Early in Being and Time Heidegger announces that the primary concept by means of which he aims to understand Dasein is the concept to which he gives the name ‘existence.’ But what is existence? Existence is, roughly, that feature of Dasein that its self-understanding is constitutive of its being what or who it is. In an important sense, this concept embodies Heidegger’s existentialism. At the center of existentialism lies the claim that humans are given their content neither by an ahistorical, (...) transcultural essence, nor by nature. Rather, Dasein itself determines this content in its act of self-understanding. Kierkegaard expressed this in his famous formulation that “The self is that which relates itself to itself;” Ortega in his catchy phrase, “Man has no nature;” and Sartre in his notorious proposition, “Existence comes before essence.” All of these dicta articulate the same idea. (shrink)

"A magisterial accomplishment that will be the standard in this field for years to come."--John D. Caputo, Villanova University "Outstanding, entirely original, absolutely groundbreaking.... It is quite simply the best account to date--and the best we can expect for decades in the future--of the philosophical development of Heidegger's early thought."--Thomas Sheehan, Loyola University "A magisterial accomplishment that will be the standard in this field for years to come."--John D. Caputo, Villanova University.

For Heidegger, phenomenological investigation is carried out by formal indication, the name given to the methodical approach he assumes in Being and Time. This paper attempts to draw attention to the nature of formal indication in light of the fact that it has been largely lost upon American scholarship (mainly due to its inconsistent translation). The roots of the concept of formal indication are shown in two ways. First, its thematic treatment in Heidegger's 1921/22 Winter Semester course, Phenomenological Investigations into (...) Aristotle, is examined to make clear what Heidegger silently assumes in Being and Time. Second, Heidegger's adaptation of Husserl's use of the term, indication, is outlined to clarify the concept even more. The enhanced understanding of formal indication granted by these two points leads to a better grasp of Heidegger's concept of truth, for formal indication and truth are mutually implied for Heidegger. Finally, it is suggested that the reader of Being and Time, on the basis of what formal indication demands, approach the work not as a doctrine to be learned but as a task always requiring further completion. (shrink)

Cristina Lafont's recent reading of Heidegger offers a powerful formulation of the widespread view that once one recognizes our `facticity' and the role of language in shaping it, there is no room left to talk about transcendental structures of meaning or experience. In this article I challenge this view. I argue that Lafont inaccurately conflates what Heidegger calls our `understanding of being' with that which language discloses. In order to show that the philosophical motivation for this conflation is unsound, I (...) also argue that Lafont's own positive theory of meaning itself tacitly assumes a distinction between factical and transcendental, and so rests on exactly what she finds problematic in Heidegger. This still leaves a puzzle as to how factical individuals are actually able to grasp anything transcendental, so I conclude by sketching Heidegger's method of `formal indication', which is meant to show precisely how this can be done. (shrink)

Abstract: Heidegger's Sein und Zeit (SZ) is commonly viewed as one of the 20th century's great anti-Cartesian works, usually because of its attack on the epistemology-driven dualism and mentalism of modern philosophy of mind or its apparent effort to ‘de-center the subject’ in order to privilege being or sociality over the individual. Most who stress one or other of these anti-Cartesian aspects of SZ, however, pay little attention to Heidegger's own direct engagement with Descartes, apart from the compressed discussion in (...) SZ§§19–21. I here show through a careful reading of Heidegger's lectures on Descartes from the years immediately preceding SZ that, while he has sharp criticisms of Descartes and certain ‘Cartesian’ aspects of modern philosophy along the lines commonly recognized, he also aims to disclose what he calls the ‘positive possibilities’ in Descartes and the philosophy he inspired. I detail a number of these and then show that they force us to see Heidegger's own early project as largely unconcerned with dualism and mentalism per se, and much more with questions of the philosophical methodology that gives rise to them. Moreover, I show that a careful reading of Heidegger's treatment of the cogito makes clear that he is no serious way attempting to ‘de-center the subject’ and that the fundamental question of the ‘analytic of Dasein’ is one that takes Descartes as an immediate jumping off point: how can I articulate what I understand myself to be as the general kind of entity I am, and on what besides me does my being depend? (shrink)

I begin with a brief exposition of what is positive in Haugeland's interpretation of Heidegger. At the same time, I show how Haugeland subtly shifts the ground so as to make it possible to read into the texts his own idea that being is the entity-beholden, variable, normative basis for ways of life. I then argue that what Heidegger himself says about the being of available (zuhanden) entities, i.e., things of use or equipment (Zeug), doesn’t fit with Haugeland’s normativity-oriented account. (...) I develop this argument further through a look at Heidegger’s treatment of occurrent (vorhanden) nature as he elaborates that in his reading of Kant. This allows us to see how Heidegger follows Kant in thinking of the forms of being as spontaneous but non-arbitrary creations we produce for ourselves via what Kant called imagination, which activity Heidegger takes to be the self-temporalizing of Dasein identified but only opaquely described in SZ. From there, I show how we might generalize from Heidegger’s Kant’s treatment of the occurrent to a broader account in which other regional understandings of being, including that of the available, may also be understood as emerging from our temporalizing/imaginative activity. This shows what Heidegger’s overall project of fundamental ontology looks like, and how it could be completed in a way he himself didn't, if an understanding of being is an understanding of forms not norms. (shrink)

Heidegger, Language, and World‐Disclosure. cristina lafont. Kant's Impure Ethics: From Rational Beings to Human Beings. Robert B. Louden Dynamics in Action, Intentional Behavior as a Complex System. alicia juarrero. Self‐Governance & Cooperation. Robert h. myers. Husserl or Frege? Meaning, Objectivity, and Mathematics. claire ortiz hill and guillermo e. Rosado haddock.

This book is a major contribution to the understanding of Heidegger and a rare attempt to bridge the schism between traditions of analytic and Continental philosophy. Cristina Lafont applies the core methodology of analytic philosophy, language analysis, to Heidegger's work providing both a clearer exegesis and a powerful critique of his approach to the subject of language. In Part One, she explores the Heideggerean conception of language in depth. In Part Two, she draws on recent work from theorists of direct (...) reference (Putnam, Donnellan and Kripke inter alia) to reveal the limitations of Heidegger's views and to show how language shapes our understanding of the world without making learning impossible. The book first appeared in German but has been substantially revised for the English edition. (shrink)

In Sein und Zeit , Heidegger claims that (1) das Man is an 'existential' i.e. a necessary feature of Dasein's Being; and (2) Dasein need not always exist in the mode of the Man -self, but can also be eigentlich , which I translate as 'self-owningly'. These apparently contradictory statements have prompted a debate between Hubert Dreyfus, who recommends abandoning (2), and Frederick Olafson, who favors jettisoning (1). I offer an interpretation of the structure of Dasein's Being compatible with both (...) (1) and (2), thus resolving the Dreyfus-Olafson debate. Central to this resolution is the distinction between das Man and the Man -self. Das Man is one of three existential 'horizons', or fields of possibilities; the other two horizons are the world and death. At any time, Dasein encounters entities in one of two basic modes: either by 'expressly seizing' possibilities of the horizon, or by occluding these possibilities. These modes are 'existenti ell ', i.e. features of Dasein's Being that are possible, but not essential. Self-ownership and the Man -self are the two basic existentiell modes of being oneself, i.e. projecting everyday possibilities of oneself appropriated from the horizon of das Man . What differentiates these two modes is the stance one takes to the possibility of death, the existential horizon of being oneself. (shrink)

In Sein und Zeit, Heidegger claims that (1) das Man is an 'existential' i.e. a necessary feature of Dasein's Being; and (2) Dasein need not always exist in the mode of the Man-self, but can also be eigentlich, which I translate as 'self-owningly'. These apparently contradictory statements have prompted a debate between Hubert Dreyfus, who recommends abandoning (2), and Frederick Olafson, who favors jettisoning (1). I offer an interpretation of the structure of Dasein's Being compatible with both (1) and (2), (...) thus resolving the Dreyfus-Olafson debate. Central to this resolution is the distinction between das Man and the Man-self. Das Man is one of three existential 'horizons', or fields of possibilities; the other two horizons are the world and death. At any time, Dasein encounters entities in one of two basic modes: either by 'expressly seizing' possibilities of the horizon, or by occluding these possibilities. These modes are 'existentiell', i.e. features of Dasein's Being that are possible, but not essential. Self-ownership and the Man-self are the two basic existentiell modes of being oneself, i.e. projecting everyday possibilities of oneself appropriated from the horizon of das Man. What differentiates these two modes is the stance one takes to the possibility of death, the existential horizon of being oneself. (shrink)

Essays discuss the themes of worldliness, affectedness, understanding, and the care-structure found in Heidegger's work on the nature of existence.

Die Vorlesung knupft an das Ende der Grundprobleme der Phanomenologie an. Sie gibt ausfuhrlicher als dort eine Bestimmung des Verhaltnisses von positiver Wissenschaft, wissenschaftlicher Philosophie oder Ontologie und Fundamentalontologie. Die phanomenologische Interpretation der transzendentalen Asthetik und des ersten Buches der transzendentalen Analytik ist gegenuber der spateren Arbeit Kant und das Problem der Metaphysik weniger die abgeloste Darstellung als die Herausarbeitung der Kantdeutung in einer genauen und detaillierten Textanalyse, in der Abschnitt fur Abschnitt durchgegangen wird. Die Vorlesung bietet einen breiteren Zugang (...) zur lntention der Kantdeutung Heideggers. (shrink)

Phanomenologie als Ursprungswissenschaft vom Leben in ihren Strukturen und thematischen Bereichen aufzuweisen, steckt Rahmen und Ziel dieser Freiburger Dozentenvorlesung ab. In dieser Grundtendenz ist die Vorlesung ein bedeutendes Zeugnis des Durchbruchs des Heideggerschen Denkens hin zur Position von Sein und Zeit. Sie ist aber mit Blick auf Heideggers Denkweg nicht nur entwicklungsgeschichtlich von Interesse, sondern sie bezieht ihr Gewicht zudem auch aus ihrer Anlage als systematische Vorlesung. Mit kritischem Blick auf die Tradition, insbesondere aber im Bemuhen um Distanzgewinnung zur zeitgenossischen (...) Philosophie (Phanomenologie, Neukantianismus, Lebensphilosophie) sucht Heidegger die eigenen Konzeption einer Urwissenschaft vom Leben an und fur sich zu profilieren. Im Zentrum steht dabei der Aufweis der in sich unterschiedenen, aber darin gleichwohl ineinander verwobenen Bekundungsgestalten des faktischen Lebens (Selbstsein, Mitwelt, Umwelt) und ihrer Thematisierungsmoglichkeiten im alltaglichen, wissenschaftlichen und philosophischen Verhalten. In immer neuen Anlaufen lasst so diese Vorlesung plastisch Heideggers Ringen um den Ansatz einer hermeneutischen Phanomenologie hervortreten. (shrink)

»Selten hat in den neueren Jahrhunderten ein philosophischer Erstling so durchgeschlagen und einen so unverrückbaren Platz unter den >großenHans Georg Gadamer in DIE ZEIT Nr. 47 vom 19.11.1982.

Against traditional interpretations, which claim either that Heidegger has rendered all accounts of subjectivity-and consequently of ethics-impossible, or, on the contrary, that Heidegger merely renews the modern metaphysics of subjectivity, Raffoul demonstrates how Heidegger's destruction/deconstruction of the subject opens the space for a radically nonsubjectivistic formulation of human being. Raffoul reconstitutes and analyzes Heidegger's debate with the great thinkers of subjectivity, in order to show that Heidegger's "destructive" reading of the modern metaphysics of subjectivity is, in fact, a positive reappropriation (...) of the ontological foundations of the subject. Raffoul's recasting of Heidegger's work on human subjectivity should prove indispensable in future debates on the fate of the subject in the postmodern era. (shrink)

This book is a systematic reconstruction of Heidegger's account of time and temporality in Being and Time. The author locates Heidegger in a tradition of 'temporal idealism' with its sources in Plotinus, Leibniz, and Kant. For Heidegger, time can only be explained in terms of 'originary temporality', a concept integral to his ontology. Blattner sets out not only the foundations of Heidegger's ontology, but also his phenomenology of the experience of time. Focusing on a neglected but central aspect of Being (...) and Time, this book will be of considerable interest to all students of Heidegger both inside and outside philosophy. (shrink)

In 1929, after rejecting the suggestion that contemporary Christians may be expected to feel "threatened" by Kierkegaard's criticisms, the Protestant theologian Gerhardt Kuhlmann remarks.