Heidegger

I was just contemplating on starting a thread about him. I had started to read his “Being and Time” in German, and quickly came to the idea to compare him to the following:

I can’t seem to find an online English translation of Being and Time, but just read the beginning of section 2 for an idea of the slipperiness of Heidegger’s basis, Being.

kid - no, it’s not that I think either are better philosophers, it’s just that some of their ideas were immediately influential to Heidegger.

In general, the runup to Heidegger is Kant, Kierkegaard, Nietzsche, Bergson, Husserl.

Husserl was, I think, actually one of Heidegger’s teachers. You can skip the Bergson, I suppose. No one reads him anymore.

That’s unfortunate for Henri…

Yes, my understanding is that Husserl’s phenomenology greatly informed Heidegger’s philosophy, although what I’ve read so far of him feels very different stylistically… thanks for your help!

Just out of curiosity, who are currently your favorites, both in philosophical and literary senses?

On both scores, Nietzsche. I also read the Logical Positivists (very inclusively), logicians in general. Hume, because I keep having different thoughts about him and his influence. Hegel was a great stylist, I think. Kierkegaard is such a good writer that he can be reread limitlessly.

Heidegger was obviousy very conscious of style. Look for him in Derrida.

yes, i am a dissenter… that was purely idiotic.

you’re better off doing some research on whatever encyclopedia on the internet for Heidegger…
or get michael gelven’s book as a secondary source… it will atleast make you feel like you know it.
or just read each page 5 times minimum before moving on…

adn whatever you do, don’t think reading husserl is going to be any easier.

Yeah, but moonoq - if you skip every other sentence, it will take half the time.

Wasn’t Heidegger also influenced by Karl Jaspers (who was a lovely little philosopher; it’s a shame not many people read his work anymore)?

Heidegger, smeidigger, I don’t need to read
philosophy anymore. Everything I need to know
is in Harry Potter. I am waiting for hermione to come
of age and zoom, I am going to hit on her.

Kropotkin

Yeah, Jaspers. Forgot him. Need to remember to Wikigoogle everything.

Jaspers is not really that interesting. Besides, he had even less of a sense of humor than Heidegger himself.

Read Jasper’s book on Kierkegaard if you are interested in the latter.

And Husserl? I hesitate to recommend him either. I not sure that Heidegger is a dead end, as such, but you could probably do better by just skipping him and reading Bergson, Whitehead, and Deleuze instead. Heidegger was not really influenced by Bergson, and presents only a superficial reading of him in Being and Time.

Or perhaps just read a book on Heidegger. I would recommend the one by Miguel Beistegui.

Heidegger’s run up is Aristotle, Augustine, Husserl, and Nietzsche. Kant and Hegel are also there, in the background, as well as St. Paul. Duns Scotus cannot be forgotten either.

James

James, I would rarely suggest reading a book on a philosopher over reading that philosopher himself but this might be that rare occasion. Yeah, Aristotle, but I assumed that anyone reading any modern philosopher has read Ari. Agree on Jaspers. Heidegger tried to rethink Hegel, but I’m not sure you really have to read through Hegel - maybe a summary.

In the end, Heidegger is still incoherent and only of historical import. I think that’s why we seem to be struggling in our search for a method. Nothing really helps.

It seems to me that Heidegger was trying to formulate Being in other terms than those of Being. For instance, in Being and Time, he says:

“Das Sein des Seienden “ist” nicht selbst ein Seiendes.”
[section 2.]

Translation:

“The Being of that which is “is” not itself something that is.”

This may become intelligible when we replace all forms of the verb “to be” in this sentence (except the one between quotation marks) by the corresponding forms of the verb “to run”:

“The running of that which runs is not itself something that runs.”

So what is this Being of that which is, if not itself something that is? - Again, I will quote from section 2, this time the beginning of the next paragraph:

“Sofern das Sein das Gefragte ausmacht, und Sein besagt Sein von Seiendem, ergibt sich als das Befragte der Seinsfrage das Seiende selbst.”

Translation:

“In so far as Being is the object of our inquiry - and “Being” means Being of that which is -, that which is proves to be itself the object of our inquiry after Being.”

This is because the Being of that which is is not itself something that is. So the Being of that which is has itself no Being. Only that which is has Being, and it is this Being that is the object of our inquiry. Therefore, as that which is, is [i.e., has Being], the object of our inquiry is that which is itself: it is this that we shall endeavour to understand.

The problem is that you have not substituted for “to be” in each instance. It should be “The running of that which runs runs not itself something that runs”.

As I said, “except the one between quotation marks”. It is not between quotation marks for nothing.

Yeah, I know, Sau. But that this is intelligible doesn’t make Heidegger so, which I took to be your point. Sorry if i misunderstood.

Well, I think he is, up to this point at least. With some effort, I am able to understand him.

I think we might rephrase the sentence in question as follows:

“The Being of that which is, itself something that is, “is” not.”

Which we might, after my example, compare to:

“The running of that which runs, itself something that runs, “is” not.”

Or, according to you:

“The running of that which runs, itself something that runs, “runs” not.”

But “itself something that runs” means: “which [running] is itself something that runs”. So you cannot evade the “is”.

In any case, the “is” between quotation marks is a different use of the verb “to be” than the forms of that verb outside of the quotation marks - as you yourself have taught me. In the former case, it means something in the line of “is equal or identical to”; in the latter case, it means “to have reality or actuality”. Merriam-Webster distinguishes between these two meanings by giving the former the number “1”, the latter the number “2”:

http://m-w.com/dictionary/be

“Being” in the first sense is not comparable to the transitive verb “to run”. We might make it completely unambiguous if we replace “running” by “aspiring”:

“The aspiring of him who aspires is not itself something that aspires.”

This makes sense. The following does not:

“The aspiring of him who aspires does not itself aspire something that aspires.”

This is nonsense because “to aspire” is not a transitive verb.

Now, as for my rephrasing at the beginning of this post:

“The Being of that which is, [which is] itself something that is, “is” not.”

In this way, the “is” between quotation marks means the same thing as the other forms of the verb “to be” (except for the “is” between brackets).

“The existence of that which exists, [which is] itself something existent, does not exist.”

I.e.: that which exists, exists, but its existence does not.

Okay, but if we accept that reading, Being becomes a nothing that still manages to have characteristics. Properties, if I may say so. He seems to replace metaphysics with nothing. This is just odd on its face. It is in this way that I find Heidegger nonsensical.

This nothing is, in fact, treated as a something, despite, or even because of H’s protestations to the contrary. If it is merely an abstraction, an unreal characteristic of any thing, and of everything, why do we need to know about it in such detail? I have never been able to figure out what we are to do with this being that is not, or what it does, if it is not.

He still treats possibilty, for instance, as if it has no object, but is a thing, or a no-thing in itself. In other words, he takes the fundamental metaphysical mistake of language, or the fundamental linguistic mistake of metaphysics, and turns it on its head. But what does this produce? I wonder if anyone can tell me.

B and S.
You must be to do.
It’s not rocket science.

B and S?

Boats and Ships?

Backs and Sides?

Bread and Sircuses?

Baloney and Salami?

You obviously haven’t read his definitive “Being and Rocket Science”.

Look it up.

What characteristics, or properties, does it have, then?

I do not know whether I am jumping ahead if I, like you, identify Heidegger’s “Being” with his “Nothing”, but I know he has said that the Nothing itself nothings… So that which exists, exists, but its existence does not exist, but nothings. It nothings all day long.

Well, I have not read anything by him about possibility, so I certainly cannot.