This time its this one for reals

In this release we find ourselves open to the mysteries of life, this grants us the possibility of dwelling in the world in a new way.[1]  The affirmative is viewed not as a concept to be affirmed, but rather as a statement with a multiplicity of meanings.  When we read the resolution in the light of the Gelassenheit we come see the web of meanings that the resolution contains.  Within this openness to non-static definitions we find the resolve to pause and think. 

       This thinking is not challenging forth a solution to a problem, but rather it is the active will-to-not-will.  The nature of this release can be described in terms of soil cultivation.  A subjectivist, ego driven individual seeks to force food from the ground, as it is only a resource to be used and controlled.  The released individual seeks to care for and cultivate the soil, to walk alongside with the earth in a constant dialogue, a dialogue that seeks only to be open to the being of beings.[2]  The resoluteness we find in Gelassenheit is the response to this situation, not a general situation.  The response is simply doing of the appropriate thing because it is appropriate, given your factual situation of being.[3]

       This is not a statement that we should not use the USFG, because that could be a way for us to act, but we should not be so quick to foreclose other avenues of action that are open to us.  This happens when the affirmative does not take this into account and rather prefers simply a mode of action rooted in some sort of state-centric pragmatics.  We do not need to see that something is the right thing to do nor do we need a concept of the good or correct.  All of this locks us into taking the same type of action for every situation that seems similar.  We prefer this in debate because it is what is maximally conceptual, thus allowing for a maximally competing conceptual position.  This type of knowing forces upon us a violent conception of the will that in the end necessitates violence.

       But this setting upon of conception is something that implies a “fixity” of being that does not exist, rather the world exists as a confluence of forces that reveal and conceal themselves at different times only if we choose to notice them.[4]  Our action does not need to understand the act, rather the act defines the situation.[5]  This is unsettling because when one is brought up with the rules one ignores the being of Da sein in favor the rules.[6]  Resoluteness does not give us rules or a life plan we simply are who we are.  Being resolute means we embrace this fact.  Da sein shows up as the background of our action it is something we can get past or justify it is something we just do.

       This denies the world of the subject, because the idea that the rational actor that knows the solution to the world’s ills is a concept in itself.  This is exactly what the aff calls for, a pragmatic action, represents a lack of resoluteness.  It is the inability to have the patience to sit in silence and listen.  The silence of conscience goes against a conceptualism that demands that we are able to see and know the world.  A resolute Da sein acts, because it is being the type of beings it is.  Our refusal to define our actions is essential, it does not arise out of obstinance, rather to define them would mean that we are reject a fidelity to being, in favor of a fealty to others.[7]  This means that we are always trapped within a guilt that keeps us from acting as we are. 

       The key is that we are called to face the anxiety that we cannot change our being nor can we act; we are a call acknowledge that we are not told to do anything by another force other than the self.[8]  We must not flee from the self but to remain true to the fact that there are no rules about the world we must listen to what we are being called to do.  The affirmative then is not a question, but a statement.  The answer to the resolution is not a yes or no, but rather a return to where we always already were.[9]  It is the retention of the problematic that causes the pause, the breath before the fall of the action.

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[1] Joseph Kockelman in 1985 (Professor of Philosophy at Penn State, HEIDEGGER AND SCIENCE, p. 254

[2] Michael Zimmerman in 1981 (Professor of Philosophy at Tulane, Eclipse of the Self, p. 245-248

[3] Hubert Dreyfus in 2008 (Professor of Philosophy at UC Berkeley, Philosophy 189 | Spring 2008 | “Guilt and Resoluteness” lecture)

[4] Gail Stenstad in 2006 ( Professor of Philosophy at East Tennessee University, “Thinking After Heidegger”)

[5] Martin Heidegger in 1996 (Being and Time, translated by Joan Stambaugh, p.276)

[6] Hubert Dreyfus in 2008 (Professor of Philosophy at UC Berkeley, Philosophy 189 | Spring 2008 | “Guilt and Resoluteness” lecture)

[7] Ibid

[8] Ibid

[9] Barbara Dalle Pezze in 2006 (PhD in Philosophy from the University of Hong Kong, “Heidegger on Gelassenheit”, Minerva, p. 94-122)