Philosophy 102 Theses Statements, with notes (1-6)

1. For Kierkegaard, truth is subjectivity, without meaning to say that one has to disregard objectivity altogether. What is more important is the how rather than the what, the infinite passion towards truth rather than the possession of truth.
1. Notebook:

                                                               i.      Kierkegaard: individual decisions – in fundamental questions, there are no 3^rd parties. Propositional truth: empirically verifiable instances; world is not only of empirically verifiable statements

                                                              ii.      Objective: agreement of thinking with being [Truth is in the existing human being]

                                                            iii.      Subjective: agreement of being with thinking

                                                            iv.      Truth is subjectivity: not subjectivism; subjectivism is dogmatic which is similar to relativism. Viewed objectively, truth, at its best, is but approximation, accidental, never finished. Existing individual human being is always in the process of becoming.

                                                             v.      Truth, too, is in the process of becoming, as there is an existing individual human being who searches for it, wishing to be in it.

1.       This existing human being is conscious of being an existing individual, aware

                                                            vi.      We cannot live in abstractions (not all subjectivity, the decision comes from subjectivity), since even when one reverts to subjectivity, one exists nonetheless objectively.

                                                          vii.      Question of truth for the existing spirit – reduplication

1.       Objective: disregards subject, approximation, accidents

2.       Subjective: appropriation (possibly application)

                                                         viii.      Objective movement is outward, while the subjective movement is inward; individual. Objective reflection turns all into accidents, rather than of choices. Truth: objective uncertainty, hold fast enough through appropriation with the most passionate inwardness.

1.       Faith: contradiction between infinite passion of inwardness and objective uncertainty

                                                            ix.      We are finite, truth is not; objective: accidental – “What?” subjective: relational – “How?” Objectivity: strive for it, with inwardness

2. Reading:

                                                               i.      Empirically – agreement of thinking with being

                                                              ii.      Idealistically – agreement of being with thinking

                                                            iii.      If being is understood as empirical being, truth is transformed into a desideratum, something wanted; everything placed in the process of becoming, since the empirical object is not finished, thus truth is an approximating whose beginning cannot be established, since its conclusion has no retroactive power

                                                            iv.      As soon as the being of truth becomes concrete empirically, truth is in the process of becoming, the agreement of thinking and being

                                                             v.      Objective reflection disregards the subject and turns the subjective individual into accidents. Existence becomes a vanishing something.

1.       Indifferent, yet existence and non-existence have only subjective significance.

                                                            vi.      Eternal decision risked specifically in subjectivity, yet sole subjectivity, lunacy and truth are indistinguishable, since both have inwardness

                                                          vii.      In passion, the existing subject is infinitized in the eternity of imagination, yet is also most definitely himself

                                                         viii.      At its highest, inwardness in an existing subject is passion; one loses passion as one forgets one as an existing subject

                                                            ix.      Only in subjectivity is there decision, wanting to become object is untruth; the subjective “how” becomes a striving.

                                                             x.      Truth: an objective uncertainty, held fast through appropriation with the most passionate inwardness of the existing person

                                                            xi.      Faith: contradiction between infinite passion of inwardness and objective certainty. Faith is a state of striving. Faith seeking understanding.

                                                          xii.      The inwardness of a person is truth

1.       When the eternal truth relates itself to an existing person, it becomes paradoxical; it thrusts away in the inwardness of the existing person.

2. According to Heidegger, Da-sein is fundamentally constituted by being-in-the-world. There is only world insofar as there is Dasein, and to be Dasein is always already to be in the world.
1. Notebook:

                                                               i.      Ontological difference (not Seiende, yet the Sein of a Seiende)

                                                              ii.      To exist is to stand out there, Dasein – “there being,” “the beings that we are,”

                                                            iii.      Ontology only possible through phenomenology (an interpretation itself, for phenomenology involves hermeneutics, and hermeneutics asks for experience, for a hermeneutical situation): to let itself be seen from itself, just as it shows itself from itself; “letting be” of things. Husserl: “back to the things themselves.”

                                                            iv.      Dasein – the “how,” not the “what” of a thing, the Dasein of a table is its being, not the table

                                                             v.      Dasein is always its possibility; Dasein always defines itself in terms of a possibility which it is, “we are always ahead of ourselves”

                                                            vi.      To be Dasein is to be-in-the-world [world as an ontic term]

1.       World

a.       Being can only be understood in time

b.       Without Dasein, there would be no world

c.        “world” as unified phenomenon

d.       Being-in-the-world: “how”

2.       Being-in is through habituation, comfort, dwelling, to be free. Dwelling – everydayness

3.       World, as a context of references; a horizon of meaning

                                                          vii.      Dasein means to stand out, to have openness; we proceed from meaning

                                                         viii.      Conspicuous (ready-to-hand) to unhandiness (presence-at-hand) – objective presence

                                                            ix.      Beings are always relevant with something

                                                             x.      Dasein is the real and unique for-the-sake-of-which (the real and unique for someone!); we do not give meaning to the world; the world is meaningful to begin with.

                                                            xi.      Note: we are our purpose, our possibility; we are our possibility; we are inconspicuous on earth. Thus search!

                                                          xii.      Being-in-the-world: the fundamental constitution of Dasein (in medias rest)

1.       “Thrownness,” as though we are thrown into the world; our existence is a thrown project(ile). It is purposeful.

                                                         xiii.      The “within which” is that for which it lets beings be encountered beforehand: only in the world can we know who we are, as well as others

                                                        xiv.      We are given to the attempt of understanding that within which Dasein understands itself [purpose on “earth,” everydayness is where Dasein habituates]

2. Reading:

                                                               i.      World as pre-ontological, signifies the totality of beings which can be objectively present within the world. World is a characteristic of Dasein

                                                              ii.      “As that for which one lets beings be encountered in the kind of existence, the being kind of being relevant, the wherein of self-referential understanding is the phenomenon of the world.” Being relevant means not being alone.

                                                            iii.       

3. Heidegger’s understanding of the death and dying of Dasein—that Dasein is being towards death, and that death is the ownmost, non-relational and not-to-be-bypassed possibility of Dasein—allows us to see that only Dasein dies and only Dasein is capable of death (whereas, for instance, animals merely perish but never really die).
1. Notebook:

                                                               i.      Being-towards-death means to be enclosed in the world

1.       Ownership, since as long as Dasein exists, there is lack

2.       Dasein exists for the sake of itself

3.       No one can take one’s dying away from oneself; non-relational

4.       Dasein exists as its “not-yet,” its possibility; only Dasein dies

5.       Estrangement, tranquilization characterizes falling prey

2. Reading:

                                                               i.      As long as Dasein is, a not-yet belongs to it, which it will be – what is constantly outstanding

                                                              ii.      The coming-to-be of what is not-yet-at-an-end (in which what is outstanding is liquidated with regard to its being) has the character of no-longer-being-there. Being grapples with non-being everyday.

                                                            iii.      Coming-to-an-end implies a mode of being in which the actual “there-being” absolutely cannot be represented by someone else.

                                                            iv.      “Through disclosedness, being  of ‘there-being’ is in the possibility of being (v) its there, for the sake of itself, with(in) the world, initially and for the most part in such a way its potentiality in the world is taken care of.” Care is not a feeling.

                                                             v.      Potentiality given to definite possibilities because it is thrown. The “they” (Das Man) here must not tranquilize one, since one must strive to hear the attunement, the disclosedness. One must listen to oneself, not to the “they,” so as to be Dasein from itself.

                                                            vi.      Dying is non-relational, not objectively present for oneself, not a threat

                                                          vii.      Dying is solely and irreplaceably part of we, mine. Not an “occurrence” by no-one.

                                                         viii.      With the “they,” Da-sein risks loving its potentiality-of-being.

                                                            ix.      Thus, one must accept and not evade death, since tranquilized everydayness may (but must) only be with Angst about death. Care, too.

1.       transformative aspects of Angst

4. Heidegger claims that, if we really think through it step by step, the question concerning technology will reveal to us that the essence of technology is nothing technological and is not primarily something that belongs to human activity. Rather, technology is “a way of revealing.” Heidegger names the essence of modern technology Ge-stell, or enframing. Ge-stell is still a way of revealing, but one that is radically different from technology primordially understood.
1. Notebook: refer to other file
2. Reading: refer to other file
5. In the face of modern technology, Heidegger invites us to take the stance of releasement towards things (Gelassenheit zu den Dingen) and openness to mystery.
1. Notebook: refer to other file
2. Reading: refer to other file
6. For Marx, work is the basis of human dignity and of human flourishing. It is also work that establishes the liberating relationship between human beings and nature. When this relationship is perverted, work is alienated. Alienated work itself takes place on three levels.
1. Notebook: refer to other file
2. Reading: refer to other file