Over in the rather interesting "Why Should We Believe We're Morally Responsible?" thread at Garden of Forking Paths I noticed something rather intriguing. Both Blake and Mark Smeltzer used the phrase "mere event." Now I recognize that this is basically tied to an intuitive put-down of event as having nothing sufficiently special about it. But I couldn't help but think of Ereignis or Heidegger's use of Event.
Now of course the Event for Heidegger is tied to phenomenology. It is the coming before ones awareness. At least in its initial form. Since Dasein is the attempt to move away from a focus on consciousness as ushered in by Descartes we have to be careful. The important point is that Heidegger distinguishes natural events, what he calls Vorgang and Vorkommnis, from Ereignis. The distinction can be seen as present-at-hand events versus things that "happen to me." The idea being (even in the late Heidegger) that Dasein is brought forth in this Event. The point is that Dasein is made the place where Being can be manifest. This obviously isn't just consciousness (the error that Sartre made).
Yet when I look at the free will debate, I wonder if the problem is that free will and responsibility are analyzed purely in a present-at-hand fashion. That is, is the error of the discourse over free will the error of trying to think in terms of consciousness.
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Blogged by Clark Goble