Continental Philosophy of Mind

The Genesis of Existentials in Animal Life. Heidegger's appropriation of Aristotle's Ontology of Life

by Christiane Bailey

Paper presented at The Heidegger Circle 2011 (Milwaukee, Wisconsin)

ABSTRACT: Although Aristotle’s influence on young Heidegger’s thought has been studied at length, such studies have... more ABSTRACT: Although Aristotle’s influence on young Heidegger’s thought has been studied at length, such studies have almost exclusively focused on his interpretation of Aristotle's ethics, physics and metaphysics. I will rather address Heidegger's appropriation of Aristotle's ontology of life. Focusing on recently published or recently translated courses of the mid 20’s (mainly SS 1924, WS 1925-26 and SS 1926), I hope to uncover an important aspect of young Heidegger's thought left unconsidered: namely, that Dasein's existential structures – Befindlichkeit, Understanding and being-with-one-another through language – arose from his close reading of Aristotle’s ontology of life, of animal life.

RESUME : Les travaux du jeune Heidegger montrent que, s’il affirme dans Être et temps que les animaux ne sont ni chose, ni Dasein, mais participent d’un énigmatique mode d’être propre – le « simplement vivant », ce qui ne fait « rien de plus que vivre » – cela constitue un revirement dans sa pensée. Dans les travaux qui préparent la rédaction de Sein und Zeit (1924-1926), l'animal avait toujours été considéré comme un être qui a un monde, comme un être auquel nous devons reconnaître le mode d'être du Dasein. Nous présentons comment les structures fondamentales de l'être-au-monde ont été élaborées sur la base des capacités propres à la vie animale que sont l’affection (pathos), la perception (aisthēsis), la discrimination (krinein), la mobilité (kinesis kata topon) et le désir (orexis).

Animal Subjectivity and the Nervous System in Hegel's Philosophy of Nature

by Sebastian Rand

Published in Portuguese, English version available here

Learning of pains; Wittgenstein's own Cartesian Mistake at Investigations 246

by David Robjant

forthcoming in the 2012 Wittgenstein Studien (Jahrbuch)

I refute the support offered for the remark at Philosophical Investigations 246: “It can’t be said of me at all... more I refute the support offered for the remark at Philosophical Investigations 246: “It can’t be said of me at all (except perhaps as a joke) that I know I am in pain.” I identify two kinds of support for this claim, the one arguing that I cannot learn of my own pains and the second arguing that I cannot be persuaded by evidence that I am in pain. Against the first sort of support I offer various cases in which I learn of a pain. I argue that one learns about the world and about ones body simultaneously, and that this includes learning of sensations. Against the second sort of support I develop the case in which I am persuaded by compelling evidence that I am, contrary to what I imagined, still in an emotional pain about N. I argue that in this case I make a mistake about my pain. P.M.S. Hacker claims that a mix of sensation and emotion such as might be found in my second case would make it irrelevant as a criticism of Wittgenstein. I argue that the reverse holds. That ‘sensation’ is quite separate from ‘emotion’ is a Cartesian Mistake which is, I argue, implicit in Wittgenstein’s discussion of ‘I know I am in pain’.