----- Original Message -----
From: K. Loganathan
To: abhinavagupta@egroups.com ; ontologicalethics@yahoogroups.com
Sent: Thursday, April 15, 2004 9:11 AM
Subject: [ontologicalethics] Meykandar, Hume and Heidegger
Meykandar, Hume and Heidegger
The problem of the reality of self has been long debated in India and as a Final Conclusion (Siddhanta)
(GCM: The reference I looked up only said as much as you say. Could you clarify more precisely or refer to some common text I may have? Also, I am unfamiliar with Meykandar. I assume he is a Kashmiri Saiva Monist whose main work is Siva Jnana Bodham.)
it has been concluded positively - there is a substantial entity
(GCM: This would mean it is a thing like a rock, that is, it is perceival, it has specific measurements AND PLACE [it has to be WITHIN the demensions of your body IN SOME MANNER] which means then it can be divided into parts. This is one of the many criticisms of Hume )
that is called ‘self’ and is different form BEING (God Brahman) etc,
(GCM: Then Brahman cannot be all-inclusive and infinite and omniscient and omnipotent, etc.)
suffers existential repetition and escapes from that historical way of Being-in-the-World by attaining Moksa. I want to make some comments in relation to the posting below and show that while Hume is way off, Heidegger comes quite close to Meykandar,
(GCM: Now Heidegger is quite literally saying the self is nothing. On the one hand this gives the 'self' a kind of 'freedom' since no thing can effect nothing, and, on the other hand, intentionality must always fundamentally and simply be "intent" which means directed by futural purpose WHERE THE FUTURE ITSELF IS LITERALLY NOTHING AGAIN which includes every possible trivial and immediate purpose as well as the whole thrist or shape of life in the face of death. Death itself, for both Hume and Heidegger is a very trivial 'event'. It is how it shapes the purpose, thrust, form of one's life that it is important to Heidegger. With Hume it remains trivial because it is simply a necessary accident, does not at all involve one's basic desires because they should be based on substantial realities and not mere abstractions, and is simply the same nothing that Heidegger says the self is.)
but falls short of the final conclusion because he failed to note Moksa as the Fundamental INTENTIONALITY that provides the motivational dynamics for all actions including the metaphysical.
(GCM: Anticipating the future essentially does that for all entities, not just human. It is fundamentally the experiential and dialectical drive to stay alive, a learning evolution of experience confronting mistakes one has made and the "already always" inadequateness of ANY result. IT IS A FUNDAMENTAL DISATISFACTION WITH THE PRESENT SO ONE ALWAYS PLACES ONE'S HOPES INTO THE NOTHING OF THE FUTURE WHERE "NO THING" CAN DISILLUSION YOUR HOPES, however irrational they may be. So, essentially, even if one attained "moska" (liberation) or "jivanmukta" (liberation while alive), at BEST you would achieve that primordial point of first and fundamental decision before ANY decision you "always already" went through as a child before you knew what you were doing, or better what was being done to you, but now you are free from all the influences that made you, literally, what you were, and can make that primordial decision all over again either without, or conscious of, all of your presuppositions. But guess what. That would dissolve ALL intentionality unless you are a mere robot of the will of Brahman. For Heidegger and Sartre it is both a point that cannot be attained AND ALSO trivial and worthless since it necessarily by its own description and definition erases all value (intentionality). It would be a problem like "Buridan's ass" where a mule is place between two exact amounts of hay and only a very trivial circumstance will determine which pile it eats from.)
Heidegger could not see through DEATH and its metaphysical significance.
(GCM: How do you see through death which cannot even be experience? What does this statement mean? "Metaphysical significance" to Heidegger or to you?)
1.
Moksa is NOT simply a propensity to believe and which is simply a constituent of the inherited understanding, transmitted by language metaphysical traditions and so forth. The desire for Moksa lies at the deepest layer of human understanding and transcends language culture traditions and so forth.
(GCM: this would make it an entity.)
In fact there cannot be these elements without there being as an apriori the pressure for
(GCM: or "from"?)
Moksa as something there with the soul.
(GCM: fully separate from the soul? Is the "soul" the "self" or something separate once again?)
Language culture religions and various other kinds of cultural expressions are different shapes this pressure for Moksa takes.
(GCM: or gives?)
In our investigations unless we analyze and go to the depths of Human INTENTIONALITY, we shall never lay bare the Fundamental Intentionality and which is the desire for Moksa and at which point a person becomes a Mumuksu, the one who desires Moksa and nothing else. Punitavati (c. 5th cent) is good example of such person. It is given to ALL of us- whether German or English Tamil or Chinese Black or White Man or Woman - it is already GIVEN as there, but at the deepest layer of Human Understanding.
Our problem is that we are lost on the way
(GCM: That presupposes there is a "way". Human intentionality IS designed to seek "a way" overall other purposes, this is true and natural and inevitable in the very notion of intentionality. But this is simply how the "future" itself is structured. It is what it is and that is all. It is a way an animal survives and keeps on going and evolves or adapts from situation to situation. And each individual's "way" is absolutely (to the point of incommunicability) UNIQUE, "one's own". Both Heidegger and Hume would agree on this. It is based on predetermined "character" or "culture" [experienced uniquely by oneself which is the only way you can experience anything] or "common sense" or "understanding" or, what includes it all, language that LIVES only within yourself which, when you speak it to others, causes misunderstanding because of mismatched meanings as has already happened several times in this very missive. There are only individuals -- or there is nothing but a puppet show, and who would then be the malignant puppeteer? And within the so-called "unique" individual there are other individuals, other selves (language games for various situations), your organs, your natural dispositions usually called "instincts" and much, much more ad infinitum, much of which has not been noticed. The 'unique' individual is a SWARM composed of SWARMS that are in turn composed of other SWARMS, etc. "Intentionality" as such in literal reality is a political compromise between all of these contending entities.)
and remain fixated to the imagines [we have] inherited.
(GCM: Now THAT I can fully agree on. That is exactly what language is, essentially what the so-called 'self' really is, and how it operates: It fixates us. Thank you.)
2.
K. Loganathan: It also follows that the ‘self’ is --- there --- as a substantive entity
(GCM: A specific measurable space and volume and time? Where exactly is “there”? Heidegger uses “Da” “there” to indicate the world one is “always already” thrown into and is all reality that is at hand, in other words, the culture and language one is born into. It means you are “always already” COMPLETELY formed by others at the ‘Moment’ one gets some inkling of what it really means to be an individual. It is the same as “character” in Hume. It is what you are, what you accidentally and only occasionally stumble on, a phrase I just read somewhere in Hume. As a nothing-self, you neither have a “here” or a “there” but you “always already” have a world at-hand that has “always already” claimed ALL of your attention and intention.)
KL: as a substantive entity as that which seeks Moksa for nothing else- the body the cognitive processes -thinking feeling etc can SEEK out Moksa as it involves ESCAPING from the involvement or engagement with the body and mind. The mind cannot escape form the mental by annihilating itself. There has to be something ABOVE the mind, something that uses the mental mechanisms as TOOLS for gaining an understanding and with that DESTROY ignorance and when the time is ripe even escape from being caught up by the body that comes along several instincts (sexual etc) and mental mechanisms or modules (Manam Buddhi AlaGkaaram and Cittam) that predispose to THINKING. We cannot FREE ourselves from THINKING as such by thinking.
(GCM: But one of the primary things that Hemming has so well clarified about Heidegger is to put in question, “What is thinking?” Not just the obvious point that when thinking you never actually include an “I” and only tack it on when you are talking to others, but another point that completely undermines all that: PERCEPTION ALWAYS TAKES PRECEEDANCE OVER WORDS. Words are derived ALWAYS from sense impressions. However, ever since the advent of Christianity, everyone has seen the pragmatic advantage of manipulating words to dominate and enslave perceptual reality. One can believe anything one wants with mere words. And if one does not have to validate one’s words with sensual experience, one is free to fly in the mind anywhere one wants. But Heidegger and Hume are saying a thing ‘presences’ in physical sight, the presencing being identifying something PERCEPTUALLY as an object having the features making an identity to which one THEN binds a word to keep that identity fixed in the schema of memory and language. Both Heidegger and Hume state this is done through the imagination. Neither believe IN ANY SORT OF INNATE IDEAS, WAYS, INTENTIONS other than the structure of the mind of human being to anticipate what one must do next and why – and one can stay all of one’s life right at that level – and survive.
KL: Here we can make sense of Heidegger’s notion of Authentic Existence, not in the way he explained it but rather in the way Punitavati articulated it - seeking miiNdum piRavamaai, seeking escape from the throwness into existentiality that comes as endless births and deaths.
(GCM: But this still can resolve into simply “paying attention to what you are doing”, “being aware of one self as an individual entity in a specific situation claiming one’s attention and intention”, or, as in “vulgar thinking” thinking on one’s own instead of letting others do your thinking for you. “Vulgar thinking” is Hume’s term. It refers to what is inherited from others, language, and is absolutely necessary to function with them AT ALL. It is something you MUST do. It is perfectly valid within its own sphere. Heidegger calls this “inauthenticity” and not only says EXACTLY the same thing Hume says about it but adds that “authenticity” can ONLY ARISE FROM INAUTHENTICITY! For authenticity to arise, one must . . . “stumble” . . . across a glitch, a contradiction, a crux, an aporia in inauthenticity. One such glitch Hume explicitly described when he said, after carrying out philosophical thought to its utter end logically, logically the only philosophical position that could, with pure reason, be valid would be strict or absolute or Pyrhonistic Scepticism: Nothing can be believed in (Hume MADE Heidegger – every step Heidegger takes has been “always already” laid out by Hume – Heidegger HAD to have read the TREATISE ON HUMAN NATURE since it is absolutely essential to understanding Kant – I have written in detail about this before). That “Nothing can be believed in” can be taken two ways: A) Nothing is valid; or B) “Nothing” frees us up to take hold of our tradition of language that has been forced on us and shape it according to logic and our desires. THIS SECOND IS EXACTLY WHAT BOTH HUME AND HEIDEGGER DO! It is the only way one can simply function at all.)
3.
KL: Now since there is hermeneutic process that causes the self to EVOLVE
(GCM: Is that really the word you want to use? Or do you not rather go through a series of negations casting off the inessentially from the self? No, I am not contradicting myself. Again you will end up with nothing. There is nothing “essential’ in the self.)
towards the Fundamental Intentionality of seeking Moksa and nothing else underlying the Being of self i. e. the Ways-of- Being-in-the-World of a anma or self, the Existence, there has to be a BEING who is the GROUND of this evolutionary movement and where this BEING is along-with as well ABOVE the self and Itself already in Moksa (Anati Mutta Citturu). For only what is already in Moksa can work for the Moksa of others. It is here that we can locate the ‘conscience’ as the inner CALL as Heidegger sees it.
(GCM: No, Heidegger sees the “call” as the demand for action inherent in the future intentional structure of the “vulgar” self. It does not specify any specific action or choice whatsoever or any system that choice or action ‘should’ be in. In other words, in fulfilling your ‘conscience’ you can be a Kashmiri Saiva Monist or a Communist or a Nazi. You “always already” have SEVERE predispositions to your choice WHICH IN ABSOLUTELY NO WAY VALIDATES THEM! Only reason checking INTERNAL consistency can do that, and, since it is JUST internally that one can examine consistency, then there are severe limitations on what might be considered “valid” or “good”.)
BEING in remaining along with the anmas, always keeps on calling the self towards it’s own authenticity - a continuous reminder that at the moment it leads an inauthentic life from which it should escape and become free.
(GCM: “SHOULD”? “SHOULD”? Why “SHOULD”? You are already operating within an arbitrarily chosen system of belief. How can you possibly say “SHOULD”? to any one outside that system?)
4.
We have a CLUE to all these in our TIME consciousness. While Hume and Kant do not go beyond what Tolkaappiyar(c. 300 BC) calls Terinilai Kaaalam, the world time that breaks into past present and future always presupposing a point of reference common to the community, there is also the KuRippu Kaalam that Tol notes as part of verbal structure of languages. This KuRippu Kaalam is INTENTIONAL Time and I believe this is what Heidegger means by TEMPORALITY, the way of presence of TIME within the mind that is projective into the future. The Da-sein that projects into the future and hence is in temporality is nothing else but this anma but with intentionalities of all kinds for the intentionalities are essentially projective.
(GCM: That’s exactly what I have been saying. But you seem to miss the consequences of this. If intentionality is fundamentally projective, then the present and the past are ONLY for the sake of the future. That means Kashmiri Saiva Monism and Communism and Nazism and all of tradition are merely tools in projecting that future. The future is the only LIVING reality of human being. The present is actually the most “brute fact” as Hume would say, but it is utterly meaningless and boring by itself, it is superfluous, nauseous as Sartre would say. It’s just THERE. )
The intentional Da-Sein cannot on its own become free of temporality and at the absence of acknowledging the presence of BEING which promotes Moksa only DEATH will be seen as that towards which the Da-Sein is moving as Heidegger thought.
(GCM: It has no choice. It is, true enough no matter what, the final conclusion, (Siddhanta).
KL: The authentic life is NOT that of awaiting DEATH
(GCM: That would be silly if “authenticity” is only paying full attention to what you are doing. Yes, death is going to end what you do, and, yes, you must take some account of it, but – depending on how full and honest an account you take is, you can then forget about it except where it necessarily and appropriately comes up even though it is always “at-hand”.)
but rather that of Moksa. Moksa is also death but it the FINAL DEATH, a death after which there is no rebirth, phenomenal presence with another body etc and hence it is not the ordinary death which terminates only one lease of existence.
5.
The fundamental Temporality is the time consciousness instituted by Fundamental Intentionality viz, the seeking of Moksa, and which is moving unto BEING by the PULL
(GCM: O. K., what is “the Pull”? I’ve missed that.)
He exerts and in which self becomes purified and enlightened so that it becomes the SAME as BEING in the qualitative aspects. When this transmutational and evolutionary movement of the self comes to a close it becomes the SAME as BEING and in that also enjoy Njaanam, the Absolute Illumination that makes everything translucent like a book that has been read many times and fully understood so that it can be thrown away.
At this point there is NO temporality at all as there is no Intentionality at all and Speech as such becomes impossible. The primordial impulse towards linguisticality is INTENTIONALY and when it is no more, speech also becomes impossible. The enjoyment and communication of this Njaanam is only through Deep Silence (moonam)
(GCM: “It is all straw.” St. Thomas Aquinas about the SUMMA THEOLOGICA. Would that not include Brahman? Siva? Njaanam itself? All “communication”? Any kind of temporal succession whatsoever? An everpresent unchanging NOW of excruciating utter boredom? After it is silence. Silence of words? Silence of sensation? “Deep” as in compared to what? Then there is something else still around. What can you “enjoy” if there are no objects? How can there be “enjoyment” if there is no intentionality behind it?)
OUT OF TIME
Gary C. Moore
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