Heidegger's Concept Research Articles

Friendship, Fidelity, and Finitude: Reflections on Jacques Derrida's The Work of Mourning

Presents the author's reflections on Derrida's philosophical insights concerning the interrelationships among friendship, fidelity, human finitude, and mourning, and the implications of these insights for "relationalizing" Heidegger's conception of finitude.

Heidegger's Nazism and the Hypostatization of Being

Following the publication of Being and Time (1927), Heidegger's conception of Being underwent a process of progressive reification, seen vividly in his attempt to materialize it in the political sphere by merging it with the Nazi movement and then, as he distanced himself from the Nazis and increasingly withdrew into isolation, in his hypostatizing Being into something of the nature of a divine force or energy. This study is an investigation of the salient themes that pervaded Heidegger's personal psychological world and of how these themes left their imprint on both his philosophy and his version of Nazism. It will be shown that both Heidegger's life and work were dominated by the quest for individualized selfhood and the accompanying struggle against annihilating aloneness.

Heidegger and Levinas: Metaphysics, Ontology and the Horizon of the Other

Already in his earlier works Levinas proposes a distinct phenomenological project which takes into consideration the radicality of the other and otherness by questioning intentionality and the validity of intersubjectivity within intentional consciousness. His move “towards Heidegger and against Husserl” was due primarily to Heidegger’s Dasein analysis, understanding of Being and being-with. However, in his major work, Totality and Infinity, Levinas proposes a new perspective on reading intersubjective relations with the Other which strongly contrasts with the Heideggerian concept of intersubjectivity. This paper addresses the question of the Other, intersubjectivity and ethics in the writings of Levinas and Heidegger respectively. It considers Levinas’s critique of intersubjectivity as provoked and developed by Heidegger’s analytic of Dasein, and concentrates on Levinas’s specific understanding of intentionality in his account of metaphysics, metaphysical desire and the Other. It also takes up the question of temporality as a necessary condition for intersubjective relation and explores its implication for the self and the Other in Levinas’s and Heidegger’s respective philosophies.

Children's sense of place in desert towns: a phenomenographic enquiry

Set against the background of the call for sustainable development, a fostering of sense of place emerged as one of education for sustainability's chief goals. Heidegger's concept of dwelling thinking guided us, in this research, to look beyond the emotional and cognitive attachment to a place toward a state of mind which is not limited to a specific place but can also be taken with the dweller wherever he or she goes. A qualitative tool based on analysis of children's drawings was developed for characterizing dwelling thinking in desert towns’ children aged 9–10. The results clarified different forms of sense of place and pointed to practical methodologies for the enhancement of dwelling thinking in our quest for sustainability.

The Politics of Dwelling: Being White / Being South African

This paper explores the incongruence between white South Africans' pre- and postapartheid experiences of home and identity, of which a wave of emigration is arguably a result. Among the commonest reasons given for emigrating are crime and affirmative action; however, this paper uncovers a deeper motivation for emigration using Charles Taylor's concept of the social imaginary and Martin Heidegger's concept of dwelling. The skewed social imaginary maintained by apartheid created an unrealistic sense of dwelling for most white South Africans. After 1994, the conditions supporting this imaginary disintegrated. Many white South Africans feel so strong a sense of unease they can no longer dwell in the country. Many try to escape through emigration, but carry unresolved questions of identity and belonging to their new homes.

Vom kairós zum Ereignis: Martin Heideggers Auseinandersetzung mit dem Urchristentum

AbstractThe Greek term kairós signifies on the one hand an opportune moment and time for decision-making and on the other hand the unpredictable yet expected moment of Christ's return on the Judgment Day according to Paul. The goal of this essay is to establish the connection between kairós and Heidegger's central concept of ,,Ereignis", which he developed in his later years. The Freiburg lectures on the phenomenology of religious life from the early 1920s and the posthumously published works from the 1930s and 1940s will serve to illustrate how the tradition of the Greek and Christian kairós influenced Heidegger's development of the idea of possibly overcoming the chronometric and metaphysical understanding of time as ,,Jetztzeit". He was thus able to deny the ontological privilege of present and presence. The role of Paul is decisive for Heidegger's thinking: the factual experience of the first Christian communities has not only had an external influence on the ,,Daseinsanalytik"; it has also influenced the entire development of ,,Seinsgeschichte" and has had a significant impact on Heidegger's last attempt to define ,,Seinsgeschichte" itself through the ,,Ereignis" beyond any ontological perspective.

Drawing in Good Faith

This paper introduces measured drawings that record the inhabitation of domestic interiors. It locates them in the tradition of measured drawing and explores their particular theoretical provenance in Henri Lefebvre's notion of “the everyday” and Martin Heidegger's conception of “building” and “dwelling”. Expert drawings, but recording non-expert design, they are questioned in relation to Pierre Bourdieu's ideas about taste, competence and virtuosity. It is concluded that, while these drawings come from the professional realm and follow professional conventions, they criticise the boundaries and priorities of architectural expertise. In this way, they involve drawing in good faith.

Older women's experiences of depression: a hermeneutic phenomenological study

This hermeneutic phenomenological study, informed by Max van Manen and Martin Heidegger, describes what it is like for four older women to live with depression. Each participant was interviewed up to three times. Interviews were semi-structured, audiotaped and transcribed verbatim. Data were analysed using van Manen's methodological themes and Heidegger's philosophical concepts of Being-in-the-world and Being-with-others. The themes that emerged were: self-loathing; being overwhelmed by the feelings; hiding from the world; the struggle of everyday life; Being-alone; misinterpreting self and other people; the stigma of mental illness - society and self; and seeking understanding from other people. The findings revealed that depression had a major effect on the women's beliefs about themselves, resulting in a self-loathing and a feeling of failure. The participants described how their self-loathing caused them to believe that other people thought badly of them, which led to their withdrawal. Their inability to connect contributed to them feeling alone and isolated. These women were more able to talk to other people when they were met with understanding. This has implications for the therapeutic nurse-patient relationship, which is fundamental to mental health nursing, because the relationship should be based upon an understanding of the patient's world.

Martin Heidegger's Concept of Authenticity: A Philosophical Contribution to Student Affairs Theory

The author demonstrates how the concept of authenticity, as explicated in Heidegger's early work Being and Time, contributes to student affairs work. Following a brief presentation of Heidegger's philosophical understanding of human existence and how this bears upon his conception of authenticity is a discussion of key implications of Heidegger's thought for the field of student affairs.

Dwelling With the Fourfold

This article explains Martin Heidegger's notorious fourfold (Geviert) as the intersection of two distinct dualisms in Heidegger's philosophy. The role of the fourfold in Heidegger's concept of “the thing” is discussed in especial detail.

Anticipating the End: Thoughts on the Spectator and the Temporality of Dasein.

This article examines the relation between the anticipating spectator and the transitoriness of theatre from an existentialist viewpoint. Referring to Heidegger's concept of ‘the anticipation of death’ (Vorlaufen), it is argued that any anticipation of the end of a performance is capable of reflecting temporality as a whole. In this regard, the performances of the English live art group Forced Entertainment exemplify how to bring the temporality of Dasein into the limelight.

A Comparative Study on J. G. v. Herder and M. Heidegger's Concept of Language - Centered on the Origin of Language and the Matter of Listening -

A Comparative Study on J. G. v. Herder and M. Heidegger's Concept of Language - Centered on the Origin of Language and the Matter of Listening -

Beauvoir-in-America: Understanding, Concrete Experience, and Beauvoir's Appropriation of Heidegger inAmerica Day by Day

This paper reads Simone de Beauvoir's travel journal America Day by Day for its philosophical content. I argue that this work provides a unique approach to feminist, embodied philosophy, one that has been overlooked by the categorization of her writing into philosophical works and feminist ones. Such an approach, I contend, is enacted here through her use of Heidegger's concept of the everyday to inform her own treatment of understanding and experience.

POSMODERNIDAD Y OBRA DE ARTE: DE HEIDEGGER A VATTIMO

This essay deals with the debate concerning postmodernity in the light of Heidegger's conception of art and esthetic experience as the putting into effect of truth, and of the theories of Frederic Jameson and Gianni Vattimo regarding the cultural characteristics embraced by the postmodern subject. These agree with the characteristics of works of art insomuch as the esthetic allows the surge of its signifi cant thanks to the influence and role played in its determination by the massive media of communication.

Heideggers Korrektion des göttlichen Worts

ZUSAMMENFASSUNG In seinem 1927 gehaltenen Vortrag Phänomenologie und Theologie vertritt Heidegger die These, dass die Philosophie theologische Grundbegriffe korrigiere, indem sie sie auf ihren rein rational fassbaren Gehalt reduziere und die ontologischen Bedingungen dieses Gehalts formal anzeige. Dieses Prinzip der »Korrektion« kann durch seine Anwendung auf Thomas von Aquins Begriff des göttlichen Worts veranschaulicht werden. Es kann gezeigt werden, dass Heidegger diesen Begriff auf einen rein rational fassbaren Gehalt reduziert, den er mit einer neuen praktischen oder sprachlichen Bedeutung identifiziert, die ein Dasein erfindet, das Zeug oder Sprache in einer radikal neuen Weise gebraucht. Es kann ferner gezeigt werden, dass die ontologischen Bedingungen dieses rein rational fassbaren Gehalts nach Heidegger in der Erschlossenheit des Daseins liegen. Eine Veranschaulichung von Heideggers Prinzip der Korrektion durch Anwendung auf Aquins Begriff des göttlichen Worts lässt erkennen, dass ein weit verbreitetes Verständnis des für Heideggers Philosophie in Sein und Zeit zentralen Begriffs der Eigentlichkeit verfehlt ist: Eigentlichkeit ist nicht der Modus der Existenz eines Daseins, das zu einer philosophischen Einsicht in seine existenziale Struktur fähig ist, sondern ein existenzieller Modus der Existenz eines Daseins, das über existenzielle Möglichkeiten zur Erfindung neuer Bedeutung durch einen neuartigen Gebrauch von Zeug oder Sprache verfügt. SUMMARY In a lecture delivered in 1927, Heidegger claims that philosophy ‘corrects’ basic theological concepts by reducing them to their purely rational content and by formally indicating the ontological conditions of this content. This principle of ‘correction’ can be specified by applying it to Aquinas's concept of the divine word. Heidegger can be presented as reducing this concept to a purely rational content that he identifies with a new practical or linguistic meaning invented by a Dasein using tools or language in a radically new way. He can further be shown to hold that the ontological conditions of this purely rational content lie in the Dasein's disclosedness. His correction of Aquinas's concept of the divine word reveals that a common understanding of Heidegger's concept of authenticity, which is of central importance to his philosophy in Being and Time , is misguided: authenticity is not a mode exhibited by someone with a philosophical insight into Dasein's existential structure, but the existentiell mode of the existence of a Dasein who has the existentiell possibilities to invent new meaning by introducing new ways of using tools or language.

Early Heidegger's Concept of History in Light of the Neo-Kantians

AbstractThe history of Heidegger's relationship to the neo-Kantians is still largely unwritten, despite the fact that in his formative period Heidegger was very close to the neo-Kantian school, especially Windelband and Rickert, Lask and Natorp. With regard to the concept of history and the importance of historical philosophizing, it is the received view that Dilthey was early Heidegger's main and only source of inspiration. This paper argues against this one-sided view by showing the historical and systematic connections between early Heidegger's views on history and the philosophy of history developed by Windelband and Rickert.

Right Names

In the Cratylus, Socrates discusses with Cratylus and Hermogenes the question of whether names are merely arbitrary or in some sense `right; that is, motivated by the nature of the things they designate. In this article, I examine Heidegger's controversial project of unearthing archē Greek terms in the specific light of the Cratylus and the tradition ofCratylismswhich it has fostered. Having demonstrated the underlying Cratylist tendencies behind Heidegger's conviction in the inherent 'appropriateness' of many Greek keywords, I point out some of the problems posed by this closet Cratylism for Heidegger's conception of primordial language as well as his critique of the correspondence theory of truth.

The Twinkling of an Eye

In this paper I challenge the received view of the relationship between Kierkegaard and Heidegger and explore the relationship between phenomenology and theology. Against the received view―the familiar claim that Heidegger secularizes Kierkegaard―I argue that both philosophers attempt to uncover the existential conditions for the possibility of an authentic existence and take the passionate religious life to be one form of such an existence. Therefore, Heidegger's concept of resoluteness does not represent a secularized break with but rather a phenomenological development of Kierkegaard's concept of inwardness; and both concepts represent a mode of existence that is the condition for the possibility of genuine Christian faith. This grounding relationship between resoluteness and faith, I argue, is representative of Heidegger's view of the relationship between phenomenological and theological concepts in general. Thus, my argument not only sheds light on Heidegger's development of Kierkegaard but it also clarifies some important features of the relationship between phenomenology and theology.

From Existential Conception of Science to Hermeneutic Phenomenology of Scientific Research

This paper is an assessment of the key debates on Heidegger's existential conception of science. It relates the topics to contemporary problems in the philosophy of the natural sciences, providing the reader with a framework to evaluate various versions of hermeneutic phenomenology of scientific research as alternatives to both, naturalistic and normative-epistemological conceptions of scientific research. The paper delineates a context of constitution that is irreducible to the context-distinction between discovery and justification. In this context, the tenets of the doctrine of cognitive existentialism are formulated.

Heidegger: dualismo sentido-sinsentido del hombre en las dimensiones de la técnica

En este artículo se pretende analizar a la luz del pensamiento Heideggeriano, el compromiso ontológico-existencial que adquiere el hombre en la instrumentalización de las nuevas tecnologías. Este compromiso significa, por un lado, la responsabilidad del olvido del ser en la técnica, con el que el hombre se sumerge en un sin-sentido; y por otro, la disposición al abrirse hacia el reconocimiento de los modos en cómo se está manifestatando su “ser-en-el-mundo”. Para el fin propuesto, se expondrán los peligros de la “instrumentalización” de la técnica, tomando como base la explicación Heideggeriana de la esencia de la técnica. Se presentarán los conceptos heideggerianos de angustia y nada con los que se intentará encaminar al hombre postmoderno hacia el encuentro del sentido originario.