Heidegger's Concept Research Articles

Being as Breath, Vapor as Joy: Using Martin Heidegger to Re-read the Book of Ecclesiastes

This article is a philosophical re-examination of Ecclesiastes using the work of Martin Heidegger, particularly his early work in Being and Time. Heidegger's focus on death, temporality, and history provides a powerful and compelling framework for understanding these same themes in Ecclesiastes. In elaborating these philosophical motifs and correspondences, this article proposes that ‭לכה‬ should be understood as an analog to Heidegger's concept of Geschichtlichkeit (historicity). If ‭לכה‬ is understood as such, then most of the traditionally puzzling terms in Ecclesiastes (e.g. ‭םלעה‬, ‭למע‬, ‭החמש‬) can be made sense of using the aforementioned philosophical framework. This framework additionally shows that Ecclesiastes (like Being and Time) cannot be understood as a proto-existentialist text.

Harry Frankfurt's metaphysics of care

Harry Frankfurt's conception of care and love has largely been considered a seductive theory of personality, but an untenable and irresponsible theory of moral normativity. Contrary to that interpretation, this article aims at showing that it is possible to remain faithful to Frankfurt's metaphysical premises while not falling into some moral relativism. First, by comparing Frankfurt's and Heidegger's conceptions of care, I show that Frankfurt's subordination of ethics to carology apparently commits him to a neutral foundationalism. In the next step, I argue that his calling into question of the relation between rationality and morality does indeed subject moral normativity to some subjective and contingent limits. And finally, I show that the objections raised against such a conclusion can be answered by shifting Frankfurt's frontier between contingency and necessity and by exploiting his concept of wholeheartedness.

Embodying Emotions: What Emotion Theorists Can Learn from Simulations of Emotions

Cognitively-oriented theories have dominated the recent history of the study of emotion. However, critics of this perspective suggest the role of the body in the experience of emotion is largely ignored by cognitive theorists. As an alternative to the cognitive perspective, critics are increasingly pointing to William James' theory, which emphasized somatic aspects of emotions. This emerging emphasis on the embodiment of emotions is shared by those in the field of AI attempting to model human emotions. Behavior-based agents in AI are attempts to model the role the body might play in the experiencing of emotions. Progress in creating such behavior-based models that function in their environments has been slow, suggesting some potential problems with Jamesian alternatives to cognitive perspectives of emotions. Heidegger's and Merleau-Ponty's conceptions of embodiment are suggested as alternatives to James' and as means for addressing the shortcomings of the cognitive perspective.

Toward an approach to create self‐organizing and reflexive information systems project practitioners

PurposeThe primary purpose of this paper is to present an alternative approach to educate information systems project practitioners. An alternative to the prescriptive, model based, instrumental approaches is sought. The alternative approach presented in this paper focuses largely on imparting a discourse to equip students with an understanding of how communication occurs, how competences are acquired, and how to understand the influences of power and agency on themselves and others in a typical information systems project context.Design/methodology/approachA conceptual approach is followed. First, Heidegger's ideas are used to demonstrate the flaws inherent in assumptions that claim we interact in project management contexts in rational, and instrumental ways. Second, the paper argues that Cockburn's concepts, which are traditionally used as a theoretical lens to understand agile software development practices, are a good approximate to Heidegger's concepts to impart reflexive learning skills. Finally, the concept of a discourse is used to package the instrumental tools, reflexive learning skills and related concepts to understand communication, and the acquisition of competence.FindingsThere are many parallels that can be drawn between the dilemmas, which face the project management community, and the ideological debates about agile versus monolithic approaches, for which the software development community is infamous. Additionally, Heidegger's motivation for defining the fundamental ontology of dasein is similar to the motivation given by the research community to understand actual project experiences.Research limitations/implicationsThis approach has only been tried at one institution thus far; hence, there are only two semesters of teaching experiences at one institution on which to reflect.Practical implicationsThe paper advances the dilemma related to project practitioner education to a point where action can be taken. Educators can use the ideas presented in this paper to revive undergraduate project management education programs both in information systems and other disciplines.Originality/valueThe original value is two‐fold. First, there is a presentation of an alternative approach to educate information systems project practitioners that holds the promise of making the experience more true to life; thereby, rendering the experience more fulfilling for the practitioner. Second, the paper uses Heidegger's fundamental ontology to show the consequence of imparting the ideals of instrumentality rationality in a true to life manner. This discussion highlights some of the effects contemporary educational approaches have on retarding competence and competency development.

The Symmetry Between Bruno Latour and Martin Heidegger

In spite of Bruno Latour's explicit critique of Martin Heidegger's conception of technology, he and Heidegger implicitly think very similarly. When looked at carefully, Latour's examination of technical mediation stands out as a detailed reflection of Heidegger's studies. In Pandora's Hope, Latour (1999) dedicates a whole essay to exposing Heidegger's misconception of technology. 1 However, at the end of this polemic, Latour in fact unfolds and actualizes Heidegger's argument. What Latour considers fictitious, antiquated and pessimistic in Heidegger's writings on technology comes alive in a different and more accessible way in his own writings. This profound and previously unrevealed relationship between Latour and Heidegger makes it possible to reinterprete the ideas of both in a way that has crucial importance for Science and Technology Studies (STS). In order to carry out this kind of comparative philosophy or `theoretical fieldwork', one has to pay close attention to their basic conceptions and not be led astray by different ways of naming them.

The issue of human existence as represented in dreaming: A new Daseinsanalytic interpretation of the meaning of dreams

Dreams are associated with those issues of our waking life which preoccupy us emotionally. According to our Daseinsanalytic view, however, the issue that concerns us while dreaming is actually not the concrete worrying matter itself, but its existential dimension. This view is based on Martin Heidegger's concept of human being as that being to which its own being is an issue. It means that all feeling and understanding dealing with concrete issues concurrently refer to fundamental issues of our existence. Dreaming though, we are focused entirely on the fundamental aspects. Dreams show the very individual and specific struggle of the dreamer with certain conditions of human life, which he or she is unable or unwilling to accept because they seem too difficult to endure. I want to demonstrate this method of interpretation on a dream of a depressive patient. The example illustrates that the concerns of dreaming are rooted in and refer to an existential dilemma that is hidden in the concrete difficulties of waking life and represented in the concrete dream events. In addition, it gives us the opportunity to inquire into the specificity of the fundamental dilemma of a personality with a “depressive view” of the world.

Da ruína e da conservação do mundo: o mundo como espaço discursivo e como discurso espacial

Este trabalho discute o conceito heideggeriano de mundo a partir das noções de espaço e discurso, tais como elas aparecem em Ser e tempo. Pretendemos assim pensar o mundo como espaço discursivo e como discurso espacial. Isto permitirá entender por que, como Heidegger diz em A origem da obra de arte, "a ruína de um mundo é irreversível". Pensar o mundo como discurso pode também esclarecer a definição grega do homem como animal político e discursivo, assim como o conceito wittgensteiniano de jogos de linguagem.

Heidegger's concept of 'Being-There' and fundamental concepts of traditional ontology

Although the question of relationship between basic concepts of traditional ontology and central concepts of fundamental ontology is not a topic which is systematically dealt with in Being and Time, it is obvious that some of the theses which are crucial not only for Heidegger's interpretation of philosophical tradition, but also for the whole project of fundamental ontology, concern this 'conceptual scheme'. In fact, the backbone of Heidegger's critical confrontation with dominant philosophical conceptions is the question of relationship between the concept of 'substance' and the concept of 'Being', i.e. the discussion of philosophical doctrines in which 'Being' is reduced to 'substance'. Besides this context, which concerns the ontological problematics in the strict sense, it is possible to show that the refutation of the basic categories of traditional ontology is an issue which has a decisive role in more concrete phases of the realization of the project of fundamental ontology. This is especially confirmed in Heidegger's discussion of the concept of 'Being-There'. The interpretation of Heidegger's treatment of the relationship between the concepts of 'Being-there', 'existence' and 'existentials' on the one hand, and the concepts of 'substance', 'essence' and 'categories' on the other, shows that one of Heidegger's basic theses is that a transformation of concepts of traditional ontology is necessary for an appropriate understanding of human being.

HEIDEGGER AND TEILHARD DE CHARDIN: THE CONVERGENCE OF HISTORY AND FUTURE

AbstractThe intent of this essay is to place the thinking of Martin Heidegger and Pierre Teilhard de Chardin in dialogue with one another in order to thresh out the latent aspects of each thinker's work that are often seen to be problematic. I argue that Teilhard's discussion of unity that differentiates illuminates a positive teleology in Heidegger's notion of Appropriation, while Heidegger's conception of retrieval/repetition discloses the significance of historical reinterpretation in Teilhard's Christology. I therefore reply to accusations that Heidegger's philosophy succumbs to relativism and reduction into Being and that Teilhard neglects history in his treatment of Omega Point.

Four-Dimensional Time in Dzogchen and Heidegger

Concerning time, we have many puzzles, such as what eternity is, how it is related to the passage of time, whether the passage of time is irreversible, whether things past are no longer, whether the future is non-predictable, whether or not the present exists, and so on. This article is an attempt to discuss such experiences of the passage of time. First, a Buddhist practice in the Dzogchen tradition that deals with the experience of the passage of time will be introduced, then Longchenpa's concept of four times (dus-bzhi) will be analyzed and its significance to the history of Buddhism discussed. Next, Heidegger's concept of four-dimensional time and its elaboration by later philosophers will be discussed. It will conclude with the similarities and differences between the four-dimensional time theories as found in these two diverse traditions, and the possible reasons for their striking similarities.

Living as an Oldest Old in Rio de Janeiro: The Lived Experience Told

This phenomenological-hermeneutic study was an inquiry into the lived experience of 16 very old persons who were living in their own homes. The nursing perspective was Gadow's existential advocacy for nursing practice. The study findings led to the essence of the phenomenon: pragmatic transition to old age, within a restricted future. Heideggerian concepts were applied and the findings were discussed in relation to the guiding theoretical perspective and related literature. Understanding the meaning of being a very old person is fundamental to developing nursing interventions to help people remain independent, with a sense of self-determination, for as long as possible.

Heidegger's topology: being, place, world

This groundbreaking inquiry into the centrality of in Martin Heidegger's thinking offers not only an illuminating reading of Heidegger's thought but a detailed investigation into the way in which the concept of relates to core philosophical issues. In Heidegger's Topology, Jeff Malpas argues that an engagement with place, explicit in Heidegger's later work, informs Heidegger's thought as a whole. What guides Heidegger's thinking, Malpas writes, is a conception of philosophy's starting point: our finding ourselves already there, situated in the world, in place. Heidegger's concepts of and place, he argues, are inextricably bound together. Malpas follows the development of Heidegger's topology through three stages: the early period of the 1910s and 1920s, through Being and Time, centered on the meaning of being; the middle period of the 1930s into the 1940s, centered on the truth of being; and the late period from the mid-1940s on, when the place of being comes to the fore. (Malpas also challenges the widely repeated arguments that link Heidegger's notions of and belonging to his entanglement with Nazism.) The significance of Heidegger as a thinker of place, Malpas claims, lies not only in Heidegger's own investigations but also in the way that spatial and topographic thinking has flowed from Heidegger's work into that of other key thinkers of the past 60 years.

On Tugendhat's Analysis of Heidegger's Concept of Truth

This paper responds to Tugendhat's well‐known and influential critique of Heidegger's concept of truth with the resources of Heidegger's texts, in particular §44 of Being and Time. To start with, Tugendhat's primary critical argument is reconstructed. It is held to consist firstly in the charge of ambiguity against Heidegger's formulations of his concept of truth and secondly in the claim that Heidegger's concept of truth is incompatible with an adequate concept of falsehood. It is shown that the supposedly ambiguous meanings are, on the one hand, in fact clearly distinguished by Heidegger and, on the other, that they merely amount to different extensions of the same meaning of truth. It is then shown how this concept of truth is indeed compatible with an adequate, albeit post‐metaphysical, concept of falsehood. Finally, the grounds of falsehood in the untruth of the existential of Verfallen are pursued and further objections are dismissed.

Out of Order

This article seeks to demonstrate the centrality of maintenance and repair to an understanding of modern societies and, particularly, cities. Arguing that repair and maintenance activities present a kind of 'missing link' in social theory, which is usually overlooked or forgotten, the article begins by recalling Heidegger's concept of material things as being 'ready to hand'. The main elements of practices of repair and maintenance are then elaborated on so as to help establish the argument that, by focusing on failure and breakdown in technical artefacts and systems, their vital contribution can be brought to the fore. The article then moves on to suggest that prevailing cultural constructions, and imaginations, of the 'infrastructure' that sustains modern societies, actively work to push repair and maintenance activities beyond the attention of social science. To exemplify these arguments, the article explores in detail some of the repair and maintenance activities that sustain, first, the nexus between computer communications and electricity and, second, the system of automobility. The article concludes by excavating a politics of repair and maintenance in modern cities and societies.

Why Tugendhat's Critique of Heidegger's Concept of Truth Remains a Critical Problem1

With what right and with what meaning does Heidegger use the term ‘truth’ to characterize Dasein's disclosedness? This is the question at the focal point of Ernst Tugendhat's long‐standing critique of Heidegger's understanding of truth, one to which he finds no answer in Heidegger's treatment of truth in §44 of Being and Time or his later work. To put the question differently: insofar as unconcealment or disclosedness is normally understood as the condition for the possibility of propositional truth rather than truth itself, what does it mean to say – as Heidegger does – that disclosedness is the “primordial phenomenon of truth” and what justifies that claim? The central aim of this paper is to show that Tugendhat's critique remains unanswered. Recent Heidegger scholarship, though it confronts Tugendhat, has not produced a viable answer to his criticism, in part because it overlooks his basic question and therefore misconstrues the thrust of his objections. Ultimately, the paper suggests that what is needed is a re‐evaluation of Heidegger's analysis of truth in light of a more accurate understanding of Tugendhat's critique. The paper concludes by sketching the profile of a more satisfactory reply to Tugendhat's critical question, advocating a return to Heidegger's ‘existential’ analyses in Being and Time in order to locate the normative resources Tugendhat finds lacking in Heidegger's concept of truth.

Questioning and the materiality of crisis

The theme of the possibility or impossibility of the compatibility between Heideggerian philosophy and Freudian metapsychology has been taken up in various ways. Without going into the details of this body of commentary, it is argued that there is a clear difference between the ways in which Heidegger and Freud think cultural crisis. By examining texts of both thinkers from the early 1930s, it is shown that whereas Freud conceives of the possibility of amelioration of crisis in terms of a grappling with material necessity, Heidegger's philosophical conception of crisis seeks to bring about freedom's performative coincidence with ontological necessity. Heidegger's approach, it is claimed, is blind to the confrontation with material necessity that is its own condition of possibility. This blindness is evident in his ontological understanding of suffering.

Pasajes: el pensamiento como puesta-en-camino Freud, Heidegger, Derrida

This article carries out a parallel reading of Derrida’s 1968 lecture “La Differance”, Heidegger’s Unterwegs zur Sprache , and the Freudian concept of Umweg , which is already formulated in the Traumdeutung . Derridian differance inherits a double affiliation: on the one hand, to the Freudian concepts of delay and differing which are characteristic of the psychic apparatus - it is this value of Umweg or diverted path that Freud employs to indicate the relations existing between the reality principle and the pleasure principle; on the other hand, to the Heideggerian concepts of the destining and destiny of Being. In this crossroads we find the keys to understanding the whole reach of the movement of destination in Derrida, as well as the possibility of a thought of Being in differance .

Deliberation, Phrônesis, and Authenticity: Heidegger's Early Conception of Rhetoric

Research Article| January 01 2007 Deliberation, Phrônesis, and Authenticity: Heidegger's Early Conception of Rhetoric Susan Zickmund Susan Zickmund Search for other works by this author on: This Site Google Philosophy & Rhetoric (2007) 40 (4): 406–415. https://doi.org/10.2307/25655289 Cite Icon Cite Share Icon Share Twitter Permissions Search Site Citation Susan Zickmund; Deliberation, Phrônesis, and Authenticity: Heidegger's Early Conception of Rhetoric. Philosophy & Rhetoric 1 January 2007; 40 (4): 406–415. doi: https://doi.org/10.2307/25655289 Download citation file: Zotero Reference Manager EasyBib Bookends Mendeley Papers EndNote RefWorks BibTex toolbar search Search Dropdown Menu toolbar search search input Search input auto suggest filter your search All Scholarly Publishing CollectivePenn State University PressPhilosophy & Rhetoric Search Advanced Search The text of this article is only available as a PDF. Copyright © 2007 The Pennsylvania State University2007The Pennsylvania State University Article PDF first page preview Close Modal You do not currently have access to this content.

Vigilant Memory: Emmanuel Levinas, the Holocaust, and the Unjust Death

Reviewed by Gregor Schnuer University of Edinburgh Spargo, R. Clifton. Vigilant Memory: Emmanuel Levinas, the Holocaust, and the Unjust Death. Baltimore: The John Hopkins University Press, 2006. Pp. 311. R. Clifton Spargo's study of Emmanuel Levinas addresses strong ethical concerns relating to our sense of memory, responsibility and justice. More specifically, Vigilant Memory concerns itself with Levinas's ethics, presenting key concepts in the philosopher's thought and striving to engage in a positive critique of his work. Focusing on the impact of the Holocaust on Levinas the theorist and foregrounding postmodern debates concerning ethics, Vigilant Memory formulates an understanding of what is at stake in the memory of injustice. Spargo demonstrates that for Levinas, the Holocaust serves as both the ultimate memory and the supreme injustice, a stance that leads Spargo to distinguish between the notion of "rights" and "responsibility" and to call for the formulation and practice of what he calls "vigilant memory." In his Introduction, Spargo explains that his study responds to three main critiques of Levinas's notion of the memory of injustice. The first of these critiques, historical and political in scope, ponders the significance of memory, especially memory of the Holocaust, and questions whether memory of victimization is often accorded cultural importance it does not deserve. The second is a mainly political concern regarding the influence of memory on identity formation and the extent to which the emergence of the victim's subjectivity might foster political instability. The third and most cynical critique of Levinas's concept is one that posits a circumstance in which victims become opportunists and use their victim status as a means of attaining sympathy, attention and special political rights (27). Spargo's analysis centers on these three positions, which, taken up in turn, form the basis for his extended critical engagement with Levinas's work. [End Page 144] In his first chapter, titled "Ethics as Unquieted Memory," Spargo offers a reading that underscores how important the concept of memory is in the ethical system Levinas elaborates. Contrary to Heidegger's conception of death as the final, concluding experience of being, Levinas's holds that post-mortem memory of the dead entails responsibilities for the living. Spargo posits that the work of memory goes beyond funerary rites and rituals, and in this first chapter, his engagement with the Holocaust takes shape. The interdisciplinary reach of this study allows for the introduction of a historical perspective, which fluidly evolves out of the initial engagement with memory. The concluding passages of the chapter connect death, memory and the Holocaust to arrive at Levinas's concept of "unjust death." In addition to highlighting the ethical and political importance of the memory of injustice and underscoring its universal significance, Spargo emphasizes Levinas's concern for history, demonstrating its resonance with contemporary theories of historiography formulated, for instance, by Michel de Certeau and Hayden White. Spargo's discussion of historiography strengthens his claims concerning the need for vigilance with respect to questions of memory and the Levinasian challenge to "history proper," allowing for history to be understood not as what is remembered, but as what has been remembered so far. The second chapter, "The Unpleasure of Consciousness," takes up the question of the ethics of mourning in Levinas's concept of bad conscience. Spargo shows the influence that Nietzsche's concept of bad conscience had on Levinas, recognizing, however, that the distance he takes from it allows him to formulate an understanding of bad conscience that bears on questions of memory, history and the moral self. The concept of responsibility is the one component of moral consciousness that Levinas is thought to be revising. Spargo shows how Levinas refutes the notion of responsibility as oppressive obligation and embraces the idea of an obliging duty that results from a rupture between intention and result, desire and reality. This makes the issue of complicity unavoidable and Spargo's discussion of "The Bad Conscience in History" and "The Bad Conscience and the Holocaust" argues for...

Recovering Play

This paper attempts to reconcile, what appear to be, two conflicting accounts of authenticity in Heidegger's thought. Authenticity in Being and Time (1927) is commonly interpreted in 'existentialist' terms as willful commitment and resoluteness (Entschlossenheit) in the face of one's own death but, by the late 1930's, is reintroduced in terms of Gelassenlieit, as a non-willful openness that "lets beings be." By employing Heidegger's conception of authentic historicality (Geschiclidichkeit), understood as the retrieval of Dasein's past, and drawing on his writings on Hölderlin in the 1930'sand 1940's, I suggest that the ancient interpretation of leisure and festivity may play an important role in unifying these conflicting accounts. Genuine leisure, interpreted as a form of play (Spiel), frees us from inauthentic busy-ness and gives us an opening to face the abyssal nature of our own being and the mystery that "beings are" in the flrst place. To this end, leisure re-connects us with wonder (Erstaunen) as the original temperament of Western thought. In leisurely wonder, the authentic self does not seek purposive mastery and control over beings but calmly accepts the unsettledness ofbeing and is, as a result, allowed into the original openness or space of play of time (Zeit-Spiel-Raum) that lets beings emerge-into-presence on their own terms.