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On what is NOT Thinking - Magical Realist - Jul 5, 2025
"In The Word of Nietzsche: 'God is Dead,' Heidegger claims thought must move away from emphasising objective conceptualisation to take seriously alternative, non-conceptual modes of thinking. As he puts it, 'thinking begins only when we have come to know that reason, glorified for centuries, is the most stiff-necked adversary of thought' (1977: 61).
Similarly, in What is Called Thinking?, Heidegger claims being is not capable of being understood if we start with the notion that only conceptual thought counts as knowledge (1968: 179). Heidegger wants to not only open thought to alternative, non-conceptual modes of thinking, but to also get thought to recognise these alternatives are legitimate and justified. As being 'is' universal, fluid, dynamic, and historical so too must thought move in these directions. Only by recognising, opening itself to, and taking seriously non conceptual thinking will thought be able to engage with being on being's own terms. Only non-philosophy, which does not entail a valorisation of science or any other so-called humanity, but genuine, meditative thinking, can open thought to being in the way that does not impose itself on being and reveals being as being reveals itself to thought (Krzystof 2008 : 251)
In other words, Heidegger's view is that 'being' cannot be understood solely through conceptual thought, with which he identifies reason. Non-conceptual ways of thinking are also requisite. Being is too 'fluid, dynamic, and historical' to be captured, penetrated, by static, inflexible conceptual thinking. This is hardly unambiguously clear but Heidegger's broad point is one that we can make some sense of."---- https://philosophy.stackexchange.com/questions/54137/reason-is-the-adversary-of-thinking
"The most thought-provoking thing in our thought-provoking time is that we are still not thinking."--Heidegger
Thus does Heidegger indict us all of the mistake of not thinking when we think we are. What have we mistaken FOR thinking? Many things it seems. Opining a point of view. Repeating a convincing talking point or argument. Logically inferring the unknown from the known. And Reason, that darling and much lauded child prodigy of the Enlightenment. Reason in the sense of shuffling around categories and generalizations in the attempt to arrive at something called Truth. Of conjuring up thru words and sentences a proposition or set of propositions that pertain universally and absolutely. Philosophers are perhaps the best at accomplishing this feat, often proclaiming as truth their own elaborate model or map of Reality. But how many of these have fallen by the wayside or faded away into some obsolete historical epoch. The idea of absolute Truth nowadays has itself become suspect--an ego-empowering if not totalitarian attempt to turn a very contingent and morphing reality into a reliable machine of explanations and rules and principles. The reduction of Being from infinitely mysterious and self-evident presence to a manipulable system of abstractions. This unfortunately is not thinking.
Thinking begins by questioning what was before assumed to be unconditionally true and unquestionable. As Nietzsche demonstrated for us there is definitely a heretical or subversive element to it. God is indeed dead. Thinking in this way draws its power from the innate historicity and yet universality of Being. And so it reveals the latest most contemporary state of our time-- a time where everything is questioned and so felt to be illusory and even enslaving. The Enlightenment promised us all that by building metanarratives and collecting knowlege we could free ourselves from ignorance and delusion. But it has instead only led us out of one cage and into another. The cage of abstract conceptualization/theory as Truth. The cage of the well-explained and controlled and dogmatic.
Thinking otoh takes these venerated though dead structures and surgically dissects them to our utter chagrin. That what we felt to be unassailable Truth is just consensual fist bumps and comforting mantras. Thinking reintroduces us to the Being that Reason has alienated us all from--the presence of the Real as concealed behind the veil of our illusions. It is rude and relentless and shocking and blasphemous. We must relearn how to think again. To get at the core of what is real and utterly illuminating unadorned with the gawdy regalia of our beloved narratives.
An analogy: Thinking is not the logic or rationality or plotline of the dream. It is the way of waking ourselves up out of the dream. It does not heed the rules of the dream. A man trying to wake himself out of the dream screams and thrashes around inside the dream. To the dreamed people he may appear as an enfant terrible or a madman. This is because thinking answers to a higher calling--the epiphany of being in the dream--the waking up inside of Being itself.
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"Men fear thought as they fear nothing else on earth – more than ruin, more even than death. Thought is subversive and revolutionary, destructive and terrible; thought is merciless to privilege, established institutions, and comfortable habits; thought is anarchic and lawless, indifferent to authority, careless of the well-tried wisdom of the ages. Thought looks into the pit of hell and is not afraid." ~ Bertrand Russell (“Why Men Fight: A Method of Abolishing the International Duel,” pp. 178-179)
"The average man never really thinks from end to end of his life. The mental activity of such people is only a mouthing of cliches. What they mistake for thought is simply a repetition of what they have heard. My guess is that well over 80 percent of the human race goes through life without having a single original thought."~ H. L. Mencken
RE: On what is NOT Thinking - C C - Jul 6, 2025
Resonates somewhat with Zen and some other East Asian schools of thought. Though probably arrived at independently, and the similarity noticed afterward. Just as with David Hume's view of self being an illusion (bundle theory) echoing in some respects with Buddhism's "no-self" (anattā). Schopenhauer did actually study Indian literature, though.
Tao, Zen and Heidegger
https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/abs/philosophy-of-heidegger/tao-zen-and-heidegger/D6BB04247380D8D0322CD952C75699E8
INTRO: Over the past two decades, a number of authors on Heidegger have recognized that his work has a certain affinity with East Asian thinking, notably with Taoism and Zen Buddhism, especially in his later thought. The fact that the Japanese have published seven translations of Being and Time, and that Heidegger is probably the most-studied modern philosopher in Asia, may well reflect this similarity between his own and East Asian thinking.
On various occasions, Heidegger himself spoke of this connection. Otto Pöggeler, an eminent commentator on Heidegger's work, writes that Heidegger “gladly acknowledged to visitors the closeness of his thinking to the Taoist tradition and Zen Buddhism” (1987: 49). William Barrett related that when reading one of D. T. Suzuki's books on Buddhist thought, Heidegger said that Suzuki expressed what he himself had always tried to say (1956: xi).
The parallels between Heidegger and East Asian thinking are indisputable, which is why readers with a prior understanding of Asian philosophies will find themselves in familiar territory when they first encounter Heidegger's writings. What is not certain, however, is whether his thought was consciously influenced by East Asian philosophy, or whether the similarities are merely an example of what has been called “the universality of truth” expressing itself in a variety of ways...
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David Darling: Living in a world of words and concepts and inherited beliefs, says Zen, we have lost the power to grasp reality directly. Our minds are permeated with notions of cause and effect, subject and object, being and nonbeing, life and death. Inevitably this leads to conflict and a feeling of personal detachment and alienation from the world. Zen's whole emphasis is on the experience of reality as it is, rather than the solution of problems that, in the end, arise merely from our mistaken beliefs.
Because it eschews the use of the intellect, Zen can appear nihilistic (which it is not) and elusive (which it is). Certainly, it would be hard to conceive of a system that stood in greater contrast with the logical, symbol-based formulations of contemporary science. More than any other product of the Oriental mind, Zen is convinced that no language or symbolic mapping of the world can come close to expressing the ultimate truth.
... Zen differs from other meditative forms, including other schools of Buddhism, in that it does not start from where we are and gradually lead us to a clear view of the true way of the world. The sole purpose of studying Zen is to have Zen experiences — sudden moments, like flashes of lightning, when the intellect is short-circuited and there is no longer a barrier between the experiencer and reality. Sometimes its methods can seem bizarre and even startling. To catch the flavor, if a Zen master found you reading this book he might grab it from you and hit you over the head with it, saying: “Here’s something else for you to think about!” Such shock tactics, however, are intended not to offend but rather to wake us up from our normal symbol-bound frame of mind.
... Zen uses language to point beyond language, which is what poets and playwrights and musicians do. But, less obviously, it is also what modern science does if the intuitive leap is taken beyond its abstract formalism. The deep, latent message of quantum mechanics, for instance, codified in the language of mathematics, is that there is a reality beyond our senses which eludes verbal comprehension or logical analysis.
... Intuition has ever been the handmaiden of science. And although science represents its theories and conclusions in a “respectable” symbolic form, its greatest advances have always come initially not from the application of reason but from intuitive leaps — sudden flashes of inspiration very much akin to Zen experiences. --Zen Physics. Chapter 12
RE: On what is NOT Thinking - Magical Realist - Jul 6, 2025
That resemblance of Heidegger's idea of thinking to Zen and Taoist practice has occurred to me before. In his later life he dealt more with the experience of Being as poetic and even sacred, suggesting more spiritual connotations. His continued emphasis on the transcendence of Being beyond language, as making itself present as what is ineffable or veiled by language, is described here:
“Paradoxically, Heidegger makes clear… that he does not mean that the task of poetry is to render the unsaid sayable; it is precisely to disclose such meaning in its unsayability, obviously a difficult and paradoxical notion…. A good deal of Heidegger’s commentary is like this, an explication of something evoked that cannot be named; something disclosed but with no determinate content, a revelation with nothing revealed (no determinate content but not mere absence); rather an evocation of absence with [such] density of possible inflections and implications that it defies critical paraphrase” ----(p. 210) "The Culmination: Heidegger, German Idealism, and the Fate of Philosophy" by Robert Pippin.
RE: On what is NOT Thinking - Syne - Jul 6, 2025
With your current trend of antisemitism, I guess this is to be expected.
In April 1933, Heidegger was elected as rector at the University of Freiburg and has been widely criticized for his membership and support for the Nazi Party during his tenure. After World War II he was dismissed from Freiburg and banned from teaching after denazification hearings at Freiburg. There has been controversy about the relationship between his philosophy and Nazism. - wiki
RE: On what is NOT Thinking - Magical Realist - Jul 6, 2025
Life for you is just an endless pursuit of petty little gotchas, isn't it? I pity you..
RE: On what is NOT Thinking - Syne - Jul 6, 2025
Yeah, yeah. The "Republicans pounce," "gotchas," etc. have become the usual way leftists try to distract from their evil.
It's always the pouncing that's somehow worse than the antisemitism, violent & destructive riots, human trafficking, etc..
You have to whine about gotchas because you can't defend your ideology. Remember all those simple questions you couldn't answer?
RE: On what is NOT Thinking - Magical Realist - Jul 6, 2025
Why are you trolling me in a thread that has nothing to do with politics? Are you so monomaniacal that you can't post on any other topic? Here. I'll save your dumbass a Google search:
"Monomaniacal" describes someone who is excessively or obsessively focused on a single idea or subject. It can imply a degree of neurosis or an unhealthy, rigid, and irrational fixation on something, according to some dictionaries. In the past, monomania was even considered a form of mental illness, specifically a single, obsessive delusion."
RE: On what is NOT Thinking - Syne - Jul 6, 2025
Heidegger was a Nazi sympathizing navel-gazer. Unless you are willfully ignorant, it's very simple to connect Heidegger to politics.
Heidegger's philosophy is characterized by several key concepts, including 'Being-in-the-world,' 'authenticity,' and the role of 'technology' in shaping human existence. These concepts are central to understanding his influence on Critical Theory. - https://www.numberanalytics.com/blog/heidegger-influence-on-critical-theory
Moving "away from emphasising objective conceptualisation" is the groundwork for subjectivism run amok and the impetus behind moral relativism.
But I can see how it speaks to you. Not only your antisemitism, but your identity/victim politics, where being (identity... and its necessity to other) and authenticity are prioritized. See, you're only drawn to Heidegger because of your politics.
RE: On what is NOT Thinking - Magical Realist - Jul 6, 2025
LOL Only a monomaniacal political ideologue would even want to reduce Heidegger and his philosophy to some sort of leftist antisemitism. You really have no capacity to understand anything except thru your political conspiracy theory filters do you? The whole world and of recent history neatly divided up into the sheep and the goats. Go back to wanking off to Trump videos. You are clearly out of your depth here.
RE: On what is NOT Thinking - Syne - Jul 6, 2025
See, instead of engaging, in any intellectually honest way at all, you just want to pile on the ad homs. That's how much of a chickenshit ideologue you are.
Not sheep and goats, rabbits and wolves. Try learning something other than antisemites you can idolize.