Interlude: Musings of the Fellowship, Part I.

DT: Ludwig?
W: Yes, Dasein-Toni?
DT: Is it true that your brother was a one-handed pianist?
W: Indeed it is, and a good one at that, I must add.
DT: It is just so strange to think of a one-handed pianist. Then again, I guess I am a one-handed pianist even though I have two hands, so perhaps the difference is just in the nature of the disability.
W: To some extent, yes, but we must bear in mind that even you, Dasein-Toni, could learn to play the piano with both hands, if you tried really hard.
DT: That was a nice thing to say, Big W.
W: My brother on the other hand, no pun intended, of course, didn’t manage to grow another arm as much as he tried.
DT: Pardon? Grow another arm? How would one go about doing something like that anyhow?
W: He used to sit hours in a corner staring out of the window, using his willpower to make it grow.
DT: You are pulling my leg.
W: No, no, it is true. Well, at least he used to sit in a corner doing something.
DT: But how do you know he was using willpower to grow his hand back? Did you ask?
W: No, I didn’t. You can’t really go to someone and ask: “So, huh, u usin' like ur willpa'wa to make ur arm gro' back on? Like, cool, huh huh.”
DT: Well, I am sure I too would have troubles to sound like Beavis and Butt-head.
W: Pardon?
DT: Ah, never mind. Just a facet of modern society you managed to miss by dying, that’s all.
W: I didn’t die.
DT: Oh, yes, sorry. You came here to look for your stolen ideas and got lost. We thought you did, though.
W: They are saying that I am dead?
DT: I am afraid so.
W: How intolerable! When I get back from this dump, I will set things straight.
DT: I am sure you will find Derrida delightful.
W: Who?
DT: Never mind. --- So, about your brother. Perhaps he was just looking out of the window? People do that sort of thing even when they have two hands.
W: Grmph. Perhaps you are right. Oh, well, but anyway. A fine pianist, nonetheless.
DT: I am sure. You know what’s weird, Witty, though?
W: That if you take a carrot and stick it in the forehead of a snowman, it still doesn’t look like a snow-unicorn.
DT: Uhh, yeah, okay, that’s weird, but I was thinking more of the fact that all notable one-handed pianists were left-handed pianists. If you calculate the odds, it simply doesn’t work. Although, there are not so many renown one-handed pianists in the world. It might be that either left hand is better for playing a piano (which would explain my lack of success, as I play on my right hand), or that as most people are right-handed, they tend to lose their right hand.
W: How come?
DT: Well, at least for me it works that way. Whenever I fall or stumble, my right hand reacts the fastest and gets the bruises. I nearly always end up with bruises in my right hand instead of left, so if there is an accident, perhaps it is more probable for the better arm to get smashed? And that would be, according to probabilities again, the right hand: leaving you as not only a one-handed pianist, but a left-handed at that.
W: Fascinating.
DT: Well, yeah. But that’s enough of that, I think. The last time you gave such a nice synopsis of what we went through before. Would you care to do one again, today? Yesterday ended with such a confusion, that a brief recollection would be in order.
W: Why, certainly, Dasein-Toni. Should there be any readers left, it would be good for them too, do you not think so?
DT: I surely would, if there were anyone reading. It is just so quiet and lonely down here. Eerie, even.
W: I know what you mean, Dasein-Toni. But endure we must, so on to the briefing.
DT: Ready when you are, Wittgenstein.
W: Right. In the clause §3 we ended up with the idea that all sciences are based on some axiomatic foundations, and that their value of progression is in their ability to cause crisis in those foundations. We also understood that all these foundations are parts taken from the most general Being, and that understanding this Being would be useful in two ways: in securing the foundations of particular sciences, and to produce new sciences altogether.
DT: That we did indeed, Witty. We also noted a connection to Kuhn that was interesting.
W: Who is Kuhn?
DT: Ah, I always forget that you di… went missing a half century ago. It’s just one guy.
W: Anyway, in clause §4 we plunged knee deep into shit.
DT: Wittgenstein!
W: Uh, sorry, but we did. Well, umm, found ourselves in dire straits indeed. Mr. Heidegger tried to explain to us his concepts of ontology, onticality, existentialism and existence, and to prove that Dasein was the most primary way of Being, through which all other ways are determined. I will try to explain briefly what is meant with these concepts.
Ontology:it deals with the structure of Being. It is not ontology in the common sense (that is, in the sense whether substances exist or what is causality), but a name for a discipline that tries to uncover the underlying structure of Being.
Onticality:this is about the things that are. Whereas ontology concerns the structure of Being, onticality studies things within that structure.
Existentialism: in the same way as above, this studies the structure of ways of Being, that is, existence. It is about the way existence manifests itself, how it is structured and how it functions, in a sense.
Existence: this was the trickiest of all. Existence seems to be a sort way of being only available for the Dasein, because it includes the ability to both see one's possibilities and reflect on themselves as well as to choose between the possibilities. It is the Dasein’s way of considering itself like something, and to affect this somethingness. It seems to be a common name for all the individual ways for the Dasein to perceive itself, and thus it is always in connection with the individuality in question. Existence is always determined in relation to the individual of whose existence it is about.
DT: Huh, those terms give me the creeps.
W: So do they to me. But with those we must dance, you and I. Let me just add that Heidegger’s conclusion was that Dasein is the most fundamental mode of being, because it is in special position both ontically (the only ontic being that can ask questions – in non-Heideggerian this would mean that they are the only entities in the universe that are able to ask questions, and they are privileged in that sense) and ontologically (the only being whose being is about its being – we are determined by our ability and desire to wonder about ourselves and our being). Dasein is then the ontic-ontological condition for ontology, as Heidegger put it. This is probably explained best by saying that Heidegger wants to express his idea that conscious beings (or beings that can ask) are the necessary condition for there to be any sensible structure to ontology at all (it is downright useless to ask about the structure of ontology without there being someone to ask about it – that is, Dasein).
DT: Fascinating, Witty. I think he, in a most perverse way, has a point there. I have pondered about the problematic of questions a lot lately, and it seems clear to me that answers hold no value, or indeed, no sense whatsoever without the questions. The question is primary, not the answer. Consider this answer: 2.718. What is the value of that? Quite simply: nothing before one explicates the question to which it is the answer. That is the approximate value of Napier-number e. (The exact value of this answer is known to all mathematicians and physicists, and I will not pursue it here.) Isn’t Heidegger simply saying that the answer to the meaning of Being can be considered sensible only if we explicate the question itself? Didn’t he actually say that in the beginning of the introduction, when he stated that we must first try to look at the question from a proper angle? Ah, I think I have indeed understood what Heidegger is maintaining here!
W: Fantastic, Dasein-Toni! And here we find another of the ideas that I lost!
DT: We did?
W: Sure. Do you remember that in Philosophical Investigations I pointed out that the concept of “the shortest way” is meaningless unless we first explicate where is it that we want to go, and from where?
DT: I do indeed. (After all, I am writing your lines too, you silly man.)
W: Well, that is all about the primacy of the question, again. The answers themselves only exist in relation to the questions. Of course, it could be argued that the objects that would become the answers do exist before the questions – like 2.718 was real before anyone asked about the Napier-number’s approximation. And I believe Heidegger is saying that, when he differentiates between the questioned and the object of the question. The object of question is impossible to reach unless the questioned is first set. That is, the things that would become the answers can exist without the questions, but they are answers only when a question is asked. Therefore Heidegger is saying that before we can even begin to seek the answer to the meaning of Being, we must first determine the exact question we are asking, and because only Dasein, that is, us, can ask questions, we must first ask: what is Dasein? Here is the primacy Heidegger purports to show.
DT: There is another question I would like to ask from you, Witty, if you don’t mind.
W: Shoot.
DT: “Shoot”?
W: I am trying to relate to the modern society and make my feeble attempts at not only to be Wittgenstein, but to be Cool-Wittgenstein.
DT: Oh dear.
K: You called?
DT: Ah, Kant! No, dear, go back into the pocket, I didn’t mean to call you.
K: Uhh, okay. Well, play with Wittgenstein then. I don’t mind. Really.
DT: Yeah, yeah. So, Wittgenstein: isn’t here another of your ideas manifest? I am referring to Heidegger’s apparent primacy of ethics – that after all is something you also attempted to say in the Tractatus, is it not?
W: Yes, it is indeed. In Lecture on Ethics I also express the primacy of ethics. In Tractatus I say that the world of the sad is a different world than the world of the happy. Not only does sadness change the way we see the world, it changes the world itself. This is ultimately because ethics and through them emotions, values and all those things are transcendent. They are not in the world, but beyond the world, determining the world. This is basically a rather Kantian notion, because it rests on the idea that the world we live in is a world-as-we-see-it, not the cognition-independent world. The transcendental subject is the eye, the border of the world that is the field of sight. If the world is a world of answers, then it is determined by the questions, and the questions are, in the end, something that arises from values, desires and ethics. Truly, ethics is primary to ontology. Through this it might be easier to understand why Heidegger says that Dasein is primary to ontology.
DT: Very interesting, thank you Witty. Not only am I starting to understand Heidegger, I am beginning to see how his philosophy fits the overall picture. And I just started the Being and Time. This has been a wonderful chat, and later on today we must travel onwards, to the second part of introduction that spans the clauses §§5-8. But first, let us rest a bit.
W: That would be prudent.