Heidegger's Reading of Descartes' Dualism
ABSTRACT: The problem of traditional epistemology is the relation of subject to external world. The distinction between subject and object makes possible the distinction between the knower and what is known. Starting with Descartes, the subject is a thinking thing that is not extended, and the object is an extended thing which does not think. Heidegger rejects this distinction between subject and object by arguing that there is no subject distinct from the external world of things because Dasein is essentially Being-in-the-world. Heidegger challenges the Cartesian legacy in epistemology in two ways. First, there is the modern tendency toward subjectivism and individualism that started with Descartes' discovery of the 'cogito.' Second, there is the technological orientation of the modern world that originated in the Cartesian understanding of the mathematical and external physical world.
Descartes stands at the beginning of modern philosophy and Heidegger accepts Descartes' role in the history of metaphysics. Descartes is the first thinker who discovers the "cogito sum" as an indubitable and the most certain foundation and thereby liberates philosophy from theology. He is the first subjectivistic thinker in the modern philosophy and he grounds his subjectivity on his epistemology.
The orientation of the philosophical problems with Descartes starts from the "ego" (the "subject") because in the modern philosophy the "subject" is given to the knower first and as the only certain thing, i.e., the only "subject" is accessible immediately and certainly. For Descartes, the "subject" (the "ego", the "I", "res cogitans") is something that thinks, i.e., something that represents, perceive...
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...icture", The Question of Technology and Other Essays. Trans. by William Levitt. (New York: Harper and Row Pub., 1977.), 127.
(27) Bernard Charles Flynn, "Descartes and the Ontology of Subjectivity", Man and World, (Vol. 16, No: 1, 1983), 10.
(28) Ibid., 10.
(29) Ibid., 14.
(30) Ibid., 14.
(31) C. D. Keyes, "An Evaluation of Levinas: Critique of Heidegger" Research in Phenomenology. (Vol. II, PP 121-142, 1972), 131 and Martin Heidegger, Being and Time 46.
(32) Ibid., 131.
(33) Martin Heidegger, Basic Problems of Phenomenology, 119.
(34) John Richardson, Existential Epistemology: A Heideggerian Critique of Descartes Project, (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1986), 91.
(35) Aristotle, Physics Book IV The Basic Works of Aristotle. Ed. and Intr. by Richard McKeon. (New York: Random House, 1941.), 219b.
(36) Martin Heidegger, Being and Time , 376.
To read Damasio's critique alongside Stephen Gaukroger's remarkably rich intellectual biography of Descartes, however, is to realize that Damasio could just as aptly have titled his book "Descartes' Vision." As Gaukroger points out, Descartes was reviled during his lifetime and for a century after his death not for his dualism but for his materialism. Only when the history of philosophy was rewritten in the nineteenth century as the story of epistemology did Descartes come to bear the double designation of being both the "father" of modern philosophy and the ranking nativist who visited upon us the catastrophic separation of mind from body and of reason from emotion. These labels are essentially caricatures that distort the actual complexity of what Descartes struggled to work out in his cognitive theory. Gaukroger reconstructs this struggle for us, sometimes on a month-by-month basis, showing how Descartes shuttled back and forth between an account of the body and the pursuit of the mind.
Walter White( the main character in “Breaking Bad”) was just a guy like us, trying to get by and not break too many of the big rules. But then, he started breaking rules, and he became addicted to those feelings of overstepping and superiority — as addicted as the poor junkies who buy his super-pure meth. More than ever, he thinks he’s in control, but it’s his addiction to being better than everyone else that has always been in the driver’s
“Nathaniel Hawthorne.” The Norton Anthology: American Literature, edited by Baym et al. New York: W.W. Norton and Co., 1995.
Breaking Bad is a show about Walter White, who is a middle-aged chemistry teacher that is a victim of the economy, cancer, and himself. This makes the audience feel a connection to the series, as it deals with ‘real-life’ problems. Walter barely makes enough money to cover his disabled son’s medical expenses and an incoming baby. After a ride-along with his DEA Agent brother, Hank, Walter sees a former student escaping from a meth-lab bust. Soon after that encounter, Walter approached the former student with an ultimatum, either Jesse (the student) cooks meth with Walter, or Walter will turn him into the DEA. Walter starts selling methamphetamine under the pseudonym Heisenberg. In order to provide for his family, he breaks moral and federal laws and justifies them all in the name of transcendence, or a higher calling as a father.
Rene Descartes was a 17th Century mathematician and French Philosopher whose life's work focused on providing a new prospective on the human perception of reality. The definition of this reality is seen as Descartes greatest life goal. Coined as the "Father of Modern Philosophy," (Cunningham & Reich, 2010, p. 385), Descartes laid the groundwork the philosophy and reality as we perceive it today. Descartes autobiography, Discourse on the Method of Rightly Conducting the Reason and Seeking Truth in the Sciences (Descartes, 2004) shares with the reader a glimpse into the mind of a brilliant, yet frail, man who provided an in depth explanation on the perception of human existence and the reality we live in today. The works, shortened to Discourse on Method for the modern day, outlined in Cunningham & Reich (2010), focuses on Descartes's proof as to the existence of God and is the crux of his argument and stance on the reality of man.
The Scarlet Letter is a novel about a Puritan woman who has committed adultery and must pay for her sin by wearing a scarlet “A'; on her bosom. The woman, Hester Prynne, must struggle through everyday life with the guilt of her sin. The novel is also about the suffering that is endured by not admitting to one’s wrongs. Reverend Mister Dimmesdale learns that secrecy only makes the guilt increase. Nathaniel Hawthorne is trying to display how guilt is the everlasting payment for sinful actions. The theme of guilt as reparation for sin in The Scarlet Letter is revealed through Nathaniel Hawthorne’s use of northeastern, colonial settings, various conflicts, and characters that must live with guilt for the sins they have committed.
...s from The Prosecution Function to a real life setting. My tainted movie perception of the criminal justice system no longer exists. While the process does not necessarily always have an unbelievable climax, the excitement lies in the subtle details the opposing counsels must recognize in order to gain an advantage; it truly is a mind game. The immense amount of time and effort that is put forth makes me appreciate the quality of art that lawyers possess. The knowledge and preparation it takes to be successful is astounding, and it is a pleasure to watch.
Descartes, Rene. Discourse on Method and Meditations on First Philosophy. Trans. Donald A. Cress. 4th ed. N.p.: Hackett, 1998. Print.
Lathrop, G. P., ed. "Hawthorne, Nathaniel." The Reader's Encyclopedia of American Literature. Binghamton, New York: Vail-Ballou, 1962. 439-40. Print.
Financial aspects and profitability of college athletic programs is one of the most important arguments involved in this controversy. A group of people expresses that college athletic programs are over emphasized. The point they show on the first hand, is that athletic programs are too expensive for community colleges and small universities. Besides, statistics prove that financial aspects of college athletic programs are extremely questionable. It is true that maintenance, and facility costs for athletic programs are significantly high in comparison to academic programs. Therefore, Denhart, Villwock, and Vedder argue that athletic programs drag money away from important academics programs and degrade their quality. According to them, median expenditures per athlete in Football Bowl Subdivision were $65,800 in 2006. And it has shown a 15.6 percent median expenditure increase fro...
ABSTRACT: The discussion of Heidegger's “destructive retrieve” of Aristotle has been intensified in recent years by the publication of Heidegger's courses in the years surrounding his magnum opus. Heidegger's explicit commentary on Aristotle in these courses permits one to read Being and Time with Aristotle's Nicomachean Ethics and Metaphysics. My paper analyzes a network of differences between the two thinkers, focusing on the relationship between theory and praxis. From Aristotle to Heidegger, there is: (1) a shift from the priority of actuality to the priority of possibility. This shift, I argue, is itself the metaphysical ground of: (2) a shift from the priority of theory to the priority of praxis. This shift is seen most clearly in the way in which (3) Heidegger's notion of Theorie is a modification of his poíesis. The temporal ground of the reversal is seen in (4) Heidegger's notion of transcendence towards the world, and not towards an eternal being.
Using Strawson’s examination as a guide to Descartes philosophy,i have tried to show how the two issues, of individuation and identity threaten to destroy Descartes’ philosophy of mind-body dualism.
In his book Meditations on First Philosophy, Descartes tries to accomplish several subject concerns. Firstly, Descartes attempts to accomplish the use of methodological doubt to rid himself of all beliefs that could be false. Then, he arrives at particular beliefs that could not possibly be false. Next, he discovers a criterion of knowledge. Also, he proves that the mind is distinct from the body and also the existence of God.
Rene Descartes decision to shatter the molds of traditional thinking is still talked about today. He is regarded as an influential abstract thinker; and some of his main ideas are still talked about by philosophers all over the world. While he wrote the "Meditations", he secluded himself from the outside world for a length of time, basically tore up his conventional thinking; and tried to come to some conclusion as to what was actually true and existing. In order to show that the sciences rest on firm foundations and that these foundations lay in the mind and not the senses, Descartes must begin by bringing into doubt all the beliefs that come to him by the senses. This is done in the first of six different steps that he named "Meditations" because of the state of mind he was in while he was contemplating all these different ideas. His six meditations are "One:Concerning those things that can be called into doubt", "Two:Concerning the Nature of the Human mind: that it is better known than the Body", "Three: Concerning God, that he exists", "Four: Concerning the True and the False", "Five: Concerning the Essence of Material things, and again concerning God, that he exists" and finally "Six: Concerning the Existence of Material things, and the real distinction between Mind and Body". Although all of these meditations are relevant and necessary to understand the complete work as a whole, the focus of this paper will be the first meditation.
Rene Descartes, a 17th century French philosopher believed that the origin of knowledge comes from within the mind, a single indisputable fact to build on that can be gained through individual reflection. His Discourse on Method (1637) and Meditations (1641) contain his important philosophical theories. Intending to extend mathematical method to all areas of human knowledge, Descartes discarded the authoritarian systems of the scholastic philosophers and began with universal doubt. Only one thing cannot be doubted: doubt itself. Therefore, the doubter must exist. This is the kernel of his famous assertion Cogito, ergo sum (I am thinking, therefore I am existing). From this certainty Descartes expanded knowledge, step by step, to admit the existence of God (as the first cause) and the reality of the physical world, which he held to be mechanistic and entirely divorced from the mind; the only connection between the two is the intervention of God.