• Valentinus
    1.6k

    Please cite your favorite version.
    There are other references in other books but I am not going there now.
  • synthesis
    933
    My opinion is trying to find something connected to happiness. This always been the main goal of humanity.javi2541997

    Up until a couple of hundred years ago, it was ALL about survival. It's just of late that people became obsessed with the delusional state of happiness, that temporary biochemical rush we prostrate ourselves for when we believe we have outsmarted The Universe (only to be set-straight when the gods inevitably prick our bubble and we sputter back down to Earth (and beyond)...only to resume our never-ending search for yet another wall in which to bang our heads.
  • javi2541997
    4.9k


    The survival was the main goal, yes. But only for those who were just natural and human: born, reproduce and die. They did not improve their knowledge at all so when you are "ignorant" of circumstances you tend to be happier because it does not affect you as much as it should be.

    only to resume our never-ending search for yet another wall in which to bang our heads.synthesis

    I think this happens because humans tend to be so stubborn in all painful things or issues. It is quite a paradox right? Repeating aspects that hurt us.
  • Mikie
    6k


    One of the most challenging and influential books on this, of course, is Being and Time.

    Heidegger is highly influenced by Kierkegaard. It's worth the effort in reading it.

    Heidegger, in my reading, rather than focusing on what time "is," per se, discusses the perspective upon which all interpretations of time (and being) are based. Starting with Aristotle's essay on time (in the Physics), he'll argue that Aristotle's perspective ("being" as ousia, which in Heidegger means "constant presence") is one where time itself gets treated as an object that's "present-at-hand" -- viz., as a series of sequential, changing now-points (which align with the measure of "seconds" of the moving clock pointer), perceived as such because "presence" (phusis as enduring, persistent identity -- the ιδέα Plato) gets privileged in the thinking of thinkers (philosophers).

    Time therefore needs to be analyzed anew, as does the human being that interprets and defines "time." Why? Because this all comes out of the human mind, the human being. As Heidegger says, "time temporalizes itself," meaning it emerges and is constructed out of something else. That "something else" is human being, human experience, human needs and interests. Particularly, human projection, goals, possibilities, plans (which becomes the "future"); memory, tradition, and the already-existing ("throwness") which becomes the "past"; and being amidst things in action (the "present").

    The same can be said of interpretations of what it means to be human generally, what it means to be an individual, and what it means for anything to "be." The understanding of "being" (including human being) and "time" are very much connected, at least in Heidegger's thought. Human beings instead get re-interpreted as embodied time, or "temporality" in the sense mentioned above. This temporality -- this human constitution -- has been hidden from most thinkers through history for the very fact that everything (humans, time, being, nature) gets interpreted from the perspective of presence, or what is later called the "metaphysics of presence."

    From this perspective -- which itself is based on a privative (derivative) mode of a human being (namely the "present-at-hand", which is detached from the everyday, integrated, holist world of automaticity, habit, and skill of the "ready-to-hand") -- one cannot help but interpret human beings as "rational animals," and time as a kind of number line or "container."

    That's the best cartoon version I can give, but I find it compelling indeed. It makes all these questions about "time" fairly irrelevant. Ditto the "mind/body" problem, et al.
  • Joshs
    5.2k
    Heidegger is highly influenced by Kierkegaard. It's worth the effort in reading it.Xtrix

    I think he was much more influenced by Nietzsche, who he wrote two volumes about , than kierkegaard, who he only mentioned disparagingly. Unfortunately a whole generation of West Coast Heideggerians ( Dreyfus, Haugeland, Rousse) were mostly influenced by Kierkegaard in their reading ( in my view misreading) of Heidegger. The writers I find most useful in understanding Heidegger are Husserl, Merleau-Ponty, Nietzsche and Derrida , but Kierkegaard very little.
  • Joshs
    5.2k
    time temporalizes itself," meaning it emerges and is constructed out of something else. That "something else" is human being, human experience, human needs and interests.Xtrix

    Keep in mind that Heidegger didn’t want to equate Dasein with anthropos , the ‘ human being ‘ as biological entity.
    Yes, It emerges and is constructed out of Dasein, but more specifically , it is the structure the the past only existing as what it occurs into and is changed by.
  • Mikie
    6k
    I think he was much more influenced by Nietzsche, who he wrote two volumes about , than kierkegaard, who he only mentioned disparagingly.Joshs

    I can't find a single time he "disparages" Kierkegaard. As for Nietzsche, he didn't write two volumes, he taught several courses -- and later than Being and Time.

    That being said, the similarities between Kierkegaard and Heidegger are much more striking to me than Nietzsche and Heidegger.

    Keep in mind that Heidegger didn’t want to equate Dasein with anthropos , the ‘ human being ‘ as biological entity.Joshs

    True, but nothing I said (and nothing you quoted) implies a biological perspective. Perhaps "needs"? But even there, there's no reason it has to be considered strictly in biological terms.

    Yes, It emerges and is constructed out of Dasein, but more specifically , it is the structure the the past only existing as what it occurs into and is changed by.Joshs

    This isn't very clear, I'm afraid. What does the second "it" refer to? Time or temporality? As for the rest, it's not clear enough to guess.
  • Joshs
    5.2k
    As for Nietzsche, he didn't write two volumes, he taught several courses -- and later than Being and Time.Xtrix

    These were published as 2 two volume books of 200 pages each.

    it is the structure the the past only existing as what it occurs into and is changed by.
    — Joshs

    This isn't very clear, I'm afraid. What does the second "it" refer to? Time or temporality?
    Xtrix

    Past , present and future are the same moment, what Heidegger calls the three ecstasies of the ‘ now’, The past isnt what is behind me, but that part of the past-present-future hinge which projects forward into the now. The present occurs into this projected past. So there is never a past other than this past which is always already changed by the present which it projects itself into.
    This gives the relation between my past ,present and future an extra-ordinary intimacy, the intimacy of Care. It makes the now a becoming rather than a ‘state’.
  • Mikie
    6k
    These were published as 2 two volume books of 200 pages each.Joshs

    who he wrote two volumes about ,Joshs

    The lectures being published in two volumes is not the same as him writing two volumes. But yes, he did consider Nietzsche important enough to have four courses in. Ditto with Hegel, Parmenides, Aristotle, et al.

    Past , present and future are the same moment, what Heidegger calls the three ecstasies of the ‘ now’,Joshs

    Not sure I like this explanation. Sounds very Buddhist. I don't recall Heidegger saying anything like the ecstases being part of the "same moment" or the "now," either. But they do appear to be a unity rather than separate dimensions. Remember that he considers the future to be the more "primary" of the unity, not the present.
  • Joshs
    5.2k
    I can't find a single time he "disparages" Kierkegaard.Xtrix

    From Gerhard Thonhauser
    “Thinker without Category:

    “The first volume of the Black Notebooks is exemplary for Heidegger’s hostility against an anthropological and/or existential reading of Being and Time, which Heidegger associates with the name “Kierkegaard” (GA 94, 32–33 and 74–76).

    Heidegger’s view of Kierkegaard’s relationship to Hegel is a major aspect of his understanding of Kierkegaard. Heidegger’s perspective remained the same throughout his intellectual development: From a philosophical point of view, Kierkegaard is a Hegelian. Kierkegaard himself, however, did not notice this de- pendency. For that reason, his criticism of Hegel is mistaken, as he failed to see or misunderstood the crucial metaphysical issue that manifests itself in Hegel’s philosophy. In short, Heidegger considered Kierkegaard a Hegelian that deeply misunderstood Hegel, which is why his criticism of Hegel, from a philosophical perspective, is hollow and pointless.

    Heidegger:

    The pertinacity of dialectic, which draws its motivation from a very definite source, is docu- mented most clearly in Kierkegaard. In the properly philosophical aspect of his thought, he did not break free from Hegel. His later turn to Trendelenburg is only added documentation for how little radical he was in philosophy. He did not realize that Trendelenburg saw Ar- istotle through the lens of Hegel. His reading the Paradox into the New Testament and things Christian was simply negative Hegelianism.

    Regarding Heidegger’s relation to Kierkegaard, we can summarize with the observation that the first half of the 1930s is characterized by a tendency to embrace the Dane alongside Nietzsche. That changed around 1935 together with a transformation of Heidegger’s reading of Nietzsche, whose “The Will to Power” is henceforth considered the completion of metaphysics. As a consequence, Hei- degger includes Nietzsche in his history of being as the final step in the oblivion of being (Seinsvergessenheit), whereas Kierkegaard continues to be excluded from Heidegger’s idiosyncratic history of Western thought. In Contributions to Philosophy he states: “What lies between Hegel and Nietzsche has many shapes but is nowhere within the metaphysical in any originary sense—not even Kierkegaard.”

    The first time Heidegger clearly explains his new point of view is in summer term 1936:

    Nietzsche’s attitude toward system is fundamentally different from that of Kierkegaard who is usually mentioned here together with Nietzsche...All of this is said, by the way, in order to show by implication that the combination of Kierkegaard and Nietzsche, which has now become customary, is justified in many ways, but is fundamentally untrue philosophically and is misleading.31
    Through this shift, Nietzsche gains an importance for Heidegger that Kierkegaard never had.
  • synthesis
    933
    I think this happens because humans tend to be so stubborn in all painful things or issues. It is quite a paradox right? Repeating aspects that hurt us.javi2541997

    Who knows? And yes, it is quite the paradox.
  • Mikie
    6k


    Nice copy-and-paste of secondary sources, but nowhere does Heidegger disparage Kierkegaard.

    The only Heidegger quote (I think):

    The pertinacity of dialectic, which draws its motivation from a very definite source, is docu- mented most clearly in Kierkegaard. In the properly philosophical aspect of his thought, he did not break free from Hegel. His later turn to Trendelenburg is only added documentation for how little radical he was in philosophy. He did not realize that Trendelenburg saw Ar- istotle through the lens of Hegel. His reading the Paradox into the New Testament and things Christian was simply negative Hegelianism.Joshs

    This isn't a disparagement. Not even close. That Heidegger sees Hegel as the culmination of Western metaphysics (since Plato) is not in question. I never once said Hegel wasn't an influence on Heidegger; I said Kierkegaard was a large influence on Heidegger. And he was. Heidegger had nothing but respect for Kierkegaard, just as he had for Plato, Aristotle, Aquinas, Kant, Descartes, and others -- despite the fact that he considers them still operating within the realm of Greek ontology, and thus within the metaphysics of presence.
  • Joshs
    5.2k
    This isn't a disparagement. Not even close.Xtrix
    Heidegger had nothing but respect for Kierkegaard, just as he had for Plato, Aristotle, Aquinas, Kant, Descartes, and others -- despite the fact they he considers them still within the realm of Greek ontology.Xtrix

    Indeed, as well he should respect them, because they represent the foundation on which his own philosophy is built. Let me clarify what I mean by disparage in the context of Heidegger’s relationship to Kierkegaard.
    Of the philosophical predecessors to one’s own thinking, there are those whose work is distant enough intellectually ( this isn’t necessary correlated with chronology, since Heidegger felt a philosophical proximity to the pre-Socratics) to be of only tangential or historical use to them. By contrast, there is usually a much smaller circle of thinkers whose ideas are considered close enough to one’s own to be considered kindred spirits. For Heidegger, Nietzsche and Holderlin became those figures whereas Kierkegaard was one step removed from this circle. This is what I meant by his being ‘disparaged’ by Heidegger.
  • Mikie
    6k
    For Heidegger, Nietzsche and Holderlin became those figures whereas Kierkegaard was one step removed from this circle. This is what I meant by his being ‘disparaged’ by Heidegger.Joshs

    :up:
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