Metaphysics as the Branch of Philosophy - Essay Example

?Comprehension Exercise What is metaphysics?' M. Heidegger: Pathmark (Cambridge Uni. Press, 1998) translated by David Farrell Krell. Pages 82-96               Broadly speaking, “Metaphysics is the branch of philosophy responsible for the study of existence. It is the foundation of a worldview. It answers the question ‘What is?’ It encompasses everything that exists as well as the nature of existence itself. It says whether the world is real, or merely an illusion. It is a fundamental view of the world around us.” (Landauer & Rowlands 2001) The term metaphysics is a complex word. M. Heidegger in his books, “Pathmark” attempts to answer the question as to what metaphysics is all about. In his section of the book, “What is metaphysics?” Heidegger claims that the questions about metaphysics lead us to a general discussion about metaphysics. To really understand the term metaphysics Heidegger argues that we need to be transported directly into metaphysics. In the first part of unfolding a metaphysical question, Heidegger addresses the question of metaphysical as the metaphysical questions always comprehend the problem of the metaphysical. He also claims that human existence is purely determined by sciences as metaphysical questions can only be posed in terms of the whole and from the essential question of existence. According to Heidegger, the main error attached with the connection of the questions of being halt what he terms as metaphysical thinking. This way of metaphysical thinking, stem from the long history of philosophy. Heidegger argues that “Being” should be enquired through “nothing” which is equivalent to “being” and not through the history of western philosophy. He also claims that if “science is right, then only one thing is sure: science wishes to know nothing of the nothing” (Heidegger 1929).          Examining the question of nothing leads us to a stand where an answer becomes possible or the impossibility of an answer become clear (Heidegger). So from his point of view we need to approach this question as something usual. But, it is also necessary to distinguish between interrogation and nothing, by asking what and how nothing is and what exactly interrogation is. This way, it becomes impossible to come to a conclusion as the question deprives itself from the main object. It therefore comes to the standpoint that every question is impossible to start from. Heidegger claims that dread reveals nothing. We cannot perceive, or even imagine nothing. So, in dread we are forced to face with nothing. Therefore, what we call “feeling” is not our thinking nor our willing behavior, but something that we have to put up with. He also questions if attunement can occur in human existence. He further claims that attunement can and does occur in human existence through the fundamental mood of anxiety. But, he does not associate anxiety with the common anxiousness as anxiety is quite different from fear. Anxiety reveals the nothing in man as man can demonstrate when anxiety has disappeared. According to Heidegger, the fundamental mood of anxiety has revealed that human existence in nothing is revealed from which it must be interrogated. So, according to Heidegger the existence of human beings can relate to human beings only by holding itself out into the nothing.   2. R. Otto: The idea of the Holy (Oxford Uni. Press, 1958)             R. Otto, “The idea of the Holy” was first published in 1917, where Otto coined the famous term numinous, to point out the non rational characteristics of the religious experience. The book was translated in English in 1923, and it has established itself as a unique and classic book in the field of religious philosophy. The book gives an insight into the non- rational factors of the religious people and its relation to the rational way of thinking and looking at the non- rational elements in religion. The fascination, the bliss, the inspirations and the awe of the religious experience are examined in this book. R. Otto argued that religion provides human beings with the understanding of the world in contrast to the belief and beyond the explanation of science. The book thoroughly examines the relationships between numinous experience and religious experience.             In his books Otto argues that the idea of non- rational in religion must be respected but at the same he introduces his notion of numinous. He claims that it is a different type of experience but it cannot be given a literal description. To really understand the experience, it needs to be approach through analogy. The law of association of analogous feelings needs to be discovered by a man to understand the qualitative features of numinous experience. In the book, Otto makes a number of controversial claims about the numinous experience. He emphasized that unlike other types of experiences, and it needs to be approached through analogy. He characterizes the numinous as the holy (God) but also claims that it is neither moral nor rational. The experience of the core of religion cannot be described in terms of other experiences. Otto described the numinous as the knowledge of the divine. It transcends the rational understanding to be confronted with the experience of “wholly other”. To have the real experience is to know about the nothingness.             Otto also explores the notion of creature- feeling. He claims that people who experience numinous experiences go through the feeling of dependency on something objective as well as external which is larger them themselves. “The deepest and most fundamental element in all strong and sincerely felt religious emotion.' It is to be found: 'in strong, sudden ebullitions of personal piety ... in the fixed and ordered solemnities of rites and liturgies, and again in the atmosphere that clings to old religious monuments and buildings, to temples and to churches” (Otto n.d.). He also supports his claim by referring many of the analogies and religious feelings. He stated that numinous experience is more familiar than people know, as the experience is similar to the experience that one respects, but at the same time dissimilar for other people.             Otto also claims that religious experience is just a primary feeling. He claims that, “Let us give a little further consideration to the first crude, primitive forms in which this 'numinous dread' or awe shows itself. It is the mark which really characterizes the so-called 'religion of primitive man', and there it appears as 'daemonic dread'. This is crudely naive and primordial emotional disturbance” (Everson 1988, p.38). Otto draws this argument as the emergence of particular people sensitive to the numinous and their fellows.   3. S. Freud: 'The Uncanny': Art and Literature (Penguin, 1985) Sigmund Freud published his psychological essay on the “Uncanny” in 1919 (Beck 2005). In this book, Freud explores about the etymological foundation of “uncanny” which comes from the German word “unheimlich”. The concept of uncanny illustrates the experiences that person feels like chills or goose bumps as a reaction to something that is strange or extraordinary. These feelings affected the sense of uncanny. Sigmund Freud’s thesis revolves around two different causes for this type of reaction. He attributes the feeling of nervousness, fear and anxiety to the field of aesthetic experiences. He found out this feeling of uncanny through numerous interviews with clients. He also claims that the uncanny feelings are reflected differently in different people.          Sigmund Freud claims that people experience the uncanny feelings in the highest degree when related to death people or dead bodies. Here, two things are related to the account for conservatism which is the strength of the original emotions related to the reaction of death and the absence of scientific knowledge about the experience. This uncanny is also reflected in literature, stories as well as imaginative production. “The contrast between what has been repressed and what has been surmounted cannot be transposed on to the uncanny in fiction without profound modification for the realm of fantasy depends for its effect on the fact that its content is not submitted to reality-testing” (Freud n.d.). Freud also stresses on the uncertainty of events. This event relied on the events that the narrator uses to relate to the readers.  He questions if these events are real or imaginary, as for uncanny fiction, the ambivalence becomes decisive. The main source of the uncanny according to Freud is related to the idea of being robbed of a person’s eye.             In the last chapter Freud examines the effect of the “uncanny” which can be the outside conditions that constituted the uncanny. By giving examples of the effects produced by figures, places as well as narratives from literature and fairy tales, he gives brief distinctions between the uncanny which is from one’s own experiences and the uncanny which one reads about in literature as well as stories. He stated that, “the variety that derives from repressed complexes is more resistant: with one exception, it remains as 'uncanny' in literature as it is in real life. The other species of the 'uncanny', deriving from superannuated modes of thought, retains its character in real-life experience and in writings that are grounded in material reality, but it may be lost where the setting is a fictive reality invented by the writer" (Freud n.d.). Reference List Beck, N 2005. Discuss the “uncanny” in Relation to Surrealism. Grin Verlag. [Online] Available at < http://www.grin.com/en/e-book/39643/discussing-the-uncanny-from-sigmund-freud-s-essay-uncanny-in-relation> [Accessed on 18 January, 2012]. Everson, W 1988. The Excesses of God: Robinson Jeffers as a Religious Figure. Board of Trustees of the Leland Stanford Junior University. Available at < http://evans-experientialism.freewebspace.com/heidegger5a.htm> [Accessed on 18 January, 2012] Freud, S n.d. The Uncanny. San Diego State University. [Online] Available at [Accessed on 18 January, 2012]. Heidegger, M 1929. What is Metaphysics? Athenaeum Library of Philosophy. [Online] Available at < http://evans-experientialism.freewebspace.com/heidegger5a.htm> [Accessed on 18 January, 2012]. Landauer, J & Rowlands, J 2001. Metaphysics. Importance of Philosophy. [Online] Available at < http://www.importanceofphilosophy.com/Metaphysics_Main.html > [Accessed on 18 January, 2012]. Otto, R n.d. Rudolf Otto’s The Idea of the Holy 1: Summary. Bytrent.Demon.Co.UK. [Online] Available at [Accessed on 17 January, 2012]. Read More