Making time
> The room suddenly clearered of its pink haze: there were great blank spaces between
> the objects it contained. … The lamp, the mirror with its leaden reflections, the clock
> on the mantelpiece, the armchair, the half opened wardrobe, suddenly appeared to
> him like pitiless mechanisms, adrift and pursuing their tenuous existences in the void,
> rigidly insistent, like the underside of a gramaphone record obstinately grinding out
> its tune. Mathieu shook himself, but could not detach himself from that sinister,
> raucous world.
>
>
Sartre, The age of reason
Being and time is quite a modernist book, in many ways; but an early modernism, a pre-fordist modernism (which perhaps explains the more explicit nostalgia of the later works, and Heidegger’s support for and later disillusionment with the Nazi party — the problem for him was that fascism wasn’t reactionary _enough_). Sartre, on the other hand, understands. Compare the passage above with Heidegger’s discussion of the disclosure of the world by the ready-to-hand object.
For Heidegger, the ready-to-hand is ready for a _particular_ Dasein; the hammer of a particular carpenter, the workshop of a particular artisan. Hence, for Hiedegger, when accessed through the ready-to-hand objects which imbue the world with meaning, the temporality of the world is thus revealed as Dasein’s ownmost being. Sartre, however, writes of the era of the mass worker, the worker whose world and time is constructed by the factory; the worker whose temporality is always the temporality of the _they_. Could we say, also, that this is the temporality of the Big Other?
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How do ready-to-hand objects imbue the world with meaning?
What is the temporality of the world? Or the temporality of the they, for that matter?
How can a Dasein be anything but particular?
Comment by enowning @ 6/29/2005 11:37 pm
‘Meaning’ probably isn’t the best word, but I couldn’t think of a better one (maybe ‘intentionality’ would be an improvement). What I was referring to was Heidegger’s argument that the ready-to-hand (well, the absence of the ready-to-hand, to be precise) reveals that the world is not just a collection of inert objects, but has a structure of values, purposes (maybe ‘affects’ in general) which are partly constitutive of these objects.
So, by the temporality of the world, I mean the temporal elements of this structure, in particular the means-end, forward looking temporality of a craftsman and his projects. The temporality of the they, on the other hand, would be a directionless temporality, the cyclical repitition of empty talk, or of the assembly line.
As for the particularity of Dasein, I’m not sure how I’m going to work that one out. Maybe through a direct confrontation with Heidegger’s argument that Dasein is always particular, or maybe by trying to distinguish between a kind of generic particularity (sounds like a contradiction, I know) and a specific particularity. Though the latter might just turn into the former anyway - I’m not sure, I’ll have to engage more closely with Being and Time to figure it out.
Comment by Tim @ 6/30/2005 9:31 am
When someone thinks about an object, when it is present-at-hand, then the object is thought of in the ways described by philsophy since the Greeks. An object used ready-to-hand, a worker hammering on automatic, is not longer objectified by the mind, but it’s not obvious to me how a hammer used ready-to-hand has a diffferent meaning when used in a cobblers workshop rather than an assembly line, as it is just used. To have meaning, it would have to be present-at-hand, and be thought about.
I bet you could write a popular business book about how an assembly line worker or a craftsperson can or cannot have a deeper attachment to the quality of their product. Many workers don’t work in satanic mills these days. I’ve bought shoddy hand crafted goods, and seen factory workers tinkering with the configuration of their assembly line tools to improve the quality of their products.
When writing about Dasein Heidegger (or his translators) use the word ownmost, which I think captures the sense that each Dasein is individual. As such, it has its ownmost temporality. I’m not sure how they could have a temporality, any more than a small rock can.
Comment by enowning @ 7/1/2005 3:10 pm
What the hell?
Comment by Man @ 7/15/2005 9:05 am
fuzzled in the head. To understand temporality, time, authenticity, and all bullshit, advise Sartre and Heiddegger could have taken more booze…that is the only way to be primordially.
Comment by Man @ 7/15/2005 9:07 am
I don’t quite understand the question that is being asked. The temporality of the ‘they’ is characterized by what we would call ‘public time.’ Also, does the disclosure of a particular object such as a hammer to a particular Dasein bears a relationship to the “truth-factor,” aleitheia, the unconcealing of something in its truth? What is meant by “ownmost” is not clear. At any rate, the discussion centers on what Heidegger would call ‘ontic’ exixtents, over against the ontological questions Heidegger raises. I thought Temporality hsd an intrinsic relationship with Being, and not so much with beings. In the intentionality of objects, I assume you are speaking of the Husserlian ‘intentionality of consciousness,” also equivalent to ‘meaning.’ Do objects refers to phenomenal objects? Objects as they appear and present themselves to consciousness? I know Heidegger does not use the word consciousness. We cannot be speaking of Kantian “things-in-themselves.” These objects hold a meaning to Dasein, as their use and function are for the purposes of Dasein.
Comment by Roberto Vasquez @ 12/19/2005 6:19 pm