Heidegger life and Philosophy 6 of 6

emotional IQ is the higher genius.
he failed.

Modern science masquerades as knowledge proper. It is based on "reason" - and a "law of reason" (i.e. logic) which philosophy (i.e. metaphysics) gave to it in the first place. But, having forgotten this and having become over-confident, it now rules everything. But since it has abandoned its origins it is plummeting into an abyss, unwittingly - and dragging the whole world down with it. Science needs to learn where it came from again.

"Nihilation" is a crucial, if not THE crucial "concept" in Heidegger's thinking. In truth it isn't even a concept : we are prompted to experience it, and "experience" here does not mean "sense experience". This is something which lies quite outside the remit and the realm of "science".

If nothing somehow brings itself into being - by its very nature and not just accidentally, then this would be something very fundamental indeed. But would science have access to such a fact, if it were a fact ? No, inasmuch as science is always looking for "evidence" (i.e. proof based on "sense-experience"). "Nothing" is hardly likely to present itself to the senses ...

What about "dread" (Angst) then ? This is not a "sense experience". Neither is "wonder".

This old Latin maxim needs rethinking. "Nothing comes from nothing" has been interpreted to mean : every "cause" must be SOMETHING. But that is a really shallow interpretation of the maxim.

Thought in the far more "logical" manner of the Greeks, "nothing comes from nothing" means :

Nothing "comes from" itself. In other words, nothing, by its very nature, BECOMES. Subject and object are the same in this sentence.

"Nothing nihilates" - what is Heidegger saying here ?

Science, brilliant as it may be in its exposition, says nothing at all. It doesn't even ask the genuine question. The genuine question goes beyond science and asks : why is there anything at all ? Science completely flounders and splutters when it comes to this question. Finally, it appeals to an old latin axiiom : "ex nihilo nihil fit" (nothing comes from nothing). But this is a PROFOUNDLY ambiguous sentence (cf. Heidegger, "What Is Metaphysics ?").

The bottom line is : science is superficial. It is BASED on metaphysical ideas but it never takes part in metaphysics. It doesn't even understand metaphysics. Metaphysics rules science : always has done and always will do.

In the meantime, however, it has been discovered BY metaphysics that metaphysics has been completed (i.e. that the brilliance of human thought has brought it to completion). So what now ?

?? That's what Heidegger's thinking is about.

It seems you have been inspired enourmously by H as have I. I have recently joined the Zetgeist movement and am writting many comments regarding Science and its lack of spirit. Not debunk the movements aims but to reground its view of science.

The ideas of Heidegger are quite remarkable. His philosophy is quality. As a man I think he was a bit of a coward and a right knob end. If Nelson Mandela had written Sein un Zeit he would be immortalised as a god. Cos it was written by a Nazi does it make his philosophy any less important? (im glad it wasnt a moral phlosophy or else his actons would completely discredit his work)

(misrepresent their thought)