Heideggerian Metaphysics

My eyes are going all googly. I read this stuff in college (i.e. about a decade ago) and understood it then, but right now I'm drawing a complete blank. I'm sure someone more knowledgeable will happen by soon, but in the meantime, I just wanted to proffer a hearty welcome to A2K, elsal1225.

elsal1225

Welcome to A2K.

I read this even earlier, a couple of decades ago, and at school.

I do remember that I did have some idea about what was meant - but all is lost by now.

*confused* Wow. I've never actually been welcomed warmly and sincerely to a forum of any kind. Typically, a sort of xenophobia pervades the feel of the board, and only after several months of posting can one feel accepted.

As for the book, it's alright. I'm fairly certain I have it under control, now, after having slept on it. But, if anyone wants to post a reply, I'd be happy to have another opinion on the meaning of the work.

elsal...; (well come) I think maybe you should be trying to get your 30cents back!

elsal, if you have it under control, care to share your insights? I've been vaguely thinking about this since I read it and it's giving me a headache.

So... I confess... I've been "shopping" for a good philosophy forum for some time now- and I happened upon this page, and saw the post of confusion about Dasein's- for lack of a better word- "historicity" (it seems Heidegger scholars and translators are really fond of inventing new words)- and thought to myself- hey! Maybe I can help! Or at least direct you to someone who can. You may very well have it under control- Heidegger is very very hard to read. I happen to be a(n early) Heideggerian, so, I'll share some thoughts.

I'll admit first off that my experience of Heidegger is basically Being and Time plus some snippets of later work- and the Introduction to Metaphysics is not a work with which I am familliar- but, I do know something about the history of Heidegger's career, and about some of the common misconceptions about Heidegger's project- not at all my own insights of course. Someone else can probably do it more efficiently, but, as chance would have it, you've got me.

So, the early Heidegger- circa Being and Time- was reputedly interested in "investigating the meaning of being" - and in particular, that of Dasein- which we are to understand are things like us. Now, this isn't -quite- right, in fact, as my favorite Heidegger scholar Thomas Sheehan has pointed out. What Heidegger is really interested in doing is clarifying what he (either Heidegger or Sheehan's wording) calls 'the clearing of being'- that is, how it is we make things intelligible. So, there is rich discussion in BT about mankind's "discursiveness" (understanding objects as tools and that sort of thing) and "temporality," etc. As of the early 1930s, Heidegger's focus shifted a little bit and he became very interested in history. He also started getting worked up about what he called "the mystery of being." He also got worked up about a few German rabblerousers- the Nazis.
I recommend Heidegger before 1930. But, in both cases, the project was actually out to do metaphysics in a new way- by describing how things in the world become accessible and intelligible to us.

Anyway, Heidegger made sense of the individual as what he called a "thrown project"- that is, sentient, free, etc. but subject to the meanings prescribed by its immediate context and further just plain subject to meaning. But for Dasein to be "authentic" in its being, Heidegger maintained that with the meanings absorbed from one's context, one needed to do something heroic- to put a twist on things and make them one's own. (I realize now that I'm repeating a summary given to me by a professor- secondhand information- if it serves to clarify the point, great- if I'm way off, let me know quick so I can go nag the professor) Further, that, at certain times in Heidegger's career, meant doing what one's own era in history called for. For Heidegger that meant saving Europe from the nihilism he saw it mired in, and, well, joining the Nazi party.

That's somewhat accessory to the point when it comes to Heidegger's basic metaphysics:
Its important to remember- Heidegger is doing hermeneutics. Dasein's being is "in each case" its own- but nevertheless Dasein is not "the master of meaning"- it grasps the objects in encounters by means of meanings that are always a product of being-in-the-world. So, you could characterize the being of Dasein in terms of a mix of activity and passivity- acting but with an understanding passively absorbed from the World (and the "They"- that is, the public sphere). So, your original question- you might be able to see this already- is dead on. The totality of history is how we have to understand Dasein's being- Dasein is "thrown" into a world that's been around for a very, very long time- and its being is wrapped up in that world in all of its qualities.

wow, so much language with so little to say. For actual *clarity* on the subject, I recommend reading Tom Sheehan- in the religion department at Stanford, who has a lot of really clear and interesting articles about Heidegger. Particularly great stuff about Heidegger the man, but, his philosophical renderings are -extremely- helpful:
Tom Sheehan's webpage
He has a large number of articles online. That should help if you run into any more questions.

There. That's all from your friendly wandering Heidegger-dork.

Hi aporiasetc and welcome to Able2Know!

Man, it's been, eek, 20 or so years since I read any Heidegger, and it was, like you did, Being & Time. I recall liking him better than Sartre at the time, but it's been quite a while and I can't say as I could follow either these days. Thanks for your insights.

Welcome, aporiasetc, and thanks for the link!

It sure is nice to be welcomed. Thanks very much.

I'm an undergrad in philosophy, so what was 30 years ago for many of you is my here and now. If anyone ever happens to have a question about some philosopher they read ages ago and are scratching their head over today, I can try to be johnny-on-the-spot because this is all fresh for me. If nothing else I have lots of texts on hand and greatly enjoy peeling off the rather verbose (if flawed) explanation.

Heidegger is more appealing to me than Sartre as well, although I confess I've had little direct interaction with the latter. We generally look disparagingly on Sartre for being a bit too Cartesian in his thought, i.e. giving the individual more control over meaning than s/he probably really has. But that's probably as much the current fashion as anything else.

Cheers.

If evolution is history, and history is the actual existence, then the evolved existence is the actual existence. You will find the values elsewhere or find nothing.

Evolution is most definitely not history; evolution is process!
Even history is not entirely history yet; I wish it were!

Relevance?

Consciousness implicit and explictly realized in evolution is history. History does not tell the values.
(They do not overcome Plato here again.)

A little bargain basement philosophy:

"History is like religion, if too much emphasis is placed on it it can be quite debilitating" - BoGoWo, 2003.

In this case, no corollary!

Sorry about the lack of replies - my computer decided to die on me, which is a rather significant roadblock to replying.

Anyways, I'm pretty sure that I've got it. Aporiasetc, thank you very much for the response, but I've come up with something a little bit different.

First, we should note that Heidegger hates ancient AND modern philosophy. Heidegger's Introduction to Metaphysics was a series of lectures given long after Being and Time, when he had changed some of his fundamental beliefs. However, his interest remained on finding the Being of Dasein. Heidegger thinks that the degradation of society began with the misinterpretation of the Being of Dasein, with Socrates being the first of those to misinterpret Being.

Now, given that, Heidegger wants to make a grand jump (that "willed leap") he always spoke so much about, and fling himself back over all of modern philosophy, over all of ancient philosophy, and right down on top of Parmenides (a pre-Socratic interested in Being). *going to have to make the rest of this quick, and then head off to work* With this leap, Heidegger feels he can discover a unity of Being of Dasein with History (not historical science, but History as a sum total), such that Being is unaffected by time, but Dasein is a function of time.

*Now I'm late* so, Heidegger has his plan, explaining why he reinvents German over the course of his writings, he asserts that humanity is a function of History and Being, and without History, Being withers as well, he high-fives the early Nazis, and we all get a bed-time story.

I'll be back later

We're already makin' you late for work, elsal! And not even a computer crash keeps you away -- yep, we got ourselves the makings of a first-rate A2K addict here.

You're making sense, looking forward to the rest of it.

This is the bit of Heidegger I don't feel qualified to give a summary of because I haven't read it yet. But what you've said accords with what I've read of the man, so, I think its fairly accurate. There are a lot of debates, however, about just how much Heidegger shifted his fundamental beliefs at the "turn" of his career. A lot of scholars these days have the view that it was more a change in approach- the shift to the historical orientation away from the metaphysical- than a reverse of fundamental beliefs. I'm inclined to believe Heidegger did most of what he wanted to do in Being and Time (ignoring that fabled third part that was never written) and simply moved on to other projects, and began to take a more prevalent interest in the pre-socratics as model metaphysicians- in short, what you describe above.

Anyway, thanks for filling in the relevant details that I wasn't able to- its very fascinating stuff. I've got to read some later Heidegger one of these days.