McDowell, Kant, and Heidegger

[PandnotP]

I am no expert on Kant or Heidegger, though I think that my understanding for both of them is developing to the point where I can speak competently about their work. Nonetheless, I’m not sure that my argument here is entirely valid. It seems right to me, but if anyone knows of anything that I am overlooking, let me know.

Until I thought of this, I was much less accepting of McDowell’s view about perceptual content. I tend to be sympathetic to the positions of Evans, Peacocke, Bermudez, and Cussins and have argued for the existence of nonconceptual content on several occasions. Now I’m not so sure, because, for me, Heidegger’s ontology, among other things, seems to capture more of the architecture of phenomenality, than anything that contemporary Anglo-American philosophy has to offer. I’m no Heideggerian dogmatist, but it does prompt reconsideration of my position. Anyway, this arose out of a long-standing confusion I have had concerning McDowell’s attribution of many of his ideas to Kant, which don’t occur to me to be implications of what Kant says (though once again, admittedly, I could be wrong).

When McDowell claims that experience (intuition) involves operation of conceptual capacities (spontaneity) from its outset, he attributes the idea to Kant. However, Kant’s claim is not that perceptual contents are conceptual by strict necessity, but rather that without concepts, intuitions are unintelligible (and conversely, that thought without content is empty—thus insignificant). But it seems clear that for Kant, the act of spontaneity is subsequent to intuition, or else what is judgment? Judgment is meant to be and act of understanding through a synthesis of intuitions and concepts. If McDowell is right to think that Kant considered the contents of perception to be conceptual through and through, then what significance is there in his maintaining (a) that a separate cognitive faculty is necessary to incorporate conceptual content into the synthetic unity of apperception, and (b) that it is semantically permissible to speak of intuitions and concepts as being even notionally separable?

McDowell’s idea that the contents of experience are primordially conceptual is to be found more determinately stated (and with greater force than McDowell presents it) not in Kant’s epistemology, but rather in the existential phenomenology of Heidegger. He states, “What we ‘first’ hear is never noises or complexes of sounds, but the creaking wagon, the motorcycle…Dasein, as essentially understanding, is proximally alongside what is understood” (Being and Time §164).

In fact, since Heidegger’s account of language, cognition, and perception are not individual modes of understanding for Desein, but rather are an amalgam which form a constitutive structure of Dasein’s Being-in-the-world: understanding. The three are inherently entangled as concepts to such an extent that to speak of any one of them implies the other two as co-referents; that is, they are ontologically, although not ontically, co-extensive. The reason for this is that (i) Heidegger never speaks of the faculty of cognition explicitly, but a coherent account of it can be inferred apophatically from what he says about understanding; (ii) language and perception arise ontically as significations of assertion, which (assertion) in turn derives from interpretation, which in turn is a mode of understanding—as it (understanding) develops itself.

Thus, for Heidegger, understanding is a unitary structure, which forms our cognitive, linguistic, and perceptual capacities as a singular constituent of Dasein’s Being-in-the-world. They are not modally distinguishable, and are therefore equiprimordial, since all three are in fact references to the same existentiale: understanding. This means that, in Heidegger’s terms, perception and conception part and parcel of the same thing, and must always be found together, as the meaningfulness of Being-in-the-world. In other words, from the very outset of experience, the contents of perception already involve an operation of the conceptual capacities.

[Only_Humean]

@PandnotP

McDowell’s idea that the contents of experience are primordially conceptual is to be found more determinately stated (and with greater force than McDowell presents it) not in Kant’s epistemology, but rather in the existential phenomenology of Heidegger. He states, “What we ‘first’ hear is never noises or complexes of sounds, but the creaking wagon, the motorcycle…Dasein, as essentially understanding, is proximally alongside what is understood” (Being and Time §164).

I disagree… Right now, it is true, I hear my computer fan and the tapping of my keyboard, not sound-data which I subsequently and continuously interpret as such. But in the first instance, I can hear a sound and not recognise it; I search for possibilities in my mind to assign to the noise, but what I first hear is a sharp bang, not a car backfiring or a neighbour’s door slamming or someone upstairs dropping something heavy. It could be cats fighting, a baby crying, distant machinery. And in discussing it with others, I’m reduced to onomatopoeia and simile.

The fact is that most noises are characterised, fit into our worldview, and are expected to some extent. It’s integrated profoundly with sight, too, and our minds can race ahead a little and predict what is coming as it comes, so in many cases it seems to be immediate. But understanding isn’t fundamentally tied in with the understood. If I’ve understood you correctly

[JohnJones]

@PandnotP

I am no expert on Kant or Heidegger, though I think that my understanding for both of them is developing to the point where I can speak competently about their work. Nonetheless, I’m not sure that my argument here is entirely valid. It seems right to me, but if anyone knows of anything that I am overlooking, let me know.

Until I thought of this, I was much less accepting of McDowell’s view about perceptual content. I tend to be sympathetic to the positions of Evans, Peacocke, Bermudez, and Cussins and have argued for the existence of nonconceptual content on several occasions. Now I’m not so sure, because, for me, Heidegger’s ontology, among other things, seems to capture more of the architecture of phenomenality, than anything that contemporary Anglo-American philosophy has to offer. I’m no Heideggerian dogmatist, but it does prompt reconsideration of my position. Anyway, this arose out of a long-standing confusion I have had concerning McDowell’s attribution of many of his ideas to Kant, which don’t occur to me to be implications of what Kant says (though once again, admittedly, I could be wrong).

When McDowell claims that experience (intuition) involves operation of conceptual capacities (spontaneity) from its outset, he attributes the idea to Kant. However, Kant’s claim is not that perceptual contents are conceptual by strict necessity, but rather that without concepts, intuitions are unintelligible (and conversely, that thought without content is empty—thus insignificant). But it seems clear that for Kant, the act of spontaneity is subsequent to intuition, or else what is judgment? Judgment is meant to be and act of understanding through a synthesis of intuitions and concepts. If McDowell is right to think that Kant considered the contents of perception to be conceptual through and through, then what significance is there in his maintaining (a) that a separate cognitive faculty is necessary to incorporate conceptual content into the synthetic unity of apperception, and (b) that it is semantically permissible to speak of intuitions and concepts as being even notionally separable?

McDowell’s idea that the contents of experience are primordially conceptual is to be found more determinately stated (and with greater force than McDowell presents it) not in Kant’s epistemology, but rather in the existential phenomenology of Heidegger. He states, “What we ‘first’ hear is never noises or complexes of sounds, but the creaking wagon, the motorcycle…Dasein, as essentially understanding, is proximally alongside what is understood” (Being and Time §164).

In fact, since Heidegger’s account of language, cognition, and perception are not individual modes of understanding for Desein, but rather are an amalgam which form a constitutive structure of Dasein’s Being-in-the-world: understanding. The three are inherently entangled as concepts to such an extent that to speak of any one of them implies the other two as co-referents; that is, they are ontologically, although not ontically, co-extensive. The reason for this is that (i) Heidegger never speaks of the faculty of cognition explicitly, but a coherent account of it can be inferred apophatically from what he says about understanding; (ii) language and perception arise ontically as significations of assertion, which (assertion) in turn derives from interpretation, which in turn is a mode of understanding—as it (understanding) develops itself.

Thus, for Heidegger, understanding is a unitary structure, which forms our cognitive, linguistic, and perceptual capacities as a singular constituent of Dasein’s Being-in-the-world. They are not modally distinguishable, and are therefore equiprimordial, since all three are in fact references to the same existentiale: understanding. This means that, in Heidegger’s terms, perception and conception part and parcel of the same thing, and must always be found together, as the meaningfulness of Being-in-the-world. In other words, from the very outset of experience, the contents of perception already involve an operation of the conceptual capacities.

Ah, the ancestor-chiefs parade, lovely spectacle, …

Why not say the whole identifies their parts, rather than parts identify themselves?

[Sean]

@Only_Humean

I disagree… Right now, it is true, I hear my computer fan and the tapping of my keyboard, not sound-data which I subsequently and continuously interpret as such. But in the first instance, I can hear a sound and not recognise it; I search for possibilities in my mind to assign to the noise, but what I first hear is a sharp bang, not a car backfiring or a neighbour’s door slamming or someone upstairs dropping something heavy. It could be cats fighting, a baby crying, distant machinery. And in discussing it with others, I’m reduced to onomatopoeia and simile.

I think it’s best to refer to a counterexample like this as a “breakdown case”. I think I might be getting that phrase from Hubert Dreyfus, but it naturally fits into Heidegger. A case’s being a breakdown case is relevant/makes a difference when we are discussing Heidegger because Heidegger is explicitly focussed on Average Everydayness.

When you hear a sound like that, what you hear is “a strange noise.” It doesn’t particularly matter if you hear cats fighting or loud bangs every night, if you live in the city for instance. This is why we say that urban living is chaotic. There are lots of “strange” noises. There’s a reworking of Antonioni’s “Blowup” called “Blowout,” it stars John Travolta. He’s a sound engineer who accidentally records a loud “Bang!” At first he thinks it is a car blowout, but over the course of the film realizes it is a gunshot, and tries to solve a murder.

When you say, “And in discussing it with others, I’m reduced to onomatopoeia and simile” what jumps out at me is that in your example, you’re discussing it with others. We usually discuss sounds when they are out of the ordinary. We usually can only make an interesting movie about a sound when it is a sound that has this kind of mystery, that is “strange.”

For Heidegger, strangeness is a bit like a broken car for instance. When your car starts making some weird noise, you take it to the mechanic, and you eventually learn something about your car’s carness. In Heidegger, we learn the most about what understanding usually is from the times when understanding does not work as usual. When understanding “breaks down” we can learn about understanding. Usually it is very hard to learn about understanding when it is working, because it is so close to us that we can’t see it. That should be a familiar idea from Heidegger, that which is closest is also farthest away.

@Only_Humean

The fact is that most noises are characterised, fit into our worldview, and are expected to some extent. It’s integrated profoundly with sight, too, and our minds can race ahead a little and predict what is coming as it comes, so in many cases it seems to be immediate. But understanding isn’t fundamentally tied in with the understood. If I’ve understood you correctly

So, your exceptions to the rule are strange breakdown cases which actually strengthen the everydayness of the rule, which is a good thing in Heidegger. In Heidegger, understanding is fundamentally tied to the understood. The difference between Heidegger and Kant, is that Kant posits the noema, the realm of the understood. In Kant the noema is actually inaccessible. When we understand the understood, we do not understand it as itself, as noema. Instead we understand the understood as phenomena.

This means that in Kant understanding is not fundamentally tied to the understood. This break alienates us from Reality. This is what Heidegger wants to critique. In Heidegger you feel this alienated “un-home-like-ness” when you feel anxiety about a sound, as in your example. “Is that a catfight or a baby crying? It is ambiguous, I am anxious.” Your understanding cuts ties with the understood, and you feel the strangeness. You talk about it with your friends for the sake of comfort, using onomatopoeia and similes.

Humean, here you are Humean all too Humean. This is precisely the break between Heidegger and his modern predecessors. You understand correctly, but in Humean terms of prediction and falsification by new evidence. Which is fine, in some ways Hume is actually onto the same problems as Heidegger in the way they critique truth. You do understand the situation correctly, but the above is an attempt to relate to you the Heideggerian gloss on understanding.

[Three_Times_Great]

@PandnotP

I am no expert on Kant or Heidegger, though I think that my understanding for both of them is developing to the point where I can speak competently about their work. Nonetheless, I’m not sure that my argument here is entirely valid. It seems right to me, but if anyone knows of anything that I am overlooking, let me know.

Until I thought of this, I was much less accepting of McDowell’s view about perceptual content. I tend to be sympathetic to the positions of Evans, Peacocke, Bermudez, and Cussins and have argued for the existence of nonconceptual content on several occasions. Now I’m not so sure, because, for me, Heidegger’s ontology, among other things, seems to capture more of the architecture of phenomenality, than anything that contemporary Anglo-American philosophy has to offer. I’m no Heideggerian dogmatist, but it does prompt reconsideration of my position. Anyway, this arose out of a long-standing confusion I have had concerning McDowell’s attribution of many of his ideas to Kant, which don’t occur to me to be implications of what Kant says (though once again, admittedly, I could be wrong).

When McDowell claims that experience (intuition) involves operation of conceptual capacities (spontaneity) from its outset, he attributes the idea to Kant. However, Kant’s claim is not that perceptual contents are conceptual by strict necessity, but rather that without concepts, intuitions are unintelligible (and conversely, that thought without content is empty—thus insignificant). But it seems clear that for Kant, the act of spontaneity is subsequent to intuition, or else what is judgment? Judgment is meant to be and act of understanding through a synthesis of intuitions and concepts. If McDowell is right to think that Kant considered the contents of perception to be conceptual through and through, then what significance is there in his maintaining (a) that a separate cognitive faculty is necessary to incorporate conceptual content into the synthetic unity of apperception, and (b) that it is semantically permissible to speak of intuitions and concepts as being even notionally separable?

McDowell’s idea that the contents of experience are primordially conceptual is to be found more determinately stated (and with greater force than McDowell presents it) not in Kant’s epistemology, but rather in the existential phenomenology of Heidegger. He states, “What we ‘first’ hear is never noises or complexes of sounds, but the creaking wagon, the motorcycle…Dasein, as essentially understanding, is proximally alongside what is understood” (Being and Time §164).

In fact, since Heidegger’s account of language, cognition, and perception are not individual modes of understanding for Desein, but rather are an amalgam which form a constitutive structure of Dasein’s Being-in-the-world: understanding. The three are inherently entangled as concepts to such an extent that to speak of any one of them implies the other two as co-referents; that is, they are ontologically, although not ontically, co-extensive. The reason for this is that (i) Heidegger never speaks of the faculty of cognition explicitly, but a coherent account of it can be inferred apophatically from what he says about understanding; (ii) language and perception arise ontically as significations of assertion, which (assertion) in turn derives from interpretation, which in turn is a mode of understanding—as it (understanding) develops itself.

Thus, for Heidegger, understanding is a unitary structure, which forms our cognitive, linguistic, and perceptual capacities as a singular constituent of Dasein’s Being-in-the-world. They are not modally distinguishable, and are therefore equiprimordial, since all three are in fact references to the same existentiale: understanding. This means that, in Heidegger’s terms, perception and conception part and parcel of the same thing, and must always be found together, as the meaningfulness of Being-in-the-world. In other words, from the very outset of experience, the contents of perception already involve an operation of the conceptual capacities.

Great analysis! Thanks for posting.

I hope to have a commentary regarding these ideas sometime soon here. I am glad to see some in depth discussions of these philosophers here, in the context of these ideas.

[PandnotP]

Why not say the whole identifies their parts, rather than parts identify themselves?

I think it would certainly be more accurate to say that. It just seemed easier to say things the way I did at the time. Also, I wanted to tease apart a notion that when Heidegger talks about this stuff, he does in fact give us enough information to gather his views on percetion, language, and cognition in terms of understanding, but he isn’t entirely explicit about this, and much of it has to be inferred (at least where I’m reading from. To be fair, I don’t know the whole text all that well). I should also point out that they’re not really parts per se, because they’re really pretty much the same thing–at least on the level that Heidegger is talking about them on, which is semantic and concerns the ontological structure of Dasein. Though, for simplicity’s sake, I think calling them parts is okay, as long as we bear this in mind.

[Only_Humean]

@Sean

A case’s being a breakdown case is relevant/makes a difference when we are discussing Heidegger because Heidegger is explicitly focussed on Average Everydayness.
…
For Heidegger, strangeness is a bit like a broken car for instance. When your car starts making some weird noise, you take it to the mechanic, and you eventually learn something about your car’s carness. In Heidegger, we learn the most about what understanding usually is from the times when understanding does not work as usual.

So you take the breakdown case and find that it’s not the same as average everydayness, that things are different to how unexamined appearances may have you believe. That the world is round, sticks don’t bend when they’re half-submerged, rainbows are perspectival not objective things, time and space are dilated by gravity… and Dasein is not proximally alongside what is understood. I’m sure Heidegger’s not interested in laziness, is he? What purpose does a philosophy serve that says “actually, sticks do appear to bend when half-submerged” and leaves it at that?

When you say, “And in discussing it with others, I’m reduced to onomatopoeia and simile” what jumps out at me is that in your example, you’re discussing it with others. We usually discuss sounds when they are out of the ordinary. We usually can only make an interesting movie about a sound when it is a sound that has this kind of mystery, that is “strange.”

Yep. Language as a communal activity as per Wittgenstein; my preferred 20th Century Alpine Germanophone, if I must be honest.

As an aside, many films thrive on the conceit of normalcy, that it’s hard to tell who the ‘threat’ is. If Murder on the Orient Express had begun with eleven well-dressed bourgeois gentlefolk and a clearly unhinged thug wearing a blood-spattered apron and carrying a cleaver, it might have been less interesting. That there is more than everyday appearance is a concept understood by all.

@Sean

So, your exceptions to the rule are strange breakdown cases which actually strengthen the everydayness of the rule, which is a good thing in Heidegger.

Not really. The exceptions to the rule snap us out of complacent acceptance of how we perceive things and make us look at the mechanics of it. I don’t much see the philosophical value in describing our complacent acceptance of things - poetic or literary value maybe, Proust for example. It could be why Heidegger’s never done it for me. What do you think I’m missing?

In Heidegger you feel this alienated “un-home-like-ness” when you feel anxiety about a sound, as in your example. “Is that a catfight or a baby crying? It is ambiguous, I am anxious.” Your understanding cuts ties with the understood, and you feel the strangeness. You talk about it with your friends for the sake of comfort, using onomatopoeia and similes.

Anxiety? Comfort? I think Herr Doktor Professor needs to man up and get curious about the world.

Humean, here you are Humean all too Humean. This is precisely the break between Heidegger and his modern predecessors. You understand correctly, but in Humean terms of prediction and falsification by new evidence. Which is fine, in some ways Hume is actually onto the same problems as Heidegger in the way they critique truth. You do understand the situation correctly, but the above is an attempt to relate to you the Heideggerian gloss on understanding.

My name may be misleading, I’m not terribly Humean in my approach, although I have a lot of time for the fellow. I can’t say the same for Heidegger; I liked his hammer spiel, I’ll grant, but the majority leaves me quite cold. So colour me all-too-Humean before way-too-Heideggerean any day of the week, I’ll thank you for it.

Why do you mean by the two having a similar critique of truth? My understanding of Heidegger’s theory of truth (which is shaky, I’ll admit) is very different to my understanding of Hume’s, which is fairly classical.

[statiktech]

First off, excellent post. As a matter of fact, excellent all around. Very enjoyable read.

The exceptions to the rule snap us out of complacent acceptance of how we perceive things and make us look at the mechanics of it. I don’t much see the philosophical value in describing our complacent acceptance of things - poetic or literary value maybe, Proust for example. It could be why Heidegger’s never done it for me. What do you think I’m missing?

This is pretty much my thinking as well. And I feel like I’m left with the same question. I hear so much about Heidegger, and have read some bits that I enjoyed, but I find him difficult to interpret with any degree of accuracy. Reading Heidegger can be a rather …grueling affair.

“What we ‘first’ hear is never noises or complexes of sounds, but the creaking wagon, the motorcycle…Dasein, as essentially understanding, is proximally alongside what is understood” (Being and Time §164).

This is essentially what I’m reading here: We experience noises and determine their causes, which are then committed to memory as relations – that is what is “understood”. Understanding something unique, or otherwise foreign to us, involves representation [asking “what does that sound like?”]. What that noise sounds similar to, according to your experiences, is what is “understood”. The new, foreign noise we are attempting to understand is attached to those representations [past experiences] by providing ideas, grounds, or method for determining the cause of the new sound.

Is that even remotely in the ball park?

(ii) language and perception arise ontically as significations of assertion, which (assertion) in turn derives from interpretation, which in turn is a mode of understanding—as it (understanding) develops itself.

This is were I may disagree, unless it’s just a simple semantic discrepancy. Perception seems to arise ‘ontically’ as signification of experience, or ‘being’. Language arises as signification of assertion, or shared experience. Both do derive from interpretation, but I think that is the only mode of understanding. All is interpretive to us. Also, I think understanding only “develops itself” to an extent. Specifically, to the extent of intuition or logical deduction/inference. Beyond that, development is in our hands [hence why we are on a Philosophy forum consciously and actively attempting to expand our minds.]

In other words, from the very outset of experience, the contents of perception already involve an operation of the conceptual capacities.

Nothing major here. I just think it may be better said that “the conditions of perception involve an operation of the conceptual capacities.” In other words, in order for perception to take place, we need both utilities by which to perceive and the capability to translate, interpret, and store that information.

[Sean]

@statiktech

I hear so much about Heidegger, and have read some bits that I enjoyed, but I find him difficult to interpret with any degree of accuracy. Reading Heidegger can be a rather …grueling affair.

@Only_Humean

I’m sure Heidegger’s not interested in laziness, is he? What purpose does a philosophy serve that says “actually, sticks do appear to bend when half-submerged” and leaves it at that?

@Only_Humean

I don’t much see the philosophical value in describing our complacent acceptance of things - poetic or literary value maybe, Proust for example. It could be why Heidegger’s never done it for me. What do you think I’m missing?

@statiktech

All is interpretive to us. Also, I think understanding only “develops itself” to an extent. Specifically, to the extent of intuition or logical deduction/inference. Beyond that, development is in our hands [hence why we are on a Philosophy forum consciously and actively attempting to expand our minds.]

These are all excellent ways to attack Heidegger. These are exactly the things that you should say if you want to render Heideggerian thought useless. You are right about that!

Still, I feel something must be said here in this particular 20th Century Germanophone’s defense.

Namely, I take issue with this idea, [and I’m paraphrasing], “We are all on this forum because we want to look at things more deeply” and that this is antithetical to the task of looking at things in their everydayness.

Nevertheless, this is actually exactly why it is important to keep Heidegger around. I contend that it gives “Philosophy” a bad name when philosophers content themselves with this (I use this word “elitist” ONLY in SELF-DEFENSE), when philosophers content themselves with this elitism of going about, bringing up vexing counterexamples to everyone else’s everyday experience. Is that what we want to confine ourselves to? Screwing with “the masses”? Are we the Jackass 3D Movie of critical thinking!?!? I think we can make a better place for thinking.

Since you are not posting on the “Natural Sciences” forum, you are interested in special cases where science fails us. These cases are important for Heidegger! I highlighted in my post, the theme that when everyday understanding fails us, this is when we learn the most! These cases where we dig deeper into perception by looking at perceptual anomalies are important!

Let’s leave H for a moment and take Hume for example. At the climax of his epistemological explication (I’m sorry, no page reference) he introduces this problem of “the missing shade of blue.” No one knows what to do with this. It this mention of a “missing shade” a manifestation of Zizek’s blot of literary theory (a point for the English majors). The piece which does not fit into the superstructure and is thus the most important? Is Hume trying to disprove his own empiricism? Or is this an image of Hume reveling in the BREAKDOWN CASE of his own epistemological system!!! If we can never experience this missing shade of blue, is it still a viable shade? Hume realizes the imperfections in his own system. After all, his “Problem of Induction” has been taken up far and wide as a refutation of the representational model of absolute truth. Look no farther than Bertrand Russell for a Humean tribute to that effect. The difference is, Hume is willing to leave this discrepancy untouched and human, whereas Russell explains it away in the analytical fashion.

The failures of our understanding are the moments when we learn the most. The problem is that it is far too tempting to latch on to these failures, and succumb to a kind of Cartesianism where we segregate human cognition from world.

There is nothing “complacent” about exploring the everydayness of our reality. In fact, the most penetrating critiques of rationality focus on just that, the way in which rational thinking escapes the nitty gritty of “real life.” I will make no end of enemies emphasizing the importance of “real life” on a philosophy message board. I realize this. Heidegger is reviled for doing the same. I am doing a sort of self-sacrificial tribute.

@statiktech

We experience noises and determine their causes

This is a modern (read, pre-Heideggerian) way of looking at the problem, and I mean no condescension with my use of the prefix “pre-”.
We do in fact do this. However, what Heidegger is interested in is what happens before we do this. Before we go about determining causes, it must first be called for. We must register a noise as strange before we go about determining its cause!

This should be no problem for a student of Wittgenstein. If you are inclined to play the language game of “What’s that sound?” you had best play your cards when the sound is unfamiliar. Otherwise, you are the fool who goes about yelling, “That is my icemaker!” “That is the water heater!” “That is a communist!” “That is a Christian!” “That is a hippie!”

The student of Wittgenstein, more than any other, is sensitive to Heidegger’s critique. We only discuss on a philosophy board the situations in which natural science explicitly and obviously fails. However! This is ultimately a limitation!

Is it a limitation we can live with, or shall we discuss Everydayness?

[PandnotP]

Is it a limitation we can live with, or shall we discuss Everydayness?

It strikes me that analysis of exceptional cases requires an analytical understanding of normality. Unless we understand the structure of Everydayness, in order that we can, not merely, just recognize it as Everydayness, but recognize it as Everydayness for the very reasons that make it such, then how can we determine what its exceptions are, or why they stand out, or what significance their standing out has; that is to say, how can we learn from special cases if we don’t know what exactly makes them special?

I’m really a novice with Heidegger, but it seems to me that what he says, and really how he says it, ought to interest anyone capable of following what he is on about, regardless of whether you agree with him or not. He is brilliant at piecing together a discussion of phenomena which occur at a level seemingly impossible to talk about, let alone to examine with such intricacy. Being and Time also make clear a lot of work by subsequent contemporary philosophers.

[statiktech]

Namely, I take issue with this idea, [and I’m paraphrasing], “We are all on this forum because we want to look at things more deeply” and that this is antithetical to the task of looking at things in their everydayness.

I highlighted in my post, the theme that when everyday understanding fails us, this is when we learn the most! These cases where we dig deeper into perception by looking at perceptual anomalies are important!

Seems like you’ve reconciled that discrepancy for yourself. We look at things in their ‘everydayness’ …every day.

[Floyd]

Not everything.

[statiktech]

Well, we don’t look at everything every day either. So, then, how can one conceive of something in its ‘everydayness’ if one hasn’t perceived it as such already?

[Sean]

@statiktech

Seems like you’ve reconciled that discrepancy for yourself. We look at things in their ‘everydayness’ …every day.

No. This is precisely what makes Heidegger’s method distinct. There is a red thread in his work, a theme, “that which is closest is also farthest away.” We usually do not “look at” things in their everydayness, they are too close to articulate. They are everyday, so we usually do not notice them. For instance, aside from in perception, discursively this theme is at work when we investigate assumptions, premises which we take for granted. Often contemporary philosophers look at Enlightenment ideals in this way. Progress or altruism for instance, are often unselfconsciously assumed to be positive in such a way that we assume these as positives in the things that we say, without explicitly calling either to the fore. They are so close to us, that many speakers take them for granted when making assertions.

Leave that aside and move to perception. What is the motivation to ask questions about the stick that appears bent in water, or the train tracks that seem to converge in the distance, these perceptual anomalies. Why investigate these? We do so because by pushing everyday perception out of our reach, it can come into view. Anomalies “make opaque” perceptual processes which would otherwise be transparent, invisible, precisely because of their everydayness. Explicitly articulating sense experience as early modern philosophers were able to do was a breakthrough for knowledge, because perception is usually taken for granted. We “just do it.”

This is in play when we talk about Heidegger’s hammer. Usually we do not think of a hammer as a shaft of wood with a metal thing on the end when the hammer is working perfectly to fasten with nails. The hammerness is farthest away when it is closest to the user. However, when the hammer is too heavy for us, or the business end is not the right size, the hammer is brought into view as a tool. Precisely when it fails to work, are we able to explicitly articulate what it is for it to work.

This point about the hammer is essential to many comtemporary critiques of technology. “Cells phones are such a big part of our lives, we might not notice the way they change human interaction.” People say things like this to suggest that something like texting might be negatively impacting family quality time or keep us from making “real human connections” (whatever that might mean) whether we notice it or not. In fact such critiques emphasize that we do not notice, in keeping with this Heideggerian theme that we do not notice the most everyday technologies. Cars are another good one.

[anon]

I don’t know much about Heidegger, but I do know that my leg is not, at the moment, broken. When I consider the relative health of my leg, my newfound appreciation for this fortunate everyday (for me) situation does wonders for my mood.

[Only_Humean]

@Sean

There is nothing “complacent” about exploring the everydayness of our reality. In fact, the most penetrating critiques of rationality focus on just that, the way in which rational thinking escapes the nitty gritty of “real life.” I will make no end of enemies emphasizing the importance of “real life” on a philosophy message board. I realize this. Heidegger is reviled for doing the same. I am doing a sort of self-sacrificial tribute.

You really are too kind This is a good defence, I can see the point you’re aiming at. Thanks for taking the time to counterattack!

I’m certainly sympathetic to relating philosophy to everyday life as it is, not conjuring up demons from the thin air of rationalism, and I share Heidegger’s fondness for Aristotle.

But I do disagree that working on counterexamples and exceptions is ‘screwing with the masses’. Philosophy isn’t the opiate of the masses, soothing and validating and prizing the value of everyone’s unthinking unanalysed experience; that’s patronising. It’s about viewing things clearly, at the very least.

The student of Wittgenstein, more than any other, is sensitive to Heidegger’s critique.

… yet must deny that language is suitable for discussing that which we take for granted and never talk about, no?