They could have talked more about his ideas about being and time and as why lots of people think he is king of philosophy for his revolutionary way of thinking about existetialism. Oh well, may be another day and documentary!
"Heidegger life and Philosophy" ends with Heidegger being called a 'bad man'. How does such shit fucking propaganda make it to the top of the search list?
@andrewweis This unilateral vid has more content then your short nuanced remark.
A quote of Nietzsche could think you more subtle:
535 TRUTH REQUIRES POWER. Truth in itself is no power at all, in spite of all that flattering rationalists are in the habit of saying to the contrary. Truth must either attract power to its side, or else side with power, for otherwise it will perish again and again. This has already been sufficiently demonstrated, and more than
Heidegger wasn't a man for mass events... But the revolutionary year of 1933 broke his cordon sanitair. Ernst Jüngers dream, inspired by Nietzsche, of "Total Mobilization" became more a reality: (published in 1931)
"In order to unfold energies of such magnitude, it no longer suffices to mobilize heavy industry; preparations for war are required in the very marrow, in the innermost cell of life"
Heideggers thinking about total "Being" had to feel a same fatal attraction for Hitlers 'wholeness'.
"Of that far deeper and most special motive force of history, the desire of men to rise into a higher type of animal, in to the mass, and to lose themselves in it completely as to forget that one man ever existed, they had no idea. For they were educated men, and education is in itself a cordon sanitaire for the individual against the mass in his own soul".
From Canetti's novel "Auto da Fe". Published in 1935... original it is called in German "Die Blendung"..in English blindness..
@Contextcatcher The conception of Being is crucial. Nietzsche reinterprets Being as Becoming. But this formula can also be reversed : Becoming is Being. The thought of the "eternal return of the same" follows (logically) from this. That which is eternal is fleeting ; that which is fleeting is eternal. The essence of the eternal (that which stays) is to go ; the essence of that which goes is to stay This thought is a "riddle". Reality itself (which "corresponds" to this thought) is a riddle.
@Contextcatcher And why does this world, already founded on morality, need to be destroyed ? Because it is based on a lie. What is the lie ? Being. But what does Being mean here ? It is Plato's Being : the static now : the "Idea".
@zarakhast Husserl set focus on intenTionality....the most important property of consciousness....more in abstract way. Heidegger raised the question, sure in a genius way, of meaning of Being. But Kafka showed in his intenSe way the intentionality of daily life. The way Kafka used the word 'command' is special: not only in a moral sociological and psychological way, but in a metaphysic sense. Heidegger didn't recognized this as a crucial theme. Meaning of Being: temporality..pulse..command..
@Contextc You'll have to expand a bit before I might have a chance of understanding you, or to put what you're saying into different words. I realise that you're drawing a distinction between intentionality and intensionality but I'm afraid I've forgotten the distinction. I'll look it up. I haven't studied Kafka, though I would have liked to. He's a very difficult author. I appreciate his paranoia - I share it with him ! Your reading of Heidegger, I sense, is secondary to your other interests ?
@zarakhast I learned understanding Kafka after reading the works of Elias Canetti. Canetti wrote in short what Kafka felt: "commands are older than speech". What Hannah Arendt called banal was for Chemist Canetti an old quest. The quest of mass: the intense ways individuals forming crowds. Heidegger called anonymous crowd 'they: the idle talkers'. 1933 was crucial year for idle mass events: Heidegger had the urge for being a part of this whole..a convinced crowd can also command an indivdual.
But did Heidegger have a psychopathic personality ? I would love to hear a leading psychologist's opinion on this question. To compose Being & Time while being a psychopath ? That would take an unprecedented level of genius. To understand the conscience so utterly and yet to lack a conscience ....
I also hate the holocaust as something inhuman perpetrated by human beings on human beings. But whether guilty or not of complicity in WWII, Heidegger and his thought remain unaffected by such events. If the world is a doughnut and someone declares it to be a doughnut then it remains a doughnut even if he commits genocide.
The question of the essence of truth (aletheia or "correspondence") is one of Heidegger's main themes. It is essential to enter into this question in order to understand the difference between Nietzsche's and Heidegger's thought. Heidegger says that his sole aim is "to bring to a full unfolding the accomplishment of Friedrich Nietzsche". "Unfolding" is the key word here. It has to do with aletheia. Nietzsche thought the greatest thought but did not lead it into the realm of aletheia.
This documentary gets sillier and sillier the more I listen to it. Was writing Heidegger off as a poor, helpless psychopath (he didn't realise what he was doing !) actually intended as an act of "kindness" whose aim was to save him from being convicted of "war crimes". Well in that case, how nice !
But again, what bearing does any of this have on whether or not his thinking is true ? Clearly NONE.
Even the most rabid anti-Heideggerian knows that he was no "psychopath".
@zarakhast I never mentioned he was psychopath. I never mentioned he commited a crime. I mentioned his tendency to have no morals. And when Heidegger chosed to have some morals...The Nazi ideologial...it fits in his arrogant point of view represented as in "Being and Time". I prefer Nietszche above Heidegger... he is more honest, more spontaneous... Not hiding behind formal way of thinking. Ernst Jünger "The Worker" had the same temper. 1933: Heidegger probably knew he was lacking something..
@Contextcatcher The DOCUMENTARY makes him out to be (effectively) a psychopath. Listen to it. There is no difference between Nietzsche and Heidegger except for their conceptions of truth. For Heidegger truth = unconcealment (aletheia); for Nietzsche it is still judgment, correspondence, agreement. Both thinkers were perfectly honest. It's a pretty lame attempt by Rorty (in spite of his rhetorical skills) et al to discredit Heidegger on the basis of a character assassination.
@zarakhast About "Being" Heidegger was 'honest' in a very abstract and formal way. His 'Dasein' tend to be too solipsistic to see the world in a non-arrogant way. A far more honest thinker was Ernst Jünger. But honesty alone isn't the most important property for a great thinker. A great thinker for me questioned the them of morals. Kafka was a great thinker in that respect: in prophetic visions he showed concrete what it is to be a human in the world .He didn't need the academic abstractions...
@Contextcatcher I like Franz Kafka very much, although he was a bit of a cynic ! The question of morality is a vexed one. Nietzsche, for instance, writes for us a "Genealogy of Morals" in which he condemns morality. What are we supposed to think Nietzsche wants ? Does he want anarchy ? Actually he wants to humanize the world according to a higher concept of humanity. But in order to rebuild the world (which has been built on the foundation of morality) he first has to destroy it.
Heidegger is accused of possessing "a lack of feeling" in this documentary. He is effectively labelled as a psychopath - a man without conscience. What the denazification committee wanted Heidegger to undergo (to FORCE him to undergo) was a kind of "catharsis", in order to prove that all along he had really agreed with them and that his thought was really only an addendum to theirs. HELLO, IS THERE ANYONE SERIOUS OUT THERE ??
Being a burglar was meant to represent committing a crime. It's obvious that Heidegger's detractors want to convict him of a crime - according to their notion of justice of course. But my point is that it makes no difference whether one is a criminal or not : truth is truth. One does not first need to pass a "character test" in order to qualify to voice an opinion.
I can't understand what people who attack Heidegger's character actually hope or want to achieve by doing so. What difference does or can it make whether he was guilty or not of siding with the Nazi party during WWII to the question of whether or not his philosophy is METAPHYSICALLY TRUE ? This is such a vacuous position. I mean, if Einstein had been convicted of burglary either before or after publishing his theory of relativity, would that have affected the theory ? No ! Baffling !
@zarakhast Because being a burglar differs from joining an ideological party. Baffle? Why was Jünger more critical about Nazi than Heidegger was? You've a 'romantic' idea of Heidegger, you idealize him but also underestimate him in the polical way he was a philosopher. The history of 'ignorance' has a long intellectual tradition.
@Contextcatcher You say I "underestimate" him by NOT crediting him with an underlying political aim. I say you underestimate him by seeing his thought (and philosophy in general, apparently) as some kind of servant of "politics". I'd be interested to know how you conceive of philosophy and how you relate it to politics, and which of these subjects you think of as more original / important - and why, and what you base your reasons on, and what you base reason itself on.
I couldn't have chosen a worse quotation to support my point ! Henry Ford talked utter rubbish. But if "history is bunk" is taken to mean "mankind is a mendacious, habitual, selfish liar" then it works.
"Wonder is the revelation of Nothing" - What Is Metaphysics ?
Joy and (profound) boredom (to the subject of which Heidegger amazingly devotes a whole BOOK) are also exceptional states of the Being of Da-sein which reveal "Nothing".
Heidegger's thinking is not mere "unscientific" poetry (the scientific view of poetry is an insult to poetry for a start) but the deepest interpretation of reality available to us. It is thinking par excellence.
@zarakhast Honest...Naive...? "Dread reveals Nothing" is very ambiguous quote in the context of this vid: the people who were under dread in WO2 and didn't survive. Heideggers way of thinking tend to be clichéd: "Dread reveals Nothing"...Oh it's so deep... Come on wake up out the dream of words! Turn it around: "Dread reveals everything"...also very deep...
Idea's in your head can simulate a lot of truth, but to be honest: reality is more outside the head. The best thinkers are aware of this...
@Contextc It's not ambiguous at all, it means exactly what it says : that the underlying, metaphysical reality lies beyond the senses (and also "outside the head") and is revealed instead in a rare MOOD. But there you go again, dragging WWII into the discussion and trying to gain favour with those who wish to discredit Heidegger's thought for entirely unphilosophical reasons. Another thinker who discussed dread and its connection with Nothing is Kierkegaard. This all has nothing to do with WWII.
@zarakhast I'm reading Heidegger so I show respect to him. But I'm critical and showed some context of his thoughts and moods. I mentioned Ernst jünger. Jünger was critical and stayed outside the Nazi party. Heidegger is for me a typical Academic who's concern of career and reputation was more important than values. Fine most people do. But he was a special Philosopher, he made a choice and made a point about his view on being. After WO2 he hid himself behind formal way of thinking... Honest?
@Contextcatcher Heidegger used to ask the local peasants whether or not he ought to attend a meeting at the university : that's how much of an "academic" he was. He had little regard for the educated classes. How he viewed National Socialism I don't know, and no-one does. What he may or may not have said to others is unreliable, since this information rarely comes down to us from reliable sources. History, as someone once said, "is bunk".
You don't need to sympathise with Nazism to agree with the METAPHYSICAL conclusions of Heidegger's thinking. You only need to have a genuinely philosophical motivation. Philosophy is the pure search, without any hidden motive, for the answer to the fundamental question, i.e. Why is there something rather than nothing ? This search transcends "politics". It does not "support" any "other" point of view because it aims at the ultimate (and only genuine) point of view.
@zarakhast ...you couldn´t say it better...that´s exactly the way the true philosophers go...You can be sure, we´ll explain it to our old professors...sooner or later...
@efkagore Well thank you very much :) Of course it is very difficult to "explain" (i.e. interpret) Heidegger to anyone, including first and foremost yourself. What I loathe more than anything else is clever, tendentious dishonesty. There is nothing worse than an "intellectual" who is more concerned with his own, personal advantage than with the truth and who uses his cleverness like a politician. I may not even be reconciled to H's conclusions but I know they are true. You have to be honest.
@zarakhast wow...I´m just amazed that I´m not the only one who underlines honesty... No, no, I wouldn´t ever try to "explain Heidegger", I´m sure you know why...but I want to explain the unilateralism of "intellectual" professors, who are judging H. (nazism), and don´t care of the thing of thinking...of the insight into the happening a-letheia...
@efkagore They shouldn't be interested in anything except the search for ultimate reality. Nietzsche called for "intellectual integrity" - his call went unheeded. Politics is for idiots who can't see that there is nothing that "action" can achieve and who almost without exception are on the lookout not for the truth but only for what it suits them to find. This attitude is totally out of harmony with the atmosphere of philosophy, whose aim is to discover "kinship with the imperishable".
Heidegger also talks in the midst of his lectures on Nietzsche about the form which a future German language (guided by the idea of authenticity) will need to take. He quotes a letter by Holderlin (addressed to ?) He says there that the Germans will need to learn to THINK (unlike the Greeks, whose gift thinking already was) and that for this reason the "form" of German would need to assume a harsher aspect. This, again, is in the context of the broader, deeper context of his main question.
"A-letheia" starts with a negative prefix. This already shows us that lethe (concealment) is more fundamental than aletheia and lies permanently at its centre. This ought to remind us of Heidegger's fairly infrequent, though usually brief, references to das Nichts (Nothing). If mood (Befindlichkeit) reveals reality "as a whole" and dread (Angst) is the "key mood" then what dread reveals is "key". What does it reveal ? "Dread reveals Nothing" (What Is Metaphysics ?) Wonder also reveals Nothing.
@zarakhast "fairly infrequent, though usually brief" was meant to read "fairly infrequent, though always highly significant". Whenever Heidegger mentions Nothing his thinking is nearing its summit.
When Heidegger talks about the German language (and the German spirit) and what must become of it (specifically in terms of its "form") in the future he is doing so not because he wants to promote National Socialism but because a future authentic-being-towards-death necessitates it. We must not forget that his thinking is in essence tragic / heroic. A future authentic-being-towards-death would be a "pessimism of strength" (Nietzsche).
Heidegger's preoccupation with phenomena such as mood and meaning ought to show us that for him Being (Sein) was no mere "abstraction". He talks about the "experience of Being". How could we "experience" an abstraction ? He even connects Nothing (das Nichts) with a mood, and indeed the "key" mood. It is amazing how few people have managed to join up the dots all these years later. Being is not merely an abstraction but rather the REALEST REALITY.
The magic of spelling is for me ironic:.."sense of form'.. .or... "sense for form".
The double meaning of "to spell" English is beautiful.
Heidegger's term "verstellung"( "disguise") has a wide range of meanings: ajustment, displace, simulation, dissemble. block, also in relation to face and writing.
His awareness of form gave him the power of words for the thinker he was and stimulated a stiffened form his character had.
"...the harshness of our expression will be enhanced..." page 63
Heidegger's fine sense of form is rooted in the Greece terms: "aletheia", "eidos", "phaino" and related: to the porcess of uncover. The opposite is cover up, or disguise.
"Yet that which remains hidden in an egregious sense, or relapses and get cover up again, or shows itself only in "disguise" is not just this entity or that, but rather the being of entities" Google books p.59..
In his "Sein" form and meaning are one. A fountain for eternal thoughts.. it gave him a genius immunity...But...
In 1932 a book was published by right wing nationalist Ernst Jünger. "The Worker, Domination and Form". It's a book that influenced Heidegger. He recognized the strong mood he also was. After the war they wrote, for long time, letters to each other.
Heidegger truly had no friends towards the end, and in fact throughout his life. Even those who loved him didn't understand him. Such is the eternal fate of the genuine philosopher. Exactly the same thing happened to Nietzsche. The philosopher knows this in advance and is "philosophical" about it : it was inevitable after all. It is laughable when subsequent generations congregate and discuss his thought as if they had actually understood the first word of it.
@zarakhast TNX for the effort explaining your position. But you don't understand my POV. Reading critical stuff about your favourite thinker is hard to bear. Many things you're saying I recognize. Sure he is a marvellous thinker. But what I'm questioning is the mood he was writing and his awareness of style: form. You only can explain 'sein' FORMING a lot of words. Making 'forms', in his subconscious, is crucial: he likes to relate himself to craftsman: abstract observations using the hammer.
@Contextcatcher I don't mind reading criticism of Heidegger (his thought or character) as long as it is relevant and fair-minded. I can only guess what you are accusing him of because you are only hinting at it. For Heidegger "mood" is fundamental. Being & Time is about nothing except mood, all in the context of the ancient question of the meaning of Being, which "has been forgotten". What Is Metaphysics? names dread (Angst) as the "key" mood (i.e. the mood which discloses ultimate reality).
"The one person other than Sartre who did more to restore Heidegger's reputation ....". How on earth could a man who had systematically misinterpreted Heidegger's thought either claim or receive any credit for restoring his reputation ? This documentary is so poor it beggars belief. Sartre had NO IDEA WHATSOEVER what Heidegger's Being & Time pointed towards. He was just a wordy, dissipated old atheist who had no ideas of his own and was million miles away from being a genuine philosopher.
@Contextcatcher A "close reading" of Heidegger ? Do you think you've actually managed that then ? Your interpretation of his thought is (from what I've seen) typically shallow and merely academic. You seem to have adopted a position based on your admiration of other thinkers/artists (e.g. Shakespeare) and to then have read some secondary literature on Heidegger and torn into him on the basis of this misinterpretation. To claim that Heidegger's thought of Being is a mere "form" is ludicrous.
The conclusion follows from Heidegger's thought is that the way Western man now exists is (theoretically and in actual fact) a compound lie, the origin of which lies in the philosophy of Plato and the beginning of the dominance of Western "logic". Ontology is higher than "logic" and does not depend on it. It is not even logical to place logic above ontology, since thought is quite clearly a kind of Being, and not the other way about. Being comes first, always.
The "nihilation" of Nothing is what must be understood if Heidegger's thought is to make any sense whatsoever. Anyone who manages to come up with an interpretation of Heidegger's thought who hasn't comprehended - and experienced - the meaning of "nihilation" is a pretender to knowledge. Heidegger's thought of Being is bound up with the Nothing and its nature, as is all great thought, even if it does not explicitly take up the question of Nothing.
2. It can only continue by not continuing (otherwise, by continuing, it would immediately become something).
3. It in fact does continue by not continuing. But by not continuing, it ceases to be Nothing. But by ceasing to be Nothing it thereby continues to be Nothing.
4. By not being itself it is (remains) itself. But not being itself it is not Nothing : it is something. And yet it remains Nothing.
If time is infinite but the things in time are finite in number, then the exact same things are bound to repeat themselves ad infinitum, in the exact same order and sequence. This conclusion (which is the thought of the eternal recurrence of the same) follows from a simple metaphysical insight. This insight lies hidden at the heart of Nietzsche's metaphysics. What is this insight and which question leads to it ? Heidegger gives us the answers to these questions, if we take care to listen.
Philosophy is in crisis, more so than it ever has been. It's not possible to have a coherent philosophical discussion nowadays because people - even highly intelligent people - simply don't know what philosophy is any more. For the ancients it was second nature to recognise the proper questions and the subject matter of philosophy. Nowadays the conversation gets dragged off in far too many directions before even five minutes has passed. And yet the greatest thinker of them all died only in 1976.
The real "brainwashing" happens to those who are still too stuck in the contemporary to have any hope (such as they are) of gaining entry into philosophy proper. Philosophy is ALWAYS controversial in its own time. This is inevitable and stems from its nature, which is eternal and essentially elusive. The questions of philosophy are really obvious to a soul with no "ulterior motive". It is the rest, especially the "educated classes", who merely stare blankly when someone actually utters a TRUTH.
.. in Heidegger's work. He asks a question which has been disallowed by a law of logic - a 'law' the unreasoning belief in which has made it (at least in academic circles) virtually impossible to ask genuine questions ever since it was formulated. There is no deliberate, premeditated, merely "for effect" playing on words in Heidegger's thought ; that which his thought is about is profoundly mysterious and ambiguous and is bound to do what it does to language when we try to address it.
" I want more and more to perceive the necessary characters in things as the beautiful: I shall thus be one of those who beautify things. AMOR FATI: let that henceforth be my love! I do not want to wage war with the ugly. I do not want to accuse, I do not want even to accuse the accusers. Looking aside, let that be my sole negation! And all in all, to sum up: I wish to be at any time hereafter only a yes sayer! " "The Gay Science" 276
Maybe Heidegger felt somehow this in the year 1933...
@Contextcatcher Heidegger also quotes this passage several times in his lectures on Nietzsche. He does so in the context of his meditations on the metaphysics of Nietzsche. It is the greatest interpretation of Nietzsche's thought. In fact it is, as Derrida maintained, the only interpretation of Nietzsche thought worth bothering with. Heidegger never once changed his stance in any essential respect throughout his entire career. This claim is made up by his detractors, for unphilosophic reasons
"Amor fati" expresses Nietzsche's determination to "love" (will) only what everything is and MUST BE - not (cravenly) what we merely WANT it to be. The thought which expresses this eternal necessity is the thought of the eternal return of the same."Idle talk" LIES. How can you have a system of morals which is based on lies ??
@zarakhast Maybe you are brainwashed by the wizard Heidegger. He puts a spell on you. But one week ago I commented: "Rejoicing thoughts Heidegger is very different from being close-reading". I quote Heidegger and I even mentioned the context. You ignore it. Fine. I have my own interpretation. (and now you'll argue that I'm not a authority on Heidegger) My quote beneath is crucial because it questioned his lucid arrogant confidence: the meaning of term "sein" had for him an unbeatable form.
@Contextcatcher You quoted the passage in German. I don't speak or read German, otherwise I would have commented. And no, you don't need to be able to speak German in order to philosophize.
I came to Heidegger's thought because the first question I asked myself - without even yet knowing the word "philosophy" - was the question, Why is there anything rather than nothing ? It still amazes me that he alone seems to have explicitly posed this question. There is no "wizardry" at work (cont'd)
Heigeggers armoured love, his amor fati , for his form 'Being'...is not direct intented for normal human beings. His abstractions surrounding 'Dasein' proofed that. He thinks like a formal Pope. After writing "Being and Time"...after the war...he is less dogmatic leaving the 'temple of form' becoming some kind of mystic or zen (or 'sein') master..
But for sure when you want to know what the tragic power of words is...then you have to read Heidegger.
@Contextcatcher He never thought of Being as a "form". I don't know where you get that idea from. You should pay attention to what Heidegger himself says rather than allowing yourself to be brainwashed by what secondary literature says about his thought.
We have a situation in the West where it is not possible for someone to take up an authentic stance towards death without being regarded as being evil or mad The best people are being ruined by this state of affairs. The world is a farce.
"This does not require a deliberate scamming. The idle talk does not have the nauture of being (seinart) conscious impressing of something as something."
The subtle meaning (or feel..) between these lines in German is hardly to translate you must read in the context of "Being and Time". He was aware of his crucial act of being pretentious. In the morphologic spirit of Oswald Spengler his 'Being' was his main form: his a(r)mour.
The 1933 revolution touched his heart it was his fate: Geschick.
Heidegger was no merely "technical" thinker. His recovery of the original meanings of Greek words was not achieved merely by means of some learned "technique". It takes more (and less) than mere "education" to arrive at insights like his. Being itself grants all insights into it, to the right people. Being itself educates. There is no theory of education which can guarantee the emergence of the philosopher (sadly). You cannot teach philosophy. This is not "elitism" but just a fact.
@zarakhast For a philosopher it's a crucial chance to drop your main term. I found it, when I read this years ago, ironic and for him tragical: like dropping a mask. It's a symbol for mystic silence. For me was it clear: transformation is the main property of 'Being'. In the tradition of old myths Ovid wrote in time Christ lived his Meta-morphosis and influenced many artists, It's the heart of Shakespeare. Reading "Being & Time"I feel a mood full of strain to fix not a bit of intentional love.
@Contextcatcher You don't understand what was behind his dropping the term "Being", so don't pretend that you do. The term is steeped in tradition and therefore in prejudice. It has absolutely nothing to do with the events of WWII or Heidegger's "role" in WWII. It is a word which represents the Western interpretation (pre-political and a-political) of the whole of reality - an interpretation which governs the whole of Western language and "politics" etc.
@zarakhast Why is dropping "Sein" for him tragical and for me ironic? See "Being and Time": "The everyday Being of 'here', and the falling of Dasein". "Idle talking". He made a different between "Rede" (the essential talk of being Dasein) and "Gerede" (them the idle talkers). Crucial are these little fine lines:
"Hierzu bedarf es nicht einer absicht auf Tauschung. Das Gerede hat nicht die seinart des Bewussten Ausgebens von etwas als etwas". Arrogant Heidegger was aware of what he 'covered'.
And subsequent interpreters are, more often than not, unable to see back into the past, beyond their own contemporary prejudices. To translate Greek works into modern English, for instance, may be a feat of skill and a very admirable thing to do, but if the English language, or indeed any other modern language, does not itself contain the depth or the scope of ancient Greek, then even the most skilful translation will produce only a kind of mockery of the original.
In the end Heidegger dropped the term "Being" from his thinking altogether. Why ? Because the prejudice that the word "Being" stands for the static or fixed now is too ingrained in Western thinking for it to now be possible to recover and restore its original (i.e. presocratic) meaning. As for the presocratics themselves, we have only fragments, tantalising glimpses, of their thoughts. And worse than that, we have to read them through the eyes of subsequent interpreters.
But "Being is Becoming" can also be thought as "Becoming is Being". So this metaphysical viewpoint does not mean merely "there is no eternity : everything is in a state of flux" (supposedly Heraclitus' point of view). Neither does it mean merely "there is no change, everything is eternally fixed" (supposedly Parmenides' point of view). It means BOTH. And this stems from the nature of the eternal itself, which from our everyday point of view is a contradiction.
You're not the first person I've come across who seems to believe that Heidegger's thinking is just a reiteration of what is basically Plato's (and supposedly (SUPPOSEDLY)) Parmenides' metaphysical position. I can only imagine that there are very poor teachers out there ! Read Heidegger himself and see whether what your teacher has taught you isn't a load of rubbish.
And of course what "truth" ought to mean is hardly decided in advance. What it means in the modern age, for instance, and indeed since Plato, is not what it meant for the presocratic thinkers. It is precisely the view of Being as the "static now" which ultimately gave rise to modern science. Modern science is merely the elaboration, totally devoid of any essential thinking, of Plato's metaphysical view of a world ruled over by a static, unchanging now.
Nietzsche argues almost constantly against the "freezing" ("Egytpification") of Being. Heidegger supports this view and demonstrates his support of it in his lectures on Nietzsche. How did you arrive at the notion that Heidegger is just another proponent of the "fixed now" view of eternity ? You ought to read the works I'm referring to. Heidegger's thought deserves far more respect. The thought of the eternal return of the same is the thought of Being as Becoming.
Arendt was hardly referring to Heidegger when she coined her phrase "the banality of evil". This banality and this evil still prevails NOW. It's source ? The death of philosophy and the birth of the "religion of commonsense" : modern science.
Until metaphysics has been "overcome" (i.e. incorporated, accepted), all so-called "action" will and can have no effect. His thinking calls for a deeper, more silent transformation : a "war without gunpowder".
It was not Heidegger's idea to go to war. He was not the author of the National Socialist "philosophy". The fact (?) that he supported the war effort does not make his thought identical with "Nazi philosophy". It is INFINITELY deeper. You don't have to be a neo-Nazi to believe in it.
Read "The End of Metaphysics and the Task of Thinking" (the book, not the essay) and listen to what Heidegger's says about the meaninglessness of human action in the metaphysical age. Heidegger nowhere talks about war and in fact everything he says about the meaninglessness of human action speaks against a belligerent attitude on his part. Rather, he speaks of "essential thinking" and "overcoming metaphysics" - where to overcome means to "incorporate".
.. then its justification would have been that present humanity (at the time of WWII) failed (and still fails) to measure up to this higher concept of man. And, still making the same assumption, if it had been considered, without the need for war, possible to bring about this transformation of man, then there would have been no need for war. But what is Heidegger's view really ?
@Contextcatcher You mentioned Heidegger's letter / essay "Letter on Humanism". What does Heidegger say about Sartre's definition of humanity / humanism in the letter ? That he does not set the humanitas of humanity HIGH ENOUGH. The definition of humanity is not some independent concept but is bound up with the meaning of Being. If we idealize WWII for a moment and imagine that it was a war whose aim was to clear the way for the Nietzschean / Heideggerian overman (cont'd) ...
The universe does not care what we think about it or what we might believe it to be. It kills people every day and gives no justifications. It is a back-to-front and frankly idiotic and unphilosophical approach to expect it to conform to our moral expectations of it. We philosophise because we are amazed that we exist and because we fear death. If we are honest enough with ourselves we will arrive at the question which really demands to be asked : the question as to why Nothing did not prevail.
@Contextcatcher Well perhaps I'm not entirely excluding the thought that Heidegger decided to "embrace" Nazism, because maybe he saw it as a chance for Germany to take the lead in the world's need to escape from the clutches of the modern scientific viewpoint and the consequent growing sense of alienation, not to mention the subjugation of nature ? But is it really an important question for me ? NO. Not compared with the task of discovering the truth.
@zarakhast The truth? Heidegger wanted an eternal truth fixed."Being" as a stable meaningful infinitive reality is abstract and far behind the scénes of everyday transforming life. Heidegger in his daily scéne called: 'THINK about the absolute Being'..reassessment?..but what I feel is a freezing totalitary mirror. Kafka stories, Shakespeare plays are FEELING still nearby because it's about everyday transforming life. Ironic: Heidegger was in his own way a technical thinker...the origin of words.
@Contextcatcher But if you read "What Is Metaphysics ?" (in particular) and also take note of the fact that Heidegger supports Nietzsche's conclusion that Being (fixity) is Becoming (change) then you might see that his concept of Being is not the concept of "the fixed now". Rather, it is the "now that bends back into itself". It remains present (perdures) by absenting itself (from itself). It is both fixed and not fixed. It remains by not remaining. It is not accessible to ordinary thinking.
At about 7:15 the narrator introduces a claim that Heidegger's thought has, post WWII, undergone a "painful reassessment" in the light of events in that war. But anyone who is a true thinker, faithful only to the call of Being, will not feel the need for any "reassessment". It's as I've said elsewhere : Einstein's theory of relativity would not lose any of its correctness even if he had subsequently turned into a serial killer. It's a vacuous, irrelevant argument.
@Contextcatcher And of course Hannah Arendt defended Heidegger despite all the allegations which were levelled against him. Why ? Because perhaps even if these allegations were true he was nevertheless the "secret king of thought" ?
Heidegger's involvement in politics was a happenstance and has absolutely no bearing whatsoever on the truthfulness of his thought, because philosophy does not serve politics.
@Contextcatcher Also remember what Heraclitus said when he was caught playing marbles with the children rather than engaging in political affairs. Politics is ENTIRELY BASED on philosophy and has no independent existence. Every single political idea is derived from a metaphysical idea, but while politics depends on philosophy for its existence, the reverse is not the case. But nothing will convince you will it ? You've made your mind up already.
@Contextcatcher Also, remember Nietzsche's interpretation of Plato's political writings. He was convinced that such writings were only something Plato bothered to compose in his spare time. In other words, they were not his most important works. And Plato himself confirms this in The Republic itself : a philosopher would not WANT to be disturbed from his contemplation by having to engage in affairs of state.
@zarakhast Karl Löwith was an important figure in German Philosophy and wrote important books. One is translated in English "Meaning in History". Richard Wolin's book "Heidegger's Children. Hannah Arendt, Karl Löwith, Hans Jonas, and Herbert Marcuse" is a fountain of knowledge. If you publish your philosophy and influence people there is always some policy involved. Heidegger was a rector. Pure philosophy without politcs is an illusion. Wolin' wrote also "Politics of Being"....TAKE CARE!
@Contextcatcher And Richard Wolin, in this documentary, accuses Heidegger of aspiring to be a "philosopher king". Read Heidegger's lectures on Nietzsche (I think it may be in the chapter which deals with Plato's Republic but I'm not sure) and hear what he (Heidegger) himself had to think about the idea of a philosopher king. Wolin hasn't read him carefully enough and neither have you if you think that philosophy exists only for the sake of politics.
"What are words worth"...Tom Tom Club - Wordy Rappinghood Is the best remedy for unloading heavy philosophy. (see my channel "favorites) For me Talking Heads "Remain in Light" is also a great cure...Music by all means is important for our being. And the novels or essays give you in many levels philosophy for everyday life. For me Kafka and Canetti are important. But sure reading "Being and Time" is adventurous but also a pain in the head.
Philosophy is the attempt to find and stay in touch with the eternal. If "idle talk" deliberately avoids this then it is at fault and false. In fact it is disastrous. As mortal beings we are bound to face death eventually, and so we need to understand why we have to die and why were born in the born in the first place. Christ, I can't believe the stupidity of some of these objections.
"..told him that I did not agree either with the way in which Karl Barth was attacking him or in the way [Emil] Staiger was defending him, because my opinion was that his taking the side of National Socialism was in agreement with the essence of his philosophy. Heidegger told me unreservedly that I was right and developed his idea by saying that his idea of historicity was the foundation for his political involvement..." (Wkipedia)
@Contextcatcher Well that's decisive then. Karl Lowith and Wikipedia have spoken. So now all you have to do is to believe Karl Lowith - whoever he was.
But is there even a slight chance that you might decide to actually take up the task of philosophy and not keep prattling on about politics ? How many times ? PHILOSOPHY DOES NOT SERVE POLITICS. WHY OH WHY OH WHY are you so obsessed with this WWII business ? Why can't you actually engage in PHILOSOPHY ITSELF ?????
There is a half-hearted (BBC-like) attempt at fairness RIGHT AT THE END of this documentary. But is that enough ? No, not by a long chalk. This documentary smells strongly of tabloid journalism. Not very BBC-like at all.
In terms of what the "verdict" will be - no-one can know that. It depends on whether people really cherish a desire to be "authentic".
The BBC gives beetroot-faced Rorty the final word. A third-rate thinker modestly rating the greatest thinker of them all.
@zarakhast Rejoicing thoughts Heidegger is very different from being close-reading. It is so obvious that BBC ignores Heideggers fine thoughts. His choise in 1933 is so amazing. His best student was a jewish girl..he loved her. Then his choise to be the most important Nazi philosopher. When you read "Being and Time" there is a clear tendency to ignore everyday life...in his way abstracting it. His approach to "They" was arrogant: "Idle talking". But his idle "Being" is an eternal looking-glass.
@Contextcatcher Are you being serious ? I don't think so somehow. Your first sentence doesn't make any sense at all. His choice ("choise") to be the most important Nazi philosopher ? Oh dear, that's a slightly dubious claim to start with. Do you really think that "everyday life" ought to serve as the standard for philosophy ? I mean in that case what exactly is it that we are supposed to be breaking out of ? Or are we all - without any effort - on our way to the Isles of the Blessed already ?
The Nazis murdered the Jews, not Heidegger. Heidegger was "recruited" by the Nazis, as was every other major intellectual of the time : they had little choice unless they wanted to die. This fact does not rule out the possibility that Heidegger might have seen in the NSP a stepping-stone to realising his view of a better earth. But whatever the truth about that may be, it has no bearing whatsoever on the question of whether H's thinking arrived at "the truth". The truth soars above "politics".
Heidegger's post-War silence is much less important (ultimately) than the ETERNAL silence which he tries to lead us to hear. Critics of Heidegger are mostly biased bigots who have never experienced philosophic wonder but who still (in their arrogance) feel qualified to judge philosophers.
The BBC failed miserably to be impartial in this documentary. The subject was too great for the group of "experts" (know-it-alls) which they called together to treat it. The BBC was actually BIASED here.
But what if the Absolute were itself precisely by not being itself ? What if, in order to remain eternally present, the Absolute had to absent itself (from itself), i.e. to cancel itself out in order to remain itself ? This type of statement / question is remote from ordinary understanding. But did anyone really believe that great philosophy would be something easily comprehensible ?
The Absolute, being the source of all opposites and lying prior to them all, can NEVER be defined in terms of either of them. If we believe that all things "are" and that Nothing "is not" then Being is not, since Being is not a thing. But since we can only define things in terms of Being then Being alone "is" and things (including you and me) are emphatically NOT. This is almost an ancient cliche - and yet it REMAINS TRUE. Anything which does not last forever - IS NOT.
To call Heidegger an "existentialist" (as this documentary does) is incredibly stupid and superficial. Heidegger and Sartre were like chalk and cheese. Sartre would never have written "Being And Nothingness" (a totally worthless piece of rubbish) had it not been for the fact that Heidegger had not already written B&T. It is amazing and depressing that people are still putting them in the same bracket. They don't belong near each other.
Perhaps Nietzsche, having to use the language which was available to him, which had been passed on to him by "tradition", HAD to contradict himself ? Perhaps the first step out of schizophrenia is to CONSCIOUSLY contradict yourself ? Nietzsche arrives at the (seemingly illogical) conclusion : Being is Becoming. But this is NOT an illogical conclusion. The Absolute is not like some ordinary thing which may either be or not be ; it both is and is not.
Anyone who reads Nietzsche who has failed to understand Heidegger will misunderstand Nietzsche too. Nietzsche's metaphysics, analysed "logically" (i.e. examined by a skilled teacher of formal logic) isn't worthy of even the most minor position in the history of philosophy : it is full of blatant contradictions. But it is formal logic which is at fault here, not Nietzsche. If you don't understand what "Being" means you don't understand anything at all.
"Pure Being and pure nothing are the same" - Hegel.
I can't understand why anyone might believe, or wish to believe, that either the word "Being", or what it is thought to be standing for, must be something else in disguise, e.g. a political concept. How many times does it need to be repeated : philosophy is about the Absolute and TOWERS above the petty world of "politics". How on earth is it possible to get rid of this stupid idea ?
One way of his describing "Being" absolute is beautiful sharp but also fascinating ambiguous: "Least of all can the Being of Entities ever be anything such that "behind it" stands something else "which does not appear" 36 page 60 See Google Books)
"Being" as the eternal cover up: as plea, as pretext, as excuse.
At the very moment that metaphysics reached its highest point (its realisation) in the works of Nietzsche a counter-movement also briskly and vehemently voiced its opinion. This was the beginning of (specifically) modern science. According to Heidegger, all scientists prior to the age of modernity (e.g. Newton) were still philosophers. Modern science, however, disavows metaphysics while depending on it. It is thus "schizophrenic".
The overcoming (incorporation) of metaphysics and the achievement of an authentic being-towards-death are one and the same task. But in order to be able to undertake this task, metaphysics must first of all not only be overcome (incorporated) but also (and in the first place) ENTERED INTO. This is why he wrote such works as "Introduction to Metaphysics" and "What Is Metaphysics ?" And why did he need to do this ? Because metaphysics had been destroyed by the likes of Hume, Descartes et al.
In many places Heidegger makes it clear that all modern "action" is and will be meaningless and ineffectual until metaphysics has been "overcome". But "overcome" here means "incorporated". So it does not mean "swept aside" or "forgotten" but rather ACCEPTED. Metaphysics was completed by Nietzsche with his thought of the eternal return of the Same.
.. ethical standards, themselves derived from metaphysical truths. We go round and round in circles. The holocaust may offend sensibility (and frankly it offends MY OWN sensibilities) but philosophic truths transcend any prejudices of the heart or mind, and Heidegger's thought is the greatest since the presocratics, and in a sense is even greater. But is he even guilty of what he is accused of ? Maybe, maybe not ....
@malktooth I may or may not sympathise with your anti-authoritarian stance. Actually I don't like politics at all and I can both sympathise and not sympathise with all political outlooks. But my point is that genuine philosophical thinking, in dealing with the Absolute (its proper subject matter) transcends "politics", and also always underlies it. It is neither fair nor rational - whatever the "truth" may be about his involvement with the Nazis - to judge Heidegger the thinker by pre-given ..
Physis (the Greek word) already contains the concept "ethos" and thus "ethics". "Physis" does not denote merely the sum total of "physical beings" (conceived according to "physics", which itself is already based on a prior meta-physics), but ALSO thought, feeling etc. Mathematics is not metaphysics either, even though it doesn't depend on "experience". Even mathematics is based on (grounded in) a metaphysical interpretation of the world. The same applies to "logic". Logic is the logic of Being.
Being does not (necessarily) mean "authentic life". Rather, Being makes possible both authentic and inauthentic being-towards-death. Death is the "whole" of life. In a profound sense we are all already (as soon as we are born) dead. Every emotion and every "philosophy" is already a being-towards-death. The entire spectrum of possible thoughts and feelings is already contained, a priori, in Being. The possibility of science, which is only one way of looking at the world, is also granted by Being.
You don't have to be a raving neo-Nazi to want to defend Heidegger against the vile tirade of abuse which he had to suffer during his life and which he is still suffering now that he is dead ; you simply have to be able to appreciate that he is, completely regardless of any "political" or "ethical" or "moral" considerations, the most important thinker since the presocratics. The question of the meaning of Being is THE MOST IMPORTANT and NO-ONE IS ASKING IT !!!! Put "ethics" aside.
@zarakhast Without ethics is every answer about meaning of being (authentic life) is empty. Read his letter about humanity (1947). In a time many people were killed in the real world....he wrote idle about (he wrote his ontology is a kind of game...) his abstractions: "be" (Sein) or"being there" (Dasein)....Pure authentic ignorance. His needle stuck in the same groove: be, be, be, be.... Pathetic.
@Contextcatcher I disagree. The most comprehensive question, being meta-physical, is also (logically) meta-ethical. Ethical truths (assuming there are any) are not somehow independent of metaphysical truths. Being is not a mere abstraction : it "is" everything, including ethics and abstractions. It is the a priori : the whole of reality. It makes thinking and feeling possible. It is "the Enabling". You are criticising not H's thought but your own misinterpretation of his thought.
@zarakhast I think I can see the quality of his abstractions. Combination misinterpretation and thoughts Heidegger is ironic. I'm in good companion: even Sartre misundersstood Heidegger. The trouble begins already translating Heideggers terms in English: Being (Sein, Zijn), Entites, (Seienden, Zijnden) en Be-There or Dasein (Dasein, erzijn,). No untiy like in German and Dutch.
Like a God "Being" is everything...in short: here begins the inflation of value of other entities (including Dasein).
@malkooth What are you saying exactly ? Firstly, although Heidegger did have a "brilliant mind", it was not only "brilliant" in the sense in which you seem to be thinking of the word (i.e. mathematically and/or logically "brilliant"). Secondly, why do you assume that all the accusations which are levelled against H. are wholly or necessarily true, just because some committee of blatantly biased and self-interested people has declared this to be the case ?
A brilliant mind should have inkling that authoritarianism is unhealthy. The very nature of authoritarianism indicates maybe a select brilliance but brilliant? Not really.
@Contextcatcher - I've read B&T . Simply, this video spends 95% of its run length talking about Heidegger's affiliation with the Nazi's. This is a cop out. It would be difficult and boring to a mass audience to educate on his ontology, so they took the tabloid route. Heidegger was not the only intellectual who was drawn hook, line, and sinker into the Nazism. I say he was - like many scientists, swept up into the zeitgeist like many others including many intellectuals.
Yes - agree with most of the others. 5% of the work of this brilliant mind, 95% about his involvement with the NAZIS. Horrible. If you want to get an overview of the work of Heidegger - one of the most influential and brilliant modern philosophers, look elsewhere.
@NickTrop But how to illustrate his ideas when his own most significant illustration of how to be is chosing a position as the most important philosopher for the Nazis. The point is: he could also be a Nazi without being a philosopher: protecting his abstract thoughts against a concrete humanistic interpretation. But Heidegger spoiled his own herritage in a fundamental way. I recommend: READ Heidegger. His word "THEY" in "Being and Time" ("idle talking")... was crucial for his ethical position.
This documentary was a total waste of time! It focuses on Hiedegger's political and personal life more than much of his contributions to philosophical realms! If you don't know Hiedegger, you don't know anything!
@GOCookingShow Knowing nothing about Heidegger doesn't hurt anyone... 'Philosophical realms' are often delusive. Being pompous in love with the word "SEIN" (being) is not enough.
@Contextcatcher Heidegger's philosophy is not for everyone; It is for this reason Heidegger is not sorry that you are unable to grasp the Sein und Zein notion of the world, to understand the existence.
@GOCookingShow But when he wanted his philosophy had to reach a larger range of people he used the rise of Nazi power for his Academic career to emphasize his ideas. That tells us much about Heidegger's practical way of how existence for him had to be...at that crucial time. He could be more reserved and less outspoken. Brillant abstract ideas are one thing... but making choises exposes man's real existence: 'being' mental vulnarable and naked. His philosophy was also a wall for the real world.
Some intelligent people (mathematicians, philosophers..) have special problems to stay in touch with the social world: their talent isolate them. Their tendency to arrogancy is logical: they demand a lot of themselves and others. Paranoïc way of (politcal) thinking about others is here nearby. (Frege, Gödel, Nash..). Heidegger stood between his inside abstractions and the concrete outside world: like many thinkers he overestimated his position. Being (perfect) and power is the real problem here.
@Contextcatcher The future is the pursuit of an Objective; the present is the emotional response to accomplishment; the past is the reaction echoing throughout time. The reaction to Heidegger’s Objectives is in the historical record. To say he had “special problems” is hindsight relative to the outcome. Perhaps, he would have no “special problems,” if the Nazis succeeded. No, “being (perfect) and power” is not the “real ISSUE,” it is one’s choice.
@Mike10four He had already problems in 1934 with universitiy Nazi politics. He expected to much and found no support for his ideals. He had special problems with modernitiy. The power of technology for instance. But society moves on. The way of power is not an ideal way to be. Nazi mass movement of 1933 fitted to his idealistic vision of being. But most of all his wife was a fanatic Nazi. Choices are also made in a context of social temptations and pressures. Being and power is an eternal issue.
@Contextcatcher We are all Philosophers, from Greek means “love of wisdom.” Wisdom = knowledge + experience + virtue. Virtue is doing good relative to one’s reality. With power, one’s reality cast a larger shadow over society. Problems surface when realities diverge, becoming destructive. It is through this destructive Nature that promotes change and evolution resulting in relativistic diversity in perpetual conflict (see my channel video). Heidegger fits the mold.
@Mike10four Virtue? My point is this: his philosophy is sterile it fits for much hypotheticial concepts. This 6:28 is philosophical bankruptcy: holding secret his feelings about that "to or not to be" subject is for me his crucial failure as Philosopher. He couldn't intellectual cope with it: too concrete and too real. That's the problem with most philosophy they flight into abstractions. Novels show us often more of the real substance of life. You must embed the abstractions in concrete life.
@Contextcatcher It is natural for us to use our reality as a reference to critique others in a way to become a better person or to have the illusion of being one, or to understand others for knowledge. It seems you are satisfied with your perception of philosophy relative to “novels;” that’s your philosophy. As for “abstractions,” it is Life who generates them which can be overwhelming, to oneself or society. As for Heidegger, his influence did not make this world a better place to live.
@Mike10four You mentioned in the end of your first comment on mine: "it is one’s choice".
How to use abstractions on paper is a real choise. Many philosophers, Heidegger is an extreme example, invent new words or put old words in a abstract context for expressing new truths. Heidegger is for most people unreadable. He is like a spider in his sticky web of arrogant words where some minds stuck in his demanding ideas: they justify his unclear vision talking like newborn spiders in their own web.
@Contextcatcher Again, Heidegger’s influence did not make this world a better place to live. But many “abstractions” did. The philosophy of mathematics for example, is nothing but abstractions which is considered to be the language of the universe. Look what man accomplished, with such abstractions. As you share your wisdom with the youtube universe, the infrastructure you use, is made from man’s abstractions. We are all stuck in some “web;” it is one’s choice which “web(s)” to select.
@Mike10four Again I write about gradual use of abstractions. Clear communication give the best knowledge. Mathematical abstractions are different, compared with Heideggers use of language, the web of math is pure and has an universal form. In Heideggers vision German language was the best philosophical form. Maybe he was right. But turning 'sein' inside out made him also narrow moral minded. Wittgenstein made fine webs but writer Georg Büchner had more real perception for (morals of) language.
@Contextcatcher Like I said, you choose your web; in your case, I’m glad it’s not Heidegger’s. Some have favorite philosopher(s) and others don’t as they randomly drift through the universe of experience. My present objective is to find relationships between Nature and social design. See my channel video for example. Man seems to do wonders when partnering with Nature. Since we are a product of Nature perhaps, it’s time partnering with Nature to reduce chaos in social-systems.
I feel no reason to excuse him, but it is impossible for one to feel empathy to anything which occured during that time. Heidegger remains a substantial influence upon the entirety of philosophy as well as my own.
I had no idea how clearly defined his involvement with the Nazi party had been. I'm glad it wasn't downplayed or excused-- it *should* be brought to light. I do think, however, that the film dwelt for too long in telling us about it. And although they alluded to his importance as a philosopher, they barely dedicated any time to his ideas.
Nothing but a puerile, hysterical diatribe with a veneer of proper consideration of Heidegger's work. U want 2know more of his philosophies look elsewhere. If u want 2waste ur time pondering th possible politics of a relatively tight-lipped (unlike Chomsky) philosopher long dead then it may b slightly informative, but it's (like almost evrythng these dys) doused in agenda, almost totally void of objective critical analysis. BottomLine, Heidegger had 1of th most brilliant minds of the 20thC.
Tragedy : there cannot be a more brilliant interpretation of what Nietzsche meant by this than is expressed in Heidegger's lectures on that great thinker. Here, Heidegger warns us against the political interpretation of Nietzsche's "will-to-power" and tells us that this phrase expresses rather the essence of ALL things - not merely something human, and certainly not something merely "political".
According to Nietzsche, man has so far only belittled himself. The thought that man might, in truth, be a god, is suggested by him most explicitly in Thus Spoke Zarathustra.
The idea that man might assume godhood has been reviled and attacked by Christians and embraced by, among others, scientists and politicians. But it has been understood by NO ONE. Neither Heidegger nor Nietzsche was either a Christian or a scientist. We have to remember the context here : universal tragedy.
It is not possible to understand a philosopher by means of anything (e.g. psychology) other than philosophy itself. Philosophy remains the whole of thinking (and knowledge) even when it has been reduced in status to just one subject among others. Every principle of every science is fundamentally - and forever - metaphysical. "Da-sein is metaphysics", as Heidegger says in What Is Metaphysics ?
What is "human" anyway ? See H's "Letter on Humanism".
I find it sad how it is constantly implied that the Nazis were so fundamentally different than the contemporary Western societies of today. As if we are so much more morally superior than the Nazis. As if their context had little or nothing to do with the choices they made. This shows we have yet to learn what can be learned from the Nazi regime, and in particular the holocaust.
Besides, I was hoping for a lot more philosophy, as the title implies.
@smudgepost I'm very fond of the BBC as an institution, so long as it retains the impartiality which it is famous for. As a Heidegger reader for the last twenty four years I do not find that this documentary has remained faithful to that admirable principle of conduct.
Heidegger's silence is yet to be understood. We still want to judge him by modern standards. If we try to do so we will never understand him. And the truth is that the world is still ruled by science and in spiritual decline.
It really ought to be clear to anyone who has read Heidegger SERIOUSLY and impartially - especially his lectures on Nietzsche - that his "Being" and Nietzsche's "will-to-power" are NOT TO BE INTERPRETED POLITICALLY. Nietzsche, as Kaufmann points out, says somewhere that "wanting to hurt others is weakness". Nietzsche also speaks of "wars without gunpowder".
In his lectures on Nietzsche he lets N. himself describe this frightful experience. There is nothing here exhorting the reader to acts of violence against his fellow man. There IS contempt for the "little man" (i.e. spiritless modern man), but we are also exhorted to accept the necessity of such men and to overcome our disgust. There is no suggestion anywhere in Heidegger's works that he believes in a political solution. The transformation is to take place silently and may take millennia.
It is far from an open and shut case that Heidegger was unconditionally supportive of the Nazi regime. The "violent ones" which Heidegger speaks of in his Introduction to Metaphysics (in his translation and discussion of a passage from Sophocles) are not rampaging, goose-stepping Nazis but "mere thinkers". What he says here about "violence" tells us something about the frightful experience which awaits genuine seekers of the truth should they achieve their goal ....
If you read, for instance, "The End of Philosophy" (the book), you ought to notice that Heidegger makes a point of emphasising the meaninglessness of so-called "action" in the modern age. He reiterates this point in several other places, for instance during his lectures on Nietzsche. What he calls for is a return to "essential thinking", the aim of which is always to recover the "experience of Being". Until this thinking and this "experience" has been attained, ALL action and indeed all TALK ...
@zarakhast ... will remain "meaningless" and utterly ineffectual. If Heidegger believed that a world ruled by the NSP philosophy might have made conditions possible for such a transformation of thinking and experience possible, then he might well have espoused Nazism wholeheartedly. But he also calls Mein Kampf "unreadable" and you have to wonder what he meant by this. It is also certain that the Nazis were fond of monitoring Heidegger's writings and lectures. What could this mean ?
Rhetoric - why did the Greeks ever invent it ? The fine words, the perfect modulation of the voice, the playing to the crowd, the overall convincingness of the speech. It has truly turned into something reprehensible, disgusting. The tool of politicians and other power-seekers. This is what is at work in this (pretty awful) documentary. A hex on the people who made this utter drivel.
Philosophy aims at the truth. It is purely motivated and does not attempt to "persuade" anyone.
Liberal arts and humanities academia in the US have a German fetish, generally speaking, but one would have to resort to rhetorical defenses were one to deny Heidegger's Nazi past, especially with documentary evidence here and elsewhere. Despite many shortcomings in the way we organize our knowledge and knowledge systems, facts are useful things.
Equating philosophy with "the truth" might be stretching the limit of the latter expression unsustainably.
@paulsaab I don't think anyone would bury his head in the hand so far as to claim that Heidegger the man had no involvement with the NSP. But whether and to what extent he sympathised with the NSP's vision, its "philosophy" and its means of coming to power is another question achieving an answer to which would entail becoming a serious student of Heidegger - which would in turn entail renouncing all political prejudice. There is no such thing as "philosophical prejudice".
What the NSP party did ought not to be seen as what Heidegger's thought is urging us to do. Nietzsche, too, is exempt from this charge. Both thinkers are heroic friends of spirituality. Heidegger never once claims to be "the great thinker". He accords this honour to the infinitely misunderstood Nietzsche. All the same, insofar as H. ALONE understood N., he has to be accounted the greatest thinker not only of this age but so far... Nietzsche through Heidegger - that is all you need.
They could have talked more about his ideas about being and time and as why lots of people think he is king of philosophy for his revolutionary way of thinking about existetialism. Oh well, may be another day and documentary!
crypto986 2 days ago
"Heidegger life and Philosophy" ends with Heidegger being called a 'bad man'. How does such shit fucking propaganda make it to the top of the search list?
andrewweis 6 months ago
@andrewweis This unilateral vid has more content then your short nuanced remark.
A quote of Nietzsche could think you more subtle:
535 TRUTH REQUIRES POWER. Truth in itself is no power at all, in spite of all that flattering rationalists are in the habit of saying to the contrary. Truth must either attract power to its side, or else side with power, for otherwise it will perish again and again. This has already been sufficiently demonstrated, and more than
sufficiently !
( "The Dawn of Day").
Contextcatcher 6 months ago
@Contextcatcher spam? WTF
andrewweis 6 months ago
Intercourse? Discourse of course.
Contextcatcher 6 months ago
Heidegger wasn't a man for mass events... But the revolutionary year of 1933 broke his cordon sanitair. Ernst Jüngers dream, inspired by Nietzsche, of "Total Mobilization" became more a reality: (published in 1931)
"In order to unfold energies of such magnitude, it no longer suffices to mobilize heavy industry; preparations for war are required in the very marrow, in the innermost cell of life"
Heideggers thinking about total "Being" had to feel a same fatal attraction for Hitlers 'wholeness'.
Contextcatcher 6 months ago
"Of that far deeper and most special motive force of history, the desire of men to rise into a higher type of animal, in to the mass, and to lose themselves in it completely as to forget that one man ever existed, they had no idea. For they were educated men, and education is in itself a cordon sanitaire for the individual against the mass in his own soul".
From Canetti's novel "Auto da Fe". Published in 1935... original it is called in German "Die Blendung"..in English blindness..
Contextcatcher 6 months ago
@Contextcatcher The conception of Being is crucial. Nietzsche reinterprets Being as Becoming. But this formula can also be reversed : Becoming is Being. The thought of the "eternal return of the same" follows (logically) from this. That which is eternal is fleeting ; that which is fleeting is eternal. The essence of the eternal (that which stays) is to go ; the essence of that which goes is to stay This thought is a "riddle". Reality itself (which "corresponds" to this thought) is a riddle.
zarakhast 6 months ago
@Contextcatcher And why does this world, already founded on morality, need to be destroyed ? Because it is based on a lie. What is the lie ? Being. But what does Being mean here ? It is Plato's Being : the static now : the "Idea".
zarakhast 6 months ago
@zarakhast Husserl set focus on intenTionality....the most important property of consciousness....more in abstract way. Heidegger raised the question, sure in a genius way, of meaning of Being. But Kafka showed in his intenSe way the intentionality of daily life. The way Kafka used the word 'command' is special: not only in a moral sociological and psychological way, but in a metaphysic sense. Heidegger didn't recognized this as a crucial theme. Meaning of Being: temporality..pulse..command..
Contextcatcher 6 months ago
@Contextc You'll have to expand a bit before I might have a chance of understanding you, or to put what you're saying into different words. I realise that you're drawing a distinction between intentionality and intensionality but I'm afraid I've forgotten the distinction. I'll look it up. I haven't studied Kafka, though I would have liked to. He's a very difficult author. I appreciate his paranoia - I share it with him ! Your reading of Heidegger, I sense, is secondary to your other interests ?
zarakhast 6 months ago
@zarakhast I learned understanding Kafka after reading the works of Elias Canetti. Canetti wrote in short what Kafka felt: "commands are older than speech". What Hannah Arendt called banal was for Chemist Canetti an old quest. The quest of mass: the intense ways individuals forming crowds. Heidegger called anonymous crowd 'they: the idle talkers'. 1933 was crucial year for idle mass events: Heidegger had the urge for being a part of this whole..a convinced crowd can also command an indivdual.
Contextcatcher 6 months ago
But did Heidegger have a psychopathic personality ? I would love to hear a leading psychologist's opinion on this question. To compose Being & Time while being a psychopath ? That would take an unprecedented level of genius. To understand the conscience so utterly and yet to lack a conscience ....
zarakhast 6 months ago
I also hate the holocaust as something inhuman perpetrated by human beings on human beings. But whether guilty or not of complicity in WWII, Heidegger and his thought remain unaffected by such events. If the world is a doughnut and someone declares it to be a doughnut then it remains a doughnut even if he commits genocide.
zarakhast 6 months ago
The question of the essence of truth (aletheia or "correspondence") is one of Heidegger's main themes. It is essential to enter into this question in order to understand the difference between Nietzsche's and Heidegger's thought. Heidegger says that his sole aim is "to bring to a full unfolding the accomplishment of Friedrich Nietzsche". "Unfolding" is the key word here. It has to do with aletheia. Nietzsche thought the greatest thought but did not lead it into the realm of aletheia.
zarakhast 6 months ago
This documentary gets sillier and sillier the more I listen to it. Was writing Heidegger off as a poor, helpless psychopath (he didn't realise what he was doing !) actually intended as an act of "kindness" whose aim was to save him from being convicted of "war crimes". Well in that case, how nice !
But again, what bearing does any of this have on whether or not his thinking is true ? Clearly NONE.
Even the most rabid anti-Heideggerian knows that he was no "psychopath".
zarakhast 6 months ago
@zarakhast I never mentioned he was psychopath. I never mentioned he commited a crime. I mentioned his tendency to have no morals. And when Heidegger chosed to have some morals...The Nazi ideologial...it fits in his arrogant point of view represented as in "Being and Time". I prefer Nietszche above Heidegger... he is more honest, more spontaneous... Not hiding behind formal way of thinking. Ernst Jünger "The Worker" had the same temper. 1933: Heidegger probably knew he was lacking something..
Contextcatcher 6 months ago
@Contextcatcher The DOCUMENTARY makes him out to be (effectively) a psychopath. Listen to it. There is no difference between Nietzsche and Heidegger except for their conceptions of truth. For Heidegger truth = unconcealment (aletheia); for Nietzsche it is still judgment, correspondence, agreement. Both thinkers were perfectly honest. It's a pretty lame attempt by Rorty (in spite of his rhetorical skills) et al to discredit Heidegger on the basis of a character assassination.
zarakhast 6 months ago
@zarakhast About "Being" Heidegger was 'honest' in a very abstract and formal way. His 'Dasein' tend to be too solipsistic to see the world in a non-arrogant way. A far more honest thinker was Ernst Jünger. But honesty alone isn't the most important property for a great thinker. A great thinker for me questioned the them of morals. Kafka was a great thinker in that respect: in prophetic visions he showed concrete what it is to be a human in the world .He didn't need the academic abstractions...
Contextcatcher 6 months ago
@Contextcatcher I like Franz Kafka very much, although he was a bit of a cynic ! The question of morality is a vexed one. Nietzsche, for instance, writes for us a "Genealogy of Morals" in which he condemns morality. What are we supposed to think Nietzsche wants ? Does he want anarchy ? Actually he wants to humanize the world according to a higher concept of humanity. But in order to rebuild the world (which has been built on the foundation of morality) he first has to destroy it.
zarakhast 6 months ago
Heidegger is accused of possessing "a lack of feeling" in this documentary. He is effectively labelled as a psychopath - a man without conscience. What the denazification committee wanted Heidegger to undergo (to FORCE him to undergo) was a kind of "catharsis", in order to prove that all along he had really agreed with them and that his thought was really only an addendum to theirs. HELLO, IS THERE ANYONE SERIOUS OUT THERE ??
zarakhast 6 months ago
Being a burglar was meant to represent committing a crime. It's obvious that Heidegger's detractors want to convict him of a crime - according to their notion of justice of course. But my point is that it makes no difference whether one is a criminal or not : truth is truth. One does not first need to pass a "character test" in order to qualify to voice an opinion.
zarakhast 6 months ago
I can't understand what people who attack Heidegger's character actually hope or want to achieve by doing so. What difference does or can it make whether he was guilty or not of siding with the Nazi party during WWII to the question of whether or not his philosophy is METAPHYSICALLY TRUE ? This is such a vacuous position. I mean, if Einstein had been convicted of burglary either before or after publishing his theory of relativity, would that have affected the theory ? No ! Baffling !
zarakhast 6 months ago
@zarakhast Because being a burglar differs from joining an ideological party. Baffle? Why was Jünger more critical about Nazi than Heidegger was? You've a 'romantic' idea of Heidegger, you idealize him but also underestimate him in the polical way he was a philosopher. The history of 'ignorance' has a long intellectual tradition.
Contextcatcher 6 months ago
@Contextcatcher You say I "underestimate" him by NOT crediting him with an underlying political aim. I say you underestimate him by seeing his thought (and philosophy in general, apparently) as some kind of servant of "politics". I'd be interested to know how you conceive of philosophy and how you relate it to politics, and which of these subjects you think of as more original / important - and why, and what you base your reasons on, and what you base reason itself on.
zarakhast 6 months ago
I couldn't have chosen a worse quotation to support my point ! Henry Ford talked utter rubbish. But if "history is bunk" is taken to mean "mankind is a mendacious, habitual, selfish liar" then it works.
zarakhast 6 months ago
"Dread reveals Nothing" - What Is Metaphysics ?
"Wonder is the revelation of Nothing" - What Is Metaphysics ?
Joy and (profound) boredom (to the subject of which Heidegger amazingly devotes a whole BOOK) are also exceptional states of the Being of Da-sein which reveal "Nothing".
Heidegger's thinking is not mere "unscientific" poetry (the scientific view of poetry is an insult to poetry for a start) but the deepest interpretation of reality available to us. It is thinking par excellence.
zarakhast 6 months ago
@zarakhast Honest...Naive...? "Dread reveals Nothing" is very ambiguous quote in the context of this vid: the people who were under dread in WO2 and didn't survive. Heideggers way of thinking tend to be clichéd: "Dread reveals Nothing"...Oh it's so deep... Come on wake up out the dream of words! Turn it around: "Dread reveals everything"...also very deep...
Idea's in your head can simulate a lot of truth, but to be honest: reality is more outside the head. The best thinkers are aware of this...
Contextcatcher 6 months ago
@Contextc It's not ambiguous at all, it means exactly what it says : that the underlying, metaphysical reality lies beyond the senses (and also "outside the head") and is revealed instead in a rare MOOD. But there you go again, dragging WWII into the discussion and trying to gain favour with those who wish to discredit Heidegger's thought for entirely unphilosophical reasons. Another thinker who discussed dread and its connection with Nothing is Kierkegaard. This all has nothing to do with WWII.
zarakhast 6 months ago
@zarakhast I'm reading Heidegger so I show respect to him. But I'm critical and showed some context of his thoughts and moods. I mentioned Ernst jünger. Jünger was critical and stayed outside the Nazi party. Heidegger is for me a typical Academic who's concern of career and reputation was more important than values. Fine most people do. But he was a special Philosopher, he made a choice and made a point about his view on being. After WO2 he hid himself behind formal way of thinking... Honest?
Contextcatcher 6 months ago
@Contextcatcher Heidegger used to ask the local peasants whether or not he ought to attend a meeting at the university : that's how much of an "academic" he was. He had little regard for the educated classes. How he viewed National Socialism I don't know, and no-one does. What he may or may not have said to others is unreliable, since this information rarely comes down to us from reliable sources. History, as someone once said, "is bunk".
zarakhast 6 months ago
You don't need to sympathise with Nazism to agree with the METAPHYSICAL conclusions of Heidegger's thinking. You only need to have a genuinely philosophical motivation. Philosophy is the pure search, without any hidden motive, for the answer to the fundamental question, i.e. Why is there something rather than nothing ? This search transcends "politics". It does not "support" any "other" point of view because it aims at the ultimate (and only genuine) point of view.
zarakhast 6 months ago
@zarakhast ...you couldn´t say it better...that´s exactly the way the true philosophers go...You can be sure, we´ll explain it to our old professors...sooner or later...
efkagore 6 months ago
@efkagore Well thank you very much :) Of course it is very difficult to "explain" (i.e. interpret) Heidegger to anyone, including first and foremost yourself. What I loathe more than anything else is clever, tendentious dishonesty. There is nothing worse than an "intellectual" who is more concerned with his own, personal advantage than with the truth and who uses his cleverness like a politician. I may not even be reconciled to H's conclusions but I know they are true. You have to be honest.
zarakhast 6 months ago
@zarakhast wow...I´m just amazed that I´m not the only one who underlines honesty... No, no, I wouldn´t ever try to "explain Heidegger", I´m sure you know why...but I want to explain the unilateralism of "intellectual" professors, who are judging H. (nazism), and don´t care of the thing of thinking...of the insight into the happening a-letheia...
efkagore 6 months ago
@efkagore They shouldn't be interested in anything except the search for ultimate reality. Nietzsche called for "intellectual integrity" - his call went unheeded. Politics is for idiots who can't see that there is nothing that "action" can achieve and who almost without exception are on the lookout not for the truth but only for what it suits them to find. This attitude is totally out of harmony with the atmosphere of philosophy, whose aim is to discover "kinship with the imperishable".
zarakhast 6 months ago
Heidegger also talks in the midst of his lectures on Nietzsche about the form which a future German language (guided by the idea of authenticity) will need to take. He quotes a letter by Holderlin (addressed to ?) He says there that the Germans will need to learn to THINK (unlike the Greeks, whose gift thinking already was) and that for this reason the "form" of German would need to assume a harsher aspect. This, again, is in the context of the broader, deeper context of his main question.
zarakhast 6 months ago
"A-letheia" starts with a negative prefix. This already shows us that lethe (concealment) is more fundamental than aletheia and lies permanently at its centre. This ought to remind us of Heidegger's fairly infrequent, though usually brief, references to das Nichts (Nothing). If mood (Befindlichkeit) reveals reality "as a whole" and dread (Angst) is the "key mood" then what dread reveals is "key". What does it reveal ? "Dread reveals Nothing" (What Is Metaphysics ?) Wonder also reveals Nothing.
zarakhast 6 months ago
@zarakhast "fairly infrequent, though usually brief" was meant to read "fairly infrequent, though always highly significant". Whenever Heidegger mentions Nothing his thinking is nearing its summit.
zarakhast 6 months ago
When Heidegger talks about the German language (and the German spirit) and what must become of it (specifically in terms of its "form") in the future he is doing so not because he wants to promote National Socialism but because a future authentic-being-towards-death necessitates it. We must not forget that his thinking is in essence tragic / heroic. A future authentic-being-towards-death would be a "pessimism of strength" (Nietzsche).
zarakhast 6 months ago
Heidegger's preoccupation with phenomena such as mood and meaning ought to show us that for him Being (Sein) was no mere "abstraction". He talks about the "experience of Being". How could we "experience" an abstraction ? He even connects Nothing (das Nichts) with a mood, and indeed the "key" mood. It is amazing how few people have managed to join up the dots all these years later. Being is not merely an abstraction but rather the REALEST REALITY.
zarakhast 6 months ago
The magic of spelling is for me ironic:.."sense of form'.. .or... "sense for form".
The double meaning of "to spell" English is beautiful.
Heidegger's term "verstellung"( "disguise") has a wide range of meanings: ajustment, displace, simulation, dissemble. block, also in relation to face and writing.
His awareness of form gave him the power of words for the thinker he was and stimulated a stiffened form his character had.
"...the harshness of our expression will be enhanced..." page 63
Contextcatcher 7 months ago
Heidegger's fine sense of form is rooted in the Greece terms: "aletheia", "eidos", "phaino" and related: to the porcess of uncover. The opposite is cover up, or disguise.
"Yet that which remains hidden in an egregious sense, or relapses and get cover up again, or shows itself only in "disguise" is not just this entity or that, but rather the being of entities" Google books p.59..
In his "Sein" form and meaning are one. A fountain for eternal thoughts.. it gave him a genius immunity...But...
Contextcatcher 7 months ago
In 1932 a book was published by right wing nationalist Ernst Jünger. "The Worker, Domination and Form". It's a book that influenced Heidegger. He recognized the strong mood he also was. After the war they wrote, for long time, letters to each other.
Contextcatcher 7 months ago
Heidegger truly had no friends towards the end, and in fact throughout his life. Even those who loved him didn't understand him. Such is the eternal fate of the genuine philosopher. Exactly the same thing happened to Nietzsche. The philosopher knows this in advance and is "philosophical" about it : it was inevitable after all. It is laughable when subsequent generations congregate and discuss his thought as if they had actually understood the first word of it.
zarakhast 7 months ago
@zarakhast TNX for the effort explaining your position. But you don't understand my POV. Reading critical stuff about your favourite thinker is hard to bear. Many things you're saying I recognize. Sure he is a marvellous thinker. But what I'm questioning is the mood he was writing and his awareness of style: form. You only can explain 'sein' FORMING a lot of words. Making 'forms', in his subconscious, is crucial: he likes to relate himself to craftsman: abstract observations using the hammer.
Contextcatcher 7 months ago
@Contextcatcher I don't mind reading criticism of Heidegger (his thought or character) as long as it is relevant and fair-minded. I can only guess what you are accusing him of because you are only hinting at it. For Heidegger "mood" is fundamental. Being & Time is about nothing except mood, all in the context of the ancient question of the meaning of Being, which "has been forgotten". What Is Metaphysics? names dread (Angst) as the "key" mood (i.e. the mood which discloses ultimate reality).
zarakhast 6 months ago
"The one person other than Sartre who did more to restore Heidegger's reputation ....". How on earth could a man who had systematically misinterpreted Heidegger's thought either claim or receive any credit for restoring his reputation ? This documentary is so poor it beggars belief. Sartre had NO IDEA WHATSOEVER what Heidegger's Being & Time pointed towards. He was just a wordy, dissipated old atheist who had no ideas of his own and was million miles away from being a genuine philosopher.
zarakhast 7 months ago
@Contextcatcher A "close reading" of Heidegger ? Do you think you've actually managed that then ? Your interpretation of his thought is (from what I've seen) typically shallow and merely academic. You seem to have adopted a position based on your admiration of other thinkers/artists (e.g. Shakespeare) and to then have read some secondary literature on Heidegger and torn into him on the basis of this misinterpretation. To claim that Heidegger's thought of Being is a mere "form" is ludicrous.
zarakhast 7 months ago
The conclusion follows from Heidegger's thought is that the way Western man now exists is (theoretically and in actual fact) a compound lie, the origin of which lies in the philosophy of Plato and the beginning of the dominance of Western "logic". Ontology is higher than "logic" and does not depend on it. It is not even logical to place logic above ontology, since thought is quite clearly a kind of Being, and not the other way about. Being comes first, always.
zarakhast 7 months ago
The "nihilation" of Nothing is what must be understood if Heidegger's thought is to make any sense whatsoever. Anyone who manages to come up with an interpretation of Heidegger's thought who hasn't comprehended - and experienced - the meaning of "nihilation" is a pretender to knowledge. Heidegger's thought of Being is bound up with the Nothing and its nature, as is all great thought, even if it does not explicitly take up the question of Nothing.
zarakhast 7 months ago
Starting from Nothing as original :
1. Nothing has no beginning and no end.
2. It can only continue by not continuing (otherwise, by continuing, it would immediately become something).
3. It in fact does continue by not continuing. But by not continuing, it ceases to be Nothing. But by ceasing to be Nothing it thereby continues to be Nothing.
4. By not being itself it is (remains) itself. But not being itself it is not Nothing : it is something. And yet it remains Nothing.
zarakhast 7 months ago
If time is infinite but the things in time are finite in number, then the exact same things are bound to repeat themselves ad infinitum, in the exact same order and sequence. This conclusion (which is the thought of the eternal recurrence of the same) follows from a simple metaphysical insight. This insight lies hidden at the heart of Nietzsche's metaphysics. What is this insight and which question leads to it ? Heidegger gives us the answers to these questions, if we take care to listen.
zarakhast 7 months ago
Philosophy is in crisis, more so than it ever has been. It's not possible to have a coherent philosophical discussion nowadays because people - even highly intelligent people - simply don't know what philosophy is any more. For the ancients it was second nature to recognise the proper questions and the subject matter of philosophy. Nowadays the conversation gets dragged off in far too many directions before even five minutes has passed. And yet the greatest thinker of them all died only in 1976.
zarakhast 7 months ago
The real "brainwashing" happens to those who are still too stuck in the contemporary to have any hope (such as they are) of gaining entry into philosophy proper. Philosophy is ALWAYS controversial in its own time. This is inevitable and stems from its nature, which is eternal and essentially elusive. The questions of philosophy are really obvious to a soul with no "ulterior motive". It is the rest, especially the "educated classes", who merely stare blankly when someone actually utters a TRUTH.
zarakhast 7 months ago
.. in Heidegger's work. He asks a question which has been disallowed by a law of logic - a 'law' the unreasoning belief in which has made it (at least in academic circles) virtually impossible to ask genuine questions ever since it was formulated. There is no deliberate, premeditated, merely "for effect" playing on words in Heidegger's thought ; that which his thought is about is profoundly mysterious and ambiguous and is bound to do what it does to language when we try to address it.
zarakhast 7 months ago
" I want more and more to perceive the necessary characters in things as the beautiful: I shall thus be one of those who beautify things. AMOR FATI: let that henceforth be my love! I do not want to wage war with the ugly. I do not want to accuse, I do not want even to accuse the accusers. Looking aside, let that be my sole negation! And all in all, to sum up: I wish to be at any time hereafter only a yes sayer! " "The Gay Science" 276
Maybe Heidegger felt somehow this in the year 1933...
Contextcatcher 7 months ago
@Contextcatcher Heidegger also quotes this passage several times in his lectures on Nietzsche. He does so in the context of his meditations on the metaphysics of Nietzsche. It is the greatest interpretation of Nietzsche's thought. In fact it is, as Derrida maintained, the only interpretation of Nietzsche thought worth bothering with. Heidegger never once changed his stance in any essential respect throughout his entire career. This claim is made up by his detractors, for unphilosophic reasons
zarakhast 7 months ago
"Amor fati" expresses Nietzsche's determination to "love" (will) only what everything is and MUST BE - not (cravenly) what we merely WANT it to be. The thought which expresses this eternal necessity is the thought of the eternal return of the same."Idle talk" LIES. How can you have a system of morals which is based on lies ??
zarakhast 7 months ago
@zarakhast Maybe you are brainwashed by the wizard Heidegger. He puts a spell on you. But one week ago I commented: "Rejoicing thoughts Heidegger is very different from being close-reading". I quote Heidegger and I even mentioned the context. You ignore it. Fine. I have my own interpretation. (and now you'll argue that I'm not a authority on Heidegger) My quote beneath is crucial because it questioned his lucid arrogant confidence: the meaning of term "sein" had for him an unbeatable form.
Contextcatcher 7 months ago
@Contextcatcher You quoted the passage in German. I don't speak or read German, otherwise I would have commented. And no, you don't need to be able to speak German in order to philosophize.
I came to Heidegger's thought because the first question I asked myself - without even yet knowing the word "philosophy" - was the question, Why is there anything rather than nothing ? It still amazes me that he alone seems to have explicitly posed this question. There is no "wizardry" at work (cont'd)
zarakhast 7 months ago
Heigeggers armoured love, his amor fati , for his form 'Being'...is not direct intented for normal human beings. His abstractions surrounding 'Dasein' proofed that. He thinks like a formal Pope. After writing "Being and Time"...after the war...he is less dogmatic leaving the 'temple of form' becoming some kind of mystic or zen (or 'sein') master..
But for sure when you want to know what the tragic power of words is...then you have to read Heidegger.
Contextcatcher 7 months ago
@Contextcatcher He never thought of Being as a "form". I don't know where you get that idea from. You should pay attention to what Heidegger himself says rather than allowing yourself to be brainwashed by what secondary literature says about his thought.
We have a situation in the West where it is not possible for someone to take up an authentic stance towards death without being regarded as being evil or mad The best people are being ruined by this state of affairs. The world is a farce.
zarakhast 7 months ago
"This does not require a deliberate scamming. The idle talk does not have the nauture of being (seinart) conscious impressing of something as something."
The subtle meaning (or feel..) between these lines in German is hardly to translate you must read in the context of "Being and Time". He was aware of his crucial act of being pretentious. In the morphologic spirit of Oswald Spengler his 'Being' was his main form: his a(r)mour.
The 1933 revolution touched his heart it was his fate: Geschick.
Contextcatcher 7 months ago
Heidegger was no merely "technical" thinker. His recovery of the original meanings of Greek words was not achieved merely by means of some learned "technique". It takes more (and less) than mere "education" to arrive at insights like his. Being itself grants all insights into it, to the right people. Being itself educates. There is no theory of education which can guarantee the emergence of the philosopher (sadly). You cannot teach philosophy. This is not "elitism" but just a fact.
zarakhast 7 months ago
@zarakhast For a philosopher it's a crucial chance to drop your main term. I found it, when I read this years ago, ironic and for him tragical: like dropping a mask. It's a symbol for mystic silence. For me was it clear: transformation is the main property of 'Being'. In the tradition of old myths Ovid wrote in time Christ lived his Meta-morphosis and influenced many artists, It's the heart of Shakespeare. Reading "Being & Time"I feel a mood full of strain to fix not a bit of intentional love.
Contextcatcher 7 months ago
@Contextcatcher You don't understand what was behind his dropping the term "Being", so don't pretend that you do. The term is steeped in tradition and therefore in prejudice. It has absolutely nothing to do with the events of WWII or Heidegger's "role" in WWII. It is a word which represents the Western interpretation (pre-political and a-political) of the whole of reality - an interpretation which governs the whole of Western language and "politics" etc.
zarakhast 7 months ago
@zarakhast Why is dropping "Sein" for him tragical and for me ironic? See "Being and Time": "The everyday Being of 'here', and the falling of Dasein". "Idle talking". He made a different between "Rede" (the essential talk of being Dasein) and "Gerede" (them the idle talkers). Crucial are these little fine lines:
"Hierzu bedarf es nicht einer absicht auf Tauschung. Das Gerede hat nicht die seinart des Bewussten Ausgebens von etwas als etwas". Arrogant Heidegger was aware of what he 'covered'.
Contextcatcher 7 months ago
And subsequent interpreters are, more often than not, unable to see back into the past, beyond their own contemporary prejudices. To translate Greek works into modern English, for instance, may be a feat of skill and a very admirable thing to do, but if the English language, or indeed any other modern language, does not itself contain the depth or the scope of ancient Greek, then even the most skilful translation will produce only a kind of mockery of the original.
zarakhast 7 months ago
In the end Heidegger dropped the term "Being" from his thinking altogether. Why ? Because the prejudice that the word "Being" stands for the static or fixed now is too ingrained in Western thinking for it to now be possible to recover and restore its original (i.e. presocratic) meaning. As for the presocratics themselves, we have only fragments, tantalising glimpses, of their thoughts. And worse than that, we have to read them through the eyes of subsequent interpreters.
zarakhast 7 months ago
But "Being is Becoming" can also be thought as "Becoming is Being". So this metaphysical viewpoint does not mean merely "there is no eternity : everything is in a state of flux" (supposedly Heraclitus' point of view). Neither does it mean merely "there is no change, everything is eternally fixed" (supposedly Parmenides' point of view). It means BOTH. And this stems from the nature of the eternal itself, which from our everyday point of view is a contradiction.
zarakhast 7 months ago
You're not the first person I've come across who seems to believe that Heidegger's thinking is just a reiteration of what is basically Plato's (and supposedly (SUPPOSEDLY)) Parmenides' metaphysical position. I can only imagine that there are very poor teachers out there ! Read Heidegger himself and see whether what your teacher has taught you isn't a load of rubbish.
zarakhast 7 months ago
And of course what "truth" ought to mean is hardly decided in advance. What it means in the modern age, for instance, and indeed since Plato, is not what it meant for the presocratic thinkers. It is precisely the view of Being as the "static now" which ultimately gave rise to modern science. Modern science is merely the elaboration, totally devoid of any essential thinking, of Plato's metaphysical view of a world ruled over by a static, unchanging now.
zarakhast 7 months ago
Nietzsche argues almost constantly against the "freezing" ("Egytpification") of Being. Heidegger supports this view and demonstrates his support of it in his lectures on Nietzsche. How did you arrive at the notion that Heidegger is just another proponent of the "fixed now" view of eternity ? You ought to read the works I'm referring to. Heidegger's thought deserves far more respect. The thought of the eternal return of the same is the thought of Being as Becoming.
zarakhast 7 months ago
Arendt was hardly referring to Heidegger when she coined her phrase "the banality of evil". This banality and this evil still prevails NOW. It's source ? The death of philosophy and the birth of the "religion of commonsense" : modern science.
zarakhast 7 months ago
Until metaphysics has been "overcome" (i.e. incorporated, accepted), all so-called "action" will and can have no effect. His thinking calls for a deeper, more silent transformation : a "war without gunpowder".
It was not Heidegger's idea to go to war. He was not the author of the National Socialist "philosophy". The fact (?) that he supported the war effort does not make his thought identical with "Nazi philosophy". It is INFINITELY deeper. You don't have to be a neo-Nazi to believe in it.
zarakhast 7 months ago
Read "The End of Metaphysics and the Task of Thinking" (the book, not the essay) and listen to what Heidegger's says about the meaninglessness of human action in the metaphysical age. Heidegger nowhere talks about war and in fact everything he says about the meaninglessness of human action speaks against a belligerent attitude on his part. Rather, he speaks of "essential thinking" and "overcoming metaphysics" - where to overcome means to "incorporate".
zarakhast 7 months ago
.. then its justification would have been that present humanity (at the time of WWII) failed (and still fails) to measure up to this higher concept of man. And, still making the same assumption, if it had been considered, without the need for war, possible to bring about this transformation of man, then there would have been no need for war. But what is Heidegger's view really ?
zarakhast 7 months ago
@Contextcatcher You mentioned Heidegger's letter / essay "Letter on Humanism". What does Heidegger say about Sartre's definition of humanity / humanism in the letter ? That he does not set the humanitas of humanity HIGH ENOUGH. The definition of humanity is not some independent concept but is bound up with the meaning of Being. If we idealize WWII for a moment and imagine that it was a war whose aim was to clear the way for the Nietzschean / Heideggerian overman (cont'd) ...
zarakhast 7 months ago
The universe does not care what we think about it or what we might believe it to be. It kills people every day and gives no justifications. It is a back-to-front and frankly idiotic and unphilosophical approach to expect it to conform to our moral expectations of it. We philosophise because we are amazed that we exist and because we fear death. If we are honest enough with ourselves we will arrive at the question which really demands to be asked : the question as to why Nothing did not prevail.
zarakhast 7 months ago
@zarakhast Heideggers temporary being was in the mood for the führer, you can't ignore that...
Contextcatcher 7 months ago
@Contextcatcher Well perhaps I'm not entirely excluding the thought that Heidegger decided to "embrace" Nazism, because maybe he saw it as a chance for Germany to take the lead in the world's need to escape from the clutches of the modern scientific viewpoint and the consequent growing sense of alienation, not to mention the subjugation of nature ? But is it really an important question for me ? NO. Not compared with the task of discovering the truth.
zarakhast 7 months ago
@zarakhast The truth? Heidegger wanted an eternal truth fixed."Being" as a stable meaningful infinitive reality is abstract and far behind the scénes of everyday transforming life. Heidegger in his daily scéne called: 'THINK about the absolute Being'..reassessment?..but what I feel is a freezing totalitary mirror. Kafka stories, Shakespeare plays are FEELING still nearby because it's about everyday transforming life. Ironic: Heidegger was in his own way a technical thinker...the origin of words.
Contextcatcher 7 months ago
@Contextcatcher But if you read "What Is Metaphysics ?" (in particular) and also take note of the fact that Heidegger supports Nietzsche's conclusion that Being (fixity) is Becoming (change) then you might see that his concept of Being is not the concept of "the fixed now". Rather, it is the "now that bends back into itself". It remains present (perdures) by absenting itself (from itself). It is both fixed and not fixed. It remains by not remaining. It is not accessible to ordinary thinking.
zarakhast 7 months ago
At about 7:15 the narrator introduces a claim that Heidegger's thought has, post WWII, undergone a "painful reassessment" in the light of events in that war. But anyone who is a true thinker, faithful only to the call of Being, will not feel the need for any "reassessment". It's as I've said elsewhere : Einstein's theory of relativity would not lose any of its correctness even if he had subsequently turned into a serial killer. It's a vacuous, irrelevant argument.
zarakhast 7 months ago
@Contextcatcher And of course Hannah Arendt defended Heidegger despite all the allegations which were levelled against him. Why ? Because perhaps even if these allegations were true he was nevertheless the "secret king of thought" ?
Heidegger's involvement in politics was a happenstance and has absolutely no bearing whatsoever on the truthfulness of his thought, because philosophy does not serve politics.
zarakhast 7 months ago
@Contextcatcher Also remember what Heraclitus said when he was caught playing marbles with the children rather than engaging in political affairs. Politics is ENTIRELY BASED on philosophy and has no independent existence. Every single political idea is derived from a metaphysical idea, but while politics depends on philosophy for its existence, the reverse is not the case. But nothing will convince you will it ? You've made your mind up already.
zarakhast 7 months ago
@Contextcatcher Also, remember Nietzsche's interpretation of Plato's political writings. He was convinced that such writings were only something Plato bothered to compose in his spare time. In other words, they were not his most important works. And Plato himself confirms this in The Republic itself : a philosopher would not WANT to be disturbed from his contemplation by having to engage in affairs of state.
zarakhast 7 months ago
YouTube, please stop creating fake members, okay ? It's not big and it's not clever.
zarakhast 7 months ago
@zarakhast Karl Löwith was an important figure in German Philosophy and wrote important books. One is translated in English "Meaning in History". Richard Wolin's book "Heidegger's Children. Hannah Arendt, Karl Löwith, Hans Jonas, and Herbert Marcuse" is a fountain of knowledge. If you publish your philosophy and influence people there is always some policy involved. Heidegger was a rector. Pure philosophy without politcs is an illusion. Wolin' wrote also "Politics of Being"....TAKE CARE!
Contextcatcher 7 months ago
@Contextcatcher And Richard Wolin, in this documentary, accuses Heidegger of aspiring to be a "philosopher king". Read Heidegger's lectures on Nietzsche (I think it may be in the chapter which deals with Plato's Republic but I'm not sure) and hear what he (Heidegger) himself had to think about the idea of a philosopher king. Wolin hasn't read him carefully enough and neither have you if you think that philosophy exists only for the sake of politics.
zarakhast 7 months ago
Actually ASK a philosophical question and try to answer it, or else shut the f*ck up.
zarakhast 7 months ago
"What are words worth"...Tom Tom Club - Wordy Rappinghood Is the best remedy for unloading heavy philosophy. (see my channel "favorites) For me Talking Heads "Remain in Light" is also a great cure...Music by all means is important for our being. And the novels or essays give you in many levels philosophy for everyday life. For me Kafka and Canetti are important. But sure reading "Being and Time" is adventurous but also a pain in the head.
Contextcatcher 7 months ago
Philosophy is the attempt to find and stay in touch with the eternal. If "idle talk" deliberately avoids this then it is at fault and false. In fact it is disastrous. As mortal beings we are bound to face death eventually, and so we need to understand why we have to die and why were born in the born in the first place. Christ, I can't believe the stupidity of some of these objections.
zarakhast 7 months ago
@zarakhast Karl Löwith met Heidegger in 1936:
"..told him that I did not agree either with the way in which Karl Barth was attacking him or in the way [Emil] Staiger was defending him, because my opinion was that his taking the side of National Socialism was in agreement with the essence of his philosophy. Heidegger told me unreservedly that I was right and developed his idea by saying that his idea of historicity was the foundation for his political involvement..." (Wkipedia)
Contextcatcher 7 months ago
@Contextcatcher Well that's decisive then. Karl Lowith and Wikipedia have spoken. So now all you have to do is to believe Karl Lowith - whoever he was.
But is there even a slight chance that you might decide to actually take up the task of philosophy and not keep prattling on about politics ? How many times ? PHILOSOPHY DOES NOT SERVE POLITICS. WHY OH WHY OH WHY are you so obsessed with this WWII business ? Why can't you actually engage in PHILOSOPHY ITSELF ?????
zarakhast 7 months ago
There is a half-hearted (BBC-like) attempt at fairness RIGHT AT THE END of this documentary. But is that enough ? No, not by a long chalk. This documentary smells strongly of tabloid journalism. Not very BBC-like at all.
In terms of what the "verdict" will be - no-one can know that. It depends on whether people really cherish a desire to be "authentic".
The BBC gives beetroot-faced Rorty the final word. A third-rate thinker modestly rating the greatest thinker of them all.
zarakhast 7 months ago
@zarakhast Rejoicing thoughts Heidegger is very different from being close-reading. It is so obvious that BBC ignores Heideggers fine thoughts. His choise in 1933 is so amazing. His best student was a jewish girl..he loved her. Then his choise to be the most important Nazi philosopher. When you read "Being and Time" there is a clear tendency to ignore everyday life...in his way abstracting it. His approach to "They" was arrogant: "Idle talking". But his idle "Being" is an eternal looking-glass.
Contextcatcher 7 months ago
@Contextcatcher Are you being serious ? I don't think so somehow. Your first sentence doesn't make any sense at all. His choice ("choise") to be the most important Nazi philosopher ? Oh dear, that's a slightly dubious claim to start with. Do you really think that "everyday life" ought to serve as the standard for philosophy ? I mean in that case what exactly is it that we are supposed to be breaking out of ? Or are we all - without any effort - on our way to the Isles of the Blessed already ?
zarakhast 7 months ago
The Nazis murdered the Jews, not Heidegger. Heidegger was "recruited" by the Nazis, as was every other major intellectual of the time : they had little choice unless they wanted to die. This fact does not rule out the possibility that Heidegger might have seen in the NSP a stepping-stone to realising his view of a better earth. But whatever the truth about that may be, it has no bearing whatsoever on the question of whether H's thinking arrived at "the truth". The truth soars above "politics".
zarakhast 7 months ago
Heidegger's post-War silence is much less important (ultimately) than the ETERNAL silence which he tries to lead us to hear. Critics of Heidegger are mostly biased bigots who have never experienced philosophic wonder but who still (in their arrogance) feel qualified to judge philosophers.
The BBC failed miserably to be impartial in this documentary. The subject was too great for the group of "experts" (know-it-alls) which they called together to treat it. The BBC was actually BIASED here.
zarakhast 7 months ago
But what if the Absolute were itself precisely by not being itself ? What if, in order to remain eternally present, the Absolute had to absent itself (from itself), i.e. to cancel itself out in order to remain itself ? This type of statement / question is remote from ordinary understanding. But did anyone really believe that great philosophy would be something easily comprehensible ?
zarakhast 7 months ago
The Absolute, being the source of all opposites and lying prior to them all, can NEVER be defined in terms of either of them. If we believe that all things "are" and that Nothing "is not" then Being is not, since Being is not a thing. But since we can only define things in terms of Being then Being alone "is" and things (including you and me) are emphatically NOT. This is almost an ancient cliche - and yet it REMAINS TRUE. Anything which does not last forever - IS NOT.
zarakhast 7 months ago
To call Heidegger an "existentialist" (as this documentary does) is incredibly stupid and superficial. Heidegger and Sartre were like chalk and cheese. Sartre would never have written "Being And Nothingness" (a totally worthless piece of rubbish) had it not been for the fact that Heidegger had not already written B&T. It is amazing and depressing that people are still putting them in the same bracket. They don't belong near each other.
zarakhast 7 months ago
Perhaps Nietzsche, having to use the language which was available to him, which had been passed on to him by "tradition", HAD to contradict himself ? Perhaps the first step out of schizophrenia is to CONSCIOUSLY contradict yourself ? Nietzsche arrives at the (seemingly illogical) conclusion : Being is Becoming. But this is NOT an illogical conclusion. The Absolute is not like some ordinary thing which may either be or not be ; it both is and is not.
zarakhast 7 months ago
Anyone who reads Nietzsche who has failed to understand Heidegger will misunderstand Nietzsche too. Nietzsche's metaphysics, analysed "logically" (i.e. examined by a skilled teacher of formal logic) isn't worthy of even the most minor position in the history of philosophy : it is full of blatant contradictions. But it is formal logic which is at fault here, not Nietzsche. If you don't understand what "Being" means you don't understand anything at all.
zarakhast 7 months ago
"Pure Being and pure nothing are the same" - Hegel.
I can't understand why anyone might believe, or wish to believe, that either the word "Being", or what it is thought to be standing for, must be something else in disguise, e.g. a political concept. How many times does it need to be repeated : philosophy is about the Absolute and TOWERS above the petty world of "politics". How on earth is it possible to get rid of this stupid idea ?
zarakhast 7 months ago
One way of his describing "Being" absolute is beautiful sharp but also fascinating ambiguous: "Least of all can the Being of Entities ever be anything such that "behind it" stands something else "which does not appear" 36 page 60 See Google Books)
"Being" as the eternal cover up: as plea, as pretext, as excuse.
Contextcatcher 7 months ago
At the very moment that metaphysics reached its highest point (its realisation) in the works of Nietzsche a counter-movement also briskly and vehemently voiced its opinion. This was the beginning of (specifically) modern science. According to Heidegger, all scientists prior to the age of modernity (e.g. Newton) were still philosophers. Modern science, however, disavows metaphysics while depending on it. It is thus "schizophrenic".
zarakhast 7 months ago
The overcoming (incorporation) of metaphysics and the achievement of an authentic being-towards-death are one and the same task. But in order to be able to undertake this task, metaphysics must first of all not only be overcome (incorporated) but also (and in the first place) ENTERED INTO. This is why he wrote such works as "Introduction to Metaphysics" and "What Is Metaphysics ?" And why did he need to do this ? Because metaphysics had been destroyed by the likes of Hume, Descartes et al.
zarakhast 7 months ago
In many places Heidegger makes it clear that all modern "action" is and will be meaningless and ineffectual until metaphysics has been "overcome". But "overcome" here means "incorporated". So it does not mean "swept aside" or "forgotten" but rather ACCEPTED. Metaphysics was completed by Nietzsche with his thought of the eternal return of the Same.
zarakhast 7 months ago
.. ethical standards, themselves derived from metaphysical truths. We go round and round in circles. The holocaust may offend sensibility (and frankly it offends MY OWN sensibilities) but philosophic truths transcend any prejudices of the heart or mind, and Heidegger's thought is the greatest since the presocratics, and in a sense is even greater. But is he even guilty of what he is accused of ? Maybe, maybe not ....
zarakhast 7 months ago
@malktooth I may or may not sympathise with your anti-authoritarian stance. Actually I don't like politics at all and I can both sympathise and not sympathise with all political outlooks. But my point is that genuine philosophical thinking, in dealing with the Absolute (its proper subject matter) transcends "politics", and also always underlies it. It is neither fair nor rational - whatever the "truth" may be about his involvement with the Nazis - to judge Heidegger the thinker by pre-given ..
zarakhast 7 months ago
Physis (the Greek word) already contains the concept "ethos" and thus "ethics". "Physis" does not denote merely the sum total of "physical beings" (conceived according to "physics", which itself is already based on a prior meta-physics), but ALSO thought, feeling etc. Mathematics is not metaphysics either, even though it doesn't depend on "experience". Even mathematics is based on (grounded in) a metaphysical interpretation of the world. The same applies to "logic". Logic is the logic of Being.
zarakhast 7 months ago
Being does not (necessarily) mean "authentic life". Rather, Being makes possible both authentic and inauthentic being-towards-death. Death is the "whole" of life. In a profound sense we are all already (as soon as we are born) dead. Every emotion and every "philosophy" is already a being-towards-death. The entire spectrum of possible thoughts and feelings is already contained, a priori, in Being. The possibility of science, which is only one way of looking at the world, is also granted by Being.
zarakhast 7 months ago
You don't have to be a raving neo-Nazi to want to defend Heidegger against the vile tirade of abuse which he had to suffer during his life and which he is still suffering now that he is dead ; you simply have to be able to appreciate that he is, completely regardless of any "political" or "ethical" or "moral" considerations, the most important thinker since the presocratics. The question of the meaning of Being is THE MOST IMPORTANT and NO-ONE IS ASKING IT !!!! Put "ethics" aside.
zarakhast 7 months ago
@zarakhast What is so important about building a logic around the ideas of what psychology easily names the ego identity?
malkooth 7 months ago
@zarakhast Without ethics is every answer about meaning of being (authentic life) is empty. Read his letter about humanity (1947). In a time many people were killed in the real world....he wrote idle about (he wrote his ontology is a kind of game...) his abstractions: "be" (Sein) or"being there" (Dasein)....Pure authentic ignorance. His needle stuck in the same groove: be, be, be, be.... Pathetic.
Hamlet was wiser.
Contextcatcher 7 months ago
@Contextcatcher I disagree. The most comprehensive question, being meta-physical, is also (logically) meta-ethical. Ethical truths (assuming there are any) are not somehow independent of metaphysical truths. Being is not a mere abstraction : it "is" everything, including ethics and abstractions. It is the a priori : the whole of reality. It makes thinking and feeling possible. It is "the Enabling". You are criticising not H's thought but your own misinterpretation of his thought.
zarakhast 7 months ago
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@zarakhast I think I can see the quality of his abstractions. Combination misinterpretation and thoughts Heidegger is ironic. I'm in good companion: even Sartre misundersstood Heidegger. The trouble begins already translating Heideggers terms in English: Being (Sein, Zijn), Entites, (Seienden, Zijnden) en Be-There or Dasein (Dasein, erzijn,). No untiy like in German and Dutch.
Like a God "Being" is everything...in short: here begins the inflation of value of other entities (including Dasein).
Contextcatcher 7 months ago
Why is it so difficult to understand a mind that is so "brilliant" does not go down rancid pathways so willingly and devotedly.
malkooth 7 months ago
@malkooth What are you saying exactly ? Firstly, although Heidegger did have a "brilliant mind", it was not only "brilliant" in the sense in which you seem to be thinking of the word (i.e. mathematically and/or logically "brilliant"). Secondly, why do you assume that all the accusations which are levelled against H. are wholly or necessarily true, just because some committee of blatantly biased and self-interested people has declared this to be the case ?
zarakhast 7 months ago
@zarakhast Why do you assume that I assume?
A brilliant mind should have inkling that authoritarianism is unhealthy. The very nature of authoritarianism indicates maybe a select brilliance but brilliant? Not really.
malkooth 7 months ago
@Contextcatcher - I've read B&T . Simply, this video spends 95% of its run length talking about Heidegger's affiliation with the Nazi's. This is a cop out. It would be difficult and boring to a mass audience to educate on his ontology, so they took the tabloid route. Heidegger was not the only intellectual who was drawn hook, line, and sinker into the Nazism. I say he was - like many scientists, swept up into the zeitgeist like many others including many intellectuals.
NickTrop 8 months ago
Yes - agree with most of the others. 5% of the work of this brilliant mind, 95% about his involvement with the NAZIS. Horrible. If you want to get an overview of the work of Heidegger - one of the most influential and brilliant modern philosophers, look elsewhere.
NickTrop 8 months ago
@NickTrop But how to illustrate his ideas when his own most significant illustration of how to be is chosing a position as the most important philosopher for the Nazis. The point is: he could also be a Nazi without being a philosopher: protecting his abstract thoughts against a concrete humanistic interpretation. But Heidegger spoiled his own herritage in a fundamental way. I recommend: READ Heidegger. His word "THEY" in "Being and Time" ("idle talking")... was crucial for his ethical position.
Contextcatcher 8 months ago
7:30 = I was like wtf??? what Emprical facts you have to say that?>_<
IStehSHIT 9 months ago
This documentary was a total waste of time! It focuses on Hiedegger's political and personal life more than much of his contributions to philosophical realms! If you don't know Hiedegger, you don't know anything!
GOCookingShow 9 months ago
@GOCookingShow Knowing nothing about Heidegger doesn't hurt anyone... 'Philosophical realms' are often delusive. Being pompous in love with the word "SEIN" (being) is not enough.
Contextcatcher 8 months ago
@Contextcatcher Heidegger's philosophy is not for everyone; It is for this reason Heidegger is not sorry that you are unable to grasp the Sein und Zein notion of the world, to understand the existence.
GOCookingShow 8 months ago
@GOCookingShow But when he wanted his philosophy had to reach a larger range of people he used the rise of Nazi power for his Academic career to emphasize his ideas. That tells us much about Heidegger's practical way of how existence for him had to be...at that crucial time. He could be more reserved and less outspoken. Brillant abstract ideas are one thing... but making choises exposes man's real existence: 'being' mental vulnarable and naked. His philosophy was also a wall for the real world.
Contextcatcher 8 months ago
Problem of perfection? ..."...and power is the real ISSUE here"
Contextcatcher 10 months ago
Some intelligent people (mathematicians, philosophers..) have special problems to stay in touch with the social world: their talent isolate them. Their tendency to arrogancy is logical: they demand a lot of themselves and others. Paranoïc way of (politcal) thinking about others is here nearby. (Frege, Gödel, Nash..). Heidegger stood between his inside abstractions and the concrete outside world: like many thinkers he overestimated his position. Being (perfect) and power is the real problem here.
Contextcatcher 10 months ago
@Contextcatcher The future is the pursuit of an Objective; the present is the emotional response to accomplishment; the past is the reaction echoing throughout time. The reaction to Heidegger’s Objectives is in the historical record. To say he had “special problems” is hindsight relative to the outcome. Perhaps, he would have no “special problems,” if the Nazis succeeded. No, “being (perfect) and power” is not the “real ISSUE,” it is one’s choice.
Mike10four 10 months ago
@Mike10four He had already problems in 1934 with universitiy Nazi politics. He expected to much and found no support for his ideals. He had special problems with modernitiy. The power of technology for instance. But society moves on. The way of power is not an ideal way to be. Nazi mass movement of 1933 fitted to his idealistic vision of being. But most of all his wife was a fanatic Nazi. Choices are also made in a context of social temptations and pressures. Being and power is an eternal issue.
Contextcatcher 10 months ago
@Contextcatcher We are all Philosophers, from Greek means “love of wisdom.” Wisdom = knowledge + experience + virtue. Virtue is doing good relative to one’s reality. With power, one’s reality cast a larger shadow over society. Problems surface when realities diverge, becoming destructive. It is through this destructive Nature that promotes change and evolution resulting in relativistic diversity in perpetual conflict (see my channel video). Heidegger fits the mold.
Mike10four 10 months ago
@Mike10four Virtue? My point is this: his philosophy is sterile it fits for much hypotheticial concepts. This 6:28 is philosophical bankruptcy: holding secret his feelings about that "to or not to be" subject is for me his crucial failure as Philosopher. He couldn't intellectual cope with it: too concrete and too real. That's the problem with most philosophy they flight into abstractions. Novels show us often more of the real substance of life. You must embed the abstractions in concrete life.
Contextcatcher 10 months ago
@Contextcatcher It is natural for us to use our reality as a reference to critique others in a way to become a better person or to have the illusion of being one, or to understand others for knowledge. It seems you are satisfied with your perception of philosophy relative to “novels;” that’s your philosophy. As for “abstractions,” it is Life who generates them which can be overwhelming, to oneself or society. As for Heidegger, his influence did not make this world a better place to live.
Mike10four 10 months ago
@Mike10four You mentioned in the end of your first comment on mine: "it is one’s choice".
How to use abstractions on paper is a real choise. Many philosophers, Heidegger is an extreme example, invent new words or put old words in a abstract context for expressing new truths. Heidegger is for most people unreadable. He is like a spider in his sticky web of arrogant words where some minds stuck in his demanding ideas: they justify his unclear vision talking like newborn spiders in their own web.
Contextcatcher 10 months ago
@Contextcatcher Again, Heidegger’s influence did not make this world a better place to live. But many “abstractions” did. The philosophy of mathematics for example, is nothing but abstractions which is considered to be the language of the universe. Look what man accomplished, with such abstractions. As you share your wisdom with the youtube universe, the infrastructure you use, is made from man’s abstractions. We are all stuck in some “web;” it is one’s choice which “web(s)” to select.
Mike10four 10 months ago
@Mike10four Again I write about gradual use of abstractions. Clear communication give the best knowledge. Mathematical abstractions are different, compared with Heideggers use of language, the web of math is pure and has an universal form. In Heideggers vision German language was the best philosophical form. Maybe he was right. But turning 'sein' inside out made him also narrow moral minded. Wittgenstein made fine webs but writer Georg Büchner had more real perception for (morals of) language.
Contextcatcher 10 months ago
@Contextcatcher Like I said, you choose your web; in your case, I’m glad it’s not Heidegger’s. Some have favorite philosopher(s) and others don’t as they randomly drift through the universe of experience. My present objective is to find relationships between Nature and social design. See my channel video for example. Man seems to do wonders when partnering with Nature. Since we are a product of Nature perhaps, it’s time partnering with Nature to reduce chaos in social-systems.
Mike10four 10 months ago
Hey Heidegger experts, i dont know of any forums so this is my only way of asking a question, God bless youtube.
Ive began to read B&T. Im having some big problems grasping Dasein. How is Dasein different from a conscious subject? I dont get it
kirshara 11 months ago
I feel no reason to excuse him, but it is impossible for one to feel empathy to anything which occured during that time. Heidegger remains a substantial influence upon the entirety of philosophy as well as my own.
ZerstorenAH 11 months ago
I had no idea how clearly defined his involvement with the Nazi party had been. I'm glad it wasn't downplayed or excused-- it *should* be brought to light. I do think, however, that the film dwelt for too long in telling us about it. And although they alluded to his importance as a philosopher, they barely dedicated any time to his ideas.
luitek 1 year ago
Nothing but a puerile, hysterical diatribe with a veneer of proper consideration of Heidegger's work. U want 2know more of his philosophies look elsewhere. If u want 2waste ur time pondering th possible politics of a relatively tight-lipped (unlike Chomsky) philosopher long dead then it may b slightly informative, but it's (like almost evrythng these dys) doused in agenda, almost totally void of objective critical analysis. BottomLine, Heidegger had 1of th most brilliant minds of the 20thC.
m1s73r4nd3rs0n 1 year ago 3
Tragedy : there cannot be a more brilliant interpretation of what Nietzsche meant by this than is expressed in Heidegger's lectures on that great thinker. Here, Heidegger warns us against the political interpretation of Nietzsche's "will-to-power" and tells us that this phrase expresses rather the essence of ALL things - not merely something human, and certainly not something merely "political".
zarakhast 1 year ago
According to Nietzsche, man has so far only belittled himself. The thought that man might, in truth, be a god, is suggested by him most explicitly in Thus Spoke Zarathustra.
The idea that man might assume godhood has been reviled and attacked by Christians and embraced by, among others, scientists and politicians. But it has been understood by NO ONE. Neither Heidegger nor Nietzsche was either a Christian or a scientist. We have to remember the context here : universal tragedy.
zarakhast 1 year ago
It is not possible to understand a philosopher by means of anything (e.g. psychology) other than philosophy itself. Philosophy remains the whole of thinking (and knowledge) even when it has been reduced in status to just one subject among others. Every principle of every science is fundamentally - and forever - metaphysical. "Da-sein is metaphysics", as Heidegger says in What Is Metaphysics ?
What is "human" anyway ? See H's "Letter on Humanism".
zarakhast 1 year ago
I find it sad how it is constantly implied that the Nazis were so fundamentally different than the contemporary Western societies of today. As if we are so much more morally superior than the Nazis. As if their context had little or nothing to do with the choices they made. This shows we have yet to learn what can be learned from the Nazi regime, and in particular the holocaust.
Besides, I was hoping for a lot more philosophy, as the title implies.
grezgorztube 1 year ago
7:40 - When is no communication confirmation of anything? he is arrogant, apparently. The BBC has spoken..
smudgepost 1 year ago
@smudgepost I'm very fond of the BBC as an institution, so long as it retains the impartiality which it is famous for. As a Heidegger reader for the last twenty four years I do not find that this documentary has remained faithful to that admirable principle of conduct.
Heidegger's silence is yet to be understood. We still want to judge him by modern standards. If we try to do so we will never understand him. And the truth is that the world is still ruled by science and in spiritual decline.
zarakhast 1 year ago
It really ought to be clear to anyone who has read Heidegger SERIOUSLY and impartially - especially his lectures on Nietzsche - that his "Being" and Nietzsche's "will-to-power" are NOT TO BE INTERPRETED POLITICALLY. Nietzsche, as Kaufmann points out, says somewhere that "wanting to hurt others is weakness". Nietzsche also speaks of "wars without gunpowder".
zarakhast 1 year ago
In his lectures on Nietzsche he lets N. himself describe this frightful experience. There is nothing here exhorting the reader to acts of violence against his fellow man. There IS contempt for the "little man" (i.e. spiritless modern man), but we are also exhorted to accept the necessity of such men and to overcome our disgust. There is no suggestion anywhere in Heidegger's works that he believes in a political solution. The transformation is to take place silently and may take millennia.
zarakhast 1 year ago
It is far from an open and shut case that Heidegger was unconditionally supportive of the Nazi regime. The "violent ones" which Heidegger speaks of in his Introduction to Metaphysics (in his translation and discussion of a passage from Sophocles) are not rampaging, goose-stepping Nazis but "mere thinkers". What he says here about "violence" tells us something about the frightful experience which awaits genuine seekers of the truth should they achieve their goal ....
zarakhast 1 year ago
If you read, for instance, "The End of Philosophy" (the book), you ought to notice that Heidegger makes a point of emphasising the meaninglessness of so-called "action" in the modern age. He reiterates this point in several other places, for instance during his lectures on Nietzsche. What he calls for is a return to "essential thinking", the aim of which is always to recover the "experience of Being". Until this thinking and this "experience" has been attained, ALL action and indeed all TALK ...
zarakhast 1 year ago
@zarakhast ... will remain "meaningless" and utterly ineffectual. If Heidegger believed that a world ruled by the NSP philosophy might have made conditions possible for such a transformation of thinking and experience possible, then he might well have espoused Nazism wholeheartedly. But he also calls Mein Kampf "unreadable" and you have to wonder what he meant by this. It is also certain that the Nazis were fond of monitoring Heidegger's writings and lectures. What could this mean ?
zarakhast 1 year ago
Rhetoric - why did the Greeks ever invent it ? The fine words, the perfect modulation of the voice, the playing to the crowd, the overall convincingness of the speech. It has truly turned into something reprehensible, disgusting. The tool of politicians and other power-seekers. This is what is at work in this (pretty awful) documentary. A hex on the people who made this utter drivel.
Philosophy aims at the truth. It is purely motivated and does not attempt to "persuade" anyone.
zarakhast 1 year ago
Liberal arts and humanities academia in the US have a German fetish, generally speaking, but one would have to resort to rhetorical defenses were one to deny Heidegger's Nazi past, especially with documentary evidence here and elsewhere. Despite many shortcomings in the way we organize our knowledge and knowledge systems, facts are useful things.
Equating philosophy with "the truth" might be stretching the limit of the latter expression unsustainably.
paulsaab 1 year ago
@paulsaab I don't think anyone would bury his head in the hand so far as to claim that Heidegger the man had no involvement with the NSP. But whether and to what extent he sympathised with the NSP's vision, its "philosophy" and its means of coming to power is another question achieving an answer to which would entail becoming a serious student of Heidegger - which would in turn entail renouncing all political prejudice. There is no such thing as "philosophical prejudice".
zarakhast 1 year ago
@zarakhast *in the sand*
zarakhast 1 year ago
What the NSP party did ought not to be seen as what Heidegger's thought is urging us to do. Nietzsche, too, is exempt from this charge. Both thinkers are heroic friends of spirituality. Heidegger never once claims to be "the great thinker". He accords this honour to the infinitely misunderstood Nietzsche. All the same, insofar as H. ALONE understood N., he has to be accounted the greatest thinker not only of this age but so far... Nietzsche through Heidegger - that is all you need.
zarakhast 1 year ago