Well, if they don't work very hard to 'conserve' affordable prices on beer, then I will sharpen my pitchfork even more, and persuade the rich people, that we are all coming to drink free beer at their houses — universeness

I like beer.

We are so Cartesian.

I can't comment on the later Heidegger. I will reiterate that his style is direct and clear in the lectures that led up to the writing of Being and Time. — plaque flag

I agree. The same is true of some of the lectures immediately following Being and Time as contained in Basic Problems of Phenomenology.

It was unstated and not argued because that is not my position. — Fooloso4

I did not mean to suggest otherwise. I was speaking about the the thread in general.

The first is what his contribution to ethics might be. I don't see anything in his discussion of care that applies to ethics. — Fooloso4

I agree. I am unaware of any significant contribution to ethics on the part of Heidegger.

My primary interest in Heidegger is Division One of Being and Time. I am far more interested in the nature of being than I am in either prosecuting or defending Heidegger.

Isn't that the problem? Heidegger's 'care' does not answer the question raised: — Fooloso4

No. That is not the problem. I raised the question and the question was not being asked of Heidegger. There seems to be an unstated and essentially unargued claim that philosophical works may be dismissed if their authors fail to meet a heightened standard of morality.

Heidegger was not a good person for many reasons with his Nazism foremost among those reasons. But that does not render invalid everything he has to say about the meaning of being anymore than Nazism renders invalid every significant cinematic idea of Leni Riefenstahl or engineering principle of SS Officer Wernher von Braun.

I suspect that Being and Time was fated to be a major philosophical work regardless of the fortunes of the Nazis.

Well said.

The basis of Dasien’s being-in-the-world is care. By care, Heidegger does not mean sentimental concern. He means that our connection with other people and things ( the things we experienced are understood by reference to their relevance to our human relationships) is one of pragmatic involvement — Joshs

It is often difficult for some (especially those whose native tongue is English) to get a grasp on Heidegger's concept of care. One could care very much about being a good Nazi.

Tribalism fuels hatred which fuels politics which fuels tribalism. . .

I suppose it is a matter of where one jumps into the circle. . .

education is only helpful in procuring better jobs — Isaac

Emphasis added.

A bit of a stretch.

tribalism is the main issue — Tom Storm

Tribalism fuels hatred which fuels politics which fuels tribalism which fuels hatred . . . ad nauseum, ad infinitum.

"The ability to make choices not constrained by determinism or randomness". — Cidat

What would make the above definition of free will (or any other definition) a "libertarian" definition?

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.