Instructions

Note: this assignment is for students in Groups I and II only.

Due Tuesday, Rocktober 18th

Please respond to the following question in two pages or less (double spaced). (Needless to say this should be your own original work.)

As I have explained the text, the first two moments of being-there (Dasein) end with the following conclusions. (1) The truth of Dasein as such is “something” — that is, a determinate being whose being is identical with some quality (§ 90). (2) The truth of limit is the “bad infinite” — that is, that any finite something is always altered (verändert) into something-else (Anderes), but this something-else is itself again something, and so on ad infinitum (§94).

The third moment is the “true infinite” (§95). Explain, first, how this third moment is the mediated unity of the first two: that is, of a being-there which is something stable and of a limit which the something always crosses to become something-else. Second, explain why both the bad and the true infinite are called “infinite”: in what sense do they each involve going beyond any and every finite (qualitatively limited) something? What is the difference between the “bad” way of going-beyond and the good, “true” way?