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.

11/08/2002

This is referring to Mr. Thom Whitby's letter of Apr. 22, 2002

This is a short not constrained by time. You state, ". . . That Dasein may really be that which is specifically human about human intelligence . . ." This is some degree out of context, but I think it is an accurate statement of your belief.

I have said before, but no one has contradicted me and surely someone wants too, that Heidegger does not reject the definition of man as "rational animal" outright, but rather indicates that it is vastly inadequate. Essentially he leaves Kant's question of "What is man?" deliberately unanswered. I speculate 'wildly?' that is because the "rational" and the "animal" in a fundamental sense do not belong together 'naturally', i. e., the one is not the possession of the other either way.

If I remember my KING LEAR right, Lear says man is "a poor forked animal", and this is one of the forks or dividings basic in his being. I say dasein is not identical to "human intelligence". That is a divided thing. On the one hand you have the calculative/rational/linguistic being. On the other hand, you have the being of 'animal' awareness, fully alive, passionate, filled with emotions, ready to be happy right now just like my dog "Sugar". My dog's awareness seems to be complete and perfect and MUCH GREATER than mine.

Her calculative intelligence is on occasion present but usually not evident. Her emotions are just emotions whereas with man they become the powerhouse trying to get that calculative intelligence to do what it wants regardless of the consequences. That is, like Sartre, they are 'magical'. And equity in calculative intelligence must balance emotion against emotion and come to a relatively non-emotional judgement.

This is crude I know. The main point is "dasein" is "being out there" in projecting the world. It creates the world, not the multiplicity of objects in it, which have nothing to tie them together. I leave now with the question is dasein more like calculative intelligence or animal awareness "poor in world" which is also much of the 'They' self, or is it something else altogether?