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Being and Time
One of the most important philosophical works of our time, a work that has had tremendous influence on philosophy, literature, and psychology, and has literally changed the intellectual map of the modern world.
589 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 1927
About the author
Martin Heidegger
859 books2,705 followersMartin Heidegger (1889-1976) was a German philosopher whose work is perhaps most readily associated with phenomenology and existentialism, although his thinking should be identified as part of such philosophical movements only with extreme care and qualification. His ideas have exerted a seminal influence on the development of contemporary European philosophy. They have also had an impact far beyond philosophy, for example in architectural theory (see e.g., Sharr 2007), literary criticism (see e.g., Ziarek 1989), theology (see e.g., Caputo 1993), psychotherapy (see e.g., Binswanger 1943/1964, Guignon 1993) and cognitive science (see e.g., Dreyfus 1992, 2008; Wheeler 2005; Kiverstein and Wheeler forthcoming).
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April 16, 2011
Is it unreadable? Yes. Were the 17 words I did understand enough to blow my mind and change my life and understanding of philosophy and being? Yep.
July 23, 2020
The most important philosophical work of the 20th century, and a text whose influence will still be felt for some centuries to come, I am willing to reckon. Even if you are one of the many detractors, the fact remains that it is simply an outstanding monument to man's ability to think deeply, freshly, terrifyingly, and poetically about himself.
Heidegger's main focus is on Being ; what does it MEAN to be? This is of course an old question, stemming from the days of Aristotle, but Heidegger is foremost a phenomenologist (i.e. 'To the phenomena themselves') and therefore refuses any recourse to anything that is outside the scope of what is immediately apparent in the one thing that human beings often overlook, that is to say, human existence itself. This means that the scope of ambition of Heidegger's project is staggering ; he intends to determine WHAT a human being IS, by HOW it is ; and this means that he not only takes on a nearly 2000-year-old philosophical tradition, but also a nearly 2000-year-old deeply embedded conception of what a human being is (and by extension, what a human being should be). It is a provocative assault, which may account for the polarizing reactions that Heidegger seems to evoke. But this also means that Being and Time is a primordially 'humane' book, for it was Heidegger who truly brought the existentialist consciousness to the fore of our developing consciousness as a species. Make no mistake, this is still hard-core philosophy, but it is a book about the many banalities of the average human life, and thus, about the many hidden profundities of the average human life. Appreciate Heidegger's phenomenal (see what I did there) insight into the human condition, and you will never look at life, time, the world, concern, other people, a hammer, language, reality, and death in the same way again.
Now for the mandatory words of warning. This book is DIFFICULT. But it is difficult in the way the ending stages of a hard-fought chess game is difficult ; Being and Time' may be difficult, but it is NOT 'boring'. Stick with it, make the effort, and you will not be disappointed. You may even (as happened to me) slowly neglect the other distractions of your life and set aside a solid block of time to tackle the text (for me, 3 months), and not even be aware of anything like a sacrifice being made. You just feel like you've decided to venture a few steps deeper into the rabbit hole, is all. And with regards to the language, I actually love the language in 'Being and Time', leave alone finding it something to rail against. It has a kind of an austere beauty to it, a kind of 'mathematical poetry' if you will. For those who complain that Heidegger could have said what he wanted to say in 'easier' language, the answer is that, NO he could not have. Since his project was a radical rethinking of the nature of human existence, he needed a radically new vocabulary to describe the stages of his project. The usual words like 'soul', 'consciousness', and even 'human being' are too embedded in the tradition he is attacking, and have too much baggage. Once you appreciate this, and read the text with 'fresh eyes', then you appreciate the hidden intricacies of his language, as well as to the depths he takes these new terms too.
And finally, this is most definitely not a book that a casual reader can 'dip into' ; this is hardcore philosophy that was meant to overthrow another philosophical tradition. So, these would (in my opinion) be the absolute prerequisites before any reader wishes to pursue 'Being and Time' ;
1)A general knowledge of philosophy and the history of philosophy, and at least a surface-level knowledge of what the major philosophers of the Western tradition had to say about life, the universe and everything. This is important, because this tradition represents 'substance metaphysics' or 'the metaphysics of presence' which Heidegger attacks throughout the entire text ; (these terms simply mean the positing of some kind of unit of 'stable timelessness' that 'stands behind' or 'hangs over' human existence, be it the 'soul', 'consciousness', 'God', 'Atman', 'Will', 'Forms' or what have you). A good introductory book on philosophy should do the trick, and in my knowledge, Will Durant's 'The Story of Philosophy' is still the best way to go, though of course, any equivalent book which goes over the main 'theme' of Western philosophy should do the trick
2)An intuitive understanding of Nietzsche. His influence is present throughout the text of 'Being and Time', because he is the 'bad boy' cousin of Heidegger's who sounded the death knell of traditional philosophy ; a project which Heidegger systematizes, enhances, and pursues. Since Nietzsche is primarily a poet and a cultural critic rather than an actual philosopher (in addition to being a superb writer) a quick crash course of reading his main works (The Gay Science, Beyond Good and Evil, Twilight of the Idols, and if you can stomach the overblown prose, Zarathustra) would do you good here.
3)A good guide to Being and Time ; predictably, for a work of such complexity and importance, several guides have sprung up of varying quality. The one I used was Gelvin's 'Commentary' which is clear, friendly, excited, and straightforward. Everything that you need.
4)A surface understanding of phenomenology ; a Wikipedia search should do the trick, or any such introductory article. If you're seriously gung-ho then 'An Introduction to Phenomenology' by Sokolowski will ground you more than you strictly need to be grounded.
And that's it, you're ready to go. This is not a book that you can read once, and I wonder if 'read' is even an appropriate word. For the same reason that you do not 'read' Finnegans Wake, but 'experience' it as if it wasn't a book but a sentient entity which would get insulted if you labelled it as a book, I think the same would go for 'Being and Time'. It is a profound exploration of the most primordial questions a man can ask about anything, and as such, it demands a steady commitment of your time, energy, your curiosity, and the latent profundities that lie within you and which will be awakened as you thumb through the master piece that is 'Being and Time'.
September 20, 2021
Sein und Zeit = Being and Time, Martin Heidegger
Being and Time is a 1927 book by the German philosopher Martin Heidegger, in which the author seeks to analyse the concept of Being.
The book attempts to revive ontology through an analysis of Dasein, or "being-in-the-world." Heidegger maintains that philosophers have misunderstood the concept of Being since Plato, misapplying it solely in the analysis of particular beings.
The work is also noted for its array of neologisms and complex language, as well as an extended treatment of "authenticity" as a means to grasp and confront the unique and finite possibilities of the individual.
عنوانهای چاپ شده در ایران: «وجود و زمان»؛ «هستی و زمان»؛ نویسنده: مارتین هایدگر؛ تاریخ نخستین خوانش روز بیست و ششم ماه سپتامبر سال 2008میلادی
عنوان: هستی و زمان؛ اثر: مارتین هایدگر؛ مترجم: سیاوش جمادی؛ مشخصات نشر تهران، ققنوس، چاپ دوم 1387، در 942ص، موضوع هستی شناسی، فضا و زمان از نویسندگان آلمان - سده 20م
نخستین بار با عنوان: «وجود و زمان» با ترجمه جناب «منوچهر اسدی»، توسط انتشارات پرسش، چاپ دوم در سال 1384هجری خورشیدی در93ص چاپ و منتشر شده است
یکی از دغدغه های اصلی «هایدگر» این بود؛ که آدمی چگونه موجودی است، و «هستی» به چه معناست؛ ایشان دستآورد اندیشه ی خود در این زمینه را، در کتاب «هستی و زمان» آورده اند؛ «هایدگر» در کتاب «هستی و زمان» بررسی موشکافانه ای از «هستی آدمی» ارائه میدهند؛ به باور «هایدگر»، «هستی» مفهومی پیچیده و مبهم ندارد، که نتوان آن را شرح داد، برعکس، «هستی» بسیار ساده و ملموس است، ولی تنها کم شماری از انسانها که سرشتی پاک، و دیدی شفاف دارند، میتوانند آن را درک کنند, «هستی» برای «هایدگر» نه خداست و نه در پهنه ی جهان گنجیده میشود؛ اما «هستی» هماره وابسته به «زمان»، و «انسان» نیز موجودی زمانمند است؛ «هایدگر» مفهوم مرگ، و ماهیت میرایی آدمی را، کلید درک همه ی مفاهیم فلسفی میدانند
انسان در هر زمان و مکانی، در رودرویی با چیزها، نیاز به تفسیر، و موشکافی پدیده ها دارد؛ از دید «هایدگر» راستی همان چیزی است، که خود آدمی از حضورش در «مکان» و «زمان» درمییابد؛ چنین جهانی عینی نیست، و بیشتر بر پایه ی تجربه ی زیست آدمی شکل گرفته است؛ آدمی آفریننده ی هستی نیست، ولی خود را درون هستی مییابد؛ از نظر «هایدگر» طبیعت نیز، درون هستی قرار گرفته، و تقدمی بر انسان ندارد؛ او مخالف نظر فیلسوفان پیشین خود است، که آدمی را آفریده ای توسط طبیعت میدانستند، و هستی را بر اساس مفاهیمی کیفی و کمی توصیف میکردند؛
کتاب «هستی و زمان» اثر «هایدگر» دارای یک مقدمه، و یک بخش است؛ «هایدگر» در مقدمه به پرسش درباره ی «بودن» یا «هستی»، اشاره میکنند؛ ایشان این ضرورت را «وجود شناسی»، و «هستی شناسی» تشخیص میدهند؛ بر پایه ی نخست «وجود شناسی» موضوع اصلی خود بودن است، و انسان نیز از آن دیدگاه است که دیده میشود؛ بر پایه ی دوم «هستی شناسی» منظر بودنیها است که محور است؛ ...؛
نقل از متن از کتاب هستی و زمان: (پرسشی که «هایدگر» در هستی و زمان مطرح میکند «پرسش هستی» است، یعنی همان پرسشی که از سرآغاز فلسفه اندیشه های فیلسوفان را به تلاطم افکنده است؛ ازاینروی این کتاب از حیث موضوعاش تازگی ندارد؛ اما وجه «مدرن» آن شیوه بررسی «هایدگر» از این مسئله و تعیین هستی انسان (دازاین) به مثابه دروازه ورود به شناخت هستی است، که پس از سرآغازهای اصیل و خیره کننده آن در فلسفه «یونانی» پیش از «سقراط» دیری است که حتی پرسش از آن به فراموشی سپرده شده است؛ تحلیل اگزیستانس دازاین از طریق ساختهای «ممکنی» که «اگزیستانسیال» نامیده میشوند «اونتولوژی بنیادی» نام میگیرد، که شرط امکان ذاتی همه اونتولوژیها را تشکیل میدهد؛ زیرا دازاین هستنده ای است که هر پرسش فلسفی از آن سرچشمه میگیرد، و به آن بازمیگردد؛ ازهمینرو بسیاری از مسائل فلسفه همچون پروا، خودبودگی و دیگربودگی، جهان، مکانمندی و زمانمندی، مرگ و غیره صورتبندیهای متفاوتی کسب میکنند.؛ این اثر فضای فلسفی قرن بیستم را تحت تأثیر قرار داده و الهامبخش بسیاری از برجسته ترین متفکران پساساختارگرا همچون میشل فوکو و ژاک دریدا بوده است)؛ پایان نقل
تاریخ بهنگام رسانی 28/08/1399هجری خورشیدی؛ 28/06/1400هجری خورشیدی؛ ا. شربیانی
Being and Time is a 1927 book by the German philosopher Martin Heidegger, in which the author seeks to analyse the concept of Being.
The book attempts to revive ontology through an analysis of Dasein, or "being-in-the-world." Heidegger maintains that philosophers have misunderstood the concept of Being since Plato, misapplying it solely in the analysis of particular beings.
The work is also noted for its array of neologisms and complex language, as well as an extended treatment of "authenticity" as a means to grasp and confront the unique and finite possibilities of the individual.
عنوانهای چاپ شده در ایران: «وجود و زمان»؛ «هستی و زمان»؛ نویسنده: مارتین هایدگر؛ تاریخ نخستین خوانش روز بیست و ششم ماه سپتامبر سال 2008میلادی
عنوان: هستی و زمان؛ اثر: مارتین هایدگر؛ مترجم: سیاوش جمادی؛ مشخصات نشر تهران، ققنوس، چاپ دوم 1387، در 942ص، موضوع هستی شناسی، فضا و زمان از نویسندگان آلمان - سده 20م
نخستین بار با عنوان: «وجود و زمان» با ترجمه جناب «منوچهر اسدی»، توسط انتشارات پرسش، چاپ دوم در سال 1384هجری خورشیدی در93ص چاپ و منتشر شده است
یکی از دغدغه های اصلی «هایدگر» این بود؛ که آدمی چگونه موجودی است، و «هستی» به چه معناست؛ ایشان دستآورد اندیشه ی خود در این زمینه را، در کتاب «هستی و زمان» آورده اند؛ «هایدگر» در کتاب «هستی و زمان» بررسی موشکافانه ای از «هستی آدمی» ارائه میدهند؛ به باور «هایدگر»، «هستی» مفهومی پیچیده و مبهم ندارد، که نتوان آن را شرح داد، برعکس، «هستی» بسیار ساده و ملموس است، ولی تنها کم شماری از انسانها که سرشتی پاک، و دیدی شفاف دارند، میتوانند آن را درک کنند, «هستی» برای «هایدگر» نه خداست و نه در پهنه ی جهان گنجیده میشود؛ اما «هستی» هماره وابسته به «زمان»، و «انسان» نیز موجودی زمانمند است؛ «هایدگر» مفهوم مرگ، و ماهیت میرایی آدمی را، کلید درک همه ی مفاهیم فلسفی میدانند
انسان در هر زمان و مکانی، در رودرویی با چیزها، نیاز به تفسیر، و موشکافی پدیده ها دارد؛ از دید «هایدگر» راستی همان چیزی است، که خود آدمی از حضورش در «مکان» و «زمان» درمییابد؛ چنین جهانی عینی نیست، و بیشتر بر پایه ی تجربه ی زیست آدمی شکل گرفته است؛ آدمی آفریننده ی هستی نیست، ولی خود را درون هستی مییابد؛ از نظر «هایدگر» طبیعت نیز، درون هستی قرار گرفته، و تقدمی بر انسان ندارد؛ او مخالف نظر فیلسوفان پیشین خود است، که آدمی را آفریده ای توسط طبیعت میدانستند، و هستی را بر اساس مفاهیمی کیفی و کمی توصیف میکردند؛
کتاب «هستی و زمان» اثر «هایدگر» دارای یک مقدمه، و یک بخش است؛ «هایدگر» در مقدمه به پرسش درباره ی «بودن» یا «هستی»، اشاره میکنند؛ ایشان این ضرورت را «وجود شناسی»، و «هستی شناسی» تشخیص میدهند؛ بر پایه ی نخست «وجود شناسی» موضوع اصلی خود بودن است، و انسان نیز از آن دیدگاه است که دیده میشود؛ بر پایه ی دوم «هستی شناسی» منظر بودنیها است که محور است؛ ...؛
نقل از متن از کتاب هستی و زمان: (پرسشی که «هایدگر» در هستی و زمان مطرح میکند «پرسش هستی» است، یعنی همان پرسشی که از سرآغاز فلسفه اندیشه های فیلسوفان را به تلاطم افکنده است؛ ازاینروی این کتاب از حیث موضوعاش تازگی ندارد؛ اما وجه «مدرن» آن شیوه بررسی «هایدگر» از این مسئله و تعیین هستی انسان (دازاین) به مثابه دروازه ورود به شناخت هستی است، که پس از سرآغازهای اصیل و خیره کننده آن در فلسفه «یونانی» پیش از «سقراط» دیری است که حتی پرسش از آن به فراموشی سپرده شده است؛ تحلیل اگزیستانس دازاین از طریق ساختهای «ممکنی» که «اگزیستانسیال» نامیده میشوند «اونتولوژی بنیادی» نام میگیرد، که شرط امکان ذاتی همه اونتولوژیها را تشکیل میدهد؛ زیرا دازاین هستنده ای است که هر پرسش فلسفی از آن سرچشمه میگیرد، و به آن بازمیگردد؛ ازهمینرو بسیاری از مسائل فلسفه همچون پروا، خودبودگی و دیگربودگی، جهان، مکانمندی و زمانمندی، مرگ و غیره صورتبندیهای متفاوتی کسب میکنند.؛ این اثر فضای فلسفی قرن بیستم را تحت تأثیر قرار داده و الهامبخش بسیاری از برجسته ترین متفکران پساساختارگرا همچون میشل فوکو و ژاک دریدا بوده است)؛ پایان نقل
تاریخ بهنگام رسانی 28/08/1399هجری خورشیدی؛ 28/06/1400هجری خورشیدی؛ ا. شربیانی
March 31, 2024
O WHEN WILL THE CREAKING HEART CEASE?
WHEN WILL THE BROKEN CHAIR GIVE EASE?
WHY WILL THE SUMMER DAY DELAY?
WHEN WILL TIME FLOW AWAY?
T.S. Eliot, Lines to a Persian Cat
Towards the end of his life, Martin Heidegger cryptically said, "Animals don't die. They perish."
Well, what's the DIFF here?
You see, what he means is that there's no emotional Grunge in critters' lives. What they see is what they get. They don't worry - they're happy - with death. It's "but a sleep and a forgetting" for them.
Not us, though!
We humans OBSESS. So we're lost. And nowadays, Being and Time is an unscalable promontory for us. So I thought I’d try to crystallize its argument metaphorically for you...
Most of us just can’t take the Rockiness of Being.
Being is sharp and jagged, without forgiving edges - as it first appears to us. It is simply Hard Cold Reality.
Like waking in the morning to bright, jagged sunlight. And then it dawns on us that this is gonna be another Morning After the Night Before...
You see, Being is at first like that bright, simple sunlight flooding into our bedrooms.
And our pain is the result of Being’s gross Transmogrification through the Prism of Time (and now, of course, it’s also the price of our overindulgence).
Suddenly that simple sunlight is fractured into jarring cacophonies of disordered memories, perceptions and needs.
For TIME, as Carlo Rovelli says in The Order of Time, is notoriously unstable, and individually - by us - forced into conceptual boxes in which it has no intention of remaining.
It is governed only by the Law of Relativity - that seemingly lawless law that governs all Being on earth, once it has been fractured into haphazard chaos by the further prism of our Personal sense of time.
Well, most of us have no desire to remain in this Chaos. So we reach for a Diversion, electronic, fictional, conversational or soporific.
When I was sixteen I was precipitously plunged into that chaos, which Heidegger calls being-in-the-world. For I had a gargantuan case of the flu and was bedridden. And the nonstop commercial rock station I was listening to produced monstrous hypnagogic images in my feverish brain.
The world suddenly, as in Sartre’s Nausea, was cold, slimy and duplicitous. Humankind cannot bear very much reality.
But, note well, T.S. Eliot also says time is only conquered through time..
And so the bleak daylight of my adulthood began, mitigated only by the useless recurrence of my endless diversions.
Heidegger, though, wants us to dwell in that exorbitant unease we felt in dawn’s early jagged light. For that’s the only way we’ll see the truth. And continue to bravely pursue the pinnacle of Being in the midst of this sordid being-in-the-world.
The truth we see if we persist can only be a human understanding at best - but necessarily a jagged, existential understanding. A broken understanding, because we will always be imperfect.
We have to see that the only way we’re gonna rise above this dog’s breakfast of being-in-the-world (Being fractured into painful pieces by Time’s prism) is by seeking the wakefulness of Pure Being in our awareness, a wakefulness that is a stable brokenness.
And that means bearing the pain, rather than sugar-coating it and falling asleep. And bearing the pain means submission - without the many handy benefits and rate-your-progress benchmarks of the world. A Journey without Maps.
That’s not easy. It takes a lifetime of hard, thankless work.
But it’s the ONLY way to escape the Drugs of Diversion and their ever-subsequent Sour Malaise of being-in-the-world.
And finding peace.
For peace comes when Dasein’s conflictual opposition of desire and dislike is brought to an abrupt halt in the Bald Reality of Being. A Clearing amidst our tangled, conflictual undergrowth.
And so it is with the life and thought of Martin Heidegger.
Dasein, or Being in the World, is an endlessly jarring - with a lack of faith on our part - and initially meaningless process. But with faith it can be self-reconciliation, and thereby reconciliation with the world.
Should we choose to endure it stoically.
It is an obstinately calcified morning after the night before, and it just refuses to end.
Some folks try to find forbidden fixes for the chafing bind of Being in the World, but such a solution, alas, never works - and in fact only fuels the fire of endless unrest and sad, heart-sick aporia.
Unless we find ourselves.
Our true self, as Heidegger says in his later years, is born when the atonement of Dasein is done.
And becomes wondrously transfigured into the ultimate at-one-ment, in our peak moments of Eternal Dwelling.
For to the rare victor (vanquished by utter Being and purged of Dasein’s selfhood) go the lasting spoils.
And for THAT guy, we don't die.... We sleep!
WHEN WILL THE BROKEN CHAIR GIVE EASE?
WHY WILL THE SUMMER DAY DELAY?
WHEN WILL TIME FLOW AWAY?
T.S. Eliot, Lines to a Persian Cat
Towards the end of his life, Martin Heidegger cryptically said, "Animals don't die. They perish."
Well, what's the DIFF here?
You see, what he means is that there's no emotional Grunge in critters' lives. What they see is what they get. They don't worry - they're happy - with death. It's "but a sleep and a forgetting" for them.
Not us, though!
We humans OBSESS. So we're lost. And nowadays, Being and Time is an unscalable promontory for us. So I thought I’d try to crystallize its argument metaphorically for you...
Most of us just can’t take the Rockiness of Being.
Being is sharp and jagged, without forgiving edges - as it first appears to us. It is simply Hard Cold Reality.
Like waking in the morning to bright, jagged sunlight. And then it dawns on us that this is gonna be another Morning After the Night Before...
You see, Being is at first like that bright, simple sunlight flooding into our bedrooms.
And our pain is the result of Being’s gross Transmogrification through the Prism of Time (and now, of course, it’s also the price of our overindulgence).
Suddenly that simple sunlight is fractured into jarring cacophonies of disordered memories, perceptions and needs.
For TIME, as Carlo Rovelli says in The Order of Time, is notoriously unstable, and individually - by us - forced into conceptual boxes in which it has no intention of remaining.
It is governed only by the Law of Relativity - that seemingly lawless law that governs all Being on earth, once it has been fractured into haphazard chaos by the further prism of our Personal sense of time.
Well, most of us have no desire to remain in this Chaos. So we reach for a Diversion, electronic, fictional, conversational or soporific.
When I was sixteen I was precipitously plunged into that chaos, which Heidegger calls being-in-the-world. For I had a gargantuan case of the flu and was bedridden. And the nonstop commercial rock station I was listening to produced monstrous hypnagogic images in my feverish brain.
The world suddenly, as in Sartre’s Nausea, was cold, slimy and duplicitous. Humankind cannot bear very much reality.
But, note well, T.S. Eliot also says time is only conquered through time..
And so the bleak daylight of my adulthood began, mitigated only by the useless recurrence of my endless diversions.
Heidegger, though, wants us to dwell in that exorbitant unease we felt in dawn’s early jagged light. For that’s the only way we’ll see the truth. And continue to bravely pursue the pinnacle of Being in the midst of this sordid being-in-the-world.
The truth we see if we persist can only be a human understanding at best - but necessarily a jagged, existential understanding. A broken understanding, because we will always be imperfect.
We have to see that the only way we’re gonna rise above this dog’s breakfast of being-in-the-world (Being fractured into painful pieces by Time’s prism) is by seeking the wakefulness of Pure Being in our awareness, a wakefulness that is a stable brokenness.
And that means bearing the pain, rather than sugar-coating it and falling asleep. And bearing the pain means submission - without the many handy benefits and rate-your-progress benchmarks of the world. A Journey without Maps.
That’s not easy. It takes a lifetime of hard, thankless work.
But it’s the ONLY way to escape the Drugs of Diversion and their ever-subsequent Sour Malaise of being-in-the-world.
And finding peace.
For peace comes when Dasein’s conflictual opposition of desire and dislike is brought to an abrupt halt in the Bald Reality of Being. A Clearing amidst our tangled, conflictual undergrowth.
And so it is with the life and thought of Martin Heidegger.
Dasein, or Being in the World, is an endlessly jarring - with a lack of faith on our part - and initially meaningless process. But with faith it can be self-reconciliation, and thereby reconciliation with the world.
Should we choose to endure it stoically.
It is an obstinately calcified morning after the night before, and it just refuses to end.
Some folks try to find forbidden fixes for the chafing bind of Being in the World, but such a solution, alas, never works - and in fact only fuels the fire of endless unrest and sad, heart-sick aporia.
Unless we find ourselves.
Our true self, as Heidegger says in his later years, is born when the atonement of Dasein is done.
And becomes wondrously transfigured into the ultimate at-one-ment, in our peak moments of Eternal Dwelling.
For to the rare victor (vanquished by utter Being and purged of Dasein’s selfhood) go the lasting spoils.
And for THAT guy, we don't die.... We sleep!
June 2, 2016
There are four ways that a book may be difficult. The first is simply length. Reading a page of War and Peace is not a challenge; reading 1500 of them is another story. The second is stylistic. This occurs when an author is not a skilled writer and does not manage to be lucid or engaging. Next is conceptual, when the ideas presented in the book are so abstract or complex that it is challenging to wrap one’s mind around them. David Hume's Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding, although short and engaging, is difficult in this way. The last is linguistic, which is the difficulty encountered when attempting to read Chaucer’s or Shakespeare’s English, or when reading in a non-native language. Martin Heidegger’s Being and Time is difficult in all four ways.
July 13, 2013
done.
it was like losing my philosophical virginity :)
and it feels like everything i have read until now was a preparation for this. including my "dipping" in it for seven years or so. and i'm glad i read (and discussed) augustine's confessions with a wonderful group of people, during a course - otherwise i would have understood nothing at all from the part about temporality.
the dynamic of the book is very musical, it seemed to me. drone-like. as if the loooong sounds are repeated and repeated again, creating a texture which changes your "mood" - your "attunement" - making you able to see how a new "ground" is disclosed.
of course i can't say anything coherent about it. and i don't think anything coherent needs to be said in this review.
there's no substitute for reading it - if you want to understand where contemporary philosophy is coming from.
it was like losing my philosophical virginity :)
and it feels like everything i have read until now was a preparation for this. including my "dipping" in it for seven years or so. and i'm glad i read (and discussed) augustine's confessions with a wonderful group of people, during a course - otherwise i would have understood nothing at all from the part about temporality.
the dynamic of the book is very musical, it seemed to me. drone-like. as if the loooong sounds are repeated and repeated again, creating a texture which changes your "mood" - your "attunement" - making you able to see how a new "ground" is disclosed.
of course i can't say anything coherent about it. and i don't think anything coherent needs to be said in this review.
there's no substitute for reading it - if you want to understand where contemporary philosophy is coming from.
February 15, 2019
در کندوکاو در مسألهی آزادی نه تنها به مشاهدهی دانشمندانه، بلکه به پرواز عقابمانند که هیچ اثری از خود بهجا نمیگذارد نیاز داریم.|جیدو کریشنامورتی.
پروازِ عُقاب
غروب آفتاب می خفت. از زندگانی و روزگارش شکایتی نداشت. کوه ها را همان اندازه می شناخت که می دانست خورشید از پشت آن ها طلوع می کند و آسمان را به همان اندازه می شناخت که می دانست خورشید از آنجا زمین را روشن و گرم می سازد. و از درختان همان اندازه می دانست که سر به آسمان می سایند و میوه می دهند و در زمستان با چوبشان به خانه اش گرما می بخشند.
مرد داشت روزگارش را به رضا می گذراند تا اینکه روزی عقابی را در جنگل دید. ابتدا از هیبت عقاب هراسان شد اما دیری نگذشت که بر ترسش غالب شد و به سمت عقاب رفت. عقاب که شهامت مرد را دیده بود و می دانست نهصد و نود و نُه آدمیزاده ی قبلی حتا جرأت نزدیک شدن به او رانکرده بودند، خوشحال شد و به آرامی و مهربانی به طرف مرد پا پیش گذاشت. با بالهای بزرگش مرد را نوازش کرد و پایش را به نشان ِ دادنِ پاگیرهای بالا آورد. مرد، منظور عقاب را دریافت و به پنجه به پای عقاب خایید. و عقاب پر زدن آغاز کرد و آنها از زمین کَنده شدند و بالا رفتند. آنقدر بالا رفتند که دیگر عقاب پر نمی زد و بال هایش را باز نگه داشته بود و حرکت می کردند. عقاب مغرورانه در آسمان میغ می کشید و مرد ساده دل می دانست که باید پای عقاب را محکم نگه دارد وگرنه سقوط خواهد کرد. مرد برای اولین بار توانست درختان را از هیبتی دیگر بنگرد. او سالهای سال در میان درختان زیسته بود اما حالا می توانست آنها را پوشش سبزی، پهن بر روی زمین ببیند. او که تا آن لحظه گمان می کرد خورشید از پسِ ابرها بر میتابد، پشتِ کوه ها را دید که سرزمینی دیگر است با درختانی به رنگ های دیگر. آنگاه مأیوسانه خود را سرزنش می کرد که چرا جرأت نکرده تا آن روز از کوه ها بالا برود تا از این گمان اشتباه به در آید که خورشید از پس کوههابر می آید. حسرت خورد که چرا تا آن روز، تنها به خیال و تصور خویش دل خوش کرده بوده. مرد داشت زمین را تماشا می کرد و ناگاه کلبه اش را دید که نقطه ای کوچک در میان آن وسعتِ زیبا و شور انگیز است. دنیایِ مرد همان کلبه بود و فکر می کرد دنیا همان کلبه است. اما حالا داشت آن را به گونه ی دیگری می دید. در دلش دنیایی از حسرت ها همراه دنیای از شگفتی ها جمع شده بود. بی تاب بود. داشت توانِ گرفتن پاهای عقاب را از دستمی داد اما از طرفی دوست نداشت به زمین بازگردد. عقاب که این را فهمید، مسیری مارپیچی را شروع کرد و به طرف زمین حرکت کرد. طولی نکشید که به زمین نزدیک شدند. عقاب بال و پر و میزد و به زمین نزدیک می شد تا اینکه به نزدیکی زمین رسیدند. مرد پاهای عقاب را رها کرد و از ارتفاعی نه چندان زیاد به روی زمین افتاد و عقاب را نگاه کرد که دوباره داشت بالامی رفت . عقاب میغی کشید و به مرد نگاه کرد و بالا رفت و آن صدا در گوش مرد پژواک کرد. خواست این صدا را به خاطر بسپارد. معلوم نبود دوباره آیا خواهد توانست به آسمان برود یا نه. اما هرچه بود، دیگر آن کسی نبود که پیش از پروازِ با عقاب بوده. حالا دیگر درختانی که تا پیش از آن به در نظرش بلند می آمدند، بلندی شان حقیر به نظر می رسید. تصور مرد از دنیا عوض شده بود. مرغ هایش را موجوداتی حقیر می دید چون با وجودِ داشتن بال، هیچ گاه نه خودشان به پریدن فکر کرده بودند و نه با عقاب پریده بودند. دیگر خانه اش برایش تمام دنیا نبود و دوست داشت آن را رها کند و برود و آن طرفِ کوه ها را ببیند.سرزمین های جدید را ببیند. او دیگر نمی توانست چیزهایی که دیده بود را از یاد ببرد و به زندگی قبلی اش دل خوش کند.
اون عقاب کتاب هستیوزمان هایدگر بود و اون مرد ساده دل، مثلاً من بودم!
روایتِ اوّل شخص
اینکه بخوام بگم من در اون حدی نیستم که بخوام درباه ی این کتاب نظر بدم درست نیست. چون این کتاب رو خوندم و به نظرم هر کس که کتابی رو بخونه می تونه درباره اش نظر بده و فقط اون کسی که کتابی رو نخونده نمی تونه نظر بده. و واقعاً هم نمیتونه نظر بده. مثلاً نمی تونه بگه: چه کتاب ترسناکی! یا مثلاً: آدم جرأت نمی کنه بره طرف این کتاب.
هر کسی (با خوندن پیش نیازهای فلسفیِ مُکفی) می تونه هستی و زمان رو بخونه و هر کسی به اندازه ی ظرفی که داره، می تونه از این دریا(فلسفه) آب برداره. ظرف من خیلی کوچکه. اما خب همینم دیگه. ظرفِ من همینقدره. اما چون کوچیکه دلیل نمیشه که اصلاً آب برندارم و اگه می خوام ظرفم بزرگ بشه، باید بیشتر کتاب بخونم و در ذهنم چراهای بیشتری داشته باشم.
چرا مرغِ همسایه غازه؟
داشتم مرورهای انگلیسی کتاب هستی و زمان رو می خوندم، که خیلی راحت با این کتاب مواجه شده بودن و ازش نترسیده بودن و درباره اش نوشته بودن. هم مرورهای عصا قورت داده داشت و هم مرورهای خودمونی. مرورهای فارسی خوبی هم نوشته بودن اما تعدادشون کم بود و البته مختصر نوشته شده بودن.
چرا به کتاب میگیم کتاب؟ چرا نمی گیم کاغذ؟ مگه جنسش از کاغذ نیست؟ چرا. از کاغذه اما چون کاغذ به این ابزار تبدیل شده، بهش نباید بگیم کاغذ باید بگیم کتاب. مثلاً اگه به ابزار دیگه ای تبدیل بشه باید بهش بگیم دفتر یا کارت پستال!
هایدگر در قسمت اول کتابش درباره ی چنین چیزهایی بحث میکنه. اصولاً می خواد پرسش درباره ی هستی رو دوباره مطرح کنه. این کتاب به موضوع «وجود» از زاویه ای تازه نگاه کرده. برای کسی مثل من که دانشجوی فلسفه نبوده، دونستن فلسفه تا پیش از هایدگر ضروریه چون اونها شالوده ی این فلسفه هستند. دو کتابی که به ویژه برای خوانندهی عام، قبل از خوندن این کتاب ضروریه، متافیزیک ارسطو و نقد عقل محض کانت هست. هرچند مطالعه ی کتاب هوسرل در متن آثارش، هم بدون شک مفیده چون سنجهی هایدگر، پدیدار شناسیه.
در قسمت بعدی کتابش هم درباره ی وجود هستی که زمان رو میسازه صحبت می کنه.
به نظرم ارسطو فیزیک و فلسفه رو از هم جدا کرده بود اما هایدگر با این کتاب اونها رو دوباره به هم وصل کرد اما به شکلی نوین؛ قدیم درباره ی هستی، می گفتن یک سیرورت یا شدن هست نه یک بودن. مثل جوی آب روان که هیچ لحظه اش مثل لحظه ی قبل نیست هستی ما هم «بودن» نیست بلکه «شدن» یا «صیرورت» هست یعنی زمان گذشته حقیقت و آینده حقیقتی نیستن. در زمان قدیم، کانت «نقد عقل محض» اش رو ننوشته بود و هوسرل درباره ی پیدار شناسی چیزی نگفته بود اما هایدگر در قرن بیستم این سنجه ها رو در اختیار داشت وبه مسئله ی وجود از زاویه ی تازه ای نگاه کرد. نگاهی پدیدار شناسانه به هستی یا همون سیرورت وجود. پدیدار شناسی به معنی شناخت هر چیزی از راه خودش. معرفی مفهومی به نام دازاین (دازاین قرار است خودش را بفهم��): «آشکار یا غیر آشکار دازاین گذشته ی خویش هست. آن هم نه فقط بدین گونه که گذشته اش گویی او را از «پشت» به جلو می راند و دازاین گذشته را همچون خصلتی که هنوز فرادست در اختیار دارد که بعداً گهگاه بر او اثر می گذارد. دازاین گذشته ی خویش «هست» به شیوه ی هستی خودش، که، به تعبیری خام، در هر مناسبت بر پایه ی آینده اش «روی می دهد».
در این کتاب واژه ی «هستندگی» زیاد به چشم می خوره چون هستی دلالت بر وجود در زمان حال نداره اما هستنده و هستندگی دلالت بر وجود در زمان حال دارن.
هایدگر ابتدا به نقد «هستی» می پردازه و بعد از اون به سراغ نقد «زمان» میره. چون وقتی چیزی در بعد زمان باشه دچار هستندگیه و آغاز و پایانی داره و در کل «وجود» داره.
پروازِ عُقاب
غروب آفتاب می خفت. از زندگانی و روزگارش شکایتی نداشت. کوه ها را همان اندازه می شناخت که می دانست خورشید از پشت آن ها طلوع می کند و آسمان را به همان اندازه می شناخت که می دانست خورشید از آنجا زمین را روشن و گرم می سازد. و از درختان همان اندازه می دانست که سر به آسمان می سایند و میوه می دهند و در زمستان با چوبشان به خانه اش گرما می بخشند.
مرد داشت روزگارش را به رضا می گذراند تا اینکه روزی عقابی را در جنگل دید. ابتدا از هیبت عقاب هراسان شد اما دیری نگذشت که بر ترسش غالب شد و به سمت عقاب رفت. عقاب که شهامت مرد را دیده بود و می دانست نهصد و نود و نُه آدمیزاده ی قبلی حتا جرأت نزدیک شدن به او رانکرده بودند، خوشحال شد و به آرامی و مهربانی به طرف مرد پا پیش گذاشت. با بالهای بزرگش مرد را نوازش کرد و پایش را به نشان ِ دادنِ پاگیرهای بالا آورد. مرد، منظور عقاب را دریافت و به پنجه به پای عقاب خایید. و عقاب پر زدن آغاز کرد و آنها از زمین کَنده شدند و بالا رفتند. آنقدر بالا رفتند که دیگر عقاب پر نمی زد و بال هایش را باز نگه داشته بود و حرکت می کردند. عقاب مغرورانه در آسمان میغ می کشید و مرد ساده دل می دانست که باید پای عقاب را محکم نگه دارد وگرنه سقوط خواهد کرد. مرد برای اولین بار توانست درختان را از هیبتی دیگر بنگرد. او سالهای سال در میان درختان زیسته بود اما حالا می توانست آنها را پوشش سبزی، پهن بر روی زمین ببیند. او که تا آن لحظه گمان می کرد خورشید از پسِ ابرها بر میتابد، پشتِ کوه ها را دید که سرزمینی دیگر است با درختانی به رنگ های دیگر. آنگاه مأیوسانه خود را سرزنش می کرد که چرا جرأت نکرده تا آن روز از کوه ها بالا برود تا از این گمان اشتباه به در آید که خورشید از پس کوههابر می آید. حسرت خورد که چرا تا آن روز، تنها به خیال و تصور خویش دل خوش کرده بوده. مرد داشت زمین را تماشا می کرد و ناگاه کلبه اش را دید که نقطه ای کوچک در میان آن وسعتِ زیبا و شور انگیز است. دنیایِ مرد همان کلبه بود و فکر می کرد دنیا همان کلبه است. اما حالا داشت آن را به گونه ی دیگری می دید. در دلش دنیایی از حسرت ها همراه دنیای از شگفتی ها جمع شده بود. بی تاب بود. داشت توانِ گرفتن پاهای عقاب را از دستمی داد اما از طرفی دوست نداشت به زمین بازگردد. عقاب که این را فهمید، مسیری مارپیچی را شروع کرد و به طرف زمین حرکت کرد. طولی نکشید که به زمین نزدیک شدند. عقاب بال و پر و میزد و به زمین نزدیک می شد تا اینکه به نزدیکی زمین رسیدند. مرد پاهای عقاب را رها کرد و از ارتفاعی نه چندان زیاد به روی زمین افتاد و عقاب را نگاه کرد که دوباره داشت بالامی رفت . عقاب میغی کشید و به مرد نگاه کرد و بالا رفت و آن صدا در گوش مرد پژواک کرد. خواست این صدا را به خاطر بسپارد. معلوم نبود دوباره آیا خواهد توانست به آسمان برود یا نه. اما هرچه بود، دیگر آن کسی نبود که پیش از پروازِ با عقاب بوده. حالا دیگر درختانی که تا پیش از آن به در نظرش بلند می آمدند، بلندی شان حقیر به نظر می رسید. تصور مرد از دنیا عوض شده بود. مرغ هایش را موجوداتی حقیر می دید چون با وجودِ داشتن بال، هیچ گاه نه خودشان به پریدن فکر کرده بودند و نه با عقاب پریده بودند. دیگر خانه اش برایش تمام دنیا نبود و دوست داشت آن را رها کند و برود و آن طرفِ کوه ها را ببیند.سرزمین های جدید را ببیند. او دیگر نمی توانست چیزهایی که دیده بود را از یاد ببرد و به زندگی قبلی اش دل خوش کند.
اون عقاب کتاب هستیوزمان هایدگر بود و اون مرد ساده دل، مثلاً من بودم!
روایتِ اوّل شخص
اینکه بخوام بگم من در اون حدی نیستم که بخوام درباه ی این کتاب نظر بدم درست نیست. چون این کتاب رو خوندم و به نظرم هر کس که کتابی رو بخونه می تونه درباره اش نظر بده و فقط اون کسی که کتابی رو نخونده نمی تونه نظر بده. و واقعاً هم نمیتونه نظر بده. مثلاً نمی تونه بگه: چه کتاب ترسناکی! یا مثلاً: آدم جرأت نمی کنه بره طرف این کتاب.
هر کسی (با خوندن پیش نیازهای فلسفیِ مُکفی) می تونه هستی و زمان رو بخونه و هر کسی به اندازه ی ظرفی که داره، می تونه از این دریا(فلسفه) آب برداره. ظرف من خیلی کوچکه. اما خب همینم دیگه. ظرفِ من همینقدره. اما چون کوچیکه دلیل نمیشه که اصلاً آب برندارم و اگه می خوام ظرفم بزرگ بشه، باید بیشتر کتاب بخونم و در ذهنم چراهای بیشتری داشته باشم.
چرا مرغِ همسایه غازه؟
داشتم مرورهای انگلیسی کتاب هستی و زمان رو می خوندم، که خیلی راحت با این کتاب مواجه شده بودن و ازش نترسیده بودن و درباره اش نوشته بودن. هم مرورهای عصا قورت داده داشت و هم مرورهای خودمونی. مرورهای فارسی خوبی هم نوشته بودن اما تعدادشون کم بود و البته مختصر نوشته شده بودن.
چرا به کتاب میگیم کتاب؟ چرا نمی گیم کاغذ؟ مگه جنسش از کاغذ نیست؟ چرا. از کاغذه اما چون کاغذ به این ابزار تبدیل شده، بهش نباید بگیم کاغذ باید بگیم کتاب. مثلاً اگه به ابزار دیگه ای تبدیل بشه باید بهش بگیم دفتر یا کارت پستال!
هایدگر در قسمت اول کتابش درباره ی چنین چیزهایی بحث میکنه. اصولاً می خواد پرسش درباره ی هستی رو دوباره مطرح کنه. این کتاب به موضوع «وجود» از زاویه ای تازه نگاه کرده. برای کسی مثل من که دانشجوی فلسفه نبوده، دونستن فلسفه تا پیش از هایدگر ضروریه چون اونها شالوده ی این فلسفه هستند. دو کتابی که به ویژه برای خوانندهی عام، قبل از خوندن این کتاب ضروریه، متافیزیک ارسطو و نقد عقل محض کانت هست. هرچند مطالعه ی کتاب هوسرل در متن آثارش، هم بدون شک مفیده چون سنجهی هایدگر، پدیدار شناسیه.
در قسمت بعدی کتابش هم درباره ی وجود هستی که زمان رو میسازه صحبت می کنه.
به نظرم ارسطو فیزیک و فلسفه رو از هم جدا کرده بود اما هایدگر با این کتاب اونها رو دوباره به هم وصل کرد اما به شکلی نوین؛ قدیم درباره ی هستی، می گفتن یک سیرورت یا شدن هست نه یک بودن. مثل جوی آب روان که هیچ لحظه اش مثل لحظه ی قبل نیست هستی ما هم «بودن» نیست بلکه «شدن» یا «صیرورت» هست یعنی زمان گذشته حقیقت و آینده حقیقتی نیستن. در زمان قدیم، کانت «نقد عقل محض» اش رو ننوشته بود و هوسرل درباره ی پیدار شناسی چیزی نگفته بود اما هایدگر در قرن بیستم این سنجه ها رو در اختیار داشت وبه مسئله ی وجود از زاویه ی تازه ای نگاه کرد. نگاهی پدیدار شناسانه به هستی یا همون سیرورت وجود. پدیدار شناسی به معنی شناخت هر چیزی از راه خودش. معرفی مفهومی به نام دازاین (دازاین قرار است خودش را بفهم��): «آشکار یا غیر آشکار دازاین گذشته ی خویش هست. آن هم نه فقط بدین گونه که گذشته اش گویی او را از «پشت» به جلو می راند و دازاین گذشته را همچون خصلتی که هنوز فرادست در اختیار دارد که بعداً گهگاه بر او اثر می گذارد. دازاین گذشته ی خویش «هست» به شیوه ی هستی خودش، که، به تعبیری خام، در هر مناسبت بر پایه ی آینده اش «روی می دهد».
در این کتاب واژه ی «هستندگی» زیاد به چشم می خوره چون هستی دلالت بر وجود در زمان حال نداره اما هستنده و هستندگی دلالت بر وجود در زمان حال دارن.
هایدگر ابتدا به نقد «هستی» می پردازه و بعد از اون به سراغ نقد «زمان» میره. چون وقتی چیزی در بعد زمان باشه دچار هستندگیه و آغاز و پایانی داره و در کل «وجود» داره.
May 10, 2023
Heidegger’s concept of time too is not limited to watch or calendar rather it is a kind of temporality that can be experienced in any single moment.
For instance, we use our tools without explicitly noticing them, like hammer. Our radar of focus is the thing we are building than tools or hammer we are using. Even if it (the hammer) breaks, it will remain more than what we are seeing, a broken tool. This implies, the being of hammer is always absent, even if it works underneath the entire building operation. However, the hammer or the things around us, be it trees, candles, table or books are not always absent. Had they been in the state of absence, there would have been no relation between these objects and us.
A book for me is a voyage, a learning expedition but the same book for a baby is nothing more than a rectangular thing with pages to fiddle about, thus, the person who encounters an object determines its presence, which again is not the object’s complete picture.
More from my blog post: Being and Time
For instance, we use our tools without explicitly noticing them, like hammer. Our radar of focus is the thing we are building than tools or hammer we are using. Even if it (the hammer) breaks, it will remain more than what we are seeing, a broken tool. This implies, the being of hammer is always absent, even if it works underneath the entire building operation. However, the hammer or the things around us, be it trees, candles, table or books are not always absent. Had they been in the state of absence, there would have been no relation between these objects and us.
A book for me is a voyage, a learning expedition but the same book for a baby is nothing more than a rectangular thing with pages to fiddle about, thus, the person who encounters an object determines its presence, which again is not the object’s complete picture.
More from my blog post: Being and Time
August 20, 2007
GET OVER YOURSELF and distill some of these ideas into real words and real arguments and maybe, just maybe we'd have something really interesting and important here. but who the hell knows in all that gunk? it's like trying to follow a recipe for baked alaska written by gertrude stein!! you sit with your highlighter drying out like....uhhhh...okay i didn't mark anything in 20 pages so maybe this sentence is a keeper? 200 pages into this beast is the precise point at which, as a philo major, you look over at your communications-major roommate watching the hudsucker proxy and wonder what the very day was when you decided to unapologetically turn saboteur on your own ass.
Want to read
January 5, 2016Before reading this read this and this and this and while reading this read this and this and this but you won't understand this without reading this and this and you really should have already read this or this but this and this should do fine but make sure to read this before this, I mean Being and Time, also when you finish this you should read this other thing on this or you really won't have good grasp on this or that or this Basta! I'm just going to read this, I mean Being and Time.
February 17, 2011
If you want to get into Heidegger, don't read this first. Seriously, despite what others may have told you, the chronological priority of this book over, say, the lecture "The Metaphysical Foundations of Logic," does not translate into conceptual priority. You don't have to read B&T to begin putting into perspective what Heidegger was trying to do, but you do have to do that putting-in-perspective before reading B&T, or it will seem like the alien self-indulgence of a strange man without any apparent motivation that satisfies you as well as him. Why ask, "the question of being?" (Seinsfrage)? Because we've "forgotten" what 'being' means? If that strikes you as a pressing question right out of the gate, without any background in Husserlian phenomenology or any of Heidegger's other influences, then I admit it-- it took me a lot more 'motivating' to decide why this book is interesting than it will take you.
The problem is that being motivated to read it doesn't get you all the way through reading it. If you have no or limited philosophical background in Descartes, Husserl, Augustine, Aristotle, Kant, Dilthey, possibly Hegel, possibly Kierkegaard, a lot of B&T will seem alien and needlessly complicated. I don't know Aristotle, Augustine, or Dilthey all that well, having read only some of the first, and none of the latter two. Just to lay my cards on the table. My professor's side-notes about their influence on the text got me to see just how historically embroiled this book's motivations are. You almost have to be an eccentric, former Catholic theologian and historian turned phenomenologist in 1920s Germany to appreciate why Heidegger would 1) be concerned with the question of being 2) inquire into that question in the way he does here.
I stress the motivations for B&T because it is not a glass bead game, it's a book written by a thinker who had certain goals in mind, namely to provide the Geisteswissenschaften with a founding ontology as Dilthey aspired to do. It goes beyond that though, to M.H.'s extreme need to follow the history of philosophy back to its origins. He is strongly convinced that the origins of philosophy were decisive for the shape that later philosophy would take. Heidegger totally takes to heart Husserl's insistence that phenomenology penetrates from the surface into the depths of phenomena (Thing and Space). In those depths, he finds history. In a way even more extreme than Hegel's, 'immediate' phenomena are mined for their historical significance, while history is the medium of all conceptual significance.
The problem is that being motivated to read it doesn't get you all the way through reading it. If you have no or limited philosophical background in Descartes, Husserl, Augustine, Aristotle, Kant, Dilthey, possibly Hegel, possibly Kierkegaard, a lot of B&T will seem alien and needlessly complicated. I don't know Aristotle, Augustine, or Dilthey all that well, having read only some of the first, and none of the latter two. Just to lay my cards on the table. My professor's side-notes about their influence on the text got me to see just how historically embroiled this book's motivations are. You almost have to be an eccentric, former Catholic theologian and historian turned phenomenologist in 1920s Germany to appreciate why Heidegger would 1) be concerned with the question of being 2) inquire into that question in the way he does here.
I stress the motivations for B&T because it is not a glass bead game, it's a book written by a thinker who had certain goals in mind, namely to provide the Geisteswissenschaften with a founding ontology as Dilthey aspired to do. It goes beyond that though, to M.H.'s extreme need to follow the history of philosophy back to its origins. He is strongly convinced that the origins of philosophy were decisive for the shape that later philosophy would take. Heidegger totally takes to heart Husserl's insistence that phenomenology penetrates from the surface into the depths of phenomena (Thing and Space). In those depths, he finds history. In a way even more extreme than Hegel's, 'immediate' phenomena are mined for their historical significance, while history is the medium of all conceptual significance.
Read
May 21, 2017In lieu of a review a brief history of philosophy.
I. The beginnings, e.g., the Pre-socratics.
II. Plato footnoted by Aristotle
III. Immanuel Kant aufgehoben by Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel
IV. 20th century showdown: Martin Heidegger v. Ludwig Wittgenstein
I. The beginnings, e.g., the Pre-socratics.
II. Plato footnoted by Aristotle
III. Immanuel Kant aufgehoben by Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel
IV. 20th century showdown: Martin Heidegger v. Ludwig Wittgenstein
September 29, 2018
پرسشی که هایدگر در هستی و زمان مطرح میکند «پرسش هستی» است، یعنی همان پرسشی که از سرآغاز فلسفه اندیشههای فیلسوفان را به تلاطم افکنده است. ازاینرو این کتاب از حیث موضوعاش تازگی ندارد. اما وجه «مدرن» آن شیوهٔ بررسی هایدگر از این مسئله و تعیین هستی انسان (دازاین) بهمثابه دروازهٔ ورود به شناخت هستی است که پس از سرآغازهای اصیل و خیرهکنندهٔ آن در فلسفهٔ یونان�� ماقبل سقراطی دیری است که حتی پرسش از آن به فراموشی سپرده شده است. تحلیل اگزیستانس دازاین از طریق ساختهای «ممکنی» که «اگزیستانسیال» نامیده میشوند «اونتولوژی بنیادی» نام میگیرد که شرط امکان ذاتی همهٔ اونتولوژیها را تشکیل میدهد. زیرا دازاین هستندهای است که هر پرسش فلسفی از آن سرچشمه میگیرد و به آن بازمیگردد. ازهمینرو بسیاری از مسائل فلسفه همچون پروا، خودبودگی و دیگربودگی، جهان، مکانمندی و زمانمندی، مرگ و غیره صورتبندیهای متفاوتی کسب میکنند. این اثر فضای فلسفی قرن بیستم را تحتتأثیر قرار داده و الهامبخش بسیاری از برجستهترین متفکران پساساختارگرا همچون میشل فوکو و ژاک دریدا بوده است.
October 16, 2016
This is the best book I have ever read. I had no problem with the translator, Joan Staumbaugh seemed to have done a very good job. I couldn't imagine reading this book in German even if I spoke fluent German because the way Heidegger appropriates words. This edition provides Heidegger's added footnotes and the edition provides a much needed and used by me Lexicon for the Latin and Greek phrases.
I had no idea what "Being and Time" was going to be about before I read it. Every synopsis that I had ever come across through my Great Course lectures, history of philosophy books and youtube videos were completely off the mark.
The book was a template on how I've approached my life up until now and I didn't realize that somebody else thought as similarly (but in formal philosophical structures) as I do about the nature of the human experience. (There is an incredibly nuanced presentation of the nature of science that runs through out the book that predates Thomas Kuhn's "The Structures of Scientific Revolutions" but follows it substantially. We are thrown in to the world and must cope by our structure of care (and care is not what you think it means).
Have no doubt about it this book reads difficulty. I would recommend skipping the introduction and read it after you've read the book. The book reads a lot like Finnegans Wake, but just realize that as in the Wake each sentence and paragraph has a reason for being placed in the book.
I would strongly recommend listening to the Hubert Dreyfus 2007 course on the book given at University of California (Berkeley) freely available from Itunes before you start reading this book. If I had not, I would not have been able to finish the book.
I make it a rule that after I have read a book I sell it back to the greatest used bookstore in the known universe, Coas in Las Cruces, NM. This book is the exception. I'll keep a copy for future re readings.
I had no idea what "Being and Time" was going to be about before I read it. Every synopsis that I had ever come across through my Great Course lectures, history of philosophy books and youtube videos were completely off the mark.
The book was a template on how I've approached my life up until now and I didn't realize that somebody else thought as similarly (but in formal philosophical structures) as I do about the nature of the human experience. (There is an incredibly nuanced presentation of the nature of science that runs through out the book that predates Thomas Kuhn's "The Structures of Scientific Revolutions" but follows it substantially. We are thrown in to the world and must cope by our structure of care (and care is not what you think it means).
Have no doubt about it this book reads difficulty. I would recommend skipping the introduction and read it after you've read the book. The book reads a lot like Finnegans Wake, but just realize that as in the Wake each sentence and paragraph has a reason for being placed in the book.
I would strongly recommend listening to the Hubert Dreyfus 2007 course on the book given at University of California (Berkeley) freely available from Itunes before you start reading this book. If I had not, I would not have been able to finish the book.
I make it a rule that after I have read a book I sell it back to the greatest used bookstore in the known universe, Coas in Las Cruces, NM. This book is the exception. I'll keep a copy for future re readings.
February 17, 2016
Being and Time was recommended to me--strongly enough that I purchased it--by Paul Schreck, a new member of Grinnell College's Philosophy Department who had switched from teaching Physics upon reading it. I did not, however, actually read the thing until enrolling in a course on Heidegger taught by Thomas Sheehan at Loyola University Chicago. Unbeknownst to me, however, I had had some exposure to Heidegger already in the study of modern theology, most particularly in The Systematic Theology of Paul Tillich, as well as in the study of phenomenological psychologists like Jaspers.
Being and Time reads like an unfinished, hastily written rough draft of a work. The edition we used was poorly translated and annotated to boot. There is much needless obscurity. It is often difficult to tell whether the confusion arose from the author or his translator. Our teacher, Tom Sheehan, was, however, clear and precise.
It seemed to me, while reading the tome, that most of it was familiar. The question, basically, is one of describing consciousness in all of its forms from simple awareness to conceptually nested ratiocination. Like Kant, Heidegger is at some pains to not confine himself to a particular mode of consciousness, neither to a particular human culture nor even to a particular species. Dogs, for instance, are aware and chimps identify and use tools. All of this was quite familiar from psychology.
Underlying Heidegger's project, however, is what might be called a religious or mystical one and there, in psychology, the closest approximation was Maslow and, of course, some of the phenomenologists. What is it that makes being possible? Heidegger wants to get behind any mind/body dualism of course and here he beats most psychologists and neurobiologists who work with such assumptions already given to them by their very language if nothing else. What, then, precedes the simplest awareness? What makes it possible? The answers he finds to these questions are most clearly associated to the writings of the mystical traditions. Awareness amounts to revelation, to the first words of Genesis.
It is not surprising that Heidegger in later years turned towards poetry, the form of language which allows its functioning, simultaneously, in both denotative and conotative operations. His writing, as a whole, is a circling of a central mystery which can never be uttered, only pointed to.
Being and Time reads like an unfinished, hastily written rough draft of a work. The edition we used was poorly translated and annotated to boot. There is much needless obscurity. It is often difficult to tell whether the confusion arose from the author or his translator. Our teacher, Tom Sheehan, was, however, clear and precise.
It seemed to me, while reading the tome, that most of it was familiar. The question, basically, is one of describing consciousness in all of its forms from simple awareness to conceptually nested ratiocination. Like Kant, Heidegger is at some pains to not confine himself to a particular mode of consciousness, neither to a particular human culture nor even to a particular species. Dogs, for instance, are aware and chimps identify and use tools. All of this was quite familiar from psychology.
Underlying Heidegger's project, however, is what might be called a religious or mystical one and there, in psychology, the closest approximation was Maslow and, of course, some of the phenomenologists. What is it that makes being possible? Heidegger wants to get behind any mind/body dualism of course and here he beats most psychologists and neurobiologists who work with such assumptions already given to them by their very language if nothing else. What, then, precedes the simplest awareness? What makes it possible? The answers he finds to these questions are most clearly associated to the writings of the mystical traditions. Awareness amounts to revelation, to the first words of Genesis.
It is not surprising that Heidegger in later years turned towards poetry, the form of language which allows its functioning, simultaneously, in both denotative and conotative operations. His writing, as a whole, is a circling of a central mystery which can never be uttered, only pointed to.
October 14, 2020
This is my third and final attempt at Heidegger's Sein und Zeit (1927). Having read a Dutch edition and listened to a lot of material prior to this final reading attempt, I can honestly say I both understood much much better where Heidegger is coming from and appreciate much more his attempt.
What he claims, basically, is that ever since Plato and Aristotle, the whole of western philosophy and science have occupied themselves with the world of reality (the ontic world). Layer upon layer of metaphysical and scientific theory was constructed, hiding more and more the origins of the quest of knowledge as the Pre-Socratics (especially Parmenides) perceived it. Theirs was a pure question, since they did not inherit any apparatus or theory. this question, was the question of Being. What does it mean for something to exist?
Heidegger's plan in Sein und Zeit is twofold. First, he wants to destroy the whole philosophical tradition (basically Aristotle, Descartes and Kant). Second, he wants to ask the original, pure question of Being. Strangely, he starts with the latter, only to plan to write three volumes on the first task (which he never did). So, we end up with a preliminary analysis of Being.
But how fascinating this preliminary analysis is! According to Heidegger, if we want to find the pure question of Being, we have to start with the being that occupies itself with asking this question of Being: human being. For Heidegger, there are two sorts of beings - things and human beings. Things occupy the world of our everyday experience and are a complex system of inderdependent references; things are ready to hand and near to hand, and in these ways they continuously shape our experience of the world, of existence.
The problem is, this world of average everydayness is a flight. We exist as 'men', in the sense that we are occupied with talking, curiosity and ambiguity in our everyday lives. We are never truly aware of our own existence, we just keep on living like we always have, which originated when we were thrown into the world. For Heidegger, this mode of living is an escape route from the fear of death which our existence invokes. When we, as beings, occupy ourselves with our own Being, we are (literally) designing our own lives, in the sense that we are consciously exploring all possibilities for us to exist.
First, this creates a future for us, a state to be which we are not - yet. But a division between current and future state immeditaly leads to a perception of a past, something we were but are not anymore. This is a very intuitive and immediate approach to the question: What is time? Heidegger views temporality as the fundamental meaning of Being for human existence - time is the horizon which gives all our moments of existence a particular meaning: it offers us everydayness (now), historicity (past) and real time (intertemporality - time in the world of things). By the way, it is intertemporality which is the origin of the notion of time which is current in traditional philosophy, science and common sense.
Second, our exploring of possibilities to be includes the possibility to not-be - the option to not exist. This literally is nothingness, which frightens us so much that we fall into our existence as 'man'. Although Heidegger is not occupied with ethics - at all - a gloomy mood seems to permeate all of Sein und Zeit, especially the second part where temporality and death kick in. For Heidegger, human existence is running ahead (anticipating) death. It is his claim that an authentic life, a life designed by oneself, is a life which faces up to this fear of death, which seems to advocate a life lived in continuous fear of death - consciously! Heidegger implicitly seems to suggest us what living a 'good life' consists of: overcoming our fallen status as 'men' of communities, embracing our fears of death, and realize the possibilities our consciences dictate us.
Of course, there is much more to be said about Heidegger's magnum opus, and many parts are not clear - at all - and have led to interpretation after interpretation of professional scholars. The above are some of the big themes and flavors running through Sein und Zeit. The most important thing to remember when reading the book is what Heidegger is doing and what he isn't doing.
Having been a student of Edmun Husserl, the father of phenomenology, he takes the phenomenological method - the study of phenomena as they appear to our consciousness, in their pure form - and applies it to human existence in its everday life. The comparison between Husserl and Heidegger is telling in itself. Husserl believed that to find the foundation of all existence (Being, if one wills) we have to observe how beings appear to us in our life-world of everyday experience; we then have to describe these phenomena in their purity, apart from any physical, psychological, or even mathematical concepts. This leads us to the discovery that in our consciousness there lie certain transcendental structures (i.e. independent of the world of reality) which are the necessary conditions for any experience, let alone knowledge to be possible.
Heidegger takes over the main aim of this method - to find the foundation of beings (Being) - but instead of the inward turn to consciousness, he seeks to fidn the meaning of every existing thing in human existence. We exist, as beings, in the world, and it is this reciprocal structure which has to be analyzed and broken down into moments of human existence (world, being-in, there). There is an important difference here - apart from the domain the phenomenological method was applied to in both thinkers - which is this. For Heidegger, the phenomenogical analysis of human existence and its resultant, found existential structures, is only a first step to the further question of Being. Husserl thought he found the foundation of existence in his transcendental phenomenology (pure Ideas as fundamental structures/necessary conditions) and that's basically it. Heidegger recognizes human existence is only one mode of existence; an analysis of human existence - its structures, its meaning, its moments - is only a preliminary stage to a more fundamental question: What is Being?
Heidegger analyzes human existence in its appearances in everyday existence; interprets these phenomena in terms of 'caring' (as in caring for what happens, what goes on, sort of like attention and health care in one); and offers us a fundamental ontology of human existence (i.e. its elemental structures).
The problem with traditional philosophy is that it is solely occupied with being in the real world, not Being, and Aristotle's categories - the ontological underpinnings of basically the whole tradition - deal with things in the world, not with human existence. This means that Heidegger has to found a whole new science, with a whole new apparatus of concepts and definitions. Or rather: he has to invent a whole new language with which to describe all the phenomena in this new field of knowledge.
Like a true German, he uses ancient terms in new senses, he invents new words and basically let's go of any constraints of logic or the sciences. Interesting fields? Perhaps. Might be even useful. But not appropriate to understand human being and Being as such. So, out goes all rules, structure, and convention, and with them, accessibility and comprehensibility. To master Heidegger, one has to learn his language. Apart from this, the book was rather written in a rush, to finish it before his academic promotion - which doesn't help either.
In sum, the reader has to learn a new language, look at old problems through a new lens; wrestle through 600 pages of abstract German prose which seems to drone on and on and on, and which repeat itself almost endlessly; and all the while keeping track of the minute progress which Heidegger makes throughout the book. The book reads like a plant, growing as time passes by. It is a beautiful experience, that's for sure, but after the third re-interpretation of the same old phenomena, one get's the feeling that this excursion will never end. And this is exactly Heidegger's point: first the everyday world has to be broken down and interpreted to reveal the fundamental structures of human existence. Then the discovery of 'care' as basic mode of human existence forces us to re[interpret all these existential structures. When we then stumble unto temporality (as the meaning of human existence, i.e. as the totality of possible modes of existence of a human being - get it?) and the whole re-interpretation process starts over again: now all fundamental structures have to be interpreted in the light of temporality. And then, when all this is over, Heidegger anounces that perhaps temporality - as 'original time' the meaning of being - perhaps forms the horizon of Being - requiring a fresh start. Luckily for us, he never finished this third part of the first volume; sadly, the three parts of the second volume - the destruction of the whole philosophical tradition - was never finished either. So we end up with an obscure, almost incomprehensible, unfinished work.
Nevertheless, the work itself is magnificent. I am curious as to Heidegger's change in later life, but I am hoping for a bit more easy-going material...
------
Edit: having read most of Heidegger's important early works, I now oversee his project much better. The totality of his programme, as well as his approach of it, is incredible. Even though I disagree with Heidegger's philosophy in a fundamental sense, I am amazed by his intellectual masterpiece Sein und Zeit, which not only started it all but actually set down the whole edifice.
My main objections are:
1. Heidegger's obsession with Ancient Greece, which seems kind of selective. Especially since many Eastern spiritualists found Heidegger to be echoing their own views.
2. And (through his rejection of logic) his hermeneutic approach, which seems kind of arbitrary. Why this interpretation? Why not another one? There seems to be no criterion with which to judge this.
As the French Heideggerian Jean Beaufret once quipped:
"Après Platon, Heidegger est le plus grand philosophe dans la tradition occidentale."
I think I agree. With perhaps an honorary mention for Aristotle, who created an alternative ontology to Plato's; and René Descartes, who created the subject-object duality. Most of modern philosophy since Descartes, is a reaction to or a development of Plato's theories and conceptions. As fascinating as most of this work is, it is not ground-breaking in any way. Heidegger revolutionized philosophy in a way that only Descartes was able to do.
What he claims, basically, is that ever since Plato and Aristotle, the whole of western philosophy and science have occupied themselves with the world of reality (the ontic world). Layer upon layer of metaphysical and scientific theory was constructed, hiding more and more the origins of the quest of knowledge as the Pre-Socratics (especially Parmenides) perceived it. Theirs was a pure question, since they did not inherit any apparatus or theory. this question, was the question of Being. What does it mean for something to exist?
Heidegger's plan in Sein und Zeit is twofold. First, he wants to destroy the whole philosophical tradition (basically Aristotle, Descartes and Kant). Second, he wants to ask the original, pure question of Being. Strangely, he starts with the latter, only to plan to write three volumes on the first task (which he never did). So, we end up with a preliminary analysis of Being.
But how fascinating this preliminary analysis is! According to Heidegger, if we want to find the pure question of Being, we have to start with the being that occupies itself with asking this question of Being: human being. For Heidegger, there are two sorts of beings - things and human beings. Things occupy the world of our everyday experience and are a complex system of inderdependent references; things are ready to hand and near to hand, and in these ways they continuously shape our experience of the world, of existence.
The problem is, this world of average everydayness is a flight. We exist as 'men', in the sense that we are occupied with talking, curiosity and ambiguity in our everyday lives. We are never truly aware of our own existence, we just keep on living like we always have, which originated when we were thrown into the world. For Heidegger, this mode of living is an escape route from the fear of death which our existence invokes. When we, as beings, occupy ourselves with our own Being, we are (literally) designing our own lives, in the sense that we are consciously exploring all possibilities for us to exist.
First, this creates a future for us, a state to be which we are not - yet. But a division between current and future state immeditaly leads to a perception of a past, something we were but are not anymore. This is a very intuitive and immediate approach to the question: What is time? Heidegger views temporality as the fundamental meaning of Being for human existence - time is the horizon which gives all our moments of existence a particular meaning: it offers us everydayness (now), historicity (past) and real time (intertemporality - time in the world of things). By the way, it is intertemporality which is the origin of the notion of time which is current in traditional philosophy, science and common sense.
Second, our exploring of possibilities to be includes the possibility to not-be - the option to not exist. This literally is nothingness, which frightens us so much that we fall into our existence as 'man'. Although Heidegger is not occupied with ethics - at all - a gloomy mood seems to permeate all of Sein und Zeit, especially the second part where temporality and death kick in. For Heidegger, human existence is running ahead (anticipating) death. It is his claim that an authentic life, a life designed by oneself, is a life which faces up to this fear of death, which seems to advocate a life lived in continuous fear of death - consciously! Heidegger implicitly seems to suggest us what living a 'good life' consists of: overcoming our fallen status as 'men' of communities, embracing our fears of death, and realize the possibilities our consciences dictate us.
Of course, there is much more to be said about Heidegger's magnum opus, and many parts are not clear - at all - and have led to interpretation after interpretation of professional scholars. The above are some of the big themes and flavors running through Sein und Zeit. The most important thing to remember when reading the book is what Heidegger is doing and what he isn't doing.
Having been a student of Edmun Husserl, the father of phenomenology, he takes the phenomenological method - the study of phenomena as they appear to our consciousness, in their pure form - and applies it to human existence in its everday life. The comparison between Husserl and Heidegger is telling in itself. Husserl believed that to find the foundation of all existence (Being, if one wills) we have to observe how beings appear to us in our life-world of everyday experience; we then have to describe these phenomena in their purity, apart from any physical, psychological, or even mathematical concepts. This leads us to the discovery that in our consciousness there lie certain transcendental structures (i.e. independent of the world of reality) which are the necessary conditions for any experience, let alone knowledge to be possible.
Heidegger takes over the main aim of this method - to find the foundation of beings (Being) - but instead of the inward turn to consciousness, he seeks to fidn the meaning of every existing thing in human existence. We exist, as beings, in the world, and it is this reciprocal structure which has to be analyzed and broken down into moments of human existence (world, being-in, there). There is an important difference here - apart from the domain the phenomenological method was applied to in both thinkers - which is this. For Heidegger, the phenomenogical analysis of human existence and its resultant, found existential structures, is only a first step to the further question of Being. Husserl thought he found the foundation of existence in his transcendental phenomenology (pure Ideas as fundamental structures/necessary conditions) and that's basically it. Heidegger recognizes human existence is only one mode of existence; an analysis of human existence - its structures, its meaning, its moments - is only a preliminary stage to a more fundamental question: What is Being?
Heidegger analyzes human existence in its appearances in everyday existence; interprets these phenomena in terms of 'caring' (as in caring for what happens, what goes on, sort of like attention and health care in one); and offers us a fundamental ontology of human existence (i.e. its elemental structures).
The problem with traditional philosophy is that it is solely occupied with being in the real world, not Being, and Aristotle's categories - the ontological underpinnings of basically the whole tradition - deal with things in the world, not with human existence. This means that Heidegger has to found a whole new science, with a whole new apparatus of concepts and definitions. Or rather: he has to invent a whole new language with which to describe all the phenomena in this new field of knowledge.
Like a true German, he uses ancient terms in new senses, he invents new words and basically let's go of any constraints of logic or the sciences. Interesting fields? Perhaps. Might be even useful. But not appropriate to understand human being and Being as such. So, out goes all rules, structure, and convention, and with them, accessibility and comprehensibility. To master Heidegger, one has to learn his language. Apart from this, the book was rather written in a rush, to finish it before his academic promotion - which doesn't help either.
In sum, the reader has to learn a new language, look at old problems through a new lens; wrestle through 600 pages of abstract German prose which seems to drone on and on and on, and which repeat itself almost endlessly; and all the while keeping track of the minute progress which Heidegger makes throughout the book. The book reads like a plant, growing as time passes by. It is a beautiful experience, that's for sure, but after the third re-interpretation of the same old phenomena, one get's the feeling that this excursion will never end. And this is exactly Heidegger's point: first the everyday world has to be broken down and interpreted to reveal the fundamental structures of human existence. Then the discovery of 'care' as basic mode of human existence forces us to re[interpret all these existential structures. When we then stumble unto temporality (as the meaning of human existence, i.e. as the totality of possible modes of existence of a human being - get it?) and the whole re-interpretation process starts over again: now all fundamental structures have to be interpreted in the light of temporality. And then, when all this is over, Heidegger anounces that perhaps temporality - as 'original time' the meaning of being - perhaps forms the horizon of Being - requiring a fresh start. Luckily for us, he never finished this third part of the first volume; sadly, the three parts of the second volume - the destruction of the whole philosophical tradition - was never finished either. So we end up with an obscure, almost incomprehensible, unfinished work.
Nevertheless, the work itself is magnificent. I am curious as to Heidegger's change in later life, but I am hoping for a bit more easy-going material...
------
Edit: having read most of Heidegger's important early works, I now oversee his project much better. The totality of his programme, as well as his approach of it, is incredible. Even though I disagree with Heidegger's philosophy in a fundamental sense, I am amazed by his intellectual masterpiece Sein und Zeit, which not only started it all but actually set down the whole edifice.
My main objections are:
1. Heidegger's obsession with Ancient Greece, which seems kind of selective. Especially since many Eastern spiritualists found Heidegger to be echoing their own views.
2. And (through his rejection of logic) his hermeneutic approach, which seems kind of arbitrary. Why this interpretation? Why not another one? There seems to be no criterion with which to judge this.
As the French Heideggerian Jean Beaufret once quipped:
"Après Platon, Heidegger est le plus grand philosophe dans la tradition occidentale."
I think I agree. With perhaps an honorary mention for Aristotle, who created an alternative ontology to Plato's; and René Descartes, who created the subject-object duality. Most of modern philosophy since Descartes, is a reaction to or a development of Plato's theories and conceptions. As fascinating as most of this work is, it is not ground-breaking in any way. Heidegger revolutionized philosophy in a way that only Descartes was able to do.
May 11, 2011
Being and Time is probably the most difficult book I've ever read, even with the help of Dreyfus, Polt, and Blattner. (Who are great helps, all of them.) What's really interesting about the book is that Heidegger is simply describing basic everyday "common sense," but in order to get back to the common sense of Aristotle he has to deconstruct 500 years of western thinking. In order to do this he has to invent a new vocabulary that describes being in a extraordinarily rigorous and entirely new way. He does this brilliantly, but learning his language and methodology is not easy. But why should it be? He's asking us to jettison the way we've learn to think about being. He's challenging us to start over again from scratch and examine ourselves and our relationship to the world anew. There's no easy way to do this.
Writing a "review" of this book, which I understand in only the most tenuous way, is patently ridiculous. But it has changed the way I read philosophy, and I though I'm not ready to sign on to Heidegger's ontology without reservation, I don't regret one minute of the frustration this book has provided me. It's an exquisitely rewarding frustration.
Writing a "review" of this book, which I understand in only the most tenuous way, is patently ridiculous. But it has changed the way I read philosophy, and I though I'm not ready to sign on to Heidegger's ontology without reservation, I don't regret one minute of the frustration this book has provided me. It's an exquisitely rewarding frustration.
May 6, 2020
Quick notes on my fourth time with this book and my first time listening. I would strongly suggest listening rather than reading. 1) Heidegger is definitely a Fascist and it comes through clearly in multiple parts of this book and if those parts don't jump out at you, you probably missing at what he is getting at 2)Heidegger is a very good writer but is best appreciated when listened to not read 2)Heidegger is an anti-realist but doesn't know it (see A Thing of This World, A History of Continental Anti-Realism by Braver for why I can say that) 3)Heidegger might not see himself as an Existentialist but they can based on his angst, being-unto-death, fear and his psychoanalytical mumbo jumbo within this book 4) the 'they' (e.g. facebook) distracts from our ownmost being and that is a good message and worth understanding 5) There is a connection to Dante and St. Thomas Aquinas (see Becoming Heidegger for how Heidegger would say so too). (5/6/2020) [end of quick note]
This is the single most important book for me for which I have ever read. The first time I read this book about a year ago it was a struggle and I only got the pieces of the story and didn't get the whole. Upon my second reading and after having dipped my toes into many other philosophy books, I now realized that Heidiegger is an incredibly good writer and he knows how to tell his story coherently. I am not a philosopher. Heidegger is not necessarily abtruse after a first reading.
Dasein, the being (thing) that takes a stand on its own being is unlike any other being in the universe. That kind of being always has in its background a variation of the the three big questions along the lines about our design (where did I come from), purpose (what am I supposed to do) and reason (where does my purpose lie). All three questions presuppose the existence of a self as a human being (Dasein). Hence the question of the most interesting being of all, our own being.
Heidegger starts the book with Hegel (consciousness is the 'indeterminate immediate') and ends the book with Hegel (time as now, but Heidegger is clearly not happy with that either). Hegel's 'Phenonomology of Mind (Spirit)' is my second favorite book and I read it (and his Logic) after I had read 'Being and Time' the first time. Hegel uses the abstract to explain the abstract and uses a dialetic (thesis, antithesis, synthesis) to bring it to reality (at least his version of reality).
Heidegger does something different. He'll start with things but end with time as if he wanted to do that all along, but he ends the book murkily because he is not comfortable with time. Einstein takes time out of the universe (as Parmenides does) through his 'block universe'. Einstein's original sin (his words) was entwining the absolute speed of light with a physical clock (Bergson knows this and does get cited in this book and Einstein 'theory of relativity' gets cited in a footnote but mostly to explicitly ignore it). Heidegger wants to put becoming back into the world and does his best at trying.
I want to get to the reason why I love this book so much. Dasein is thrown into the world and we lose our authentic selves because the "they", the idle chatter (gossip, Facebook), the entanglement, and the atunement (mood of the world) takes us away from our ownmost, nonrelational (never relating to death), and inseparable self. The self that allows us to understand most appropriately.
Dasein is always in guilt from the anxiety and fear from the potential being ahead of death that we all have. The guilt can be thought of as the debt we always owe ourselves because we know that we will die (Camus' 'the absurd'). An analogy I came up with that would not have been possible in 1927 is that the debt we have is similar to the near violation of the conservation of matter that happens when a virtual particle is created in space. The particle is created and near simultaneously (but not quite at the exact time) an anti-particle is created and it is destroyed unless this happens on the horizon of a black hole. The particle that is originally created only exists in the emptiness of space as long as it knows that a debt must be paid leading to its own annihilation. Otherwise, the particle could not exist without violating a conservation law.
It is our authentic existence that makes Dasein care (our conscience calls ourselves). The worldviews we have are a 'facon de parler' (convenient fiction). The book "Sapiens" gets this point. Heidegger states "that science has its origins in authentic existence", but "I will not show that in this book". He'll speak of history as a science to show that how we understand history is analogous to how we experience ourselves. Dilthey's 'generations' which is footnoted and I looked up to confirm that it meant the cohorts that we're put in with make us partly who we become, often less authentic.
I usually detest (maybe loathe is a better word) self help books ("The Purpose Driven Life" is probably the single worst book I've ever read). I've never have seen a better self help book than this book. Our purpose for life lies within understanding our own understand of being in the world and understanding the variation to the three big questions. This book has that and also provides insights and justifications into why I think the way I do. I just love his insult at people who say "I don't have the time", they, according to him (and me) are inauthentic irresolute' because the person who understands will have 'anticipatory resoluteness' and always make time appropriately.
Appropriately is how we must lead our ownmost being. Our ethical, moral, and ontological (in a way, philosophical) views come from our understanding, discourse, attunement and entanglement with being in the world and is up to us to grab onto our authentic selves. As Heidegger says, 'speaking a lot about something does not in the least guarantee that understanding is thus furthered". So therefore, I'll stop writing about why I love this book so much.
This is the single most important book for me for which I have ever read. The first time I read this book about a year ago it was a struggle and I only got the pieces of the story and didn't get the whole. Upon my second reading and after having dipped my toes into many other philosophy books, I now realized that Heidiegger is an incredibly good writer and he knows how to tell his story coherently. I am not a philosopher. Heidegger is not necessarily abtruse after a first reading.
Dasein, the being (thing) that takes a stand on its own being is unlike any other being in the universe. That kind of being always has in its background a variation of the the three big questions along the lines about our design (where did I come from), purpose (what am I supposed to do) and reason (where does my purpose lie). All three questions presuppose the existence of a self as a human being (Dasein). Hence the question of the most interesting being of all, our own being.
Heidegger starts the book with Hegel (consciousness is the 'indeterminate immediate') and ends the book with Hegel (time as now, but Heidegger is clearly not happy with that either). Hegel's 'Phenonomology of Mind (Spirit)' is my second favorite book and I read it (and his Logic) after I had read 'Being and Time' the first time. Hegel uses the abstract to explain the abstract and uses a dialetic (thesis, antithesis, synthesis) to bring it to reality (at least his version of reality).
Heidegger does something different. He'll start with things but end with time as if he wanted to do that all along, but he ends the book murkily because he is not comfortable with time. Einstein takes time out of the universe (as Parmenides does) through his 'block universe'. Einstein's original sin (his words) was entwining the absolute speed of light with a physical clock (Bergson knows this and does get cited in this book and Einstein 'theory of relativity' gets cited in a footnote but mostly to explicitly ignore it). Heidegger wants to put becoming back into the world and does his best at trying.
I want to get to the reason why I love this book so much. Dasein is thrown into the world and we lose our authentic selves because the "they", the idle chatter (gossip, Facebook), the entanglement, and the atunement (mood of the world) takes us away from our ownmost, nonrelational (never relating to death), and inseparable self. The self that allows us to understand most appropriately.
Dasein is always in guilt from the anxiety and fear from the potential being ahead of death that we all have. The guilt can be thought of as the debt we always owe ourselves because we know that we will die (Camus' 'the absurd'). An analogy I came up with that would not have been possible in 1927 is that the debt we have is similar to the near violation of the conservation of matter that happens when a virtual particle is created in space. The particle is created and near simultaneously (but not quite at the exact time) an anti-particle is created and it is destroyed unless this happens on the horizon of a black hole. The particle that is originally created only exists in the emptiness of space as long as it knows that a debt must be paid leading to its own annihilation. Otherwise, the particle could not exist without violating a conservation law.
It is our authentic existence that makes Dasein care (our conscience calls ourselves). The worldviews we have are a 'facon de parler' (convenient fiction). The book "Sapiens" gets this point. Heidegger states "that science has its origins in authentic existence", but "I will not show that in this book". He'll speak of history as a science to show that how we understand history is analogous to how we experience ourselves. Dilthey's 'generations' which is footnoted and I looked up to confirm that it meant the cohorts that we're put in with make us partly who we become, often less authentic.
I usually detest (maybe loathe is a better word) self help books ("The Purpose Driven Life" is probably the single worst book I've ever read). I've never have seen a better self help book than this book. Our purpose for life lies within understanding our own understand of being in the world and understanding the variation to the three big questions. This book has that and also provides insights and justifications into why I think the way I do. I just love his insult at people who say "I don't have the time", they, according to him (and me) are inauthentic irresolute' because the person who understands will have 'anticipatory resoluteness' and always make time appropriately.
Appropriately is how we must lead our ownmost being. Our ethical, moral, and ontological (in a way, philosophical) views come from our understanding, discourse, attunement and entanglement with being in the world and is up to us to grab onto our authentic selves. As Heidegger says, 'speaking a lot about something does not in the least guarantee that understanding is thus furthered". So therefore, I'll stop writing about why I love this book so much.
July 27, 2007
A necessary read to see to turn from Cartesian philosophy. Heidegger "explodes all of the history of ontology" in this work, where he finally uncovers the question of being, which has been neglected since Plato and Aristotle first considered way back. Since philosophers, namely Descartes and Husserl, have assumed being to be an impenetrable subjectivity, a soul or an ego.
Heidegger main goal is undercut the ontology that generates either/ors, the kind of ontology found in Plato’s forms, Aristotles’ primary substances, the Creator of Christian belief, Descartes’ rex extensa and res cognitans, Kant’s noumena, the physical stuff presupposed by scientific naturalism. Frede calls this “substance ontology”: the view that what is ultimately real is that which underlies properties—what stands under and remains continuously present throughout all change. Heidegger challenges the idea that the real world must be thought of in terms of substance at all. In Being and Time, Heidegger quickly notes that ontology as such, the question of being, “remains itself naïve and opaque” if it fails to inquire first into the meaning of being (31). In other words, since what things are are only intelligible to us insofar as they prove themselves to be determinate or relevant to us, we need a fundamental ontology that clarifies the meaning of things in general. And since our “being-there” (Dasein) is “the horizon in which something like being in general becomes intelligible,” fundamental ontology must clarify “an understanding which itself belongs to the constitution of the entity called Dasein” (274). The question of being, thus, is reformulated as a question about the condition for the accessibility of things. As Guigon, the author of Cambridge’s companion to reading Heidegger, argues: “In Heidegger’s view, there is no pure, external vantage point to which we can retreat in order to get a disinterested, presupposition-less angle on things” (6). As Taylor shows in “Engaged Agency,” it is only because we are always in a familiar life-world, that we have some pre-understanding of what things are all about. It is our being as participants in a shared practical world that first gives us a window onto ourselves and reality.
Heidegger main goal is undercut the ontology that generates either/ors, the kind of ontology found in Plato’s forms, Aristotles’ primary substances, the Creator of Christian belief, Descartes’ rex extensa and res cognitans, Kant’s noumena, the physical stuff presupposed by scientific naturalism. Frede calls this “substance ontology”: the view that what is ultimately real is that which underlies properties—what stands under and remains continuously present throughout all change. Heidegger challenges the idea that the real world must be thought of in terms of substance at all. In Being and Time, Heidegger quickly notes that ontology as such, the question of being, “remains itself naïve and opaque” if it fails to inquire first into the meaning of being (31). In other words, since what things are are only intelligible to us insofar as they prove themselves to be determinate or relevant to us, we need a fundamental ontology that clarifies the meaning of things in general. And since our “being-there” (Dasein) is “the horizon in which something like being in general becomes intelligible,” fundamental ontology must clarify “an understanding which itself belongs to the constitution of the entity called Dasein” (274). The question of being, thus, is reformulated as a question about the condition for the accessibility of things. As Guigon, the author of Cambridge’s companion to reading Heidegger, argues: “In Heidegger’s view, there is no pure, external vantage point to which we can retreat in order to get a disinterested, presupposition-less angle on things” (6). As Taylor shows in “Engaged Agency,” it is only because we are always in a familiar life-world, that we have some pre-understanding of what things are all about. It is our being as participants in a shared practical world that first gives us a window onto ourselves and reality.
Read
April 10, 2024Judge :
- Order, order ! We are here today to hear the case of the People vs User, who is accused of killing the Time, in cold blood. How do you plead, User ?
User :
- Not guilty, Your Honor ! I have no idea what this is all about. I was just living my life, minding my own business, when I was arrested by these two men in black suits.
Judge :
- Do you have any witnesses or evidence to support your claim ?
User :
- Well...no, Your Honor, I don't even know who or what Time is, let alone how to kill it...
Judge :
- I see...Then let us hear from the prosecution. What do you have to say, Prosecutor ?
Prosecutor :
- Thank you, Your Honor. The evidence is clear and undeniable. User is guilty of the most heinous crime imaginable, killing the Time.
Time is the essence of life, the measure of existence, the fabric of reality. Without Time, there is no past, no present, no future. User has destroyed the very foundation of our world, and for what ? For their own selfish gain, for their own twisted pleasure, for their own sense of power.
Judge :
- And how do you prove that User killed the time, Prosecutor ?
Prosecutor :
- It's simple, Your Honor, we have the murder weapon right here, ( holds up a clock ) . This is the clock that User used to stab the Time in the heart, stopping it forever. We found it in User's apartment, along with a note that reads : " I did it. I killed the Time
. And I would do it again ".
Judge :
- That is indeed a damning piece of evidence, Prosecutor. User, do you have anything to say in your defense ?
User :
- Your Honor, this is absurd. That clock is not mine. I don't even own à clock. It reminds me of handcuffs.... This is a conspiracy, someone wants me to suffer...
Judge :
And who would that be, User ?
User :
- I have no idea, Your Honor. Maybe the Time itself. Maybe it's not really dead. Maybe it's playing a cruel joke on me.. Maybe it's trying to get revenge on me for something I did in the past, or something I will do in the future..
Judge :
- Looks like you chose your own sentence, User. You struggled to read " Being and Time "backward, and that's a heresy - as a result, the Time suffered terribly. You are punished and condemned to read Heidegger's entire work, blindfolded.
User :
- But...but ...
Judge : ( bangs gavel )
- Sorry, User. Consider yourself lucky. That's the law. Joseph K didn't even have that chance. I am more merciful than Kafka.
Case closed.
- Order, order ! We are here today to hear the case of the People vs User, who is accused of killing the Time, in cold blood. How do you plead, User ?
User :
- Not guilty, Your Honor ! I have no idea what this is all about. I was just living my life, minding my own business, when I was arrested by these two men in black suits.
Judge :
- Do you have any witnesses or evidence to support your claim ?
User :
- Well...no, Your Honor, I don't even know who or what Time is, let alone how to kill it...
Judge :
- I see...Then let us hear from the prosecution. What do you have to say, Prosecutor ?
Prosecutor :
- Thank you, Your Honor. The evidence is clear and undeniable. User is guilty of the most heinous crime imaginable, killing the Time.
Time is the essence of life, the measure of existence, the fabric of reality. Without Time, there is no past, no present, no future. User has destroyed the very foundation of our world, and for what ? For their own selfish gain, for their own twisted pleasure, for their own sense of power.
Judge :
- And how do you prove that User killed the time, Prosecutor ?
Prosecutor :
- It's simple, Your Honor, we have the murder weapon right here, ( holds up a clock ) . This is the clock that User used to stab the Time in the heart, stopping it forever. We found it in User's apartment, along with a note that reads : " I did it. I killed the Time
. And I would do it again ".
Judge :
- That is indeed a damning piece of evidence, Prosecutor. User, do you have anything to say in your defense ?
User :
- Your Honor, this is absurd. That clock is not mine. I don't even own à clock. It reminds me of handcuffs.... This is a conspiracy, someone wants me to suffer...
Judge :
And who would that be, User ?
User :
- I have no idea, Your Honor. Maybe the Time itself. Maybe it's not really dead. Maybe it's playing a cruel joke on me.. Maybe it's trying to get revenge on me for something I did in the past, or something I will do in the future..
Judge :
- Looks like you chose your own sentence, User. You struggled to read " Being and Time "backward, and that's a heresy - as a result, the Time suffered terribly. You are punished and condemned to read Heidegger's entire work, blindfolded.
User :
- But...but ...
Judge : ( bangs gavel )
- Sorry, User. Consider yourself lucky. That's the law. Joseph K didn't even have that chance. I am more merciful than Kafka.
Case closed.
May 5, 2021
Some Thoughts On Approaching Being And Time
Martin Heidegger's (1889 -- 1976) "Being and Time" (1927), together with Ludwig Wittgenstein's "Philosophical Investigations" is one of the seminal philosophical works of the Twentieth Century. The work still remains difficult, obscure, and highly controversial. The book, and its author, provoke wildly varying responses. This translation, by Macquarrie and Robinson dates from 1962 and appeared in paperback only in 2008 with a useful introduction by philosopher Taylor Carman. Another translation, by Joan Stambaugh, appeared some years ago; but the Macquarrie and Robinson version, for all its difficulty, has become the standard version in English.
Heidegger spent his early years in a seminary but abandoned Catholicism in 1917-1918. His interest in and ambivalence toward religion permeates "Being and Time." Heidegger was a friend of Edmund Husserl, the founder of the philosophical movement known as phenomenology. "Being and Time" is dedicated to Husserl and includes several laudatory references to him. Heidegger was Husserl's assistant at Freiburg, but he wrote "Being and Time" when he had assumed a position at Marburg. He became Heidegger's successor at Freiburg upon Husserl's retirement in 1928. Before writing "Being and Time", Heidegger was regarded as a brilliant scholar and a charismatic teacher. But he had published little. "Being and Time" made him famous, virtually a celebrity, an accomplishment rare for a philosopher. Heidegger remained in the public eye through what became a notorious life through his political involvement with Nazism, and through a long life after WW II in which he did not expressly repudiate his earlier politics.
Even though Heidegger turned Husserl on his head, the phenomenological influence in "Being and Time" is pervasive. Husserl's background in mathematical logic (and Heidegger's too in his early years) also plays more of a role in "Being and Time", I found, than I first thought when I read the book many years ago. In "Being and Time" Heidegger wrestles with many major philosophers, including Descartes, Aristotle, Kant, Kierkegaard, and Hegel, among others.
Heidegger never completed "Being and Time" as he had originally conceived the work. The book as we have it consists of a long introduction, a section called Part I, titled "The Interpretation of Dasein in Terms of Temporality, and the Explication of Time as the Transcendental Horizon for the Question of Being." Part I has two large Divisions each consisting of many subchapters. The first Division, very simply, develops Heidegger's understanding of "Dasein" and of "Being-in-the-World". The second, and much more emotively charged and difficult Division, deals with temporality, resoluteness, and death. Heidegger completed a third division of Part I, but rejected it as unsatisfactory and never published it. A projected part II of "Being and Time" never appeared, as Heidegger abandoned his original lengthy project for the book.
"Being and Time" is a book that requires substantial patience and concentration to read. The reader must be extraordinarily careful with Heidegger's definitions, as the author invents much of his own terminology and uses familiar terms in unusual ways. Beyond that, the style of the book is extraordinarily dense. Unsympathetic readers and critics find Heidegger willfully obscure. Some see the book as little more than gibberish. Obscure it is, but not gibberish. While portions of the writing seem to me to resist understanding, study will be rewarded. The form and style of the book are an integral part of Heidegger's teaching, as he encourages the reader to delve deeply into what might be regarded as simple, even trivial, matters and to see things that are close in a new light. The writing is heavily metaphorical with figures derived from theology and terminology that is suggestive of violence and sexuality in many places.
The book does not offer arguments in the sense of a traditional philosophical study. Rather Heidegger follows Husserl in trying to get the reader to see and to look at things afresh. Husserl studied ideals of consciousness while Heidegger turns his message to look at being through man's place in the world. There is a tension in the book, it seems to me, between seeing the world primordially, without the encrustations that have accrued from the Greek way of seeing things, and interpreting the world. Heidegger appears to do both.
Heidegger draws a distinction between ontics and ontology. Philosophers, scientists, and most lay people have thought only ontically -- about existing things. Heidegger wants to open up the question of being -- and draws what is a critically important distinction between existing things and reality -- which does not have the concept of thinghood. He attacks the Aristotelian concept of substance which is basic to much Western thought and the dualism of Descartes. Much of the book is an attempt to dissolve philosophical questions resulting from a substantialist metaphysics.
The book challenges the primacy most thinkers have accorded to the concept of reason and asks its readers to understand "being-in-the-world" and activity as the source of life from which subsequent concepts of reasoning arises. Although Heidegger had disdain for American philosophy, I found that a hard pragmatism underlies much of "Being and Time".
In its concepts of historicity, commitment, the people, and perhaps in its derogation of reason, "Being and Time" could be read as laying a philosophical basis for the Nazism which Heidegger actively supported during the 1930s. This aspect of the work should not be minimized. But neither should the power, originality, and insight of "Being and Time" be denied.
When I began to study philosophy many years ago, the discipline was essentially divided between "analytic philosophy" and "continental" or "existential" philosophy. That division remains today. But some readers have seen parallels between the two broad schools. For me these parallels, particularly the rejection of Cartesianism and of substance metaphysics, come through stronger after the distance of the years. It is worth considering how much changes and how much remains the same in philosophy.
Readers with a good background in philosophy will probably be in a better position to struggle with "Being and Time" than those with little exposure to the subject. On my most recent reading of the book, I read it through and then read a commentary -- there are many excellent studies of "Being and Time". For most philosophical texts, I think the reader should first go to the work itself and try to make sense of it rather than to get one's perspective on the book fixed by a commentary. But study can be done in many ways.
While highly critical of Heidegger for his political activities, the philosopher Karl Jaspers said of him: "In the full flow of his discourse he occasionally succeeds in hitting the nerve of the philosophical enterprise in a most mysterious and marvellous way. In this, as far as I can see, he is perhaps unique among contemporary German philosophers." "Being and Time" is an important book.
Robin Friedman
Martin Heidegger's (1889 -- 1976) "Being and Time" (1927), together with Ludwig Wittgenstein's "Philosophical Investigations" is one of the seminal philosophical works of the Twentieth Century. The work still remains difficult, obscure, and highly controversial. The book, and its author, provoke wildly varying responses. This translation, by Macquarrie and Robinson dates from 1962 and appeared in paperback only in 2008 with a useful introduction by philosopher Taylor Carman. Another translation, by Joan Stambaugh, appeared some years ago; but the Macquarrie and Robinson version, for all its difficulty, has become the standard version in English.
Heidegger spent his early years in a seminary but abandoned Catholicism in 1917-1918. His interest in and ambivalence toward religion permeates "Being and Time." Heidegger was a friend of Edmund Husserl, the founder of the philosophical movement known as phenomenology. "Being and Time" is dedicated to Husserl and includes several laudatory references to him. Heidegger was Husserl's assistant at Freiburg, but he wrote "Being and Time" when he had assumed a position at Marburg. He became Heidegger's successor at Freiburg upon Husserl's retirement in 1928. Before writing "Being and Time", Heidegger was regarded as a brilliant scholar and a charismatic teacher. But he had published little. "Being and Time" made him famous, virtually a celebrity, an accomplishment rare for a philosopher. Heidegger remained in the public eye through what became a notorious life through his political involvement with Nazism, and through a long life after WW II in which he did not expressly repudiate his earlier politics.
Even though Heidegger turned Husserl on his head, the phenomenological influence in "Being and Time" is pervasive. Husserl's background in mathematical logic (and Heidegger's too in his early years) also plays more of a role in "Being and Time", I found, than I first thought when I read the book many years ago. In "Being and Time" Heidegger wrestles with many major philosophers, including Descartes, Aristotle, Kant, Kierkegaard, and Hegel, among others.
Heidegger never completed "Being and Time" as he had originally conceived the work. The book as we have it consists of a long introduction, a section called Part I, titled "The Interpretation of Dasein in Terms of Temporality, and the Explication of Time as the Transcendental Horizon for the Question of Being." Part I has two large Divisions each consisting of many subchapters. The first Division, very simply, develops Heidegger's understanding of "Dasein" and of "Being-in-the-World". The second, and much more emotively charged and difficult Division, deals with temporality, resoluteness, and death. Heidegger completed a third division of Part I, but rejected it as unsatisfactory and never published it. A projected part II of "Being and Time" never appeared, as Heidegger abandoned his original lengthy project for the book.
"Being and Time" is a book that requires substantial patience and concentration to read. The reader must be extraordinarily careful with Heidegger's definitions, as the author invents much of his own terminology and uses familiar terms in unusual ways. Beyond that, the style of the book is extraordinarily dense. Unsympathetic readers and critics find Heidegger willfully obscure. Some see the book as little more than gibberish. Obscure it is, but not gibberish. While portions of the writing seem to me to resist understanding, study will be rewarded. The form and style of the book are an integral part of Heidegger's teaching, as he encourages the reader to delve deeply into what might be regarded as simple, even trivial, matters and to see things that are close in a new light. The writing is heavily metaphorical with figures derived from theology and terminology that is suggestive of violence and sexuality in many places.
The book does not offer arguments in the sense of a traditional philosophical study. Rather Heidegger follows Husserl in trying to get the reader to see and to look at things afresh. Husserl studied ideals of consciousness while Heidegger turns his message to look at being through man's place in the world. There is a tension in the book, it seems to me, between seeing the world primordially, without the encrustations that have accrued from the Greek way of seeing things, and interpreting the world. Heidegger appears to do both.
Heidegger draws a distinction between ontics and ontology. Philosophers, scientists, and most lay people have thought only ontically -- about existing things. Heidegger wants to open up the question of being -- and draws what is a critically important distinction between existing things and reality -- which does not have the concept of thinghood. He attacks the Aristotelian concept of substance which is basic to much Western thought and the dualism of Descartes. Much of the book is an attempt to dissolve philosophical questions resulting from a substantialist metaphysics.
The book challenges the primacy most thinkers have accorded to the concept of reason and asks its readers to understand "being-in-the-world" and activity as the source of life from which subsequent concepts of reasoning arises. Although Heidegger had disdain for American philosophy, I found that a hard pragmatism underlies much of "Being and Time".
In its concepts of historicity, commitment, the people, and perhaps in its derogation of reason, "Being and Time" could be read as laying a philosophical basis for the Nazism which Heidegger actively supported during the 1930s. This aspect of the work should not be minimized. But neither should the power, originality, and insight of "Being and Time" be denied.
When I began to study philosophy many years ago, the discipline was essentially divided between "analytic philosophy" and "continental" or "existential" philosophy. That division remains today. But some readers have seen parallels between the two broad schools. For me these parallels, particularly the rejection of Cartesianism and of substance metaphysics, come through stronger after the distance of the years. It is worth considering how much changes and how much remains the same in philosophy.
Readers with a good background in philosophy will probably be in a better position to struggle with "Being and Time" than those with little exposure to the subject. On my most recent reading of the book, I read it through and then read a commentary -- there are many excellent studies of "Being and Time". For most philosophical texts, I think the reader should first go to the work itself and try to make sense of it rather than to get one's perspective on the book fixed by a commentary. But study can be done in many ways.
While highly critical of Heidegger for his political activities, the philosopher Karl Jaspers said of him: "In the full flow of his discourse he occasionally succeeds in hitting the nerve of the philosophical enterprise in a most mysterious and marvellous way. In this, as far as I can see, he is perhaps unique among contemporary German philosophers." "Being and Time" is an important book.
Robin Friedman
June 12, 2012
Athletes experience a fundamental way of being in the world that they often call "being in the zone." Larry Bird has been quoted as saying that he often didn't realize he had passed the basketball until a moment after he had actually passed it.
Martin Heidegger, father of the study of being, explains that we humans are enmeshed or absorbed in the world in ways that are more fundamental and deeper than our cognitive, intentional, or analytical ways of being; that we move about in the world without consciously guiding each and every step so to speak. We find ourselves opening the refrigerator door unthinkingly or arriving at work after a long drive without thoughtfully guiding our activity at each point along the way. We grab doorknobs, open doors, sit down on chairs, and so forth without cognitively thinking about our movements. We move about in the world seamlessly and effortlessly, not consciously or analytically.
To a trained athlete who has learned the art of a sport, the movements are habitual and instinctual, as when a baseball pitcher throws a fastball or when a batter steps up to the plate, swings, and hits the ball. It's only when an object isn't suitable for us that we actually become consciously aware of it, as for example, if someone were to surreptitiously swap out the ordinary baseball bat with a baseball bat that is too heavy to swing. At that point, the batter may pick up the bat, discover instantly that it isn’t suitable—that it’s too heavy—and would stare at the bat and begin to analyze the situation. Questions might arise in the batter's mind: “Is this someone else’s bat? Did someone play a joke on me? Did someone steal my bat? Where is MY bat?”
Most of the time, we do not analyze our everyday movements; we seamlessly move about in the world as well-accustomed inhabitants of this earthly space. This enmeshed activity is a fundamental way of being that is primary and deeper than our cognitive, intentional, and analytical states of being.
This way of being in the world is not entirely separate from the world as when one engages in detached analysis, studying or analyzing objects as through a microscope. Our enmeshed, non-cognitive activity shows us--discloses us--as inseparably part of the world.
This enmeshed existence in the world is a natural state of being for us. The world is like a wooden latticework and our lives grow as vines that weave themselves through the lattice. One cannot rip out the lattice without disrupting the vines; they have become a single interdependent whole and must be considered together and cannot be considered or analyzed separately and discretely. We have become part of the world and it has become part of us. More importantly, the interwoven nature of the vines and the lattice constitutes the most fundamental and primary way of being. All other states and ways of being are but stems and buds on the vine.
Why does this insight matter? In addition to opposing the Cartesian duality of inner and outer intentional content, Heidegger offers something that sticks. Heidegger matters because thousands of years of philosophical thought, beginning with Plato and culminating in Descartes, have posited humans as rational beings, separate and distinct from the world around us--thinking subjects studying the world of objects around us as though we lived our everyday lives as detached philosophers and scientists. Heidegger shows us that that we are in the world in ways that cannot be detached or extricated from the essence of our being. This enmeshed existence shows up when we do seek to analyze the world. Sometimes imperceptibly, this enmeshedness shows up in our inclinations and our leanings and prejudices to see the world in a certain way. Thus, even our analytical state of being grows out of this enmeshedness as buds on the vine, but we are often unaware of this when making our analysis.
Heidegger hits a home run because he places brackets on Cartesian thinking and appropriately limits the school of thought that seeks to comprehensively explain the human condition by objective reason and scientific inquiry. And yet, Heidegger misses so much on point and consequently, his analysis is incomplete, and in some cases, this incompleteness evidences an analysis that half reveals and half conceals our actual being in the world.
Martin Heidegger, father of the study of being, explains that we humans are enmeshed or absorbed in the world in ways that are more fundamental and deeper than our cognitive, intentional, or analytical ways of being; that we move about in the world without consciously guiding each and every step so to speak. We find ourselves opening the refrigerator door unthinkingly or arriving at work after a long drive without thoughtfully guiding our activity at each point along the way. We grab doorknobs, open doors, sit down on chairs, and so forth without cognitively thinking about our movements. We move about in the world seamlessly and effortlessly, not consciously or analytically.
To a trained athlete who has learned the art of a sport, the movements are habitual and instinctual, as when a baseball pitcher throws a fastball or when a batter steps up to the plate, swings, and hits the ball. It's only when an object isn't suitable for us that we actually become consciously aware of it, as for example, if someone were to surreptitiously swap out the ordinary baseball bat with a baseball bat that is too heavy to swing. At that point, the batter may pick up the bat, discover instantly that it isn’t suitable—that it’s too heavy—and would stare at the bat and begin to analyze the situation. Questions might arise in the batter's mind: “Is this someone else’s bat? Did someone play a joke on me? Did someone steal my bat? Where is MY bat?”
Most of the time, we do not analyze our everyday movements; we seamlessly move about in the world as well-accustomed inhabitants of this earthly space. This enmeshed activity is a fundamental way of being that is primary and deeper than our cognitive, intentional, and analytical states of being.
This way of being in the world is not entirely separate from the world as when one engages in detached analysis, studying or analyzing objects as through a microscope. Our enmeshed, non-cognitive activity shows us--discloses us--as inseparably part of the world.
This enmeshed existence in the world is a natural state of being for us. The world is like a wooden latticework and our lives grow as vines that weave themselves through the lattice. One cannot rip out the lattice without disrupting the vines; they have become a single interdependent whole and must be considered together and cannot be considered or analyzed separately and discretely. We have become part of the world and it has become part of us. More importantly, the interwoven nature of the vines and the lattice constitutes the most fundamental and primary way of being. All other states and ways of being are but stems and buds on the vine.
Why does this insight matter? In addition to opposing the Cartesian duality of inner and outer intentional content, Heidegger offers something that sticks. Heidegger matters because thousands of years of philosophical thought, beginning with Plato and culminating in Descartes, have posited humans as rational beings, separate and distinct from the world around us--thinking subjects studying the world of objects around us as though we lived our everyday lives as detached philosophers and scientists. Heidegger shows us that that we are in the world in ways that cannot be detached or extricated from the essence of our being. This enmeshed existence shows up when we do seek to analyze the world. Sometimes imperceptibly, this enmeshedness shows up in our inclinations and our leanings and prejudices to see the world in a certain way. Thus, even our analytical state of being grows out of this enmeshedness as buds on the vine, but we are often unaware of this when making our analysis.
Heidegger hits a home run because he places brackets on Cartesian thinking and appropriately limits the school of thought that seeks to comprehensively explain the human condition by objective reason and scientific inquiry. And yet, Heidegger misses so much on point and consequently, his analysis is incomplete, and in some cases, this incompleteness evidences an analysis that half reveals and half conceals our actual being in the world.
June 29, 2015
PERMANENCE AND FLUX
Parmenides:“Being appears as the pure fullness of the permanent, gathered within it, untouched by unrest and change.”
Heraclitus:“Everything is in flux. There is no being. Everything "is" becoming.”
Pindar:“Mayest thou by learning come forth as what thou art.”
PRECIS:
BEING AND BECOMING
What becomes is not yet. What is need no longer become. What "is", the being, has left all becoming behind it if indeed it ever became or could become. What "is" in the authentic sense also resists every onsurge of becoming.
BEING AND APPEARANCE
Appearing [is] self-manifestation, self-representation, standing-there, presence.
The realm of emerging and abiding is intrinsically at the same time a shining appearing. There are three modes of [appearing or] "Schein":
1. Radiance and glow;
2. Appearing, coming to light; and
3. Mere appearance or semblance.
...for the Greeks, standing-in-itself was nothing other than standing-there, standing-in-the-light. Being means appearing. Appearing is not something subsequent that sometimes happens to being. Appearing is the very essence of being.
Unconcealment
The essence of being is physis. Appearing is the power that emerges. Appearing makes manifest… being, appearing, causes to emerge from concealment. Since the being as such is, it places itself in and stands in unconcealment, aletheia...The being is true insofar as it is. The true as such is being. This means: The power that manifests itself stands in unconcealment. In showing itself, the unconcealed as such comes to stand. Truth as un-concealment is not an appendage to being.
Truth is inherent in the essence of being. To be a being - this comprises to come to light, to appear on the scene, to take one's/its place, to produce something. Non-being, on the other hand, means: to withdraw from appearing, from presence.
Beings display themselves as the momentary and close-at-hand. In appearing it gives itself an aspect, dokei. Doxa means:
1. Regard as glory;
2. Regard as sheer vision that offers something;
3. Regard as mere looking-so: appearance as mere semblance;
4. View that a man forms, opinion.
Doxa means aspect, regard...to place in the light and thus endow with permanence, being. [I show myself, appear, enter into the light. Here the emphasis is on sight and aspect, the regard in which a man stands...esteem.] For the Greeks glory was not something additional which one might or might not obtain; it was the mode of the highest being...appearing belonged to being, or more precisely...the essence of being lay partly in appearing.
Because being, physis, consists in appearing, in an offering of appearance and views, it stands, essentially and hence necessarily and permanently, in the possibility of an appearance which precisely covers over and conceals what the being in truth, i.e., in unconcealment, is. This regard in which the being now comes to stand is Schein in the sense of semblance.
"The Tragedy of Appearance"
It was in the Sophists and in Plato that appearance was declared to be mere appearance and thus degraded. At the same time, being, as idea, was exalted to a suprasensory realm.
A chasm…was created between the merely apparent being here below and real being somewhere on high. In that chasm, Christianity settled down, at the same time reinterpreting the lower as the created and the higher as the creator.
[It is] necessary to secure the priority of truth as unconcealment, of discovery over occultation and distortion.
BEING AND THINKING
Thinking sets itself off against being in such a way that being is placed before it and consequently stands opposed to it as an object...being takes on its entire interpretation from thinking.
In the seemingly unimportant distinction between being and thinking, we must discern the fundamental position of the Western spirit, against which our central attack is directed.
Thinking refers to the future as well as the past, but also to the present.
Thinking brings something before us, represents it. This representation always starts from ourselves, it is a free act, but not an arbitrary one, for it is bound by the fact that in representing we think of what is represented and think it through by dissecting it, by taking it apart and putting it together again. But in thinking we not only place something before ourselves, we not only dismember it for the sake of dismembering, but, reflecting, we pursue the thing represented. We do not simply accept it as it happens to fall to us; no, we undertake, as we say, to get behind the thing. We find out how it stands with the thing in general. We get an idea of it, we seek the universal.
Three Characteristics of 'Thinking'
1. Representation 'of our own accord' - considered as a uniquely free act;
2. Representation as analytical synthesis; and
3. Grasp of the universal through representation.
Separation of Logos and Physis
How did the separation between logos and physis come about? How did the logos (the 'logical') become the essence of thinking? [Hegel: 'the logical is the absolute form of truth and, what is more, it is also the pure truth itself.'] How did this logos in the sense of reason and understanding achieve domination over being in the beginning of Greek philosophy?
Being in the sense of physis is the power that emerges. As contrasted with becoming, it is permanence, permanent presence. Contrasted with appearance, it is appearing, manifest presence.
What else can logos mean but statement, discourse, word?
Heraclitus' doctrine of the logos was regarded as the forerunner of the logos that figures in the New Testament...the logos is Christ…the God-man.
Noein is understood as thinking, an activity of the subject. The thinking of the subject determines what being is. Being is nothing other than the object of thinking, that which is thought. But since thinking remains a subjective activity, and since thinking and being are supposed to be the same according to Parmenides, everything becomes subjective. Nothing is in itself. But such a doctrine, we are told, is found in Kant and the German idealists. Essentially Parmenides anticipated their teachings.
According to Heraclitus what man is is first manifested (edeixe, shows itself) in polemos, in the irruption of being itself. For philosophy what man is is not written somewhere in heaven. Only where being discloses itself in questioning does history happen and with it the being of man, by virtue of which he ventures to set himself apart from the being as such and contend with it.
Only as a questioning historical being does man come to himself; only as such is he a self. Man's selfhood means this: he must transform the being that discloses itself to him into history and bring himself to stand in it. Selfhood does not mean that he is primarily an 'ego' and an individual. This is no more than he is a ‘we’, a community.
The initial separation between logos and physis led to the secession of the logos, which became the starting point for the domination of reason [i.e., in the contest between rationalism and irrationalism].
This secession of the logos which started logos on its way to becoming a court of justice over being occurred in Greek philosophy itself. Indeed, it brought about the end of Greek philosophy.
In the end the word idea, eidon, 'idea', came to the fore as the decisive and predominant name for being (physis). Since then the interpretation of being as idea has dominated all Western thinking throughout the history of its transformations down to the present day. This origin also explains why, in the great and definitive culmination of the first period of Western thinking, in the system of Hegel, the reality of the real, being in the absolute sense, is conceived as 'idea' and expressly so called.
In our first introductory characterisation of the Greek experience of being, we listed idea, eidos among other names for it… In reading the philosophy of Hegel or of any other modern thinker, or in studying medieval Scholasticism, we frequently run across the use of the word 'idea' for being.
The word idea means that which is seen in the visible, the aspect it offers. What is offered is the appearance, eidos, of what confronts us. The appearance of a thing is that wherein, as we say, it presents, introduces itself to us, places itself before us and as such stands before us, that wherein and as such it is present, i.e., in the Greek sense, is.
This standing is the stability of that which has emerged from out of itself, of physis. But from the standpoint of man this standing-there of the stable and permanent is at the same time the surface of what is present through itself, the apprehensible. In the appearance, the present, the being, presents its what and how. It is apprehended and taken, it is in the possession of an acceptance, its property, it is the accessible presence of the present: ousia. Thus ousia can signify both: the presence of something present; and this present thing in the what of its appearance.
Herein is concealed the source of the subsequent distinction between existentia and essentia.
Thus the idea constitutes the being. But here idea and eidos are used in an extended sense, not only for that which is visible to the physical eye; but for everything that can be perceived. What a being is lies in its appearance, but the appearance presents (makes present) the what.
The crux of the matter is not that physis should have been characterised as idea; but that the idea should have become the sole and decisive interpretation of being. [The idea, as the appearance of the being, came to constitute its what.]
Physis is the emerging power, the standing-there-in-itself, stability. Idea, appearance as what is seen, is a determination of the stable insofar and only insofar as it encounters vision. But physis as emerging power is by the same token an appearing. Except that the appearing is ambiguous…Appearing means, first: that which gathers itself, which brings-itself-to-stand in its togetherness and so stands. But second it means: that which, already standing-there, presents a front, a surface, offers an appearance to be looked at.
Being and Apprehension
But does not Parmenides' maxim say: being and apprehension - that which is seen and the act of seeing - belong together? Yet, to be sure, the thing seen belongs to seeing, but from this it does not follow that being-seen alone determines, or could determine, the presence of the thing seen. Parmenides' maxim does not say that being should be understood on the basis of apprehension, i.e., as something merely apprehended; it says rather that apprehension should be considered for the sake of being. Apprehension should so disclose the being as to put it back in its being; it should consider that the being presents itself and as what. But in the interpretation of being as idea, not only is an essential consequence twisted into an essence, but the falsification is once again misinterpreted. And this too occurred in the course of Greek experience and interpretation.
Being as Idea
As soon as the essence of being resides in whatness (idea), whatness, as the being of the being, becomes that which is most beingful in a being. It becomes the actual being, ontos on. Being as idea is exalted, it becomes true being, while being itself previously dominant, is degraded to what Plato calls me on, what really should not be and really is not, because in the realisation it always deforms the idea, the pure appearance, by incorporating it in matter. The idea now becomes a paradeigma, a model. At the same time, the idea necessarily becomes an ideal. The copy actually 'is' not; it merely partakes of being, it is a methexis. The chorismos, the cleft, has opened between the idea as what really is, the prototype and archetype, and what actually is not, the copy and image.
From the standpoint of the idea, appearing now takes on a new meaning. What appears - the phenomenon - no longer physis, the emerging power, nor is it the self-manifestation of the appearance; no, appearing is now the emergence of the copy. Since the copy never equals its prototype, what appears is mere appearance, actually an illusion, a deficiency. Now the on becomes distinct from the phenomenon. And this development brings with it still another vital consequence. Because the actual repository of being is the idea and this is the prototype, all disclosure of being must aim at assimilation to the model, accommodation to idea. The truth of physis, aletheia as the unconcealment that is the essence of the emerging power, now becomes homoiosis and mimesis, assimilation and accommodation, orientation by..., it becomes a correctness of vision, of apprehension as representation.
Correctness and Un-distortion
The being is disclosed in the logos as gathering. This is first effected in language. Consequently the logos becomes the essential determinant of discourse. Language - what is uttered and said and can be said again - is the custodian of the disclosed being. What has once been said can be repeated and passed on. The truth preserved in it spreads, and in the process the being originally gathered and disclosed is not each time experienced for itself. In the transmission the truth detaches itself as it were from the being.
Logos in the sense of discourse and utterance becomes the realm and the scene of decision concerning the truth, i.e., originally, the unconcealment of the being and hence its being. Initially the logos as gathering is the event of unconcealment, grounded in unconcealment and serving it. Now logos as statement becomes the abode of truth in the sense of correctness. And this process culminates in Aristotle's proposition to the effect that logos as statement is that which can be true or false. Truth that was originally unconcealment, a happening of the dominant being itself, governed by gathering, now becomes an attribute of the logos. In becoming an attribute of statement, the truth not only shifts its abode; it changes its essence as well. From the standpoint of statement, the truth is achieved if discourse adheres to what it speaks of; if the statement follows the being. The truth becomes the correctness of the logos.
Physis becomes idea, truth becomes correctness. Logos becomes statement, the locus of truth as correctness, the source of the categories, the fundamental principle in regard to the possibilities of being. 'Idea' and 'category' become the two terms that dominate Western thought, action, and evaluation, indeed all Western being-there.
From the standpoint both of the idea and of statement, the original essence of truth, aletheia (unconcealment) has changed to correctness. For unconcealment is that heart and core, i.e., the dominant relation between physis and logos in the original sense. The very essence of dominance is emerging-into-unconcealment. But apprehension and gathering govern the opening up of unconcealment for the being. The transformation of physis and logos into idea and statement has its inner ground in a transformation of the being of truth from concealment to correctness.
Unconcealment [is] the space created for the appearing of the being.
Ever since idea and category became sovereign, philosophers have tormented themselves in vain, seeking by every possible and impossible stratagem to explain the relation between statement (thinking) and being - in vain, because they never again carried the question of being back to its native ground and soil, thence to unfold it.
The Greek for 'to distort something' is pseudesthai. Thus the struggle for the unconcealment of the being, aletheia, became a struggle against pseudos, distortion and perversion. But it is in the very nature of struggle that whether a contestant wins or loses, he becomes dependent on his adversary. Because the battle against untruth is a battle against the pseudos, the battle for the truth becomes - from the standpoint of the combated pseudos - a battle for the a-pseudos, the undistorted, unperverted.
This transformation of unconcealment by way of distortion to undistortion and thence to correctness must be seen in one with the transformation of physis to idea, of logos as gathering to logos as statement.
Permanence
Being signifies permanent presence, already-thereness. What actually has being is accordingly what always is, aei on.
Apprehension, noein, is taken over by the logos in the sense of statement. Thus it becomes the apprehension which, in determining something as something, thinks-through what it encounters, dianoeisthai. This discursive thinking-through defines the understanding in the sense of evaluating representation. Apprehension becomes understanding.
Ousia (permanent presence) now began to be interpreted as substantia. Ousia has become the decisive term for being.
In opposition to becoming stands eternal permanence. In opposition to appearance as mere semblance stands what is actually seen, the idea which, as the ontos on, is again the permanent and enduring as opposed to changing appearance. But becoming and appearance are not determined only on the basis of ousia, for ousia in turn has been essentially defined by its relation to logos, discursive judgment, dianoia. Accordingly, becoming and appearance are defined in the perspective of thought.
From the standpoint of evaluating thought, which always starts from something permanent, becoming appears as impermanence. In the realm of the already-there, impermanence is manifested primarily as not remaining in the same place. Becoming is seem as change of place, transposition. All becoming is regarded as motion, and the decisive aspect of motion is change of place.
BEING AND THE OUGHT:
Plato conceived of being as idea. The idea was a prototype and as such set the measure. What seems more plausible than to take Plato's ideas in the sense of values and to interpret the being of the Being from the standpoint of value? [Thus, History came to be regarded as a realisation of values.]
Insofar as the ideas constitute being, ousia, the idea tou agathou, the supreme idea, stands, beyond being. Thus being itself, not as such but as idea, comes into opposition to something other, on which it, being, is dependent. The supreme idea has become the model of the models.
Being itself, interpreted as idea, brings with it a relation to the prototypical, the exemplary, the ought. As being itself becomes fixated as idea, it strives to make good the resulting degradation of being. But by now this is possible only if something is set above being, something that being never is yet but always ought to be.
The ought is opposed to being as soon as being defines itself as idea.
In statement the 'is' serves as a copula, as a 'little word of relation' (Kant). But because statement, logos as kategoria, has become a court of judgment over being, it defines being on the basis of its own 'is', the 'is' of statement.
TIME:
When ultimately ousia, meaning permanent presence, became the basic concept of time, what was the unconcealed foundation of permanence and presence if not time?
Time had to be taken as something somehow present, ousia tis. Consequently time was considered from the standpoint of the 'now', the actual moment. The past is the 'no-longer-now', the future is the 'not-yet-now'. Being in the sense of already-thereness (presence) became the perspective for the determination of time. But time was not the perspective specially chosen for the interpretation of being.
The essential is not number; the essential is the right time, i.e., the right moment, and the right perseverance.
Parmenides:“Being appears as the pure fullness of the permanent, gathered within it, untouched by unrest and change.”
Heraclitus:“Everything is in flux. There is no being. Everything "is" becoming.”
Pindar:“Mayest thou by learning come forth as what thou art.”
PRECIS:
BEING AND BECOMING
What becomes is not yet. What is need no longer become. What "is", the being, has left all becoming behind it if indeed it ever became or could become. What "is" in the authentic sense also resists every onsurge of becoming.
BEING AND APPEARANCE
Appearing [is] self-manifestation, self-representation, standing-there, presence.
The realm of emerging and abiding is intrinsically at the same time a shining appearing. There are three modes of [appearing or] "Schein":
1. Radiance and glow;
2. Appearing, coming to light; and
3. Mere appearance or semblance.
...for the Greeks, standing-in-itself was nothing other than standing-there, standing-in-the-light. Being means appearing. Appearing is not something subsequent that sometimes happens to being. Appearing is the very essence of being.
Unconcealment
The essence of being is physis. Appearing is the power that emerges. Appearing makes manifest… being, appearing, causes to emerge from concealment. Since the being as such is, it places itself in and stands in unconcealment, aletheia...The being is true insofar as it is. The true as such is being. This means: The power that manifests itself stands in unconcealment. In showing itself, the unconcealed as such comes to stand. Truth as un-concealment is not an appendage to being.
Truth is inherent in the essence of being. To be a being - this comprises to come to light, to appear on the scene, to take one's/its place, to produce something. Non-being, on the other hand, means: to withdraw from appearing, from presence.
Beings display themselves as the momentary and close-at-hand. In appearing it gives itself an aspect, dokei. Doxa means:
1. Regard as glory;
2. Regard as sheer vision that offers something;
3. Regard as mere looking-so: appearance as mere semblance;
4. View that a man forms, opinion.
Doxa means aspect, regard...to place in the light and thus endow with permanence, being. [I show myself, appear, enter into the light. Here the emphasis is on sight and aspect, the regard in which a man stands...esteem.] For the Greeks glory was not something additional which one might or might not obtain; it was the mode of the highest being...appearing belonged to being, or more precisely...the essence of being lay partly in appearing.
Because being, physis, consists in appearing, in an offering of appearance and views, it stands, essentially and hence necessarily and permanently, in the possibility of an appearance which precisely covers over and conceals what the being in truth, i.e., in unconcealment, is. This regard in which the being now comes to stand is Schein in the sense of semblance.
"The Tragedy of Appearance"
It was in the Sophists and in Plato that appearance was declared to be mere appearance and thus degraded. At the same time, being, as idea, was exalted to a suprasensory realm.
A chasm…was created between the merely apparent being here below and real being somewhere on high. In that chasm, Christianity settled down, at the same time reinterpreting the lower as the created and the higher as the creator.
[It is] necessary to secure the priority of truth as unconcealment, of discovery over occultation and distortion.
BEING AND THINKING
Thinking sets itself off against being in such a way that being is placed before it and consequently stands opposed to it as an object...being takes on its entire interpretation from thinking.
In the seemingly unimportant distinction between being and thinking, we must discern the fundamental position of the Western spirit, against which our central attack is directed.
Thinking refers to the future as well as the past, but also to the present.
Thinking brings something before us, represents it. This representation always starts from ourselves, it is a free act, but not an arbitrary one, for it is bound by the fact that in representing we think of what is represented and think it through by dissecting it, by taking it apart and putting it together again. But in thinking we not only place something before ourselves, we not only dismember it for the sake of dismembering, but, reflecting, we pursue the thing represented. We do not simply accept it as it happens to fall to us; no, we undertake, as we say, to get behind the thing. We find out how it stands with the thing in general. We get an idea of it, we seek the universal.
Three Characteristics of 'Thinking'
1. Representation 'of our own accord' - considered as a uniquely free act;
2. Representation as analytical synthesis; and
3. Grasp of the universal through representation.
Separation of Logos and Physis
How did the separation between logos and physis come about? How did the logos (the 'logical') become the essence of thinking? [Hegel: 'the logical is the absolute form of truth and, what is more, it is also the pure truth itself.'] How did this logos in the sense of reason and understanding achieve domination over being in the beginning of Greek philosophy?
Being in the sense of physis is the power that emerges. As contrasted with becoming, it is permanence, permanent presence. Contrasted with appearance, it is appearing, manifest presence.
What else can logos mean but statement, discourse, word?
Heraclitus' doctrine of the logos was regarded as the forerunner of the logos that figures in the New Testament...the logos is Christ…the God-man.
Noein is understood as thinking, an activity of the subject. The thinking of the subject determines what being is. Being is nothing other than the object of thinking, that which is thought. But since thinking remains a subjective activity, and since thinking and being are supposed to be the same according to Parmenides, everything becomes subjective. Nothing is in itself. But such a doctrine, we are told, is found in Kant and the German idealists. Essentially Parmenides anticipated their teachings.
According to Heraclitus what man is is first manifested (edeixe, shows itself) in polemos, in the irruption of being itself. For philosophy what man is is not written somewhere in heaven. Only where being discloses itself in questioning does history happen and with it the being of man, by virtue of which he ventures to set himself apart from the being as such and contend with it.
Only as a questioning historical being does man come to himself; only as such is he a self. Man's selfhood means this: he must transform the being that discloses itself to him into history and bring himself to stand in it. Selfhood does not mean that he is primarily an 'ego' and an individual. This is no more than he is a ‘we’, a community.
The initial separation between logos and physis led to the secession of the logos, which became the starting point for the domination of reason [i.e., in the contest between rationalism and irrationalism].
This secession of the logos which started logos on its way to becoming a court of justice over being occurred in Greek philosophy itself. Indeed, it brought about the end of Greek philosophy.
In the end the word idea, eidon, 'idea', came to the fore as the decisive and predominant name for being (physis). Since then the interpretation of being as idea has dominated all Western thinking throughout the history of its transformations down to the present day. This origin also explains why, in the great and definitive culmination of the first period of Western thinking, in the system of Hegel, the reality of the real, being in the absolute sense, is conceived as 'idea' and expressly so called.
In our first introductory characterisation of the Greek experience of being, we listed idea, eidos among other names for it… In reading the philosophy of Hegel or of any other modern thinker, or in studying medieval Scholasticism, we frequently run across the use of the word 'idea' for being.
The word idea means that which is seen in the visible, the aspect it offers. What is offered is the appearance, eidos, of what confronts us. The appearance of a thing is that wherein, as we say, it presents, introduces itself to us, places itself before us and as such stands before us, that wherein and as such it is present, i.e., in the Greek sense, is.
This standing is the stability of that which has emerged from out of itself, of physis. But from the standpoint of man this standing-there of the stable and permanent is at the same time the surface of what is present through itself, the apprehensible. In the appearance, the present, the being, presents its what and how. It is apprehended and taken, it is in the possession of an acceptance, its property, it is the accessible presence of the present: ousia. Thus ousia can signify both: the presence of something present; and this present thing in the what of its appearance.
Herein is concealed the source of the subsequent distinction between existentia and essentia.
Thus the idea constitutes the being. But here idea and eidos are used in an extended sense, not only for that which is visible to the physical eye; but for everything that can be perceived. What a being is lies in its appearance, but the appearance presents (makes present) the what.
The crux of the matter is not that physis should have been characterised as idea; but that the idea should have become the sole and decisive interpretation of being. [The idea, as the appearance of the being, came to constitute its what.]
Physis is the emerging power, the standing-there-in-itself, stability. Idea, appearance as what is seen, is a determination of the stable insofar and only insofar as it encounters vision. But physis as emerging power is by the same token an appearing. Except that the appearing is ambiguous…Appearing means, first: that which gathers itself, which brings-itself-to-stand in its togetherness and so stands. But second it means: that which, already standing-there, presents a front, a surface, offers an appearance to be looked at.
Being and Apprehension
But does not Parmenides' maxim say: being and apprehension - that which is seen and the act of seeing - belong together? Yet, to be sure, the thing seen belongs to seeing, but from this it does not follow that being-seen alone determines, or could determine, the presence of the thing seen. Parmenides' maxim does not say that being should be understood on the basis of apprehension, i.e., as something merely apprehended; it says rather that apprehension should be considered for the sake of being. Apprehension should so disclose the being as to put it back in its being; it should consider that the being presents itself and as what. But in the interpretation of being as idea, not only is an essential consequence twisted into an essence, but the falsification is once again misinterpreted. And this too occurred in the course of Greek experience and interpretation.
Being as Idea
As soon as the essence of being resides in whatness (idea), whatness, as the being of the being, becomes that which is most beingful in a being. It becomes the actual being, ontos on. Being as idea is exalted, it becomes true being, while being itself previously dominant, is degraded to what Plato calls me on, what really should not be and really is not, because in the realisation it always deforms the idea, the pure appearance, by incorporating it in matter. The idea now becomes a paradeigma, a model. At the same time, the idea necessarily becomes an ideal. The copy actually 'is' not; it merely partakes of being, it is a methexis. The chorismos, the cleft, has opened between the idea as what really is, the prototype and archetype, and what actually is not, the copy and image.
From the standpoint of the idea, appearing now takes on a new meaning. What appears - the phenomenon - no longer physis, the emerging power, nor is it the self-manifestation of the appearance; no, appearing is now the emergence of the copy. Since the copy never equals its prototype, what appears is mere appearance, actually an illusion, a deficiency. Now the on becomes distinct from the phenomenon. And this development brings with it still another vital consequence. Because the actual repository of being is the idea and this is the prototype, all disclosure of being must aim at assimilation to the model, accommodation to idea. The truth of physis, aletheia as the unconcealment that is the essence of the emerging power, now becomes homoiosis and mimesis, assimilation and accommodation, orientation by..., it becomes a correctness of vision, of apprehension as representation.
Correctness and Un-distortion
The being is disclosed in the logos as gathering. This is first effected in language. Consequently the logos becomes the essential determinant of discourse. Language - what is uttered and said and can be said again - is the custodian of the disclosed being. What has once been said can be repeated and passed on. The truth preserved in it spreads, and in the process the being originally gathered and disclosed is not each time experienced for itself. In the transmission the truth detaches itself as it were from the being.
Logos in the sense of discourse and utterance becomes the realm and the scene of decision concerning the truth, i.e., originally, the unconcealment of the being and hence its being. Initially the logos as gathering is the event of unconcealment, grounded in unconcealment and serving it. Now logos as statement becomes the abode of truth in the sense of correctness. And this process culminates in Aristotle's proposition to the effect that logos as statement is that which can be true or false. Truth that was originally unconcealment, a happening of the dominant being itself, governed by gathering, now becomes an attribute of the logos. In becoming an attribute of statement, the truth not only shifts its abode; it changes its essence as well. From the standpoint of statement, the truth is achieved if discourse adheres to what it speaks of; if the statement follows the being. The truth becomes the correctness of the logos.
Physis becomes idea, truth becomes correctness. Logos becomes statement, the locus of truth as correctness, the source of the categories, the fundamental principle in regard to the possibilities of being. 'Idea' and 'category' become the two terms that dominate Western thought, action, and evaluation, indeed all Western being-there.
From the standpoint both of the idea and of statement, the original essence of truth, aletheia (unconcealment) has changed to correctness. For unconcealment is that heart and core, i.e., the dominant relation between physis and logos in the original sense. The very essence of dominance is emerging-into-unconcealment. But apprehension and gathering govern the opening up of unconcealment for the being. The transformation of physis and logos into idea and statement has its inner ground in a transformation of the being of truth from concealment to correctness.
Unconcealment [is] the space created for the appearing of the being.
Ever since idea and category became sovereign, philosophers have tormented themselves in vain, seeking by every possible and impossible stratagem to explain the relation between statement (thinking) and being - in vain, because they never again carried the question of being back to its native ground and soil, thence to unfold it.
The Greek for 'to distort something' is pseudesthai. Thus the struggle for the unconcealment of the being, aletheia, became a struggle against pseudos, distortion and perversion. But it is in the very nature of struggle that whether a contestant wins or loses, he becomes dependent on his adversary. Because the battle against untruth is a battle against the pseudos, the battle for the truth becomes - from the standpoint of the combated pseudos - a battle for the a-pseudos, the undistorted, unperverted.
This transformation of unconcealment by way of distortion to undistortion and thence to correctness must be seen in one with the transformation of physis to idea, of logos as gathering to logos as statement.
Permanence
Being signifies permanent presence, already-thereness. What actually has being is accordingly what always is, aei on.
Apprehension, noein, is taken over by the logos in the sense of statement. Thus it becomes the apprehension which, in determining something as something, thinks-through what it encounters, dianoeisthai. This discursive thinking-through defines the understanding in the sense of evaluating representation. Apprehension becomes understanding.
Ousia (permanent presence) now began to be interpreted as substantia. Ousia has become the decisive term for being.
In opposition to becoming stands eternal permanence. In opposition to appearance as mere semblance stands what is actually seen, the idea which, as the ontos on, is again the permanent and enduring as opposed to changing appearance. But becoming and appearance are not determined only on the basis of ousia, for ousia in turn has been essentially defined by its relation to logos, discursive judgment, dianoia. Accordingly, becoming and appearance are defined in the perspective of thought.
From the standpoint of evaluating thought, which always starts from something permanent, becoming appears as impermanence. In the realm of the already-there, impermanence is manifested primarily as not remaining in the same place. Becoming is seem as change of place, transposition. All becoming is regarded as motion, and the decisive aspect of motion is change of place.
BEING AND THE OUGHT:
Plato conceived of being as idea. The idea was a prototype and as such set the measure. What seems more plausible than to take Plato's ideas in the sense of values and to interpret the being of the Being from the standpoint of value? [Thus, History came to be regarded as a realisation of values.]
Insofar as the ideas constitute being, ousia, the idea tou agathou, the supreme idea, stands, beyond being. Thus being itself, not as such but as idea, comes into opposition to something other, on which it, being, is dependent. The supreme idea has become the model of the models.
Being itself, interpreted as idea, brings with it a relation to the prototypical, the exemplary, the ought. As being itself becomes fixated as idea, it strives to make good the resulting degradation of being. But by now this is possible only if something is set above being, something that being never is yet but always ought to be.
The ought is opposed to being as soon as being defines itself as idea.
In statement the 'is' serves as a copula, as a 'little word of relation' (Kant). But because statement, logos as kategoria, has become a court of judgment over being, it defines being on the basis of its own 'is', the 'is' of statement.
TIME:
When ultimately ousia, meaning permanent presence, became the basic concept of time, what was the unconcealed foundation of permanence and presence if not time?
Time had to be taken as something somehow present, ousia tis. Consequently time was considered from the standpoint of the 'now', the actual moment. The past is the 'no-longer-now', the future is the 'not-yet-now'. Being in the sense of already-thereness (presence) became the perspective for the determination of time. But time was not the perspective specially chosen for the interpretation of being.
The essential is not number; the essential is the right time, i.e., the right moment, and the right perseverance.
May 30, 2015
3 X 3 X 3 = 27
Time
1. It's about time:
1.1 That which lives has a life time within which to spend the time being.
1.2 That which lives strives to have the time of its life.
Being
2. I think, therefore I am.
2.1 I think, therefore I am Cartesian.
2.2 I am thinking, therefore I am Being .
Seeking
3. That which interprets seeks meaning.
3.1 That which interprets seeks itself.
3.2 That which interprets seeks Being in the World.
Hiding
4. That which is hidden might not be seen.
4.1 That which is hidden might not show itself.
4.2 That which is hidden might not know itself.
Fearing
5. That which fears discloses both its own existence and the existence of a threat to its existence.
5.1 That which does not fear dis-closes itself.
5.2 That which fears closes itself off.
Understanding
6. That to which the world is disclosed can understand it.
6.1 That which understands the world knows what it is capable of .
6.2 That which is competent can achieve the possible.
Caring
7. That which is circumspect takes its time.
7.1 That which is circumspect takes care of things.
7.2 That which takes care of things takes care of itself.
Showing
8. That which shows itself will let itself be seen.
8.1 That which shows itself knows itself.
8.2 That which knows itself shows itself.
Telling
9. That which shows itself makes itself evident.
9.1 That which shows itself makes itself manifest.
9.2 That which shows itself makes itself a manifesto.
Time
1. It's about time:
1.1 That which lives has a life time within which to spend the time being.
1.2 That which lives strives to have the time of its life.
Being
2. I think, therefore I am.
2.1 I think, therefore I am Cartesian.
2.2 I am thinking, therefore I am Being .
Seeking
3. That which interprets seeks meaning.
3.1 That which interprets seeks itself.
3.2 That which interprets seeks Being in the World.
Hiding
4. That which is hidden might not be seen.
4.1 That which is hidden might not show itself.
4.2 That which is hidden might not know itself.
Fearing
5. That which fears discloses both its own existence and the existence of a threat to its existence.
5.1 That which does not fear dis-closes itself.
5.2 That which fears closes itself off.
Understanding
6. That to which the world is disclosed can understand it.
6.1 That which understands the world knows what it is capable of .
6.2 That which is competent can achieve the possible.
Caring
7. That which is circumspect takes its time.
7.1 That which is circumspect takes care of things.
7.2 That which takes care of things takes care of itself.
Showing
8. That which shows itself will let itself be seen.
8.1 That which shows itself knows itself.
8.2 That which knows itself shows itself.
Telling
9. That which shows itself makes itself evident.
9.1 That which shows itself makes itself manifest.
9.2 That which shows itself makes itself a manifesto.
May 6, 2014
This I will re-read, and re-read, and re-read, until I get all the chapters. This book actually blew me away and made me think differently about a lot.
My philosophy teacher told us to fall in love with the philosopher we're studying , like he had with Heidegger, and so I did too (completely ignoring the fact he was a nazi).
I will return to this very soon.
My philosophy teacher told us to fall in love with the philosopher we're studying , like he had with Heidegger, and so I did too (completely ignoring the fact he was a nazi).
I will return to this very soon.
August 15, 2023
"Did I learn?" This is the only possible question I can ask about my reading experience with Martin Heidegger's notoriously difficult tome Being and Time. I would be lying if I said I clearly understood more than 25% of this work. Warning: unless you are a trained philosopher or a genius autodidact, you will find within these pages a long stretch of imposter syndrome waiting for you. I cannot rightfully or accurately assess whether I "got" this book. Some of it, sure, but I don't know enough here to assess what I really, really know about Heidegger's philosophy.
But did I learn? Let's find out. Below, I've cut and pasted the notes I've taken along the way. Immediately following each self-quotation, I will assess whether, at the end of it all, I learned anything in relation to these initial impressions. Let's go:
Well, the foreword and translator's notes successfully put me to sleep. Hoping that the actual text is a little more engaging.
This did get better. As I crawled along and picked up an occasional idea here and there, along with bolstering my knowledge by watching very specific youtube videos on particularly difficult passages, I found myself more and more engaged because I understood more of the previous groundwork as I went along.
Heideggering is hard work. I'm glad I know some German or the footnotes here would be mostly nonsensical. Or at least misleading.
Yes, Heideggering is hard work. That did not change. Knowing German helped quite a bit, but sometimes my knowledge of German actually got in the way because of the way that Heidegger uses the German language. Some of his wordplay is incredibly subtle and I suspect that even native speakers with a high level of academic training need to use the footnotes as a crutch to help understand the precise way in which he uses specific words with specific nuances. The footnotes, along with having German "at hand," so to speak, were extremely helpful.
My brain hurts.
This was true throughout.
That Philosophy 101 course I had 27 years ago isn't helping me much here, for some reason. I want a refund on that portion of my tuition!
It actually came in handy later, when Hegel and Aquinas came up I had a comparative framework to diff off of Heideger's ideas, which gave me an unexpected and needed context. But I still want that refund!
I cheated and watched a youtube video or five to get some grounding. Glad I did that.
Essentially, Heidegger is rewriting Philosophy 101 as it relates to ontology.
I'm still glad I "cheated". That helped things immensely. And I STILL want that refund!
Hmm. About 10% of the way through the book and I understand about 25% of what I've read.
This proportion of understanding proved true from the beginning to the end. I understood things well about a quarter of the time. Truth be told, I *somewhat* understood other things maybe another 15-20% of the time. Not bad for an imposter.
Page 65 . . . and I'm just at the beginning of Part 1?
Yes, I was. But that preamble was necessary not to set the stage, but to strip the stage down to it's loose wooden planks and rebuild philosophy. Heidegger was a philosophical marine drill sergeant. He destroys you, then builds you up again.
We're going on a cruise in a couple of weeks. I strongly suspect this will NOT be a book I take with me. Sorry, Heide.
Well, that cruise didn't happen. My wife got a blood clot the week before we were supposed to leave, and with here then-recent cancer scare, we couldn't take a chance. Good thing, too, as we would have likely ended up in a hospital somewhere in Anchorage. We still plan on taking the cruise, but it's probably going to be a year or two. 2022 was pretty brutal.
"Linguistic gymnastics" is the phrase that comes to mind when trying to describe what my brain is doing now. And I've fallen off the balance beams more than once here.
See my comments about German above. Lots of linguistic gymnastics in this work.
I'm glad I don't *have* to read this. It's one thing to discipline myself to read something inscrutable; it's quite another to have it assigned to you.
In the end, I'm glad I read it. But I could easily see a huge number of philosophy majors going to the counselor's office to change their majors after this. Easily.
Every two pages I spend on Heidegger is a hard-won battle. Most of the time, I lose, but I'll hold onto my feeble victories and improve upon them. Slow and steady wins the race.
It wasn't *always* torture, just most of the time. Slow and steady did win the race, incidentally. Or at least I finished the marathon.
This text can feel so mechanical at times that one forgets it is about human beings. Then, occasionally, one slips past the strictness of the language and realizes that not only is Heidegger not philosophizing about an "ideal" human being, but that he is sympathetic to humans in their weaknesses, even when they don't reach their full potential.
This was a surprising revelation that became more and more clear the more I read. Heidegger's primary concern was the inner life of an individual human being, replete with its faults and foibles.
Any review I do for this book can only scratch the surface.
c.f., this pithy review.
Back to the philosophical salt mines . . .
Looking back on this phrase, it was definitely ill-advised and I didn't even think about the implications at that point, given Heidegger's overly-problematic political leanings. It was not intentional, but I suppose it might have been subconscious. My apologies for the "bad optics". I suppose I could redact this note altogether, but that wouldn't be intellectually honest.
I'm not sure if Being and Time is considered "analytical philosophy," or if I'm even using the right term, but this sort of Definitional work seems like definition for the sake of definition. It's academically interesting, but emotionally flat and intellectually tedious. But I will press on and finish. I'm learning things, but it's not particularly enjoyable.
Obviously, from my earlier comments, this feeling came and went. But when it came on, it came on strong. Reading more slowly helped me to cut through this academic wall and get to the actual "soul" behind it. I do believe the book has "soul," but it takes some digging to get to it.
The whole notion of death in this book is utterly fascinating. While acknowledging the cessation of being in this world, and thus no longer being a Dasein, Heidegger hints that there is a sort of existence of one, even as that one has ceased being in the worls as Dasein here. But the Being of that being is unknowable by Dasein.
This actually helped me connect with this work in a way I hadn't up to this point. This probably has to do with my admiration for Existential philosophy in general. The seeming paradoxical nature of Heidegger's statements in relation of Dasein to death actually tied things together quite nicely for me. Your mileage may vary.
Death enters the picture and suddenly all that came before in this tome makes much more sense. Existentialism instantiates clarity!
As I just said . . .
317 pages in, I feel like I'm beginning to grasp what Heidegger is on about. Call me ignorant. But I am starting to put two and two together.
Mmmmmaybe I was learning something?
There is something fundamental about the call of conscience, an irreducible something that is at the core of Dasein's Being. There is no good answer to "where does it come from?", it is intrinsic to Being. So far as I can tell, this is the closest Heidegger gets to some notion of "spirit," "soul," or "essence". But what do I know?
This, I think, is where Heiddeger's view of some sort of "soul" became more clear. I went back and scanned throughout the book, and one can find ghostly whispers, very faint, of this feeling, here and there throughout. Perhaps this is inevitable when one is talking about the inner life of a human?
There's something a bit Ayn-Randian about the concept of conscience here, but it seems less mercenary. Self-serving? Yes, more a focus on authenticity, to being true to one's self, than just snubbing every other human being around you without mercy for the sake of the argument.
Heidegger's ties to nazism are fairly clear, from what I understand. Though Ayn Rand wasn't a nazi, per se, her individualism-to-the-point-of-extreme-selfishness rings with some of the same echos, albeit on a personal, rather than national scale. I find Heidegger much more kind (if that's the right word) than Rand, but still adamant about the individual need to be oneself, despite what society as a whole thinks. Of course, if you get a whole bunch of people who think they are being individualistic, while they are merely all following one person's individualistic personality, well, you get facism.
I'd love to be able to state that I understood thus and such percentage of this book. But that would imply a continuous "block" of understanding, and that's just not true. It's more like a journey where certain points were more lucid and memorable than others, like pearls unevenly distributed along a string.
This notion also held through, especially in hindsight. And this is the most corect summation of my reading experience with Being and Time. Will I read it again in full? Probably not. But I will dip into sections from time to time in order to both build my understanding of this work and to provide context when other philosophers refer to Heidegger.
So I feel that I did learn from the book. And i will keep on learning. Some of the ideas herein and some of the structures have provided glimpses for me into the workings of philosophy, even if uneven and obfuscated by my own ignorange. Gradually, though, I'm hoping the light seeps in and grows and I can use this as a springboard into other, perhaps equally difficult, works. My intellectual muscles have been strengthened, though I have yet to understand how to integrate the whole body of work into my philosophical routine. That, I think, is a lifelong pursuit.
But did I learn? Let's find out. Below, I've cut and pasted the notes I've taken along the way. Immediately following each self-quotation, I will assess whether, at the end of it all, I learned anything in relation to these initial impressions. Let's go:
Well, the foreword and translator's notes successfully put me to sleep. Hoping that the actual text is a little more engaging.
This did get better. As I crawled along and picked up an occasional idea here and there, along with bolstering my knowledge by watching very specific youtube videos on particularly difficult passages, I found myself more and more engaged because I understood more of the previous groundwork as I went along.
Heideggering is hard work. I'm glad I know some German or the footnotes here would be mostly nonsensical. Or at least misleading.
Yes, Heideggering is hard work. That did not change. Knowing German helped quite a bit, but sometimes my knowledge of German actually got in the way because of the way that Heidegger uses the German language. Some of his wordplay is incredibly subtle and I suspect that even native speakers with a high level of academic training need to use the footnotes as a crutch to help understand the precise way in which he uses specific words with specific nuances. The footnotes, along with having German "at hand," so to speak, were extremely helpful.
My brain hurts.
This was true throughout.
That Philosophy 101 course I had 27 years ago isn't helping me much here, for some reason. I want a refund on that portion of my tuition!
It actually came in handy later, when Hegel and Aquinas came up I had a comparative framework to diff off of Heideger's ideas, which gave me an unexpected and needed context. But I still want that refund!
I cheated and watched a youtube video or five to get some grounding. Glad I did that.
Essentially, Heidegger is rewriting Philosophy 101 as it relates to ontology.
I'm still glad I "cheated". That helped things immensely. And I STILL want that refund!
Hmm. About 10% of the way through the book and I understand about 25% of what I've read.
This proportion of understanding proved true from the beginning to the end. I understood things well about a quarter of the time. Truth be told, I *somewhat* understood other things maybe another 15-20% of the time. Not bad for an imposter.
Page 65 . . . and I'm just at the beginning of Part 1?
Yes, I was. But that preamble was necessary not to set the stage, but to strip the stage down to it's loose wooden planks and rebuild philosophy. Heidegger was a philosophical marine drill sergeant. He destroys you, then builds you up again.
We're going on a cruise in a couple of weeks. I strongly suspect this will NOT be a book I take with me. Sorry, Heide.
Well, that cruise didn't happen. My wife got a blood clot the week before we were supposed to leave, and with here then-recent cancer scare, we couldn't take a chance. Good thing, too, as we would have likely ended up in a hospital somewhere in Anchorage. We still plan on taking the cruise, but it's probably going to be a year or two. 2022 was pretty brutal.
"Linguistic gymnastics" is the phrase that comes to mind when trying to describe what my brain is doing now. And I've fallen off the balance beams more than once here.
See my comments about German above. Lots of linguistic gymnastics in this work.
I'm glad I don't *have* to read this. It's one thing to discipline myself to read something inscrutable; it's quite another to have it assigned to you.
In the end, I'm glad I read it. But I could easily see a huge number of philosophy majors going to the counselor's office to change their majors after this. Easily.
Every two pages I spend on Heidegger is a hard-won battle. Most of the time, I lose, but I'll hold onto my feeble victories and improve upon them. Slow and steady wins the race.
It wasn't *always* torture, just most of the time. Slow and steady did win the race, incidentally. Or at least I finished the marathon.
This text can feel so mechanical at times that one forgets it is about human beings. Then, occasionally, one slips past the strictness of the language and realizes that not only is Heidegger not philosophizing about an "ideal" human being, but that he is sympathetic to humans in their weaknesses, even when they don't reach their full potential.
This was a surprising revelation that became more and more clear the more I read. Heidegger's primary concern was the inner life of an individual human being, replete with its faults and foibles.
Any review I do for this book can only scratch the surface.
c.f., this pithy review.
Back to the philosophical salt mines . . .
Looking back on this phrase, it was definitely ill-advised and I didn't even think about the implications at that point, given Heidegger's overly-problematic political leanings. It was not intentional, but I suppose it might have been subconscious. My apologies for the "bad optics". I suppose I could redact this note altogether, but that wouldn't be intellectually honest.
I'm not sure if Being and Time is considered "analytical philosophy," or if I'm even using the right term, but this sort of Definitional work seems like definition for the sake of definition. It's academically interesting, but emotionally flat and intellectually tedious. But I will press on and finish. I'm learning things, but it's not particularly enjoyable.
Obviously, from my earlier comments, this feeling came and went. But when it came on, it came on strong. Reading more slowly helped me to cut through this academic wall and get to the actual "soul" behind it. I do believe the book has "soul," but it takes some digging to get to it.
The whole notion of death in this book is utterly fascinating. While acknowledging the cessation of being in this world, and thus no longer being a Dasein, Heidegger hints that there is a sort of existence of one, even as that one has ceased being in the worls as Dasein here. But the Being of that being is unknowable by Dasein.
This actually helped me connect with this work in a way I hadn't up to this point. This probably has to do with my admiration for Existential philosophy in general. The seeming paradoxical nature of Heidegger's statements in relation of Dasein to death actually tied things together quite nicely for me. Your mileage may vary.
Death enters the picture and suddenly all that came before in this tome makes much more sense. Existentialism instantiates clarity!
As I just said . . .
317 pages in, I feel like I'm beginning to grasp what Heidegger is on about. Call me ignorant. But I am starting to put two and two together.
Mmmmmaybe I was learning something?
There is something fundamental about the call of conscience, an irreducible something that is at the core of Dasein's Being. There is no good answer to "where does it come from?", it is intrinsic to Being. So far as I can tell, this is the closest Heidegger gets to some notion of "spirit," "soul," or "essence". But what do I know?
This, I think, is where Heiddeger's view of some sort of "soul" became more clear. I went back and scanned throughout the book, and one can find ghostly whispers, very faint, of this feeling, here and there throughout. Perhaps this is inevitable when one is talking about the inner life of a human?
There's something a bit Ayn-Randian about the concept of conscience here, but it seems less mercenary. Self-serving? Yes, more a focus on authenticity, to being true to one's self, than just snubbing every other human being around you without mercy for the sake of the argument.
Heidegger's ties to nazism are fairly clear, from what I understand. Though Ayn Rand wasn't a nazi, per se, her individualism-to-the-point-of-extreme-selfishness rings with some of the same echos, albeit on a personal, rather than national scale. I find Heidegger much more kind (if that's the right word) than Rand, but still adamant about the individual need to be oneself, despite what society as a whole thinks. Of course, if you get a whole bunch of people who think they are being individualistic, while they are merely all following one person's individualistic personality, well, you get facism.
I'd love to be able to state that I understood thus and such percentage of this book. But that would imply a continuous "block" of understanding, and that's just not true. It's more like a journey where certain points were more lucid and memorable than others, like pearls unevenly distributed along a string.
This notion also held through, especially in hindsight. And this is the most corect summation of my reading experience with Being and Time. Will I read it again in full? Probably not. But I will dip into sections from time to time in order to both build my understanding of this work and to provide context when other philosophers refer to Heidegger.
So I feel that I did learn from the book. And i will keep on learning. Some of the ideas herein and some of the structures have provided glimpses for me into the workings of philosophy, even if uneven and obfuscated by my own ignorange. Gradually, though, I'm hoping the light seeps in and grows and I can use this as a springboard into other, perhaps equally difficult, works. My intellectual muscles have been strengthened, though I have yet to understand how to integrate the whole body of work into my philosophical routine. That, I think, is a lifelong pursuit.
August 26, 2021
My third reading of this book, a relatively fast reading with a view towards the big picture, and after reading about 20-30 other Heidegger's books. Some impressions below.
This is only the public tip of the iceberg that was Heidegger and his ideas. He did not care to publish at all; but he needed to publish something for his professorship. Consequently, he put something together fast and published “Being and Time”. This book made him known and famous beyond his university, peers, and students. He wrote better books than this one and some even more deeper; for example “Contributions to Philosophy (Of the Event)”.
His project here is to answer in a fundamental way what makes beings “be”. To do so, he realized that he needs to ignore beings and in some way to go behind them and directly to the Being (i.e. that Being is not a being, but gives beings their Being). By questioning beings about their Being, one cannot go deeper. However, there is one being whose Being is to inquire into the meaning of Being – that is Dasein. Dasein is not the same as human being - but something that belongs to the human being. At the same time, Dasein was appropriated and is still in touch with the Being. In this book, Heidegger is questioning Dasein about its Being. All the talk about authenticity, guilt, anxiety, mood, care, death, others, and so on in this book is about recovering and experiencing this connection between Dasein and Being.
More concretely and as an example, beings are the fields of particular sciences (physics, history, logic, biology, theology, etc.). Heidegger wants to inquire into what makes possible such sciences and even to go below their foundations. By their nature, all sciences cannot inquire about their foundations and definitely cannot go beyond their foundations. This can be done only by fundamental ontology as done here. Because of this - the scientific, common, and traditional language is of no use here; on the contrary.
Because of its object (i.e. Being), this is “fundamental ontology”. Because it inquires Dasein about its Being and since Dasein already has a pre-ontological understanding of Being, this is “hermeneutics”. Because it goes to the things as they appear themselves, the method here is “phenomenology” as promoted by Husserl.
A being is any-thing that we talk about – a tree, God, a human, an idea, a hammer, an assumption, a theory, a unicorn, an electron, an expected event, a past event, a feeling, a number, and so on. For us moderns, the beings are equivalent with the real; and the real in turn is equivalent with extended substances. The medieval theologians, Descartes, and up to Kant – included res cogitans among beings and along with res extensa; and in this way their world of beings was richer when compared with our modern and materialistic one. However, by generalizing from beings to Being and by defining Being in terms of substance (as res extensa or/and res cogitans) or as ideas (as started with Plato) the entire western tradition fell into metaphysics.
According to Heidegger, the beings are of three types – Dasein-like, tool-like, and substance/presence-like. We discover them in this order. As we move from Dasein to tools and from tools to substances/presence, the beings are “poorer in Being”, derivative, limited, and artificial. Sciences delimited and defined their objects of inquiries in the beings understood as present-at-hand (the third and most limited and artificial type of beings). Logic along with its truth followed as the proper method for this objective and restrictive ontology. This scientific and objective approach is ubiquitous today and well beyond its proper field. When we try to understand a tool as an object with properties we lose sight of what is essential in a tool. The further and even more serious error is to try to understand Dasein and Dasein-like beings (world, God, time, truth, history, and so on) as present-at-hand beings – like most of philosophies and sciences do these days (for example - human is a rational animal, or an input-output machine, or a biological system, or a spiritual substance, or a moral entity, or a subject, and so on). Actually, time is even more fundamental than Dasein and Dasein-like entities; in fact time makes possible Being – hence the title of the book “Being and Time”.
Truth understood as correspondence between a real object and a representation inside subject's mind, as certainty of a conviction/idea (a la Descartes or Husserl), as given by the transcendental categories within a subject as understood by Kant, as propositional truth understood by analytic philosophy, and so on – are all derivative and restrictive definitions of a more fundamental truth. This fundamental truth is the one given by Aletheia/αλήθεια as disclosure (i.e. think of Jesus who said “I am the Truth” as a perfect example of truth as Aletheia).
Since the project here is to rebuild everything on a more fundamental level; the old structures must be destroyed/deconstructed. Any attachment to philosophy, science, logic, ontologies based on real/substances/extensions, systematic theology, and so on �� stand in the reader's way of approaching and comprehending Heidegger. Some familiarity with Plato, Aristotle, Kant, and Nietzsche may help; but one must be ready to let them go as soon as he starts reading Heidegger. More helpful may be Kierkegaard, Meister Eckhart, St. Augustine, early Christians, and the pre-Socratics (assuming that one can read them in the original Greek). Reading books by different authors about Heidegger in order to understand Heidegger seems to me counterproductive and completely missing the point; one must just leap into Heidegger directly and have patience.
Looking for Nazi connections and hints in this book seems ridiculous to me. However, both Heidegger along with this book and the Nazi were produced by the same profound crisis (that included a rejection of democracy, traditional rationality, and ethics centered on the individual) and the need of fundamental renewal felt in Europe - but especially in Germany - after the WW1; however, that is a completely different and controversial topic.
This is only the public tip of the iceberg that was Heidegger and his ideas. He did not care to publish at all; but he needed to publish something for his professorship. Consequently, he put something together fast and published “Being and Time”. This book made him known and famous beyond his university, peers, and students. He wrote better books than this one and some even more deeper; for example “Contributions to Philosophy (Of the Event)”.
His project here is to answer in a fundamental way what makes beings “be”. To do so, he realized that he needs to ignore beings and in some way to go behind them and directly to the Being (i.e. that Being is not a being, but gives beings their Being). By questioning beings about their Being, one cannot go deeper. However, there is one being whose Being is to inquire into the meaning of Being – that is Dasein. Dasein is not the same as human being - but something that belongs to the human being. At the same time, Dasein was appropriated and is still in touch with the Being. In this book, Heidegger is questioning Dasein about its Being. All the talk about authenticity, guilt, anxiety, mood, care, death, others, and so on in this book is about recovering and experiencing this connection between Dasein and Being.
More concretely and as an example, beings are the fields of particular sciences (physics, history, logic, biology, theology, etc.). Heidegger wants to inquire into what makes possible such sciences and even to go below their foundations. By their nature, all sciences cannot inquire about their foundations and definitely cannot go beyond their foundations. This can be done only by fundamental ontology as done here. Because of this - the scientific, common, and traditional language is of no use here; on the contrary.
Because of its object (i.e. Being), this is “fundamental ontology”. Because it inquires Dasein about its Being and since Dasein already has a pre-ontological understanding of Being, this is “hermeneutics”. Because it goes to the things as they appear themselves, the method here is “phenomenology” as promoted by Husserl.
A being is any-thing that we talk about – a tree, God, a human, an idea, a hammer, an assumption, a theory, a unicorn, an electron, an expected event, a past event, a feeling, a number, and so on. For us moderns, the beings are equivalent with the real; and the real in turn is equivalent with extended substances. The medieval theologians, Descartes, and up to Kant – included res cogitans among beings and along with res extensa; and in this way their world of beings was richer when compared with our modern and materialistic one. However, by generalizing from beings to Being and by defining Being in terms of substance (as res extensa or/and res cogitans) or as ideas (as started with Plato) the entire western tradition fell into metaphysics.
According to Heidegger, the beings are of three types – Dasein-like, tool-like, and substance/presence-like. We discover them in this order. As we move from Dasein to tools and from tools to substances/presence, the beings are “poorer in Being”, derivative, limited, and artificial. Sciences delimited and defined their objects of inquiries in the beings understood as present-at-hand (the third and most limited and artificial type of beings). Logic along with its truth followed as the proper method for this objective and restrictive ontology. This scientific and objective approach is ubiquitous today and well beyond its proper field. When we try to understand a tool as an object with properties we lose sight of what is essential in a tool. The further and even more serious error is to try to understand Dasein and Dasein-like beings (world, God, time, truth, history, and so on) as present-at-hand beings – like most of philosophies and sciences do these days (for example - human is a rational animal, or an input-output machine, or a biological system, or a spiritual substance, or a moral entity, or a subject, and so on). Actually, time is even more fundamental than Dasein and Dasein-like entities; in fact time makes possible Being – hence the title of the book “Being and Time”.
Truth understood as correspondence between a real object and a representation inside subject's mind, as certainty of a conviction/idea (a la Descartes or Husserl), as given by the transcendental categories within a subject as understood by Kant, as propositional truth understood by analytic philosophy, and so on – are all derivative and restrictive definitions of a more fundamental truth. This fundamental truth is the one given by Aletheia/αλήθεια as disclosure (i.e. think of Jesus who said “I am the Truth” as a perfect example of truth as Aletheia).
Since the project here is to rebuild everything on a more fundamental level; the old structures must be destroyed/deconstructed. Any attachment to philosophy, science, logic, ontologies based on real/substances/extensions, systematic theology, and so on �� stand in the reader's way of approaching and comprehending Heidegger. Some familiarity with Plato, Aristotle, Kant, and Nietzsche may help; but one must be ready to let them go as soon as he starts reading Heidegger. More helpful may be Kierkegaard, Meister Eckhart, St. Augustine, early Christians, and the pre-Socratics (assuming that one can read them in the original Greek). Reading books by different authors about Heidegger in order to understand Heidegger seems to me counterproductive and completely missing the point; one must just leap into Heidegger directly and have patience.
Looking for Nazi connections and hints in this book seems ridiculous to me. However, both Heidegger along with this book and the Nazi were produced by the same profound crisis (that included a rejection of democracy, traditional rationality, and ethics centered on the individual) and the need of fundamental renewal felt in Europe - but especially in Germany - after the WW1; however, that is a completely different and controversial topic.
September 11, 2008
This book made my life come back into light. It also serves as proof that philosophy is about life, and nothing else. Being and Time renewed a sense of autonomy and history that I hadn't thought possible, my responsibility for the places, people, and meanings I carry with me, and those that I choose to leave behind.
April 29, 2018
بعد هذه التجربة احسست بأني لم أقرأ فلسفة من قبل..على الرغم من انني قرأت عدد ليس بقليل عن الفلسفة، وفيما يخص موضوع الدازين، الكينونة ، الوجود اكثر من عشرة كتب مابين الفلسفي والابستيمولوجي و الأدبية (شعر وقصص ومسرحيات ورويات ونثر ومقالات) بل وحتى النفسية؛ كل هذه المقدمات كانت بمثابة مقدمةلهذا المشروع اقصد - الكينونة - وبالرغم من كل هذه المقدمات إلاّ إني فور انتهائي من هذا الكتاب شعَرتُ بـ فقدان طفولتي الفلسفية وكأن هذا الكتاب جعلني اجتاز هذه المرحلة بما يُقارب العشرة أيّام من الإصرار والقراءة المتواصلةلهذا الكتاب.
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يفكك هايدگر بهذا الكتاب شفرة الوجود (فهم الوجود) كينونة الاشياء التي حولنا بطريقة تجريبية فذّة وعميقة جدا، يقسم الكتاب بجزأين تتفرع منهما فصول متشابكة ومترابطة جدا جدا بحيث لم افقد التواصل الفكري والحسي بهذه الفصول الطويلة والتي غالبا ما تبدو لي غامضة مما اضطر بي الحال للجوء الى ويكيبديا الموسوعة الحرة لأكشف ولو جزئيا عن هذا الغموض لكي اتمكّن من الخلاص من الغموض الذي ينتابني عندما اتوغل بهذه الفصول اكثر فأكثر.
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والغاية من قراءة هذا الكتاب والذي اعتبره بمثابة الجزء الأول لأُكمل الجزء الثاني الذي هو كتاب الكينونة والعدم او حسب ما تُرجِمَ الى العربية (الوجود والعدم) لجان بول سارتر وبإكمال هذا الكتاب "قد" اعود مرة اخرى لهذا التقييم واجري عليه بعض التعديلات بحسب فهمي للجزء الآخر.
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اشعر بأنني اكثر نضجا وفهما من السابق فيما يخص فهم الكينونة التي لطالما كانت لي بمثابة الشيء المُبهم الذي احاول اجتنابه دائما! شكرا مارتن على هذا الطرح الذي لم اقرأ مثله من قَبلْ.
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يفكك هايدگر بهذا الكتاب شفرة الوجود (فهم الوجود) كينونة الاشياء التي حولنا بطريقة تجريبية فذّة وعميقة جدا، يقسم الكتاب بجزأين تتفرع منهما فصول متشابكة ومترابطة جدا جدا بحيث لم افقد التواصل الفكري والحسي بهذه الفصول الطويلة والتي غالبا ما تبدو لي غامضة مما اضطر بي الحال للجوء الى ويكيبديا الموسوعة الحرة لأكشف ولو جزئيا عن هذا الغموض لكي اتمكّن من الخلاص من الغموض الذي ينتابني عندما اتوغل بهذه الفصول اكثر فأكثر.
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والغاية من قراءة هذا الكتاب والذي اعتبره بمثابة الجزء الأول لأُكمل الجزء الثاني الذي هو كتاب الكينونة والعدم او حسب ما تُرجِمَ الى العربية (الوجود والعدم) لجان بول سارتر وبإكمال هذا الكتاب "قد" اعود مرة اخرى لهذا التقييم واجري عليه بعض التعديلات بحسب فهمي للجزء الآخر.
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اشعر بأنني اكثر نضجا وفهما من السابق فيما يخص فهم الكينونة التي لطالما كانت لي بمثابة الشيء المُبهم الذي احاول اجتنابه دائما! شكرا مارتن على هذا الطرح الذي لم اقرأ مثله من قَبلْ.
March 1, 2022
Ufuk açıcı...Başkaca düşünce yollarını sunup Varlığımızın zaman mevhumuna yerleştikten sonra fenomenolojik ontolojisini didikleyerek ortaya koyabilen ve felsefe tarihinin önemli mihenk taşlarının başında gelen bu esere buraya üstünkörü bir inceleme yazılması pek doğru değildir. Heidegger'i, Varlık ve Zaman'ını okuyabilmek için çok zaman evvelden bir çok makale ve ön okumalar için kitap bitirdim. Yine kolayca okuyup anlayabildiğimi söyleyemem ve sanırım ilerleyen zamanlarda Varoluş ile ilgili düşüncelerim demlendikçe tekrar okumam gerekecek.
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