A problem I have been dealing with in Heidegger is that In BEING AND TIME, Heidegger takes a very radical view of dasein's authentic appropriation of tradition which, by necessity, completely takes it apart and puts it back together again as dasein actually knows it instead of the 'everyday' passive acceptance of a vague theme of what tradition is that never examines it rationally in detail or judge even if it fits together coherently.

Gary Moore

In "Phenomenological Interpretations with Respect to Aristotle: Indication of the Hermeneutical Situation", translated by Michael Baur, published in MAN AND WORLD 25:355-393, 1992 (there is another translation by John van Buren in SUPPLEMENTS, SUNY, 2002, 111-145 hereafter abbreviated “PIRA”), there is an interesting connection Of Aristotlean phronesis and kairos on pp. 381-382 [original German written 1922, published 1989 Dilthy-Jahrbuch 34-36, van Buren 134-135] .

Purely observing understanding [and] circumspecting which discusses and which is solicitous brings into truthful safe-keeping that being [35] which can be otherwise and whose 'from-whence' can be otherwise. Both ways of truthful safe-keeping temporalize themselves meta logou, actualized in the manner of discussing explication. This is constitutive for them, insofar as they take the arxai into view, not as things which are isolated for themselves, but rather as such, i. e., in their ownmost sense as arxai-for . . . These dealings are praxis . . .Phronesis is the illumination of dealings which co-temporalizes life in its Being. The concrete interpretation shows how the being which is kairos constitutes itself in phronesis. The actional and solicitous [kind of] conducting is always a concrete conducting . . . Phronesis makes the location of the one who performs the action accesible . . . Phronesis looks to the eschaton, the outer-most, the extreme, in which the determinately viewed concrete situation comes to a head. Phronesis . . . is primarily an aisthesis, i. e., it is in the end a simple overview of the moment-of-insight [Augenblick].

Aristotle's Nicomachean Ethics VI, 1142a24-31:

"It is evident, then, that phronesis [or "prudence" or "practical wisdom" or even “intelligence”] is not scientific knowledge [or just "knowledge"]; for it is concerned with the ultimate particular [or "ultimate particular thing" or "fact" or even “the last thing”], as we said, and as such is the object of action [or "the thing to be done is an ultimate particular thing" or “this is what is done in action”].

It is thus opposed to nous [“understanding”], for nous is of definitions [“the first terms”], for which there is no reasoning [or "which cannot be proved reasoning" or “that have no account of them”, i. e., axioms, presuppositions], while prudence is of the ultimate particular [“the last thing”], which is an object not of science but of sensation, not the sensation [or "perception"] of proper sensibles [or "special senses", "of the objects peculiar to the special senses" or "perception of qualities peculiar to one sense" or “special objects”], but like that by which we sense [or "the sort of intuition whereby we perceive"] that the ultimate particular in mathematics [“the last among mathematical objects”] is a triangle [from commentary: "Shape was one of the 'common sensibles', perceived through the medium of more than one of the special senses, by the 'common sense'.], for even in mathematics there is a stop in the direction of the particular [“for it will stop here too.”].

But this [latter] kind of sensation [or "perception"] is closer to sensation than to phronesis, while sensation of the other [phronesis] is of another kind." [or "But this is rather perception than practical wisdom, though it is another kind of perception;" or "But the term perception applies in a fuller sense to mathematical intuition than to Prudence; the practical intuition of the latter belongs to a different species” or “it is still perception more than intelligence (phronesis) is” ; commentary has the suggestion, "But the intuition of the ultimate particular problems of conduct approximates more to sensation than to prudence, though it is a different species from the perception of the separate senses".]

This is not a criticism of your translation but is my means of orienting myself to what Aristotle is said to say in English. There seems to be a possibility of wide differences in understanding this passage that, however, someone wiser than I might regard as relatively trivial and easily reduce to a clear text. But two things seem clear: A) there are several different kinds of perception, and, most important, B)

hoti d' he phronesis ouk episteme, phaneron:

That practical wisdom is not knowledge is evident:

tou gar eschatou estin, hosper eiretai:

for it is, as has been said:

to prakton toiouton.

such a condition of things to be done.

antikeitai men de toi noi:

to be certainly set over against of the two:

ho men gar nous ton horon,

for certainly nous the perceived,

hon ouk esti logos,

this is not reason,

he de tou eschatou,

that of the last,

hou ouk estin episteme all' aisthesis,

this is not episteme but aesthesis,

ouch he ton idion,

not it itself,

all' hoiai aisthanometha hoti to [en tois mathemakois] eschaton trigonon:

but properly the last triangle in mathematics perceived by the senses:

stesetai gar kakei.

For to have made to stand there.

all' haute mallon aisthesis e phronesis,

but this very aisthesis rather than as phronesis,

ekeines d' allo eidos.

that thing there of another sort of eidos.

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ANTHONY CRIFASI: By itself, this looks strikingly like Heidegger's idea that concernful circumspection has its own sight which is not reducible to theoretical sight.

GCM: Heidegger would say “theoretical sight” is reducible to “concernful circumspection” because “Objects are originally there for one as objects having significance, whereas objects in the sense of mere things and facts first emerge from the world as factically encountered (i. e. out of what has significance) within a multistage process of theorizing directed to the world in a particular manner” (PIRA 116). The theoretical is “the objectivity of nature that has been stripped of all significance, usually thought to provide the necessary point of departure for epistemological and ontological problems—is what it is only as having developed from a certain taking a break and sojourning” (PIRA 117) , that is, by getting out of and away from daily life’s “concernful circumspection”. Therefore “theoretical sight” is a cutting-down, a deprivation of sorts, instead of and enhancement or elevation, a sliming-down for greater efficiency in dealing with abstractions covering a great many objects encountered in daily life.

ANTHONY CRIFASI: What I would like to know is this - Does Heidegger claim that Aristotle intends the same meaning, in texts such as the above one? Or is Heidegger saying that texts such as the above merely provide a clue to his own idea of concernful circumspection?

GCM: Heidegger is saying that in honest research that lays open one’s own presuppositions and examines them as the tools one “always already” has and MUST have to investigate anything at all. The object of research is Aristotle’s texts. How am I in the 21st century going to approach them? Through the teachings of scholars who have described the ways we should interpret Aristotle’s Greek terms. But as can be seen from the above, there is a great variety in how those terms have been interpreted. The naked Greek itself is far from a straightforward communication. So Heidegger would say, to be an honest scholar, your either/or must be combined as one endeavor. You cannot read Aristotle as he intended himself to be read. And I am sure somewhere Heidegger said the same of Aristotle as he said of Kant, that the philosopher himself did not fully understand the implications of what he wrote in fact. Once it is put on paper it is fact that exists by itself absolutely independent of the mind/soul of the author. It becomes the sole/soul property of the reader. This applies to Heidegger himself.

This is where the value of Jud Evan’s intrusions becomes extremely valuable. He reminds us constantly that Heidegger is a writer in whom we can have absolutely ‘no trust’ in the most extreme way. Heidegger’s motivations are as unknowable to me as the mind of God. So Heidegger’s text is not Heidegger’s any more because that word “Heidegger” is an accumulation of contradictions that will not fit together. And, in interpreting ‘Heidegger” without any ‘trust’ whatsoever, you must also interpret your own interpretation without any trust whatsoever. (That is one reason why I much prefer David Hume. That man tells me exactly what his motivations are and all his writings stay remarkably consistent to the day of his death with those declarations.)

So there is no text of ‘Heidegger’, just ‘found’ text we classify under that heading and by reading it and trying to understand it make it our personal own. How much of this is ‘Heidegger’s’ intention we may ferret out a little, no more. But Heidegger died in 1976 after extensively editing authoritatively most of his texts. What of Aristotle? Each sentence has an individual history of its own. For instance, in our discussion of the nature of the animal mind I discovered that Aristotle had a wide range of contradictory opinions from possessing the power of visual and partially discursive judgment to next to no mind at all. However, in Heidegger’s lectures ARISTOTLE’S METAPHYSICS THETA 1-3, he uncovers through Aristotle the ground of visual as opposed to purely verbal thinking, circumspection versus the theoretical, the eidos versus “Hen arxei hen o logos, kai o logos hen pros ton theon, kai theos hen o logos.” In the second the logos had ceased being the mere connector of two visual ideas and became the idea itself. Nothing can arise into sight through phusis in a world of mere abstractions. And where one can come to doubt the existence of an ‘external world’ because our standard of judgment was merely the world of words which delineated our vision into parcels of concepts. Here, even the ‘external world’ is a mere creation of words.

What Heidegger has done with Aristotle, or what X has done with Y, is set up the necessary physical condition from which any person MUST start thinking. Aristotle is a man. A man is always in a specific place at a specific time. Therefore Aristotle is always in a specific place at a specific time. The same argument for line of sight, etc., etc. We know we cannot know THE place and THE time, but we know those conditions MUST “always already” apply. A man can only know what he sees. Words are symbols.

Heidegger says, in the section [The Direction of Looking], “We have now given an indication of the initial position of looking to be adopted by the following interpretations . . . in consequence of its effective force as the fundamental approach to all philosophical problems” (PIRA 122). ‘I’ intend this to mean specifically and literally exactly what it says. “[W]hat [are] historical investigations . . . supposed to accomplish”? “[W]hy are we focusing especially on Aristotle”? These are “The motivations for the particular directions of looking” “[T]he genuine object of research is in each case always authentic facticity (‘authentic’ is being understood literally here as ‘one’s own’)” So at least on this point we have Heidegger’s clear and unequivocal statement that this research is “literal” and ‘personal’ and that that is the only way it can be since “X is a man; A man is always in a specific place . . .” As for tradition, “factical life lives for the most part in what is inauthentic, in what has been handed down to it, in what has been transmitted and reported to it from the past, in what it has appropriated and learned in an average way” (PIRA, 122-3). “[I]t is necessary for the philosophical hermeneutics of facticity to begin within its factical situation by inserting itself into the particular state of the having-been-interpreted of factical life given in advance . . . [T]he tendency towards falling [effects] all interpretation,” i. e., the interpreter of the untrustworthy Heidegger must not trust himself and/or herself. “[I]t is precisely “what is self evident” in this pregiven interpretation, i. e., what is not discussed in it, what is thought to require no further explanation . . . will turn out to be what inauthentically . . . sustains the reigning effective force of pregiven problems and directions of questioning . . . Whenever human life, Dasein, the human being becomes an object of inquiry . . . this objectivity stands within forehaving as a worldly occurrence, as ‘nature’ . . . . That today we still speak of the ‘nature’ of man, the ‘nature’ of the soul, and more generally the ‘nature of things,’ and that we also discuss the categories of this kind of objectivity in the same way, i. e., employing categories developed from a particular kind of explication, namely, a particular way of looking at ‘nature’—this has its motives in intellectual history” (PIRA 123).

ANTHONY CRIFASI: The reason I ask is that Heidegger's notion of concernful circumspection seems to bring with it connotations that blatantly fly in the face of other things that Aristotle says. For example, for Aristotle, phronesis is ultimately inferior to knowledge - specifically to contemplative wisdom as knowledge of the highest things (NE

1143b34-36 and 1145a7-11), whereas for Heidegger, knowledge is deprived praxis in the first place.

GCM: I am not quite sure of the meaning of “knowledge is deprived praxis in the first place.” As to amount and content praxis always has much more than theory can handle which chisels out of it the lean concepts it uses as tools. Or, do you mean nous is deprived of praxis? This Heidegger would agree with.

ANTHONY CRIFASI: Again, for Aristotle beings are most fundamentally substances, whereas for Heidegger, concernful circumspection does not encounter beings as substances at all.

GCM: The very next sentence following the immediately previous quote says, “Even when the objects in question are in principle no longer crudely spoken of as ‘substances’ (a way of speaking Aristotle was, one should add, far more removed from than is generally taught) . . .’ (PIRA 123). Also, “If in the first place philosophy is not an artificial occupation that merely accompanies life and deals with ‘universals’ of one sort or another and arbitrarily posited principles but rather as a knowing that questions, that is, as research, simply the explicit and genuine actualizing of the tendency toward interpretation that belongs to the basic movements of life in which what is at issue is this life itself . . . if relying its own resources and not looking to the hustle and bustle of worldviews, it has radically and clearly resolved to throw factical life back on itself in terms of its own factical possibilities, i. e., if philosophy is in principle atheistic . . . then it has resolutely chosen factical life . . . with respect to its basic categorical structures, i. e., the modes in which factical life temporalizes itself . . . and speaks with itself (kategorein [predicating in terms of categories]) . . .” (PIRA 121). And one ‘speaks’ to oneself as much with images as with words (as with Dr. Hannibal Lecter’s tableaux, see my commentary, etc.), and, Is it really a ‘person’ in oneself speaking to a person, or, in reality, a situation or tableau where words are arranged and critiqued?

ANTHONY CRIFASI: In light of basic differences such as these, it seems to me that Aristotle cannot be intending (in texts such as the above one) something similar to what Heidegger means when he says that concernful circumspection has its own sight. Otherwise, his entire ontology would have been radically different.

GCM: I would say, from the confusion of interpretation of the passage you quoted from Aristotle, what Aristotle was struggling towards saying, and this is purely speculative or indicative, is that there is only one real “sight” interpreted in different ways for different purposes. After all, in POSTERIOR ANALYTICS, Book II, chapter 19, 99b15-100b17, gives essentially a physical, that is, a placed and timed position for the creation of abstractions from experience.

ANTHONY CRIFASI: Isn't Aristotle just talking about the things that phronesis *as phronesis* deals with? In other words, if *phronetic* sight presupposed "sensation of proper sensibles" in the first place (i. e., "basic" sensation), then it would still be useless to describe phronetic sight in terms of "basic" sensory sight, since the latter would underlie any kind of encounter with beings whatsoever (including theoretical encounter), not just phronetic encounter.

So the sight that is specifically *phronetic* is not the same as "basic" sensory sight for that reason and in that specific way.

GCM: I see no problem with that. Physical perception just ‘is’. Phronesis or “prudence” or “wisdom” already presents intent not inherent in physical sight itself. Or . . . is it? What can be the reason you simply open your eyes? Many times the reasons are obvious. What I am talking about is when . . . you just . . . open your eyes? It just happens. Why? The word “just” here is synonymous with the edge of extremity, “just at the edge” . . . Why do we open our eyes?

ANTHONY CRIFASI: Phronetic sight would deal with things on the level of particular situations that can be acted upon, whereas "basic" sensation deals with things on the much more "basic" level of colors, sounds, etc.

GCM: Phronesis then is simply, within understanding, placing physical perception within an intellectual context.

ANTHONY CRIFASI: In light of the radical surrounding differences in their ontologies, this seems like a much more plausible take on what Aristotle says above. So what exactly does Heidegger say about this?

GCM: I see no “radical surrounding differences in their ontologies.” But there is obviously much more room for discussion.

My purpose, at which I aim all this I’ve been doing lately, is Laurence Paul Hemming’s book HEIDEGGER’S ATHEISM. No one has raised any opinions about what being “addressed” means I raised in my four part series. If Platonic Idealism is essentially visual thinking, the presencing of objects in communal sight, then Plato “addresses” Athena when he walks up to her statue in the Parthenon and just looks. Going back over the portion of Hemming’s book I had already read, I got a great deal more out of it. I am now very unsure in my judgment that Hemming made a mistake in seemingly connecting presencing with verbalism, that maybe he was being as subtle as Heidegger who says much of “discourse” has no sound, just as much of “self” has no self.