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مدخل إلى الميتافيزيقيا

Martin Heidegger,

عماد نبيل (ترجمة)

4.05 · Rating details · 3,939 ratings · 86 reviews

إنّ ما هو عديم الجدوى أو النفع يظل مع ذلك ذا قوة، ربما هي القوة الوحيدة الحقيقية. إن ما ليس له صدى مباشر في مسيرة الحياة اليومية يمكن أن يرتبط بشكلٍ وثيقٍ بعملية التطور التاريخي العميق للأمة، بل يمكن له حتى أن يتوقع خطوات هذا التطور. إن ما هو في غير أوانه أو سابقاً له سوف يكون له زمانه الخاص به. هذه هي بالضبط حقيقة الفلسفة. بناءً على ذلك، ليس هنالك من طريقة نحدد من خلالها ...more

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Published 2015 by دار الفارابي (first published July 1929)

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Sep 01, 2018 Fergus rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: philosophy, philosophy-and-religion

“And so they sent me away -
Taught me how to be sensible,
Logical...”
Supertramp, Logical Song

MANICHEANISM, ANIMISM & SPIDERWEBS...

An old school friend of mine has a Manichean mind.

Oh, that's not such a bad thing, considering the whole intent of our society is Manichean.

You know the story:

Night and day, wrong and right, dark and light. We live in a world of logical, common sense dualities.

But... do we, I mean, TOTALLY live in that world? Its strictures can strangle you! And you know what I thin ...more

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Jun 20, 2014 the kenosha kid rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

We wish to review a book on Goodreads. But we do not yet know what Goodreads truly means. We might say it is a social network for book readers. Certainly. But this statement does not touch upon what veils itself be-neath, be-hind and be-yond our subject matter. To arrive at our destination and let it show itself truly to our Dasein, we must first learn to inquire in a more originary manner about Goodreads. We must learn to think Goodreads, and therefore reviews, as the Greeks first thought it, a ...more

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May 30, 2015 Ian "Marvin" Graye rated it liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: cul-poli-phil-art, read-2015, lit-krit, reviews-3-stars, reviews, heidegger

The Adorno Perspective

"Heidegger's philosophy is fascist right down to its innermost components." (January, 1963)

Being and Time

I read "Being and Time", sensitive to the possibility that I might encounter these Fascist connotations.

The only context in which I felt there were any conceivable Fascist undertones was Heidegger's discussion of the authenticity of the individual in society.

Ironically, it seemed to suggest that the individual might become inauthentic in the face of peer group pressu ...more

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Apr 14, 2012 Jeremy rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: philosophy

If you've never read Heidegger, this probably isn't too bad of a place to start out. He actually reveals a great deal more about his motives and methods in the first part of this than in a lot of his other writings. Both his circular style of questioning (and Heidegger is all about questioning, not arguing, not declaring, but really asking sincerely about what things are.) and his emphasis on close, intensely focused etymological readings are well laid out here and not as difficult to get at as ...more

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Mar 02, 2015 Ian "Marvin" Graye rated it liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: cul-poli-phil-art, heidegger, read-2015, reviews, reviews-3-stars

Last in Translation

I read this collection of lectures after reading "Being and Time".

There are two English versions of this work: one translated by Ralph Manheim, and this version by Gregory Fried and Richard Polt.

I acquired a cheap copy of the earlier version, before becoming aware that there was a more recent translation.

The Manheim version presents readers with a problem of comprehension, through no fault of its own.

There is nothing wrong with the translation from the point of view of com ...more

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Nov 27, 2011 David Haines rated it liked it · review of another edition

This book is a very difficult book to read. Some books, twice as long, can be read and analyzed properly within a week. This book takes a long time. Each sentence is so full of meaning that it is impossible to read this book quickly! Heidegger begins by asking what he views as the fundamental question of Metaphysics, "Why is there something rather than nothing?". The rest of the book is his attempt to answer this question. The subject itself is difficult, so the reader needs to give Heidegger th ...more

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Jul 20, 2017 Zoonanism rated it liked it · review of another edition

Quite a creative way of playing with language, a mesmerizing camouflage. Message: Equivocate and juxtapose concepts in style and you'd have an audience fooled into thinking they have witnessed a novel truth. Marshall Applewhite with some Nietzschean flourish and mistranslated Greek passages would probably be as good. ...more

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Sep 20, 2017 Gary Beauregard Bottomley rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Why is this book such a good book or what one can learn from it?

1) It's an incredibly easy to read book. At the high school or first year college level.
2) This is the book that Heidegger scholars love to quote since it is easy to follow
3) 'il n'y a pas de hors-texte', Derrida's French expression for there is nothing outside of the text. It doesn't matter who the writer was. It matters what he said. My wife and I disagree. She thinks that a philosophy matters on how the philosopher lived. I do no Why is this book such a good book or what one can learn from it?

1) It's an incredibly easy to read book. At the high school or first year college level.
2) This is the book that Heidegger scholars love to quote since it is easy to follow
3) 'il n'y a pas de hors-texte', Derrida's French expression for there is nothing outside of the text. It doesn't matter who the writer was. It matters what he said. My wife and I disagree. She thinks that a philosophy matters on how the philosopher lived. I do not. (St. Paul is an excellent counter-example, he was a murderer zealot who had visions. That doesn't necessarily mean people won't follow what he has to say).
4) This book makes perfect sense outside of the context of "Being and Time", but makes even more sense within the context of "Being and Time"
5) no doubt that Heidegger is a Nazi from this book (which is actually a series of lectures).
6) I picked this book up for 95 cents at a used book store. A great deal at that price.
7) Heidegger is not an existentialist no matter that the jacket called him "the father of existentialism". He'll even attack their thought within this book.
8) never trust a summary of a book or a philosopher (unless done by an authentic scholar), read their original works for yourself and decide for yourself.
9) nothing is more important than understanding 'being' (okay there is a pun in this sentence, and the pun is not intended. 'nothing' is best thought of as not a thing instead of 'no thing').

I'll start by saying 'I doubt that'. What does that mean? 'Doubt' always means a 'not' it never means an affirmative of some belief. The modern Western tradition of skepticism since Descartes with his 'cogito' forces the thinking thing to be. How did we get to that place in thought from the pre-Socratics to the time of this book (1935). The opposite of being is not 'not being'. To not believe, to doubt, means something different. We no longer think of being as unconcealment ('alethia') but as correspondence to truth (comporting to reality), Western civilization took a wrong turn and this book will show it.

Why is there something rather than nothing? and what does that even mean. 'Being' is contrasted with either becoming, appearing, thought, or ought as this book will show. They are all related but each force us into traps of some kind. Thinkers beware!

Heidegger is going to throw a lot of Greek words around to make his point and I had to make my own lexicon on the back cover in order to follow the Greek, but his point will be that in the beginning of understanding being was an emerging light ('physis') and a gathering ('logos') and a permanence ('ousia'). The Aristotelian tradition of 'form' and 'matter' forced us into an 'essence' and 'substance' which morphed into midieval tradition of 'whatness' ('quiditty') and 'thatness' ('quoditty') and was no longer allowing us to see the trees for the forest, being as unconcealment.

There is a lot of depth to this book, but it's a simple book to understand and is not abstruse (a sentiment that I thought I'd never associate with Heidegger). It does lay the ground work for where Heidegger is going to take his thought in his later period. His most explicit pro-Nazi sentiment in this book is followed by a parenthetical and some what cryptic statement when considered in the context of this book or "Being and Time", when he says "the works that are being peddled about nowadays as the philosophy of National Socialism but have nothing whatever do with the inner truth and greatness of the movement (namely the encounter between global technology and modern man)". He's weirdly attributing a back to nature anti-technology sentiment to his fellow Nazis. There is nothing in this book or his previous work that lays a foundation for that statement, but I know he takes that turn shortly within his other books

Heidegger is starting to appreciate Nietzsche in this book, but he mostly focus on just one of his books "Will to Power", a posthumous unpublished book edited by Nietzsche's proto-Nazi sister and almost for sure doesn't necessarily reflect Nietzsche's beliefs. (Heidegger makes a big distinction between a prototype and an archetype within this book).

There is a big overlap with the Unabomber and his views expressed in his manifesto and the Rousseauian back to nature anti-technology Heidegger. I despise Nazism and what the Unabomber thought, but that doesn't mean I'm not interested in seeing how they thought (I'd recommend the manifesto, I gave it one star but that doesn't mean I wouldn't recommend it as a gateway for how others think different(ly)). If all you ever want is just to read things by people who think the same as you do or who already agree with, just become a Christian and re-read the New Testament and never let your certainty get in the way of reason and become like an animal where its reason is always certain. ...more

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Dec 23, 2013 Andrew added it · review of another edition

Shelves: philosophy

I didn't have much to do at work. I looked down at Heidegger's Introduction to Metaphysics. He writes in angry little knots you have to untie, much like his idols Parmenides and Heraclitus. I read on, and envisioned Heidegger as the spider crawling up my back, as unsettling me in my chair.

Nothing is part of being. But real nothing is something you cannot say.

The answer is really another question.

And the question is probably the wrong question.

Those ideas sound fairly familiar to any reader of ph ...more

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Jul 12, 2014 Paul Cockeram rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Before Martin Heidegger, the question of Being was studied the way science and rationalism study anything else: like dissecting a frog in Biology class. Whatever humans were, we were the product of sensory inputs, or phenomena, that could be quantified and analyzed where possible. Whatever parts of experience we could not measure, we ignored. Heidegger decided it was time to retrieve this forgotten question of Being, which became his lifelong project. He succeeded in putting the study of Being b Before Martin Heidegger, the question of Being was studied the way science and rationalism study anything else: like dissecting a frog in Biology class. Whatever humans were, we were the product of sensory inputs, or phenomena, that could be quantified and analyzed where possible. Whatever parts of experience we could not measure, we ignored. Heidegger decided it was time to retrieve this forgotten question of Being, which became his lifelong project. He succeeded in putting the study of Being back on the table, making it a legitimate project for philosophers. His Introduction to Metaphysics tells the story of how the question of Being can best be asked, how it has been historically misunderstood, and how our answers to the question ended up taking us further away from Being.

For Heidegger, questions deserve our utmost respect and attention. Questions are pure; “Questioning is the piety of thought,” he has written. The ultimate question, for Heidegger, is the one that serves as the basis and foundation for all other inquiries, which he ends up formulating as “How does it stand with Being?” or, translated another way, “What is the status of Being?” This is the question he thinks we need to ask and then keep asking, over and over, to keep answering anew in every age. The problem is that Western culture answered the question once, long ago, in a limited way, and never bothered to take it up again. Heidegger wants to correct history’s mistake.

The book’s second chapter investigates the etymology of the word Being. Heidegger determines that the word has always contained several meanings—just consider how many uses the English language puts to the verb “to be,” or how versatile is our word “is.” A particularly illuminating and important early form of a word for Being is “phusis,” an ancient Greek term that Heidegger defines and analyzes and adopts into his own use: “[phusis] says what emerges from itself (for example, the emergence, the blossoming, of a rose), the unfolding that opens itself up, the coming-into-appearance in such unfolding, and holding itself and persisting in appearance—in short, the emerging-abiding sway.” Phusis is the interaction between everything around us and our consciousness, the gap of time between our seeing something and our recognizing it by representing it to ourselves. Phusis is an ongoing action, not a static idea. It is the totality of everything surrounding us, all the things we have tuned out and habitually ignore plus all the things we notice—except, actually, phusis refers to those things which emerge from the background of the present moment into our notice. Think of those optical illusion puzzles you probably saw as a child. Looked at in one way, a famous puzzle shows two people facing each other, seen in profile; but the image also looks like a vase. You might think of phusis as the moment when the two people seen in profile are replaced in your mind by the vase, which emerges almost brightly, almost shining into consciousness, so that the first time this happens we often gasp in delight. Or phusis might be what happens when you are looking at a Bev Doolittle painting of a sun-dappled woods and then, all at once, you see the spotted ponies standing between the trees. This emergence into our understanding is the first, most important aspect of Being, and it is followed quickly by truth, or “aletheia” for Heidegger, which he translates as “uncovering” or “disclosing”—in other words, truth is a revealing of what has formerly been hidden.

If these ideas seem difficult to understand, they are—but it’s not Heidegger’s fault. Part of the reason Heidegger is so difficult to understand comes from the nature of his project. When he talks about “phusis,” Heidegger is talking about an idea that fell out of favor more than two thousand years ago, an idea for which we no longer have a ready-to-hand language, an idea that seems to defy the common sense of our rational, scientifically-minded present moment. His ideas about phusis happen to closely match Iain McGilchrist’s explanation of how the human right brain thinks and perceives the world, as explained in the first chapter of his excellent “The Master and His Emissary.” In fact, McGilchrist quotes Heidegger extensively in his text, giving him credit for intuiting decades early what neuroscience is only beginning to uncover about how the right brain works in our perception of the world. McGilchrist also credits Heidegger as an early advocate of a culture-wide return to right-brain thinking, escaping from the tyranny of left-brain thought. For those with a lot of time, patience, and brain power to spare, I urge you to read “Introduction to Metaphysics” and “The Master and His Emissary” together, as McGilchrist helped me many times to comprehend Heidegger’s strange sentences, which he packs with so many abstractions they often resist understanding.

Things went wrong, Heidegger argues in his third and fourth chapters, when we stopped seeing Being in action-oriented terms and stabilized the idea of Being into a fixed concept, which we studied as if it were a frog pinned down to black wax. We needed a corpse to dissect because corpses do not change. We can be certain about corpses. Except, of course, the more certain we are about anything, the less we actually know about it. By stabilizing the idea of Being, by ignoring the way Being unfolds constantly, we lost a whole list of things: First, we mistook truth and learning for mere knowledge and ingenuity, thinking that knowing something was little more than identifying and memorizing a list of properties and facts. By doing so, we forgot that “to know means to be able to learn,” that “the only one who knows is the one who understands that he must always learn again, and above all, on the basis of this understanding, has brought himself to the point where he continually can learn.” Second, we lost a profound sense of connection with the world. Whereas we used to have what could be called a “spiritual” connection with everything around us, without any sense of being separate from our environment, we ended up reinterpreting “spirit as intelligence,” and then as “mere astuteness” in calculating and handling tools and building technology. By losing this spiritual connection with everything around us, we fell out of harmony with our surroundings. We fell into a way of thinking that takes any powerful new revelation—any true Being—and immediately starts representing it to death, until what was powerful loses all meaning and lapses into empty rituals. This idea resonates powerfully with William James’ criticism of religion (in his “Varieties of Religious Experience”), which argued that religions always, over time, corrupt the original power of the religious experience that founded them, degenerating into dogmas that utterly fail to connect their practitioners with true religious experience.

Finally, by turning Being into a fixed and stabilized idea, Heidegger shows how we put limitations upon Being and then refigured these limitations as opposites of Being. In doing so, we forgot the important ways in which Being and these supposed opposites of Being grew from the same roots, were the same thing. The four limitations Heidegger focuses upon are “Being vs. becoming,” “Being vs. seeming,” “Being vs. thinking,” and “Being vs. the ought.” This is the most suspiciously nostalgic part of Heidegger’s argument. To make it, he leans heavily on analyzing noteable pre-Socratic Greek poems and the etymologies of certain key words within them, trying to discover how the Greeks viewed Being. He assumes that the first, earliest uses of language were the truest, the most powerful. Fortunately, Heidegger has a gift for language and a powerful mind for analysis. But this way of reading will try the patience of certain people while thrilling others. Those who want to know first and foremost what a piece of poetry means, in clear and direct terms, with words that each refer to just one thing, should probably read something else. On the other hand, Heidegger appeals to anyone who enjoys reading poetry and sifting through possible double- and triple-meanings that good, complex works allow. That is the way he reads his pre-Socratic poets. His divergent interpretations form the foundation of his argument and the basis for his methodology.

For example, in analyzing “Being vs. seeming,” Heidegger discerns that every Being has a true and honest essence of itself, yet that true and honest essence always comes to light in fragments. Our best understanding of anything will come in the name we give it, the poetry we write about it, and each names, each poem will be composed from a slightly different version of how the thing seems. Every first look of anything is a partial look. Every viewpoint reveals one side of a thing while obscuring the side turned away from us. Every first idea is incomplete. This is the zone in which Being and seeming are the same. Worse, even after we have brought a thing as fully into our world as we are able, we put it to uses (as well as capture it with language) that inevitably dull the thing’s luster. The shine of its phusis dulls as it becomes part of our routine. Eventually, we forget that “table leg” was a thrilling bit of poetry revealing an anatomical connection between our furniture and ourselves, and “table leg” becomes just another piece of jargon we don’t even notice outside its dull utility.

Heidegger wants to remind us of the emergent sway all around. He wants to point out how far removed we have become from it, to the point that mere reality makes us nervous, fills us with anxiety, forces us onto medication or into distraction. The ancient Greeks needed no anti-anxiety pills because they were connected to Being in a way we have lost. They asked and answered the question of Being as a matter of culture and faith, and their struggle allowed them to live in peace with this ongoing, never-ending violence of Being. We are less advanced two thousand years later than they, and Heidegger shows us a way to recover what the Greeks had by introducing us to a lost metaphysics that, according to Iain McGilchrist, is still firmly within our reach. ...more

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Nov 18, 2009 Steven Peterson rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Martin Heidegger is a difficult philosopher to read. His own biography, serving as at least a passive supporter of Nazi Germany, makes him somewhat suspect. His opaque and challenging writing style can easily turn one off. However, whether or not one agrees with his ideas, this work is important to confront. He raises arguments that confront many of our beliefs about the way that things are. The struggle to understand--and critique--his views is well worthwhile.

According to Heidegger, the word Martin Heidegger is a difficult philosopher to read. His own biography, serving as at least a passive supporter of Nazi Germany, makes him somewhat suspect. His opaque and challenging writing style can easily turn one off. However, whether or not one agrees with his ideas, this work is important to confront. He raises arguments that confront many of our beliefs about the way that things are. The struggle to understand--and critique--his views is well worthwhile.

According to Heidegger, the word "phenomenon" comes from the Greek term "to show itself." A phenomenon, then, is that which shows itself, that which is manifest. An appearance is not necessarily the thing itself, since appearances are merely referential to the underlying thing. For instance, a disease is the phenomenon itself, but we normally only recognize it through its appearance, that is, its symptoms. To know things, then, we must get beyond mere appearance. To do this, we must, in part, suspend our illusions that we truly "know" the thing (or "essent," as it is referred to in "An Introduction to Metaphysics" [trans. Ralph Manheim:]).

The opposite of a phenomenon is "covered-upness." This is when the essence of a phenomenon is hidden from us. This can come about in three ways: (1) it is as yet undiscovered; (2) it can be buried over or forgotten--it was once discovered but has since deteriorated, either by losing sight of the thing or by forgetting it; (3) it can be disguised (this is the most frequent and the most dangerous route). The third possibility can come about through deception or misleading.

We must beware of reifying concepts, treating them without questioning, without trying to get at their essence. Heidegger says:

"Whenever a phenomenological concept is drawn from primordial sources, there is the possibility that it may degenerate if communicated in the form of an assertion. It gets understood in an empty way and is thus passed on, losing its indigenous character, and becoming a free-floating thesis. Even in the concrete work of phenomenology itself there lurks the possibility that what has been primordially 'within our grasp' may become hardened so that we can no longer grasp it. And the difficulty of this kind of research lies in making it self-critical in a positive sense."

Again, we must not reify phenomena and lose sight of their primordial character. We must continue to question what we observe and not "take it for granted." He emphasizes in another work that we must ". . .push our questioning to the very end." He contends that, simplistically put, we should "challenge everything" or "question everything." We must not ". . .be led astray by overhasty theories, but to experience things as they are on the basis of the first thing that comes to mind."

He concludes by noting that "The true problem is what we do not know and what, insofar as we know it authentically, namely as a problem, we know only questioningly." That is, we are closest to knowing the essence of something when we recognize that that sense of knowledge is itself a problem, that is, that we cannot be sure that we really know it. If we come to think that we know something, we tend to do so theoretically and, in the process, distance ourself from the thing itself and its being.

Key points at which these thoughts challenge the dominant liberal tradition of which Americans are a part: skepticism about the power of human reason or logic to uncover what is and apprehend what should be (contra the ability of humans to divine natural law through the exercise of reason), avoidance of reifying concepts and theories (those in the liberal tradition, once more, believe that we can uncover the essence of reality and develop theories to explain what is), question those ideas that one develops and continue questioning one's understanding of what is. Finally, the subject and object are linked with one another; we cannot step back and understand objectively that which is around us, as Enlightenment thinkers believe.

At least for me, this was a tough read. But, in the end, it raises questions that are worth addressing, whether or not one has any level of agreement with Heidegger.
...more

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Nov 20, 2020 Xander rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Introduction to Metaphysics (1935) is a crucial work by Martin Heidegger. It is crucial in multiple ways. First, it marks the shift in Heidegger’s thinking as a professional philosopher – so it’s crucial to understand Heidegger’s own philosophical development. Second, the work is crucial in a historical sense, since it covers the lectures Heidegger gave in 1935 at his Freiburg University. Dark and looming vibes emanate from this book, reflecting the German atmosphere at the time.

Third, the work ...more

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Apr 02, 2015 Alex Kartelias rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: philosophy

One of my new favorite philosophers. In the beginning he was tough, but because they're lectures, he summarizes his points and repeats them often. Never have I thought this deeply about Being and Non-being and if you are looking to read his, "Being and Time", this is a good place to get warmed up.

I defintetly agree with him that philosophy from Aristotle onwards- abeit some exceptions- as being too mechanical and one-sided when it came to rationalism versus empiricism or monism versus pluralism. ...more

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Jul 07, 2012 Cameron rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Stunning, brilliant exploration into the nature of Being and a total etymological explosion of Greek ontology. This lectures that comprise this book are Heidegger at his most accessible, intelligble and controversial. His method of inquiry and the fundamental concepts of Being that would lead his later work are laid bare in these examinations. For that, I'm sorry not to have been exposed to this book prior to wandering the wilderness of Being and Time. ...more

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Sep 09, 2007 Amari rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: general-non-fiction

i read the golden oldie translation first (ralph manheim's [incidentally, i am utterly in awe of manheim, who also translated gunter grass' dog years and many other important works from several languages into english]) and then compared it to this nota bene edition.

i could write forever on this book, but i will limit myself to a few comments: first, i am so taken with heidegger's linguistic discussions that i feel as though i'm reading two texts at once whenever i examine chapter 2. second, i'v ...more

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Jan 30, 2013 Kiof rated it really liked it · review of another edition

This would be a really hard read if you've never read MH before. But if you have, this long lecture (musta been 3-4 hours- goddamn!) is nothing but pure pleasure. There are few troubling things- a few blantantly pro-nazi comments, for example - that won't win over any of the unconverted. It all comes down to what you think of Heidegger's framework of being- whether you think it too new-agey, damn brilliant and life-affirming (me), or just can't get over the fact that he was a Nazi (which I total ...more

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Nov 12, 2019 Hana Al Maktoum rated it really liked it · review of another edition

This is my first reading for Heidegger. What an introduction to his writing style and thinking! It provided a glimpse into his approach to philosophy_ an interesting continuous questioning. In the beginning, I thought that he unnecessarily digresses. However, I found that interesting as I continued reading his attempt answering these questions. It was as if he casually converses with the readers.

It took me more than expected to finish. Put in mind, this book dwells on linguistics more than phil ...more

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May 18, 2009 Vicy rated it liked it · review of another edition

"Professor Heidegger, what is Metaphysics?"

"Good question."

Notoriously rigorous philosophy wherein it's all about the question.

...more

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Mar 16, 2020 Joshua Bryant added it · review of another edition

Shelves: biginfluences-past-present, philosophy

What I remember from this read five years later is the significance of the question, Why is there anything rather than nothing at all? This isn't a question Heidegger thought up, but his wanderings around and around this question which I've forgotten now did impress on me the importance of the question, which it really does have. Even if the material world we see always was, just maybe in a different form (like some ultra dense ball prior to its 'big bang,' or an infinite regress of infinite mul What I remember from this read five years later is the significance of the question, Why is there anything rather than nothing at all? This isn't a question Heidegger thought up, but his wanderings around and around this question which I've forgotten now did impress on me the importance of the question, which it really does have. Even if the material world we see always was, just maybe in a different form (like some ultra dense ball prior to its 'big bang,' or an infinite regress of infinite multiverses), why is it there, rather than nothing? And why does it persist?

Also his articulation of the concept of the logos was very informative and paramount for me. The world we see is not just a heap of stuff. It is a gathering of stuff / energy / things into an arrangement, where each thing has its place, determined by what it is, which is in turn determined by its telos / purpose, which is given by - ___?. He describes how this relates to the ancient theory of justice. That's a lot of anti-Modern thinking right there.

A seemingly unique contribution here was about techne (or perhaps this was in Basic Writings? the only other one I read which it could be in). Modern technology is a product of the way of seeing / thinking of the faculty of techne when it is debilitated. This debilitated way of seeing / thinking he calls 'calculating.' He describes how the same faculty gives rise to the arts and crafts more generally. He also describes the more holistic functioning of this faculty that seems to him to also be able to give rise to new political units. I thought this was quite a surreal read of things I didn't understand like I was reading an epic, legendary, adventure-mystery story instead of philosophy, but hey that's partly why I like reading Heidegger. Some people can't stand the poeticizing of philosophy. I think it's a valid complaint because what he delivers after he goes beyond the beyond a bit too far often makes no rational sense - but maybe this is a problem with our IQ's, lack of the German language, background education, or translator with the right IQ / background education.

But how I would understand the techne thing now is that he was posing a type of theory of the good life, where instead of being naive Modernists who think we just need to be happy by perpetually assembling better gadgets and skills, and instead of grinding away at developing moral virtue like the ancients or monastics do, in order to develop thereby (or simultaneously) the authentic excellence of our 'souls' (our beings-there or whatever) as the kind of beings we are, he is of the sort who thinks you can get into that highest available state (if not stage) of our being by thinking / seeing in this right way, brought about by the works made by others who can see / think / be in that way, just by really participating in the art. It's 'vision' needed for virtue, granted by the works of those with vision, so to speak. Although how then did those artists get there? Somewhere there is a direct connection to the source, Being, which coming from my tradition I would say he's probably referring to the divine energy of the same name. And once in that state, presumably you either become virtuous, or becoming virtuous is made easier. I think something like this is true, but I don't accept the idea that struggle and affliction can be eliminated by being super smart or artsy and watching a Terrence Malick film - I would say painful purgation or purification that entirely eliminates the ego / false self / false mode of being is a prerequisite and glimpses of divinity by way of true art are available along the way, but especially available after this purification done in synergy with the divine. ...more

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Jan 10, 2010 Pete rated it liked it · review of another edition

I thought this was a tough read, which I think is what everyone says about it. Things start to cohere toward the end, so if you're going to read it it's worth making it through the final chapter. The gist of it is that Heidegger sees most (all?) the key problems of philosophy as arising from a bastardization of Greek philosophy, which attempted a more 'grounded' metaphysics. An example is what he sees as the transformation and misuse of 'logos' which originally referred to the 'gathering' of the ...more

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Dec 14, 2013 Tijmen Lansdaal rated it liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: in-possession

Easy to read if you're familiar with Heidegger. Third chapter makes up for the first two, where he on the one hand puts his question plainly and uninterestingly, and on the other dodges all kinds of question with sloppy reasoning that can only be called excuses. He often sounds like the true selector: this fits the German spirit, this doesn't. The only end-result could be the truly nazist, but, surprise surprise, it turns out to be quite interesting. When he's allowed to pose his question and wh ...more

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Jun 01, 2019 Dan Dearlove rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Can’t say I understood a lot of what was being discussed here. There were many German and Ancient Greek terms that were new to me. I very much enjoyed what I did understand and will soon undertake a second reading.

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Jun 30, 2014 Alex Obrigewitsch rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Need to re-read. A good segue into Heidegger's later thought. ...more

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Jul 19, 2020 Jacob Hurley rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Heidegger sets out to ask the question 'Why is there something instead of nothing?', and proceeds to analyze this question to demonstrate the importance of Being. He begins with the consideration of Nietzsche (that being is a vapor that has no substance or meaning) and the positivists (that being is not a predicate, but rather a logical-linguistic tool, a copula), while also noting that historically value HAS been placed on Being. He notes that while we obviously seem to have no way to clearly d Heidegger sets out to ask the question 'Why is there something instead of nothing?', and proceeds to analyze this question to demonstrate the importance of Being. He begins with the consideration of Nietzsche (that being is a vapor that has no substance or meaning) and the positivists (that being is not a predicate, but rather a logical-linguistic tool, a copula), while also noting that historically value HAS been placed on Being. He notes that while we obviously seem to have no way to clearly define Being beyond these relatively negative attitudes, and yet we 'know what we mean' when we use it, and in fact it seems to be that we all know how to 'do it'. So he spends the rest of the book tracing the history of being, with how language began as a sort of poetry of being (Homer), developed different types (Becoming and Seeming vs Being) with Heraclitus and Parmenides, and then was contrasted with thinking, which became abstracted away from its naturalistic tendencies into Platonic essence and then Christian substance, and finally ending with our present standpoint where we have lost any concept of meaning of Being, despite the historical decay of its meaning being the causal root of our concept of value (as the meaning of Being became abstract concept of truth) as well as the reason for its innate instability (hence his high esteem for Nietzsche's 'final stand for metaphysics' in the will-to-power/reevaluation of all values).

In contrast to much I've been told about this guy, he seems to present his arguments in a fairly reasonable fashion (starting with the obvious, at least in the 30s, answers to his questions, and then arguing as to why these are insufficient); While his arguments do rest on thin barriers (even if we do accept, as is pretty possible, that it doesn't matter that his analyses of the pre-socratics are full of shit), there is at least a coherent picture being presented with a decent amount of support from greek plays and poems. The two things, aside from this sort-of (explicitly introductory) sampler of his thought, that stood out to me were:
A) It sheds SOME light on his nazi attitude; It seems to me that Heidegger's attraction to National Socialism arose in their violent opposition to modernity, and that it fell away when it became clear that their goal was something other than some sort of uber-reactionary return to medieval german pastoralism / naivite (which, while not all that much better than nationalist socialism, is at least a more sensible attitude, and one that stems more directly out of his philosophy and can be understood without reference to specific brands of totalitarianism and bigoted violence). We can see that while Heidegger considered himself, at least for a time in the 30s, a nationalist socialist, his views of what national socialism meant and should be were distinct from the regime's itself. He cannot be wholly exonerated, but his book neither arrives at explicitly terrible conclusions or self-censors to insert (either nazi or anti-nazi) ideas. It plays out with its premises fully, and arrives at the natural conclusion that there is some sort of meaning of Being, and that we should continue to investigate it in new ways that are cognizant of how it was before, and how it changed with, Plato and the Gospel of John. Most alarming is his attitude towards violence, which arises as a central meaning of being in the Sophoclean-Parmenidean paradigm, which dictates that human existence is defined by violence (in both the creation of political order (dike/Fug) and the mastery of practical knowledge (techne)), but again his attitude towards this is almost wholly historical/analytical. The closest he comes to encouraging violence is in his final imperative to continue the question of metaphysics - And there he appears, at least, to argue that more towards conflicts of ideas, rather than conflicts of peoples. Certainly his hands are still bloody in this regard, but it does not anywhere near taint this book wholly (implications may vary).
B) It's also much more coextensive as regards the opposite end of philosophy (analytics) than is oft advertised; Heidegger's metaphilosophy is extremely reminiscent of Rorty's (heideggerian at times) arguments as for the value of philosophy, particularly Edifying philosophy. Heidegger argues, essentially, that philosophers are marginal people whose activities provide conceptual complications (which have the value of historical self-determination, when they catch on), and chides the positivists for their attempts at analytical reduction (pre-empting in some ways the defeat of the practice in the 50s). His arguments against Carnap, provided in an appendix draft, are perhaps more a matter of taste; Either you're willing to accept Being's place as a mere logical construct, as the positivists do, or you're willing to believe that valuation is doomed without some sort of real meaning of Being, as Heidegger tries to argue. As stands it seems less like a disjunct between two opposing viewpoints, and more a matter of whether you're willing to use a coherent and interesting system (heidegger's) to analyze value, or if you're not (and hence will maybe use the positivist's hostility towards Being as anything more than a copula as a perfectly fine reason to dismiss Heide). ...more

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Jun 01, 2020 Seth rated it it was ok · review of another edition

I wanted to like this book more than I did. While I have found many of Heidegger's ideas useful in the past—ideas like "being-in-the-world," "being-with-others," "being ready-at-hand" vs. "being present-at-hand," "gelsassenheit," his phenomenology of tool use, etc.—and while I occasionally found things I liked in this book, I found more to dislike than like. I found his translations and hermaneutic interpretations of Heraclitis, Paramenides and Sophicles tortured and tendentious, and his overall ...more

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Jan 06, 2013 Michael Ledezma rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

This book should be read right after Being and Time, or at least after Basic Problems. It offers a seamless transition into the Kehre, which is actually threefold, and not as is commonly held, a difference between Heidegger I and II. This book puts the reader right in the thick of Being's relation to aletheia as unconcealment, and does a hell of a job at thoroughly explaining the 4 main oppositions to Being that were originally, and originarilly posited by the Greeks at the inception of Western ...more

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Jun 04, 2020 Stephen Crawford rated it liked it · review of another edition

I found many quotable passages and genuine insights in Heidegger. When all is said and done, he and I would have stood together against modernity.

However, there were a few troublesome spots which I must call attention to. First of all, his translations of the early Greek philosophers Parmenides and Heraclitus were highly idiosyncratic. It seemed obvious that he was reading an undue amount of meaning into mere fragments, and attempting to create a narrative which favored his own philosophy. The s ...more

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Jul 03, 2020 Glenn rated it really liked it · review of another edition

This f***in' guy...

For years I have heard people say, "Wow, it's hard to believe Heidegger was a Nazi." Fifty pages into this 1935 book, transcribed from a series of lectures, he starts yammering on about the reclamation of German "greatness" based on a Greek model and you're like...well of course he was a Nazi.

But a Nazi who is still taken seriously today in part because the world of philosophy doesn't cancel easily. And because the insight that stand apart from the nationalism are still worth ...more

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Aug 02, 2018 Marco rated it liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: philosophy

Upon opening this book Dasein is being thrown into a brilliant exposition of the question of being and the occurence of an equally interesting interpretation of greek poetry along the lines of said exposition. In particular the split between thinking and being that Heideggers perceives to have taken place in the history of western thought is awarded a lot of spaces and should be awarded with adequate attention. However, what Heidegger has to say (in uncharacteristically clear terms) regarding po ...more

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Jan 15, 2010 Alexander added it · review of another edition

Shelves: philosophy

This is a formidable text. (I can imagine some poor soul wandering into Borders hoping to find a clear and concise introductory text on metaphysics, only to purchase this and subsequently swear off philosophy forever.) Nonetheless, it's well worth getting through, since it contains one of Heidegger's most thorough engagements with the Greeks (Heraclitus, Parmenides, and Sophocles figure prominently) and some tantalizing glimpses into his views on contemporary politics. ...more

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About Martin Heidegger

Martin Heidegger

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Martin Heidegger (1889-1976) was a German philosopher whose work is perhaps most readily associated with phenomenology and existentialism, although his thinking should be identified as part of such philosophical movements only with extreme care and qualification. His ideas have exerted a seminal influence on the development of contemporary European philosophy. They have also had an impact far beyo ...more

Books by Martin Heidegger

Basic Writings: Ten Key Essays, plus the Introduction to Being and Time

The Question Concerning Technology and Other Essays

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“Why are there beings at all, instead of Nothing?” — 154 likes

“When the farthest corner of the globe has been conquered
technologically and can be exploited economically; when any incident you like, in any place you like, at any time you like, becomes
accessible as fast as you like; when you can simultaneously "experience" an assassination attempt against a king in France and a symphony concert in Tokyo; when time is nothing but speed, instantaneity, and simultaneity, and time as history has vanished from all
Being of all peoples; when a boxer counts as the great man of a
people; when the tallies of millions at mass meetings are a triumph;
then, yes then, there still looms like a specter over all this uproar the
question: what for? — where to? — and what then?” — 61 likes

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