A while back...actually, a long while back...I was at a seedy, biker hangout, go-go bar...and a guy from the audience shouted up to an especially sexy dancer on stage, "Hey, you're makin' my thing get stiff."
Everyone in the place laughed.
Think about that story.
Maybe the answer to your question can be divined from it.
Hey yeah! A stone is a thing. Between me and this other person there is also a thing, but that is not a stone. A tree is also a thing. But it is not stone. In "seven days" by Sting the thing that goes in 4/4 time over the 5/4 beat is magnificent.
So I maintain that "thing" is a word one applies in much the same way we utilize assignable midi ports. For whatever we may need it.
Einherjar
An item? A stone is an item? What does that mean?
Perhaps you mean a stone is a thing. But that is exactly the question: what makes a stone being a thing?
And there is another question.
When you say that a stone is an item composed of minerals, you are not talking about the stone in the road. You are talking about an ideal stone, able to be integrated in a larger item - mineral.
What you do with that is to forget the stone in the road, the real stone.
Your position is exactly the one that started with Plato. In his Dialogues he does that everytime, refusing the concrete thing to create an abstract concept. And then begins the process of classification.
One of the problems that Heidegger's question raised was exactly that phylosophical tradition.
A stone in the road is within our experience. The stone appears to us. We have to deal with it. As a weapon, an obstacle and so on.
A stone as an item is not a stone. It is a concept. Plato, at least saw the problem: that is why he created the theory of Forms, an attempt to reach another level of reality.
I think he failed.
But the problem remains: I can say "the stone is black, is heavy, is round, I used it to scare the dog, I stumbled in it". Here we are talking about the stone of our experience.
So, I would say: a thing is all that interacts with us in our experience and within the conditions of that experience.
Frank-
It must have been an extremely seedy biker hangout if they laughed at that.
spendius.
val wrote:Einherjar
An item? A stone is an item? What does that mean?
Perhaps you mean a stone is a thing. But that is exactly the question: what makes a stone being a thing?
You not I brought up the stone as an example of a thing. I maintain that a thing is an unspecified subject.
Quote:And there is another question.
When you say that a stone is an item composed of minerals, you are not talking about the stone in the road. You are talking about an ideal stone, able to be integrated in a larger item - mineral.
Could you put that in english please?
Mineral is a material, or rather a group of materials. A stone is an item composed of such materials.
Quote:What you do with that is to forget the stone in the road, the real stone.
Your position is exactly the one that started with Plato. In his Dialogues he does that everytime, refusing the concrete thing to create an abstract concept. And then begins the process of classification.
One of the problems that Heidegger's question raised was exactly that phylosophical tradition.
A stone in the road is within our experience. The stone appears to us. We have to deal with it. As a weapon, an obstacle and so on.
A stone as an item is not a stone. It is a concept. Plato, at least saw the problem: that is why he created the theory of Forms, an attempt to reach another level of reality.
I think he failed.
I'm sorry, but "the stone in the road"
is composed of minerals, and as such fit my definition of a stone.
Quote:But the problem remains: I can say "the stone is black, is heavy, is round, I used it to scare the dog, I stumbled in it". Here we are talking about the stone of our experience.
So, I would say: a thing is all that interacts with us in our experience and within the conditions of that experience.
"There was nothing he could do about it." How does your definition of thing fit with that sentence? I'm sticking with my definition, a thing is na unspecified subject.
A "thing" is an identification of something that exists/existed/or will exist.
"Classes" is a multi-termed title, Val ?
Adder's fork,and blind-worm's sting,
Lizard's leg,and howlet,s wing,--
Like a hell-broth boil and bubble,
This finger thing's the real thing.
With apologies.
spendius.
Apologies accepted Spendius.
Life is just one damned thing
after another.
Einherjar
The stone you find in the road is the only real stone. It is the stone within your field of experience. An obstacle, a weapon etc.
When you say that a stone is an item composed of minerals you are defining "stone" as "the stone", an abstract concept.
When a massai in Quenia or Tanzania, throws a stone to a lion he is not thinking of minerals. He is using a stone, and that use makes the stone a thing.
What I mean is that your definition of a stone is nothing more - or less - that a concept about a concept.
I hope that, this time, I was able to put "it in english" as you asked.
*
Now, let's forget the stone. Einherjar, I wish you a very nice Christmas, and to all members of this site.
val wrote:Einherjar
The stone you find in the road is the only real stone. It is the stone within your field of experience. An obstacle, a weapon etc.
When you say that a stone is an item composed of minerals you are defining "stone" as "the stone", an abstract concept.
Not at all, I am defining it as a stone, the stone would not be abstract.
Quote:When a massai in Quenia or Tanzania, throws a stone to a lion he is not thinking of minerals. He is using a stone, and that use makes the stone a thing.
I'd say the stone was a thing long before he interacted with it. So what are you realy asking here, What is the concretisation of an abstract? You're looking for an abstract definition of that which is not abstract?
Quote:What I mean is that your definition of a stone is nothing more - or less - that a concept about a concept.
I hope that, this time, I was able to put "it in english" as you asked.
*
Now, let's forget the stone. Einherjar, I wish you a very nice Christmas, and to all members of this site.
Merry christmas to you to.
You are asking for a definition, are you asking me to come up with a definition that is not a concept? Because if you are, I'm giving up as a definition per definition is a concept.
I can see what you are doing. It appears you have discovered that words can only be defined by other words, and that all definitions in language will turn out to be circular if pursued long enough.
"Thing" demonstrates this very clearly as it is impossible do define something without incorporating a word of the same "class" in the definition, and as most subjects are less inclusive than "thing", and would tend to limit the definition so that it would no longer encompass every imaginable manifestation of "thing". It would then not be an acceptable definition.
Quote:I wish you a very nice Christmas, and to all members of this site.
It's not Christmas yet in the west hem, but a very merry Christmas to everyone too.
Einherjar, excuse me, but saying that a stone is an item composed of minerals, is an abstraction. Because you are not refering to a specific stone but to all stones that existed, exist and will exist. In that sense I insist we are facing here a concept about concepts. "Stone" as abstract concept defined by several other concepts, themselves previously defined (mineral, composition).
The problem I was pointing is not the fact that you gave a definition of stone. The problem is that you think the stone in road - and that is the stone that interacts with you - is a particular item of a previous definition. That means that you think that stone has an "essence" (item composed of minerals) previous to the experience of the stone you find in the road. I am not saying you are wrong, because this topic is not about truth. Is about different perspectives of dealing with "things".
Your perspective is the one that started with Plato. You think a thing defining it's essence - or substance, in Aristotle. To you, the stone in the road can be heavy or not, can be black or green, used as an weapon, or an obstacle, but the stone has always the same essence (an item composed of minerals). To me, we never deal with such an ideal stone. We deal with stones that are heavy, black, green, round ... those are the stones of our experience. We deal with them is relations - indifference, use as tool, obstacle. The essence of a stone must be found in the stone of the road and in the person who deals with it- the stone would then be heavy, light, green, black, round ...
To speak with concepts of Aristotle, there is no substance without it's accidents. Accidents are part of the substance. Or, in other words, substance means already the accidents - because that is how we experience things.
[
Val,
I would be obliged if you would give Heideggar's own explanation/definition of "thing".
fresco
He doesn't give any definition. He only points different perspectives of the problem. Although I think quotations are very inappropriate in a forum like this one, I don't see any other mean to show you how Heidegger proceeds in his approach of the question.
So, I will translate (SORRY!) 3 abridged passages:
1) "With our question we go beyond not only the isolated stones or the types of stones, the isolated animals and the animal species. We even go beyond the domains of the inanimate, the animated or the utility and only want to know "what is a thing?" This kind of qestioning leads us to look for what makes a thing being a thing, not as stone or hood, but thing as thing." (p. 20).
2) "In our experience we only face singular things. Things are singular things. That means that the stone, the lizard, the sprout, the knife are, each one, in and for them. Besides, that means that the stone is this specific stone; the lizard is not the lizard in general but precisely this one. There is no thing in general, but only those singular things. Each thing is this thing and nothing else."
3) "So, we face what belongs to a thing, as a thing. It is a determination that sciences can't see. A botanic, in his study of a labiate, doesn't care about the singular plant, as this singular plant; it is only a specimen. Being "this one" is something that science doesn't care."
A stone is a stone. Even if there is no one observing it, the pattern of the stone is the stone, and that's what the "form" of the stone is.
Val,
Thanks for the above.
So accordinging to that, Heiddegar does not cite either "languaging" or some other type of interaction between observer and observed as the essence of "thingness" ?
... elliptical 