Tony-- Lets hope those deeply immersed in Heidegger will help out.
What you are describing sounds a lot like the Merleau-Ponty, Bateson, et al
blind man with the stick example. for those on the list
who have not seen this discussion, which reaches back about 25 years now,
google lchc for "blind man" "stick".
Wolf- Michael has been reading Heidegger over the summer and agrees that he
is relevant to CHAT discussions. David and Andy and
other may be able to help. Or, we can go offline for a couple of months,
catch swine flu, be quarantined, and read English translations
that will prove inadequate!
I am still left very uncertain about the mono-semic use of "consciousness"
in this discussion and it seems relevant. But that, too,
may be a misunderstanding. So much is and its so hard to distinguish from
disagreements[?]
mike-the-emoticom shortcutter.
On Tue, Aug 18, 2009 at 8:01 PM, Tony Whitson <twhitson@udel.edu> wrote:
To make another connection: Maybe we could correlate this with the
difference, in Dewey's terms, between being engaged instrumentally with
something (the tool) in our response to a problematic situation, versus our
engagement with that same thing (tool) when IT BECOMES the problematic
situation.
Also, it strikes me that there may be a problem with the terminology.
"zuhanden" is translated as "ready-to-hand"
"vorhanden" is translated as "present-at-hand"
I don't think the problem is in the translation, but in the original
terminology. Not wanting to presume to correct H on his own thinking, I
wonder if it would not be more apt to counterpose "Zuhandenheit" with
something that would translate more as "present-to-mind" or
"present-to-attention" or "present-to-consciousness" (while of course taking
care to avoid using "mind" in a Cartesian sense).
What do you think?