On Mar 24, 2009, at 1:12 PM, [email protected] wrote:
I despise the effect Heidegger achieved by his use of profound- seeming, occult, opaque, and unexplained terminology. The line 'What exists must be needed' is, call it, bogus. ... but it seems silly and vacuous to say portentously, "If your cancer exists, it was needed."
Not if the needing is needed by the RNA/DNA of a cell that just has to grow bountifully. Your rebuttal example cleverly shifts the needing from whatever agent could generate a result (the tumorous growth) to the person ("you"). Not playing by the rules, Cheerskep.
One (moi, for instance) can construe "What exists must be needed" to embrace the notion that the result is "needed" by the cause, in the sense that whatever the cause sets into motion or causation completes the cause, i.e., it is "needed" in the sense that it is inevitable or inexorable, given the cause. Ask the tumor, not the person with the tumor.
| | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | Michael Brady [email protected]
