Heidegger and Existentialism - William Barrett

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.
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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”.

It’s not about competition or cooperation. You’re completely being drawn into that particular narrative. You’re not even questioning it. Where is your critical thinking? #-o

You’re also arguing that sometimes 2+2=5. If Ingsoc or some other organization or some individual says so. To avoid the evil of competition, you give up on truth.

Note:

In the scenario you presented above, there are many aspects one can deal with but note “Henry remarks” where the context of ‘competition’ is highlighted. Thus without you specifying, to topic I had discussed along the line of ‘competition’.

If you want to emphasize on other contexts [which are many], you should have said so.
Example we could discuss the effectiveness of teaching methods which do not allow Peggy to answer to embarrass [or whatever] Boris. Perhaps Boris should have been diagnosed with learning disability and put in a separate special class. As I had stated there are so areas which we can discuss in the scenario you presented.

From my frame of mind, we all have our own individual narratives regarding what it means to either cooperate with others or to compete against them. These are derived in part from the particular historical and cultural contexts into which we are thrown at birth. Then, given a particular set of experiences, relationships and access to information/knowledge, this narrative evolves over time from the cradle to the grave. Thus for any number of reasons we may find ourselves questioning what we think is true in the is/ought world.

So, as a “critical thinker”, are you able to discern the optimal narrative? Might a bunch of critical thinkers get together to ponder the fate of either Boris or the kids in the video and come up with a frame of mind that reasonable men and women are obligated to share?

Sure, maybe. All I can do though is to react to that which they do come up with. As, for example, I reacted to your own speculations above. Now, please react to mine.

Basically, I react to that like this:

Given the context with Boris and the autistic kids above, our reactions will either be the right one [4] or the wrong one [5]. And those who give the wrong answers are those who don’t share the one true reaction.

You, being a “critical thinker”, are in sync with the right reaction and thus have access to the right answers.

That’s my point. Thus, after perusing these pros and cons in the links above, to what extent can philosophers derive the optimal frame of mind? Or, instead, as I surmise, is that more likely to be rooted existentially in particular historical and cultural contexts that evolve over time into any number of conflicting social, political and economic narratives/agendas?

What does the “real world” – the actual historical interactions of flesh and blood human beings – seem to suggest here?

What questions? Pertaining to what particular contexts? Predicated on what particular assumptions precipitating what particular political prejudices pertaining to cooperation and competition embodied in human interactions?

Typical. You will take this path but you have absolutely nothing substantive to say about how those who do take this path are able to actually describe a set of “progressive Middle-Way” behaviors here.

We need but recognize “the Middle Way as conditioned by the existing constraints.”

Axiomatically as it were.

Okay, let’s imagine that you were at the back of the classroom witnessing Boris’s travail.

Afterward, you walk up to the teacher and you duly note this.

Now, let’s all try to imagine her reaction…

I suspect her reaction to that will be more or less in sync with my own reaction to this:

We simply do not think about these “human all too human” interactions in the same way.

If I am in that classroom, if there is no serious critical threat, I will not do anything but take my observation as an empirical evidence of what has happened.
Where it is a mental problem, issue or sickness there is no way one can introduce an immediate solution to any observed scenario because the underlying cause is too complicated with neurons mis-connecting all over the brain.

It may be a lost cause for Boris, Peggy and the teacher, however I will take the above events [and the same elsewhere] as a research topic to prevent such situations [whatever is negative] happening to anyone in the future.

I suspect yours is also a lost cause. It would be more effective to direct one attention to prevent people with the same mental thinking like your sort with very ‘dogmatic’ views in the future.

E.g. if a person is a hardcore smoking addict, it is very difficult for such a person to kick off their habit. If it is not a critical thing, we just like the very hard core addict be. That is why & how I and others have accepted some close kins who are hardcore addict cigarette smokers who cannot give up smoking despite having terminal illness and warning/advice by doctors.

Another argument that might be made by anyone embracing a particular set of political prejudices regarding competition. From those who are fiercely into the “I, me, mine” competitive frame of mind to those who embrace collectivism almost as a religion.

But, in the end, things are never too complicated for the objectivists. After all, they have figured out the optimal reaction here so why can’t everyone else?

Okay, but my point is that there are any number of objectivists who argue that we should want things like this to happen in the future. Sure, Boris is humilated here and now, but he either will or will not learn from his mistake. Once he does take responsibility for his own success or failure he will have learned a far more valuable lesson.

My frame of mind generally disturbs people. Most folks will acknowledge there are conflicting political agendas here, but what counts far more to them is that either one side or the other is right.

Their own side as likely as not.

What I am proposing however is that in a No God world both sides are able to make convincing arguments merely by commensing the discussion/debate with a different set of assumptions about human interactions. Interactions embedded in hundreds and hundreds of existential variables that revolve around a profoundly problematic intertwining of nature and nurture, of genes and memes.

Out in a “particular world” historically, culturally and experientially.

A person either smokes or does not smoke. And smoking either can or cannot be linked to particular consequences for ones health.

But what about this question: Should smoking be construed as an immoral behavior? Should smoking be illegal? Should people be punished for smoking? Should the children of parents who smoke be taken away from them?

When does the context here become “critical”? What would rational men and women be inclined to embrace as “acceptable” behavior? As “progressive Middle-Way” behavior?

As with the protestors at an abortion clinic, the Boris case above, smoking addiction and health, and any similar cases, there is nothing much [except the very minimal] we can do at the present, so we apply this generic model;
viewtopic.php?p=2693734#p2693734

The wiser thing to do are the following;

  1. Let the authorities and the law to take care of the current situation - where applicable
  2. Observe and listen to what is going on - keep my emotions in check.
  3. Research on the subject of Problem concern re For versus Against.
  4. Apply the Generic Problem Solving Technique to understand and find solutions.
  5. Proposed solutions to be implemented
  6. Check the results and control with objectives set

As with smoking, there are already lesser people smoking around the world due to greater education of the dangers of smoking and other preventive methods. [see chart below]
But there is still a percentage of people still caught up with smoking and for these people we apply the above generic model to aim at Zero smoking.
In order to achieve Zero smoking, humanity will strive to understand the mechanisms of what make people addicted to smoking.
Once we understand the mechanisms then humanity will be able to strive to eliminate smoking down to Zero in the future.

In addition to the already advancing trend of reduction the % of smokers [see below],
I am optimistic the Zero Smoking vision is possible and feasible given current trend of the exponential expansion of knowledge and technology.

Note you are always stuck and brooding over the current situation and various dilemmas but do not have the foresight to project into the future.
Your problem I note is your knowledge database is too shallow and narrow, otherwise you will think along similar lines as mine.

And this works particularly well for you because you acknowledge right from the start that even if we do embrace your own way of thinking – your own intellectual contraptions – don’t expect much in the way of significant results any time soon. On the other hand, “in the future” you will clearly be shown to have been right.

And yet is this not basically the same frame of mind that we get from all the other objectivists? The only difference being the extent to which they are convinced that their own narrative will produce more results, faster.

This way here and now we can generally skip the part that revolves around this:

[b]Should smoking be construed as an immoral behavior? Should smoking be illegal? Should people be punished for smoking? Should the children of parents who smoke be taken away from them?

When does the context here become “critical”? What would rational men and women be inclined to embrace as “acceptable” behavior? As “progressive Middle-Way” behavior?[/b]