doing philosophy as close reading

---

This is a very close reading of a Heideggerian scholar’s essay on why he regards Heidegger as “mystical,” which is invalid (in my view), but admirably discussed by him. (The author, Richard Capobianco, is an acquaintance.)

My reading may seem tedious at times, but his essay is available by link (and PDF download) at the top of my discussion, for following along.

---

summer 2025

---

I’m pleased that I’ve reached the point I’ve long anticipated where posting becomes more frequent. But I don’t log how active I am online, including comments at Washington Post articles (e.g., Ukraine war), comments at the Facebook/Heidegger Forum and posting there which is sometimes copied to my Facebook/Heidegger page (e.g., “Truth as such is not yet truth of being”); and posting to X (e.g., more on the Ukraine aggression)

Coming soon is a link to discussing a differential scale of being “human,” a pragmatic holism, from inner psychality to political life. That was mentioned a year ago (exactly) at “path marking”: “I understand person-al being as a continuum: psychal, [inter]personal, cultural, conceptual, social, and democratically political. (In my notes, I abbreviate that as the PpcCsd continuum.)“

person-al being

---

Today offers a set of sprouts (brief topics) about ways of which We are “human” and beyond, following July’s first sprout: short “personity.”

My discussion may seem technical, or even tedious, instead of engaging. Sorry. It provides a sense of being which is beyond mystifications by scholars who secretly wish to do theology in a new key: exalted “Being” as some great mystery beyond us.

No. Science, humaniies, and conceptual arts are sufficient windows into Our evolving.

---

a note on thinking

---

You, too, can be modeled as an A.I. neo-animal

When Heidegger gave his lecture course on thinking in the mid-‘50s, he was far beyond Analytical philosophy's implicit anticipation of A.I.

This discussion offers a short philosophical appreciation of Heidegger’s analysis of existence as prescient philosophy of action. It would probably only interest an elderly academic philosopher.

---

sunday school

---

A scholar of philosophy, passing his 65th birthday, muses at an online forum about his recent hopes for that forum, his future plans, and expresses a sense of aging: “It is both funny and a bit scary that you are now older than most people you meet.”

When younger, I always expected to find new perspectives (on a given topic) beyond mine, enlightening and inspiring me, because others had been on that important road longer. I’m no leading light in the cosmos.