FORGETFULNESS IN A WORLDLESS WORLD

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FORGETFULNESS IN A WORLDLESS WORLD
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• 1. THE HORIZON OF THE BLACK FOREST
• What is Heidegger's concept of philosophy?
• 2. BEING-TOWARD-DEATH
• How to conceive of Being-in-the- World?
• 3. ART AND SCIENCE
• Which attitude should one prefer in times of
  modern technology?

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1. THE HORIZON OF THE BLACK FOREST
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MARTIN HEIDEGGER (1889-1976)

• BIOGRAPHICAL NOTIONS
• 26 September 1889 born in Messkirch (Germany)
• 1909 starts to study theology and philosophy.
• 1922 Professor at the University of Marburg.
• 1927 publication of Sein und Zeit.
• 1928 Professor at the University of Freiburg.
• April 1933- February 1934 Rector of the
  University of Freiburg.
• 1945-1951 prohibited to teach because of the
  de-Nazification rules.
• 1951-1967 Honorary Professor.
• 26 May 1976 death.

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IMPORTANT PUBLICATIONS

• Sein und Zeit (1927)
• Was ist Metaphysik? (1929)
• Vom Wesen der Wahrheit (1943)
• Holzwege (1950)
• Vorträge und Aufsätze (1954)
• Zur Sache des Denkens (1969)

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THE SPIRIT OF THE AGE

• Neo-Kantianism (Rickert, Hartman)
• Phenomenology (Husserl)
• Hermeneutics (Dilthey)
• Philosophy of the will (Nietzsche)
• Philosophy of life (Bergson)

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ON THE ROAD

• The road (question) is more interesting than the
  end (answer).
• Titels of his work indicate that Holzwege ,
  Der Feldweg, Unterwegs zur Sprache and
  Wegmarken.
• Philosophers are often triggered to think when
  they get off the track.
• New horizons.
• Philosophy is universal phenomenological
  ontology, taking its departure from the
  hermeneutic of Da-sein, which, as an analysis of
  existence, has fastened the end of the guideline
  of all philosophical inquiry at the point from
  which it arises and to which it returns.
• Philosophy as the criticism of metaphysics and a
  new way of thinking.

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CONSTANT ASPECTS OF HEIDEGGERS STYLE OF
PHILOSOPHY

• Everyday life as point of departure for his
  writings.
• The texts are rather hermetic.
• The use of a lot of neologisms.

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2. BEING-TOWARD-DEATH
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TIME

• Ludwig Wittgenstein, in his Philosophical
  Investigations (par. 89), refers to Augustines
  question What is time? Something that we know
  when no one asks us, but no longer know when we
  are supposed to give an account of it, is
  something that we need to remind ourselves.
• We have forgotten the question of the meaning of
  Being
• What is self-evident is not often questioned.
• Central question what is the meaning of Being?
• Answer Time as the possible horizon for any
  understanding whatsoever of being.
• Always when we use the word Being we are
  involved in a temporal determination.

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A RETRIEVE OF THE QUESTION OF BEING

• Reclaiming the question of being.
• Three prejudices
• 1. Being is the most universal concept of all
  
• 2. This concept is indefinable
• 3. It is a self-evident concept.
• Thus to retrieve the question of being means
  first of all to work out adquately the
  formulation of the question.

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THE FORMAL STRUCTURE OF THE QUESTION OF BEING

• Elements of the question of Being
• 1. Being.
• 2. Da-sein (existence) gt This being which we
  ourselves in each case are and which includes
  inquiry among the possibilities of its being..
• 3. The meaning of Being.

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THE ONTOLOGICAL PRIORITY OF THE QUESTION OF BEING

• Why the question of Being?
• Answer the crisis of the sciences.
• It is a crisis of its basic concepts.
• All ontology, no matter how rich and tightly
  knit a system of categories it has at its
  disposal, remains fundamentally blind and
  perverts its innermost intent if it has not
  previously clarified the meaning of being
  sufficiently and grasped this clarification as
  its fundamental task.

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THE ONTIC PRIORITY OF THE QUESTION OF BEING

• Ontological priority gt basic concepts.
• Ontic priority gt a specific way of being Dasein.
• Da-sein itself is distinctly different from other
  beings.
• Existenz the very being to which Da-sein can
  relate in one way or another, and somehow always
  does relate.
• Existentiell gt the fact that we come to terms
  with the question of existence only through
  existence itself.
• Existentiality gt the structures of the existence
  that have to be analyzed.
• Ontologies gt the ways of being studied by the
  sciences.
• Fundamental ontology gt the existential analysis
  of Da-sein.

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THE ONTOLOGICAL ANALYSIS OF DA-SEIN AS THE
EXPOSURE OF THE HORIZON FOR AN INTERPRETATION OF
THE MEANING OF BEING IN GENERAL

• Da-sein it ontically nearest to itself and
  ontologically farthest away.
• The meaning of the being that being we call
  Da-sein proves to be temporality Zeitlichkeit.

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THE DESTRUCTION OF THE HISTORY OF ONTOLOGY

• The plan for the second part of the book.
• The temporality of Being manifests itself as
  history.
• The analysis of the history of different
  conceptions of time, i.e. in the writings of
  Kant, Descartes and Aristotle.
• Destruction gt construction of new horizons.

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THE PHENOMENOLOGICAL METHOD OF THE INVESTIGATION

• The maxim of the phenomenological method To the
  things themselves.
• The concept of phenomenon gt that what shows
  itself in itself.
• The concept of logos gt the discourse that makes
  manifest what one is talking about in ones
  discourse truth is a question of aletheia
  de-tection, i.e. uncovering entities in their
  Being.
• Phenomenology gt to let what shows itself be
  seen from itself, just as it shows itself from
  itself.
• Phenomenological description gt hermeneutics gt
  interpretation.

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THE TASK OF A PRIMORDIAL EXISTENTIAL
INTERPRETATION OF THIS BEING

• After the analysis of Dasein follows the
  existential interpretation of Dasein.
• An ontological interpretation focuses on the
  totality of the beings.
• If the interpretation of the being of Da-sein is
  to become primordial as a foundation for the
  development of the fundamental question of
  ontology, it will have to bring the being of
  Da-sein in its possible authentic and total
  existentially to light beforehand.

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GRASPING AND DETERMINING DA-SEIN AS A WHOLE

• Is the whole of Dasein accesible at all in its
  being?
• The impossibility of experiencing Da-sein
  ontically as an existing whole.
• The death of other persons doesnt give us access
  to the wholeness of Dasein.
• Death gt the lost of the being of the there.
• Our own death is a border for the intepretation
  and the articulation.

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OUTSTANDING, ENDING AND TOTALITY

• Three theses
• 1. As long as Da-sein is, a not-yet belongs to
  it, something that is constantly outstanding.
• 2. The coming-to-its-end of what is
  not-yet-at-an-end has the character of
  no-longer-being-there.
• 3. Coming-to-an-end implies a mode of being in
  which the actual Da-sein absolutely cannot be
  represented by someone else.
• The theses correspond to outstanding, ending and
  totality.
• The ending that we have in view when we speak of
  death, does not signify a being-at-an-end of
  Da-sein, but rather a being toward the end of
  this being. Death is a way to be that Dasein
  takes over as soon as it is.

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THE EXISTENTIAL ANALYSIS OF DEATH

• Beyond an ontic analysis.
• Beyond methaphysical questions.
• Towards an existential analysis of death.
• Death gives the opportunity to reveal the
  character of possibility of Da-sein.
• What is the ontological structure of the
  being-toward-the-end of Da-sein?

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THE EXISTENTIAL AND ONTOLOGICAL STRUCTURE OF DEATH

• With death, Da-sein stands before itself in its
  own most potentiality-of-being. In this
  possibility, Da-sein is concerned about its
  being-in-the world absolutely.
• The Dasein is thrown into this possiblity.
• This thrownness reveals itself in the attunement
  of anxiety.

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BEING-TOWARD-DEATH AND THE EVERDAYNESS OF DA-SEIN

• The idle talk in everyday life doesnt reveal
  what being-toward-death means.
• In the everyday life we try to get rid of the
  death.
• We need a courageous attitude towards death.

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AUTHENTICITY

• Everyday of inauthenticity gt Dasein is lost to
  itself.
• To achieve authenticity gt Dasein must find
  itself.
• The voice of conscience bears witness to this
  possibility for Dasien.
• Conscience gives us something to understand, it
  discloses.
• Heidegger is interested in the ontological or
  existential foundation of conscience gt something
  that asks us to be authentic.

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CONSCIENCE

• Conscience reveals the possibilities of bein
  complete.
• Conscience is a call from the situation of
  falling prey to become oneself.
• Conscience discloses gt belongs to the scope of
  the existential phenomena which constitute the
  being of the there as disclosedness.

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CONSCIENCE AS A CALL

• Who is called? Dasein!
• To what is one summoned? To ones own self?
• The call does not say anything, does not give any
  information about events of the world, has
  nothing to tell.
• Conscience speaks solely and constantly in the
  mode of silence.

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THE CALL OF CARE

• The call is precisely something that we ourselves
  have neither planned nor prepared for nor
  willfully brought about gt the call comes from me,
  and yet over me.
• Conscience reveals itself as the call of care
  the call is Da-sein, anxious in throwness about
  its potentiality of being.
• The structural moments of care
• 1. Throwness.
• 2. Potentiality-of-being.
• 3. Falling Prey

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GUILT

• All concepts of conscience have one thing in
  common gt conscience reveals guilt.
• Vulgar concept of guilt gt having debts and giving
  someone something back.
• The existential idea of guilty as
  being-the-ground for a being which is determined
  by a not that is, being-the-ground of a nullity.

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THE AUTHENTIC POTENTIALITY-OF-BEING ATTESTED IN
CONSCIENCE

• Resoluteness gt the most primordial truth of
  Da-sein has been reached, because it is
  authentic.
• For the they, however, situation is essentially
  closed off. The they knows only the general
  situation loses itself in the nearest
  opportunities, and settles its Da-sein by
  calculating the accidents which it fails to
  recognize, deems its own achievements and passes
  off as such

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DOES IT MAKE SENSE TO TALK IN TERMS OF
(IN)AUTHENTICITY?

• The They gt people lose themselves in the nearest
  opportunities.
• Authentic life gt resoluteness to live the
  lifetime in a conscious way.
• Nevertheless people hide themselves behind the
  They.

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3. THE QUESTION OF BEING
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THE THEORETICAL PRACTICE OF DEATH

• A concentration on the existential structure of
  specific moods and states of mind, like anxiety.
• Being-toward-death gt with death, Da-sein stands
  before itself in its own most potentiality-of-bein
  g.
• This possibility shows that Da-sein is concerned
  about its being-in-the-world.
• The Dasein is thrown into this possibility.

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STYLISTIC CHANGES

• Till 1935 analysis of the Dasein.
• After 1935 analysis of the Being via an
  analysis of the presocratic philosophers,
  Nietzsche and literature.
• Till 1935 more or less a classical
  philosophical style mixed with an analysis of
  everyday experiences.
• After 1935 evocative style with an analysis of
  literature and technology.

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NEW PATHS

• Truth is not a question of the Logos, i.e. making
  a judgment, but a question of Being.
• Aletheia gt that what is not hidden.
• This concept refers to two things
• 1. The Being shows itself.
• 2. Activity of the human being gt deconstruction
  of the way we think.

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FORGETFULNESS OF BEING

• The whole history of philosophy hides the Being gt
  forgetfulness of Being.
• Therefore we have to deconstruct this history.
• We need a new kind of language.
• Someone like Hölderlin provides such a language.

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THE TRUTH OF ART

• Art has a truth-function.
• Good art gt world disclosure.
• Criticism of instrumental reason.
• Technology embodies instrumental reason.

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SUBJECT AND OBJECT

• Philosophy is preoccupied with control.
• The reason is the subject-object model of
  philosophy.
• Metaphysics has a theological element
  ontotheology.
• The technological age is also preoccupied by this
  metaphysical way of thinking.
• The correct attitude Gelassenheit (stay cool) gt
  accept to a certain extent your fate.

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HEURISTIC VALUE

• Existentialism (Jean-Paul Sartre).
• Post-Structuralism (Michel Foucault).
• Deconstructivism (Jacques Derrida).
• Hermeneutics (Hans-Georg Gadamer).
• Neo-Marxism (Herbert Marcuse)
• Theology (Rudolf Boltmann).
• Literary Criticism (Paul de Man).