Lecture 3

Now, time for a substantive question. Okay, yeah. Ah, the existentialia and the categories. Interesting you should ask. I just was trying to decide where to put that in the lecture and I put it way back toward the end. But there's no one right place to put it, so I'll tell you now. An important distinction for those particularly who know philosophy and even more particularly for those who know Kant is that Heidegger wants to make a distinction between what he calls the categories, this is on page 70, page 44 of the German, and the existentials. And the, now let's start with the categories. Starting with Aristotle, Aristotle tried to list the properties of all objects just in so far as they were objects. They had causal relations. They were at some place. They were at some time. They had properties and so forth. And he gave a kind of grab bag list of categories that were the properties of objects. And then Kant, being very thorough in German and architectonic, listed them as 12 categories

and put them into four subclasses of three each. And each of those three were related to each other and said that they were the structure of objects in general. And there was causality and substance and relation and quantity and quality and so forth on the list. Now, Heidegger goes along with that. When he's going to talk about categories, he's perfectly happy to talk about the categories as the general structure of substances. He won't like to call them objects, I keep saying, because that's a Descartes interpretation of what it is to be a substance. And it goes with being a subject and so forth. But let's say substances. So categories are the general structure of substances. And on page 70, he says that somewhere, at least so. Oh, I'm looking at the German numbers instead of the... Here we go. So he talks about...

I'll just read the beginning of that paragraph, second sentence. Because Dasein's characters of being are defined in terms of existentiality. We call them existentialia. I haven't got to that yet, but that's the next thing. These are to be sharply distinguished from what we call categories, characteristics of being for entities whose character is not that of Dasein. It's really characteristic of beings, that is, entities. Or it could be general characteristics. It doesn't matter. We're not going to worry about that. It doesn't affect anything we're interested in. What's interesting is the existentialia. Here's a trick question. If the categories are the structure of objects, what would you expect the existentialia to be?

Well, I've warned you it's a trick question. I mean, it looks like if you knew Kant, you'd say, well, they're the general structure of subjects, or Descartes. And after all, but I've already said, Heidegger wouldn't be saying that. So the existentialia are not, even though the categories are the structure of objects, roughly, or substances, the existentialia are characteristics of what? Of us. And we're not present at hand substances. We're not substances at all. Our way of being is existence. And we talked about that. Now, somebody had a hand up already about that. No? Okay.

So that's got to be talked about at some point, but not necessarily. But I don't have anything more. There's nothing more that we need to say about it. Well, I'll say one more thing about it. It's a sort of problem for Heidegger, because he doesn't really know where to put equipment. Where would you put something which is not a substance, which is holistic and has aspects? We talked about that when we talked about hammers. We did talk about hammers already, didn't we? I want to make sure. Okay. And so it really, hammers don't fit very well. They certainly aren't substances, self-sufficient, with self-sufficient properties, but they certainly, hammers are not, as far as I know, concerned about their being and taking a stand on their being either. So Heidegger's got to stick them in one place or the other. So he defines, he says, well, categories are the general properties of anything that isn't a Dasein, and throws them into the category place. I think that's a mistake, because I think categories ought to be for self-sufficient substances, and I think that you just need another name for the general characteristic of equipment, and Heidegger just doesn't have it.

I mean, he's got a name for the way of being of equipment. And you hopefully all know that by now, namely readiness to hand. But he hasn't got a name for what you would want to say something. He has lots of things to say about the general structure of equipment. We may get there today, and we'll certainly spend a lot of time on that next time. And it was a major part of what you were supposed to be reading for this week, up to page, what is it, 102, I think.

Well, I don't have it handy. What is it? Anybody got a syllabus? I think it's 104, something like that. Okay. Now, so let me go back then,

having jumped to the end, and start at where I want to start. And that is to remind you where we are after a big break, that we've mostly been talking about the three modes of being. So that this was a kind of review to talk about categories and existentials. The three modes of being, of substances whose way of being is presence at hand, of equipment whose way of being is readiness to hand, and of us whose way of being is existence, meaning taking a stand on its being. That's, I take it, done. I mean, I hope I've covered it enough that we can now take it for granted. But what we haven't covered enough, and it's going to be abstract for a while. This is going to be a funny lecture if it goes off the way I've written it down. And that depends on what kind of questions you guys ask. But in general, it starts out, I'm afraid, very abstract. And if you don't get that, don't worry about it, because it's the issues that come up in the introduction, and the introduction I want to come back to at the end. But I have to say something about being at the beginning so that you can see why Heidegger's saying what he's saying and where he's heading.

And then it suddenly becomes very concrete, and he has detailed things to say about hammering. So what do the three modes of being have in common? Well, first you want to get out of the way, wrong ways. That's one reason I have to talk about it. Once upon a time, in fact, up to Heidegger, whatever it was about being, it was always about substances. So the modes of being would be different kinds of substances, numbers and God and trees and people. But the answer, what made them all beings, was they were all substances. And that's certainly not Heidegger's line. Another way people thought of being, that Heidegger doesn't care for, is that it's what he calls beingness. That would be the most general property. But the general property of everything, or at least the most general property of what's present at hand. But probably, I mean, when people talk about beingness, they've got to include numbers and artworks and things that don't fall under presence at hand. But Heidegger's not going to talk about beingness either. And the main reason I'm saying all this

is to get you out of the third possible mistake, which you are lured into by something very, very bad about this translation, but it's typical of most Heidegger translations, that you get being with a capital B. You should, I mean, I hate to tell you to sort of constantly be marking up your books, but in your mind at least, whenever you see being, you have to see it with a lowercase b. Just as there are lots of other things, mistakes that run through it that I'll point out as I go, that you just don't, but when you hand in your papers, put being in lowercase b in the quotes to show that you understood that you're not supposed to slavishly believe the translation, you're supposed to believe me, or if not me, Heidegger, but certainly not the people. And why would they even think that being had a capital B? Well, two wrong reasons. One, people think of God as the supreme being and write it with a capital G. And I suppose when you write supreme being, I don't know, do you write it with a capital B? Do you know, Dave? I suppose. But that's wrong. Being isn't something with a capital B. It isn't like Plato's The Good,

and it isn't the supreme being. And so we've got to drop that. And all of these modes of being had something to do with what made the world intelligible to us. I mean, you can see it most clearly with God as the supreme being. He made the world completely intelligible by making it to us the kind of beings whose mind was exactly adapted to the way the creation was made. Yeah?

Ah, that's good you asked. It's funny. I forgot to say a sentence, and you just asked for it. There is, it's, the word in German for being is Sein, S-E-I-N, very simple. And it's always capitalized in German. Now, because, all nouns are capitalized in German. So, chair is also with a capital C, but people don't go around thinking of the supreme chair. But they somehow, as soon as they see a capital B, even though it's just the word Sein, and the capital is doing no job, they equate it with some super being. And so, that's the answer. There is nothing, you're perfectly okay to use being for the supreme being, if you believe in the supreme being, with a capital B, but nothing in German sort of supports that, or opposes it either. Is that all clear? I mean, just so, it's just important to understand that whatever being is, and I haven't told you yet, and it's hard to get sure what, it's whatever all these three have in common, it's not going to be some entity, some super entity, like the supreme being. And what is it then?

Well, Heidegger defines being sort of in passing, not as if he was really giving you a big deal definition, but it's the best you're going to get, because he doesn't do it anywhere else, and that's at the bottom of 25, which is page 6 of the German. Did I read this already? I did, I think. Okay, I'm reading, I want to read it again, just because it's important. So, he talks about being is that on the basis of which, it's the very, very bottom,

that's this Woraufhin, entities are already understood. And that is, now we can say something more. Uh-oh. I think I can do this on my own, did it not? I have to run up and help me. There. It's on, isn't it? I can't see whether it's on. So,

okay. So, so whatever being is, it's got to do with what you could call intelligibility. It is that on the basis of which everything that we deal with makes sense or is intelligible to us. That is, substances are intelligible to us. And so there, and, and the understanding that goes with that, the understanding of being that goes with that is, uh, readiness to hand. And, no, sorry, presence at hand. Equipment is intelligible because we can understand its way of being. Readiness-to-hand. And we're intelligible because we have a kind of being which is dedicated to making sense of ourselves. So, it looks like being is something like the most general properties of things that they're intelligible. But, that's a tricky thing because intelligible is not some general property. It, it is, it's, it's a kind of holistic, uh, I don't know what, characteristic, or is it something, I mean, a property, remember, is sort of independent of other properties and,

and therefore not all interrelated. Whereas, intel, Heidegger's going to argue that nothing that we cope with is intelligible except in connection with a whole lot of other stuff we cope with. and intelligibility is this, uh, you know, I just, you just can't find any word for it. I mean, besides being. I want to say it's this basic feature of everything, the feature is a very bad thing to say. It's a property of everything. Well, that's taken over in Reserve 2 by Aristotle. It's an aspect of things. No, although that might be a little closer because aspects could be holistic. It's just that things make sense to us. That's what, that's intelligibility. That's, and it's the capacity to make sense of things. Which is, finally,

whatever being is, it's, it is, now, sorry, that's two things. We've got the capacity to make sense of things. And Heidegger calls that our understanding of being. Being is just that things are intelligible, that they make sense. And that, and that's, that's about all you can say about it. Except, it turns out, there's something, one more thing that's very important you can say about it. And that's, that it's the Woraufhin. It's, being is that on the basis of which beings are understood. And that means, and that's what I want to talk about, and I said, it would have to be sort of abstract, being is the background. That's the, it's, it's something that is, has to be in place for anything to be intelligible. But it's not what we're thinking about when we're dealing, or when we're thinking about things and dealing with them. It stays in, it's a, it's some, it's what we can understand by coping with things. We understand equipment, and it's way of being, and so forth. And that kind of understanding that enables us to tell the difference, so to speak, from substances, to equipment, to people. We,

we see there are different kinds of being because we have this understanding in the background. And how, and where is it in the background? Well, it's in our practices. practices. We are able to deal with substances, equipment, and people. That, it sounds on the one hand very abstract, and on the other hand very concrete. We know how to pick up hammers. We don't talk to them and scold them if they hit our fingers because that's not appropriate, part to the understanding of hammers. We know how to deal with people, with us. And we know how to deal with substances. And that know-how is in the background whenever we deal with anything. And that's as close to being as you can get in high degree. Yeah? Could you say that being is a relationship for a relationship?

Well, I'd say it's, it's a relation in the sense that things are always intelligible with respect to us understanding them. That's right. Remember, I quoted that strange phrase, being depends on us, though the beings don't. And that's because intelligibility depends on us, but not hammers, or stars, but we have the practices and the skills for making sense of hammers and stars by knowing how to deal with them. This is all hard to talk about. And you'll see in a minute that Heidegger knows it's hard and everybody knows it's hard. But let's see if I've got what I want.

And on the basis of which I take to being that it's always there in the background, these coping skills, whenever we do any hammering or look at any substances or worry about or just take a stand on who we are. And later Heidegger's going to call this background know-how our familiarity. We'll come back to that. We are familiar with hammers and substances and people. and that familiarity is another, one of his names for this characteristic.

And since Dasein is the basis on which we make sense of all modes of being, we get back to fundamental ontology which we already talked about last time, I think, didn't we? I can't remember for sure. But okay, and that was the top of 34. The fundamental ontology from which alone all other ontologies can take their rise must be sought in the existential analytic of Dasein. I mean, if Dasein is the being that understands beings, that is the source of intelligence, if Dasein is the source of intelligibility of every sort of being, then to do fundamental ontology you've got to understand Dasein and how he does that. And that's what we're going to talk about now. How does, how does Dasein work or become or do the job of being the background on the basis of which all sorts of beings are understood, whether they're tables or rocks or people, it doesn't matter. Dasein does it. And it does it, and I've said this but I have to stress it, we understand things by coping with them, according to Heidegger, not by thinking about them

or, well, period. I mean, that would be the other alternative, that we understand them by having beliefs about them and what you can do with them. You could have beliefs about what equipment is and what you can do with it and what you can't do with it, and we do have beliefs about it, but basically, we just deal with it. And in our dealings is already an understanding of what it is to be equipment, for instance. So now I want to talk about that for a while. So first,

I want to read you something because I talk, I said the understanding of being is for Heidegger the way we provide a background for making sense of everything. And the best quote on that, and Heidegger by understanding doesn't mean anything cognitive, it doesn't mean anything thinking. I keep using the phrase know-how, but we've now got to actually make clear what that is. At the top of 28, which is the German

8, he says, right at the top of 28, being arises from the average understanding of being in which we always operate and which in the end belongs to the essential constitution of Dasein. that's what I'm trying to explain now. So intelligibility arises from our understanding. How? Well, again, not by what we think, but by, I hope I have, yeah, I got it, the following, I'm on 276 of Basic Problems. It's the best account, partly because I'm afraid the translator sort of cheats and makes it even better, of what understanding means to Heidegger than anybody else has got and it's certainly important to get it right. It's all the problem is, and you'll see Heidegger struggling with this, the Germans don't have any word for skill.

And oddly enough, parenthetically, neither do the French and the same awfulness occurs in Merleau-Ponty. We're so lucky. We've got skill and we've got the phrase know-how, which Dewey introduced into philosophy and pragmatism. And listen to Heidegger's struggle with this on 276, about 12 lines from the bottom. Most of you aren't going to be carrying around basic problems too. But in German, we say to some, we say that someone can verstehen something. Well, verstehen is understand. Verstehen means, now he goes on, literally stand in front of it or ahead of it. That is, administer it, manage it, provide over it. preside over it. This is equivalent to saying that he versteht sich darauf. He has an understanding of it. Understands it in the sense, and now the translator puts it in, in the sense of being skilled or expert at it, has the know-how of it. But it's so nice that that's exactly right. It's something like

understanding, I don't know what, understanding, I'm trying to think something just ordinary. He understands cars. I mean, when he understands cars, that's not an intellectual thing, although he probably knows sort of how they work. But it's this business of knowing how to manage it. let's go through this again.

Being skilled at dealing with them, having the know-how of how to handle them and so forth. So I'm going to go on. The meaning of the term understanding is intended to go back to this usage in ordinary language. Poor Heidegger. So he hasn't got know-how or skill. The best he's got is this phrase that somebody understands it in that peculiar way that you could understand cars or understand, I don't know, France or something like that, where it means you can skillfully cope with it. And he says, this understanding is the condition of the possibility of all kinds of comportment, not only practical but cognitive. He's using know-how in such a fundamental way that it not only covers skillful coping than skillful thinking. That's all understanding and know-how. So he's not going to exclude intellectual understanding from his notion of understanding, but it just becomes a special case of it. And it isn't even the best case of it. The best case of understanding is picking up a hammer and hammering with it. That's period for him.

Now, it may be the moment when I want to go to the handout where, because I find myself saying something that I thought was so good that I put it on the handout. Let's see. Yes. So, but I just want to say, so our skills turn out to be pre-reflective, pre-conceptual. That's what I try to talk about when I talk about absorbed coping. Now, to give, and that's so important because that is sort of the rock-bottom phenomenon that Heidegger sees that nobody in the tradition ever thought about. And trusting is, hmm, I can always get it back from somebody. I need one, I need a copy of the handout. I trust we didn't give them all out.

Thanks. Did we give them all out? Anybody not got the handout? You didn't get one. I made 160. This room isn't supposed to, you got some more up there? Ah, good. Adam has some. I'm going to read what I, by the way, on the handout I put on one side this complicated chart which is going to show, it's got everything in it that you could possibly want to know about the ready-to-hand, the unready-to-hand, the present-hand, but I don't want to talk about that right now. On the back it's got, for the formal indication fans, if there are any, some quotes argue, showing, I think, that what Heidegger means by formal indication is like what similar to what Kripke means by rigid designation, but that's, I talked about that, I'm not going to go back to that. What I want to read is the thing at the bottom there, our basic way of being, because it is, even the Heidegger readers don't understand this, even my own students don't understand this, that it's more basic than even seeing something as something. That is, it's, that already is a kind of, too much of an activity of some kind of cognitive activity. And here's, and what he says here is just wonderful. What is first

of all given, that is, meaning, where, the way we are just at our most basic way of dealing with things, is the for writing, for going in and out, for illuminating, for sitting. See, that isn't even seeing the door as a door. It's just being drawn by the door to go out when you need to go out, and being drawn by the windows to open them when it's hot in the room, and being drawn by chairs, particularly if you're tired, to sit on them. It's just, there's just a direct connection between Dasein, way of dealing or coping, and things that solicit you to talk Gestalt talk, to take advantage of their affordances to talk Gibson talk. I mean, there are a few people in the world who thought this way, and the Gestalt psychologists are one, and the ecological psychologists James Gibson is another, but the best thing is just to stick with Heidegger, I think. So here we go again. What's given is the for writing and so forth. That is, writing, going in and out, sitting in the light, are what we are a priori involved with. That is, before, when he says a priori, it doesn't mean some fancy Kantian thing of

universal and necessary. It just means at the most basic level, sort of prior to anything else, but not temporally prior, but just that everything else we do presupposes we can already do this. So, and what is it we, and what we know, it's what we know when we know our way around. And when we learn the for-whats, the for-whats are the blackboards for writing on and so forth, but it's even more basic than that because it's just to write on. You don't even have to put the blackboard in. That's why my students are always putting doors in and then saying, and you see the door as the way out and you see the blackboard as the thing to write on. You can do that, particularly if something is going wrong with you and you want to get out and the door is stuck.

But basically, the world is just there drawing you to do whatever at any given time you need to do it. And that's what you know when you know your way around in the world. That's what every kid has to gradually learn, that the floor is to walk on and so forth. You want to say something it looks like. Did you have a handout? No. Okay. So, and finding your way around in the world, just a second, is, sort of nice Heideggerian way to put it. It's also a way that Wittgenstein puts it. You'll see in a minute Wittgenstein and Heidegger converge at this deep level. And it's the most basic kind of know-how we've got is just knowing how to cope with things, knowing how to do whatever we need to do. Now I say something. So, you know, you can say

Good question. I think they don't have to be cultural objects at all. Although I'll have to make some qualifications. But to begin with, let's take a tree. I mean, you can know how to climb a tree and you could use the tree as equipment for getting away from animals, sleeping up there. or you could use it for equipment to get coconuts which are up there. And you have a skill and the tree would have it to climb. And so it doesn't have to be cultural. It just has to connect up with our needs and purposes. Lots of them are only in our culture. I mean, hammering is certainly not cross-cultural. But equipment is. Every culture has equipment and therefore it has readiness to hand and therefore it shows up as the to-do this or that. Good question. Yeah?

Maybe it has to be something you teach the young or the young have to figure it out. I'm not to think about that. Suppose it's just a reflex sort of thing that birds learn how to fly. They just get out of the nest and they do it. So is that some coping of this sort? Is that the way of getting around in the world?

Do birds have a know-how when they know how to fly? I don't know. I don't think it's going to make a big deal difference. But if it does, let me know. Maybe there's something that's important that we include the birds and animals as having know-how. And maybe, they certainly can know how to climb a tree, animals. And it seems to me, but they don't have to understand it as the being of it is the being of equipment. they don't need to have in their practices an understanding of it in its equipmentality as opposed to it being a substance and having a different way of treating it or being a Dasein and have a different way of treating it. I think that it needn't be cultural, but it better be

something that people understand. When it isn't cultural, I... Let me think a minute. There's lots of know-how of this very interesting sort that isn't a question of coping, but it's a skillful dealing with things. Oh, let me just say that, and then I'll let Dave say something. I mean, people have a know-how of standing the right distance from each other, which varies from culture to culture and from how important the other person is. It's not something they believe or have rules for or think about, but it's not in the finding your way around in the world business either. It's a kind of background practice all right, but it's not a way of dealing with things as substances, equipment, or people. Well, I bet there are paper topics in here. Every time one tries to think about these things, they get harder and they're funny examples, and you never know with a weird example, whether it's sort of some interesting anomaly, which if you focus on it and work at it, you'll learn something important, or whether it's just a marginal case and you don't have to care. But one rule is sure, that start

with the paradigm cases, the obvious easy ones, like hammering, to find out what equipment is. And then start asking hard questions, like if it's in a drawer, is it still a hammer? Or is it only got a being of readiness to hand when you're actually hammering? We talked about that already, I believe. OK, but now I want to see what Dave has to say about this. Yeah? “The woods is already a cultural object — in the sense that it's a place of leisure, a place of resources, a place to avoid. There's already a kind of know-how building up to the woods.” OK, yes — you, that's right. Knowing how to get around in the world is knowing when you should go to the woods and when you should stay out of the woods and what you should do in the woods. All that know-how is, I suppose, treating the woods as a ready-to-hand cultural something or other. Yes. OK, I want to go on.

I think, I mean, if there is some interesting difficulty lurking in there, come and talk to me at office hours about it or maybe we'll just fall on it. Right now, I don't see it. But let's go on. Maybe it'll come out even if we go on reading this great passage.

But I consider this passage, which is in this obscure Heidegger book that's only just been translated and hasn't even been published in English yet, the simplest, clearest statement. So we've heard about the to-go-in-and-out. Then he gives an example. A blackboard is unintelligible as such, absolutely not present, hidden and useless, almost hidden unless understood for writing on it. That is, it wouldn't be a blackboard until people had skills for writing and until it showed up for people as the to write on. Otherwise, there could be some black thing or a green thing that you might bump into or use to stop the wind or something. It might be something else, but it wouldn't be a blackboard. The same is for a door. It's for going in and out. These things are intelligible because we are with that within which we, because we are that within which we operate. Ah, yeah, that gets really interesting. And that's why this passage is so fascinating. He wants to say when we're really so absorbed that we're just getting around and responding to the affordances, that is, the to-do-this-or-that, that

we're not distinguishable from the world of equipment. We're completely to poured into the equipment, absorbed in the equipment. That's what he wants to talk about now. He says, we are that within which we operate and in such a taken for granted way that we forget the state of affairs in its basic structure as the constitution of things. That is, when we're just absorbed in dealing with things and finding our way around in the world, there is no distinction between us and them. They become, they withdraw. I think I said that last time, didn't I, about hammers, that when we're hammering well, the hammer withdraws and all we can, the nail just is going in. Okay, let's go on. One more paragraph. This as what? Now, that's where people get confused. There is something that the blackboard is to use something as a blackboard and a blackboard is the thing that you use as a blackboard. But it's not in your experience that you have to have it as a blackboard that is being used. So, this as what? But now he's talking about it sort of from outside, not how you're experiencing it when you're absorbed. In the light of which I understand, in which I

already have, although unthematically from the outset, is nonetheless not grasped thematically in this having from the outset. Well, that is really mysterious. And I can't, you've got it on your page. That's why I had it printed so you could see it. I mean, the fact that it's a to write on is something you already understand. And though you don't have to think about it as a blackboard, that is, think thematically about it, you've got a skill for it. And maybe you should think of it this way. When you need to write on the blackboard, it'll have its to write on. Just like if it's hot and you need to open the windows, which we can't do any further, then the windows, the to-open. And when you need to go out of the room at the end of the class, then those to-do's will show up. But you don't have to think about them. You just do them when the time comes. There's somebody who wants to say something. Yeah?

Ah, good. That's right. It could be an obstacle, and he talks about that. One way it could be an obstacle is you just surmount it, and you don't have enough know-how. It doesn't get to be a problem. I'll talk next time about the unready-to-hand. If the door is stuck, for instance, and you can't get it open, then it becomes a special kind of obstacle. And as you can imagine, you have to start to think about it. It's no longer a to-go-out, which you can just respond by being totally absorbed in its two go out, and therefore finding yourself out. And so there is a whole thing that happens when the equipment doesn't work transparently. Yeah?

You hear the question? Probably not. An amputee who can no longer write on the blackboard. Wow. That's a problem for Merleau-Ponty. Exactly. He talks about that. What would happen is, what does happen with phantom limbs like that, that for a while he will still have a phantom arm, and he will, Merleau-Ponty does it more dramatically, a phantom limb, which is what Descartes talked about. Somebody's leg is amputated. They still have a phantom leg for a while, and they still get up and try to walk and fall over, or at least that's a frequent case. Just like this person will go up to the blackboard with, well, they've got no arm and hand, and then discover they can't pick up the chalk and write on the blackboard. But as they get used to finding their way around in the world as an amputee, they'll have to change their skills in which the blackboard will no longer look to them as to write on.

Remember, it isn't that it's a blackboard which then looks to them as something to write on. There just won't be a to write on at the time when you need one anymore. Yeah? Contrary to what? Wait, wait, talk louder. I can't hear you.

Yes. For one thing, we don't normally make it visible. If Heidegger is running against the attempt and attempting to make it visible, he's doing ontology, and he's doing what he calls hermeneutics, which is a kind of interpretation, and he's doing phenomenology, which is really what we're doing now, trying to describe our most basic way of being in the world. It's not our normal behavior, and nobody should be doing it normally. If you do, you're going to have trouble getting around in the world trying to, if you, okay. And I'm going to turn right to what you raised, which is the job that Heidegger's taking on, of taking what is, you're exactly on the right track. Heidegger has described something which is somehow going to be very hard to do, namely to describe and talk about, which in its very essence is something which we shouldn't normally be able to describe and talk about. That's what you're saying. Very good. Yeah, you're right on it. Yeah. Yeah. He wants to write, he needs, he, it's, he's got to, you know,

And he's going to raise the question of what it is to be a Dasein, because that's Dasein's job. And that's, but right now, I mean, it's not playing much of a role in the discussion of finding your way around in the world. I can connect it. Remember that it happens to be a feature, not happens. It is the essential feature of Dasein to take a stand on its own being. And the only way it can do that is by using equipment. And now in this new language, responding to the affordances and getting around in the world. That's what you do if you're the bad child in the family. You do it in the way that kind of being, that way, or a sacrificial mother or a teacher. The same example as I used last time, not to complicate things with new ones. I mean, you do all that. But all this transparent coping is in the service of, one, finding your way around in the world, which, two, is in the service, finally, of taking a stand on your being. I mean, you end up, we'll talk about that a lot more next time, being a teacher or being a student and so forth. But that's, and then you, the blackboards will show up as the to-write-on

and the books will show up as to-read. I don't know if I can say more about it. Is that all right or have I missed the point? I don't know if I can say more about it.

Well, I think I'm with Heidegger. That's his word for it is umgang or dealing or understanding. And you'll see, I just jump way ahead and just sort of for the time being, put this as a problem for later. He says that our understanding of being, let's see,

how do I put it? How does he put it? It's something like our coping, well, I'll try to see if I can open to it. But you jumped ahead. But he does have a very, it's a very important question, and he certainly has a view about it.

It's been a very, very complicated part of the text, so I'm not sure I can just find it. But I'll give it a try, and then I'll tell you later. I think he says, and it's somewhere on page 118 and 119, I think, that our understanding in his sense of coping and our familiarity, which is his story about finding our way around in the world, go to make up our understanding of being. But I can't just open to it, so we'll have to put it aside for a while. But I do think that, at least I'm giving a reading of Heidegger, which is extremely pragmatic and could be, meaning that is like a pragmatist and could be controversial, but I think it's so in here, all over the place, but in that quote particularly, which I promise to get to next time, or hope to, that you'll see that for Heidegger,

there's a very, very tight connection between our coping skills and intelligibility or being, that they are just sort of two sides of the same coin. There isn't, when everything is going well, there isn't any sort of distinction between this coping skill and things showing up as the to this and to that. Yeah.

Well, that's good, but that's a big issue, which I will put aside. But, I mean, I'm sure, I mean, Tyler's question is coming from another interpretation of Heidegger, and so I have to defend my interpretation, but I don't, I mean, I'm sure that Heidegger is an anti-cognitivist, anti-conceptualist, and he's very clear that the level, this most basic level,

no mind has to play any role in it at all, that you can acquire, I mean, pre-linguistic kids already have an understanding of being for Heidegger. I have no doubt they can pick up equipment and use it, they can stare at things and see their properties. They are already getting to be what I said last time, Japanese children are American, that is, they're already taking a stand on their being, and they do it all without concepts. I mean, that's important, because Heidegger's got a whole philosophical tradition of too much mental stuff, what I have taken to be calling lately, the myth of the mental. The myth of the mental has been around since the beginning of philosophy, that the mind has to come in and do something to make us able to find our way around in the world. But Heidegger doesn't think so, I think. Keep your eye open, and if you find any place where you think that Heidegger thinks that concepts or minds play any role in his fundamental level of phenomenology, what is first of all given, I will be shocked. I would have to throw out my whole commentary. Yeah?

Yeah. Even if you, the amputee, okay, let's see. Yes, but not as this level of first of all given. I mean, it won't be looking to you directly, soliciting you to write on it. It won't be for you that at an appropriate moment in your finding your way around in the world, the blackboard will just show up, and you'll do something with it. You can get intellectual about it, and you can say, ah, I see this person used to be able to write on the blackboard, but he can't anymore, or I used to be able to write on the blackboard, and I can't anymore. I'm trying to get you, but you're all rightly resisting to think of this at this most basic level, because I think that's Heidegger's big, brilliant project.

But your question brings out the important fact, and his does too, in a way. That doesn't mean that you can't thematize it, the blackboard, and see it as something to write on. You certainly can, and you can reflect, and you might even be able, to some extent, to make up some rules to follow, that you better use the chalk and so forth, to do it. Yeah.

Okay. That's good. That's good. Can you hear her? Yeah — “if you see a newspaper in a foreign language, it still looks to-be-read.” I think that's right. I think that's just good phenomenology, which means that it's complicated, that you have a skill for reading and making sense of things, and somehow part of that skill is already to, is activated. It's to be read and to be made sense of, but somehow you lack a part of that skill, because you can't tell how to do it. But I don't think that's a big problem for Heidegger, because I don't think, he didn't say that in order, he doesn't have to say, that in order for all these affordances, these two do this and two do that, which by the way, obviously form a whole, and give us our way of getting around in the world, he doesn't have to say, that all of that is sort of all the time, at this very basic level. He just wants to say, it can be, and that's, okay, yeah, I want to get further, but I also think, you're all right to stick at this point.

That's right, it can break down, it's to read, and then you discover, that's good. I like that. I think that's, so it's a kind of thing, like the hammer showing up is too heavy. That is, a variation on that. I mean, it looks like it's to read, and then it turns out, it's too foreign. And then it looks like a bunch of squiggles, that, it's still, but it's a funny, interesting case.

That's right, that's right, there is, there is this being drawn, yeah, you all are getting ahead of the story, when we get to, what you're describing is the unready to hand, the unready to hand, isn't the present at hand, because it's something you're trying to do, and it's called to do, but can't for some reason do, and Heidegger's got a whole story about that, and that's what you're all tuned into, yeah. Yeah.

“Do we understand the text by coping with it, rather than thinking about it?” I think there's something right about that, oddly enough, but obviously, but reading Heidegger is a kind of constant breakdown, it seems to me, so, and on the other hand, you're always in the unready to hand, it isn't like, it isn't like reading a simple science fiction book, or something, so, I would say, in, in, in doing, this kind of phenomenology, this fundamental ontology, phenomenology, you're bound to be in a state, in which, you are always, sort of,

knocked out of what is your natural, way of dealing with things, and that's what makes it very special. I'm going to go on, because I'm back to where I was, when I started being interested, in what everybody was saying, I mean, there's, I'm back to what she said, I mean, this is a very hard job, in a way, you're repeating it now, Heidegger's giving himself, the fundamental ontology, as phenomenology, is a job of describing something, which, when it's happening, and working at its best, there's nothing to say about it, that's, that's a problem, she's smiling, she's right, okay, so, let me go on, to see if I want to read this last paragraph, I think I do, because it stresses again, how absorbed we are, okay, let's see now, rather, I live, in the understanding, of writing, illuminating, going in and out, and the like, more precisely, and this is the big claim, as existence, I am, in speaking, going, understanding, an active understanding, dealing with, that's pretty strong, I mean, that's what I think shows, this isn't a formal, empty claim, this is a very interesting claim, that at its most basic level, Dasein is just coping, speaking, going, understanding, finding its way around, dealing with,

way later in the book, Heidegger has a sentence, which was the first time, I really ran into this, way of thinking on his part, he says, Dasein is the world existing, that's a sort of code, for, he, Dasein is, by using the world, so to speak, to take a stand on itself, and absorbed in the world, and doing it, Dasein and the world, can't be separated, Heidegger is very, what Heidegger is trying to do, by the way, another way to put this is, he doesn't want you to be able, to separate us and world, because that makes us, too much like subjects, and worlds, too much like objects, he thinks that when we are, at our most, basic, we just are, being in the world, with hyphens, as you have seen, if you've been doing the reading, and this is what, that's why all this talk, about absorbed coping, because this is his destruction, of Descartes, it's to say, that when we are, at our most fundamental, and in a certain sense, at our best, when we're coping, and finding our way around, in the world, there isn't any difference, between us and the world, we are that much absorbed in it, rock climbers sometimes, say there's no distinction, between them and the mountain, when they're totally absorbed, in climbing,

it's as if we're all like that, most of the time, when, when, to take Heidegger's example, when we go out of the door, we use the latch, he says, that we, we are not, sort of noticing it, paying attention to it, or anything, it's just, part of the, basic, ongoing activity, ongoing activity, by the way, is a Dewey phrase, which would fit Heidegger, very well, but I've got to go back, I've got to, you want to say something quick, and if, I may not answer it, but we'll see,

well, we can, you're all getting ahead, of that story, I don't, I mean, some of you are making, hard problems, for where we are, some of you are, sensing that where we're going, okay, that's all ready to hand, and that's got to do with, what it is to see something, as a substance, Heidegger's not going to deny, that we experience substances, he's got to explain it, in terms of, some kind, of breakdown, of this total absorbed activity, but I'm sticking, so let me just read it, one, my being in the world, is nothing other, than the already operating, with understanding, in this mode of being, you see why I like this passage, this is like a summary, of the most extreme, bottom level, a priori, kind of coping, being that we are, but now I have to get back, to something definitely, I want to cover, namely her thing again, because she, this puzzle of how Heidegger is going to ever do this, okay, let's see now, where are we,

well the tradition, has always missed, the background, for 2000 years, philosophers have not, described the background, the background is, invisible, invisible, another way to put it, is it's like the light, in the room, I mean it's thanks, to the light in the room, that we can see anything, that if we, the more we see things, we see things, the better and better, the more we don't, see the light in the room, the way it withdraws, goes to neutral, and so forth, so he's describing, what we, and that's when he says, that what is, ontologically, nearest to us, namely this coping, that we are, this finding our way, around in the world, that we are, is ontologically, farthest away, that's on 37, I think we read it already, did we read it already, anybody remember, anyway, it's on page, it's 16 in the German, and he says, this is all about this, how we're related to this, being in the world, Dasein is, about five lines down, ontically closest to itself, and ontologically, farthest away, and pre-ontologically, it's not a stranger, that is, you've got a sense of, your, the things are going okay, when things are going okay, and I take it, that's the way, you have assigned,

a pre-ontological familiarity, with what's going on, okay, now let's see, I'm going to go fast over things, the background is not a belief system, it's much more basic than that, you can have it with, before you even have any beliefs, it's in your bodily disposition, it's pervasive, there's no contrast class, there's, I mean, there's nothing that, well there's something, different than the foreground, but the background is somehow, everywhere, and you can't find a place, where it isn't, so to speak, so you can contrast it, for what it is, now comes the part, I wanted to be sure, and get to, because it really, it amuses, or intrigues me, Wittgenstein also, late in his life, came across the background, and, he says, quote, this is from, remarks on the philosophy of psychology, how could human behavior be described, surely only by showing the actions, of a variety of humans, as they are, all mixed up together, not what one is doing now, but the hurly-burly, the whole hurly-burly, is the background, which is in German, the whole hurly-burly, is the background, against which,

that's the vor auf, not the vor auf, but the German there, is vor auf, it's the background, against which, we see an action, it determines our judgment, our concepts, and our reaction, he's got onto, exactly the same thing, only his reaction, unlike Heidegger's, is more like hers, Wittgenstein says, well if that's what it is, we can't describe it, it's hopeless, in culture and value, which is, collection of, of aphorisms, on 16 he says, perhaps what is inexpressible, and I find mysterious, and am not able to express, is the background, against which, whatever I could express, has its meaning, so Wittgenstein has come across, the Woraufhin, the that on the basis of which, and he's come across it, and he sees, that it would be, he thinks, impossible, to describe, and Heidegger, thinks, and this is important, it's hard alright, but he's going to do it, he's going to, even though it's, a hurly burly, and a mess, he's going to articulate, the structure, of everyday being, in the world,

and, that's amazing, it must be, you can imagine, how much, feel it must have felt, to have been Heidegger, because he's, he won, he sees something, that he thinks, the whole tradition, has never seen, and he's going to, take it on, in a way that looks like, it's impossible, to take it on, he's going to take it on, and even though, it, they didn't see it, because it was, or necessarily, withdrawn, and invisible, when it did its job, he's going to describe it, and, get us to see, what it's like, when it's doing, when it's doing its job, and I, want to, read you something else, from Basic Problems, where he says, that, that the tradition, has never seen this, where is it, passed over, by the whole tradition, I write down, in my notes, the surrounding world, is different in a certain way, for each of us, and notwithstanding that, we move about in a common world, and then he says, the concept of world, or the phenomenon, thus designated, is what has hitherto, not yet been recognized, in philosophy, so he thinks, there is this very important, background, or world, you'll see they come out, to the same, and that, it hasn't ever been seen,

and it's only natural, because like the light, in the room, the more it, it works better, the more it becomes, invisible, and I want to say, that sounds like, incredibly arrogant, claim, and it is in a way, that certain people, have a right, to be incredibly arrogant, because they're doing, something incredibly, impressive, I mean, Dante puts himself, with the great poets, of history, Homer and Virgil, and so forth, in the Divine Comedy, that's a lot of chutzpah, but, and the same thing, Heidegger does, and, but I was going to read you, another passage, but I don't, I didn't bring it with me, but it's not something, we need to absolutely, see right now, but he's also, the humblest person, ever, in philosophy, because he says, in Basic Problems, that, surely there is something, wrong with what he's writing, that he can't see it, but, but you can be sure, that there is something, fundamental, that he is missing, and leaving out, and that's what's always been, the case in philosophy, every philosopher, has always been, the next philosopher, has always claimed, that the previous one, got it wrong, missed something fundamental, but each philosopher says, but I haven't, I've got it all right, finally, Leibniz, or Spinoza, or Kant, or Descartes, would say that,

well Heidegger sees, that this thing he's taking on, this job, is so hard, that he's not going to be able, to sort of complete it, systematically, and say, now I've done it, I've given you the structure, of the world, but he's going to do some of it, and he's going to necessarily, leave some of it out, and in a way, that's what happens, to, he left lots of very important things out, it turns out, but that's not, what we're going to talk about now, so, now, I still want to go on, because,

I see I've got something here, yeah, okay, I want to talk, about world, for the last 10 minutes, and then I will be, where I want to be, which is pretty amazing, maybe, so, there's, four senses of world, that he's going to do, this amazing job, of taking on, and describing, the background, the world, the, on the basis of which, that which we are totally, absorbed in, when everything is going, at its best, and he better, at least tell us more about it, so, on 93, there are these important definitions, four meanings of world, I think, it would have been better, if he had, called, the first two, which are, world, are, categorial, that is, they're the world, as an object, and, if you're talking about, the world as an object, I think it would be nice, if he would call it, a universe, the universe, is, is this object, which has all, these galaxies, and trees, and quarks, and stuff, in it, and the world, is something, that people have, there's a business world, once you've had this course, you'll never be able, to say anymore, sort of, how many stars there are, in the world, or,

because, there are no, that's, there are no stars, in the world, I mean, galaxies, and stuff, they're in the universe, and, the world, is always, a holistic, bunch of, human practices, related to human, goals, and so forth, huh, I can't resist, though time is running out, some of you know, that Terence Malick, the movie director, who made, The Thin Red Line, and so forth, is a Heideggerian, he translated a book, by Heidegger, he's, he's a, he went for the Rhodes Scholarship, to write his thesis, on world, world, in fact, in Heidegger, and, so in his latest movie, which, bombed so completely, that I think, none of you saw it, anybody, you get to see, The New World, before it folded, in The New World, there's a, you don't get to see it, I was on the set, and there was a point, where Heidegger has, what's his name, Christian Bale, who is, John Rolfe, asking Pocahontas, she's asking him questions, and one of the questions, she asks him, is, what's the difference, between the earth, and the world, and, wow, and, and Bale, who is quite smart, obviously, looked a bit stunned, and then he said, well, worlds have people in it, but, but,

the earth doesn't, or needn't, I think doesn't, he said, and, unfortunately, I didn't get into the movie, but, at least not in the version, that the two of you saw, that there's a three hour, at least, but there's a, three hour DVD, that's going to come out, of The New World, and it's, hopefully, going to have this, line in it, but, anyway, keep your eye on Malick, because all of his movies, are about worlds, about what it is, to be a world, and things that happen, with worlds, okay, I said that, now, you can go see, Badlands, and see if you can figure out, how it happens there, and how it happens, in Days of Heaven, and how it happens, in Thin Red Line, how all of them, are about some aspect, of the world, he went to Oxford, as a Rhodes Scholar, and he said to Ryle, I want to write my thesis, on world, and Wittgenstein,

Heidegger, and, maybe Nietzsche, I don't remember, and Ryle said to him, you can't do that, you've got to write, a philosophical thesis, so he quit, so he quit philosophy, on the spot, and now we have movies, about worlds, and nobody says, he can't do that, okay, so here we got, back to worlds now, the top two worlds, on 93, is, the first one, world is used, as an ontical concept, and signifies, the totality, of those entities, that can be present, at hand, within the world, it helps a lot, if you just say, it's the universe, and all of those, entities, that are present, at hand, in the universe, from quarks, to galaxies, and then, the second meaning, of world, and by the way, that's categorical, obviously, because it's about substances, and the second meaning, is also categorical, and it's, the way of being, of, here Heidegger says, world, I want to say universe, world functions, as an ontological term, and signifies, the being, of those entities, we just mentioned, that would be the being, of all those substances, from stars, to electrons, and indeed, world can become, a term, for any realm, which encompasses, a multiplicity, of entities, that's the business world,

the theater world, the academic, no, wow, no, sorry, that's exactly wrong, no, it has to be, entities, that don't relate to us, so, any bunch, I mean, I, the universe, universe, or what, well, some mathematical bunch, of sets, would have this character, it's the way, anything, that, can be,

any realm, I'm getting very confused, just any realm, which encompasses, the model, for instance, one can talk of, the world, of the mathematician, world signifies, aha, aha, yes, a realm, of possible objects, namely, say, the real numbers, and, it's a kind of, universe of discourse, you can, we still, we do use universe, not only for galaxies, but for, any, talk about, any domain, of entities, but, the important thing, he wants to do, is to get that sense, of world, out of the way, by, categorial, and call it universe, for what his sense, of the world, and that's what we have to do, just up to the end, so, or now, and now we're in, in Heidegger, and Terry Malick territory, world can be understood, in another, ontical sense, not however, as those entities, which Dasein, essentially is not, and which can be, encountered, within the world, but rather, as that wherein, a practical Dasein, is said to live, that is, you can see that, in the academic world, the theater world, the business world, those are, what we're in, Daseins, can actually, cope, find their way around it, you can find your way around it, in the theater world, or the academic world, and he says,

here again, there are different possibilities, it could be the public, we world, or the most, close domestic world, and now comes the kind, that's an existential, kind of world, and now comes the other, existential use of world, the most important one, for him, finally world designates, the ontologico-existential concept of worldhood, that's really, that's the structure, of the background, worldhood itself, may have as its modes, whatever structural holds, any special worlds, may have at the time, but it embraces in itself, the a priori character, of worldhood in general, that is, what is the general structure, of any world, that, which is something, that human beings, can live in, find their way around it, cope with, and understand themselves, in terms of, if I were trying, to test you on this, I would, if I were writing an exam, I would ask, if you could deal, with the following, sort of like, the problem, for Christian Bale, but it's related, suppose I said to you, what is the difference, between the world of physics, and the physical world,

their world is being used, in the universe, in other sense, I mean, the world of physics, is those bunch of practices, that physics people, engage in, and are absorbed in, and understand themselves, in terms of, that's the world of physics, and the physical world, it would be better to say, universe there, the physical universe, is that bunch of, substances or entities, that these people, namely the physicists, take a stand on their being, by going through, all these activities, and observing them, and making theories about them, so, now I think I said, just in time, all that I really felt, I have to say, yeah, we're ready next time, to go on, to the holistic structure, of the world, be sure and read up, read up past, I'm going to probably go, maybe a little bit past, 104, because, up to maybe 107, because, all of this, naturally, the world's talk, all hangs together, okay, okay, okay,