:ok:

For me it's tricky, because I don't want to either just virtue signal self-righteously or act like his being a Nazi wasn't important. That letter I quoted is painful. — path

Yeah in retrospect that looks awful, of course. But does he ever explicitly advocate the killing of Jews, blacks, gays, the disabled, etc? Did he even know about this? He resigned his Rectorship pretty quickly. He also called his involvement his "greatest blunder," although he never apologized.

It's like the people who thought Trump was a "brilliant" man -- what if he turned out to be destroying the country systematically? I think a lot of those people would reconsider...

I've read some of Mein Kampf. It's an ugly book, and Heid was recommending it, complaining only about the boring autobiographical parts. I won't quote Hitler here, but browse for yourself. It's a thuggish document. It troubles me that anyone could recommend it in the spirit of Christ... — path

I can't say I've read Hitler, but I'm sure it's thuggish.

But yeah fucking Mitch & the gang are evil. I will hold my nose and vote for Biden, I guess, though it won't matter in my red state... — path

Well I'm in a swing state (NH), so I'll definitely be voting Biden (and also holding my nose...again).

I do what I can to follow certain scholars on the etymological issues...but I am haunted by a sense of being outside all of the languages I don't know. I feel forced to recreate some analogue that's necessarily a misreading. On the linguistics front, I have only looked in Saussure, but it was illuminating. — path

You can still learn a great deal even if you don't know the language fluently. In Heidegger's case, there's maybe 20-30 important Greek terms that are interpreted outside the mainstream that are particularly relevant.

If interested in Chomsky, Saussure is a good place to start, but ultimately one must come to wrestle with Chomsky's neurolinguistics.

with the Introduction to Metaphysics. Have you tackled that one yet?
— Xtrix

I haven't seriously studied it. I was impressed by certain passages, definitely. So far I've mostly been drawn to the early stuff, before B&T, though obviously that book has its killer lines. I guess I don't like when Heidegger gets too systematic. To me, Witt and Heid were sometimes saying the same thing in different styles. Witt could be 'too' anti-systematic while Heid was too systematic. It's a tradeoff, and I'm glad both went in different directions. And what I have in mind is the deconstruction of various linguistic/metaphysical confusions based on assuming an isolated subject, etc. — path

Well it's worth a look. Perhaps it's a bit more systematic than his other lectures/books, but I find that useful and I wish he did more of it.

I'll have to get to Wittgenstein this year, after Hegel.

To be clear, I could always read more of either or of other thinkers. I def. feel my finitude. I see so many...paths...and I can't take or be them all. — path

Likewise.

Heidi has his uses, no doubt, like many of others; but you're spot-on, Street, that, also like many others, his concerns are too narrow — 180 Proof

Yes, his concern for the question of being is too "narrow." Spot on criticism; very substantial. Not too general (since it's literally about everything), but too "narrow."

That's not, in fact, what was said. What was said was that there was a narrow conception of human experience.

Why do you continue to bother with this thread if you have nothing interesting to say? It's bizarre.

Yeah that's fair enough. Basically that Heidi offers a narrow slice of human experience passed off as a generalized phenomenology in which lots of interesting features are obscured and dropped out. I could substantiate it but I don't care enough about Heidi to spend that energy. If I had to point you in a direction, I'd say check out Alphonso Lingis's reading of Heidi in his Sensation: Intelligibility in Sensibility. — StreetlightX

I appreciate the sources, and both yourself, Path and 180 Proof have now provided me with a lot of reading material which I will check out, but the reason I created this thread was exactly for that reason: substantial criticism (or substantial "praise"), with the goal of understanding Heidegger even better. So if I may:

You're saying he's mistaking a narrow slice of human experience for a totality, and that he isn't justified in claiming this? What does the "in which lots of interesting features are obscured and dropped out" refer to, the "generalized phenomenology" or "the narrow slice of human experience"? It's ambiguous but relevant to clarify I think. Regardless, can you give an example? Because I'm certain he leaves many, many things out his analysis of human experience. His main concern, and he takes a while to get there, is "time," which he does consider rather obscured -- or concealed.

As for Heidi's philology, there's an interesting phD thesis by Rui de Sosa that meticulously tracks the responses by different philologists to Heidegger's reading of alethia, and concludes that the majority of them - although not all - more or less reject Heidi's reading. — StreetlightX

That's really a shocker to me. That's a major part of his entire thought, as you know. I was always under the impression that his translations, while considered outside the mainstream of scholarship, were still accurate in terms of their (several) meanings. (So while logos as a "gathering" is indeed found in Homer, for example, and so was used in that sense at one time, this still doesn't prove that this sense applies to the writing of Aristotle in any meaningful way [as Heidegger claims it does.]) If it does turn out to be "accuracy" in this sense, then I would be very surprised, but I have a hunch that it's the latter. I couldn't find a PDF initially but I'll take a look at it.

So it's still a somewhat open question, although I think it's pretty fair to remain quite suspicious of Heidi's readings as being faithful - albeit productive and philosophically entrancing. — StreetlightX

I agree. The question for me arose years ago regarding the philologic community's consensus on Heidegger's translations, and all I remember is finding something like I described above. When de Sosa states, for example, that

There seems to be a great divide between the communis opinio growing around Friedlander's thesis that in the end andent Greek alethea was fundamentally akin to the modem concept of truth and Heidegger's daims that the fundamental premisses of the Greeks are very different from our own". — StreetlightX

I wonder if the bolded part is historically probable? We know from our own experiences just how quickly words can take on new meanings, how quickly its usage changes, and even how a meaning can be created and, within a generation, can predominate (like the word "gay"). So while Heidegger may be completely wrong in his attributing meanings in the wrong contexts, I can't imagine our "modern" conception of truth being at all similar to what the ancients meant, any more than "democracy" or "justice" is. Of course there will likely often be aspects which are the same -- otherwise there would be no traceable historical evolution to a word -- but the semantics will especially be very different, since meanings shift so quickly, even philosophical terms or scientific technical notions.

On the other hand the 'honest' nihilist just drops the metaphysical pretense and chases power and money. This is 'true' sophistry. Who cares what X really is? It's standing reserve, canned whatever-we-need-it-to-be. Pretty soon we are canned whatever-we-need-us-to-be — path

I laughed at that one. There's a lot of truth to that, yes.

he was a creep. — path

Eh, I wouldn't say that myself. He never killed anyone or advocated for the holocaust. If simply being a member of a dangerous political party makes you evil, then we currently have a lot of equally evil people in the US alone- called Republicans. (In former times I'd write "Republicans and Democrats", but I can't equate the two anymore with good conscience.)



Re: Heidegger and Nietzsche. I've read nearly everything Nietzsche has written, and he remains in my view one of the most challenging and relevant thinkers of all time. But comparing the two isn't altogether fair, and I'd recommend checking out Heidegger's (4 volume) lectures on Nietzsche. Jump over the rather shallow secondary interpretations and see what you think, if you ever have the time to kill.

but I feel like Heidegger takes a very specific, over idealised conception of human experience and extrapolates it to very creative but ultimately narrow ends. — StreetlightX

I'm not sure what you mean by "idealized" here. Until that's explained, there's no way to tell if whatever conception you're referring to is narrow or not.

Who can we take wholesale? — path

No one. And I'd be very skeptical of anyone recommending such. Heidegger himself, over and over, says his work is interpretative, provisional, incomplete, and probably wrong in unforeseeable ways.

I think you've followed Heidegger's etymologies more. That's a harder path for me. — path

Oh that's a shame! I think this is exactly where Heidegger is most "useful" in a scholarly sense; the man certainly knew his Greek. I think he is still underestimated as a "philologist," or perhaps linguist.

An excellent place to get into this particular aspect is where he himself says to begin in the preface to B&T: with the Introduction to Metaphysics. Have you tackled that one yet? I would substitute 20 secondary sources and "interpreters" for this one book alone (really a series of lectures).

"The present -- as soon as we have named it by itself, we are already thinking of the past and the future, the earlier and the later as distinct from the now. But the present understood in terms of the now is not at all identical with the present in the sense in which the guests are present. We never say and we cannot say: 'The celebration took place in the now of many guests.'" Time and Being, p. 10

This helps understand a little Heidegger's distinction between "presencing" (or "presence"), which has been the mode from which "being" has been interpreted since the Greeks, and a successive sequence of "nows," which is how "time" is ordinarily understood (on the basis of presencing -- so that time itself becomes a present-at-hand fact, a kind of number line).

The entire thesis of Being and Time is that being has been interpreted on the basis of time, and a specific aspect of it: the "present." Our ordinary conception of "world time," or "clock time," comes out of our experience of the world, in the sense that we are temporally. Perhaps we could say "embedded time" or "experiential time" as someone put it, and which Heidegger calls "temporality."

This has interesting consequences for the history of philosophy (and science), and so for politics, technology, and values as well -- right to the present day. It flies in the face of 2,500 years worth of tradition, to boot. This is why I find Heidegger relevant and interesting, and at least worth taking a look at carefully.

:up:

It's a good point. I think Heidegger is insightful on our current situation. It sucks that he acted on his insights then the way that he did, but we can still raid him for parts (like Caputo does.) — path

I think Heidegger probably was thinking he would be the Third Reich's go-to philosopher, and so that was tempting. He was also apparently pretty naive politically.

One way I can approach this (which is maybe Braver's way) is to think of being as reality. Philosophers obsess over what is real. What do they mean? Some people say the physical, which is one beetle in the box. And some say the mental, which is another. If we try to determine the physical, we end up mentioning all kinds of mentalistic stuff. If we try to determine the mental, we end up talking about the worldly stuff. The whole game of reducing the whole to some X....seems doomed and confused. — path

The whole idea of "reality" and how it's traditionally thought of is misleading from the beginning. Remember Heidegger discusses this in B&T, and it's quite interesting (the concept of "reality," that is).

Also, the "mental" and the "physical," or the subject and object (or representation), seem to dominate Western thought since at least Descartes. We seem stuck in this dichotomy, which is what Heidegger tries to find a way out of, in part by calling Dasein's way of being "existence," or being-in-the-world. We start with a world -- so it's not a scandal that no one can "prove" the existence of the external world; it's a scandal that anyone is trying to.

Basically we get scientism or theology, which is maybe better expressed as scientism-theology, given that the essence of each is a forgetfulness of the question of being-meaning (taken it as a dead question that has been answered well enough, so please stop wasting everyone's time.) — path

Or perhaps scientism and "mysticism," but I take your meaning of "theology" in this sense as well. Excellent point -- I think that's what we're left with, yes. Along with one very important third position (usually embodied in science or in a reaction to the "death of God"): nihilism. Nietzsche worried about this quite a bit. Heidegger takes it up in terms of "technological nihilism." But it amounts to the same basic trend: away from God and gods, without any moral "ground" or any story (context) that gives us goals, purpose, and meaning, towards complete faith in the results of science, and mesmerized by technology (cell phones, computers, TV, cars, etc).

To add to this, I would say our current world is also dominated by propaganda, consumerism, and a variety of unsophisticated hedonism. Especially in Europe and the U.S.

Just in case you haven't seen this quote (you probably have), it seems relevant: — path

That's a great quote, and that's exactly right. Funny, I just started in on Hegel this year. I've heard for years that he's the "hardest" philosopher to read. But so far I don't find him hard at all. Schopenhauer repeatedly throws insults at Hegel, and between that and what I heard through secondary sources, I figured I would just wait. Heidegger comes down favorably on Hegel, however, and so I thought it worth while to actually read the man and see what all the fuss is about. So far I see why he was so influential. His contributions towards a history of philosophy (and the importance of interpreting history generally) are alone very important indeed.

:yawn:

The questions: does life has a meaning? What is meaning? etc only make sense if you have some backdrop sense of what 'meaning' is in order to show that it doesn't. In other words: you can only think life has no meaning, if you already know what meaning is, but you've lost it. — csalisbury

I think this is exactly right. "Backdrop sense" is well put, because it's not really a "definition" laying dormant somewhere in our heads.

Do Democrats want to lose? — Benkei

The DNC made it quite clear, after consolidating around Biden, that they'd rather lose the election than lose their party to Sanders. I'm hoping for the sake of the country that Biden still prevails, but it should become clearer and clearer what a stupid decision that was.

This helps me relate to Heidegger trying to awaken the question of being. I am still trying to figure out how the question of meaning and the question of being relate, beyond the straightforward way (what does it mean to say something is?) — path

I think they're intimately connected through "disclosure," through aletheia. Being is only vaguely understood in a pre-theoretical way and then interpreted in some fashion. Interpretation certainly involves meaning. So the human being is a "clearing," "unconcealing" beings while giving them meaning.

Good- now you know how I feel. :up:

If we're all operating with an understanding of being, then this effects everything - our politics and our culture and our future. If Heidegger is right, and our current understanding is a "technological-nihilistic" one, then we're in bad shape indeed. You can see the results all around you.

So it's not that the questioning of "being" has no relevance to the current political or social world; it does.

Worth pointing out.

Very interesting.

:up:

Given that S was an excommunicated Jew, the first openly secular philosopher in Christendom in the last half or so millennium and the father of biblical (Tanahk & Xtian NT) criticism, he certainly wasn't "struggling with Christianity" (Judaism, Islam or any 'religious faith'). — 180 Proof

I don't think that's true. Maybe "struggling" is too imprecise, but within the context of a Christian worldview- otherwise why mention "God" at all, even if meant in a quasi-pantheistic way?

If nature or existence generally is "god," then I'm certainly a believer.

based on H's 1976 revisions of SuZ instead of the 1927 manuscript on which Macquarrie's & Robinson's translation was based, I'll stand by Stambaugh's as more authoritative (pace Dreyfus et al). — 180 Proof

Fair enough. Perhaps in further discussion we'll come across examples where Stambaugh is more clear - I wouldn't be surprised.

If you say so. Clearly, neither of us is convinced of the other's bona fides. — 180 Proof

If you say you've read B&T twice then I believe you, but you haven't said stated where he's off the mark, given his thesis.

For me, sir, H is not worth my time delving any deeper than I have - e.g citing chapter & verse - in order to more thoroughly critique his work ( — 180 Proof

But that's exactly what this thread was created for. You don't have to necessarily cite "chapter and verse," but something a little more concrete or perhaps elaborated more (like your point about wu wei) would be appreciated. If you're not interested, you're not interested - I can't help that. But you apparently cared enough to comment, so we're left where we are.

A philosophy which is either of no consequence to or concerned even tangentally with its own implications for "politics, ethics, social issues, etc" is not worth bothering with — 180 Proof

But that's not the case. There are plenty of connections. It's simply that politics ethics are not his main thesis, as you know. He claims only to be doing "fundamental ontology." Later he will say that this is connected to the "spiritual fate of the West."

If one is serious, one doesn't choose philosophers a la cart or from a buffet table; rather serious study includes running down significant sources wherever and whomever they are. If you are serious, Xtrix, then you know that, and that your question is disingenuous. — 180 Proof

So you had to bother with Heidegger at some point for various reasons- fine. I'll rephrase: given your claim to have read him, and your finding his thought on par with postmodernist babblings, and further your unwillingness to give any potentially valuable elaboration on his shortcomings, then again I ask: why come here? Why bother? If it's simply boredom, so be it.

as Freddy Zarathustra might say, H is a "priestly-type" of human, all too human "underhanded (onto)theologian" decadent one must overcome in oneself in order to affirm the whole of life - amor fati! — 180 Proof

This is a good example of what I wrote above. "Onto-theologian" has the potential to be a criticism, but I can only guess as to what you mean. Where's the theology in Heidegger? I don't see it. Any examples would be helpful, as maybe I missed something important. But as far as I can tell, I don't see where the "priest-type" comes into play.

If one were to criticize him for being a stuffy, scholarly type man, I wouldn't deny it. But again, this is pretty superficial.

Yes Banno, because I love the Nazis. Run along.

The eugenics theme is fascinating. Elaborate if you feel like it. — path

That requires another thread, I think!

But oddly enough, this is something Heidegger worried about. With the advancements in genetics, the only thing that stands in our way (truly) are ethical (philosophical) concerns. Eventually the taboo will be lifted, and we can in a sense "engineer" human beings. I think that's probably the next stage of our evolution.

I agree that tech won't save us. If something can save us, I (also) think it will be spiritual in the philosophical-artistic sense, which will manifest politically. — path

And thus we come full circle, in a sense. Philosophy and politics in some ways seem like polar opposites, but are connected in very clear ways. The latter is far more pressing to deal with these days, no matter how knowledgable or familiar one is with philosophy (or history) -- but having that knowledge certainly doesn't hurt. I'd argue that, like with any decision, the more information one takes into account, the better the decision will be. The same is true about where we go as as species and how we should therefore organize society.

The connection is that the powerful people of the world who are currently making the key decisions for hundreds of millions (and in fact billions) of human beings, are not aliens -- they have ideologies. They have belief systems. Thought systems, perspectives, in which they interpret the world and set their agenda. Much is tied up with values, and the values with "religions," but I'd argue they are really philosophical at bottom (even the Christian "ontology" in the sense of a worldview).

Worth keeping in the back of our minds when making the decision in November:

https://thebulletin.org/doomsday-clock/

Definitely truth in that. There's lots of interpretation, projection, and re-assessing whenever studying something hard. How we do so is also shaped by our purposes, values, and goals. What I said earlier about "usefulness" was a little misleading because while true, it doesn't necessarily mean what's most "useful" and what's the most important "part" of what's been said.

Lots of famous people being influenced and interested is of course no proof that Heidegger or whoever is great, but it might give one pause. — path

I love this. Exactly right. I know it gives me pause. In the same way that a good friend who knows your taste makes a recommendation for a place to travel or a book to read or a movie to see -- something I may have otherwise considered garbage, and therefore ignored, now I'm much more likely to want to take a look at.

'That fad didn't suck me in. I'm too shrewd.' I don't know if we are ever done deciding if we are lying to ourselves in either direction. — path

I think there's personal reasons involved perhaps, but also the question should be asked: What is most useful not only to me now (and to the current world), but the future world?

At least with this more future-oriented sense of "useful" in mind, I keep gravitating towards a handful of people in various domains, and I'd like to think I have good values and good instincts. To me the names Anaximander, Parmenides, Heraclitus, Plato, Aristotle, Nietzsche, Heidegger, and Chomsky are the most relevant and interesting, if I were forced to choose only the essentials. But I may be completely wrong as well -- I can live with that.

Again so there's no huge mystery: I think the key to the future isn't space travel and artificial intelligence as far as technology goes, but eugenics (not in the Nazi sense!), and in terms of spirituality (in the philosophical-artistic sense) in the most general sense.

To me this passage just destroys our mentalistic assumptions. We don't have some isolated subject gazing on Platonic meanings. The inside is outside. — path

From my reading I don't see him saying there is no "inside" or "outside," but that indeed there is an "inner" and that "inner concepts" can't be really linked to objects. But I don't know the full context of Wittgenstein to be confident in that reading.

I do agree with you, however: there really isn't an "inner" world separated from an "outer" world. This is very hard for some people to accept, as is the subject/object dichotomy. We love our dualisms.

Perhaps we focus too much on the authors and not enough on the intensity of reading. I'm used to people hating on Nietzsche, because Nietzsche can be outright obnoxious. But if one stays with Nietzsche and grows up while reading Nietzsche...one uses Nietzsche to criticize Nietzsche. — path

Exactly right. One should react against and criticize only something they understand, otherwise they're whacking at straw men. While no one has infinite time to read everything, and carefully, one should be careful to rely on secondary sources, pop culture philosophy books, etc., and form a "stance" on the thinker in question on that basis alone. It's risky business, and at best you are left with an extremely general view. Better to reserve judgment or acknowledge your superficial engagement, rather than feign expertise. This happens far more often on this forum than I would have expected, even for "amateur" philosophy people. It's just ego I suppose.

I’m interested in definitions of Besorgen and Sorge and the use of “care” and “concern”. These seems to me, in spirit, more like engagement. Any thoughts? — Brett

I think it's definitely related. Anything we engage with or "comport" ourselves to involves "care" and "concern," or "concernful circumspection." In the simplest sense I can think of, any time we're doing anything at all, there's some kind of "attending" involved and thus "caring." Unfortunately there are many connotations with "care" as well, in the social sense of "caring for one another." I think it's worth keeping in mind Husserl's "intentionality" here, because it's in this context that Heidegger is defining "Sorge."

Not that I can tell. I know there's been a lot of backlash, and continues to be, for his being a member of the Nazi party. I'm no apologist for him in this respect, but I do think his work contributes much to philosophy. If some guides leave him out, that's their decision, but I don't see it as widespread "cancellation."

I'm not sure why you include Spinoza, however. Surely not the clearest writer either.
— Xtrix
Read S. His latin is crystal clear as are the excellent english translations by Stuart Hampshire & Edwin Curley. (Also, S is the ontologist par excellence.) — 180 Proof

I can't read Latin very well unfortunately. But if you say Spinoza is clearer in Latin, I believe you.

As for ontologist par excellence -- one of the greatest, no doubt. But the fact that he's still very much (like Pascal) struggling with Christianity makes me less likely to delve in further. I've only (partly) read his Ethics. But he's certainly on my list, with Augustine, Anselm, Suarez, Duns Scotus, and Aquinas. (I realize he's not defining "god" in the way the Church Fathers did, by the way.)

H's german, on the other hand, is as clear as mud, which many scholars have also attested to, such that even very fine translators like Joan Stambaugh could not render H's meandering mumblings into serviceably lucid english. — 180 Proof

Unfortunately German isn't a second language of mine either. But from what I've come across, there are many scholars who say his German isn't unclear, it's just very idiomatic and extremely hard to translate into English. I've also heard from Dreyfus, and others, that the John Macquarrie and Edward Robinson version is still the best we have (although quite a few adjustments need to be made there as well -- for example of their translation of "woraufhin"). So perhaps that's worth a try, if attempting to take a serious look at it.

And so H uncharitably interprets N in his own 'onto-theological' terms rather than in N's philological-genealogical & psychological-axiological terms — 180 Proof

When? I never see him translating Nietzsche's ideas about values into ontology. Heidegger argues that Nietzsche eternal recurrence is ontological; that's debatable, of course -- and Heidegger is the first to admit this. He acknowledges Nietzsche did indeed believe the concept of "being" was a vapor and mistake -- and agrees with him in the sense of how it's been handled in Western thought.

But you haven't really shown you've read his works -- have you?

Apparently I have not "shown" anything to you since clearly you've not studied H's works enough (or any of the philosophers I've cited in my previous post) to recognize the pearls I've cast before you. :roll: — 180 Proof

But I have studied Heidegger, carefully, at length, and in detail. I think I've demonstrated that as well, numerous times on this thread and in this forum. If you have as well, you've been very non-specific in your critique. You made a few claims, like the one about wu wei, which may indeed be true, but which I have no way of checking or fully understanding because, again, it's so vague.

Where does [Heidegger] go wrong?
You've already answered your own question, Xtrix:

Heidegger discusses "being" a lot where Nietzsche thought it was a "vapor" and "mistake" ...

As for Nietzsche's ideas about values, [Heidegger] doesn't have much to say about that.

[Heidegger] ignores social and political issues [implications] ... That's just not his concern.

As for obscurantism -- yes, a common charge, and one he anticipates ... the same charge has been made against Kant and Hegel as well, not completely unfairly.

... the neologisms and awkwardness of translating a complex analysis of "being" from idiomatic German ... — 180 Proof

Yes, but I've also started this thread and mentioned from the beginning I think Heidegger is an immensely deep and important thinker who has taught me a great deal. So if these are truly your criticisms, then I repeat: that's fine, but superficial. Why? Because Heidegger is up front about what he's doing: his question, repeated over and over again, is that of "the meaning of being." If that's not what you're interested in, and prefer learning or thinking about politics, ethics, social issues, etc., then why bother with Heidegger at all? You won't find it there.

But that's much less a criticism of his thought than it is a reflection of your interests.

I was just going through a book that’s a guide to philosophers and their work, not one mention of Heidegger. Is it that bad? — Brett

Is what that bad?

I think you touched on it: the analysis of capitalism. So probably Marx being an important read.

I do notice that the Heidegger haters have stopped by. I don't blame them. But I suggest that thinkers like Heidegger, Hegel, Derrida...the ones that people love to who hate...can be appreciated without being worshiped or endorsed as a whole, as flawless human beings or philosophers. — path

Yes of course -- everyone can think whatever they want. Hating him personally for being involved in the Nazis is a good reason to hate him, and his dense and often cumbersome text is another reason to be frustrated. But that's pretty superficial -- I'm really only interested in opinions of those who have made a real effort to read him, hence my request in the OP that a requirement should be having read Being & Time. If you can't get through that, that's fine -- not you're cup of tea. But then why bother announcing your disapproval?

Incidentally, I think Derrida is very much a posturing charlatan -- just as Zikek is now -- and I've tried hard to understand him.

Excellent. I agree with all of that. I've been talking about consciousness in other threads, and I think it's close to the issue of being. People use familiar words in a loose way without noticing just how haze these words are. For practical purposes that's fine, but philosophers build metaphysical systems on foundations of fog. I like to think of it as dragging our ignorance into the light. — path

Definitely. I think at the very least one of the most invaluable contributions of Heidegger is his etymological analysis of classic philosophical words, especially of course from Greek. Nietzsche was doing some of this as well, but as far as I can tell not many others -- which is kind of mind-boggling given both their obvious importance and the rise of "linguistic philosophy."

I wasn't going to write anything in this thread, since the less oxygen given Heidegger, the better; but than you for your summation as to why. — Banno

Interesting. So you agree with that rather nuanced criticism of being dressed-up wu wei? or with the very common accusation (especially of those who have read only secondary sources) of obscurantism?

:roll: Nevermind. Thanks for the input.

'History is a nightmare from which I am trying to awake.' (Joyce) Or we are the history from which we are trying to awake. It's only our prejudices that allow us to think against such prejudices. The most potent prejudices are the ones we don't know we have. What is ontically closest is ontologically farthest. It's the glasses we don't know we are wearing, the water we swim in without noticing until a strong philosopher can make it visible and only then optional.

I'm riffing, but hopefully some of this speaks to you. — path

It does. The "water we swim" is exactly right -- it's right there around us at all times, and for just that reason is the last thing we notice. The method of "unconcealing" these hidden features of life is how I see him defining phenomenology.

I can't cite a passage at the moment (sorry) but as I get to the end of B&Y I keep feeling like his sense of potentiality and reality go backwards, almost as if we live life in reverse. — Gregory

Well I still don't quite understand fully, but perhaps you're referencing his conception of "temporality," which doesn't view the future as "after" or the past as "before," and so in that sense gives the connotation of going "backwards" somehow?

In the light of Spinoza, Schopenhauer, Peirce, Wittgenstein-TPL & Dewey, I've found Heidegger spectacularly redundant and obscurant. — 180 Proof

Well you're in good company in that assessment. I'm not sure why you include Spinoza, however. Surely not the clearest writer either.

Also, his 'interpretation' of Nietzsche is also egregiously anti-Nietzschean. — 180 Proof

Where? I didn't get that at all. I see only the utmost respect for Nietzsche. If you mean the opposite of what Nietzsche thought, then all I can say is that Heidegger discusses "being" a lot where Nietzsche thought it was a "vapor" and "mistake" -- but that's Heidegger's entire philosophy, so that shouldn't be a surprise. As for Nietzsche's ideas about values, he doesn't have much to say about that.

Jaspers & Marcel, then later on Levinas, Merleau-Ponty & Gadamer, do 'hermeneutical daseinanalysis' so much better, less - or counter - solipstically by comparison (Adorno), and therefore morally, even politically, more cogent and relevant to any 'existential project'. — 180 Proof

I'm not sure what "existential project" you're referring to. Heidegger is clear about his question, so to criticize that he ignores social and political issues is like criticizing him for not writing more about biology and astronomy. That's just not his concern.

Most of those you mention acknowledge a large debt of gratitude to Heidegger. Derrida and Foucault as well, and of course Sartre. (I don't necessarily care for any of them.) Regardless, whether they did "daseinanalysis" better or not is debatable. I think many of them, with perhaps Merleau-Ponty as an exception, are rather bloated and overrated. But to each his own.

Heidegger's crypto-augustinian fideism via metaphysical 'de(con)struction of metaphysics' (e.g. Seyn) amounts to little more IMO than a sophistical derivation of 'wu wei' (or 'satori-kenshō'). — 180 Proof

The idea of wu wei does have similarities to the ready-to-hand activities Heidegger describes.

By "destruction of metaphysics" he means basically a historical analysis of the concept of "being" in philosophy; I'm not sure how that amounts to fideism. Maybe unpacking this a little would be helpful.

Read works by The Kyoto School thinkers (e.g. Nishida Kitarō) instead for the comparative philosophical clarity lacking in most of Heidegger's writings, especially after his so-called "die Kehre". — 180 Proof

I've heard there are similarities to Zhuangzi as well. I wouldn't be surprised. But I doubt very much what he or Kitaro are discussing is ontology, especially in the context of the history of Western thought.

I've been grateful to Heidegger, nonetheless, since my earliest philosophical studies in the late '70s for his monumental oeuvre as a/the paragon of how NOT to philosophize - or think-live philosophically (as Arendt points out) - as manifest by the generations of heideggerian obscurant sophists (i.e. p0m0s e.g. Derrida, Baudrillard, Lyotard, Rorty et al) who've come and gone in and out of academic & litcrit fashion since the 1950s - apple-simulacra don't fall far from the tree-simulacrum (or is it "Ye shall know them by their fruits" :chin:), do they? — 180 Proof

Yes, all that's fine. I think postmodernism, poststructuralism, Derrida in general, is almost completely without value. I don't include Heidegger in this camp, nor in the "existentialist" camp at all -- in fact I'm sure he'd disavow almost all of it.

As for obscurantism -- yes, a common charge, and one he anticipates outright in Being & Time. I think the same charge has been made against Kant and Hegel as well, not completely unfairly.

But you haven't really shown you've read his works -- have you? What exactly is troubling besides the neologisms and awkwardness of translating a complex analysis of "being" from idiomatic German to English? Where are you disagreeing? Where does he go wrong? I'm much more interested in that; so far everything you've said you could easily have based on either secondary sources or from a casual glance.

Which is fine too if that's all you want to say. I was hopeful for something more in-depth.

The closest thing to Heideggers thought in the history of philosophy before him was Aristotle's idea of final causality. Instead of saying the prime mover started everything, Aristotle turned causality on its head and said the prime mover acted as a posterior cause instead of a prior one. Modern philosophy is essentially about putting the cart before the horse. I like that because it's counter intuitive — Gregory

I didn't quite understand this.

Very true! I found B&T quite difficult. It's huge, rich, and a bit overwhelming. — path

Agreed.

So naturally I looked for help, found out about earlier lectures and shorter, earlier drafts. That really helped open my eyes. I could go back and read lots of Div One especially feel that I was getting it. I found Dreyfus's Being-in-the-world quite helpful, but there are some great papers in the Cambridge Companion too. I'm pretty fond of Kisiel's and Van Buren's work too. — path

Dreyfus was an excellent teacher. I'd check out his Berkley lectures as well -- they're online (YouTube et al) for free. His Being-in-the-World is valuable.

I'm not familiar with Kisiel's or Van Buren's work, but thank you for the references. I'll look them up.

Also, just to put this out there, I like to think of Wittgenstein pointing to language as a ready-to-hand tool that we tend to try to gaze at as something occurent. (Our blind skill with language is more absent than present, perhaps...) — path

That's interesting. I hear Wittgenstein mentioned many times in this Forum; his influence here is obvious (and perhaps everywhere). However, I haven't read more than a few pages of his Tractatus.