Being as Connection - A Short Note on Ontology

Emmaus, 2020

studied and graduated with a Doctorate in Social Communication specializing in Communication Theology at the Pontifical University of Salesianum in Rome-Italy. Some of his publications can be found on his website: charlesndhlovu.wordpress.com; he is also on Youtube (Fr. Charles Ndhlovu-Mkhalirachiuta). He is the founder and proprietor of Emmaus. In this paper, he has argued that communication about the Dasein is not only categorical but also transcendental. Heidegger's understanding of the Dasein is complicated but interesting. Heidegger believed in the existence of a being-in-the-world which reaches self-awareness by raising "the question of Being in a world of sensible objects." 1 This means that one comes to the awareness of being through questioning. This questioning and being, takes place in the world-in a world of sensibility and categorical experience. That is why, this being is the Being-in-the-situation (Geschehen) also referred to as being there (Dasein). It is simply an event or a happening that leads to being-out-of-the-situation (Geschichte) which is a project towards which human life is projected. Being-in-the-situation is essentially being out, which is ek-sistence into history. Some people like to link this understanding of being with Heidegger's "phenomenological ontology, which is evident in this concern with man's conscious pre-grasp of his spirit's Horizon, [that] also appears in the importance which Rahner places on the role of freedom in man's authentic grasp of himself, his world, and the world's Horizon." 2 Beingness is conceived of in the world of existence-it is conceived of in the existential situation-in the world of categorical experience. Beingness is ek-sistence because it takes place in history. That is why, the communication of Beingness cannot only be limited to Dasein that is being in the world or being out but also to phenomenological ontology. Blending the thoughts of Thomas Aquinas, Martin Heidegger and Maréchal, one would say that human beings are radically spatio-temporal-that is, situated in-the-World and therefore in-Time but essentially and existentially oriented towards Absolute Being as manifested in the ontological urge to question. This projection or movement towards Absolute Being and happiness is basically the Vorgriff. The Vorgriff, is that movement to and from the Dasein, to Absolute Mystery. A movement in which the human person, not only realises himself or herself, but also comes to himself and herself. This is the Vorgriff and any communication about the Vorgriff, takes into account the spatio-temporality of the human person. 1 McCOOL (Ed.), A Rahner reader, XVI. 2 McCOOL (Ed.), A Rahner reader, XIII-XIV.

The Routledge Companion to Phenomenology, 2010

2010

1.) The idea that networks of concepts oscillate and emulate agency, influencing the way humans think about the world in which they live and the way they create imaginary representations of those networks. This suggests that it is the networks and relationships between the concepts themselves that is determining our own mind and lives and not the other way around; if true, this is a massive blow to humanity’s emphasis on itself and suggests that our efforts to understand the world and ourselves have been rooted in barren soil. 2.) The idea that concepts and forces have physical representations and thus being physically extant in the same way that objects are. Concepts can inhabit the mind or even non-human things such as computers, but in either case make use of the same constituent part, electricity. This challenges the long established idea that the ontology of thought and of physical things is somehow meaningfully different since, as we have seen, the two make use of the same structural forces.

Beingness -nothing more and nothing less, 2020

This small paper will try to show a distilled and concise way to get to the root of Beingness.

2018

Continental philosophy review, 2024

No abstract.

Borderless Philosophy 5, 2022

Reflections and projections upon the history of ontology and its meaning for the future of philosophy.