An Introduction to Heidegger: Being and Time

[Music] Martin Heidegger the most original and one of the most influential philosophers in 2,000 years and a Nazi how is it possible to square these two things is it possible Heidegger born in southern Germany in 1889 wrote his seminal text being in time in 1927 and was immediately propelled to philosophical Fame he was taught by the founder of phenomenology Edmund who Thoreau who had written that philosophers needed to go back to the things themselves Heidegger agreed philosophy had for too long overlooked the most important issue philosophers had forgotten to ask what it is to be in the opening pages of being in time Heidegger writes our aim in the following treatise is to work out the question of the sense of being and to do so concretely the human way of being is different to that of a cat's way of being in that humans have lives to lead unlike other animals driven by simple desires humans have to make existential choices thoughtful decisions about what we should do and neither are we just Homo sapiens Homo Sapien might describe our physical makeup but it doesn't get to the essence or the truth about what it is to be human and every Homo Sapien leads their lives in very different ways this is a problem philosophers have wrestled with for thousands of years how do we understand human essence if we can work out what it is to be that we might be able to theorize better ways of living importantly for Heidegger the human way of being has no fixed meaning or essence ultimately human beings are unique in that they must interpret themselves but instead of realizing this very simple point philosophers have taken creating free-floating constructions grand metaphysical systems theories of politics the social world of morality and ethics Heidegger singles out day Carter's illustrative of this trend des cartes asked how it is we can really know the external world he believed that knowledge we come to using our minds was more dependable than knowledge we come to using our senses the senses he argued can trick us the senses may lead us to believe that the Sun is closer than it is it's reason that tells us otherwise Descartes uses the example of a ball of wax in front of the fire he writes it has been taken quite freshly from the hive and it's not yet lost the sweetness of the honey which it contained it still retains somewhat of the odor of the flowers from which it has been cold its color its figure its size or apparent it is hard cold easily handled and if you strike it with the finger it will emit a sound yet as it melts under the fire des cartes writes that the taste is exhaled the smell evaporates the color alters the figure is destroyed the size increases it becomes liquid and heats scarcely can one handle its and when one strikes it no sound is emitted does the wax remain after this change we must confess that it remains none would judge otherwise for Descartes to understand how the wax is the same wax requires reason and this is proof as to why reason is more powerful than empiricism but Heidegger criticizes philosophers who think of humans as being detached from the world looking at objects and problems as if they were independent of human interaction Descartes looks at the wax as an object to be considered what Heidegger calls present to hand but human beings are thrown into the world and being experiences a traditional way of interpreting itself it is surrounded by tools and objects others and language and discourse all of which have been handed down and continually modified by previous generations so first of all rather than being rational or empirical being is being in the world Descartes thinks about the being but not the in Heidegger cause this being in or being their design if design is being in the world then it must have a care for the world in some way Dyson is interested in something whether its food or philosophy or wax or music or water what Descartes and other philosophers haven't considered is another type of object an object that is not just present at hand like the ball of wax to be considered and studied but ready to hand like a hammer or a pen looking at objects as if they were just present a hand is a theoretical approach you can contemplate the wax and the hammer its size its use its smell its qualities but when you use an object it becomes something different I don't contemplate the philosophical or theoretical properties of a pen every time I use it Heidegger writes that the less we just stare at the hammer thing and the more we seize hold of it and use it the more primordial does our relationship to it become and the more unveiled Lee is it encountered as that which it is as equipment when we consider the world in this way we realize that any attempt to theorize single entities like wax or a hammer makes no sense without exploring the equip mental totality in which the object exists the hammer doesn't make sense without nails wood tables chairs other people to sit in those chairs are the people who want to chop wood when we hammer we don't think about the how our moment of being is caught up in this fast network of worldliness Heidegger builds upon this with simple concepts like state of mind through which we experience this worldliness we always have a mood and our moods always illuminates different objects or people as ready or present at hand hunger illuminates food fear has different forms that illuminate that which we are afraid of on top of this we must always have a way of understanding these things and the intelligibility of being in the world Heidegger writes expresses itself as discourse rather than being just language discourse is the site of all meaning the totality of significations discourse is the way we understand the web of objects and others we come across in the world what we start to see as we progress through being on time is a patchwork of experiences that makeup designs Constitution but how is dar sign to understand itself when presented with all these different phenomena how is it possible that we make sense of the world together and live individual lives if a hammer always hammers nails if fear is always fear of danger if discourse is always something we are thrown into how is it that we are each unique Heidegger says that the normal way of living is in the everydayness of these phenomena as presented by others what Heidegger calls the dictatorship of - man that they he writes that these others moreover and not definite others on the contrary any other can represent them the who is not this one not that one not oneself not some people and not the sum of all of them the who is the neuter that they this is the average diet tedious and utilitarian reckoning and balancing of claims presented to us by the other dar sign loses itself in the average everydayness of the bay the mindless mortal been told the right way to do things political correctness to live authentically though is to seize upon one's own possibilities this is the source of individuality of creativity we are most free when we most realize our own finitude we must step away from the bay or else we live like automatons the prominent high daguerreian Richard Dreyfuss has interpreted this as arguing that when we are presented with things in their worldliness others moods tools language we are presented with a world that's not ours we have no original contributions of our own in all Thant isset ii is a kind of nothingness authenticity on the other hand add something new to the world to some Heidegger is a platitude '''l thinker someone who states the obvious Rudolf Carnap for example described Heidegger as making nonsensical pseudo propositions to others though Heidegger is a genius who has described the world in a simple way no one has thought to do in 2,000 years and his influence in the 20th century is huge what many have commented on is how unique a view he has of the world and how reading his view can completely change your own perception of how we will think about our surroundings he provides almost a map a blueprints that others have drawn upon filled from education to technology the existentialist jean-paul Sartre was said to have responded to reading being in time with a sense of shock but the question of his Nazism still looms and it's a big question how is it possible for someone so widely recognized as being a genius to turn to National Socialism and it's something I'll have to return to in part two if you like these videos and would like to support me making more you can follow me on Twitter Instagram and Facebook by clicking the links in the description below you can like this video and subscribe to the then and now channel to see more Ann if you're feeling really generous you can pledge as little as $1 towards the creation of each new video you can click here to find out more thank you

Channel: Then & Now

Views: 137,119

Rating: 4.8950939 out of 5

Keywords: martin heidegger, heidegger, being and time, descartes, rene descartes, deconstruction, heidegger being and time, phenomenology, existentialism, philosophy, introduction to heidegger, introduction to being and time

Id: eDAyhsZ-Gs4

Length: 11min 25sec (685 seconds)

Published: Tue May 29 2018