Heideggers Reading of Descartes Dualism Essay - 4357 Words

Heideggers Reading of Descartes Dualism ABSTRACT: The problem of traditional epistemology is the relation of subject to external world. The distinction between subject and object makes possible the distinction between the knower and what is known. Starting with Descartes, the subject is a thinking thing that is not extended, and the object is an extended thing which does not think. Heidegger rejects this distinction between subject and object by arguing that there is no subject distinct from the external world of things because Dasein is essentially Being-in-the-world. Heidegger challenges the Cartesian legacy in epistemology in two ways. First, there is the modern tendency toward subjectivism and individualism that started with†¦show more content†¦However, the cogitationes always belongs to the I, I judge, I represent, etc. Heidegger maintains that Descartes definition of res cogitans says to us that res cogitans is a res whose realities are representations. (2) The subject of cogito is beyond doubt if one asks what this subject is. Descartes cannot answer, because, if the subject is embodied in the world, the subject becomes a worldly thing in which mans doubts begin. Therefore, for Descartes, the subject is simply the I, soul, or the thinking substance which is what it is even without the body and the world. Another difficulty in the method of radical doubt is the object of thinking. What do I think? Descartes answers that I think my own thoughts. For him, I know my own cognitive images even if I may not know the worldly thing because I have the idea of the worldly thing in my cogito, and therefore cogito with its contents is beyond doubt. According to Descartes, res cogitans also means cogitat se cogitare. (3) The ego as subject has its predicates in a cognizing way; so I know about the predicates I have, i.e., I know myself. Heidegger thinks that Descartes understanding of subjectivity is connected with the hupokaimenon in which the subject is present or the extant. In ancient ontologies, being is understood as being-extant, lying present-there, and substance, which are corporeal things and mental