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Fighting Nihilism: the Parts of Our Experiences That Are Constitutive of the Ping” Is Another Technical Term for Dreyfus, and It Desig- Experiences Themselves

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Fighting Nihilism: the Parts of Our Experiences That Are Constitutive of the Ping” Is Another Technical Term for Dreyfus, and It Desig- Experiences Themselves ARTIKKEL SAMTALE & KRITIKK SPALTER BREV making us aware of the aspects of our experiences of is exactly our nature as skilful copers is something that is the world without us being aware of them as such, i.e. always in the background of his discussions. “Skilful co- FIGHTING NIHILISM: the parts of our experiences that are constitutive of the ping” is another technical term for Dreyfus, and it desig- experiences themselves. For instance, when asked how nates the way in which we humans are absorbed in and A REVIEW OF we see the table in front of us, most of us will pause by our activities in virtue of our skilful, engaged rapport for a moment before we begin to describe its colour, with artefacts and other humans in our surroundings. In BACKGROUND PRACTICES shape, etc. This is what Bertrand Russell famously the mode of skilful coping, the distinction between subject does when discussing epistemological concerns in his and object disappears, and all that is left is the ongoing Problems of Philosophy (1912). Describing the table in flow of the activity. The idea is that when the flow is dis- Review of this way is all well and good for some purposes, but to rupted, we enter the contemplative mode, and then the Background Practices: Essays on the Understanding of Being the phenomenologist, this is not how the table is first condition of the possibility of viewing ourselves as subjects Hubert Dreyfus (Mark Wrathall, ed.) encountered. The table is not first perceived as a set that stand against unfamiliar objects, is established. Skilful (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2017) of qualities that are then taken to be of a table, rather, coping is not just an interesting description of human psy- By Dag August Schmedling Dramer the table is first encountered as something on which to chology – of how we act and perceive in our daily lives – it place your books, something with which to sit down is also a way for Dreyfus to establish the fact that we first by, lean against etc. It is hardly perceived as an object and foremost are practical animals, living out our lives with ackground Practices is the second installment of to me,” Dreyfus explains, “that the text of a thinker at all, but, to borrow from the ecological psychologist a background understanding (that is often unarticulated), Hubert Dreyfus’ collected papers, papers he has writ- is only worth studying if reading it makes a signifi- B J. J. Gibson, as something that affords certain actions which our coping, skills and activities make sensible for ten during his extensive career as an academic philosopher, cant difference in how we see the world and ours- and not others. Only later, in an abstract description, us. “Skilful coping” is thus another fundamental concept a career that has spanned almost 50 years. Unfortunately, elves. Our job as commentators is to clarify the text do the qualities of the underlying object emerge. Dreyfus in earlier works has used to criticize intellectua- the volume was published after the philosopher passed and bring out its relevance” (Chapter 2). (2017:1) At least, that is what one influential strand of thin- lism in the cognitive sciences, but also, more broadly, in away the 22th of April 2017, age 87, so he did not get a king that stems from Heidegger presents. The existen- philosophy. chance to witness the final result. The editor of the volu- For brevity’s (and intellectual integrity’s) sake, I tial thinker will then do for culture and understanding, The first essay collection, to which Background Practices me, Mark Wrathall, who has been a student and colleague will limit myself to a general discussion of just some what the phenomenologist does for perception. The figure as the second volume, Skillful Coping: Essays on the of Dreyfus, would certainly have included an additional of the thirteen papers in the volume, as discussion of cultural and hermeneutical can be said, then, to re- Phenomenology of Everyday Perception and Action, con- homage in the introduction if Dreyfus’ passing had hap- them all would be beyond the scope of this review. The trieve the background understanding implicit in our tains papers such as “The Primacy of Phenomenology pened earlier, but as of now, it stands: “The essays in this book consists of thirteen papers that in the volume practices and activities and make us aware of the con- over Logical Analysis” and “Overcoming the Myth of the volume exemplify a distinctive feature of Hubert Dreyfus’ function as chapters. And the book as a whole is in stitutive elements of our understanding that are taken Mental”. The first volume can be seen as the groundwork philosophy, namely the way his work inextricably intert- turn separated into four parts. Each part has its over- to be always already there. that sets forth an understanding of human being-in-the- wines the interpretation of texts with his own analysis and arching theme, in which the papers of each part have “Background practices” is a technical term for world, and prepares for the more existential discussions in description of the phenomena at issue.” common elements. Dreyfus and he mentions the concept in several of his Background Practices. In the first volume, Dreyfus estab- Timeless as Dreyfus’ phenomenologically inspired phi- But why is this volume titled Background Practices? papers. Wrathall’s discussion and clarification of the lishes the mind as directly and necessarily in contact with losophy is, it is also very much in time, as he adopts Martin It sounds like something out of sociology or anthro- term in his introduction proves highly useful, even the world, a world that is subtended by what is then un- Heidegger’s historistical way of thinking about, and doing, pology. Background practices, it turns out, are of essential, especially if you are new to phenomenology derstood as the background practices that return in the philosophy. As Wrathall presents it in the introduction: ontological import as Dreyfus recognizes “that an un- and existentialism. Wrathall begins with a more gene- second volume. derstanding of being is embodied in the ‘background ral account of practices and distinguishes them from Part I. of Background Practices takes up questions re- practices’ of a culture” (2017:5). The full title makes it Dreyfus seems as committed as Heidegger to the skills: lated to authenticity and everydayness, and consists of clear: Essays on the Understanding of Being, where be- thought that “one cannot think without thinking his- three papers within which Dreyfus presents his familiar torically.” Thus Dreyfus always philosophizes in a kind ing is to be contained in the practices of a culture, i.e. [s]kills, one might say, enable us to participate in Heideggerian exegesis of “everyday intelligibility” based of dialogue with thinkers in the history of philosophy. in the background. This suggests that the practices are a practice fluidly. But a practice is not reducible on skilful coping. In chapter 2 of part I, for instance, (2017:1) often overlooked and ignored and that it is the job of to a skill. It is rather the standing condition of the Dreyfus discusses intelligibility, which, fundamentally the phenomenologist to uncover the meaning of be- possibility of acting skillfully in a domain. To be speaking, is an immediate and shared form of intelligibi- Now Dreyfus’ philosophy is timeless, but also timely, as ing, already implicitly endorsed in the very practices a more precise, a practice is a complex structure that lity that belongs to a culture, and Dreyfus asks himself Dreyfus was never parochial, but a philosopher highly in- given culture has. sustains action. (2017:4–5) the question if there can be anything that is more intel- Before I continue the discussion on the second terested in making the thinking of the past relevant to the ligible than this everyday form of understanding: Is there a contemplation of the present. volume however, some remarks about the discipline It is clear from this quote that for Dreyfus, practices deeper and perhaps more authentic level of understanding of phenomenology should be made, in order to bet- have the function of founding the various skills we have available to a human being, or to a culture as a whole? In For Dreyfus, as for Heidegger, it is more important to ter understand Dreyfus’ way of doing philosophy. as human beings. “Skills” are still very important to the chapter, Dreyfus presents a response to his critics on relate a text to “current concerns rather than freezing Phenomenology can be viewed as an enterprise that Dreyfus, and the fact that what it is to be a human whether his reading of division I of Being and Time was the text in the past” (Chapter 1). “It has always seemed encourages us to see what is hidden in plain sight; of 38 39 ARTIKKEL SAMTALE & KRITIKK SPALTER BREV reading too much into the more existential part II of the playing, soccer as a phenomenon is not reducible to. Now, coper, who must remain in the flow of coping by percep- In part III the “plural realism” Dreyfus introduced magnum opus. One of the things Dreyfus was known for the various practices a given culture displays (bartending, tually closing out (that is, not focus on) all that is irrele- in section two is further explored, as what it means for was to provide a careful reading of division I of Being and office-working, gardening, etc.) are, at least at times, rela- vant to the situation at hand. A fruitful way to talk about new worlds to emerge is discussed.
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