Sloterdijk and Zizek, what an encounter! I don’t want to talk of myself, but I will…
It seems to me that for a while now the concept of substance and hence of natures or essences has been considered “reifying” in philosophy. But honestly, when it comes to understanding man and his relationship to nature I think the idea of a specific human nature, contrasted with the natures of other animals all partaking in a wider universe, is still an incredible paradigm. Heidegger is of course critical of such an approach, but it would avoid the pitfalls of teosophy, crude materialism and transcendentalism in one strike.
My point is rather that I think there is a false dichotomy between a transcendental and a not transcendental approach. This approach is the one associated with Aristotle and Thomas Aquinas, which is essentialism.
The problem with a transcendental approach, ultimately, is that reason becomes Reason, a thing in and of itself almost in a different realm. Of course, the contrary views, such as crude materialism or historicism, end up reducing man and reason to a perspective.
With essentialism you grasp that because of man’s specific nature he has certain powers, such as abstract thought and, more interestingly for our case, that it is the nature of individual and distinct men.
Thomas Aquinas gave much importance to the question of active and passive intellect, avoiding the details, he took great care so that intelligence, reason, mind and knowledge would not be some kind of smaller god, but are neither reduced to the senses.
Oh, now I understand better where your'e coming from. I tend to agree with you, but things are not so simple, since famously the new science posed challenges to the traditional essence based science. This is part of the reason (roughly speaking) that Kant's method was so acclaimed back in the day, it allowed one to distinguish between what you term Reason and objective understanding.
As for Aquinas, his conceptualization of the seperate intellect as embodied in the faculty of theorical reason of man (as opposed to Averroes) has been foundational for such later conceptions such as Kant's understanding of the trancendental subject as "the general form of apreception on man kind." But again, without at least starting from Kant and then slowly revising him back to Aristotle I wouldn't even know how to begin to talk about essences, and this is, in part, what Heidegger does towards the end of the 20's.
Unfortunatley I’m having difficult time understanding your comment, I beg your pardon, English is not my first language. If I understood you correctly, your’e agreeing that a move beyong the trancendental approach is rather unlikely. Heidegger’s attempt to move beyond it by appropriating the old schematic understanding of the human in relation to other kinds of beings remains, for you, unconvincing.
I must say that while I differ, I think your’e right that it is not a trivial move, nor one that Heidegger makes with clarity. One of the indications for this is that Heidegger doesn’t attempt anything similiar to it for a long time afterwards, and instead, towards the 30s', opts out for philosophical understanding of poetry as a way to understand human essence.
Sloterdijk and Zizek, what an encounter! I don’t want to talk of myself, but I will…
It seems to me that for a while now the concept of substance and hence of natures or essences has been considered “reifying” in philosophy. But honestly, when it comes to understanding man and his relationship to nature I think the idea of a specific human nature, contrasted with the natures of other animals all partaking in a wider universe, is still an incredible paradigm. Heidegger is of course critical of such an approach, but it would avoid the pitfalls of teosophy, crude materialism and transcendentalism in one strike.
My point is rather that I think there is a false dichotomy between a transcendental and a not transcendental approach. This approach is the one associated with Aristotle and Thomas Aquinas, which is essentialism.
Please elaborate a little bit (the concept of trancendental is very differrent in Acquinas and Kant, for instance).
Yeah, might be useful to write about it.
The problem with a transcendental approach, ultimately, is that reason becomes Reason, a thing in and of itself almost in a different realm. Of course, the contrary views, such as crude materialism or historicism, end up reducing man and reason to a perspective.
With essentialism you grasp that because of man’s specific nature he has certain powers, such as abstract thought and, more interestingly for our case, that it is the nature of individual and distinct men.
Thomas Aquinas gave much importance to the question of active and passive intellect, avoiding the details, he took great care so that intelligence, reason, mind and knowledge would not be some kind of smaller god, but are neither reduced to the senses.
Oh, now I understand better where your'e coming from. I tend to agree with you, but things are not so simple, since famously the new science posed challenges to the traditional essence based science. This is part of the reason (roughly speaking) that Kant's method was so acclaimed back in the day, it allowed one to distinguish between what you term Reason and objective understanding.
As for Aquinas, his conceptualization of the seperate intellect as embodied in the faculty of theorical reason of man (as opposed to Averroes) has been foundational for such later conceptions such as Kant's understanding of the trancendental subject as "the general form of apreception on man kind." But again, without at least starting from Kant and then slowly revising him back to Aristotle I wouldn't even know how to begin to talk about essences, and this is, in part, what Heidegger does towards the end of the 20's.
Unfortunatley I’m having difficult time understanding your comment, I beg your pardon, English is not my first language. If I understood you correctly, your’e agreeing that a move beyong the trancendental approach is rather unlikely. Heidegger’s attempt to move beyond it by appropriating the old schematic understanding of the human in relation to other kinds of beings remains, for you, unconvincing.
I must say that while I differ, I think your’e right that it is not a trivial move, nor one that Heidegger makes with clarity. One of the indications for this is that Heidegger doesn’t attempt anything similiar to it for a long time afterwards, and instead, towards the 30s', opts out for philosophical understanding of poetry as a way to understand human essence.