Husserl vs. Heidegger
January 22nd 2007 02:03
Hi all,
Here we go for more analisys in the world of "beings".
As i said in an older post, the ideas i'm presenting you are quite in the same wavelengh as phenomenology, which is philosophical movement that states that we should focus on the phenomena study. It's actual father would be Kant, and we separate this way of philosophing in 2 other one's: the Husserl's and the Heidegger's, both defined in the 20th century. Each one has it's good and bad points, as we'll see in the next paraghraphs.
I'll start with Husserl's way: for him, grosso modo, the objetive of the phenomenologic approach is to study only phenomena to get to the "essence" of things, through a "scientific" approach. All this considering that philosiphy has to take into account the subjective part of things, unlike positivist sciences do.
Well, in the last post we found that essence is not something that exists, so if i take out the "essence" part, i can agree with him. The things that i do not agree come in his problems with Heidegger, espetially in the importance of history for the analisys of being.
For Heidegger, the study of "real" must be focused on the study of "being", the most imporant part of it. For this, Heidegger proposes that phenomenology should focus on "being" before all other studies, and he proposes a new way of studing the "being". His Dasein (being in time) concept comes to define "beings" not as something that independs of their place in time, but are completely related to it. In fact, Heidegger is the first philisopher to see that philosophy should study "beings" placing them in time,and taking away their transcendance (which is like the "meta" part of "beings") . Dasein is a "being" aware of his existence, that poses himself questions about him. This Dasein concept excludes "beings" that do not have history, do not pose themselves questions. To be simpler, Dasein excludes animals, trees, etc.
In the same time, Heidegger's ideas state that the study of ontology (the study of "beings") has to come before the study of epistemology (the study of knowledge). Well, to be able to take conclusions about beings, we have first to analyse how do we think, otherwise how can we take conclusions?
On the other hand, how can we analyse the knowledge we have if we do not have something to know? What we know are "facts", that obviouly include "things" on it. So the study of epistemology and ontology are attached to each other, and no conclusions can be taken without both. Actually, the old metaphysics could be separated in 3 areas: ontology, epistemology and theology (philosopher's do not agree exactly on this...). Since the "meta" is gone, theology is gone with, so we're left with physics, which is ontology plus epistemology, since both are attached...
Coming back to Heidegger: his work seems to be a "dog chasing his tail" plenty of times. He states that the best way to describe a "fact" is with the experience of a "being" that "cared" for this "fact", thus Dasein is the only kind of "being" that can really describe "beings", because he "cares". When we take into account that no "being" can really interpret a "fact", no "being" can really know what "beings" are. Husserl attacked Heidegger's conclusions all the time because of conclusions like that one.
So, we could show their divergences in the following sentence:
"Am i what i know , or do i know what i am?"
The 2 concurrents in phenomenology, Husserl and Heidegger, defined (badly, since all definitions reduce the "facts", which we know are infinite dimensional...). The first one, Husserl, says that with phenomenology we can get to the truth (what Niezche attacked his hole life...): "I am what i know (about me)". The Heidegger's case is inverse: he thinks we can study and define ourselves with Dasein: "I know (all about) what i am". These 2 are similar sentences if we could really get to the truth, but both can lead to mistakes if we have not yet reached it.
Following the Infinte Transforms (which means, like explained in the first post, Hilbert Spaces plus Nietzche's genealogy) the best we can have is: "I can't know (exactly) what i am" or, "I am not (exactly) what i know (about me)."
The best conclusions over this post will come when we get to the 3rd part of this study, where i'll talk about the conclusions we can take from this to ourselves. Luc Ferry would call this "la quete du salut", or like i saw in his translation to portuguese, (which i prefer to use..) wisdom.
Cheers! Hope you've got anything i've written here...
Uula
Here we go for more analisys in the world of "beings".
As i said in an older post, the ideas i'm presenting you are quite in the same wavelengh as phenomenology, which is philosophical movement that states that we should focus on the phenomena study. It's actual father would be Kant, and we separate this way of philosophing in 2 other one's: the Husserl's and the Heidegger's, both defined in the 20th century. Each one has it's good and bad points, as we'll see in the next paraghraphs.
I'll start with Husserl's way: for him, grosso modo, the objetive of the phenomenologic approach is to study only phenomena to get to the "essence" of things, through a "scientific" approach. All this considering that philosiphy has to take into account the subjective part of things, unlike positivist sciences do.
Well, in the last post we found that essence is not something that exists, so if i take out the "essence" part, i can agree with him. The things that i do not agree come in his problems with Heidegger, espetially in the importance of history for the analisys of being.
For Heidegger, the study of "real" must be focused on the study of "being", the most imporant part of it. For this, Heidegger proposes that phenomenology should focus on "being" before all other studies, and he proposes a new way of studing the "being". His Dasein (being in time) concept comes to define "beings" not as something that independs of their place in time, but are completely related to it. In fact, Heidegger is the first philisopher to see that philosophy should study "beings" placing them in time,and taking away their transcendance (which is like the "meta" part of "beings") . Dasein is a "being" aware of his existence, that poses himself questions about him. This Dasein concept excludes "beings" that do not have history, do not pose themselves questions. To be simpler, Dasein excludes animals, trees, etc.
In the same time, Heidegger's ideas state that the study of ontology (the study of "beings") has to come before the study of epistemology (the study of knowledge). Well, to be able to take conclusions about beings, we have first to analyse how do we think, otherwise how can we take conclusions?
On the other hand, how can we analyse the knowledge we have if we do not have something to know? What we know are "facts", that obviouly include "things" on it. So the study of epistemology and ontology are attached to each other, and no conclusions can be taken without both. Actually, the old metaphysics could be separated in 3 areas: ontology, epistemology and theology (philosopher's do not agree exactly on this...). Since the "meta" is gone, theology is gone with, so we're left with physics, which is ontology plus epistemology, since both are attached...
Coming back to Heidegger: his work seems to be a "dog chasing his tail" plenty of times. He states that the best way to describe a "fact" is with the experience of a "being" that "cared" for this "fact", thus Dasein is the only kind of "being" that can really describe "beings", because he "cares". When we take into account that no "being" can really interpret a "fact", no "being" can really know what "beings" are. Husserl attacked Heidegger's conclusions all the time because of conclusions like that one.
So, we could show their divergences in the following sentence:
"Am i what i know , or do i know what i am?"
The 2 concurrents in phenomenology, Husserl and Heidegger, defined (badly, since all definitions reduce the "facts", which we know are infinite dimensional...). The first one, Husserl, says that with phenomenology we can get to the truth (what Niezche attacked his hole life...): "I am what i know (about me)". The Heidegger's case is inverse: he thinks we can study and define ourselves with Dasein: "I know (all about) what i am". These 2 are similar sentences if we could really get to the truth, but both can lead to mistakes if we have not yet reached it.
Following the Infinte Transforms (which means, like explained in the first post, Hilbert Spaces plus Nietzche's genealogy) the best we can have is: "I can't know (exactly) what i am" or, "I am not (exactly) what i know (about me)."
The best conclusions over this post will come when we get to the 3rd part of this study, where i'll talk about the conclusions we can take from this to ourselves. Luc Ferry would call this "la quete du salut", or like i saw in his translation to portuguese, (which i prefer to use..) wisdom.
Cheers! Hope you've got anything i've written here...
Uula
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Comment by Anonymous
Comment by Uula Limanski
Thinking The World
I'd need to have your point of view (if you can add the chapters on Heidegger's, Husserl or Sartre, I'd appreciate)
If you can provide some embassement, we can discuss in a more positive way...I'll be checking in my books (Heidegger is quite hard to find clear passages, but Husserl is quite simple and less ambiguous) for the arguments needed for me to proove you my points.
cheers.