Heidegger vs. Aristotle on Being, Substance, Causality

welcome everyone to my first dialogue

with thomas jocken and now thomas from

my philosophy courses

and for the most recent one on heidegger

he wrote

an essay on what is arguably

the most

pressing

danger in heidegger's thinking itself

and that is the

de-substantialization

de-substantializing sorry off

nature

and

the attempt to think

the pure taking place or occurring that

even a thing

becomes

a tempo spatial

way of occurring

and i think that we

get close in the dialogue to this danger

but heidegger on the one hand sees the

danger of gestalt

as thomas ozil then points out

what then though

is it that heidegger himself

can

say is the sort of almost a hierarchy um

between

the

the operations of gestel and a more sort

of

organic occurring of what there is

um

but i think we also get to

get into the reasons

for

why heidegger

has to attempt to think like this in the

sense that

the question really is

in which relationship do we stand with

the tradition in which relationship do

we stand or can we stand with plato and

aristotle

and permanentes and heraclitus and

others

so

this is the first one of

probably several more

over the next months so thank you very

much for listening and if you'd like to

support the channel in any way then feel

free

to do so

and leave a comment and share the video

with anyone you think

might be interested

thank you very much

all right welcome thomas

good to hear

feel free to introduce yourself and then

we'll get into

the topic which um

i think we'll discuss your essay on hi

together you presented at the

uh padica pro seminar for my course

um thomas i'm a self-taught student of

philosophy uh i'm a type designer by

trade originally and

from exploring typography i eventually

got interested in reading

right and then really became a whole

investigation into some of my companies

i work on so one of them is readable

technologies it's a computer vision

tech startup that uses uses computer

vision to

diagnose uh

dyslexia and students and subjects so we

can measure the breeding behaviors of

the subject see if they classify as

slasic or not and then uh and then

intervene with interventions to

uh improve reading performance

in children

so that's professionally what i do

along the way originally from an

interest in business i got into value

theory and that led to a whole

exploration into philosophy so i started

with plato and aristotle and i've been

working my way up and uh johannes's

class has been fantastic both i took his

pre-socratic

class which was very useful for me as

well as uh just recently the heidegger

and death uh

course so i thought was really

insightful and really beneficial for my

development as a student learning

philosophy

yeah i noted the i noticed you as an

aristotelian already in the first one so

how

the way we'll start now so what we

usually do with the with the courses at

the end there's a pro seminar and i will

link to that one um in the description

of this video so you can see

what we're talking about thomas gave the

talk there on heidegger and some of the

perhaps

um

dangerous aspects of his response to

technologies maybe we'll get

into that now if you want to

summarize

uh your points i have to say a few

things

also on that and but maybe there

i think that you are pointing your

finger on something

that's crucial

um but i also will focus then on

an essay called the thing which i think

we should

consider when we talk about heidegger

and technology and

um reserve etc but feel free to

summarize

your thoughts

um the basic point was

reading the ports from the essays we

read in the course together

um i was kind of left with this weird

tension inside my mind which was

we read a lot from being in time

and er heidegger's accounts of truth

were very powerful for me they were very

in fact at one point he literally asked

the question what is the

being of truth or truth as being i mean

that's a fantastic question i was like

tell me what you have to say about this

super interesting

um

and then i got the answers i got

or like

statements from there and i

had in my mind something about this is

bothering me

then when we got to a very classic text

the game the question concerning

technology right the account of it it

follows a very versatilian mode

of discussing the four causes makes

mention about it and saying there's

something about this that's going on

um

what happened was my mind those two

texts were put together in my mind and i

felt like heidegger's kind of

hysterological accounts combined with

kind of ontology

and combined together i just thought

there was a not maybe extreme to be

generous maybe

a conflict a more extreme a

contradiction or challenge between the

two and then the semen is this um

so hydrogen first starts at least my

account is

uh

with saying that you know truth is

fundamentally in dozen design gives the

accounts using the logos

and it's it seems like to be uh the very

act of our speech gives being

presence brings it forth so it's

literally and the fact that there's no

theological accounts to explain this

there's nothing there's nothing super

supernatural or beyond to explain where

this logos comes from it's a sign to

just design design to have it seems to

me to say that

that it's human beings or have this

power of accounts to make being appear

now when we combine that with uh what i

was noticing

in terms of in the danger of technology

he's con i want to say his contention or

talking of this danger was when you talk

about the rhine river right comparison

of the ron river in one mode versus

another

that the castel

in framing positioning

what that does is it takes things from

the natural course

and then extra basically extracts energy

and using recipient accounts what

they're saying is it's almost like a

conversion or destruction of telos of

activities

so for example um usually we say teals

there's an end that's definite and it's

clear articulated uh versus when we stay

for example a mill for example would be

even if we had a

mill on it to

uh you know change the water to use the

water's flow to be used for all their

activity it'd be definite it would grind

some wheat right it's a clear intention

it's used for that purpose and that's

the end of it versus to take that river

and make it dam it up

into an electric generator

now instead of an explicit

uh use of that river instead it is now

this kind of indefinite standing reserve

this energy gets to just stay there

for any purpose or intention later on

that's not predefined

before the fact it's so it could be used

to any use afterwards all right

so if we have this account indeed

anything this is a danger of technology

then like but when i combine that with

this kind of utterance power there's a

count this power of dozen to give

accounts i'm almost left here why is

that why is how do you think this is a

problem because

for things to have a definite end it

would seem like there seems to be some

internal cause for internal reasons like

kind of

yeah

in the thing itself

and

but when we're splitting that's the case

being that would moments put a demand on

our accounts that for them to really

give being a presence they need to

reveal that inner editing in the

accounts versus human beings having free

will to do whatever they want

with the account anyways the essay

basically lists out

plotting out of internal versus internal

versus external activity and the modern

account has been movement from things

having internal causes to having

external crosses

material causes affect gravity for

example then into stimulus response

reactions and eventually into rational

thought itself being can be explained by

external causes onto subjects as opposed

to subjects internally having it

then i go into the pistological accounts

and saying you can't have both like

what's going on you have to if you're

going to say

any accounts as good as any other

you have to say some accounts are more

substantial more real than others

anyways i'm getting a very bad

memorization of the essays but it's this

threat and then it kind of closed with

uh uh i think there's a conversation i

think there needs to be we need to admit

negotiate what's going on

there will be lots that we have to

touch on

um

um

perhaps we'll stay with

where i do think that you get

to something crucial

which is almost the danger in within

heidegger

thinking itself

um

which is

maybe you could say it again because you

um

there's a lack of an internal activity

so there is

no longer in heidegger

as it were

or at least not um

carved out well enough or developed well

enough

a self-sufficiency off

say off

the natural world or so if that is this

roughly what you're

trying to say there's no inherent

uh activity purpose

of them at least not visibly there in

the technology essay so that there is

what even is the distinction because

this is quite crucial right how can he

what is he trying to say

uh is he trying to say

that what occurs in gestalt

is in some way

um

more dangerous or worse or can he at all

not can he not even say this so this is

what you're trying to articulate

yes exactly

and maybe the thing between natural

kinds versus artifacts like they use a

way to

separate that

maybe if you could briefly say something

in your understanding of aristotle and

plato

off

or maybe or any other modern because

there are modern examples

um

leibniz is one of them who tries to

by the way also with the example of a

mill

um to revive

aristotelian and teleki

or antelope i always pronounce it a bit

weirdly i think it's i don't know what

it's in english actually antelope

[Music]

um but you know what i mean right so uh

leibniz is one of them they can't

obviously is one of those who don't

he is one of the first accounts to my

knowledge where the national world is

purely mechanical

with no distinction between

the clockwork of the universe and the

clockwork that runs a rabbit

or even the human body is purely

a clockwork machine

um first initiated by god so there's a

bit of a deism there and then god i

think is only there to uphold

um the world

and with people like or thinkers like

lightness and especially hegel you have

the attempt to bring back the ancient

accounts of uh teleology and telephone

etc

maybe you could if you want you can say

a few words on

on on aristotle here in the angels so we

can carve a little bit better what we

see in heidegger here

yes i mean this sounds a lot like base

the distinction between material and

hypothetical necessity that's what it

sounds like

so for example the idea that uh things

happen by material necessity an example

aerosol uses is rainfall for example

basically in the physics there's a

comment about why can't we just say

things happen to be

uh because of just a chain reaction of

material objects right but what if

there's

water gets absorbed into the clouds and

disengaging falls down from the clouds

onto the green into the wheat and that

sustains the wheat that said there's no

necessity for a cause for that a final

cost it could just be material necessity

aristotle's i can't just

claim to say otherwise i said no

you have to say that

the reason of the rain

is to fulfill the wheat that's the end

of it

so that would be in the physics z

account

another one is the example with a as a

natural process

phenomenon from

a intellectual process would be the

building of a wall for example the idea

that the reason why the stones

are used at the bottom of the base and

and hey or some light materials used at

this roof would be material necessity

ones heavy ones light that's why they're

there their distributions are justified

by that reason aerosol reports no the

reason of a wall or house is to

protection or housing

so you have to give the use of

hypothetical necessity

actually no way it works backwards to

justify all the other reasons another

example would be a saw for example that

the purpose of the saw is the cut that

justify certain material needs being a

certain metal for example or certain

material that can withstand the

pressures of cutting but it also

requires a certain shape a tooth design

for example

so

the aristotelian accounts were to say

that material causes alone cannot

explain

the full phenomenon being in existence

uh we need a hypothetical account a

necessity to explain that

so that's usually a combination instead

of an efficient and material cause we

also need the font the final cause

which is telos usually trans can be

translated as and a formal cause

arrangement

shade

idiot things like that

um morphe

so

that would be the

basic account or explain and there's

inherited that brings it up

in the beginning of question of

questioning technology he talks about

causes this is what this means uh

so

briefly this is what i always used to do

at university with students is that you

know this is what they have to have in

their metaphysical dictionary because

they have to

they have to know the so-called four

causes

causa material

which are the scholastic translations of

aristotle

um i will also say something on this

very important example of reigning

uh because here we can see a

clear moving away from heidegger and

others in the 20th century

um for heidegger um and

post-structuralists often in general

um not that higher together post

structure this we have to be careful uh

but

um or maybe he is

no no um the

the example of reigning um

is is a finding is a pure taking place

and there's a it's like in

if you speak uh

in italian it doesn't even say it's

raining the italians can just say

pure

it's just pure raining

um let's stay briefly on the four causes

so the material cause would be timber

when you want to build a say a desk so

timber uh causal format is simply the

shape or the form of a desk or a kitchen

table

the um

in the simplest sense the efficient

cause cause if it is the carpenter who

makes the

desk and the causa finales is in the

ordinary understanding is the purpose of

that so if it's a desk

to do your homework or honor to work at

that's um that will be its

final course

and or if it's a kitchen table then it

will be to have dinner with friends and

family etc so

for dinner table but

whenever i

taught

that to younger students i

in

any age group really it is quite strange

to call this a cause

because we understand causalities

now purely in terms of as a cause

that causes a certain effect so we have

reduced causality to the cause of

efficiencies as heineken says

we don't think and even to get across it

there could be a

final cause that something is striding

towards makes little sense it's very

difficult to understand cause in this

manner at this point uh because we have

got one the things was hiding points is

that there's one cause that we have left

that we understand which is the

efficient cause

and what he also points out is that what

we're now

increasingly doing is to set a priori

the desired effects

and then

um generate the causes that can get to

that desired effect

but i think one of your examples is

behaviorism

um behavioral so

what was it the public

yeah yeah

um heidige then points out just very

briefly that the greek word

as you also know is ikea

for causa or cause and ikea means to be

indebted to so i think what heidi is

also trying to do is to bring a new also

mentioned in your essay the four-fold

structure

um

of of so there's a there's a commonality

or

a community of these causes of being

adapted to each other

um they they cannot be separate and i

think also aristotle

reason why translations very often it

said so he does say

there could be more so-called causes

um

sometimes by the way just to mention

this briefly in the embedded in the

metaphysics

the tortilla

which

can be translated as that which was

being is sometimes translated as formal

cause

um

so there are ways in which and i think

this is what what we have to abandon i

think that i would

i appreciate heidi before is an attempt

to re-translate the greek

in a way that it's free from

um

scholasticism

that read over certain problems in the

in the

original greek text and simplify matters

on the other um

issue of reigning though i think

heidegger would say that

there is no simple cause and i think

this is where you would say there's a

there's a clear

break then with

yeah

yeah that'd be exactly

well that's two parts and also another

part is the distinction between natural

kinds and artifacts so the in

aristotle's account the difference an

artifact has its form and pose onto it

yeah

so it's kind of an externalization

effect that occurs so the carpenter has

the conception in the mind

an idea basically the form of

the chair table in their mind and they

compel it

onto

they impose it on to the form on the

material excuse me of the wood in this

case to

bring it to b bring it to be as opposed

to for example from man to man so the

generation so basically the point is

uh

when we beget children for example it's

a different mode of coming to be versus

the kind of artifact generation

uh

aerosol would say every difference

because one is an eternal genera the

cause of it's caught up is that creation

is inside the park the entity versus

external law imposed externally

okay but then briefly um

so

heidegger says so if anyone's interested

in this there's an essay called

the thing

well heidegger does ask what is the

thing and he

goes into a dossier media

uh that's awesome by the way if

anyone doesn't know hey they idea

which is now the word idea used to mean

the outer appearance of something

um and he does

in the process of producing

the chug um

must initially

or before anything show its appearance

for the producer

or to the producer but so is all from

german but this which shows itself

or this yeah this this whatever that

which shows itself

that's our scene the appearance and then

in brackets it says [ __ ] idea

um marks the chalk

only

in view

um

in the view in which

the jug

stands in opposition

as that which is to pre so it sends an

opposition

to the producer as that which is to be

produced

um

so

how then how do you however says that

the appearance or what something looks

like

does not get to

that which

what the chuck thing

is

um and i think

so

just to get um clear on

so i think what heidegger says is that

what what has occurred through the

millennia if you like

uh

is an externalization and a foreign

of this initial insight

um into the nature of things let's just

say

and what we now can do

is we can have blueprints of anything a

priori

and produce as you know mass produce

um anything that looks like anything but

it doesn't ask so we can have like this

desk which is in the desk that no one

can see luckily um

and it does so

um

but of course so heidegger is not so

high together there's no essentialism in

mexico i think

um

but the way in which i think what heidi

is trying to say to simplify this

is that

that the technological world is a

manifestation of the platonic realms of

ideal of forms i mean

um

right so if

whatever whatever gets up high or numb

one in in

the google algorithm

is

the way

and say in the image search or so

becomes

uh the platonic form for what it means

house so let's just take house if

whatever whatever picture of a house is

number one

is now the platonic for what a house is

supposed to look like but not what it is

supposed to be

and heidegger wants to get to an

understanding of

uh

and this is what he sees active in

technology in gestalt

if i understand that correctly where

geshtel externalizes everything it

doesn't ask well what is the river rhine

or what is it what is any river

but it only looks at

um

well how much energy can we extract

but i think what you would i mean i

don't i want to speak i'm not gonna

i should not do this but i will do it

anyways right i think what you would say

is this

but how but then

what do you say i mean what do you say

mr heidegger

are in opposition to this if there isn't

anything internally active in these

in the river itself

that's exactly

it's not that i actually agree that it's

a perfect summarization of my

understanding what hydra is getting at

here right is that because basically

yeah the

the mind right it's of the conception of

dozen that can impose

cinque lagrange right basically

similarities right impose it on to

reality um

and just basically manifest out right

basically what they what is desired

and that could be in terms of castel

basically accounted for by utility

because that's the basic shift basically

the whole point why the whole point is

that this is in kind of sitting in the

background with the mode of technology

all along but the big distinction

between

the current modern technology the time

he's talking about

and prior is this movement between

definite ends so when we manifest and

make a table we it's pretty it can be

anything else at the table it's

kind of locked in versus a dam

it's converting from utility for some an

unlimited on definite indefinite end

because for the risk because a big thing

in recitalianism is the idea of

definiteness the end is definite

being is kind it's said to have a kind

of yeah

substance is said to be kind of this

it's it's here it's definite it has a

certain it's in contrast to the infinite

right or the indefinite category uh for

example so the

i think my critique or my challenge

would be you're right heidi berger

absolutely everything you're saying is

absolutely correct

but you're not convincing me why from

your adjustment to your accounts this is

a problem or this is a danger

uh per se because if there's a danger it

means something has to be at stake

if you do believe there are internal

activities like there's certain kinds of

dignities inside entities that

instead of appearance really deserve to

be as led to be and to be

present at the as they are internally

this mode of technology is of the kind

of violation because you're literally

taking it just turn into a meat grinder

you're just taking it and using whatever

purpose you want it's kind of it's

literally violence violence the actual

definition of violence in our

versatilian accounts equality accounts

that are contrary to nature

um so when we do them contrary to nature

we're committing violence so this is the

kind of violence to reality of existence

uh this motor technology is a challenge

i think the way of talking challenging

sex is choking it's kind of like

intensity onto an object it's violent

it's supposed to convey a sense of

violence this is true if it's entering

into nature but that requires nature to

be accepted heidegger doesn't seem to

accept that at least in my

interpretation so that's why i'm kind of

left like why is this a problem in that

figure

so

so i think there is something

at stake

um

and

there is a clear limitation introduced

by heineken

he is in that sense a post metaphysical

or non-metaphysical thinker if

metaphysics is the realm of the infinite

uh being for heidegger which is not a

substance and we don't have to get into

it now but being itself or even the

understanding of being by darshan is

finite

dollar sign so let's let's say maybe but

but there is something else that almost

lit up while you were speaking but it's

it's so the issue is that it's so um

it's so

it's oscillating

this thinking um

so narrow to so sorry so close to

um

to to the old ways of thinking and then

we could so it very easily conflated

with something else and then

uh it

i highly assessed somewhere at some

point that his thinking is

a lot easier but in

thinking it through it becomes more

difficult than metaphysical thinking

is um so i think the

what you're pointing to or what you're

saying is that

we don't have

with heidegger

any way of distinguishing

um

that the operations of gestel

or the operations of

four-fold

right or the what the four-fold brings

to bear i would say no but there is one

which is

that gestel april a priori forcefully

posits for something to appear in a

certain way whereas in the fourfold

um the gathering of morsels and sky and

earth

and and divinities

lets something occur and it's not in the

machine shaft it's not the machinations

of the human being or not the power

operation of the human being that led

lets anything that's

proper um

or genuine or real

occur

um

but

it's um still of course so it's not the

will of the human being but what the

human being has to be able to do is to

respond in a certain way

to the world to being

so that

beings are

well

safe

guarded or protected or

sheltered

rather than challenged and

um

i think you you use the word violence

anyways

violated go ahead yeah go ahead

exactly like that totally agree yeah

tiger is saying i that's my

understanding too says all these points

but then i'm just like i'm just yes

he is following a lot of modes but then

you get to this one

point of

safeguarding

safeguarding what

yeah

what because i agree because it's true

pretense here's a problem the problem is

you just say it's like basically you're

kind of showing the problem of

hypothetical necessity necessitative

thinking right that by man's will it can

project

into reality

his will

and impose on to it his desires

but then

i'm not so

i'll go i'm sorry no no i think

something's coming back now they're not

which is this so

the

the the tight rope edge the danger in

which heidegger himself is perhaps

skating along or something i don't want

to imagine heidegger skating out of here

did do i escape

no so is this

um

heath so the attempts to marry

modernity with the ancients

for heidegger have been

not haven't been fruitful

leibniz is one of them who also tried to

have to completely digitize the world

already hundreds of years before bull

um hegel's last gasp attend attempt

so metaphysics is a dimension that has

shut itself off we can forever talk

about substances or anything but it

doesn't it wouldn't change anything

it's it's kind of it's

it has come to its completion

and it has and we can talk about whether

that's the case or not and it is now

effectuating itself manifesting itself

in the technological world it becomes

the language of technology is the

language of metaphysics right the word

virtual for example is used by

hegel is used by dilte they speak of

virtual possibilities of history um

the word force in german representation

uh is a metaphysical notion at least to

heidegger and that becomes um it's what

we produce is what we produce according

to a blueprint with it which is a

representation a foreshadowing an

imagination before there is anything and

then

the being of what there is supposed to

be is is in that sense really supposed

to be right so there is a supposition

that's being hypothetically

um

imposed on the world

and there is precisely no showing itself

so

then in the the schism that the curse

though is for him is the is the attempt

to

salvage from the wreckage

what can still be

uh

what could still speak to us in a

certain way from here aeroclydes for

maybes also played to an aristotle of

course

but in such a way that it becomes or

twists if you like free from

technological issues and this is where

it gets dangerous and i think this is

what you're pointing out

um

namely

well then what's exactly

um is it about things

or

nature

or the earth or so that is protect

worthy if there is not to use that

language

internal or inherent dignity etc right

so and this is so in this i think where

this is where

uh heidig is

thinking that evolves into or moves into

the

four-fold um but i didn't want to drop

you too long so i'll say something maybe

with that

whenever it fits so please continue

summarizing the contention here on one

part i mean ultimately he's basically um

i put it this way yes apparently he's

dismissing usia right substance but i

wonder about um

that would persist

so he doesn't prove it

nothing's wrong with luzia but substance

the translation the latinized version so

he's a bit worried about he's very very

worried about latin about the romans

not the greeks uzia is

this in which is in terminus unreasons

like is closed close enough to presence

abiding you could say

and the the issue of time the forgetting

of time that occurs in metaphysics

yeah i think the and also because we're

talking about that kind of ontological

category like what we're talking about

you talk about technology

and interaction with being and beings in

it

um

but then there's the second act of the

essay which is the

basically the power of accounting right

this logos the

logos as the account

and i pulled sections from being in time

which is obviously on earth i think it

knows a different type he changes his

position i know that yeah

but the thing is when we look at that

text we have we run into a very big a

bright point it's just a re-articulation

restatement of what you're saying this

whole idea of

uh

it's in the mind of man that we do this

we have this power of giving

prototypes onto onto reality and what

are we to do with and that's the thing

it's it be my point was towards the end

of the essay was to say

i'm not even sure how to even totally

uh

agrees with that point because i point

out his full contention is

uh that most of our accounts

of the day

ignores death

right it basically is a whole pretense

is that our accounts don't account for

death yeah and that

leads to a question i said an essay

close like

you can say that i think he's right but

then that means some accounts are more

true

i know i'm being i was probably a little

unfair by using the median time account

text to make that argument probably

though but that

still stands i think he makes if he

thinks what he doesn't being in time

he's running some problems even on his

episode accounts

so

perhaps i'll come at this different so

what is the thing for heidegger he has a

here's a

something to quote it's it's a

the thing

the proper thing

is a spatial a tempo spatial occurring

and this is perhaps where

so and this is this is not to say so

just maybe to really point this out in

the beginning of the essay the thing

uh he does say that um

the chuck stands in itself and is

self-sufficient so there's an in

standing

that marks the chuck as something said

said standing is in english

self-sufficient usually but it could

also be the

self-standing

but he also says that this notion of the

standing can turn

what has turned the world

namely

through the operations of modernity

where there is a

there is a all of a sudden they're

becoming superficial of so so let's go

even

um

that thinking becomes representing that

thinking becomes something of the human

mind first and not something that the

human mind participates in i know you're

reading aquinas

uh and the church fathers i guess saint

augustine um and others there will be

the the self as you know in this

period isn't

a purely human self it's a divine self

uh the intellect

for aquinas

is

uh the realm in which the human comes in

touch with the angelic

um with angels in the true sense of mess

as messengers it's not purely

subjectivistic it's not the act of the

the human willing subject and i don't

think that

thinking for permanentes or for plato or

or aristotle is purely

human

um they are in for plato in touch with

the

um

the other side of the cosmos

or the other world if you like the world

of forms which i don't think there is

really inflatable

for a different time to discuss but um

what heidegger wants to get away from

completely is any kind of subjectiveness

there is this uncanny power in the human

being in modernity to impose

um

fixations of the mind let's say uh onto

the world but

that is itself just something the human

being is responding to within being

um that's one possibility of being and

it's not something the human being has

made of himself very he will also say

that the atomic bomb

exploded

500 years ago

um he says in the 1950s why

because that's the moment where this

explosion of in intense power that could

destroy everything is to him an

expression of

the rebellion of the human being against

being so that the human being begins to

and this is the western human being

specifically

uh the european

man of the renaissance begins to rebel

against um that something shows itself

by itself but wants to posit

it

and now of course the question is what

is there inherently there i think

uh and this is

this is where perhaps um

well we we either you know we can follow

this or not but um the the world itself

is a mirror play between the four uh

regions

um and the chalk becomes a proper shark

only for heidegger and has it said not

when the human being decides for

something but

when the interaction with

the world becomes a different one

where it's no longer for the for the

ends or the means of the

the will of the human being but

it's

there's a cherishing of the divine

um which is not the place of the human

being there's a cherishing of the earth

which as that which gives but also takes

um

and

um

so

it's that's when a thing as it were

itself occurs

and it occurs

so there's never any thing just

stably um

as a substance but there is an abiding

presence of the thing that through

cherishing

in a different light

comes about

as a proper thing and then also gathers

say

a community of

of people which is why he also points to

the old meaning of the word

uh thing in

in english

as gathering or

collecting or collectivizing or so

um

but so

i think that

there is not perhaps

um

this kind of an inner dignity per se

um

but there is

there is a way yeah go on yeah go on no

this is a couple notes i mean one is

absolutely well you're talking about the

intellect by the way you know until

noose absolutely was considered divine

it was literally this and the news was

specific it has a very specific

role

in them and the intellect it's

specifically the apprehension of the

first principles

right so it's the arc up of

things ideas you know things like that

um it was always assessed to be a divine

active basically preset process

or attribute

um

we were saying about the 500 years ago

atomic bomb i mean to me

i don't know if anybody times up

perfectly or not this sounds like the

discussion of nominalism what nominalism

did was say the universals do not exist

they're merely inventions of man or

words to do groupings there's only

individuals the group universals are

just abstractions of the mind

so he's absolutely i think if that is

true that's an absolute i agree with

that completely with this threat uh

because the chain reaction once you say

universes do not exist

because is basically down to the root

you cannot give accounts for final

causes and formal causes you end up with

just material matter and efficient

causes and by the way

it's not like it's actually always

funding uh the schools of islam

specifically called islamic animism

which said this basically it's kind of

isn't where it says oh no

there's no actors except god

every entity literally is it exists for

a second and annihilated and god

continually recreates every single

instance of moments and it's the cause

of all activities of all actions

and it's literally holding matter

all together um so it's not like the

times have been made to try to work this

out but this threading

i see a lot of i see a lot of

connections here

but uh there's a

just a point that says nominalism is a

bit earlier than descartes i think how

to get dressed to stay cut here but uh

nicola mulbrush who was a cartesian

and

apparently he's the first one who used

the name

cartesios so that's where we get the

word cartesian from

right after

descartes heyday tried to

so he argued for in the west for an

occasion

um that the one who acts is is god but

it's also completely insane i mean in

terms of moderation

same platinism uh that reaches levels of

both reality and

uh both the alien

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matrix uh thought that shouldn't even be

possible at that time

where what we see

it's just representations that are sent

to us by god but they do

in fact

correspond

to the world out there so we're looking

at is a screen inside our minds

and by the way the world exists because

god has to think of himself

and the world is debris basically of

this thought process but that's just

from this uh

but but here's so here's my question and

this is not just a question for you but

this is i think this is also what

heidegger asks yourself and this is

maybe the crucial question and we can

have all of these different accounts you

can say and as you know there are people

who are like what's her name martha

newsbourne

she's a new aristotelian of course

without all the metaphysical commitments

um then we can we can look at

the scholastics we can look at um

uh

arabic or muslimic islamic traditions um

maybe traditions of judaism and may i

would probably my guess would be

uh that in some

of these you know that there are more

lived

these ways of thinking

than maybe they are in the west

so

what

my question would be is this

even if we have all of these accounts do

they actually speak to us

and where do they speak to us they do i

think sometimes speak to us and they do

in technology so they do in the natural

sciences

where

as

mentioned before the language of

metaphysics

is uh is made operational it's um when

we speak of the potential to do

something well that's the translation of

dunamis and potential

potential

in in latin uh what we speak of dynamic

that's greek we speak of energy which is

energia which is the original term for

actuality um so

i think what heidegger's question is

um

increasingly is

what genuinely speaks to us and i think

in your essay you'll see i don't know

what's up and down left or right

and of course we can say now that news

was divine

but it's it's not divine for us

i i don't think it is

um and news is not our language either

we have

i think we're franco of our time is

is english

um i don't think that anyone walks

around thinking that

their intellect is in any way divine or

that this is a generally accepted view i

think you'd probably be

put in a mental ward if you

proclaim that

also publicly um

and

uh so if this is also why when when you

say as some is hiding himself there

isn't some criterion so that what we

respond to is being you usually get even

from heineken's goals

that's really awkward

what do you mean as a

human being who does everything so do

you see what i'm trying to say i'm

trying to say what is our what is

actually

what is the world that is showing itself

to us

um and what is this technological

world and then i would still say though

that

having seen

this technological world then the

question becomes and this is why i

wanted to have this

initial dialogue with you

then the question becomes once this

becomes apparent

how to respond in a way that actually

there is something at stake that could

be lost but it i think it must be

it must be of our time it's it's not

just

a matter of looking back

and saying oh and

they thought of this like this let's

just go back to it did you see is this

a reactionary just copy paste

yeah

yeah but that's no that's but that's

brilliant because it you know copy paste

is is excellent way of of

i think is a perfect analogy

um you can also say it's a metaphysical

supermarket right copy paste is even

worse because in the supermarket at

least you have what have to walk in

copy paste is just a click but yeah go

on i mean yeah exactly yeah i mean i

mean i'm very i'm very sympathetic to

conservative arguments but the problem

is you can't literally i mean i'm going

to use more derogatory not direct but

like more terms like larping right i

mean

yes

that's the thing you i agree with you

absolutely that in the end you know

aerosol talks about this in the ethics

books marks ain't gonna get the job done

we could talk all day about what's the

good life you have to live it at the end

of the day and i actually do think

that's the grounding of all philosophy

in the end is to answer the question

what is the good and how do we have how

do we achieve the good life and that's i

think it's a very fair framing

everything we're doing is really towards

that end happiness

let me put it that way

um

but i agree that the solution is not

copy pasting

i love aristotle i absolutely love them

i love the system i think it's amazing

it's a mean it's it's a plato and

aristotle to me are this amazing

genius artifact of human civilization

it's beautiful it really is

but even with my admiration of it i'm

not a fool to say we can we'll just take

our

greek epics and

virtue ethics and just take it copy

paste and i've seen people do it you

think in a post concert consequentialism

or deontology mode you're going to get

back to virtue ethics and make it work

one-to-one is not going to fly it's not

that's why i'm purposely using the

language of copy pasting it's not going

to fly it just becomes a larp you're

just pretending because i really

at the times of real contention and

conflict where choices have to be made

your little larping episode and copy

pasting isn't going to fly anymore

but

actually on that question what do we

have not seen now what technology does

we're more alone more isolated we're

more suicidal we're less we're we're

literally seeing the decay

of civilization we see

and actually and that should be fair

it's actually what's happened is we move

you know actually when the modes always

from the passes that what's beautiful

what's just

what's true is the mean like it's kind

of meaning gaussian mean it's always in

the mode if we think well it's how the

reality ought to be

reality is really moving more is i say

the asymmetric extreme value

propositions

a few with a lot

the max the many with nothing that's the

mode we've been seeing kind of power law

distributions

and because i say all these things about

individuals having horrendous outcomes

statistically yet we have more economic

values ever or technology's getting

better and better

we're in this almost schizophrenic panic

basically and whatever answer we need to

come to

needs to address but we have to first

diagnose what the problem is and then

make attempts to interactions to try to

solve it i do think a return to the

foundations makes sense that's why i

took your you know pre-socratics i think

a returning from the beginning

uh but i don't think it is a copy-paste

job you're not it's too the world is is

a different beast we have different

problems we have a problem of

information itself and how and really

more the question of

almost we need principles of not

um we need principles of limit again

we've done so much to try to release

everything but now we need

some justification and some accounts to

frame reality the grounded now again

that's just more

opinion interpretation

yeah

and this

um by the way

so i'll sign off on all of this

um

it's very pleased to come

briefly come back to heidegger

his attempt in being in time so just to

be a scholarly for a second one of his

teachers was jose

i also his boss in feyborg was russo

wrote on the crisis of the european

sciences

another teacher of heidegger was paul

nator who was who said that the tower is

falling we're wading through a field of

ruins

um

and

that

nietzsche already saw that of course but

amorphati is a

is a fatal

um

response to the crisis diltay speaks of

the crisis in the late 19th century

um

ever since then for some weird reason

all we can come up with is almost a

genealogy only of uh crisis and crisis

modes

and how to get tried to with being in

time

tried to ground

again

um

you mentioned

apology briefly before

the project of being in time which is

perhaps sometimes overlooked is

fundamental ontology

so it was the attempt to

bring together

um

the different ontologies ways of

understanding what it means to be

biology psychology anthropology

uh physics medicine etc

um

in one way of grounding understanding of

being

which is called

dazzai

now

of course of course he gave up on this

project but

the

the issue

today is

a similar one as it was a hundred years

ago or even 150 years ago

and

what however perhaps so yes i would also

agree we have to go back to

the foundations

but then we also have to ask

i think then the task becomes one of

translation though

and it becomes one of translating

the greek

in such a way that because whatever made

sense to the scholastics and

before that to the romans to the

roman philosophers and thinkers who

translated the greeks and

um

around to

the year zero or a couple of hundred

years before

it

then the question is

for us how do we translate

or how do we have to translate these

texts

um which is an act of thinking also and

therefore also of

uh building and setting the foundations

um

in such a way though

that

that language

twists

free from

the technological

capture if you like

um

of that

and there are and so and i think hiding

it

you can see attempts at doing this uh in

him

many attempts

and also i think

and this is going a bit off from what

we've been discussing but something that

seemed to come up very often

the beginning of the year and the end of

last year in the seminars and the

courses

also with people like javier who you

know uh daniel

was the

notion of the

the all-unifying one

the the this kind of weird return of

neoplatonic thoughts

and here cletionism or so in this time i

mean you can think of right this world

becoming one

um through the internet uh and and the

strange isolation that occurs at the

same time as

a breaking through of this weird

uh phenomenon again

um that's maybe taking it a bit too far

straight but

i think

um

though that

with

what we've been discussing the the the

next step

for me i think would be

um

to go deeper into some of these texts

and see where

what we've been discussing is

is not there or maybe is there but in a

way that we would we wouldn't expect

right so that would be what would be to

say what we could do next or so um but

yeah i'll leave it at that if you have

any closing remarks feel free

um i think that's a good summarization

point you know and also the thing is

listen sometimes bad ideas

are there we learn lessons from it

that's the verge that's that's the value

of studying the past is that just

because something was a dead end or was

a termination we don't think works does

not mean we don't learn from it that's

the value you know an idea is that this

is why tradition matters nutrition

matters because

it's always a reflecting back on the

past

that's in its best case scenario ideally

versus just being a kind of sultified

repetition literally copy pasting over

time the same like this boom conceptions

over and over and over again

yeah

it needs to be developed understanding

and sometimes we need to go back to the

foundations to see that

return return to the source

to come to a better understanding

there's a german word for that which

does not have an english translate

english translation

which is

one of the

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most important words for good

[Music]

could be

something like um you know towards

at with

so with transformation

or to make this a lot more english

um so that maybe actually means

something it's it's a

it's a transformation through

appropriation

or an appropriation that transforms so

we take on

let ourselves be transformed but also

transform

what we are taking on and accepting

so not a simple so it's the exact

opposite of a copy paste then it becomes

us

or it becomes inner and in a

dignified

uh act and not just a

click click

excellent i agree

thank you thomas

thank you for your time