and ask you not to reply:sarcastic:. Nietzsche dismisses Truth in the same way that he dismisses Being.

We say "truth" and usually understand it as correctness of representation." And if Truth is a revealing (aletheia) what is revealed... why Being, or perhaps beings but since we are talking about capital T Truth we are really at the same time talking about capital B Being.

'Waking up silent" is a be a better way to say it. Before he dives into the language of Being and the consciousness of Being Heidegger makes a few caveat's - something on the order of trees being in the forest still are even if there is no one around to hear them. But the thing is H. wants to talk about Being and he can't talk about the Being that he is not conscious of... there is still a "transcendental horizon"... a vast ocean perhaps an undiscovered noumenal country even ... but we can't be consciouse of that or talk about being conscious of that. We must pass over it in silence. But Heidegger believes the Great Greeks passed over less in silence or that their language revealed more of Being. Heidegger believes that the transcendental horizon of the Greeks was set further back.

Everything is bracketed off Husserl fashion but I do wonder to what extent Heidegger's revealing (aletheia) or for that matter Hegel's Becoming is really about what is happening at the bracket, at the horizon, at the dividing line, in the twilight. Ontologically things Become at the horizon. Epistemologically things are revealed at the horizon. The epistemology of ontology. Ontological epistemology? Epistemological ontology?

Technology is not just about machines of course. Technology is also about methods and techniques. Techniques can be thought of a means to an end but that end is a revealing (aletheia) hence technology is a revealing. That is how we get from everyday understanding of technology as means to an end to the understanding of technology as a revealing (aletheia).

The everyday understanding of technology takes the revealing for granted and sees both the revealing and that which is revealed as a means to an end. But technology in truth, technology is essentially a revealing.

Technology is not just about machines of course. Technology is also about methods and techniques. Techniques can be thought of a means to an end but that end is a revealing (aletheia) hence technology is a revealing. That is how we get from everyday understanding of techonology to aletheia.

This is undeniably poetic. I like "transcendental horizon." Nice. Was Heidegger right? Did the Greeks see something we didn't ? Perceive more fully? Or are moderns the true ancients, as I think Bacon said. The Greeks were children, said the Egyptians, right? Or is this their virtue? Spengler thinks they lived in the present, the finite, and distrusted the far and the infinite. That might be a good counterpoint to Heidegger. One might think that the square root of 2 would emphasize this transcendental horizon. One could also compare cathedrals to columns.

"Thus the Greeks become essentially a higher type of Hottentot, whom modern science has left far behind. Disregarding the lesser absurdities involed in this view of the beginning of Western philosophy as something primitive, we need only say this: those who put forward such an interpretation forget that what is under discussion is philosophy, one of man's few great achievements. But what is great can only begin great. Its beginning is in fact the greatest thing of all. A small beginning belongs only to the small, whose dubious greatness it is to diminish all things; small are the beginnings of decay, though it may later become great in the sense of the enormity of total annihilation" - An Introduction to Metaphysics

Right, but I see the machines as the product of the methods and techniques. You can call them both technology if you'd like, but the reason that a lot of machines exist is because of inauthentic intentions which lead to faulty methods and techniques, and in the end dangerous and destructive machines.

As important as nuclear technology is, it has created an untold amount of death and destruction. The question is whether or not the benefits of nuclear technology is worth the risk involved. I think Heidegger may argue that it is not.

Much of our technology does not reveal what Heidegger was speaking of when he spoke of aletheia. He is speaking of revealing a much more primordial experience, and not just blind advancement of ontic knowledge.

But I agree, the authentic advancement of technology is necessary for aletheia, but as I mentioned earlier, much of our technology development has a very inauthentic focus.

In a philosophy that believes that objective truth can only be reached by trusting inter-subjective relationships, ethical activity becomes self-evident. In order to learn more about the world, we must do so through other people.

If it still seems feasible after I do some more reading I may want to start a thread comparing Spinoza's God to Heidegger's Being. Has anyone run across this comparison elsewhere? One interesting difference that almost immediately comes to mind is that Spinoza's God was One. While Heidegger's Being is ever coupled with Nothing.

Being, the indeterminate immediate, is in fact nothing, and neither more nor less than nothing.

Nothing is, therefore, the same determination, or rather absence of determination, and thus altogether the same as, pure being.

One interesting difference that almost immediately comes to mind is that Spinoza's God was One. While Heidegger's Being is ever coupled with Nothing.

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The Greeks were gold, the Latins were Silver. The Greeks looked back to a golden age but Heidegger looks back and the Greeks themselves as a Golden age.

I think you are a few steps ahead of me. Authenticity is a concept that is often traced back to Heidegger. Thanks for the heads up. I see your footprints on the trail ahead of me.

I am unsure what you mean by "primordial experience" as compared with "ontic knowledge". Can you say a little more about this please?

And it would be even better if the notion that objective truth can only be realized by trusting inter-subjective relationships made any sense. What does it mean? Could we get to "the rough ground" by your giving us an example of what that would be? What does it mean to "trust an inter-subjective relationship". Or is that kind of question out of bounds when discussing continental philosophy? I mean the kind of question that asks you to make sense of what you say.

And it would be even better if the notion that objective truth can only be realized by trusting inter-subjective relationships made any sense. What does it mean? Could we get to "the rough ground" by your giving us an example of what that would be? What does it mean to "trust an inter-subjective relationship". Or is that kind of question out of bounds when discussing continental philosophy? I mean the kind of question that asks you to make sense of what you say.

Intersubjectivity by definition is something between the objective and the subjective.

Intersubjectivity - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Discussing solipsism seems to be a backwater in philosophy or something. I mention it only shyly. I don't know if this is because everyone else has already figured it out or if it is because it makes everyone else uncomfortable to think about it. Trust and perhaps even Faith are one way out of the radically skeptical subjective state of solipsism. Intersubjectivity is about shared meanings. It is about receiving confirmation from others. Wittgenstein's rejection of Private Language must be of some importance here. Trusting in Public Language is a form of trusting in intersubjective relationships. This may not constitute objective truth but it offers more possibly objective truths than does solipsism.

Prior to Descartes' idea of a closed Cogito separate from the exterior world, ideas of consciousness were described under the term soul, and the soul was always something that was developed within a community and never isolated from the exterior world. Descartes unsuccessfully left philosophers in either solipsism or naive materialism, and both had drastic effects on the attitude of the entire Western Culture.

As Reconstructo touched on earlier, I think Heidegger understood that the Greeks, and even some Medievals, spoke of a much richer reality simply because of this ability to understand the self as existing within a whole network of other souls. It is the pre-Cartesian, primordial experience that Heidegger was trying to reach, and this was what is revealed with aletheia. The interesting thing he found is that this primordial experience is still being expressed within our everyday language, or idle chatter as he calls it, but it takes a Dasein to become aware of it.

Understanding Dasein allows for the ability to abstract this concealed understanding or experience of reality, and overcome the ontic, inauthentic, existence that we have been left with since Descartes.

Levels of certainty imply (like it or not) levels of truth.

Somewhere I got the idea that the movement from Descartes to Hegel was the movement from I to the WE. This is also the arch of the proletarian novel (e.g. Grapes of Wrath).
I understand the damaging effects of starting with Descartes cogito. Levels of certainty imply (like it or not) levels of truth. At least in praxis we trust more what we are more certain of. Thus by Descartes we are ever turned back to the individual self like an unweaned baby to the nipple (solipsism) or else once weaned we see the nipple for what we think it is...just another thing (naive materialism).

But I do not see yet how Dasein gets us out of this. Wittgenstein's rejection of private language seems more promising to me. What does Dasein really offer. It still seems the individual solipistic self interrogating a Being that is possibly completely contained within that Self. I am missing the gist. Never mind naive materialism but how does Dasein get us out of solipsism?

I'll check out those lectures thanks. Throw in a link to them if you have it handy.

Were that so, then the more certain someone was that God exists, the truer it would be that God exists. But, it is either true or false that God exists. There is no level of truth. So you must be mistaken. (The same goes, of course, for the proposition that Quito is the capital of Ecuador). You cannot repeal the law of the excluded middle.

What makes "the self" is the distinction of our Being through our facticity. Most people let their factual existence dictate how they live, but by seeing Dasein in other people you are able to build relationship with them despite their facticty. It is the common ground so to speak between us, and it is this bridge which gets us out of solipsism.

But how does one see Dasein in other people? I can only guess that it is some intuition or sixth sense that overwhelms any attempt to explain that Dasein away as an illusion... and admitidly it is difficult to overwhelm that intuition but Descartes (and there must have been others before him) did it and showed us how to do it.

Were that so, then the more certain someone was that God exists, the truer it would be that God exists. But, it is either true or false that God exists. There is no level of truth. So you must be mistaken. (The same goes, of course, for the proposition that Quito is the capital of Ecuador). You cannot repeal the law of the excluded middle.

Descartes did what?

But how does one see Dasein in other people? I can only guess that it is some intuition or sixth sense that overwhelms any attempt to explain that Dasein away as an illusion... and admitidly it is difficult to overwhelm that intuition but Descartes (and there must have been others before him) did it and showed us how to do it.