Because "wrong," in this case, is meaningless if you mean in terms of accuracy or correctness. What would be "right"? — Xtrix

According to Heidegger, taking up the line of Parmenides and Heraclitus, which is what he was doing. According to Heidegger. Because the path that begins with Plato and continues with Aristotle, the Latin scholastic, Descartes or Kant was a wrong path. You had to start all over again. He calls this the "second beginning". I insist, start, start again.

...no negative assessments of Aristotle or Descartes — Xtrix

Oh,my God!

This becomes boring because you haven't read Heidegger properly and don't want to read what I write to you. Perhaps if you read some of those secondary readings that you so dislike that your ideas go into "the clearing". I can't do any more.

How can we continue to argue if you say that accusing someone of being blind, of degenerating the sense of philosophy and hiding the real issue are not "negative assessments"? There's no way to argue with that.

I am a teacher, I try to do my part. — Sir2u

Good!

ou can certainly disagree with Nietzsche's prescriptions on this point, but he actually had a pretty robust and detailed view of what was to come next (the ubermensch and humanity's "highest specimens", amor fati, affirmation of life, etc) — Enai De A Lukal

I wouldn't call it detailed. There's no description in Nietzsche's books of the superman society or the means by which it will be reached. It is actually such a vague idea that one can doubt that supermen could ever really form a society. Nietzsche felt like a prophet. And he felt more and more like a prophet as he went deeper into his madness. And prophets aren't usually very accurate.

Does nihilists (in Nietzsche's positive sense) believe in objective moral truth, in the sense that it exists but we don't yet know it? — MadWorld1

The absolute rejection of existing values implies some kind of strong criterion (i.e. a counter-value). In Nietzsche's case, the will to power. Whether that criterion is defined as "absolute" depends on the types of nihilism.

Dark examples? Or dialectical truth?

Nietzsche saw nihilism as something to be overcome: — Pfhorrest

All or almost all nihilists (in Nietzsche's positive sense) think so. First we make tabula rasa and then something better will be built. Worse than what's there now is impossible.
The main reproach made to them is that they are not very clear about what is going to come next and how. Nietzsche included.

I saved this one for last. Find a way and sign me up to help. — Sir2u

There's no one way. If you're interested in that, you've certainly found a way to help.

Great idea but not going to happen. I am surprised that terrorist have not worked this angle yet. — Sir2u

What are the terrorists doing here? To end the terrorism of the multinationals? Terrorism against terrorism, I don't think it's a good idea.

But perhaps you were not asking a serious question, but just feeling frustrated.... — unenlightened

This is a very serious matter. It involves what philosophy is and should be.
In my opinion, philosophy is meant to clarify, not to hide. However, there is a constant tendency towards "esotericism" - as you call it - in the history of philosophy. Why?

Sorry. I'm going off topic. That's not my question. Classical rationalism has one real merit over its many demerits: the demand for clarity. But even an alleged rationalist like Hegel became Hegel the Dark. A big problem.

I'm a rationalist on this. But I spent almost a year reading an abstruse text: Sartre's Critique of Dialectical Reason. Was it worth it? I think it was. For particular and general reasons.

Particular: It was a personal challenge.
General: Philosophical truth is dialectical. You can't hold a position if you haven't resisted the opponent's attack.

My conclusion: One must read the dark philosophers if only to know why one should not read the dark philosophers.

You mean like Kant? — A Seagull

I don't mean Kant. Kant's language may seem obscure to us because he was writing more than two centuries ago. You can understand Kant with a little training and a good translator.
In my opinion, Kant is basic to get into philosophy. But it's not necessary to read him directly. Justus Hartnack's Kant's Theory of Knowledge is a very good commentary on Kant. It is not very difficult to understand. I started to understand Kant from there.

What does this have to do with Western metaphysics being "wrong"? — Xtrix

Greece after the Presocratics, Rome, the Middle Ages, modernity—has asserted a metaphysics and, therefore, is placed in a specific relationship to what-is as a whole. Metaphysics inquires about the being of beings, but it reduces being to a being; it does not think of being as being. Insofar as being itself is obliterated in it, metaphysics is nihilism. The metaphysics of Plato is no less nihilistic than that of Nietzsche. Consequently, Heidegger tries to demonstrate the nihilism of metaphysics in his account of the history of being, which he considers as the history of being’s oblivion. — W. J. Korab-Karpowicz, Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy

Yet the question [of Being] we are touching upon is not just any question. It is one which provided a stimulus for the researches of Plato and Aristotle, only to subside from then on or a theme for actual investigation. What these two men [Parmenides and Heraclitus] achieved was to persist through many alterations and 'retouchings’ down to the ‘logic’ of Hegel. And what they wrested with the utmost intellectual effort from the phenomena, fragmentary and incipient though it was, has long since become trivialized. — Heidegger: B&T, #1

Basically, all ontology, no matter how rich and firmly compacted a system of categories it has at its disposal, remains blind and perverted from its ownmost aim, if it has not first adequately clarified the meaning of Being, and conceived this clarification as its fundamental task. — Heidegger: B&T, #3

Trivial, blind and perverted is not "wrong"... according you. What means "wrong" to you?

In my opinion you are blind to the true meaning of Heidegger's work. You trivialize and pervert it. But don't worry. I am not saying that you are wrong... according you.

No. He never once says anything about "inaccurate metaphysics" or that concealment is "wrong." — Xtrix

"Greek philosophy is then interpreted retroactively—that is, falsified from the bottom up—on the basis of the dominant concept of substance" (ItM: 148/207)

Referring to translations of the Greeks. He's claiming their original way of seeing the world -- as phusis -- gets mistranslated and thus the original meaning gets falsified. So what? — Xtrix

.

So what? You mean Heidegger didn't think the forgery was wrong?

Does any of this sound like "all philosophers and metaphysics since the Greeks are wrong"? If so, you're wrong. Heidegger is uninterested in making claims about the truth or falsity of metaphysics since the Greeks. — Xtrix

And this?:

When tradition thus becomes master, it does so in such a way that what it 'transmits' is made so inaccessible, proximally and for the most part, that it rather becomes concealed. Tradition takes what has come down to us and delivers it over to self-evidence; it blocks our access to those primordial 'sources' from which the categories and concepts handed down to us have been in part quite genuinely drawn.(BT: 22/43)

Being-true as Being-uncovering* , is a way of Being for Dasein. What makes this very uncovering possible must necessarily be called 'true' in a still more primordial sense. (BT: 220/263)

This is starting to get a little crazy.
Do you have a special problem with the word "wrong"? Otherwise your position seems incomprehensible to me.

Here again, as I've said before, Heidegger is talking about translations. When talking about translations, of course he believes that many are simply inaccurate. This is a matter of scholarship.

You claimed, however, that Heidegger thought that Western philosophy (including the Greeks) was wrong. — Xtrix

Sorry but you don't understand Heidegger. The meaning of words in Greek philosophy is not an academic issue for him. Inaccurate translations are a reflection of inaccurate metaphysics: the concealment of Being. To reveal means truth in Heidegger, concealment is wrong. He expresses this error in many different words that I have included here in previous comments.
You have avoid the fragment that I put in my previous comment, according to which the metaphysical Western tradition "falsified from the bottom up—on the basis of the dominant concept of substance".
I insist: How do you can dissimulate the absolutely obvious expression "falsified from the bottom up"?


I never said that this concealment includes the Greeks. It would be opposite to all my previous comments. I have mentioned several times the "first origin" of the question of Being that Heidegger places in Heraclitus, Parmenides and Anaximander.

According to Heidegger, God, substance or nature are not understood without a previous theory of Being. — David Mo

What I was trying to explain is that Newton's theory is still valid in the terms that the theory is limited. That is, it is valid for concepts defined in the terms of Newtonian physics. Absolute space -independent of time and perspective- perfectly works in phenomenal objects. In this sense, it is still applied with constant success.

You pretended that it was the same case with the theories that are limited to talk about God, substance or other partial aspects of metaphysics, which according to you are valid "interpretations" of Being or partial aspects of it. I explained that for Heidegger this was not true. Theories about God, for example, are not different or partially valid interpretations, but wrong approaches without a correct comprehension of Being. Heidegger says textually that only a previous understanding of Being can lead to understanding of the sacred. Therefore, everything that is said about God outside a Heideggerian phenomenological perspective is invalid (inapplicable, if you want to say so).

Of course, this is not compatible with your theory that all interpretation is valid. Heidegger never said such a thing. Here the key of this mistake:

The usual thoughtlessness translates ousia as "substance" and thereby misses its sense entirely (ItM: 46/64)

Greek philosophy is then interpreted retroactively—that is, falsified from the bottom up—on the basis of the dominant concept of substance (ItM: 148/207)

"Misses its sense entirely"; “Falsified from the bottom up”. Is it not clear for you? What context can change the meaning of phrases expressed so strongly?

Nietzsche was in favor of active nihilism that attacks social values (beyond good and evil).
He was against passive nihilism that goes against life (will to power).

He once said that if he had lived in the "mists of Petersburg" he would have been a nihilist. (But with regard to strong and isolated phrases one has to be quite cautious).

It's the question of the meaning of Being that's been hidden and forgotten. The interpretation that's taken for granted, ousia (substance), isn't itself "hidden" — Xtrix

I don't understand anything. The text above is by Heidegger? If so, it's misquoted. Quotes and reference are missing.

I don't understand either who talks about "the interpretation of ousia as substance is hidden". Is the interpretation hidden? That doesn't make much sense. Can you explain it better?

I think this whole mess you're making is because you didn't understand my opening remark. I can explain it better, if you like.

The interpretation of Being as "substance," or ousia, is not "hiding" Being, — Xtrix

This is rigorously disproved by the quotes I have placed above. Your interpretation of Heidegger seems a little "autistic", if I may say so. I mean, you don't listen to the words of Heidegger himself.

Not to be rude or egotistical or anything like that, but you don't understand Heidegger as well as I do. — Xtrix

That's funny.

I think Camus places the issue of suicide in the foreground because of Dostoevsky's influence.The theme of suicide in Dostoevsky was a central piece in his relentless struggle against atheism and socialism. This theme was typified by Kirilov, a relevant character in The Devils. I have never understood Kirilov's tangled reasons for suicide. Perhaps the unusual complication of his thinking made him famous.

Camus is more elementary. Suicide is a possibility for an absurd mind. It is brought about by the despair of a meaningless life.

Anyway, they both sound like literary figures. Actual suicides kill themselves without any speculative complications. They kill themselves because they can't live. The reasons, if any, come later. The absence of God, his silence, the search for Paradise or the absurd. Or that Daisy doesn't love me.

Dostoevsky was puzzled by the suicide of a young Christian. Finally, Camus found that suicide by absurdity was wrong. But these things doesn't stop us from discussing his theories of suicide. Perhaps we want to discuss Dostoevsky's anti-theism and the meaning of life and not suicide, really.

About this last one.

[The descriptions of common life] are the most vigorous and suggestive part of Being and Time and in them lies, very probably, the reason for the extensive and profound influence achieved in this work. Heidegger traces here, with the resources of phenomenology, a series of interesting pictures of the inner life, of the conception of the world in which the process of the disintegration of the bourgeois intellectuality of the years of the postwar period is reflected. These pictures are undoubtedly suggestive, because they are - on a descriptive level - authentic and faithful images.

Georg Lukács: El asalto a la razón, Madrid 1976; p. 406.

Curious this semi-praise. It should be taken into account.

The neologisms might also "perform" the modes of being of the coming-to-be of beings as objective presence - without themselves quite 'congealing' into ready-made concepts. — Kevin

That's fine with me. Neologisms can awaken stale concepts when they are sufficiently provocative.

But as long as they are clarifying. That is, as long as they are accompanied by sufficient explanation. This is not what Heidegger does. Heidegger launches neologisms that are confusing metaphors and leaves them on the table so that you and I can understand what we want. At the same time, this lack of definition serves Heidegger to say that you and I have not understood the real crux of the matter. And he still doesn't explain the real crux of the matter.

I have nothing against art, quite the contrary. I often go to museums, exhibitions and cinemas. I read a lot of literature and go to the theater from time to time. I like all this if it's good. I believe that good art fulfills that function of waking up the sleeping soul. It helps me, at least. But I don't think art has anything to do with truth. I mean, I don't think there's an aesthetic criterion of what's true or false. That's the function of science and - in a sense - of philosophy. To mix the two things, is to provoke the ceremony of confusion. Which is what Heidegger did from the first book he wrote to the last.

I find it difficult to explain why so many people find this game stimulating. Well, I think it has to do with post-modern gobbledygook, which has revitalized Heidegger lately. A sign of our time.

You can praise yourself, but I don't think what you say is very "interesting" because it doesn't go to the heart of the matter.

The mistake that Heidegger blames on the metaphysical tradition is to err on the key question: Being. That's why he says it has to be "destroyed". Please read my previous comments.

According to Heidegger, God, substance or nature are not understood without a previous theory of Being. Western metaphysics was perverted because it hid Being under Substantialism.
On the other hand, the law of gravity can be understood without the general theory of relativity. Therefore, Newton could not degrade, nor err, nor hide a superior reality, as Thomas Aquinas or Descartes did. He worked correctly in the field of objects within his grasp. No one is going to destroy Newtonian physics. Scholasticism, on the other hand, must be destroyed as a system.

elicits the trouble in understanding him/referenced passages because — Kevin

The phrase you quote does not cause any confusion. It simply points out that there is a philosophical tradition which describes the specificity of the human being in Heidegger-like terms. They all raise the universal issue of freedom.

What happens is that Heidegger is too busy defending his particular etymologies to realize that behind other linguistic forms there is hidden the same content, the same problem and even the same solutions. He seems to believe that by using the terms in a different way than he does the same thing is no longer designated. Because Sartre uses the term essence he does not fall into the Platonic tradition. He uses it just in an anti-platonic sense. As I showed, Heidegger also uses the same term "existence" for similar purposes. Neither is Heidegger too original in spite of his taste for creating neologisms.

In that paragraph Heidegger doesn't use the verb "destroy" but noun "Destruktion". Stambaugh translates this correctly "destructuring". — waarala

I don't know why you say this translation is "correct". From what I've read it's pretty controversial. Not to mention the fact that in the index of Stambaugh’s translation you can see that he keeps the term "destruction". Anyway…

Indeed, Heidegger says that one should not destroy everything in the previous metaphysics. There are partial successes in it. But the error that metaphysics makes is in the key (this is the term that Heidegger uses) of the comprehension of Being. And Being is what is in the base of all the philosophical, political, scientific, technological and poetic thought that is worth for Heidegger. Throughout this section Heidegger comments some cases (Kant, Descartes) of this error and qualifies them very hard. Besides he extends them to all Western philosophical tradition. Some examples from Being and Time:

When tradition thus becomes master, it does so in such a way that what it 'transmits' is made so inaccessible, proximally and for the most part, that it rather becomes concealed. Tradition takes what has come down to us and delivers it over to self-evidence; it blocks our access to those primordial 'sources' from which the categories and concepts handed down to us have been in part quite genuinely drawn.
(…)

The destruction of the history of ontology is essentially bound up with the way the question of Being is formulated, and it is possible only within such a formulation.

(…)

Here Kant shrinks back, as it were, in the face of something which must be brought to light as a theme and a principle if the expression "Being" is to have any demonstrable meaning.

(…)



In taking over Descartes' ontological position Kant made an essential omission : he failed to provide an ontology of Dasein. This omission was a decisive one in the Spririt [im Sinne] of Descartes' ownmost Tendencies.

(…)

The seemingly new beginning which Descartes proposed for philosophizing has revealed
itself as the implantatiop of a baleful prejudice…

(…)

But with this 'discovery' nothing is achieved philosophically as long as it remains obscure to what a profound extent the medieval ontology has influenced the way in which posterity has determined or failed to determine the ontological character of the res cogitans.

Etc., etc.

This means that you can translate the term Destruktion as you like. What you cannot hide is the harshness of Heidegger's condemnation of the seminal error of Western philosophical tradition: the "concealment" of Being. This condemnation is the one that implies a second beginning of philosophy that recovers the initial impulse, although unfinished, of the pre-Socratics. It seems to you little destruction?

Notice he doesn't once say that Western metaphysics is "wrong. — Xtrix

Of course, he uses a dozen words that mean the same as "wrong".

And without context, just that -- words. — Xtrix

We have shown at the outset (Section 1) not only that the question of the meaning of Being is one that has not been attended to and one that has been inadequately formulated, but that it has become quite forgotten in spite of all our interest in 'metaphysics'. Greek ontology and its history which, in their numerous filiations and distortions, determine the conceptual character of philosophy even today-prove that when Dasein understands either itself or Being in general, it does so in terms of the 'world', and that the ontology which has thus arisen has deteriorated [ verfallt] to a tradition in which it gets reduced to something self-evident -merely material for reworking, as it was for Hegel. In the Middle Ages this uprooted Greek ontology became a fixed body of doctrine. Its systematics, however, is by no means a mere joining together of traditional pieces into a single edifice. Though its basic conceptions of Being have been taken over dogmatically from the Greeks, a great deal of unpretentious work has been carried on further within these limits. With the peculiar character which the Scholastics gave it, Greek ontology has, in its essentials, travelled the path that leads through the Disputationes metaphysicae of Suarez to the 'metaphysics' and transcendental philosophy of modern times, determining even the foundations and the aims of Hegel's 'logic'. In the course of this history certain distinctive domains of Being have come into view and have served as the primary guides for subsequent problematics : the ego cogito of Descartes, the subject, the "I", reason, spirit, person. But these all remain uninterrogated as to their Being and its structure, in accordance with the thoroughgoing way in which the question of Being has been neglected. It is rather the case that the categorial content of the traditional ontology has been carried over to these entities with corresponding formalizations and purely negative restrictions, or else dialectic has been called in for the purpose of interpreting the substantiality of the subject ontologically.

If the question of Being is to have its own history made transparent, then this hardened tradition must be loosened up, and the concealments which it has brought about must be dissolved. We understand this task as one in which by taking the question of Being as our clue, we are to destroy the traditional content of ancient ontology until we arrive at those primordial experiences in which we achieved our first ways of determining the nature of Being-the ways which have guided us ever since. — Heidegger, Being and Time, p. 22/43-44

Let us pass to a specific context. We can analyze this text of Heidegger and you would have the opportunity to explain that Heidegger doesn't say that Western metaphysics is wrong ant that we shouldn't "destroy" it to regain the true way of Being. (Bold added; italics are Heidegger's).

Do you want?

And without context, just that -- words. As I mentioned, from my reading these statements are almost always made in reference to translations of words and how the question of "Being" has been lost. — Xtrix

Can you clarify some of what you're saying?

Which translation changes the meaning of misinterpretation or concealment? Because the ones I have in Spanish translate exactly the same.

When Heidegger says that metaphysics has lost the question of Being, what context can change the meaning of being wrong way? If you want to go to Barcelona and take the plane to Singapore, is there a context that explains that you have not been wrong?

Metaphysics can't think Being because the distinction essence-existence and all constructions based on it "hides" Being (through/in these constructions). Being remains evasive for metaphysics. — waarala

As I said above, Heidegger also uses the distinction between essence and existence in a very similar way to Sartre. What differentiates his concepts of existence and essence from Sartre's? Nothing. That is, only one thing: the more than nebulous assertion that Sartre, to whom he endorses by decree the same concept as Plato, cannot reveal Being. Of course, neither can Heidegger. All that he says of the Being are metaphors of the type "the clearing of being", "to shepherd being", "the destiny of being", "throw of being", "advent of being", "the house of being", "presuposition of the sacred"... But, in spite of being unable to say clearly what he is talking about, he dedicates himself to disqualifying others because they do not understand the same thing that he does not understand... or is unable to express.


I won't qualify that procedure. I clearly don't like it.

I think Heidegger is suggesting that we cannot think of essence and existence in the same way when applied to humans as when thinking about things/objects/concepts. — Kevin

Almost all philosophy, except for the most dogmatic positivist, distinguishes between the mode of existence of beings in general and that of the human being. (For example, the existence-essence opposition appears in authors as diverse as Nietzsche, Dilthey, Unamuno, Bergson, Simmel, James, Marcel, Jaspers, Ortega). Sartre: for example, he distinguishes between being in-itself and being for-itself. The way of being for-itself is radically different from the way of being in-itself. In the for-itself existence precedes essence. With this formula Sartre says practically the same thing as Heidegger, who also uses a similar formula several times in Being and Time ("The substance of man is existence," or similar p. 117, 212, 314. Sartre means that for-itself is not determined to be by a permanent essence, but is permanently open to all its possibilities and obliged to pursue his project towards the future. This is the same as saying that he is free. This freedom is radical because what guides for-itself is his project of transcending his present being. In this way freedom is his way of being. It can be said that he is in a constant process of projecting himself into the future without ever being able to stop in any way of being essential. This is the exact opposite of being in-itself.


Therefore, Heidegger misinterpret the famous Sartrean sentence. Most probably he had been too quick to criticize Sartre without having read carefully what he has written.

"Falsity" in the sense of being concealed, covering-over, and forgetting. — Xtrix

And all the examples I gave you? Have you read them?

Deteriorated, dogmatic, concealment, misinterpretation, deformation, to destroy our genuine relation to things.

These are Heidegger's words. Are not these terms implying error or falsehood? It seems to me that when you don't want to understand a thing you decide not to understand it. Because if you are not able to contemplate the being of something because it is concealed and you think you know the truth about it, you are not wrong? Isn't false your belief? I don't know any other way to say so.

Being isn't a being, and it isn't in some mysterious "realm." It's any being whatsoever. It's the "is-ness" of any thing. — Xtrix

You yourself are saying that the term being applies to all things. Therefore it is universal and we cannot find a "scope" that is restrictive. It is not the same as Newtonian and Einsteinian physics, which apply to different fields of reality. The metaphysical error will always be an error about the totality and we cannot say that it is an error for a certain field of objects, but not for another one. Metaphysics is the science of being as being. At least in its ontological sense, which is the one followed by Heidegger.

Commenting Heidegger's "verbal games" (p. 42): In the traditional metaphysics there is an important basic distinction between essence (what) and existence ("that"). This distinction can't be applied to Dasein (living subject). Dasein's "essence" is its "to be"* i.e. its essence seems to be its existence. But here existence can't be understood traditionally as present-at-hand because this type of being doesn't apply to Dasein's (living subject) being. So, Dasein's existence is Existence and non-Dasein's existence is present-at-hand. — waarala

I'm afraid you still haven't explained what the terms existence and essence in Heidegger mean. You vaguely allude to the meanings in traditional metaphysics such as what and that. That can mean anything. I think I understand it because I know something about traditional metaphysics. In traditional metaphysics the essence is the being of something, which makes it what it is. Existence is the absolute position of the thing among other things, that is, in the world. But in Heidegger?

It is not useful that you derive the question towards the Dasein (human being) if before we have not clarified the concept of existence and essence in Heidegger. Neither it clarifies anything that mysterious "to be present at hand" that does not apply to the human being.

Either we clarify the previous concepts or everything becomes a mere verbal game. I put terms poetically expressed and each one thinks about what he wants.

Are you for that task? Or do you prefer to keep repeating Heideggerian jargon? Because if it's the latter, this discussion isn't very interesting.

I see no difference - just can't recall the exact wording of the quote/note. — Kevin

It is not in Being and Time, but in Letter on Humanism (trans. Franck Capucci, online)

By way of contrast, Sartre expresses the basic tenet of existentialism in this way: Existence precedes essence. In this statement he is taking existentia and essentia according to their metaphysical meaning, which from Plato's time on has said that essenria precedes existentia. Sartre reverses this statement. But the reversal of a metaphysical statement remains a metaphysical statement — Heideger, Ibid, p. 250

I understand Sartre and Plato perfectly, but I do not understand what other meanings these words have in Heidegger.

I'm afraid waraala's attempt is not very helpful.

Furthermore, in each case Dasein is mine to be in one way or another. — waarala

Excuse me. Apart from the fact that I don't know what "indifference" means in your Heidegger quote, I also don't see what it has to do with the paragraph I mentioned.

For the rest of your "explanation". If we start explaining Heidegger with paraphrases of his lexical inventions and without getting out of his jargon I am afraid we do not clarify much. Heidegger is confusing enough to have to read other interventions as confusing as his texts. I had mentioned the problem of the various verbal games with the concept of "existence" and "essence" and you don't even mention them. Where are we going?

I hope you enjoy Husserl. I have an Oedipal problem with him and I cannot read a single line from him. I've tried, though.

Difference between what? — Kevin

Existentia/ essentia vs. existence/essence.

I seem to recall a note in BT in which he says Sartre misunderstood him in "existentia precedes essentia" or "existence precedes essence" — Kevin

Where's the difference?
In my opinion Heidegger realized that Sartre was drawing his own conclusions from existentialism, which he found unbearable. Sartre was probably using the concepts in his own way. I don't see anything wrong with that. Rather, I find Sartre far more digestible than Heidegger (Leaving Critique of Dialectical Reason aside).

In either case, could you point me in the direction of where either or both were said/where I can find these? And/or other referenced denials? — Kevin

At the beginning of section #9 of Being and Time, Heidegger makes a nice word game between essentia, existenze, existentia, being, being-present-hand and others that may end your patience. If you resist stoically you will come to know that existence is said and not said of the being of the Dasein because it is not the same existence as the other existence. Well, more or less.

Said in a more natural language, the concept of existence can be related to two types of being, the "being present at hand" of the objects whose being consists in the essence and the one of the human beings Dasein, whose being consists in the possibility of giving itself a kind of existence or another one. Which are those that are properly in the ontological sense because the others are but are not ontologically of the whole. They are ontically that it is a way to be that is not Being.
Well, more or less.

In another part of this book it says that the Dasein is the only being in which his being consists of the existence.
Well, more or less.

If I've said something nonsensical, I can always blame the translation. Or say that I translate as I want and it suits me, which is what Heidegger said about his way to translate from ancient Greek. If it was good for him, why wouldn't it be good for me?

Everything that ensues is in error, and yet the terms of recognizing how little we know depend upon our daring to be wrong. — Gary M Washburn

Audacity is an essential characteristic of knowledge. No Galileo, Newton, Einstein or Bohr would have been possible without it. But audacity should not be confused with irresponsibility. True cognitive audacity exposes its idea to a verdict where it can be either false or true. Audacity is not required when it is said to be true because I want it and let whoever wants me follow me. This is the audacity of a prophet... and Heidegger's. Very little audacity when nothing is at stake.

That would describe internet pornography, would it not? — Wayfarer

This is a good comparison.

What is an effective way to curb corruption in 3rd world countries mainly in Africa and south America? — Gitonga

Put an end to the global corporations.
Put an end to the armies (both imperialist and neo-colonial).
Put an end the bureaucracy.
Put an end to ignorance and superstition (especially religious).
...

Easy, it is not?

People don’t choose to believe in illusory things knowing they are illusory when they choose it. — Congau

The answer is not simple. Sartre coined a seemingly paradoxical term that paradoxically sheds some light: conscience irreflexive . It can designate a state of semi-consciousness in which one chooses not to confront one's commitment -- to reality in this case. In common language we say that one "deceives oneself" or that one "does not want to know", to indicate that the evidence against one is so strong that it takes an effort not to accept it. I believe that whoever chooses fictional universes of consolation is usually on that case. (We are, if you want).

Being is a cipher. — Gary M Washburn

A figure is not the destiny of history, as the second Heidegger says. Apart from God or the Absolute Spirit, which he explicitly rejects, I don't know what it can be. He didn't know either. In my opinion. What you can't talk about, you'd better shut up or you'll get into pseudo-problems. In my opinion.