That depends on what you take the practice of philosophy to be about. — Fooloso4

Are you suggesting that there are definitions of philosophy the practice of which would require one to be a good person? And is a focus upon being somehow outside the realm of the "Socratics?" Certainly Plato had his ontology.

Would one have to be just in order to inquire in to "justice?" I suspect many who condemned Socrates to death sincerely considered themselves just and were considered by many fellow Athenians to be so.

I do not consider myself informed enough to be considered a philosopher — Athena

I do not know what that means. Being "informed" about history would not make you an historian, being informed about science would not make you a scientist and so on. I suspect that no amount of information would make one a philosopher.

At bottom, philosophy strikes me as an ongoing discussion over the nature of reality. Either one participates in the discussion in a meaningful way or one does not.

And for people who do, their views are likely to be significantly different near the end of the discussion than they were near the beginning.

I did not bring up his Nazi affiliation. — Fooloso4

Do you have to be a good person to be a good philosopher?

Do you have to be a good person to be a good Doctor, lawyer, teacher, mathematician, writer, president, scientist. . ., etc.

A critical reading of Heidegger is not a rejection of Heidegger. It is not an argument to not read Heidegger. — Fooloso4

Exactly. Even his greatest critics have read him.

A definition is a statement that specifies the correct use of a term. — Jamal

I disagree. I define a term when I want people to understand the manner in which I am using it. Rarely is the manner in which I am using the term the only manner it should be used.

It is good that the case against Heidegger has been made persuasively, but his Nazi sympathies and antisemitism have been known for a long time. It is, however, now more difficult for his apologists to separate the man from his philosophy. — Fooloso4

I agree. Heidegger was not a good person for many reasons with his Nazism foremost among them. It is sad that anyone wastes time trying to apologize for him.

When it comes to Heidegger, I prefer to spend my time understanding the ontological structure articulated in Being and Time. Fascinating stuff.

There are many reasons one should be careful in "assigning" anything by Heidegger with his horrid political views and questionable ethics foremost among them.

That being said, Being and Time should be read by all serious students of philosophy and is worthy of being course subject matter.

It would help to name one if I knew how to recognize one. — Vera Mont

You might have better luck if you looked to political commentators/philosophers rather than politicians. I recommend Thomas Hobbes.

that "being in the world" in the sense of a subject confronted with objects, or a mind and body in objective space, was a derivative or secondary mode of thinking about ourselves — Kevin

Well said. Of all the words you choose, I suspect "derivative" is the most accurate. However, it is important to keep in mind that Heidegger never gives any sort of independent standing "in" the world to beings not having the characteristics of Dasein.

Essentially, only Dasein is "in" the world while all beings not having the characteristics of Dasein are "within" the world that Dasein is in. This puts a significantly different perspective on the Cartesian notions of internal/external and/or subject/object.

This also puts a significantly different perspective on the notion of "transcendence". Instead of transcendence being the process encompassing the interaction of subject with object, it is the process encompassing the interaction of Dasein with the world.

Only Dasein is "in" the world. All other beings are "within" the world that Dasein is "in."

Wittgenstein has some similarities, especially in terms of “average everydayness,” but I see little similarity with Heidegger’s conception of being-in-the-world. — Mikie

later Wittgenstein does say that the world is everything. I also think Heidegger's and Wittgenstein's notion of "background" and its importance are similar to understanding how one gets around in the "world."

This is true only of someone who, IME, hasn't already studied e.g. Laozi-Zhuangzi, Epicurus-Lucretius, Spinoza, Schopenhauer, Wittgenstein, Karl Jaspers or P.W. Zapffe ... thinkers who have much more cogent things to say about "the nature of being" than Herr Rektor-Führer. :eyes: — 180 Proof

Thank you for proving my point. Your credibility regarding your position rests upon having read and understood Heidegger.

Keep up the good work.

I'm flagging the thread for deletion. — Wayfarer

So you are taking it upon yourself to have deleted everything everyone else has to say? How philosophical.

A small and relatively insignificant corner of his philosophy. If you find that part the most interesting, then by all means read that, and refrain from troubling yourself about the other 99% which remains incomprehensible to you, or perhaps inaccessible on account of your poisoned feelings.. — Janus

Heidegger was not a good person for several reasons, with his Nazism foremost among them. However, I have no desire to either prosecute or defend his absurd politics.

But I have long been interested in the nature of being. And anyone interested in the nature of being would be a fool to ignore Heidegger, particularly Being and Time.

William Blattner's guide to Being and Time.

I'd like to ask the Forum what they think of Mr. Heidegger's thought. — Mikie

I think Heidegger's "being-in-the-world" as a unitary mode of being is revolutionary.

All of reality is a prison. The question is, what is outside of that prison? — an-salad

why do you presume there is an outside?

Without consciousness matter doesn’t have a home. No consciousness of which to be an object. I’m doubtful matter is enough by itself. How can non-extension emerge from extension? Can something with only spatial properties give rise to non-space.

it enables some to feel more secure.

My original point was not that anything Nazi-Warpig said was true or not, but that his philosophy can be dismissed as invalid, and exctract that which can be shown to not be compatible with the destruction of human life. — Garrett Travers

You are flailing in the wind. You cannot possibly extract anything from Heidegger's work if you do not read it. And even if you do read it, you cannot possibly extract anything from it if you do not understand it. And people misunderstand what is mistakenly referred to as the introduction to Being and Time as written.

You are the one who chose the word "care" without providing a definition. I don't "care" about Heidegger's ontological views any more than I "care" about the rocket engineering principles of S.S. Officer Werner von Braun. But I will use Heidegger's views to reach a deeper understanding of the nature of being just as rocket engineers will use the views advanced by Braun.

And you may rest assured I do not "worship" Heidegger or any other being. I don't even worship God.

But don’t forget, it isn’t just the objectively present objects of empirical study that Heidegger considers inauthentic. — Joshs

That is incorrect. Inauthentic, undifferentiated, and authentic are temporal modes of Dasein's being that have no application to entities other than Dasein. To say that something ready to hand (such as a hammer) is authentic or inauthentic makes no more sense than to say that something ready to hand (such as a hammer) is happy or sad.

And most of the time we spend making our way through the world is spent in an undifferentiated mode of being rather than in an inauthentic mode of being. And the only difference between inauthentic and authentic is choice. And the hammer has no choice.

Nobody should give a shit what a Nazi said. — Garrett Travers

If you want to prosecute Heidegger, I certainly will make no objection. He was not a good person for many reasons with his Nazism being foremost among them. If you expected me to defend Heidegger, then you were mistaken. If the court were to order me to defend Heidegger, I would turn in my law license and go and grind lenses.

But Heidegger is dead. It is no punishment of him or any other Nazi to ignore what he had to say regarding the nature of being. Instead and for a serious philosopher, ignoring Heidegger because he was a bad person is self-flagellation.

I wish you nothing but the best.

Scientific thematization and objectification have their place for Heidegger, albeit distinctly circumscribed as regional ontologies. — Joshs

If wayfarer wants to throw out words such as "objectification" and fail to clarify that he is using it as a synonym for the "scientific method", then isn't he "covering up" at least as much as he may be "uncovering"? Though Heidegger indeed has a significant amount of respect for the scientific method, the scientific method is derivative of being-in-the-world and has no use in the absence of world.

And in Heideggerian terms, isn't the real issue the degree to which a scientific mode of being can be an authentic mode of being? And if so, then the scientific mode of being is inauthentic insofar as it leads Dasein to mistakenly live as if Dasein were outside the world looking in. You cannot be more "in" the world than Dasein.

Though Heidegger embraces the subject/object observer/observed dualisms as useful to understanding the universe, he unequivocally rejects them to the degree they are rooted in Cartesian substance dualism. For Heidegger, transcendence is from Dasein to the world, not from subject to object.

Anger no. Blame yes.

You can't.

That depends.

Far more than anyone else.

I find no pleasure in that.

Which is why I'm considering that the real obstacle is 'objectification'. — Wayfarer

In some sense, "objectification" is the end of philosophy.

It serves no meaningful purpose.

Authentic Dasein does not feel at home in the world. The older I get, the more comfortable I am not feeling at home in the world.

What if they (the mortgages) are created at the same time (and taken out by the same person)? — Daniel

Time is one method that non-spatial entities could be differentiated. I never said it was the only method nor did I say it was a perfect method.

I suspect you are just as capable as I at answering your question.

I would have, but I don't agree with the statement about the introduction. It is not a mistake to refer to it as such. I hope you now concede that. — Xtrix

I absolutely do not concede that. I suspect that if Heidegger had continued with the work, the next publication would not have been called Being and Time with any sort of suffix and would likely have been called Time and Being.

It is not as if the binding or the cover page of Being and Time as published reads Being and Time, Divisions 1 and 2. How could the publications of subsequent divisions have the same title without further compounding the confusion?

He submitted a manuscript entitled Being and Time with two divisions and no introduction. He was told he needed to write an introduction and he used the opportunity to point beyond the submitted manuscript. Thereafter, the publisher adjusted table of content headings accordingly. Had he not been required to write an introduction to an already submitted manuscript, then we would not be having this discussion.

Heidegger published what he needed to publish to get what he wanted to get. Had he not been forced to publish and under hurried circumstances, we would not even know his name. It is sloppy and students of Heidegger deserve better.

Going forward, our time would be better spent on substantive discussions of Being and Time. I greatly appreciate your knowledge of the subject matter. It is difficult finding people who have such knowledge. After all, this ain't Europe.

Few American universities teach Heidegger and those I attended did not. All knowledge I have of Heidegger and his work was acquired post-formal education and out of desire. I read Heidegger and then I listen to lectures by Dreyfus, Kelly, or Carmen and then I read Heidegger and then I listen to lectures by Dreyfus, Kelly, or Carmen and then I read Heidegger. . .

Until our paths cross again. . .

For my part, I see the later writings as clarifications and further articulations of the earlier project , but found little additional enlightenment in Heidegger’s post-Being and Time work. — Joshs

I agree. I am not a Heidegger disciple. It would matter not to me if Heidegger unequivocally renounced Being and Time. I would still read at least 10 pages a day as I have done for many years now. Had Heidegger not published Being and Time, we wouldn't even know who he was.

Of course. But who doesn't see that? Is anyone out there thinking that because there's an introduction to the entire outline — Xtrix

Undergrads by the thousands are unable to tell you that the primary goal of the only 2 divisions of which Being and Time is comprised are about the fundamental analysis of Dasein and Dasein and Temporality and that is in part because the introduction written for a 6 part treatise of which the entire contents of Being and Time comprises just 2 parts repeatedly sets the goal at the revelation of the meaning of being.

And besides, if you agreed with me, then all you had to do was say so and we could have been doing other things.

Well we agree on that at least. :ok: — Xtrix

I am right and you are wrong and I can live with that.

:smile:

Most of Being and Time, including the parts not finished, were eventually published in different works and were an outgrowth of lecture courses Heidegger gave in the 1920s. So both before and after 1927, you have plenty of material.

So it's not quite that simple, no. — Xtrix

We are clearly not going to agree. I find The History of the Concept of Time (pre) and The Problems of Phenomenology (post) to be useful in understanding Being and Time.

Mulholland also argues that Heidegger's complete body of work is sufficient to consider the project complete. Taylor Carmen leans that way. I do not disagree.

Given that this is true, my statement stands: it is in no way a "mistake" to refer to the introduction of Being and Time as exactly that. Why? Because that's exactly what it is. — Xtrix

And even if you want to stand on that, people who wish to understand Being and Time should still be aware that what is labeled as an introduction is clearly intended to be an introduction to a larger body of work.

Surely you can see that?

Being and Time is most certainly not complete. It consisted of 2 parts with 6 divisions. Only two divisions were written -- both of part 1. — Xtrix

Seriously? He needed to provide a name for the completed parts so they could be published (the publish or die of academia.). He named the 2 completed parts Being and Time. It really is that simple.

There are points of convergence between Heidegger and Eastern nondualist philosophy. — Wayfarer

This does not surprise me. Heidegger was raised Catholic, converted to Protestantism, and in his old age began to sound quite pantheistic.

That's a crucial difference. — Xtrix

I was not quoting Heidegger. I was stating my favorite mantra. And that is a crucial difference.

And I am teasing you and I stand corrected. Though changing the contents of a mantra can be a difficult undertaking, I will do what I can.

:smile:

The introduction is indeed an introduction to Being and Time. The fact that the book wasn't completed doesn't negate this. Why? Because in the introduction -- and not elsewhere, since it wasn't written -- you have a discussion of what was to be the second part: the "destruction" of the history with time as a clue, in Kant, Descartes, and Aristotle. He discusses this in the introduction. He also discusses the 3rd Division of Part 1, "Time and Being," in the introduction.

So the introduction is very valuable indeed. If you want to fill out Being and Time, then Basic Problems of Phenomenology and Introduction to Metaphysics will do so.

The primary goal of Being and Time is, indeed, about the meaning of being. That is the goal. What I see as being mistaken is that many people assume he gives a definition or an interpretation of "being" himself. He most emphatically does not. So that is a common error. But to argue it's an error to think his goal is what he repeatedly says it is, is itself an error -- in my view. — Xtrix

1. Being and Time is complete. The 6 part project of which Being and Time is just 2 parts is incomplete.

2. At no point did I suggest that there is no value in the what is mistakenly referred to as the introduction to Being and Time. I only cautioned against mistaking it as an introduction to Being and Time when it is clearly an introduction to a much more ambitious 6 part project of which Being and Time comprises just 2 parts..

3. Your emphatic insistence notwithstanding, Heidegger defines being as ". . . that on the basis of which entities are already understood." (M&R at 25-26, 6 in the German.). I am always surprised by the number of people who miss that.

The below is from the last page of what is mistakenly referred to as the introduction to Being and Time. As you can see, the last page of what is mistakenly referred to as the introduction to Being and Time makes clear the introduction is to a 6 division project of which Being and Time comprises only the first 2 divisions. Surely you can see that.

If I can be any further assistance in clarifying the matter for you, then please consider me to be at your disposal.

portio