Unit 6: Martin Heidegger
Martin Heidegger's (1889–1976) extensive and illuminating meditations on what he described as the ontological "question of being" established his reputation as one of the most original and important philosophers of the 20th century.
Like other philosophers we call existentialists, Heidegger refused to associate his own thinking with the term. However, his focus on human existence, anxiety, death, and authenticity – themes his predecessors (Kierkegaard, Dostoevsky, and Nietzsche) and contemporaries (Sartre and Camus) shared – place him at the center of this movement. In this unit, we explore Heidegger's thought, especially the philosophy of existence he introduced in his most famous work, Being and Time (1927).
Completing this unit should take you approximately 5 hours.
Upon successful completion of this unit, you will be able to:
- describe how Heidegger's early work influenced his philosophical thinking;
- explain Heidegger's ontological "question of being";
- summarize Heidegger's critique of Descartes;
- identify the existential categories Heidegger proposes in Being and Time;
- describe key concepts in Heidegger's philosophy of existence; and
- compare Heidegger with his predecessors, particularly Friedrich Nietzsche and Søren Kierkegaard.
6.1: Heidegger, Catholicism, and Phenomenology
The German thinker Martin Heidegger turned his attention to philosophy after initially studying for the priesthood. The German philosophers Franz Brentano (1838–1917) and Edmund Husserl (1859–1938) deeply affected his early thinking. Brentano's work influenced Husserl, and Husserl mentored Heidegger, who worked as his assistant. Heidegger was also inspired by the Socratics, the Greek philosophers who predated Socrates, Søren Kierkegaard, and Friedrich Nietzsche.
Brentano and Husserl were phenomenologists, which refers to the philosophical study of how objects and ideas appear to the consciousness. The phenomenological method involves asking questions related to a first-person perspective. Heidegger applied the phenomenological approach to questions of being. What does it mean to exist within the structure of language and time as a person who is part of the world? He framed questions about consciousness regarding what it means to be in the world.
For Heidegger, phenomenological investigation about being was always hermeneutical, meaning these philosophers applied the theories and methods used to study and interpret texts, starting with biblical interpretation, to the study of meaning. Heidegger believed that all phenomenological investigations about being are interpretive. The intentional nature of consciousness focuses interpretation on one aspect of being, as it closes off other aspects.
Another way to think about this approach is that, for Heidegger, the history of philosophical inquiry is a history of language: our words reveal and shape the world for us. Heidegger aimed to interpret being by introducing new terms and refashioning language. In Being and Time (1927), Heidegger describes the phenomenon as "that which shows itself in itself", which is to say, it is "the manifest". Appearance reveals reality or how things are, but it can also be illusory. Things are or exist in the way they show themselves to our consciousness.
Read this entry on the life and work of Martin Heidegger. How do you think Heidegger's work influenced the history of philosophy and society at large? Many describe him as one of the most important European philosophers of the last century, yet he was also a Nazi. How do you think this happened?
As you watch this lecture, pay attention to where Heidegger "picked up" the study of being. How did Heidegger's study of being differ from his predecessors? How would Heidegger help us address the question of authenticity and the meaning of our existence?
6.2: Dasein and the Ontological Question
According to Heidegger, only human beings ask, "why is there something rather than nothing?" This describes Dasein, the German word for "being there" or disposition, which Roderick Mundy, a professor at the University of Cambridge, defines as the "entity that is conscious of the meaning of its own existence". In other words, Heidegger said, "we are the beings for whom being is an issue". In our daily lives, we take existence for granted; it is the natural backdrop for everything that happens. Heidegger wants to bring this background to the fore and engage in the inquiry known as ontology (what it means to exist).
When we say something exists (let's say a dog or table), we typically mean an object exists that corresponds to the words "dog" and "table". We may say other things about these items, such as the dog being friendly or the table having four legs. However, when we say they exist, we are not adding anything that is not already there. We take existence for granted and go about our business. Heidegger wants us to focus on what it means for the dog and table to be or exist.
Being can be difficult to discern:
- Tradition may cover it up or obfuscate it;
- It may be difficult to focus on, such as when it is too close to see properly; or
- It may be in "disguise", such as when it is too distressing to confront directly.
Heidegger says Western philosophy falls victim to one or all of these types of concealment. Previous interpretations, such as Plato's theory of a soul imprisoned in a body or René Descartes' proclamation "I think, therefore I am" (cogito), are inadequate. The question of Being is a phenomenological question that requires interpretation.Watch this lecture and consider the points of divergence between Heidegger and Nietzsche on various existential themes. Why does Heidegger believe the theories of Descartes and Plato are inadequate for helping us answer the question of being?
Read this article about Heidegger. Who are some of his philosophical influences? What other popular philosophical movements (such as Marxism or cultural philosophy) influenced Heidegger's existential philosophy?
6.3: Heidegger's Critique of Descartes
René Descartes believed God had imbued human beings with certain innate knowledge from birth, including logic, mathematics, geometry, morality, and God himself, who must exist because we can conceive of his perfect existence. The concept of the self and our ability to think is also innate, the belief that led Descartes to make his famous statement, "I think therefore I am" (the Latin cogito, ergo sum).
Descartes' concept of existence was two-fold: There are two types of finite substance: mind and body. Mind is fundamental; I can exist as a "thinking thing" without my body, but I cannot deny my existence without existing, so I can make that denial. More specifically, the act of denial is an act of my self-consciousness. So, to deny my existence as a thinking thing is self-contradictory.
In Being and Time, Heidegger set out to "destroy" the tradition Descartes exemplified in Western philosophy of prioritizing the theoretical knowledge of being. Heidegger believed Descartes' approach was too subjective: arriving at the certainty of myself as a thinking entity involves first-person examination. Heidegger believed that Descartes does not get at being, which depends on context. Rather Descartes approached the question of being "with its skin off".
Heidegger does not believe we logically peel layers off the world to get at what is really there; in Descartes' case, it is the "I think, therefore I am", or cogito.
As Heidegger points out:
It requires a very artificial and complicated frame of mind to "hear" a "pure noise". The fact that motor-cycles and waggons are what we proximally hear is the phenomenal evidence that in every case Dasein, as being-in-the-world, already dwells alongside what is ready-to-hand within-the-world.
– Being and TimeWatch this video. Consider Heidegger's perspectives on coping and survival. What is Heidegger's main issue with the philosophy of René Descartes? According to Heidegger, how is René Descartes' philosophy doomed from the start? What does Heidegger suggest as a starting point for any philosophical investigation?
6.4: Heidegger's Existential Categories for Being and Time
Translated from German to mean "being there", Dasein is the characteristic way of being for human beings. More specifically, "Dasein is that being for whom being is an issue". We are aware of our lives; we care about how things are going and will go. Consequently, Dasein's being is already "disclosed to it". Dasein understands or is always open to its own being.
This Being is different from being or things that "are". Unlike other beings, such as a mouse or a lion, which simply are, Dasein is actively engaged in its Being, as a problem to be solved. Dasein asks "How do I be in the world?" and finds the answer by living and projecting into the future. For Heidegger, Dasein's essential characteristic is existence.Do not confuse Dasein with Descartes' "I think, therefore I am" separated from the world. Instead, Dasein, Being-in-the-world, is a Being-with-others. Being-with is an existential category, one of Dasein's characteristics. So, because Dasein is Being-in-the-world, which involves a complex set of relations and activities, we cannot separate it from the "mind" or "I".
Investigating Dasein brings us closer to addressing the larger question of the meaning of Being. Dasein's Being is already "out in the open". Dasein understands its existence, albeit not comprehensively. That is, because this understanding is of its everydayness, it conceals as much as it discloses. An analysis of Dasein's basic structures provides the foundation for any ontology and for being. This analysis is existential because it is an analysis of Dasein's essence, which is existence.
Dasein exists: it projects itself into the future, into possibilities. This projection occurs in the present against a backdrop of the past. Hence, Dasein's concern with being. After all, this projection involves concern about how things will be. It also relates to the significance of time, as Dasein "understands itself through temporality" (Roderick Munday, Glossary of Terms in Being and Time).
The existential analysis of Dasein is a pursuit of the fundamental categories of being. The categories of existence are existentials (that is, existential concepts). To begin, Dasein is essentially in-the-world. Dasein is not understood independently from its world; the world is where Dasein is (being there). Being-in-the-world, the fundamental category of existence, has been concealed, or covered over, by philosophical tradition, which treats Being as a category distinct from what it is to be human. Being-in-the-world is before, or more basic than, for example, claims about knowing what I am, fundamentally, as, for example, Descartes would have it.
Dasein dwells in the world, is concerned with projects, engages with others, and uses tools. This is Dasein's everydayness. Indeed, these tools, the "ready-to-hand", give Heidegger a way into Being. In daily life, Dasein is directly acquainted with an array of functionalities.
For example, a hammer's function is to drive nails. Understanding the hammer comes from Dasein's engagement with it in a project.
A project that involves a hammer requires more than the hammer itself. So, by extension, Dasein fundamentally dwells in complex functional relations. Is there a point where no further involvements occur? Yes. Consider that we do not notice the hammer until it ceases to function: its breaking brings the hammer to the fore.
When it ceases to serve a function, the hammer, as a hammer, disappears, and the "damaged equipment" is pure "presence-at-hand". It is now an object until someone takes it up again in another involvement, such as in a new "to-be-fixed" project. However, Dasein can never be an object, but according to Heidegger, that is exactly how Western philosophy treats it. Tradition has been an exercise in covering up the meaning of being. When the hammer breaks, the entire network of the world or the "worldhood of the world" comes into view. It is this complex network of references, which are suddenly set in stark relief, which constitutes the world.
While you view this video, pay special attention to the description of how Heidegger claims that we avoid thinking about our own death in our everyday lives. How is our avoidance of thinking about our own death related to what Heidegger calls authenticity and inauthenticity? When are we at our most inauthentic, according to Heidegger?
This article gives an overview of Heidegger's concept of "sense". Do you agree that it's not obvious that the question of "being" should be asked in terms of the word "sense"? How might assuming that the many senses of being can actually be organized around one focal sense limit our existential understanding of being?
6.5: Heidegger's Philosophy of Existence
Dasein is never without mood. We might say we never just are, but we are always a certain way. Disposedness describes Dasein's receptivity to having things matter, to care. As Roderick Munday points out, "Dasein's being is always looking out towards the world is therefore is essentially manifested in care". Dasein is "thrown" into the world: we can say we did not choose to be born, but here we are.
In short, Dasein is determined by its thrownness. In this or that situation, however, Dasein finds possibilities for acting; these possibilities provide the fore-structures of projection, or freedom.
Insofar as Dasein projects itself, it is always being-ahead-of-itself. So, while Dasein's thrownness is part of its facticity (the facts about it), it is also dynamic. A possibility not actualized is just as much of Dasein's structural component as the one that is.
Dasein's mood means the world is disclosed in a particular way: joy or sadness, for example, means the world is disclosed as a delightful or sorrowful place. It is not that the mood colors the world, but the world just is this for Dasein. This is what it is for Dasein to be in the world.
Both thrownness and projection are two of the three dimensions of care. The third is fallenness. "Dasein has, in the first instance, fallen away from itself as an authentic potentiality for Being its Self, and has fallen into the world", which is manifested in a lack of critically-examined discourse (idle talk), superficial or novel stimulation (curiosity), and insensitivity to the distinction between understanding and mere chatter (ambiguity). In this way, Dasein is inauthentic. Authentic Dasein is my own, or mine. It is a "my-self" rather than a "they-self". The latter is constitutive of Dasein's existence, so authenticity becomes a way of relating to others without being lost to them.
This continual projection will bring Dasein to contemplate death. There is no phenomenology of death, so a complete analysis of existence is, phenomenologically, impossible.
"[A]lthough Dasein cannot experience its own death as actual, it can relate toward its own death as a possibility that is always before it", its "being-toward-death" (Michael Wheeler). It is a possibility that can never be actualized (again, there is no way to experience one's own death), so death is always only a possibility.
Moreover, "my awareness of that possibility illuminates me, qua Dasein, in my totality. Indeed, my own death is revealed to me as inevitable, meaning that Dasein is essentially finite" (Wheeler). Care is reinterpreted as "being-toward-death". Here, too, both authentic and inauthentic modes appear. Concerning death, inauthentic Dasein is fearful, while authentic Dasein is anticipation, the making death my own by, as it were, going out to meet it in this anticipation. Note the distinction that Heidegger makes between primordial understanding and basic understanding.
Read this article and consider what Heidegger means by "care". How is Heidegger's notion of care different from how we usually understand the concept of care? What role does care play in Heidegger's analysis of our own being? What about this notion of truth makes it radically different from how you might commonly think of truth?
6.6: Heidegger, Nietzsche, and Kierkegaard
Heidegger's early work reflects a positive view of Nietzsche's concept of the will. However, his later work takes a significant turn. In Being and Time, Heidegger presents the will as essential to Dasein's temporal experience, particularly when he discusses Dasein's realization of its own mortality. Later, however, Heidegger believes Nietzsche's concepts of the will to power, truth, and the eternal recurrence of the same are "co-extensive" or reflect elements of traditional Western metaphysics, which Heidegger rejects.
Heidegger's view of the self contrasts with Kierkegaard's. Hubert Dreyfus, an American philosopher from the University of California, Berkeley, explains that for Heidegger, "who you are is the social role you have taken over". For example, if you decide to become a wife, you may accept certain traditional aspects of the role you are thrown into (the particular role different societies dictate for you), or you can create your own social persona or change your role altogether if you wish. But it is still just a role. "It is never really you". What is essential about you is that "you can take a stand on your own being".
Kierkegaard believed that the person you are is based on an unconditional commitment, such as your love or commitment for another, be it another person, a group of people, or God. The temporal is easy – you are living in time, and you can reinterpret its meaning throughout your life – but the moment you profess an unconditional commitment, you create your own identity for life. The unconditional commitment you choose provides existential meaning and is eternal.
For Kierkegaard, your unconditional commitment to God provides you with an identity and is the highest stage of the self, associated with religiosity. The ethical self is the second highest, while the aesthetic self is the lowest. In some respects, Kierkegaard's aesthete is similar to Heidegger's condition of fallenness.
Read this article, which explores the anti-modernism present in Heidegger's work. Do you agree that the anti-modernist movement longs for the traditions and certainties before modernity? Does this longing equate to the principles of existentialism? Do most of us wish to return to a world that no longer exists?
Unit 6 Assessment
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