Heidegger and Existentialism - William Barrett

I noted this is a good introduction to Heidegger’s existentialism.

Heidegger and Existentialism with Bryan Magee (1977)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=27bo4FMP3vo&t=473s
[youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=27bo4FMP3vo&t=473s[/youtube]

One critical point I note from the above discussion, Heidegger’s existentialism is mainly descriptive but without any prescriptions and that is why the typical existentialist is informed of the theories and problems associated with existence but are neverthelss lost as how to resolve those problems.

Perhaps one rare practical advice from Heidegger was;

What??? perhaps that is why people like Ambiguous [Heidegger is one of his idol?] is so lost.

Heidegger “founded” existentialism???

That’s news.

What sense would it make to prescribe something to an existentialist?

Why the ???

There are many claims as to who was the first who founded ‘existentialism-proper’.

In the video it is claimed that Heidegger was the central figure of existentialism, thus the video’s ‘as founded by Heidegger’.

Someone could have produced a video - existentialism as founded by ‘Sartre’ or Kierkegaard.

Well there is this :

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Existentialism

Debatable is right, IMHO.

OTOH, Kierkegaard could be considered a founder.

Note the problem solving technique of life I have been writing about in other posts.

Existentialism reveals and describes what human existence really entails, i.e. the problems one really face in life.
But it does not prescribe effective solutions to existentialists to adopt and practice to resolve the problems of existence that it reveals and exposes.

Buddhism also has its existentialism elements which reveals the critical problems [dukkah] of life and provide a generic solution to life’s problem to tackle whatever the problem, i.e.

  1. The truth of suffering (Dukkha) - descriptive
  2. The truth of the origin of suffering (Samudāya) - descriptive
  3. The truth of the cessation of suffering (Nirodha) - descriptive
  4. The truth of the path to the cessation of suffering (Magga) - descriptive and prescriptive.

The video qualified existentialism as founded by Heidegger.

It is not claiming Heidegger is the unqualified founder of existentialism because there are many philosophies and philosophers who were associated with ‘existentialism’.

Note Buddhism 500BC ago was into existentialism as a major part of its theories and practices.

The ‘doctor’ is not living the existentialist’s life. He can’t know what the existentialist ought to do.

Thus there is a limitation of that ‘doctor’ i.e. not a holistic philosopher.

Hmm…

Another post bursting at the seams with the sort of thing that “serious philosophers” revel in: nothing much.

What did Heidegger mean?

How can we accumulate just the right words in just the right order so as to finally pin that down.

Okay, fine. And when you accomplish this bring your conclusions down out of the academic clouds and situate them in a context that most here will be familiar with.

Now, sure, back in my own objectivist days, I did idolize particular “heroes” of mine.

But that makes no sense to me now. Eventually, everyone gets swallowed up in an essentially absurd and meaningless life that crumbles down and then tumbles into the abyss.

Heidegger it would seem is no longer grappling with “how ought one to live?” And who among us here can demonstrate that the answers he came up with on this side of the graveyard reflect the optimal or the only rational frame of mind?

In our is/ought interactions in a No God world.

But that’s just me. My own existential pursuit here. I leave all that “technical” stuff now to others.

Since Barrett was so important in Iambig’s personal journey, one would think that he would have more to say in this thread. :-k

Pick a context, behaviors in conflict and a moral narrative and we can discuss our respective assessments of Barrett, Heidegger and any other philosopher deemed applicable.

No, seriously. :wink:

What happened to Boris?

Discuss.

Well, there are clearly “rival goods” embedded here historically and culturally in human interactions. The individual or the collective? Competition or cooperation? “I” or “we”? “One of us” or “one of them”?

Me, I’m still entangled in my dilemma. I note that both sides seem able to make reasonable arguments either embracing or rejecting the class’s reaction to Boris. And that these arguments appear to be largely embodied in dasein. And that “out in the world” what counts [for all practical purposes] is who has the actual power to enforce one political agenda rather than another.

Is there a way then for “serious philosophers” to accumulate both logical asssessments and empirical evidence such that the optimal or the only rational reaction is reached? An obligatory reaction?

Can Prismatic provide us with the most “progressive” “Middle-Way” reaction “here and now” or do we have to wait until we are all almost certainly dead and gone “in the future”?

"phyllo: Jules Henry:

Boris had trouble reducing 12/16 to the lowest terms, and could only get as far as 6/8. The teacher asked him quietly if that was as far as he could reduce it. She suggested he ‘think’. Much heaving up and down and waving of hands by the other children, all frantic to correct him. Boris pretty unhappy, probably mentally paralyzed. The teacher quiet, patient, ignores the others and concentrates with look and voice on Boris. After a minute or two she turns to the the class and says, ‘Well, who can tell Boris what the number is?’ A forest of hands appears, and the teacher calls on Peggy. Peggy says that four may be divided into the numerator and the denominator.

Henry remarks:

Boris’s failure made it possible for Peggy to succeed; his misery is the occasion for her rejoicing. This is a standard condition of the contemporary American elementary school. To a Zuni, Hopi or Dakota Indian, Peggy’s performance would seem cruel beyond belief, for competition, the wringing of success from somebody’s failure, is a form of torture foreign to those non-competitive cultures.
[/quote]

[/quote]
K: and this leads us back to a simple point, which is “what is the point of education?”
are we trying to teach “math”? are we trying to teach competetion? are we trying to
reduce children to nothing more then working bots? are we teaching “wisdom”?
or are we teaching children how to become “human”? the role of education
for over 300 years was not to teach working skills, but to teach one how to
be an educated human being… specific skill like math and reading, was not
to enable a student to get a job or to have a specific skill to have a career,
but to become a better human being…part of the modern failure is we can’t
decide what we want things like education or punishment to do?
is punishment to punish or is it to rehabilitate someone to return to society?
we haven’t decided and that has lead to the failure of our large scale massive
judicial system… just as it has lead to the failure of our education system…
what is education for? now, one might say, education is to teach children,
but to teach children for what end? to be better human beings? to be better
worker bee’s? to be able to discover who we are and what is our possibilites?

if school is to teach children how to connect socially? then technology
has destroyed that task because kids are doing such unsocial things as
video games which doesn’t require interactions and facebook and
texting each other every 30 seconds… my daughter who is 33,
she doesn’t go anywhere without her phone…and she is constantly
texting or facebooking someone… how is that teaching being
social?

so we are left with the question, what is the point of education?

Kropotkin

apologies, double post…

Kropotkin

The “serious philosophers” ought to recognize the scope of the conflict and work to keep it within limits. At it’s simplest, it’s a case of correcting a student who makes a math mistake. Surely, it’s relatively simple to agree that math mistakes, student mistakes in general, ought to be corrected. We want to minimize the “trauma” to the student. But a little trauma may be unavoidable in the process of education.

Are you going to say that even this is beyond the capability of philosophy?

The problem is that the simple “conflict” has been framed as a conflict between “competition” and “cooperation”. That that has blown it up into what appears to be unsolvable.

And there is no limit to the potential escalations. What if Boris is black and Peggy is white? Then correcting Boris amounts to systemic racism. Right?

What’s necessary is to remain focused on the core problem. That seems doable with “the tools of philosophy” in the case Boris. A complete understanding of life, the universe and everything is not required.

If Boris recognizes that correcting his math mistakes is not a personal attack on him, his identity or his ego, then a lot of “trauma” evaporates.

This is something that “serious philosophy” ought to teach Boris.

You missed my points.
I have never implied we should focus “in the future” only.

My approach is using the generic Problem Solving Technique for Life in the following;

  1. Deal with the problem “here and now” optimally within all known constraints.
  2. Plan for the future to prevent, reduce or eliminate the problem.

In a given scenario like Boris above, we can construct 1000 & 1 problems.

In the above case Henry narrowed it down primarily to the Problem of Competition.
The state of Boris’s mental state, Peggy’s ego, methods of education is secondary.

So the MAIN philosophical issue in the given Boris scenario is the Pros and Cons of Competition as defined by Henry. Note the following examples,

competition-the-pros-and-cons/
avc.com/2011/05/competition-the-pros-and-cons/

pros-cons-of-competition-in-schools
eduzenith.com/pros-cons-of-comp … in-schools

The Pros and Cons of Having a Competitive Personality
huffingtonpost.com/kelly-be … 12356.html

Is competition healthy in schools? The pros and cons
schooliseasy.com/2017/08/is … -and-cons/

There are tons of articles on the Pros and Cons of Competition out there with a wide variety of views.

Note Russell’s

In this particular case of Boris, I will not give any particular answer for the ‘here and now’ or the future because there are so many alternative perspectives to the Pro and Cons of Competition.
Rather I will explore all possibilities and take the optimal path -The Middle Way as conditioned by the existing constraints.
Definitely it will not be an either/or answer but rather we must evoke the concept of complementarity to blend ‘competition’ and ‘no-competition’ to achieve optimality within the defined constraints.

However re existentialism, what I propose is for anyone entangled with the issue is to maintain a state of composure immediately and not be emotionally effected by opposing views. In the near future one should strive to cultivate a state of equanimity and stabilize it as soon as possible and learn the generic problem solving technique of life to deal with ANY problems one encountered in life.

You would think it relatively simple wouldn’t you? And yet there are any number of folks who embrace one or another rendition of the rugged individual surviving by his or her own wits in a dog eat dog world.

Boris either rises to the top or he doesn’t. In the end, it’s his own responsibilty. And he is never too young to learn this.

Here, I like to come back to this: youtu.be/v1qtv7uKUlY

Now, ideally, this is how we are supposed to approach competition: through cooperation.

You tell me though: what does that have to do with the real world of sports competition in America? And of competition on, say, Wall Street. Or in the courtroom.

My point is that your point or their point is embedded in dasein out in a particular world unfolding in a particular historical and cultural context.

That, in other words, philosophers don’t seem able to consider both agendas [and many more besides] in order to come up with the optimal or only rational assesment. One in which, if one wishes to be thought of as a virtuous human being, one is obligated to embrace.

And, sure, in a racist culture the color of his skin matters. Or, in other contexts, gender, ethnicity, religious affliation or sexual orientation. All of these become embedded in “conflict” to make it all that much more complex and vexing.

And I would never argue that this is all “unsolvable”, only that I have not come upon an argument of late that nudges me back in a direction [that I once embraced myself] able to demonstrate that it might be.

Right, and that’s never embedded in particular political prejudices embedded in particular ontological prejudices regarding the optimal narrative embedded in one or another rendition of the philosopher-king: right makes might.

I’m only arging that moderation, negotiation and compromise [democracy and the rule of law] may well encompass the “best of all possible worlds”.