If one can only understand what the utility of Heidegger’s Being and Time is, one might need to rip
the book to shreds or stay away from the engagement of Heidegger’s work. The
trouble I find with trying to understand Heidegger’s text is that his vocabulary
is too close to us. He reworks the utility of our very own language, and causes
a great stress with the fact that his work appears groundless. True he provides
categories for us to remember, and he tries to establish some sense of
objectivity. Is this establishment part of being the Dasein? It’s hard to say.
We are fundamentally being with Heidegger’s work alongside being with ‘the
they’, but being thrown into the work and facing the pain of learning what it
means to be a subject. For Heidegger,
the question of our being is fundamentally the first question that ought to be
answered, yet have we gotten any closer to seeing what it is to be? Perhaps the world that we have inherited, including our
cultures and language, are improperly developed to allow for such an
undertaking.
I apologize, I have turned to ranting and raving, but I
believe that this rant is a significant part of being a Dasein, for all of us
have been thrown into this world with the possibility of understanding, yet
trying to contort ourselves into finding a project or activity that
successfully gets us closer to seeing the truth leads me away from being my own
self. It appears as though the analysis of our ‘selves’ forces the Dasein to
move away from oneself, for it negates the presupposition of human-ness. If
this is the case, then can Heidegger really have been an existentialist? Or is
he just the fuel that allowed existentialism to flourish?
Another question, will we ever get to the question of Being? Or are we going to have to be
stuck of dealing with the analysis of being
a Dasein? If we are stuck doing questions that avoid the analytic approach of
Being, is it possible for us to even conceive of Being?
Side note, if you are ever curious to listen to some fantastic philosophy, check out the www.partiallyexaminedlife.com website. Enjoy!
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