@imfreakinman,
Okay. I've rested and thought a little and will try again. This is mainly in answer to
Prothero,
Jeepres and
Twirlip's questions back on page 2 & 3 & 4, but it might be useful for anyone trying to get a grip on what I am terribly trying to say.
Okay, if I go back to my introductory philosophy books, one type of definition of truth which often crops up is some kind of correspondence theory. That is, between understanding and the states of affairs, that some notion of truth relies upon the correctness of my claims about things. This perspective more often gives rise to a whole set of subject object-predicate claims.
If I now turn to my chapter on Kant, I am informed that he asked himself, '
How do things come to be present to us as objects of experience in the first place? (from which empirical truth and false claims can be derived)'
He argued, or so imagine, that there is more than likely
a priori conditions in which objects come to be presented to us,
a priori conditions located in the essential structure of our being (whether these are genetically derived I have no idea).
And I guess this is what he meant by
transcendental truth. It is these structures (these 'truths' using Kantian terminology) which precede and makes possible any claim about objects of our experience.
Following on from Kant, phenomonologists such as Husserl and Heidegger, asked themselves, '
How do these objects of experience present themselves as something to us? Not just as mere objects of experience, but as objects with meaning, with intelligibility, as some-thing?'
From my understanding, Heidegger argued that all subject-object, predicated, propositional truths presuppose: a) the manifestation of entities as objects of consciousness (the Kantian thesis) and, b) that a) presupposes some context or background of meaning, of intelligibility in which these entities of experience come to be some-thing significant for us.
So, offering an example from Dreyfus. My study room is a world. It has
res extensia things within it. My table, my books, my bookcases, pens, paper, computer, four walls, a ceiling, floor, bay windows, ashtrays, coffee cups, and so on.
I assume that I can point out these entities to you and together we can make some claims about them. Regardless of the level of our theoretical enquiry, we can make some kind of propositional truths or falsities about the things in my room.
But we can only do this on the background of these things being present to us as objects in the first place. There must be some kind of brain thing going on to experience these objects as objects of consciousness and experience from which we can then make our claims, rightly or wrongly, about them. This is the Kantian thesis alluded to above.
Now, Heidegger argues that these things are not just present to us as mere objects of consciousness to which we then ascribe our meanings after the fact of their existence, but are already some-thing for us, they are already at hand, they have a context, meaning, intelligibility. They just wouldn't be there in the first place unless there were other things in existence. For example, I may be able to describe my pen with x properties, but then I've missed what it is to be a pen. It wouldn't be a pen if there weren't paper, literacy skills, certain goals, practices, and a whole load of other factors in existence to make my pen intelligible.
The 'problem' with everyday philosophy, according to Heidegger, is that it is overtly prejudiced to mere propositional truths and overlooks the more fundamental condition in which many things, the totality of equipment and tools and gadgets, for example, can come to be some-thing with significance in the first place.
Theoretical cognition overlooks the fact that an entity of experience, such as my pen, paper, computer, book, cannot necessarily be isolated and prior to or separable from other entities of experience from which we have isolated or dettached it.
We cannot construct a meaningful world only on the bases of subject-predicate propositions. Indeed, we are, before all our propositional truths, already in the world, coping, using, rejecting, concerning, getting about. We can certainly do mental and theoretical stuff, but only later, before that, we are already involved in a physical, practical, intelligible grasping or understanding of our world.
In this holistic sense of intelligibility, then, little, if anything, could be comprehended and understood if merely presented as some isolated entity without already presupposing ourselves in the world, related and relating to our activities, our up bringing, codes, systems, practices, society, culture, interpretation, and values, all of which cannot be broken into independent, self-sufficient properties.
That this kind of intelligibility is then understood as determined by any singular being, such as a God, misunderstands, for me, what human intelligibility is all about. We are always-already in the hermanautic circle, the circle of discourse, society, culture and interpretation. We, and everything we deal with, is already interpreted by our culture, upbringing, society and ourselves and we can only do or think anything from inside this, we cannot step out. Even if there were a god, what could we possibly say or know about it other than being a mere relfection of our own, all too human hermanautic interpretation of intelligibility?
Does any of this make sense? The question, then, of atheism or theism, I think chronically misunderstands what we are as human beings. We can never step out from ourselves, so much so that all talk about the existence of or not of god, generally comes across as mere talk for talk, confessions, prejudices or assertions of deep desires of the heart.
