Sorry for the delay on my series on neoPlatonism. Life happens, as they say. While I want to return to the technical discussion of Being as understood by Heidegger, Peirce, Derrida and the neoPlatonists, let me first deal with what one might call the "superficial analysis." Please don't mistake these initial comments for a final position. One should, I think, consider inquiry both as a spiral towards the truth (a variation of the hermeneutic circle) as well as a zig-zag of errors (a variation of the recognition of thorough-going fallibilism) I found in science that often a model that one knows is wrong can be helpful as a sign to direct us towards the truth. Obviously the simple models of quantum mechanics one learns in high school and as a freshman are great examples. We all know they are wrong but they are great pedagogical tools - especially the idea of orbits of electrons around an atom. What I want to do is something similar. So don't take this as my final word. More an initial word that I'll then take away from.
First off let me point out a few resources for those interested in the topic. For a more technical discussion of Heidegger as a neoPlatonist without a doubt the best resource is Sonya Sikka's Forms of Transcendence. I've mentioned it a fair bit. But it really is an excellent book. The two main texts of Heidegger's that are relevant are Introduction to Metaphysics, his commentary of The Sophist, and then his various commentaries on Parmenades and Heraclitus. I don't have all these texts in my library (Heidegger's written corpus is just to large to purchase). But I also think that Richardson's From Phenomenology to Thought is amazingly useful. It is perhaps the seminal text on the Turn (Kehr) in Heidegger's thought and I must confess following it a lot in my thoughts. Certainly it dramatically affects how I view the ontological difference. I should note, however, that not all agree with Richardson's reading.
The first question ought be what do we mean by neoPlatonism. As I mentioned at the start of this series, neoPlatonism is a rather vague and nebulous category including quite a few distinct thinkers. Perhaps most of us, when we think of neoPlatonism, think of the chain of Being that is so characteristic of their thought. The chain of Being is a series of emanations and thus categories for existence. It starts at The One which is typically seen as pure Being. This brings forth the Nous or intelligible realm. This is transcendent, eternal and a kind of divine or universal mind. Then there is the Psyche typically discussed as Soul. This is dynamic and typically is the level of human consciousness. Then there is the sensible realm or the realm of matter. Each stage in the emanation is a stage of greater and greater diversity. Often, such as in Plotinus, there is an intermediate level between Nous and Psyche which is sometimes termed the upper soul (with soul proper being the lower soul).
Now the common understanding of Plato and middle Platonism as reifying ideas and making those the reality doesn't really apply to neoPlatonists. Indeed this is a common misunderstanding. The neoPlatonists and the middle Platonists disagreed strongly on this matter (keeping in mind that both movements were broad and not well defined). Given our normal sense of discussions about realism the neoPlatonists were not realists about the intellectual realm and thus ideas. They clearly were mental. Thus one could, in a certain way, call the neoPlatonists nominalists in this sense.
With Heidegger there is a simple and obvious route to take that parallels the above. This is the way of understanding and knowledge discussed in Being and Time. Heidegger reverses our way of understanding from the Cartesian model. Rather than knowing 'things' and then building up practices and experiences from the things, Heidegger reverses this. Instead we know entities as ready-at-hand. We act through them. When they don't work as they should, we recognize them secondarily as present-at-hand entities. Thus I primarily know a hammer through hammering. As I hammer I typically lose sight of the hammer. It is only when the flow of actions do not go as expected that I notice the hammer. Further I can only hammer in terms of what one might call a telos. These are called by Heidegger the in-order-to or the for-the-sake-of-which. So I hammer in order to drive a nail for the sake of putting up a wall. Further all these practices and goals are in terms of a totality of equipment and ends. That is Heidegger expresses a holism we must keep in mind.
All of this, it seems to me, offers a distinct, if perhaps superficial, parallel to the neoPlatonists. Consider:
The for-the-sake-of-which is the ultimate intelligible ideas. They are pure potential and never actuality. To use an example Herbert Dreyfus often gives, a teacher is a for-the-sake-of-which. I can offer all the definitions I want. But they never really capture what being a teacher is. I can say, for instance, that to be a teacher is to have a teaching certificate and a set of skills. But clearly we recognize that even licensed teachers are often not really teachers. Further people without those skills or certificates can be teachers. The teacher is always something more and less than what we think. Yet it also is what gives meaning to the practices a teacher does.
The ready-at-hand is a kind of intermediary stage between present-at-hand entities (the things) and for-the-sake-of-which. They form a kind of relational potential. Further Heidegger sees these practices as more fundamental in terms of meaning than the entities themselves. One could perhaps say, phenomenologically, that the ready-at-hand is the brute fact of a thing in its fundamental ontological relationship with me.
The present-at-hand are things considered in terms of things. Much like the neoPlatonists often warn against viewing the sensible world as fundamental, so does Heidegger, offering very compelling reasons why we understand the present-at-hand not in terms of a basic Cartesian sensibility and correspondence but in terms of the more ontologically fundamental ready-at-hand and for-the-sake-of-which.
More fundamental yet that any of these three is Being itself. Like the neoPlatonists, Heidegger seems willing to speak of Being in various modes but is not willing to speak of Being in terms of itself, except as perhaps an unthinkable limit. (I'll get to quotes supporting that later) Thus we can talk of Being in terms of a kind of ensemble totality of things. But to say that is to be rather misleading in certain ways. Plotinus is one of the first to use what we call negative theology. That is to talk about Being not as a thing but as something that can be spoken of only in terms of what it does/provides to other levels of emanation and in terms of what we can say it is not. In other words negativity of speech is an important aspect of talking of Being.
Now some will object to my mapping Nous, Upper Soul, and Lower Soul to For-the-sake-of-which, Ready-at-hand, and Present-at-hand. Over the next while as I continue to address the parallels (and non-paralllels) I'll continue to discuss this and hopefully make a more persuasive case.
Let me just say that I think we can see in Heidegger a kind of "emanation" (if only metaphoric) in which Being proper enables us to have For-the-sake-of-which that enable use to have ready-at-hand understandings which then enable us to see entities as the present-at-hand entities we take for granted.
Further these are all holistic relationships. I can't understand hammering alone. It makes sense only in a matrix of other such ready-at-hand relations. For instance hammering makes sense only in the matrix of equipment I use for building, the practices and the goals that make them up as a whole. Also, as in neoPlatonism, there are degrees of relationship. One for-the-sake-of-which might make sense only in terms of some more fundamental goal or aim which provides meaning for several other for-the-sake-of-which. So, for instance, I hammer in-order-to put up a wall which is its own for-the-sake-of-which that are themselves based upon others. (Say shelter, protection, and so forth) Those in turn are given meaning by more fundamental for-the-sake-of-which. Ideally in this procession we move further and further back to more simplicity and primitiveness.
Just to add.
Some might question why I didn't invoke Dasein as soul. I think this is important. But in a certain way the neoPlatonists are offering a near psychological examination of phenomenology. As such it offers many compelling parallels to Heidegger's ontological discussion that attempts to avoid the Cartesian model of phenomenology that Husserl fell prey to. Indeed in a way I think one could almost, as a metaphor, call Husserl a middle Platonist and Heidegger the neoPlatonist. Of course that "almost" is important.
Dasein as the place where phenomena appears is important. This question of place is significant both within Heidegger but even more prominently in Derrida. I will get to it, but I think that perhaps a more useful way of approaching that issue is through Leibniz and the monadology, which offers its own neoPlatonic parallels. Heidegger's deconstructive reading of Leibniz can thus give some insights into Dasein.
So let me just say that I think there are parallels to Dasein among the neoPlatonists as well as Heidegger's notion of authenticity and inauthenticity. But since the most characteristic feature of neoPlatonic thought is their analysis of The One, I prefer to turn to the Heidegger after the Turn where Being proper rather than Dasein becomes the primary focus.
One other quick parallel I didn't note. Present-at-hand things as opposed to ready-at-hand things are "seen" only when ready-at-hand things suffer a "lack." So I don't notice a nail as a present-at-hand entity until it stops functioning properly. Say it bends. This parallels in a certain sense the privation argument one often finds among neoPlatonists.
Now that you got to it, I'm headed out for a few days so I don't really have time to think about it. But when I return, I'll try to catch up with the rest of the class.
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