I watched this lecture recently, and I finally sat down today in my college library and spent 2 hours meticulously reading and highlighting this essay. I feel that watching your lecture definitely helped me piece together my thoughts during my reading.
I’ve been reading Heidegger my entire life. Tonight I reread What is Metaphysics, and was trying to look up some of the original German text on-line. In the process I stumbled across this lecture. Just clicked on it out of curiosity, and ended up watching the entire thing. Great stuff. Thank you for posting it.
This is astounding. I owe a lot to Heidegger for helping me regulate my emotional life. It whould be practical (not to mention cheaper) for a Cognitive Behavioral Therapist to just tell a patient to read Heidegger, as well as watch these eloquent videos. Thanks a lot for these well-explained, articulate videos.
Gregory B. Sadler The switch was thrown (into the world?) with the realization of this more fundamental interaction with the world aside completely of subjects contemplating objects. I like this idea of being unfolding into a seemingly infinite projection of possibilities pressing ahead into a future. I once had ignorantly presumed mood to play a subordinate role at best to the taskmastering intellect. Affectivity is undeniable to me now in a way not previously concievable prior to Heidegger.
Well, it sure is good that you cleared that up for all of us -- now we needn't waste any more time grappling with Heidegger and his thinking about the nothing and modes of negativity (or Hegel, or Sartre, or Aristotle, or Anselm, or Bergson. . . . . )
It's going to depend in part on the context -- on the types of beings one is "confronting" or which are "confronting" one. Grappling with, examining, trying to "wrap our heads around" various beings which we encounter can be understood as confrontation
Yep, again, did it, long back. I used to actually teach Comparative Religions for quite a while. You're pointing out to me stuff that we discussed and debated ad nauseum way back in grad school -- seemingly assuming that because I'm no longer interested in such "connections" or "similarities" that I hadn't examined them earlier on in my carreer
Well, I don't know what you mean my doubt/authenticity in Kant, so, not much to say. I'd be careful not to conflate ideas, though: anxiety is definitely not the same as nothingness
I think I did explain anxiety in the video. You'll probably want to read the sections on anxiety (Angst) in Being and Time as well, if you want to try to start comparing Heidegger and Kierkegaard (who has a work, in fact, called The Concept of Anxiety)
Thanks so much for your excellent lecture. I'm working my way through your Heidegger playlist in a slightly back to front manner. And what an eye-opening treat it is. Heidegger's explanation and description of Nothing and beings is reminiscent to me of Absence and Presence that occurs in Chinese classical thought but the way he brings in and develops beings, Dasein and Anxiety is simply brilliant. Pure genius. Thank you for making it possible for people like me to benefit from your work.
Thanks very much! Well, using everyday examples is part and parcel of philosophy, since Socrates' time. Saint Anselm was reputedly a master at deriving examples to aid students in grasping metaphysical and moral matters.
here we go again. Finished "The essence of truth" again, now "what is metaphysics." taking notes, and thinking about them is driving me deeper into the essays, and later I will read the texts again. Thank you for these lectures. BY the way, I listened to and read the Essence of technology. IN that book there are more essays: ( one on the danger that H talks about in technology, and another on Nietszche , and another on the world picture. You may like the one on the danger.)
Yes, that's precisely the way Heidegger sees it. And, what's interesting from that perspective as well -- what appears alien to us, since we're unfamiliar with it, its "conditioning" as you've put it here, its "structuring" for Heidegger -- what appears alien is quite often just the human, but the differently human.
Yes, I'll be shooting more for the Existentialism series -- at the very least some portions of Being and Time, the Question Concerning Technology, and perhaps some of the Nietzsche lectures. Down the line, later on, I'll shoot some other Heidegger stuff in a more systematic way
That is a great course to follow -- deliberately taking on the challenging courses like that. Reminds me of myself a bit as a grad student (as an undergrad, not so much)
Well, the good news with M-P is that he digests this stuff and amalgamates it into his own coherent philosophical view -- so if you can figure out precisely what he's saying and up to, you can, as it were, work backwards into some of the sources of his approach
Heidegger's use of the word SCIENCE (common during the 19th century) as any study conducted rigorously & systematically, is something that helped me navigate European philosophy.
That sounds about right -- Hegel, interestingly enough, would also fit that perspective. He tends to be seen in terms of the Absolute and the System -- but he is interested in the individual as well, who is, at any given point (except the "end of history") caught up in such a mix, both within and without
I'm so delighted at this lecture. Dr. Sandler is a gifted teacher and superb guide to these materials. I don't think any American interested in Heidegger and metaphysics could do any better as an introduction. That the professor is so interactive--responding to nearly every individual comment shows a commitment and tenacity unparalleled to my experience (also, I'd venture, so much of it revealing a considerable degree of....self-aware anxiety ;). I almost never comment, but feel a strong desire for affirmation after listening. The real question, for me, is how might one apply these revelations in life, in coping, in interacting--ethically and otherwise, in 'living toward death,' as it were, etc. Certainly, there is a "scientific" approach here, rigorous method and a keen eye for discovering 'essences' (even if they are only "Existence" in long run), like the other phenomenologists, I always feel like I've been handed the supreme tool of tools--the tool for all tools, so to speak. And, just like science, I feel quickly outclassed, technically inferior and dimwitted because I don't know how to use it. I hope I just made some sense. Thank you for the lecture!
the way that heidegger goes about his philosophy by getting into an exact thing to make his way to fundamental questions reminds me of epictetus's stressing of the need to put principles into practice and that that is where true progress is made. i felt this same rhythm or technique of heidegger in the origin of the work of art.
I had no idea what I was getting myself into when i came across this video, this is beyond! Glad I did though, opened my eyes to a totally new perspective. (:
Well, UA-cam has its own captioning service, but it really garbles up everything I say, and it would take a lot of time and work for me to straighten it all out.
Well, there's nothing like diving into M-P himself, and trying to understand him on his own grounds. But, I'd say that, if you're looking for which particular authors would be most helpful to have some background in, in order to understand what M-P is up to, I'd say some understanding of Husserl is useful, as well as of Scheler -- two different streams of phenomenology. Knowing some basics of Hegel and Marx are very useful as well -- and Freudian psychoanalysis, and Structural linguistics
That's a very nice way to put it -- I was just thinking, actually, about Plato, who makes being able to teach a subject the criterion for being said to know it -- but then never really tells us what teaching it involves!
Very well said and this seems to suggest that in so far as we come to understand beings in anyway (through our moods and our cultural paradigms that we are thrown in) we are always beyond our worlds in our relationship to the Nothing.
Well, metaphysics will always be to some sense incomplete, so far as it depends on and incorporates the human being -- the Dasein. There will always be the possibility of doing something new, by extending out once again into the Nothing. Of course, most of what gets considered "new" turns out upon examination not to be new at all
Well, I don't worry about that so much when focusing in on unpacking one of his articles. If I was discussing his Rector's address, then perhaps. There's enough ink already spilled over the Heidegger-Nazi issue already, in my view
well as to the second, beings "give themselves" to the human being grasping them, they show us sides of themselves, including, if we're attentive, their essences. That's not so difficult to grasp, though not our usual way of talking about them as to the first, Being (per se) is not the same thing as one one single being or any class or type of being. And yet, it is involved in every being and in the totality of beings. Heidegger is interested in the difference between these
It's amazing to listen to that 'shift' with Plotinus in mind, that to say the intellect follows from the One could be challenged with the idea that it first requires the Nothing. It's so incredibly simple in terms of negation too!
Concerning the Demiurge In your "In Quest of the Human, and of Being - Martin Heidegger Glimpses Into Existence Lecture 8" you say how an ex-nihilo creation would allow for a god to know the whole of their creation. I would argue that such a god would actually lack any means of attaining self-knowledge. This might seem like an odd accusation to lay at an 'omniscient' being, but I am imagining creation out of nothing as a first self, whose other is nothingness......lacking the mediation to gain self-knowledge through the other.
Yes, that would be a more or less Hegelian way of looking at the issue - which of course, would be one option among many for making sense out of divine omniscence
Where can I look in Hegel(or elsewhere) to grapple with this idea a little more? I believe that Hegel sees creation(people) as taking on this capacity for self-knowledge on behalf of the creator (though I am probably getting this at least a little bit wrong) and that this is an outcome of the dialectical process. But I am stuck on a gnostic understanding of the creator as being flawed, and this flaw being transcended by the human capacity to become a "we" (able to exist beyond the self-other dichotomy) and that this is something more radical than simply being an outcome of the dialectical process, I would go as far as to say that it is the raw material out of which the dialectic develops, by being the bridge over the opposition. Many Thanks(for your reply and for your videos in general)!
Well. . . I think there are a few surface similarities, including terminology. There's far more important differences, though -- including the conception of the nothing in Heidegger. So, when you dig in and examine them, they're not really as similar as they might first appear.
Though I originally was somewhat put off by the format, this turned into an excellent and insightful survey into Martin Heidegger's metaphysics. I was about to note the significant similarities between Søren Kierkegaard and Heidegger, but I see there is already a considerable series of videos on S.K by the video-author. Looking forward to checking out the rest of the series on existentialism.
Hahaha! I won't be able to explain these all that well in a UA-cam comment. Here goes: 1. Being as such precedes existence -- the way human beings have their being in the world. There is Being first, logically and temporally. 2. So, this is similar to Heidegger's insistence that truth always contains some untruth -- unconcealment still involves some concealment of beings. Authenticity shows up against a backdrop, or everyday condition, of inauthenticity.
So, a lot of stuff here. First off, thanks! Second, the "nothing" isn't something Heidegger introduces to Philosophy, no -- people like Plato (as non-being), Aristotle (privation), Anselm (lot's of discussions of nothing, also in relation to human freedom and action), and Hegel, even Bergson discuss "nothing". Third, Heidegger's considerations of it aren't, I think, coming from Kant, or considerations of Kant/transcendental critique-- but are arising earlier on in his thought.
Finished watching the Peter Sellers film "Being There". Much laughter-in-the-world. "All will be well, in the garden". Thanks for these lectures, great stuff.
Thanks for this. I'm a philosophy minor who made the leap from 100-200 level classes to a 500 level course on 20th Century Philosophy this semester. As you can imagine, I'm a little in over my head when it comes to this stuff (first reading was by Bergson and reading it was like banging my head against concrete) since I have almost no prior experience with writings on metaphysics. Anyways, your summary and explanation really opened up a new way for me to approach my readings.
You're welcome -- that is quite a leap! Glad this video was useful for you. You might also check out the ones I've got on Aristotle's Metaphysics book 1, and a few of the Plato videos
Gregory B. Sadler (since I'm not sure where I would ask you this question I'm just going to go ahead and draw out a discussion here.) I'm reading Schopenhauer's "The World as Will and Representation" for my aesthetics class, and I'm wondering if you would know whether or not Schopenhauer's metaphysics was directly influenced by Vedic thought. If so, would his concept of "the Will" be analogous to Brahman as described in the Upanishads? We have to come up with talking points for our in-class discussions on the readings, and I just want to see if I'm drawing the right connections here (since Schopenhauer doesn't explicitly cite Indian philosophy anywhere in his essay.)
There's quite a bit out there discussing Schopenhauer and Indian philosophy, which was starting to make its way to Germany in his time. Directly influenced? I couldn't really say myself. I suspect that one can get to Schopenhauer from Kant without bringing in any Indian philosophy.
Beyond our worlds in the sense that the way we understand beings is never exhaustive in any particular temporal/historic world. In so far as we relate ourselves to anything we are always conditioning the boundaries of how and in what particular way beings are disclosed.
Fun and interesting lecture Gregory, thanks for putting it up, found it very engaging. The closing 5 mins revealed a well trodden idea that i'd love to hear you expand on. You might enjoy and have a good chuckle by reading the following two books. Firstly 'My Big Toe' (TOE: Theory of Everything) by Thomas W . Campbell, delves in and tries to explaine consciousness as the fundamental, then on to the 'Why', and secondly 'The Screwtape Letters' a novel by C. S. Lewis, an allegory, a senior devil teaching a junior devil the art of devilry, how to corrupt humans....
Fern Oso I've read the Screwtape Letters many times and enjoyed it. Not sure I'll get to any new readings anytime soon, given how packed my schedule is -- for any given new book, I always have to ask: read this. . . or reread Plato, or Aristotle, or Cicero, or. . . . As to the last 5 minutes, you mean the idea of metaphysics as something unavoidable, but typically misunderstood by those engaging in Philosophy?
In a way yes; metaphysics being a good a title/metaphor as any to head a certain line of enquiry into to the what, why etc…. inherent and unavoidable. But mostly I was referring to the ‘whole’, ‘nothingness’ line of thought in your ending which I'd love to hear you expand on; a great example being the Heart sutra from the 9th century: "form is emptiness, emptiness is form" etc… Glad to hear you liked the Screwtape letters, a classic, should be compulsory reading in all schools. I would definitely give 'My Big Toe' a go, as it uses our newly found and evolving digital concepts and models to try and explain consciousness, intent, why, what etc… By ‘ours’ and ‘new’ I mean the digital revolution of the last 50+ years. If you get past the short and somewhat bent introduction, you’ll find some very interesting meat to chew on, give it a scan read when you can. So many books so little time……
You know, if you read, say Anselm, you'll see that the version you've given is something he actually said himself -- mainly as part of a fuller, more adequate treatment. You're quite free to think whatever you like about nothing, and about the great thinkers who've had very well-thought-out things to say about it. . . . But, you're not proposing anything actually new or particularly illuminating about the matter
This is wonderful stuff. I've struggled a bit with Being and Time and listened to Hubert Dreyfus' lectures on iTunes U, and I find your lecture here to be very illuminating. Makes me want to make another try at reading Heidegger.
Not sure how to answer that. I'm not sure what "based on difficulties and easy understanding" would mean. And, philosophy and physiology are two very different disciplines
Gregory you're a boss. This one video helped me find a point of entry into Heidegger's wild polemics. If this essay i'm writing on his notion of Being gets a high distinction, I'll have you to thank.
I read Being and Time in 2013. It was a really good introduction to What Is Metaphysics? 10/10 would recommend. I liked the part when he starts to talk about “temporal ecstatic unities,” it goes on for another 250 pages, you read a page and a half, realize you haven’t been paying attention, go back two pages, try to hang on to each word for dear life, inceptioning the translation with a “what the heck does this particular collection of nonsense words actually say” translation of your very own by filling up an entire notebook, occasionally getting a moment of elated epiphany when a bunch of stuff “clicks,” feeling really smart for a day or two, trying to relate all this cool stuff you’re reading to your friends, realizing you look and sound like you’ve had a psychotic break...I’m still traumatized...recently read Derrida’s 1967 books hasn’t helped, but Heidegger was a reading comprehension trial by fire, so it wasn’t as bad as everyone says. Anyways, read What Is Metaphysics? this morning, now watching this in the bath. Thanks!
I do some of my best reading and thinking in the bath. I don't live in it, like Churchill apparently did, though. . . And yeah, Heidegger - and Derrida - are slow going. . .
Talk about a tall order! But, thanks for the suggestions; I had some previous exposure to Merleau-Ponty and, though I had thought I had begun to get some idea of what was going on, it seemed otherwise when I discussed it in the phenomenology seminar I took a few years ago.
I have a general question in regards to your Heidegger video. How do you resolve the fact he was a card carrying member of the Nazi party, or in a more general sense: how do you resolve when somebody produces something wonderful, but is intentionally associated with very bad groups?
Well, Heidegger is a pretty tough person to make sense of -- so just keep at it, and hopefully things will get more clear (the same can be said about a number of other philosophers)
Well, no, there are original thoughts from time to time. Again, feel free on your part to think your account is illuminating. It isn't. It's already been done, worked through by great thinkers. I'm done devoting scarce time to this comment thread. I suggest you spend sometime studying some of the thinkers who have discussed nothing, non-being, and negation, and then start coming up with a "new" or "exact" analysis of your very own
is he saying that nothing can only be experienced through the modality of anxiety? I know he said that it can come on spontaneously, but by that does he mean anxiety can come about spontaneously and therefore allow the experience of nothing? well, I believe he said that anxiety was the only modality by which you can experience nothing, but is there perhaps a state of experiencing nothing where in which no emotional state is presence?
Anxiety is the mood/affectivity which is most revealing of the nothing -- but there's no guarantee that by feeling anxiety one will actually grasp the nothing. There's all sorts of dodges people use to keep the nothing away from themselves, their awareness, etc -- you'll find those discussed in Being and Time
Dialektik trinity`S....to lift up.. to raise in "absolutely spirit" .just.some termini are different,.... I ` am only an dilettante, but very glad to remark that these legacy, is transmitted by your profound teaching work, learning, now the essential meanings,be coming better froward today, with our common history of spirit being - together with such spirits of history like you, we will change our state in more sensible reason. Right on with best wishes
Yeah. . . I have to say that I still don't buy it. This was a question we spent a good bit of time exploring back in my grad school days, during our Heidegger seminar
Heidegger's vernacular and terminology are endlessly frustrating and hard to unpack. These videos are extremely helpful, Professor Sadler. I wonder if it was appropriate for H to communicate his philosophy through such difficult language, though.
I think that when it comes to great philosophers, we cut them some slack about the language they choose, and do the best we can to figure out what they're saying. It's not as if Heidegger doesn't make a lot of efforts to explain the neologisms he employs
Gregory B. Sadler that is actually a very good perspective on things. I suppose it would be inappropriate to impose restrictions and limits on how philosophers should communicate. We might not have gotten Heidegger at all! I think that would have been much worse.
Could you explain Heidegger's experience of anxiety in What is Metaphysics? I'm trying to make connections with Heidegger's experience of anxiety and Kierkegard's Knight of Faith.
I couldn't find anything by you on Question Concerning Technology, have you shot this yet? This video lecture was helpful for an undergraduate paper that I am currently writing.
Hahaha! Thanks! This could help a bit for Phenomenology -- at least for understanding Heidegger and Sartre. Probably not particularly helpful for Husserl -- or for Scheler, or Merleau-Ponty, but hopefully, some of the other stuff I'll be getting to in the coming months might help out with those a bit as well. you'll have to let me know who they cover in the course. . .
The best and most concise definition I ever heard is the purpose of Metaphysics is determining what grounds what. For instance what grounds our ethical claims. It is mainly an epistemological concern: how do we know what we know. How do we epistemically justify our metaphysical claim? I'm not sure this can ever be done. However, I think what is required is to use a Dreyfus interpretation: Dasein must find a way to cope (to cope authentically). For this I use a phrase I borrow from Quine in order to cope with the inability to ground our claims, "our metaphysical claims" we ontologically commit to, not a basis for a metaphysic, but our lack of it, (our inability to ground our claims metaphysically). We have to settle for ontological commitments rather than metaphysical grounding. The question of how to do this authentically is another question that I have yet to answer.
I'd rather not have a concise definition of metaphysics, or reduce metaphysics to an "epistemological concern". Also, not a fan of Dreyfus or Quine. Maybe let's just stick with Heidegger's ideas on a Heidegger video
is nihilation merely abstraction in reverse? In abstraction one focuses on one aspect and brings it forward( at the expense of the rest), while nihilation rejects the rest, and isolates the one aspect which is revealed? entity would then not be a self-identical unit, but the negation of the rest and thus related to but denial of the rest.
No, afraid not. Sadler isn't actually our family's real name. On my father's side, his father changed it from Skufka to Sadler -- there was a lot of prejudice against slavs, especially southern slavs, in American society back then. On my mother's side -- the side I identify with more, it's Lemrise
I'm lost with the concept or meaning of anxiety in the context of the nothing. Anxiety, in my understanding, is a kind of worry. We get anxious about something. Do we get anxious about 'nothing' ? Or does he mean something different when using the word 'anxiety'?
He means what he means by "anxiety" -- not necessarily what other theorists have meant by it, which seems to be what you're bringing to your study of Heidegger. He distinguishes fear and anxiety along these lines: fear is of some definite object. Anxiety is not directed towards some definite object. So, yes, we can get anxious about nothing, no-thing
I wonder if there's any more to say on the question of daring here, does he elaborate on that as a stance one might take that isn't a retreat from anxiety but isn't as unpleasant as just passively being confronted with this anxiety?
I watched this lecture recently, and I finally sat down today in my college library and spent 2 hours meticulously reading and highlighting this essay. I feel that watching your lecture definitely helped me piece together my thoughts during my reading.
I’ve been reading Heidegger my entire life. Tonight I reread What is Metaphysics, and was trying to look up some of the original German text on-line. In the process I stumbled across this lecture. Just clicked on it out of curiosity, and ended up watching the entire thing. Great stuff. Thank you for posting it.
You're very welcome!
The Dude, or one might say he has emerged with dudeness
Indeed. I probably ought to shoot some stuff dressed like the Dude sometime
Clifford Son
drup s
Whats that, some kind of eastern thing?
This is astounding. I owe a lot to Heidegger for helping me regulate my emotional life. It whould be practical (not to mention cheaper) for a Cognitive Behavioral Therapist to just tell a patient to read Heidegger, as well as watch these eloquent videos.
Thanks a lot for these well-explained, articulate videos.
You're welcome. I'm not sure about prescribing Heidegger - not the easiest read and study for most people, I think!
Gregory B. Sadler The switch was thrown (into the world?) with the realization of this more fundamental interaction with the world aside completely of subjects contemplating objects. I like this idea of being unfolding into a seemingly infinite projection of possibilities pressing ahead into a future.
I once had ignorantly presumed mood to play a subordinate role at best to the taskmastering intellect. Affectivity is undeniable to me now in a way not previously concievable prior to Heidegger.
I think the connection between mood, pre-understanding, language, and thrownness -- the four equiprimordials -- that can be something useful. . .
Would you please repeat all that in some intelligible way.
Second or third viewing of this lecture. The pieces of Heidegger's metaphysics are more apparent and gluing together. Note taking helps.
Dear Dr Sadler, I really did enjoy this video and has filled another gap in my understanding. Thank you so very much.
Glad you found it useful. You're welcome!
This essay occupied my thoughts and informed by academic work for years. Incredible work.
Well, it sure is good that you cleared that up for all of us -- now we needn't waste any more time grappling with Heidegger and his thinking about the nothing and modes of negativity (or Hegel, or Sartre, or Aristotle, or Anselm, or Bergson. . . . . )
It's going to depend in part on the context -- on the types of beings one is "confronting" or which are "confronting" one.
Grappling with, examining, trying to "wrap our heads around" various beings which we encounter can be understood as confrontation
Good to hear -- yes, Heidegger has got some pretty incredible stuff going on in his thinking.
Yep, again, did it, long back. I used to actually teach Comparative Religions for quite a while.
You're pointing out to me stuff that we discussed and debated ad nauseum way back in grad school -- seemingly assuming that because I'm no longer interested in such "connections" or "similarities" that I hadn't examined them earlier on in my carreer
Well, I don't know what you mean my doubt/authenticity in Kant, so, not much to say. I'd be careful not to conflate ideas, though: anxiety is definitely not the same as nothingness
I feel much smarter after watching this; thanks Professor Sadler.
@@lorax121323 how very smart (ass)
I think I did explain anxiety in the video. You'll probably want to read the sections on anxiety (Angst) in Being and Time as well, if you want to try to start comparing Heidegger and Kierkegaard (who has a work, in fact, called The Concept of Anxiety)
You're very welcome! That's some very high praise, which I'm not sure is entirely merited -- but I'll take it
Thanks so much for your excellent lecture. I'm working my way through your Heidegger playlist in a slightly back to front manner. And what an eye-opening treat it is.
Heidegger's explanation and description of Nothing and beings is reminiscent to me of Absence and Presence that occurs in Chinese classical thought but the way he brings in and develops beings, Dasein and Anxiety is simply brilliant. Pure genius.
Thank you for making it possible for people like me to benefit from your work.
You're very welcome!
Thanks very much! Well, using everyday examples is part and parcel of philosophy, since Socrates' time. Saint Anselm was reputedly a master at deriving examples to aid students in grasping metaphysical and moral matters.
You're welcome. Glad you liked it
here we go again. Finished "The essence of truth" again, now "what is metaphysics." taking notes, and thinking about them is driving me deeper into the essays, and later I will read the texts again. Thank you for these lectures. BY the way, I listened to and read the Essence of technology. IN that book there are more essays: ( one on the danger that H talks about in technology, and another on Nietszche , and another on the world picture. You may like the one on the danger.)
Thank you for giving a clear, concise, intelligible breakdown of a challenging reading!
You're very welcome!
Yes, that's precisely the way Heidegger sees it.
And, what's interesting from that perspective as well -- what appears alien to us, since we're unfamiliar with it, its "conditioning" as you've put it here, its "structuring" for Heidegger -- what appears alien is quite often just the human, but the differently human.
You're welcome! Glad you liked it
No, I haven't yet shot any new Heidegger videos. Soon, though
Yes, I'll be shooting more for the Existentialism series -- at the very least some portions of Being and Time, the Question Concerning Technology, and perhaps some of the Nietzsche lectures.
Down the line, later on, I'll shoot some other Heidegger stuff in a more systematic way
That is a great course to follow -- deliberately taking on the challenging courses like that. Reminds me of myself a bit as a grad student (as an undergrad, not so much)
Well, the good news with M-P is that he digests this stuff and amalgamates it into his own coherent philosophical view -- so if you can figure out precisely what he's saying and up to, you can, as it were, work backwards into some of the sources of his approach
Heidegger's use of the word SCIENCE (common during the 19th century) as any study conducted rigorously & systematically, is something that helped me navigate European philosophy.
That sounds about right -- Hegel, interestingly enough, would also fit that perspective. He tends to be seen in terms of the Absolute and the System -- but he is interested in the individual as well, who is, at any given point (except the "end of history") caught up in such a mix, both within and without
I'm so delighted at this lecture. Dr. Sandler is a gifted teacher and superb guide to these materials. I don't think any American interested in Heidegger and metaphysics could do any better as an introduction. That the professor is so interactive--responding to nearly every individual comment shows a commitment and tenacity unparalleled to my experience (also, I'd venture, so much of it revealing a considerable degree of....self-aware anxiety ;). I almost never comment, but feel a strong desire for affirmation after listening. The real question, for me, is how might one apply these revelations in life, in coping, in interacting--ethically and otherwise, in 'living toward death,' as it were, etc. Certainly, there is a "scientific" approach here, rigorous method and a keen eye for discovering 'essences' (even if they are only "Existence" in long run), like the other phenomenologists, I always feel like I've been handed the supreme tool of tools--the tool for all tools, so to speak. And, just like science, I feel quickly outclassed, technically inferior and dimwitted because I don't know how to use it. I hope I just made some sense. Thank you for the lecture!
the way that heidegger goes about his philosophy by getting into an exact thing to make his way to fundamental questions reminds me of epictetus's stressing of the need to put principles into practice and that that is where true progress is made. i felt this same rhythm or technique of heidegger in the origin of the work of art.
I had no idea what I was getting myself into when i came across this video, this is beyond! Glad I did though, opened my eyes to a totally new perspective. (:
Well, UA-cam has its own captioning service, but it really garbles up everything I say, and it would take a lot of time and work for me to straighten it all out.
You're welcome. Glad what I could say in a comment turned out to be what you were looking for
Well, there's nothing like diving into M-P himself, and trying to understand him on his own grounds.
But, I'd say that, if you're looking for which particular authors would be most helpful to have some background in, in order to understand what M-P is up to, I'd say some understanding of Husserl is useful, as well as of Scheler -- two different streams of phenomenology. Knowing some basics of Hegel and Marx are very useful as well -- and Freudian psychoanalysis, and Structural linguistics
That's a very nice way to put it -- I was just thinking, actually, about Plato, who makes being able to teach a subject the criterion for being said to know it -- but then never really tells us what teaching it involves!
Very well said and this seems to suggest that in so far as we come to understand beings in anyway (through our moods and our cultural paradigms that we are thrown in) we are always beyond our worlds in our relationship to the Nothing.
Well, metaphysics will always be to some sense incomplete, so far as it depends on and incorporates the human being -- the Dasein. There will always be the possibility of doing something new, by extending out once again into the Nothing.
Of course, most of what gets considered "new" turns out upon examination not to be new at all
@Rebeckah Hall I didn't say nothing is ever new.
Glad you enjoy the videos
Oops -- too many windows open at once and multi-tasking while trying to get ready for work! Glad you liked the video!
No problem -- I've had quite a few people asking me that same kind of question, saying "author" rather than "translator". Not sure why
Well, I don't worry about that so much when focusing in on unpacking one of his articles. If I was discussing his Rector's address, then perhaps. There's enough ink already spilled over the Heidegger-Nazi issue already, in my view
Excellent lecture. I hope you have and/or will upload more Heiddegger lectures.
Thank you for helping me understand the anxiety aspect and the holding out inherent in Dasein! was very lost!!
You're welcome!
well as to the second, beings "give themselves" to the human being grasping them, they show us sides of themselves, including, if we're attentive, their essences. That's not so difficult to grasp, though not our usual way of talking about them
as to the first, Being (per se) is not the same thing as one one single being or any class or type of being. And yet, it is involved in every being and in the totality of beings. Heidegger is interested in the difference between these
Very helpful lecture to introduce a very clever philosopher. Wow!
Thanks!
It's amazing to listen to that 'shift' with Plotinus in mind, that to say the intellect follows from the One could be challenged with the idea that it first requires the Nothing. It's so incredibly simple in terms of negation too!
Yes - it makes one rethink a number of different basic metaphysical schemes
Concerning the Demiurge
In your "In Quest of the Human, and of Being - Martin Heidegger Glimpses Into Existence Lecture 8" you say how an ex-nihilo creation would allow for a god to know the whole of their creation. I would argue that such a god would actually lack any means of attaining self-knowledge.
This might seem like an odd accusation to lay at an 'omniscient' being, but I am imagining creation out of nothing as a first self, whose other is nothingness......lacking the mediation to gain self-knowledge through the other.
Yes, that would be a more or less Hegelian way of looking at the issue - which of course, would be one option among many for making sense out of divine omniscence
Where can I look in Hegel(or elsewhere) to grapple with this idea a little more? I believe that Hegel sees creation(people) as taking on this capacity for self-knowledge on behalf of the creator (though I am probably getting this at least a little bit wrong) and that this is an outcome of the dialectical process.
But I am stuck on a gnostic understanding of the creator as being flawed, and this flaw being transcended by the human capacity to become a "we" (able to exist beyond the self-other dichotomy) and that this is something more radical than simply being an outcome of the dialectical process, I would go as far as to say that it is the raw material out of which the dialectic develops, by being the bridge over the opposition.
Many Thanks(for your reply and for your videos in general)!
Well. . . I think there are a few surface similarities, including terminology. There's far more important differences, though -- including the conception of the nothing in Heidegger. So, when you dig in and examine them, they're not really as similar as they might first appear.
Glad you found it useful
Though I originally was somewhat put off by the format, this turned into an excellent and insightful survey into Martin Heidegger's metaphysics.
I was about to note the significant similarities between Søren Kierkegaard and Heidegger, but I see there is already a considerable series of videos on S.K by the video-author.
Looking forward to checking out the rest of the series on existentialism.
Glad you were able to make it through my off-putting format.
Hahaha! I won't be able to explain these all that well in a UA-cam comment. Here goes:
1. Being as such precedes existence -- the way human beings have their being in the world. There is Being first, logically and temporally.
2. So, this is similar to Heidegger's insistence that truth always contains some untruth -- unconcealment still involves some concealment of beings. Authenticity shows up against a backdrop, or everyday condition, of inauthenticity.
Well, nothing to say about that, I suppose -- other than to point out that it's not just about nothing, but about human being and freedom as well
So, a lot of stuff here.
First off, thanks!
Second, the "nothing" isn't something Heidegger introduces to Philosophy, no -- people like Plato (as non-being), Aristotle (privation), Anselm (lot's of discussions of nothing, also in relation to human freedom and action), and Hegel, even Bergson discuss "nothing".
Third, Heidegger's considerations of it aren't, I think, coming from Kant, or considerations of Kant/transcendental critique-- but are arising earlier on in his thought.
Finished watching the Peter Sellers film "Being There". Much laughter-in-the-world. "All will be well, in the garden". Thanks for these lectures, great stuff.
Thanks for this. I'm a philosophy minor who made the leap from 100-200 level classes to a 500 level course on 20th Century Philosophy this semester. As you can imagine, I'm a little in over my head when it comes to this stuff (first reading was by Bergson and reading it was like banging my head against concrete) since I have almost no prior experience with writings on metaphysics.
Anyways, your summary and explanation really opened up a new way for me to approach my readings.
You're welcome -- that is quite a leap! Glad this video was useful for you. You might also check out the ones I've got on Aristotle's Metaphysics book 1, and a few of the Plato videos
Gregory B. Sadler (since I'm not sure where I would ask you this question I'm just going to go ahead and draw out a discussion here.)
I'm reading Schopenhauer's "The World as Will and Representation" for my aesthetics class, and I'm wondering if you would know whether or not Schopenhauer's metaphysics was directly influenced by Vedic thought. If so, would his concept of "the Will" be analogous to Brahman as described in the Upanishads?
We have to come up with talking points for our in-class discussions on the readings, and I just want to see if I'm drawing the right connections here (since Schopenhauer doesn't explicitly cite Indian philosophy anywhere in his essay.)
felizginato12 Sorry, I meant "the Idea", not "the Will" (I think...maybe I'm not fully grasping the text)
There's quite a bit out there discussing Schopenhauer and Indian philosophy, which was starting to make its way to Germany in his time.
Directly influenced? I couldn't really say myself. I suspect that one can get to Schopenhauer from Kant without bringing in any Indian philosophy.
Excellent lecture, thank you Dr Sadler.
You're welcome - and thanks!
I love your lectures, Dr. Sadler!
Thanks!
Beyond our worlds in the sense that the way we understand beings is never exhaustive in any particular temporal/historic world. In so far as we relate ourselves to anything we are always conditioning the boundaries of how and in what particular way beings are disclosed.
makes perfect sense to me.
That's a particularly interesting piece as well.
Well, glad you cleared that up for all of us
Yes, it is among his best, I think
Fun and interesting lecture Gregory, thanks for putting it up, found it very engaging. The closing 5 mins revealed a well trodden idea that i'd love to hear you expand on. You might enjoy and have a good chuckle by reading the following two books. Firstly 'My Big Toe' (TOE: Theory of Everything) by Thomas W . Campbell, delves in and tries to explaine consciousness as the fundamental, then on to the 'Why', and secondly 'The Screwtape Letters' a novel by C. S. Lewis, an allegory, a senior devil teaching a junior devil the art of devilry, how to corrupt humans....
Fern Oso I've read the Screwtape Letters many times and enjoyed it. Not sure I'll get to any new readings anytime soon, given how packed my schedule is -- for any given new book, I always have to ask: read this. . . or reread Plato, or Aristotle, or Cicero, or. . . .
As to the last 5 minutes, you mean the idea of metaphysics as something unavoidable, but typically misunderstood by those engaging in Philosophy?
In a way yes; metaphysics being a good a title/metaphor as any to head a certain line of enquiry into to the what, why etc…. inherent and unavoidable.
But mostly I was referring to the ‘whole’, ‘nothingness’ line of thought in your ending which I'd love to hear you expand on; a great example being the Heart sutra from the 9th century: "form is emptiness, emptiness is form" etc…
Glad to hear you liked the Screwtape letters, a classic, should be compulsory reading in all schools. I would definitely give 'My Big Toe' a go, as it uses our newly found and evolving digital concepts and models to try and explain consciousness, intent, why, what etc… By ‘ours’ and ‘new’ I mean the digital revolution of the last 50+ years.
If you get past the short and somewhat bent introduction, you’ll find some very interesting meat to chew on, give it a scan read when you can.
So many books so little time……
You know, if you read, say Anselm, you'll see that the version you've given is something he actually said himself -- mainly as part of a fuller, more adequate treatment.
You're quite free to think whatever you like about nothing, and about the great thinkers who've had very well-thought-out things to say about it. . . .
But, you're not proposing anything actually new or particularly illuminating about the matter
This is wonderful stuff. I've struggled a bit with Being and Time and listened to Hubert Dreyfus' lectures on iTunes U, and I find your lecture here to be very illuminating. Makes me want to make another try at reading Heidegger.
+T.J. Segrest That's good to read. Glad the lecture could inspire diving back in. . .
Dr. I love the way that was summed up.
Not sure how to answer that.
I'm not sure what "based on difficulties and easy understanding" would mean.
And, philosophy and physiology are two very different disciplines
Gregory you're a boss. This one video helped me find a point of entry into Heidegger's wild polemics. If this essay i'm writing on his notion of Being gets a high distinction, I'll have you to thank.
Glad it helped you with the -- yes, quite tricky -- Heidegger text.
'Sightseeing', by Weather Report, is the best background music for this lecture.
I tried it. It's very good indeed! Really gets your brain working in a relaxed way.
Its like musical schizophrenia
I read Being and Time in 2013. It was a really good introduction to What Is Metaphysics? 10/10 would recommend. I liked the part when he starts to talk about “temporal ecstatic unities,” it goes on for another 250 pages, you read a page and a half, realize you haven’t been paying attention, go back two pages, try to hang on to each word for dear life, inceptioning the translation with a “what the heck does this particular collection of nonsense words actually say” translation of your very own by filling up an entire notebook, occasionally getting a moment of elated epiphany when a bunch of stuff “clicks,” feeling really smart for a day or two, trying to relate all this cool stuff you’re reading to your friends, realizing you look and sound like you’ve had a psychotic break...I’m still traumatized...recently read Derrida’s 1967 books hasn’t helped, but Heidegger was a reading comprehension trial by fire, so it wasn’t as bad as everyone says.
Anyways, read What Is Metaphysics? this morning, now watching this in the bath.
Thanks!
I do some of my best reading and thinking in the bath. I don't live in it, like Churchill apparently did, though. . .
And yeah, Heidegger - and Derrida - are slow going. . .
Metaphysics I think is a very interesting subject. Thank you for posting this.
You're welcome -- and yes, indeed, it is, when we go to the roots of things
Excellent! I really enjoyed this lecture.
Glad to read it
Talk about a tall order! But, thanks for the suggestions; I had some previous exposure to Merleau-Ponty and, though I had thought I had begun to get some idea of what was going on, it seemed otherwise when I discussed it in the phenomenology seminar I took a few years ago.
Thanks very much!
Glad to read that
You're welcome
I have a general question in regards to your Heidegger video. How do you resolve the fact he was a card carrying member of the Nazi party, or in a more general sense: how do you resolve when somebody produces something wonderful, but is intentionally associated with very bad groups?
You mean the second part, the interplay between authenticity and authenticity
Greatly appreciate this. Thanks for sharing.
I don't know very much at all about philosophy and struggle here and there to grasp some of the things that are said. But yet, I find it interesting.
Well, Heidegger is a pretty tough person to make sense of -- so just keep at it, and hopefully things will get more clear (the same can be said about a number of other philosophers)
Well, no, there are original thoughts from time to time.
Again, feel free on your part to think your account is illuminating. It isn't. It's already been done, worked through by great thinkers.
I'm done devoting scarce time to this comment thread. I suggest you spend sometime studying some of the thinkers who have discussed nothing, non-being, and negation, and then start coming up with a "new" or "exact" analysis of your very own
The author? Heidegger.
The translation is by Krell, in that Basic Writings volume
thanks for subscribing
Good to read. I'm glad it helped
Brilliant, Thank you very much.
is he saying that nothing can only be experienced through the modality of anxiety? I know he said that it can come on spontaneously, but by that does he mean anxiety can come about spontaneously and therefore allow the experience of nothing? well, I believe he said that anxiety was the only modality by which you can experience nothing, but is there perhaps a state of experiencing nothing where in which no emotional state is presence?
Anxiety is the mood/affectivity which is most revealing of the nothing -- but there's no guarantee that by feeling anxiety one will actually grasp the nothing. There's all sorts of dodges people use to keep the nothing away from themselves, their awareness, etc -- you'll find those discussed in Being and Time
Dialektik trinity`S....to lift up.. to raise in "absolutely spirit" .just.some termini are different,.... I ` am only an dilettante, but very glad to remark that these legacy, is transmitted by your profound teaching work, learning, now the essential meanings,be coming better froward today, with our common history of spirit being - together with such spirits of history like you, we will change our state in more sensible reason.
Right on with best wishes
hi i'm learning this in class and i'm still lost about how Being is not being and what does it mean by stating that being can give
Being capital B does the giving, being small b is all entities such as rock, water, dreams, living thing etc.
Yeah. . . I have to say that I still don't buy it. This was a question we spent a good bit of time exploring back in my grad school days, during our Heidegger seminar
Because I'm holding my head?
Heidegger's vernacular and terminology are endlessly frustrating and hard to unpack. These videos are extremely helpful, Professor Sadler. I wonder if it was appropriate for H to communicate his philosophy through such difficult language, though.
I think that when it comes to great philosophers, we cut them some slack about the language they choose, and do the best we can to figure out what they're saying. It's not as if Heidegger doesn't make a lot of efforts to explain the neologisms he employs
Gregory B. Sadler that is actually a very good perspective on things. I suppose it would be inappropriate to impose restrictions and limits on how philosophers should communicate. We might not have gotten Heidegger at all! I think that would have been much worse.
Could you explain Heidegger's experience of anxiety in What is Metaphysics? I'm trying to make connections with Heidegger's experience of anxiety and Kierkegard's Knight of Faith.
thank you for all your lectures
You're welcome!
Would you please do a series on Heidegger’s Nietzsche lectures? They’re the most fascinating to me.
ua-cam.com/video/vkXKtxleGA8/v-deo.html
thank you Mr. Sadler. It means a lot.
I couldn't find anything by you on Question Concerning Technology, have you shot this yet?
This video lecture was helpful for an undergraduate paper that I am currently writing.
Hahaha! Thanks! This could help a bit for Phenomenology -- at least for understanding Heidegger and Sartre.
Probably not particularly helpful for Husserl -- or for Scheler, or Merleau-Ponty, but hopefully, some of the other stuff I'll be getting to in the coming months might help out with those a bit as well. you'll have to let me know who they cover in the course. . .
I'm in a reading group covering this text (in Milwaukee!), thanks for the help.
You do know I live right downtown in Milwaukee, right?
The best and most concise definition I ever heard is the purpose of Metaphysics is determining what grounds what. For instance what grounds our ethical claims.
It is mainly an epistemological concern: how do we know what we know. How do we epistemically justify our metaphysical claim? I'm not sure this can ever be done.
However, I think what is required is to use a Dreyfus interpretation: Dasein must find a way to cope (to cope authentically). For this I use a phrase I borrow from Quine in order to cope with the inability to ground our claims, "our metaphysical claims" we ontologically commit to, not a basis for a metaphysic, but our lack of it, (our inability to ground our claims metaphysically).
We have to settle for ontological commitments rather than metaphysical grounding. The question of how to do this authentically is another question that I have yet to answer.
I'd rather not have a concise definition of metaphysics, or reduce metaphysics to an "epistemological concern". Also, not a fan of Dreyfus or Quine.
Maybe let's just stick with Heidegger's ideas on a Heidegger video
is nihilation merely abstraction in reverse? In abstraction one focuses on one aspect and brings it forward( at the expense of the rest), while nihilation rejects the rest, and isolates the one aspect which is revealed? entity would then not be a self-identical unit, but the negation of the rest and thus related to but denial of the rest.
There are a variety of modes of nihilative comportments or actsdiscussed by Heidegger. The same description doesn't work for all of them
No, afraid not. Sadler isn't actually our family's real name.
On my father's side, his father changed it from Skufka to Sadler -- there was a lot of prejudice against slavs, especially southern slavs, in American society back then.
On my mother's side -- the side I identify with more, it's Lemrise
I'm lost with the concept or meaning of anxiety in the context of the nothing. Anxiety, in my understanding, is a kind of worry. We get anxious about something. Do we get anxious about 'nothing' ? Or does he mean something different when using the word 'anxiety'?
He means what he means by "anxiety" -- not necessarily what other theorists have meant by it, which seems to be what you're bringing to your study of Heidegger. He distinguishes fear and anxiety along these lines: fear is of some definite object. Anxiety is not directed towards some definite object. So, yes, we can get anxious about nothing, no-thing
I wonder if there's any more to say on the question of daring here, does he elaborate on that as a stance one might take that isn't a retreat from anxiety but isn't as unpleasant as just passively being confronted with this anxiety?
There's always more to say. Heidegger's writings fill an entire shelf