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In Freudian terms we can perhaps say that Reason as a faculty of the mind is a vicissitude of instinct which incorporates a number of other faculties and powers, and further, that actualising its potential is one of the last but most important tasks of humanity. A part of this actualisation process includes differentiating false metaphysics, science, religion, and art from Truth. Many forms of religion and mysticism fall into the above categories and Kant saw it as his mission to combat these influences in the cultural sphere of life.
Language too is a vicissitude of Instinct, and instrument of reason, but being also a form of Action it links . the Continental Hermeneutics of Ricoeur to the Analytical Philosophy of O Shaughnessy. It is important to understand that Ricoeur’s hermeneutics has its roots in Hegelian and French/German Phenomenology but nevertheless contains an awareness and tolerance of the analytical tradition we do not find elsewhere. Heidegger’s account of Language also contains some analytical concerns and is rooted in a view which claims that the Cultural impetus arising from Ancient Greece including the work of Aristotle is rooted in what he refers to as a “forgetfulness of Being”, although we should recall in the context of this discussion that it was Aristotle who, in correcting Plato, claimed that “Being has many meanings”. Heidegger roots Language in Dasein, a form of human psyché and he claims that “meaning
“is an existential phenomenon already characterised, in which the formal framework of what can be disclosed in understanding and Articulated in interpretation becomes visible.” (Being and Time, Trans MacQuarrie and Robinson, Oxford, Blackwell, 1978, P 199)
Heidegger does not in the sense embraced by Analytical Philosophers provide us with a theory of meaning but he does see an important relation to the action of assertion which he claims has three fundamental functions: to point something out, to predicate something of something and to communicate this in the spirit of Being-together-towards.(Page 197):
“That which is put forward in the assertion is something which can be passed along in “further re-telling…. But at the same time, what has been pointed out may become veiled again in this further retelling… Even hearsay is a Being-in-the-World, and a Being towards what is heard.” (Page 197-8)
This takes us right to the heart of the early function of mythology which of course relied on the function of language to present absent objects to others. The Early Wittgenstein we know formulated a “picture” theory of meaning to try to capture these aspects of assertion but this for Heidegger would have been an example of veiling the meaning of the assertion, and in these remarks we can see why there is a need for a perspicuous representation, or interpretation of the articulations of assertions: that is we can see why there is a need for a Kantian account of the scope and limitations of metaphysics to combat the hearsay of mysticism.
Behind the manifest meaning of the assertion “The hammer is heavy” Heidegger claims, there is a fore-having rooted in the readiness-to-hand of this tool, a fore-sight, and a fore-conception, all of which is pre-understood. In the predicative process of assertion, the ready-to-hand is transformed into something present-at-hand: the ready to hand is seen “as” something present at hand and something important is lost in the process as our Being toward the entity becomes connected to looking at It, or observation. Here there is an important shift in psychological attitude from the motor to the sensory, from action to observation. When acting to bring about something I intend to do, knowledge is involved, and this knowledge may have been partly constituted of former sensory encounters with the type of environment I am acting in, but the knowledge involved in acting is essentially non-observational as Anscombe pointed out in her work on “Intention”(Oxford, Blackwell, 1972).
Observation is in its essence interrogative, questioning the being it is confronted with, whereas in action we know both the orange we desire and what we need to do in order to get it. Scientific experimentation in which we manipulate, and measure variables is not categorical in this sense but is hypothetical and interrogative: seeking answers. This is one of the many reasons why it is absurd to judge myth from the point of view of this kind of science, which was not the science of Aristotle or Kant. Principle based science provides us with theories that have not emerged by putting questions to nature in the spirit of a student, but rather putting questions to nature in the spirit of a judge asking penetrating questions relating to the essences of the matters being theorised about.
Heidegger also discusses the complex ancient idea of Logos and maintains that this was interpreted as a present-at-hand phenomenon, and this may have veiled its relation to Being. Logos for Kant needs articulation in terms of the scope and limitations of Metaphysics as well as the scope and limits of Logic, and the relations of the faculties of sensibility, understanding and reason. Logos is more intimately related to thought than it is for Heidegger, who sees discourse or talk to be the primordial underlying substrate which is prior to any theories relating to language. Discourse is both spoken and heard and this is qualified by the claim that we do not hear “sensations” (sensory phenomena) but rather ready-to hand entities such as motor-cycles and waggons (sensory-motor phenomena) (Page 207):
“Because discourse is constitutive for the Being of the “there” (that is, for states of mind and understanding), while “Dasein” means “Being-in-the-world”, Dasein as discursive Beng-in, has already expressed itself. Dasein has language… Man shows himself as an entity that talks”. (Page 208)
For Heidegger, then, discourse is what he terms an existentiale. It is not to be confused, however with the idle talk, hearsay and gossiping of the “they” who do not care about questions relating to the nature of Being and its complexity. Heidegger discusses the definition of human psuché, namely animal rationale, which of course originates in the thought of Aristotle, but he does not consider Aristotle’s complete essence-specifying definition of man as a “rational animal capable of discourse”. Logos for Aristotle might also therefore be grounded in discourse which presumably also relates to his thesis of the many meanings of Being. Heidegger asks the question “What kind of Being does language possess?” and his answer relates to the State of Being of Dasein. The holistic aspect of this Being, Heidegger argues is Care, which relates to the basic state of mind of anxiety that is a distinctive way in which Dasein is disclosed:
“That in the face of which one has anxiety is Being-in-the World as such” (Page 230)
Existential anxiety then does not have a relation to any object or entity in the world partly because :
“Dasein is an entity for which, in its Being, that Being is an issue” Page 236
With these reflections we are cast back to Ancient Greece and the Delphic proclamations relating to both man’s ruin and destruction and the challenge to “know thyself!” This is not a challenge to observe oneself but rather a challenge to lead a particular form of life, either the Socratic examined life or the Aristotelian contemplative life. The Ancient Greeks too, espoused a Philosophy of Care for the world and for oneself. The Will too is discussed:
“In the phenomenon of willing, the underlying totality of care shows through” (Page 239)
The first guidelines for the will unfortunately are made possible via the knowledge and values of the “they” which dims down the authentic possible relations to Being by reference to what is “actual”
What is actual rather than what is possible, becomes the touchstone of truth (Aletheia). Both having a conscience and death are important for the authentic potentiality for “being-a whole” (Page 277). Conscience is the call of care and death is the end (telos) of life. Now our own death will never become objectively accessible to us, but the death of others is a matter of concern and care as part of the process of “being-together-with-others”. The dead person, Heidegger argues is a present-at-hand form of Being, something lifeless, having lost its life. The dying person naturally is anxious about his own death because he knows that his death is the death of his own “possibilities”:
Dasein exists as thrown Being towards its end.”(Page 295)
The “they” communicate tranquillizing platitudes about death, aimed at avoiding the unpleasant anxiety associated with the possibility of non-existence: a fleeing in the face of death, the inevitable (Page 298). The “they” believe that death is an empirical certainty but not right now. In life our Being is in question and this ought to give rise to the kind of existential anxiety that seeks the truth about death. Everyone knows that death is coning, but exactly what is it that is coming and why? We need courage to stare unflinchingly into this abyss of nothingness. Is this what Kant is speaking about in his account of the experience of the sublime when, overwhelmed by the thought of the mighty force of Nature we think sublimely about our own fundamental moral nature? For the Greeks the attitudes of awe and wonder were associated with sublime experiences of the Gods, nature, and man’s repertoire of powers which gave him dignity. Heidegger referred to the “call of conscience” which must be heard authentically. In this all Dasein is summoned to its own self as part of discovering the issue of its Being, yet the call appears to come from beyond itself, and the call appears to carry an accusation of “guilt”. The Kantian experience of the sublime was clearly a more joyous affair, a celebration of one’s humanity rather than an anxious moment of one’s existence. Heidegger points out in relation to this guilty call of conscience, the significance of “being-responsible-for” (Page 327). This obviously is rooted in Care, but it can be argued by a Kantian that Care and being resolute (the object of Care), is a consequence of, and not a condition for, Freedom, or at least that they are equally important conditions. This negative characterisation of the psuché of human being or Dasein is elaborated upon in Heidegger’s claim that Dasein is “essentially Guilty”, i.e. Guilt belongs to the being of Dasein. Heidegger, it needs to be emphasised is an existentialist and Dasein’s existence is therefore a major issue:
“..while Dasein’s “Essence then the “I-hood” and Selfhood must be conceived existentially.” (Page 365)
Heidegger criticises the Kantian “I Think” by claiming that the “I” is conceived of as something present at hand and not in terms of “I think something”. Heidegger claims that Kant did not think of the “I” in terms of its “being-in-the-world”. This is however to be distinguished from an everyday understanding which perhaps is shaped by the world rather than by the essence of the Being of Dasein. Perhaps the most interesting aspect of this analysis is the claim that projection in a “moment of vision” is primarily futural, hoping for an authentic future. Insofar as the understanding is concerned but given that every understanding also has its state of mind, which, Heidegger claims, is directed at the past, a certain tension is present in the form of our existence: anxiety, for example is a state of mind and must in some sense be related to our original state of being thrown into the world. In the present the form our activity takes in relation to the things of the world is a practical relation of their being ready to hand and connected to an extended context of equipment: a region of Being emerges.
The Books and chairs and tables in a library for example extend to the homes the books are taken to and the pen and paper used to take notes using the chairs, tables, pen and paper at home. When a book just sits untouched on the shelf it acquires a present-at-hand status and can only be looked at. If I am engaged in a task which is completed my natural response is to look around and look for what comes next. When that is the sensory function of psuché is disconnected from its motor function, our access to what is merely present at hand is a truncated form of experience. Heidegger argues that when the practical form of activity disappears a theoretical attitude “emerges” in which there is theoretical activity which attempts to investigate things-in themselves. Transforming what is present at hand into things in themselves is fraught with problems unless as Kant pointed out in his Prolegomena, there is a clear respect for the boundaries between the phenomenal and noumenal forms of existence, a clear respect for the scope and limits of pure reason and its relations to the faculties of understanding and reason.