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Tom Trelogan
Forum Admin
1368 Posts |
 Posted - Apr 04 2010 : 2:23:36 PM
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| We are drawing near the end of our reading of The Question Concerning the Thing. I think, therefore, that the time has come to see what we think ourselves. So I put it to you: what does the thinghood of a thing consist, and what is its "source"? Could Kant and Heidegger be right in thinking that it takes something like transcendental reflection to discover that source? |
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Meik Loughran
Apprentice
21 Posts |
Posted - Apr 15 2010 : 6:54:45 PM
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Things to me seem to be the general concepts/entities that underlie our notions behind a Gegenstand. A stick randomly picked up off the street is verily a stick, but its not at anytime representative of the entirety of stickhood, although all sticks are capable of sticking. It's easy to point and say "thats a stick", but an entirely more complex task to explain the characteristics/attributes of stickhood/sticklyness. Furthermore I think language complicates matters. In German, as in English, the word stick has so many meanings and uses that to imagine stickhood solely by experiencing the spoken or written word alone would be impossible. And beyond that, it seems to me that the thinghood of a thing has more to do with its particular capacities, than physical attributions.
I do think they're write in thinking that it takes some kind of transcendental reflection to discover the source, although I think our language and modern culture makes it unnecessarily difficult. |
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Aaron Lindquist
Moderator
31 Posts |
Posted - Apr 20 2010 : 02:22:13 AM
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I've been thinking about questions such as this for the past couple weeks now. Why is it that most philosophers find it necessary to find knowledge that will not change? It is perfectly reasonable to try to find new ways of finding out about the thinghood of things. As Heidegger said, it is a question that needs to forever be asked and re-asked. The approach should also change over time. Kant tries his own approach of scientifically describing things, whereas Heidegger wants to bring the words out of their quiescence. To ask what the thinghood of a thing consists and what is its source could be answered from many different perspectives and with different approaches. This is a question that should not have a definite answer to it. If the question is one that is meant to be revisited through the future and constantly re-asked then how does that change the approach that we take to answering the question in the first place? Do we try to revisit older ways of trying to describe the thinghood of things or do we look at the words? Should we spend time with things to see if we can see past the physical appearance of a thing so that we may see the thinghood of that particular thing? I am not suggesting that we should accept that we cannot ever truly know and give up on the question, but rather want to ask how the question ought to be pursued and how should we respond to the question in a way that will allow for the question to be re-asked again and again.
Meik, when you talk about the capacities of a thing are you referring to the Aristotelian concept of a tool? A thing that we use. |
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So: Things are Things Thanks to...What?
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