You are NOT a mere thing! - Heidegger on Dasein
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- čas přidán 19. 06. 2024
- Today I walk though Heidegger's conception of Dasein and how it is ontologically distinctive from "mere things." I illustrate this by showing how his complicated thought can actually help us make sense of the mundane experience of having a boss that treats us poorly.
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For more on Heidegger's notion of Dasein, see:
epochemagazine.org/09/what-is...
danke!
Thank you for your take on Dasein, a concept which I'm currently exploring. Over the last few decades I've noticed in both the workplace and communities that people are being treated evermore as utility objects as opposed to 'persons' with an interiority! In an ideal world we would treat each other with 'care' and thus mutually bring forth each others 'person hood' and Dasein. What you're are saying is categorically NOT a word salad, it as an absolute necessity! Moreover the failure to treat others with dignity, as persons .... is everywhere to be seen - increasing crime & violence, drug abuse , alienation, loneliness, extremism., a meaning crisis........
Thank you so very much!! I agree entirely with you about the way in which the personhood (and moral dignity) of folks is being replaced by utility decisions driven by a desire for profit and power. Sigh. In my new book, "Camping with Kierkegaard," I try to respond to these tendencies at length by arguing that we need to seek faithfulness (risk with direction) rather than success (external applause). It is hard to go against the cultural current in this way, but I think that Lao Tzu gets it right when he says that we should not strive to be rare and polished like jade, but common and rugged as rocks. Sadly, we all try to set ourselves apart from folks and, ironically, lose ourselves in the crowd. But, when we see others as all equal, important, etc., then we stand out from the crowd by not making it about "us." Rocks are able to endure a lot of external pressure and allow the water to continue to roll off. In solidarity, my friend.
I have understood Dasein to be a perspective much like Doetoevskys’ underground. my perspective is that “being there” is now a strange and frightening place to be and its only going to get more so. if left to posterity what will be their philosophical take on us…being nowhere?
Thanks for this thought. I definitely think that there are some “underground man” dynamics especially in later Heidegger when he talks about the dehumanizing impacts of technology. Also, you are right that the existential layers are always on play in his phenomenology.
Do you think it is possible to become more or less Dasein? Perhaps some interact with being more authentically than others, making some as Nietzsche would say "higher in rank".
The saintly type of person comes to mind, one who seemingly appreciates existence and lives it out on a completely different scale than most people.
So, this is a good question. I don't think that we are more or less Dasein, but (on Heidegger's terms), more or less authentically engaged in what it means to be Dasein. Or, for Sartre, we can be more or less in good faith (or bad faith) insofar as we own up to the task of self-making. I don't think that there is much evidence in Heidegger or Sartre for the sort of hierarchical structures that one finds in so much of Nietzsche's work (even though he locates such hierarchy as a product of will, rather than social identities). That said, I think that the best way of making this all work out is simply to remind ourselves that freedom is real and so we can do things differently. Are we choosing intentionally to be the person we are becoming? If not, then cultivate habits that encourage such intentional living.
Thanks for the video and discourse. The very being as me, can this be a predestined Being.... Just by chance.????
Thanks for watching! So, sure the question of predestination remains open in relation to the possibility of free will for beings like us. That is a metaphysical question that is not really the focal point of the existentialists. Instead, they start from the assumption that freedom defines our existence (as an historical reality) and go from there. But, it might be the case that this is all just a kind of wishful thinking and we are deeply causally determined. For what it is worth, I come down on the side of freedom. I think that determinism gets rid of too much of what makes the human condition so compelling.
Did Hideger really made a mistake? I wondwr now!
Antisemitism is evil. Heidegger was wrong to give into such cultural temptations. We would be wrong to confuse what Levinas terms the “hatred of the other person” with a legitimate critique of deeply immoral state actions and actors.
What a load of word salad hooey. Lmfao. Sorry pal. I'm not into wrestling no mo'. Never really was.
I get ya. Heidegger is definitely complicated linguistically. I hope you find other videos here on the channel that are not quite so frustrating. I do a lot of different things and currently these are just a brief series of engagements with Heidegger to try to make his philosophy relevant to our everyday lives, but yeah the way he puts things is tough. I will get back to posting videos about stoicism and mtn biking soon! ha.
@@philosophyforwherewefindou919 Here's my take: You're born, you live, and at some point you die. How you live depends on a combo of circumstances and choices. Sometimes more of one than the other. Whatever your circumstances, you can choose to be a person who acts, or attempts to act, in an ethical manner, or you can be a selfish prick. There seem to be more of the latter than the former from my experience. Personally, I tend to look at the human race with a jaundiced eye. Individuals may or may not qualify as exceptions. And I don't exclude myself from that. So, yeah. I'm not really interested in a bunch of salubrious philosophical mumbo jumbo about how we only need to do this, or realize that, and we'll become enlightened beings. I've heard that clap trap from new agey types for years, and I don't think most of them are any better than the rest of us. It's mostly a load of blather, masquerading as something profound. Imco
@@brucemacmillan9581 for what it is worth, I agree with you on everything but the idea that we should look at humans with a jaundiced eye - though plenty of humans give us reason to do so! And, yeah, philosophy can often be a bunch of jargon without any traction in everyday life. I am trying my best to show how philosophy is not an abstract field, but a matter of realizing that finitude is real and so finding meaning is important. I tend to think that music captures these big ideas much better than books by philosophers, so your very good points make me think of the Slipknot song "People = S*&t". My hope is that we can find ways for less people to be like that and sure Heidegger might not be the best language in which to say it, but his point is still a good one. As I tell my son every day, "I don't care if you are rich, but I do care if you are kind." I really appreciate the critique and the reminder to keep my head out of the clouds.