Re: Heideggerian ontology.

[anthropo-eccentricism]

The question of the meaning of Being can only be asked from within the structure of Dasein, a structure which is in each case mine. Indeed, the question itself could not be made intelligible were it not always-already understood, albeit in a veiled, implicit way that can be brought to the fore only on the basis of a non-intellectual comportment or self-interpretation that reveals itself in the stance that Dasein takes on itself, on its own being. But does transcendentalism not open a way around this correlationism? Can we not ask: given the structure of Dasein, what are the conditions such that this structure is made intelligible to us, or the conditions for the existence of this structure at all? Doubtless, Heidegger wants to say that there is, without Dasein, no intelligibility at all, no time, no space, no meaning, no existence--for all this refers back to the structures of Dasein and its concern for the world and its being-therein. But, given this account, how is fundamental ontology distinguished from Kantian Idealism? How are we to access the world as it exists independently of us if the very terms of accessibility, of disclosedness and concealment and rationality and logic itself refer always-already back to the structures of existing Dasein?

It seems we're left with but two options: first, if we are to insist that the question of Being can only be asked on the basis of the structures of Dasein, and that Being can only ever correlate with being-for-us, then we must accept a Kantian Idealism within which we are left with an unresolved and insidious phenomena/noumena problematic; on the other hand, if we are to grant any leeway at all to the possibility of a continuity between the worldliness of Dasein's being-there and reality, in the properly Heideggerian sense of the term, then we can do away with Kantian Idealism but only at the cost of rendering illegitimate the entire project of fundamental ontology as a correlationism between being and being-for-Dasein. Which disjunct does the Heideggerian affirm?

[Dan~]

Idealism as in the world being made of thought is nonsense.

Ontology shouldn't be hard, or overly complex.
Nature is minimal, despite its vast size and power.
Likewise metaphysics should be minimal in how many assertions it makes.

"Being" is only a label. We can be, without having to say that we are being.
Likewise, "Existence" is an idea, but we can still exist without thought, like a tree exists.
Being, existence, these things are not even necessary in metaphysics.
They are not things in and of themselves. They are words and categories.
Just because something wasn't intelligible doesn't mean it's not real.
We also don't need things to be intelligible in metaphysics.

[anthropo-eccentricism]

I asked an interpretive question from within the Heideggerian framework. I didn't ask for your opinion on what metaphysics should or shouldn't be.

[Faust]

Idealism as in the world being made of thought is nonsense.

Ontology shouldn't be hard, or overly complex.
Nature is minimal, despite its vast size and power.
Likewise metaphysics should be minimal in how many assertions it makes.

"Being" is only a label. We can be, without having to say that we are being.
Likewise, "Existence" is an idea, but we can still exist without thought, like a tree exists.
Being, existence, these things are not even necessary in metaphysics.
They are not things in and of themselves. They are words and categories.
Just because something wasn't intelligible doesn't mean it's not real.
We also don't need things to be intelligible in metaphysics.

Nonetheless, this is probably the best answer you will ever get to any question about heidegger, given by what is probably the best philosopher who will ever respond to you.

[anthropo-eccentricism]

Nonetheless, this is probably the best answer you will ever get to any question about heidegger, given by what is probably the best philosopher who will ever respond to you.

Heidegger is an acquired taste, so I'll hold off on the lecture. As for the latter claim, I'll remain without opinion for now.

[Joe Schmoe]

I'll give you my answer. Take it as you like, or leave it, if that suits.

----------------------

If we are to insist that the question of Being can only be asked on the basis of the structures of Dasein, and that Being can only ever correlate with being-for-us, then we must accept a Kantian Idealism within which we are left with an unresolved and insidious phenomena/noumena problematic;

Phenomena/noumena aren't really a problem.

(let's see how many times I can say Dasein!)
If we say that what we're interested in, is not 'reality', but rather Dasein itself - one's interest in reality, would go only so far as it's affect on Dasein. This affect can be accessed through Dasein through the very experience of it. If reality didn't affect Dasein, then there'd be no reason to consider it, since Dasein is our interest.

If we are to grant any leeway at all to the possibility of a continuity between the worldliness of Dasein's being-there and reality, in the properly Heideggerian sense of the term, then we can do away with Kantian Idealism but only at the cost of rendering illegitimate the entire project of fundamental ontology as a correlationism between being and being-for-Dasein.

What is fundamental ontology?

The rest of this quote fits in with my understanding.

Which disjunct does the Heideggerian affirm?

Beats me.

[anthropo-eccentricism]

If we say that what we're interested in, is not 'reality', but rather Dasein itself - one's interest in reality, would go only so far as it's affect on Dasein. This affect can be accessed through Dasein through the very experience of it. If reality didn't affect Dasein, then there'd be no reason to consider it, since Dasein is our interest.

So you accept the former (disjunct), and are left with a sort of veiled Idealism within which the thing-in-itself persists, albeit unimportantly and without significance (and beyond the capacity of language, the realm of intelligibility itself). This seems to me the orthodox Heideggerian account, but I was actually hoping that someone might argue the contrary. I find this sort of idealism frankly unpalatable, but I'm slogging through Being and Time this summer and am trying to comport myself toward it respectably. Put differently: I want a Heideggerian realism. Is this possible? What might it look like?

[Joe Schmoe]

If we say that what we're interested in, is not 'reality', but rather Dasein itself - one's interest in reality, would go only so far as it's affect on Dasein. This affect can be accessed through Dasein through the very experience of it. If reality didn't affect Dasein, then there'd be no reason to consider it, since Dasein is our interest.

So you accept the former (disjunct), and are left with a sort of veiled Idealism within which the thing-in-itself persists, albeit unimportantly and without significance.

I suppose so.

But I'd have to stress that Dasein emerges from reality. Therefore, when we question and seek to understand Dasein, we're assessing a product of reality. To ignore reality completely, would be to ignore the source of Dasein and the effects reality has on Dasein.

I don't dismiss reality, I just say that our priority is being, not what's beyond being.

[anthropo-eccentricism]

But I'd have to stress that Dasein emerges from reality. Therefore, when we question and seek to understand Dasein, we're assessing a product of reality. To ignore reality completely, would be to ignore the source of Dasein and the effects reality has on Dasein.

Does it emerge from reality? Heidegger is relatively pointed here: we cannot speak of existence, of intelligibility, of mind-independence or its contrary, in the absence of Dasein, for all these concepts refer back irrevocably to the structures of existing Dasein. He seems to want to say, however, that we cannot, on this basis, conclude that reality is wholly mind-dependent. The whole problematic is frankly rather puzzling.

[James S Saint]

Ignore mathematics, pay attention to the equation.

[anthropo-eccentricism]

Ignore mathematics, pay attention to the equation.

So enigmatic. How very Heideggerian of you.

[Joe Schmoe]

Does it emerge from reality? Heidegger is relatively pointed here: we cannot speak of existence, of intelligibility, of mind-independence or its contrary, in the absence of Dasein, for all these concepts refer back irrevocably to the structures of existing Dasein. He seems to want to say, however, that we cannot, on this basis, conclude that reality is wholly mind-dependent. The whole problematic is frankly rather puzzling.

I believe, without much evidence, that there is indeed a 'constant' environment beyond our awareness.

Take a book for example. When we're young, odds are, we can read the text within a book with no problems. The text is clear and has focus. As we get older, our eyes degenerate and when we look at the same book, the words aren't clear any more. They've lost focus.

Because we understand the problem isn't shared by other people, the problem isn't with the book. The book is constant, but our awareness - our ability to connect with 'reality'- is altered. Therefore, I conclude that our awareness is subject, but there's something we connect to, that isn't changing.

I hope this answers the question properly.

[James S Saint]

Because we understand the problem isn't shared by other people, the problem isn't with the book.

Exactly the point of "verification", a process of logical deduction.
Logic reveals Truth, mere observation doesn't.
And thus Science will always depend upon philosophy (reasoning).

[James S Saint]

The question of the meaning of Being can only be asked from within the structure of Dasein, a structure which is in each case mine. Indeed, the question itself could not be made intelligible were it not always-already understood, albeit in a veiled, implicit way that can be brought to the fore only on the basis of a non-intellectual comportment or self-interpretation that reveals itself in the stance that Dasein takes on itself, on its own being. But does transcendentalism not open a way around this correlationism? Can we not ask: given the structure of Dasein, what are the conditions such that this structure is made intelligible to us, or the conditions for the existence of this structure at all? Doubtless, Heidegger wants to say that there is, without Dasein, no intelligibility at all, no time, no space, no meaning, no existence--for all this refers back to the structures of Dasein and its concern for the world and its being-therein. But, given this account, how is fundamental ontology distinguished from Kantian Idealism? How are we to access the world as it exists independently of us if the very terms of accessibility, of disclosedness and concealment and rationality and logic itself refer always-already back to the structures of existing Dasein?

You should take logic and rationality out of that last statement as both are independent of subjective assessment.

Existence is given definition via affect and for affect to occur, there must be distinction. Distinctions are independent of subjective assessment even though in normal living there are reasonable limits of concern for such distinctions (rational limits of concern).

Thus there is an objective reality that is independent of subjective assessment.

Philosophers of that era were but novices.

[Joe Schmoe]

Nicely put.

Wish I could articulate myself as well as you.

[James S Saint]

Nicely put.

Wish I could articulate myself as well as you.

You are actually doing better than you probably think. There is a specific psychological situation that causes some people to believe that they cannot express themselves when they actually can and are. But over time, they will diminish. It has to do with to whom one is attempting to communicate.

In your case, if you were to communicate only to very clear thinking people, you would find yourself becoming far better at expressing yourself as well as thinking even more clearly yourself, although I don't see that you have a significant problem in that area (except for self-appraisal).

With that in mind, one must forgive 18th century philosophers for some of the things they said.
They have become popular only due to socio-political issues, not because they were particularly brilliant.

{{..and I study the Uccisore school of rhetoric}}

[anthropo-eccentricism]

Heidegger wrote fairly recently, actually. Perhaps you're thinking of someone else. In any case: if you'd read my posts, you'd realize that my intention was to find a Heideggerian willing to defend a realist interpretation of his fundamental ontology. I, as I've already said, am reading through Being and Time this summer and am beginning to be turned off by its idealist overtones. I've heard that there exists a difference in interpretation among the secondary-commentators, and so I thought I might be able to bring out such a difference here, on this forum. But I'm going to go ahead and wager that there aren't many Heideggerians lurking these halls. Joe Schmoe, your posts have been helpful, as they seem to take as a starting point something that looks like a Heideggerian ontology. James: with all due respect, I really couldn't care any less, not in this thread anyway, about your idiosyncratic metaphysic and the ways by which it disqualifies a correlation between Being and Dasein. Kindly refer to the title of this thread.

[James S Saint]

my intention was to find a Heideggerian willing to defend a realist interpretation of his fundamental ontology.

Something to realize about Heidegger is that he didn't actually have an ontology. He was a deconstructionist. He criticized other's philosophies proclaiming that they didn't address the most crucial question. I happen to agree. But he didn't answer that question either. He merely exposed how others had overlooked an issue and presumed that the obvious was the real.

Apparently his particular criticism concerned the essence of "being", what is it? That is a question that I answered long ago and one of the reasons that I agree with his criticisms of others. But to merely point out that others are flawed without filling in the gaps doesn't really accomplish very much. It is a beginning, but that's it. He made a point that Dasien comes into the mix of understanding the effort known as philosophy. But such analyzes do not constitute an ontology.

Plato at least had one, flawed or not.
It seems that Heidegger merely said, "you guys are living in a cloud and this is why...".
I agree with him.

[anthropo-eccentricism]

Something to realize about Heidegger is that he didn't actually have an ontology.

Obviously, it's been a while since you've read Heidegger. What do you make of his analysis of the distinction between presence and readiness at hand, of the critique of the metaphysics of presence, of the inversion of the theoretico-practical tyranny, of his response to the Husserlian school of intentionality, of his conception of discourse and its telling, its articulation of the jointedness of the referential totality implied by any with-which, in-order-to, for-the-sake-which, of his brilliantly insightful conception of attunement, affectedness, anxiety and its tendency to de-world, dasein and its de-distancing of occurrent spatiality, or temporality as an equiprimordial facet of being-in-the-world, or being-unto-death as a fundamental intimation of one's being-with-others, or the practical background that remains a presupposition by any equipmental coping, or the stance that dasein takes on itself vis its pretheoretical comportment toward the world and its own being-therein? These are all positive theses. And yes, Heidegger developed formally the concept of deconstruction, a conception he found in Nietzsche, to be sure. But if you know anything about deconstruction, you know that it isn't simply a destruction, it isn't simply a critique, but rather a complication of dichotomy whereby both terms of the binary are made to bleed into each other, inflect and reciprocate each other, rely on each other. The picture you've painted of Heidegger with the broad strokes of your condescending paternalism is nothing short of wholly misguided, completely misinformed. Heidegger carried out a critique of traditional ontology and its ignorance of the question of the meaning of being as it pertains to that being for whom its ownmost being is a question, a concern, a matter of care. But this critique implicates a vastly positive ontology, an ontology that you seem to have missed or taken for granted--for my wager remains: you've yet to actually read him.

He made a point that Dasien comes into the mix of understanding the effort known as philosophy.

I'll just leave this statement here to stand testament to your embarrassing lack of understanding. Please, before you endeavour to lecture me on what I should or shouldn't recognize in Heidegger's (supposed) lack of an ontology, take care to actually read the man--a task that you've obviously shrugged off.

[James S Saint]

Something to realize about Heidegger is that he didn't actually have an ontology.

Obviously, it's been a while since you've read Heidegger. What do you make of his analysis of the distinction between presence and readiness at hand, of the critique of the metaphysics of presence, of the inversion of the theoretico-practical tyranny, of his response to the Husserlian school of intentionality, of his conception of discourse and its telling, its articulation of the jointedness of the referential totality implied by any with-which, in-order-to, for-the-sake-which, of his brilliantly insightful conception of attunement, affectedness, anxiety and its tendency to de-world, dasein and its de-distancing of occurrent spatiality, or temporality as an equiprimordial facet of being-in-the-world, or being-unto-death as a fundamental intimation of one's being-with-others, or the practical background that remains a presupposition by any equipmental coping, or the stance that dasein takes on itself vis its pretheoretical comportment toward the world and its own being-therein?

No. That entire run-on sentence is about what is wrong with others, what they didn't include in their efforts.

How about you tell me what he thought the construct of reality actually is (ontology), rather than what he thought it isn't. Everything in that diatribe is about "but you guys didn't think about this either...".

These are all positive theses.

Quite the opposite because he didn't answer the question that he posed (and thus became promoted in a time of deconstruction of human thought).

[anthropo-eccentricism]

No. That entire run-on sentence is about what is wrong with others, what they didn't include in their efforts.

Surely, you're capable of recognizing the absurdity in such a critique: Nietzsche's will to power wasn't a positive thesis, it was just a negative critique of what Schopenhauer didn't include in his conception of the cosmic will. Semantics.

How about you tell me what he thought the construct of reality actually is (ontology), rather than what he thought it isn't.

Kindly refer to the opening post of this thread. My question here concerns whether or not we can legitimately discourse about reality as it is independently of Dasein, that being for whom reality is made intelligible, made to unconceal itself--or, contrarily, to remain hidden and incomprehensible. For Heidegger, the world is the world for Dasein. Reality neither is or is not independently of Dasein. But I hesitate to conclude that we can on this basis claim the complete mind-dependence of all of existence. Again, this is all for Heidegger; these are not my views. I'm humble enough to concede a lack of total understanding when it comes to the distinction between realism and idealism that surfaces around two hundred pages into the first division of B&T. But this isn't to say that Heidegger doesn't at all have any positive claims. Doubtless, he does. I merely wanted to discuss possible streams of interpretation that surround those claims. And here I should thank you for completely derailing my endeavour.

Quite the opposite because he didn't answer the question that he posed.

Did Heidegger pose the question of the meaning of being, or did he endeavour to make intelligible the posing of that question? I'll save you the embarrassment of having to re-read the preface: it's the latter. Being and Time is an attempt to articulate what conceals itself in the structures of existent Dasein such that a formulation of the question of the meaning of being is made possible. You're right, he considered his own task incomplete, and moved on to different, more poetic considerations in his later works. But that doesn't render legitimate the claim that all four hundred pages of Being and Time amount to nothing more than a sustained nay-saying.

[von Rivers]

anthropo-eccentrism,

It's not clear why you want to force a realist reading out of Heidegger. And for you to even want to try, you should need some impetus from Heidegger's text itself (none given)---unless, you're just developing your own views. (But given your comments to some of the people here, Heidegger interpretation seems to be the project). You mentioned that the phenomena/noumena distinction was unpalatable to you. I'm not sure what that means, or what your criticism of it is.

Anyways, my own view is that trying to locate Heidegger along the realist vs idealist divide is misguided from the start. It's a traditional metaphysical distinction that doesn't well apply to Heidegger, because Dasein doesn't correspond to the traditional conception of 'subject', and Heidegger's use of 'world' doesn't correspond to the traditional concept of 'object'. (This'll be a problem if you're attached to historical labels).

Anyways, bear with me since it's been years and years since I've read Heidegger---and I regret reading him in the first place. So anyways, Dasein doesn't correspond to the traditional 'subject' in the sense that Dasein is supposed to be a reconception of human existence as not standing apart---not distinguished from---something Dasein essentially is not (i.e., the world). I'm not sure if this makes any sense, but we're not talking about two separate substances when talking about Dasein and the world. This is not your grandmother's "substance ontology". Heidegger is on his horse about what sort of being Dasein is, and that is more fundamental than the question of how Dasein represents to itself a 'world'. (The sense in which Heidegger's ontology is more fundamental than the traditional substance ontology would require going into Heidegger's ontological categories of readiness-to-hand and present-at-hand... and, frankly, I really don't want to. (It's Heidegger, not you).

Also, Heidegger isn't thinking of 'world' in the Kantian way as a cause of phenomena, or something like that---or the world as a container of objects. It's more like a contexture of relations. Ontical is the (unnecessary) word, I think. It's more like how you would speak of 'world' in the sense of its use in the phrase: "the world of baseball" ...a constellation of practices, concerns, equipment, constantly changing.

So, is Heidegger a realist, or an idealist? ---That strikes me as a misguided question from the start. Perhaps it's a question worth asking about Heidegger, if we're being something a tad backwardly anachronistic, but as for Heidegger interpretation I'm not sure it's worth the effort.

[James S Saint]

Nietzsche's will to power wasn't a positive thesis, it was just a negative critique of what Schopenhauer didn't include in his conception of the cosmic will. Semantics.

Nietzsche propose a "philosophy for living", not an ontology. Learn the difference.

My question here concerns whether or not we can legitimately discourse about reality as it is independently of Dasein, that being for whom reality is made intelligible, made to unconceal itself--or, contrarily, to remain hidden and incomprehensible.

All that is saying, is the typical liberal stance of "we can't know". It is NOT professing what IS true, but rather merely that you can't know and thus are wrong. Of course it is a bit silly to proclaim that "the truth is that no one can know the truth", but that doesn't stop people from saying it and it didn't stop Heidegger from concluding with it.

But this isn't to say that Heidegger doesn't at all have any positive claims. Doubtless, he does. I merely wanted to discuss possible streams of interpretation that surround those claims. And here I should thank you for completely derailing my endeavour.

On the contrary, I am being Heidegger right now. I am revealing, through deconstruction, just as Heidegger had done, that you haven't a complete thesis in your questioning. You ask of his ontology but clearly can't identify that there was one.

Quite the opposite because he didn't answer the question that he posed.

Did Heidegger pose the question of the meaning of being, or did he endeavour to make intelligible the posing of that question?

Haha..
"He didn't ask what being is. He asked what the question means."


As I said. He never answered the question. And apparently didn't even understand the question and tried to make sense of it.

He had no ontology to discuss. He had 200 pages of criticisms of others, which is why it is hard to read. I agree with his points, but he didn't go anywhere with it such as to wined up with a substantial truth other than that other philosophers were over looking issues.

[Fixed Cross]

Nice thread.

The question of the meaning of Being can only be asked from within the structure of Dasein, a structure which is in each case mine. Indeed, the question itself could not be made intelligible were it not always-already understood, albeit in a veiled, implicit way that can be brought to the fore only on the basis of a non-intellectual comportment or self-interpretation that reveals itself in the stance that Dasein takes on itself, on its own being. But does transcendentalism not open a way around this correlationism? Can we not ask: given the structure of Dasein, what are the conditions such that this structure is made intelligible to us, or the conditions for the existence of this structure at all? Doubtless, Heidegger wants to say that there is, without Dasein, no intelligibility at all, no time, no space, no meaning, no existence--for all this refers back to the structures of Dasein and its concern for the world and its being-therein. But, given this account, how is fundamental ontology distinguished from Kantian Idealism? How are we to access the world as it exists independently of us if the very terms of accessibility, of disclosedness and concealment and rationality and logic itself refer always-already back to the structures of existing Dasein?

It seems that you interpret the term "fundamental ontology" as "objective ontology". As in a study of what is, regardless of Dasein, or even regardless of perspective. Nietzsche already understood that this question is meaningless. It's not a question we can sensibly ask. Heideggers project for a fundamental ontology was not finished, but it further laid the ground for the realization that perspective is the basic required property of all ontic categories, all phenomena. So what is perspective?

It seems we're left with but two options: first, if we are to insist that the question of Being can only be asked on the basis of the structures of Dasein, and that Being can only ever correlate with being-for-us, then we must accept a Kantian Idealism within which we are left with an unresolved and insidious phenomena/noumena problematic;

Kant makes the assumption that, if there is an observed and defined phenomenon, there is a noumenon to which this phenomenon pertains. But both phenomenon and noumenon are "things". The distinction is actually meaningless. Heidegger realizes this and simply goes to the depth of phenomena, meaning at once the depths of his own Dasein, and does a lot of work there at the threshold of reason, of language, breaking definitively with the notion of phenomenality as thing-ness, on which the noumenon/phenomenon dichotomy depends, and recognizing rather a specific type of emerging, which as far as he can see is characteristic of all being. So his fundamental "object of knowledge" is a behavior, a way of coming-into-being, which he then explores in various phenomenological terrains in his later work. His major work in my eyes is to clarify that positivistic definition must be actually positive, in the most active sense. It can not be neutral, "noumenal", or suggest objectivity.

on the other hand, if we are to grant any leeway at all to the possibility of a continuity between the worldliness of Dasein's being-there and reality, in the properly Heideggerian sense of the term, then we can do away with Kantian Idealism but only at the cost of rendering illegitimate the entire project of fundamental ontology as a correlationism between being and being-for-Dasein. Which disjunct does the Heideggerian affirm?

The point to make here is that being for Dasein is still in the same ontological category as "being for being", that the latter is not related to objectivity in any sense. Being for Dasein is the question of philosophy, which ultimately means, a question of telos. This telos has to be created, and this is what continental philosophy aspires to, as opposed to analyn tical philosophy which assumes always a neutrality (passivity, non-positivity) of truth. So the correlation between the two types of being is to be found in the role that Dasein takes on, meaning, the measure in which it is able to answer the question of being, which means the measure in which it is able to integrate itself cognitively with that (ontological ground) from (also, as) which it emerges.

He said of course that man had not yet begun to think, and what he meant is that man had not begun to cognate in the terms of / in harmony with his emerging. He was certainly right in this but did not arrive at a systemic terminology for this emergent cognating, so we can not "consolidate" Heideggers work but must move forward and add to it in order to make it clearer.

[anthropo-eccentricism]

Fixed Cross: thank you, yours is the type of post I was looking for.

It seems that you interpret the term "fundamental ontology" as "objective ontology". As in a study of what is, regardless of Dasein, or even regardless of perspective. Nietzsche already understood that this question is meaningless. It's not a question we can sensibly ask.

Yes, this seems correct. My fear was that by taking such a conception as a starting point, the consequent philosophy makes it difficult to speak intelligibly of being as it exists apart from Dasein. However, I think this is cleared up with your invocation of the Heideggerian emergence, or rather: unconcealment, disclosing.

Heidegger realizes this and simply goes to the depth of phenomena, meaning at once the depths of his own Dasein, and does a lot of work there at the threshold of reason, of language, breaking definitively with the notion of phenomenality as thing-ness, on which the noumenon/phenomenon dichotomy depends, and recognizing rather a specific type of emerging, which as far as he can see is characteristic of all being.

Ah, yes. Good. This is what I was looking for. That emergence must be understood as an emergence-for seems to be what Heidegger indicates here: "If Dasein does not exist then innerworldly beings, too, can neither be discovered, nor can they lie in concealment. Then it can neither be said that beings are, nor that they are not" (B&T 204). Without Dasein, being cannot emerge, because being can not even lie in a hiddenness or concealment from which it might subsequently emerge. Hiddenness from what? This question means nothing without the being for whom being is a question. I think the important point to note here is that being is being-for-Dasein without relegating Dasein to a conscious intentional direction toward being. If this were the case, then Heidegger indeed would seem to confine himself to an idealism. But, he stipulates quite clearly that this is not the case; emphasis his: "Consciousness of reality is itself a way of being-in-the-world" (203). It is a way, not the way. Being is therefore not correlated to thought or idea, but rather to concern or comportment, to the being for whom being can be a question. Or, as Mo_ has written: "[...] Dasein doesn't correspond to the traditional conception of 'subject' [...]" (And, by the way, I do appreciate your comment, Mo.)

The point to make here is that being for Dasein is still in the same ontological category as "being for being", that the latter is not related to objectivity in any sense.

Indeed, for, given Heidegger's account, being-for-being as objective, as standing-apart from being-for-Dasein, is simply nonsense. In terms of the analytic of Dasein, objectively present beings are indeed real, apart from a particular subject's ideas of them. However, one runs amiss in extending this realism to an objective-presence independently of Dasein. Present to what? Heidegger might ask. Consequently, it seems as if the very terms necessary in formulating the question of the objective existence of the external world misguide us from the beginning. Again, his own words: "The 'scandal of philosophy' [Kant referred to a lack of proof for the existence of the world outside of the subject as one of philosophy's great scandals] does not consist in the fact that this proof is still lacking up to now, but in the fact that such proofs are expected and attempted again and again. Such expectations, intentions, and demands grow out of an ontologically insufficient way of positing that from which, independently and 'outside' of which, a 'world' is to be proven as objectively present" (197). Thus, the proof of an external world either assumes what it attempts to prove--Dasein's being-in-the-world--or it starts from the wrong place--the isolated subject, over and against the world that it represents to itself. Indeed, if we are to take seriously the Heideggerian paradigm, we must leave the binary of realism/idealism behind. And this is, I suspect, precisely the point of Mo's comment. It is well taken.

And this is all, in my eyes, a positive ontology. Not an objective one, whatever that might mean, but a perspectival one. Not individually perspectival, but perspectival in the most fundamental sense of the term--that there is perspective, that there is a "that from which", as Heidegger says, a being for whom being is capable of concealing or disclosing. That there is, in short, a there (as in there-being, dasein). James, you and I remain locked in complete and total disagreement.