Heidelberg, June 9th, 2004
Thomas Fröhlich
Comments on Marilyn Stendera (2022) Heidegger on the Calculability of
Time
Dear Marilyn,
concerning your discussion in Marilyn
Stendera (2022) Heidegger on the Calculability of Time,
Australasian Philosophical Review, 6:3,
282-287, DOI: 10.1080/24740500.2023.2263983, I may contribute some ideas, based
on Heidegger’s Identität und Differenz, Band 11 Gesamtausgabe, Vittorio
Klostermann Frankfurt, 2006.
Here, I first cite from the
introducing chapter “Was ist das- die Philosophie?”. My main point focuses in
the primordial, dynamically cohering homogeneous uniqueness and singularity of
what can be identified with an attributed identity. This homogeneity
(“ursprünglicher Einklang”) includes individually realized aspects of what can
be observed in other singularities, to then become a trans-individual category,
like the categories of time and space. In fact, both are aspects of individual
agency, realizing underpinned trans-momentary potentials, to use further
categories. The primordial unit is agency, hence, and its individual timing has
aspects which may be shared with other individualities’ timing, allowing to
mentally construe a categorically overarching abstract, general time, which is
not real as a generality and as this generality, but only as individually
embedded in the corresponding (“jeweiligen”) agencies.
Time does not add as a
separate entity to an as well abstract space, to combine to an empiric
timespace only then. Instead, it is an individuality-based aspect able to
transcend the individual by virtue of its shareable, that is, aspectual nature.
In this transcendence, time, as well as individual being-at-a-place enacts an
convergence potential, transcending the inside in favor of connecting and
interacting with other insides, each seen as the corresponding inside’s
outside. So, time has an inherent connectivity aspect, one bridging the gap and
difference of being inside, and addressing an outside.
I think I can find some
arguments supporting this view in Heidegger’s work cited below. I may go on in
German, citing Heidegger directly, which allows to better notice and listen to
his alliterations like in “bestimmen, Stimmung, Stimme, Sprechen, entsprechen,
durchsprechen, klingen, anklingen, Einklang, Weg, bewegen”, et cetera.
I have no authority in
interpreting Heidegger, but I feel free to show what I like in his approach: It
is his stress on dynamics, timing (zeiten), and, like his follower Gadamer the
focus on interaction, dialogue, Gespräch, Weg, Übereinstimmung, correspondance,
achieved convergence as shared understanding. (Heidegger gave his “Was ist das- die Philosophie?” lecture to a
French audience, hence he occasionally uses French terms like “correspondence”
in his talk).
To conclude, my argument is that the term “time”
is too abstract, at risk of missing the time-generating individuality, of
misleading in the form of a discussion which directly starts with
trans-individual categories instead of asking about the latter.
OK, here we go – now writing and citing in
German, since you are a native speaker:
xxx
Ein Auszug daraus:
General and individual aspects of being
To describe individual elements of a system only in terms concerning
their trans-individual, general aspects does not work. Yet, the elements’
distinctive individuality can conceptually be introduced by considering a
hypostasized individuality- and discreteness-providing potentiality. What
emerges from this potentiality, and its individual form are realizations which
also have general features, pointing to their “outside” and addressable from
this outside in all forms of realized interaction. The supposed individual
elements relate to other elements via such shareable, communicable features but
they do not exclusively consist of them.
Insofar, as description in general terms is a description of the “outside” aspects, which, when realized, are ready to meld with other “outside” aspects, these aspects are embedded in the communication elements, combined with individuality-providing features. They do not govern these further features, but co-act with them in an integral, simultaneously integrity-preserving, and trans-individual-communication-providing form.
Objectivity, subjectivity
As outlined, describing reality in general terms to then derive the
possibility of individuality as subjectivity is not possible. Neither locality
nor individuality can be addressed and conceptualized when exclusively using
generalities, like those articulated in mathematical description. To approach
individuality, a concept is needed which provides an understanding of how
trans-individual aspects might relate to the supposed phenomenon of
individuality. Here, a bottom-up approach would argue the trans-individual
aspects are aspects of individuals which are embedded in them. Next, one needs to create a concept
describing how this primordial individuality might be constituted. Again, the
appropriate idea comes from the Aristotelian pragmatic differentiation of what
has been observed as realized and what must be supposed as the underpinned
potential providing chances of trans-momentary coherence, as a preserved
individuality. The latter, in turn, if detectable at all must have shareable,
addressable aspects to be detectable from its semantic outside. What is
detected from the outside is obviously trans-individual, and not a pure inside.
This concerns the individual’s features which have the potential to be
generalizable. Among these features embedded in the integer potentiality and
realized in this potentiality’s acts are those that do not depend on the
temporal, spatial, and qualitatively contextual individuality of the observed
realization. These features can be depicted in the form of general terms, applicable
to what is seen as elements of sets, such as categories.
Using a description only in the form of these general aspects hence must
be combined with a notice that this description only covers what is beyond
individuality, and if the phenomenon of individuality is considered at all, it
must be explicitly grounded in a concept of the latter.
Liebe Grüße,
Am 28.07.2024 um 00:37 schrieb Karl Janssen über PhilWeb <philweb@lists.philo.at>:_______________________________________________
Am 27.07.2024 um 16:33 schrieb Claus Zimmermann über PhilWeb <philweb@lists.philo.at>:Tag Ingo,
Der Ausdruck, über den es im Gegensatz zur technischen Wortbedeutung keine Vereinbarung gibt, sondern der selbsterklärend ist, ist nicht nur eine Vorform des Zusammenlebens. In der Mathematik kann alles auf Vereinbarungen zurückgeführt werden. Deshalb meine Vermutung, dass es einen klingenden, leuchtenden Ausdruck da nicht gibt. Aber vielleicht bin ich ja taub und blind dafür.
ClausDas trifft m.E. der Kern der Sache: Mathematik hat zwar ihren wissenschaftlichen Ursprung in der Philosophie und begann ihren Siegeszug in Griechenland als Werkzeug zur logischen Beweisführung, wurde damit zur Grundlage der modernen Wissenschaft, spezifisch als Formalwissenschaft.
Um zu einer eineindeutig bewiesenen Aussage zu gelangen, sind ebenso eineindeutige Prämissen und somit ein eindeutiges Beweiskonzept die unumgängliche Voraussetzung. Damit ist jedoch allenfalls der Geltungsbereich der Natur-, jedoch niemals jener der Geisteswissenschaft erfasst, da in letzterer eben diese eineindeutigen Prämissen letztgültig nicht gegeben sind, insbesondere, wo es sich um Metaphysik handelt.
So gesehen ist die Mathematik ein auf Naturwissenschaft begrenztes und damit eindeutig beschreibbares Wissenschaftsgebiet, deren Möglichkeiten zur Beweisführung sich jedoch nur bedingt (etwa als Prädikatenlogik für die Geisteswissenschaften und insbes. diePhilosophie anwenden lassen.
Wenn dem Phytagoras der Ausspruch „alles ist Zahl“, dem J.A. Wheeler „it's from bit“ zugeschrieben wird und ich behaupte: „it's all about information“, gehen alle Aussagen in Richtung einer eindeutig beschreibbaren, quasi mathematisierten Welt. Mathematik als die Sprache der Natur. Doch es ist und bleibt lediglich Sprache und hier gilt: Nicht alles ist in Sprache auszudrücken. Hier bleibt nur das Schweigen im Sinne Wittgensteins: „Über was man nicht sprechen kann, hat man zu schweigen“ (sinngemäß). Was hier übrig bleibt ist staunendes Schweigen.
Und liegt denn nicht im Stillsein eine Möglichkeit zur Klärung, zur Sammlung auf das Wesentliche? Dazu bedarf es dann keiner Mathematik, keiner Logik und eben keiner Sprache, es bedarf des Einfühlens, des Hineinhörens, des Stillseins, um eben diesen „klingenden, leuchtenden Ausdruck“ zu vernehmen, der alles Leben begleitet.
KJ
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