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May 10, 2004
Trevor,
as you can see, my interpretation of Being and Time is a very pragmatic one. Though the stated intention of the text is to understand the meaning of being in general (a fundamental ontology), I interpret the text as v being concerned with an analysis of human existence.
As we have seen this analysis starts from just the way things are done within a given social setting and are not more than embodied skills, habits and tacit knowledge. Hence we have the idea of 'average everydayness'. The conception of everydayness as an implicit way to be that is embodied in background practices is pretty much what I hang onto.
'Everydayness for Heidegger is not the same thing as primitiveness'. Heidegger says that there is precisely nothing to be gained by turning to primitive cultures when investigating the question of the meaning of being.
I appreciate that Being is a central category in this text and that it is the Being of beings; ie., it is that which makes beings be. I appreciate that there is a transcendentalism at work here around Being, and that it is the site of where a key problem exists in the conception of Being. However, I'm not much bothered by it as I am more interested in everydayness.
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What is meant by the word primitive? Indeed, to label a society as primitive has both ontic and ontological significance. On the one hand, it seems that a primitive society is one that is lacking certain technology that we today possess. On the other hand, a society may be judged as primitive, at least in philosophical terms if not generally speaking, if in it members of this society have not experienced the disenchantment of the world that has accompanied the modern age. This is an important distinction - in one sense, the Germany of Heidegger's age was distinctly modern, on the other hand, perhaps it was returning to a more primitive, primordial state.
The reason that I believe Heidegger does not believe there is value in studying primitive cultures is because, historically, mankind has always struggled with this duality of techne and poesis, ontic and ontological. The same phenomena that occured in Ancient Rome can still be observed today. However, I do believe that there is value in studying cultures that possess a primitive ontological worldview, as denoted above. By primitive ontological worldview, I mean only a worldview that remains enchanted with the world, judged as primitive by modern society.