i)
Introduction: The Problem of Knowledge/Being
ii)
The Hammer and the Intellectual
iii)
On Thought and Action
Martin Heidegger made a distinction between “the problem of knowledge” and the “problem of Being”. In a sense his (or these) distinctions are precisely the distinctions which distinguished Anglo-American analytic philosophy from many of its Continental counterparts. Of course to say that is also to generalise; though it does contain a lot of truth.
The problem
of being may also be called the problem of the
self or the problem of continuing self-identity.
The
other distinction is the supposed separation of fact
from value; which is
characterised by strands in the tradition of analytic philosophy.
Such a distinction is rarely made on the Continent. This partly
explains why even ontology (as well as metaphysics generally) has had
an ethical dimension on the Continent.
For
example, to Emmanuel
Levinas, ethics was First
Philosophy. And in
Heidegger’s ontology and Jacques
Derrida’s philosophy
generally, ethics - and by derivation politics - play an important
part (despite the obfuscations and animadversions to the contrary).
Heidegger or Derrida might have said that every part of philosophy
(even logic) is interspersed with some politico-ethical element.
For both Derrida and Heidegger ethics was also First Philosophy.
It
is strange, prima
facie, that Heidegger
should claim that traditional empiricism also claimed to be
“ontology-free”. It's hard to make sense of this claim at first.
However, the claims that Heidegger makes about empiricism
are substantiated by the view that empiricism supposedly made a firm
and distinct separation between objects and subjects.
Though since Kant (if not before), many have accepted that subjects
themselves partly determine the nature of all known or perceived
objects. That's why empiricism could never be genuinely
“ontology-free”. Both minds and our epistemological tools
determine objects (one of the prime subjects of ontology).
It's
a rather general statement to assert that empiricists believed that
the world is divided into subjects (whose prime task is to “perceive
objects”) and that objects exist (as it were) "simply to be
perceived". Of course that Heideggerian way of putting things is
very colourful. However, the truth contained in his view is very
powerful; despite the “rhetorical flourishes”.
Heidegger
gets to work on the main problems that the various ontological
dualisms threw up.
For
a start, the world must be divided into two "substances" –
mind and matter. Of course if these two substances are truly
distinguishable, then how is there any interaction between the two
dissimilar worlds? This is the Cartesian problem written on a larger
scale. Cartesian
dualism
failed to convincingly explain the relation between mind and body.
According to Heidegger, the problem which faced empiricist
epistemologists is the relation between subjects and objects
generally. How do subjects (qua substances)
interact with objects (qua substances)?
In terms of epistemology (or the Theory
of Knowledge),
how can subjects know anything at all about the world of objects and
events? How do these two seemingly incompatible domains interact? How
can one substance know a different kind of substance?
According to Kant, it was “the scandal of philosophy” that the external world hadn't be truly proved to exist. One can see that this seemingly epistemological task was one of Kant’s prime motivations (after proving the objectivity and rationality of his own system of ethics). But if these two substances are truly unlike, then a proof of the external world, according to Heidegger, will never be forthcoming if one embraces such an empiricist view of the matter. That separation of mind and world made such a proof impossible – almost logically impossible. Heidegger’s response was to get rid of all such dualisms – mind/body, internal/external, subject/object, knower/known and so on. In a sense, Heidegger was therefore a monist in that he didn't accept or recognise mind and objects as two distinct substances. More specifically, it's because empiricism - and, indeed, Cartesianism - stressed these dualisms that such ontologies would by their very nature create “the problem of the external world”. If there aren’t two fundamental substances, then this problem simply evaporates because all these dualisms effectively become monisms in his philosophical system.
According to Kant, it was “the scandal of philosophy” that the external world hadn't be truly proved to exist. One can see that this seemingly epistemological task was one of Kant’s prime motivations (after proving the objectivity and rationality of his own system of ethics). But if these two substances are truly unlike, then a proof of the external world, according to Heidegger, will never be forthcoming if one embraces such an empiricist view of the matter. That separation of mind and world made such a proof impossible – almost logically impossible. Heidegger’s response was to get rid of all such dualisms – mind/body, internal/external, subject/object, knower/known and so on. In a sense, Heidegger was therefore a monist in that he didn't accept or recognise mind and objects as two distinct substances. More specifically, it's because empiricism - and, indeed, Cartesianism - stressed these dualisms that such ontologies would by their very nature create “the problem of the external world”. If there aren’t two fundamental substances, then this problem simply evaporates because all these dualisms effectively become monisms in his philosophical system.
Heidegger
needed to formulate his ontology in order to solve the
so-called problem of the external world or to make
it effectively a non-problem. However, he also reacted to
ontology simpliciter.
Heidegger
relied on his notion of human beings as “being-in-the-world”. In
terms of the problem of the external world, if subjects
(or beings) are already beings-in-the-world, then there
can be no true distinction between the external and the internal (or
between subjects and objects). The argument seems to be that if minds
and world are one, then the question of knowledge of the world won't
(or shouldn't) even arise. In a sense, Heidegger provided us with the
most thoroughgoing naturalisation of the mind and subject imaginable.
It's no wonder that this aspect of his work even filtered through to
a few analytic philosophers (e.g., Gilbert Ryle, Robert Brandom,
Tyler Burge, etc.).
It's
not just the case that beings are beings-in-the-world;
but also that beings are never truly separated from other beings or
subjects. And what is true of the everyday world is also true of the
world of the epistemologist and ontologist.
This
point also has a very Wittgensteinian
tinge to it.
The
very idea of a Cartesian (or Husserlian!) subject completely alone in
his own private philosophical world - untouched by the
presuppositions and biases of the everyday man - is either simply
nonsensical or at least untrue. Every single thought the
epistemologist or ontologist has is in some way filtered through
intersubjective conventions and ways of speaking (therefore of
thinking). Thus, as C.S.
Peirce said, the Cartesian
reduction, for example, is basically an elaborate
contrick. Neither Descartes
nor Husserl could have truly “bracketed”
the entire world or brought about “pure consciousness”. If they
had done so, then they wouldn't have even been able to think, let
alone speak.
It's
because of this Cartesian or empiricist isolationism that we have
the problem of the
external world in the
first place. Naturalise
the mind (as others have also attempted to do) and the problem will
simply disappear. If we're part of nature (or part of the world),
then nature or the world will cease to be so ontologically and
epistemically problematic.
The
Hammer and the Intellectual
Prima facie, Heidegger’s highly-intellectual anti-intellectualism seems very strange, if not bizarre. It's perhaps not surprising that this anti-intellectual intellectual (like that of Joseph Goebbels) had strong sympathies with German National Socialist forms of anti-intellectualism. In a sense, because Heidegger attempted to dismantle the empiricist version of epistemology and ontology (as he saw it), he went out of his way to emphasise the very non-intellectual relations we have with the many and varied parts of the world.
Take
Heidegger's well-known hammer
example.
His
point was that generally (in everyday life) we don’t have
intellectual knowledge of the hammer we use to bang in nails.
Instead, we have some kind of intuitive (for want of a better word)
relation to it. That is, we don’t really know that
the hammer is too heavy: it “reveals itself as being too heavy”.
That must mean that we only have a physical reaction and relation to
the hammer, not a knowledge-based one. In fact when we use the hammer
(Heidegger seems to claim) we don't think at all. We simply feel that
it's too heavy. We don't know or even think that it's too heavy.
This
resembles Donald
Davidson when
he stressed the pointlessness of the “tertiary
intermediaries” (Davidson,
1989) between the external world and ourselves. The “third entity”
in Heidegger's case is the linguistic entity “too-heaviness” to
which the hammer somehow corresponds. Heidegger thinks that we simply
needn't postulate an extra entity to account for a relation to a
hammer. There is a hammer. And that hammer is heavy. There's no
entity expressed by the linguistic, “This hammer is too heavy.”
There isn't even a non-linguistic entity somewhere in the mind that
somehow relates to the hammer. Instead we simply feel, intuitively,
that the hammer is too heavy.
It's
strange, therefore, that a philosopher who could be classed as “the
ontologist of the social” (see Robert
Brandom) seems to de-stress
the importance language has on our experiences. Heidegger seems to
claim that our relation to a hammer (at least in certain cases) is
entirely non-linguistic. Indeed it's also non-mental. It's entirely
physical. This effectively means that we "know" that the
hammer is too heavy, without ever having formulated any such sentence
about that "fact". Not only does language (in any form)
play no part in this relation with a hammer: perhaps no thoughts (or
any form of mentality - even non-cognitive mentality) enter the
picture. What we have, instead, is some kind of primitive or
intuitive relation to a hammer.
All
this goes squarely against, for example, Hans-Georg
Gadamer's assertion
that “all adult human
experience is linguistic in nature”.
According to Heidegger, on the other hand, we can simply hammer away
with the hammer without indulging in language (or even anything
mental) at all.
It
seems to me that Heidegger’s antipathy towards empiricist ontology
and epistemology coloured his philosophical position on things which
don’t at first seem remotely philosophical. His ontology even tried
to make sense of something as basic as using a hammer. Heidegger
believed that empiricist epistemologists made the mistake of viewing
philosophers as some kind of passive “spectators” (or
“lookers-on”) of the external world. They simply sat back (as it
were) and let the external world make its impact on their minds.
Indeed, on the Cartesian model, the mind shouldn't only sit back and
take it all in: it must also evacuate itself of all biases and
presuppositions before it does so.
However,
according to Heidegger’s ontological monism (if that's what it is),
we're at one with the so-called “external world”. It must
therefore follow that we can't (or shouldn't) see ourselves as mere
spectators (or lookers-on). We can't spectate on something we
ourselves are part of.
This
ontological monism isn't just applied to empiricist or Cartesian
philosophy: it's also applied to our everyday non-philosophical
relations with the world around us.
In
terms of a hammer again: we aren't spectators (or looker-ons) of
hammers either. We are at one with hammers (at least when we are
actually using them).
To
recap on Heidegger's position.
According
to the empiricist or Cartesian epistemologist, we must have the
sentence or thought “This hammer is too heavy” somewhere in the
mind. However, in reality we only feel the hammer’s heaviness. We
don't need a linguistic expression (or even an abstract thought) that
somehow corresponds to the hammer’s heaviness. This is a needless
intellectualisation of our relations to hammers. On Heidegger’s
view, our relation to hammers - and other aspects of the world - is
often simply a
“practical
relation”.
The things around us are more like “tools”
(even
when not actually literal tools), rather than objects of cognition.
Heidegger himself calls these “ready-to-hand” things “equipment”.
That means that we use the things around us. We don’t exclusively
think or cognise about the various things around us.
The term “ready-to-hand” is counterpoised with the term “present-at-hand”. It is Heidegger’s view that things that are ready-to-hand are things that we use or actively engage with. The present-at-hand idea suggests to us that such things that belong to that category are primarily objects of thought and cognition. Something can, therefore, be present-at-hand without necessarily be used or engaged with. It is, instead, a pure object of cognition and thought. (It’s being “is to be perceived”, to use Bishop Berkeley's phrase.) Of course words like ‘tools’ and ‘equipment’ must be taken in their broadest possible senses. Something can be a tool or equipment even if it's not, strictly speaking, either a tool or a piece of equipment.
The term “ready-to-hand” is counterpoised with the term “present-at-hand”. It is Heidegger’s view that things that are ready-to-hand are things that we use or actively engage with. The present-at-hand idea suggests to us that such things that belong to that category are primarily objects of thought and cognition. Something can, therefore, be present-at-hand without necessarily be used or engaged with. It is, instead, a pure object of cognition and thought. (It’s being “is to be perceived”, to use Bishop Berkeley's phrase.) Of course words like ‘tools’ and ‘equipment’ must be taken in their broadest possible senses. Something can be a tool or equipment even if it's not, strictly speaking, either a tool or a piece of equipment.
On
Thought and Action
If there is any direct connection to be found between Heidegger and Nazism, it's that of anti-intellectualism. Heidegger’s anti-intellectualism is very intellectual and esoteric in form because it seems to have been partly derived from other cultures. More specifically, it took the form of non-dualism – the rejection of categories and the glorification of experience (or action).
Ever
since Descartes - and before - the human subject (or philosopher!)
has allowed itself the privilege of starting out from outside the
world (or outside nature) looking on at its processes as some kind of
spectator. But man is part of nature and part of the world. Thus this
separation is either an illusion or a product of our arrogance (or
both). However, we do have one quality that distinguishes us from
nature and the world: self-consciousness. However, how
does self-consciousness alone separates us from the world and nature?
For one, it allows us to transcend our basic instincts. Indeed it
allows us to contemplate our basic instincts and therefore adapt,
change or try to get rid of them entirely. Very few, if any, other
animals can do this. (Indeed it would probably prove
counter-productive for them to do so.)
The
philosopher detaches himself from the world. The animal only knows of
the present and the near. (This probably even applied to primitive
man.) Thinkers, on the other hand, view the past, the future and
others as if they were programmes on a TV screen. The thinker is no
longer part of the world. Thought takes the place of experience and
action. Life is lived within the head - even though the contents one
finds within the head are of the world (the world by proxy – of
books or "texts").
Words and concepts recreate the world and are mistaken for the world.
Word is from then on measured against word and
concept against concept. Everything becomes “inter-textual” and
inter-conceptual. The flesh and blood world of experience is lost and
we live within the illusory world of our words, categories and
concepts.
Can
there be Heideggerian “involvement”
or action without at least some degree of knowledge? Surely
involvement or action must be the result of a degree of knowledge. It
can't, one assumes, run free of all knowledge. Action or involvement
must be the consequent of at least a modicum of knowledge. How can
action run free of knowledge of some kind?
There's
also a sense in which Heidegger’s position is essentially
pragmatist
in intent. He believed that knowledge must be firmly connected (in
some way) to action. Or, in his word, it must be connected with our
“concern”
for the world in which our knowledge acquisition and knowledge-claims
take place. More specifically, Heidegger is surely right to say that
knowledge “is secondary to
involvement in the world”. We
wouldn't even care about knowledge if it weren't for the fact that
we're somehow already involved with
the world. Without some kind of involvement,
the desire for knowledge wouldn't even arise.
Though
if involvement comes first, then we must ask ourselves if this
involvement is somehow shaping our pursuit of knowledge; or if it's
determining the subject areas of our knowledge.
Is
Heidegger saying that it's wrong to completely “detach ourselves
from the world”. Or is his saying that - in actual fact (contra the
Cartesian) - we can't do so even if we wanted to? In essence,
Heidegger seems to be argue both these positions.
References
Burge, T. (1979) ‘Individualism and the Mental’, in Midwest Studies in Philosophy 4.
Davidson, D. (1989) ‘A Coherence Theory of Truth and Knowledge’, in Truth and Interpretation.
Derrida, J. (1967/1978) Writing and Difference, edited by Alan Bass.
Heidegger, M. (1992) Basic Writings, ed. David Krell
- Being and Time, translated by John MacQuarrie (1927/1962).
Ryle, G. (1949) The Concept of Mind
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