/lit/ - Literature

Did Heidegger said anything about the constant need for distractions in our age?
I guess it has to do with the avoidance of Being or something but if there is anything he wrote that resembles that diagnosis then i wish to read it. Thank you

Currently reading The Metaphysical Foundations of Logic and it's great

>>16281637
Try reading Tuttle's discussion of him in The Crowd is Untruth, might be up your alley

>>16281637
He never says "distraction" but he seems to almost directly talk about the emptiness of the modern age and the subjectivity of social politics sometimes. Can't remember where though, sorry.

>>16281623
I miss him so much, );

>>16281786

>>16281789

>>16281623
does anyone know the reasoning behing his statements that german is a superior language only on par with greek? in the spiegel interview if I remember correctly he doesn't really explain it, everyone preferes their own language but there has to be a more solid reason that just that

>>16281825

>>16281870

>>16281879

>>16281922

>>16281623
What was his view on the age of consent?

>>16281953
And I say HEY! What a wonderful kind of day.

>>16281637
>This Europe, in its ruinous blindness forever on the point of cutting its own throat, lies today in a great pincers, squeezed between Russia on the one side and America on the other. From a metaphysical point of view, Russia and America are the same; the same dreary technological frenzy, the same unrestricted organization of the average man. At a time when the farthermost corner of the globe has been conquered by technology and opened to economic exploitation; when any incident whatever, regardless of where or when it occurs, can be communicated to the rest of the world at any desired speed; when the assassination of a king in France and a symphony concert in Tokyo can be 'experienced' simultaneously, and time as history has vanished from the lives of all peoples; when a boxer is regarded as a nation's great man; when mass meetings attended by millions are looked on as a triumph -- then, yes then, through all this turmoil a question still haunts us like a specter: What for? -- Whither? -- And what then?

From Introduction to Metaphysics to give you a taste. Also read essay Concerning Technology.

>>16281834
Complex German words are usually compounds built out of very "earthy," simpler words, in a way that preserves the original words and keeps it (fairly) obvious how the complex meaning was constructed out of the simpler meanings. Heidegger was big on preserving/recovering the original moment of "decision" underlying an idea, the original problem context which some idea was created to solve/cover/encompass/etc., because ideas have a way of becoming commonplace and merely reflexive.

You simply know what "introduction" means without dwelling on it or consciously choosing to use it, and so it structures the horizon of your understanding without you understanding it (and its limitations), but if you go back to the moment where someone originally encountered a concrete situation, for which a concrete intended meaning lacked a formal expression, and so the person had to combine an existing set of metaphors with live meaning ("intro-duction," from inter ducere, "to lead/bring (as a guide or authority) [someone] into/among [something]"), and if you then recover that horizon and the full liveliness of its constituent metaphors, you can make your own horizon lively again with its own constituent metaphors, which were really structuring it all along. Dasein has to constantly re-absorb its own stock of ideas in this way, bringing them back to life in a new situation which will necessarily change them and open up new possibilities, but this must be done by understanding their living past as well.

German just makes this relatively easy to do. For a long time it was a very earthy, very analytical language, with a stock of primordial root meanings, relatively thick with metaphorical resonances because of their simplicity. When it became a technical language, it didn't do so by importing tons of loanwords, it built the new technical terms out of the existing earthy vocabulary. "Representation" in the epistemological sense in German is Vorstellung, literally Vor-stellung: to set or stand up in front of [one]. Heidegger is fond of this hyphenation tactic as a way of jarring you into realising what a word's meaning really is, really was all along. Incidentally it's also why a lot of pretentious pomo scholars try to imitate it as a quirk to show off that they "get" it.

I believe a lot of German's metaphysical vocabulary, like Grund for ratio (reason), Urgrund for origin, etc., actually comes from Meister Eckhart. The story I was told is that Eckhart's priestly commission mandated that he give his sermons or lectures to both the clerics and the nuns, but the nuns only spoke German, so he had to translate a relatively well-developed Latin metaphysical vocabulary* into earthy German that had no equivalents. So he ended up creating a surprising amount of German's now-common philosophical terminology on the spot. Greek is similar, especially in the way that the Athenians played it with and stretched it to its absolute limits.

>>16282706
>>16281834
There is probably more aesthetic and stylistic variety in the golden age of Athenian rhetorical freestyling and experimental prose writing (basically inventing the genres of the prose treatise, prose history, dialogue, "secular" drama, etc in Athens in just a few decades) than in centuries of other languages' internal development. Apparently to speak "high" Athenian was to be accustomed to all sorts of innovations and tricks, to have a sensitive ear for someone doing something completely new, and all in a very organic way, not in a deliberately avant garde anti-formalist sense, but simply people exploring the variety of which the Greek language was capable. On top of that they were going through something analogous to the Eckhart case I just mentioned, but a hundred times more intense. They didn't have ANY formal or ready-to-hand notions for concepts like "basic stuff of nature." They had to grope and extend poetic metaphors, in ways that also preserved the self-consciousness that they were doing so. We are so reliant on the terrain they laid down, so accustomed to standing on it, that we don't even realise that it's not a GIVEN that such terrain should exist in the first place. We go into the Greeks assuming everyone would have these durable, clunky, nuts-and-bolts notions like "causes" and "substances" (what is a "sub-stance?" ὑποκείμενον?), but we can only do this in the first place because the Greeks wove their own delicate poetic metaphors so carefully and lovingly together that our ancestors started to treat them like bedrock and presume their presence.

One of the things Heidegger is most sensitive to is the newness and openness of the horizon facing someone like Aristotle, as he had to pioneer entire fields of thought and conceptual geographies for describing things that had just never been described before. Gadamer says somewhere that Heidegger was the first person who made him stop feeling like he was studying Aristotle and start feeling like he was having a living conversation with Aristotle, and you really begin to understand what he meant after a while. When you realise the contingency of Aristotle's conceptual horizon, it makes his philosophy come alive, because you are right there with him watching him try to reach these delicate ethereal ideal things with language and ideas. The same feeling of realising that the German word for "cause," such an important "technical" word, is simply "ground," in the sense of earth, dirt, land beneath one's feet.

* This is a story in its own right too. Latin-speaking philosophers tried to naturalise Greek philosophical vocabulary to Latin and it has been often said (to the point of being a cliche) that this killed the original lability of the Greek, especially when scholastic Latin, a dead language, formalised and began to presume its arid technical vocabulary. It's not uncommon to see German esoterics harping on the "dead" Latin forms of the Greek originals.

>>16281879
how do i get as happy as him bros

>>16281623
based

Anyone have a book chart or reading recommendations to into Heidegger and phenomenology in general?

>>16282737
beat fear of death and just have existenz

>>16282706
>>16282711
but the thing is that basically all western languages have this characteristics, the thing that I see in ancient Greek and Latin is the compactness, modern writing needs a lot more adorments to convey the same idea... BUT I see this in both Latin and Greek I know a little bit of german and I really don't see this "superiority", the thing that I do see is hiddeger's germanophilia he even said that "the french think in german but their language get in the way" or something like that

that I can totally understand, everyone likes their own language but I though there was a more technical answer to this question, and the typical possibility to combine words is not that interesting when in reality is just making a "phrase" into a single long word

>>16283158
If you really want to get into phenomenology read Brentano and Husserl. I don't know what to recommend here.

Now, for Heidegger, the prerequisites are basically the entire Western canon, especially the presocratics, Plato, Aristotle, Augustin, Thomas Aquinas, Descartes, Kant, Hegel, Brentano, Husserl, Dilthey. That being said, Heidegger can be approached even with a limited knowledge of the western canon. His works are standalone and easy to understand if you pay attention. Despite of what you may have heard, Heidegger is very coherent and writes clearly. Some of the ways he uses words and their meaning might be confusing the first time, but I say just read the section again or use a dictionary like that one here
>http://cdn.preterhuman.net/texts/thought_and_writing/philosophy/Heidegger,%20Martin/on%20Heidegger/Inwood,%20Michael%20-%20A%20Heidegger%20Dictionary.pdf

As for recommendations, I would say something like:
>The Concept of Time
>The Question Concerning Technology
>What is Metaphysics?
-----------------------------
You can jump above these works and start with Being and Time, I recommended them as a way to get more familiar with Heidegger, because I think they are an easy way to get into Heidegger if you feel like Being and Time is too challenging, though I think Being and Time could be easily approached.
-----------------------------
>Being and Time
-----------------------------
Basically anywhere you want after this
-----------------------------
>Introduction to Metaphysics
>Parmenides
>What Is Called Thinking?
>Contributions to Philosophy (Of the Event)

>>16281985
Fuck, I wanna read him now

>>16283768
good post anon
I agree it is not impossible to start straight in with Being and Time (I prefer the Macquarrie & Robinson translation).
so long as you are prepared to read it slowly and carefully and accept that he uses language in an original way you will make progress
if you want some background the big 4 to read before B&T would be:
>Plato Sophist (& Parmenides)
>Aristotle Metaphysics
>Descartes Discourse on Method and Meditations
>Kant Critique of Pure Reason
But then that is a very demanding reading list in itself so its up to you how much background you think you need
also theres no shame in reading introductory books like the VeryShortIntroduction on Heidegger if it helps you to appreciate his amazing and original ideas

How is Heidegger not simply a neo-pragmatist?

>>16281786
>>16281870
>>16281879

Cute

>every introduction to Heidegger goes on and on about whether he was a nazi or not but they never ever explain WHY we're supposed to care
its so tiring
>"Interpreters differ widely, and often acrimoniously, on whether Heidegger's Nazism was a passing aberration or a long-term commitment, and whether it was due to a character defect or a philosophical error".
>character defect or a philosophical error
Are we sure there are no other alternatives?

If metaphysical antisemitism is real does that mean there's such a thing as metaphysical philosemitism?

>>16284157
It's pretty clear he drank the koolaid early on, when the Nazi regime had widespread voluntary support and its more extreme policies were not yet brought to bear. In 1934 after the Night of Long Knives, Heidegger's support for the regime waned.
The publication of his "black notebooks" show some clear lines of anti-semitism, where he speaks of "world judaism" frankly. It's equally clear that there was a limit to this anti-semitism, as he had a love affair with Jewish writer Hannah Arendt while she was a student at university. Years later after the war, Arendt spoke in his defense at the denazification hearings. It's unclear what he thought of the holocaust, because post-ww2 he was mum about the whole thing. I suspect he was shocked by it and at a loss for words.

According to student testimonials, Heidegger was critical of the regime to the extent that it was permitted.

>Heidegger was the only professor not to give any Nazi salutations prior to beginning his courses, even though it was administratory obligatory. His courses... were among the very rare ones where remarks against National Socialism were risked. Some conversations in those times could cost you your head. I had many such conversations with Heidegger. There is absolutely no doubt he was a declared adversary of the regime

>One could see – and this was often confirmed to me by the students – that Heidegger lectures were attended en masse because the students wanted to form a rule to guide their own conduct by hearing National Socialism characterized in all its non-truth... Heidegger's lectures were attended not only by students but also by people with long-standing professions and even by retired people, and every time I had the occasion to talk with these people, what came back incessantly was their admiration for the courage with which Heidegger, from the height of his philosophical position and in the rigor of his starting point, attacked National Socialism

>>16284157
These are people with no nuance. People incapable of thinking. Hell, they don't even understand what National Socialism was, and yet they try to link it to a philosophy they understand even less. They never even ask why would a thinker such as Heidegger might have engaged with certain aspects of the National Socialist movement. What were his hopes? His political ambitions? What sort of context brings Heidegger and National Socialsm together? They never ask. They just know: Nazi = bad, Heidegger = nazi, therefore Heidegger's philosophy = bad. It's quite amazing that Heidegger gets treated as such. He is not even a political philosopher1.
This bothers me deeply and I'm grateful that I'm not in academia so I don't have to deal with this shit. If some of these pseudo-intellectuals would bother to even read his correspondence and his personal writings, they would find out about the terrible state of the German society and especially of the German universities2 and, if God grants them some insight, they might put two and two together and understand that this shit they are writing is retarded.

1 - some political interpretations or constructing a political philosophy from Heidegger's ideas is definitely possible (as Dugin does for example), but Heidegger doesn't overtly talk about politics in any of his philosophical works

2 - Heidegger presents a deep dissatisfaction with they way universities functioned in his letters to both Elisabeth Blochmann and Hannah Arendt. We can see such sentiments as early as 1918-1919, way before National Socialism was even a thing.

What about the accusations that Heidegger was a faggot and if you read him you’re a faggot too?

>>16284213
I think you misread my post if you think I was looking for more "akshually" and conjecture posting about Heidegger's supposed affiliations or non-affiliations with National Socialism. I care about that just as much as I care about whether Spinoza favored a flat tax and if this makes him immoral or not.

>>16284233
>This bothers me deeply and I'm grateful that I'm not in academia so I don't have to deal with this shit. If some of these pseudo-intellectuals
Go see a doctor for your inflated ego shithead
academia>>>4chan scribblings

>>16284157
Its most likely due to his Black Notebooks becoming unconcealed (published).

And besides, I am reading Being and Time, but I don't plan to read the introduction to the book (maybe after I finished the book itself). I did my fair share of secondary literature: Dreyfus (texts and lectures), the lecturing of Plato's dialogues, some exerpts of Aristotle, Aquinas, Descartes and Kant, some Nietzsche and Kierkegaard, some of Heidegger's essays (On Metaphysics, On the Question Concerning Technology) etc. I even gave VeryShortIntroduction to Heidegger as >>16284106 anon recommended. Certainly, no shame in getting adequately prepared for Heidegger's heavier stuff. If we plan to deal with Heidegger's works, we must accept Heidegger's legacy as we recognize it to be. Nevertheless, the pretentious academics/journalists who accuse of being politically involved in NationalSocialist movements do not really wish to understand Heidegger to begin with. They are seeking depth in the shallowest of swamps.

I am currently on page 49 (28) of Being and Time. I am enjoying it very much. For me, this book is one of Homecoming (Nietzsche, TSZ, part 3):

>But here you are in your own home and house; here you can speak everything out and pour out all the reasons, nothing here is ashamed of obscure, obstinate feelings.

For Dasein to reach authenticity, it must recognize its temporal limits. Such unique experiences as reading "Being and Time" is the most authentic of my reading experiences. No "expert" can take it away with their redundant "missing the point" commentary on Heidegger's legacy. Do not tire, anon.
Enjoy reading Heidegger!

Pic: Heidegger and Gadamer

>>16284254
>Nevertheless, the pretentious academics/journalists who accuse of being politically involved in NationalSocialist movements do not really wish to understand Heidegger to begin with. They are seeking depth in the shallowest of swamps.
blah blah blah I am tired of how the woke thing to say on 4chan is downplaying his political leanings. Yes he was a nazi deal with it

>>16284268
>Yes he was a nazi deal with it
based

>>16284268
way to downplay Heidegger

>>16281985
wow

>>16284268
It is proof of how profound and original his ideas are that once you begin to grapple with them the politics will just fade away into triviality

>>16284248
>>16284268
I bet your entire politics is communism to the left, liberalism (Democrats, Republicans, social democracy etc.) in the center, fascism/nazism to the right. As I said, no nuance, just reducing a man's entire views to an interpretation of a movement you know about only through school, mass-media and Spielberg films. I would have no problem with Heidegger if he was a nazi, let's say like Rosenberg or Schmitt, but the thing is not that simple.

So... Heidegger was a pagan, wasn't he? True authenticity is a retvrn, is it not?

Heidegger's death note to his family and friends.

Bread and Wine
>O happy Greece! You home to all the celestials,
>Is it then true what we first heard in our youth?
>Festive hall! Your floor is sea, and mountains
>your tables,
>Truly built long ago but for a single use.
>But where the thrones, the temple, and where the jugs
>Brimming with nectar, the songs to charm the gods?
>Where, now, the shining oracles wandering far?
>Delphi sleeps; where does great destiny sound?
To the Germans
>Never mock the child, who pricks and spurs
>The wooden horse and thinks himself so brave,
>O, good friends! Even we are
>Poor in deeds and fertile in our minds.

>But comes the deed, as the beam comes from the sky,
>From thought, perhaps, intelligent and ripe?
>Follows the fruit, as from the groves
>The somber foliage, the silent script?
The conciliator, Who never believed...
>Conciliator, who never believed
>Are here now, a friendly form to me,
>Immortal, but indeed
>I recognize the high one
>That bends my knees,
>And almost like a blind man I must,
>Messenger from heaven, ask you why
>and whence you've come to me, happy peace!
>This much I know, mortal you are not,
>for much may a wise man or
>A faithful one, true-sighted friends, reveal,
>but when a god appears, from heaven and earth and sea,
>Comes then a clarity, ever-new.
The Titans
>It is not yet
>Time. Still they are
>Unbound. The indifferent care nothing for the divine.
Bread and Wine
>So come! That we may look at open spaces,
>That we seek what is our own, though it be far.
>One thing stands fast; it is at noon, or nearly
>Midnight, always there is a measure,
>Common to all, yet to each his own is given,
>All must come and go wherever he can.

>>16284309
>I would have no problem with Heidegger if he was a nazi, let's say like Rosenberg or Schmitt, but the thing is not that simple.
He was a member of the Nazi party what more nuance do you want lmao

>>16284320
what an embarrassing larper jesus

Turns out one of the smartest men to ever live was an unrepentant /pol/ack. Really makes you think.

>>16284338
> in April 1934, he resigned the Rectorship and stopped taking part in Nazi Party meetings

>>16284346
>larper jesus
No, quite the opposite.

>>16284347
>Turns out one of the smartest men to ever live
He wrote overrated garbage and served as one of the main sources of inspiration for postmodernist lunacy
>was an unrepentant /pol/ack
he denounced them after the war, he was just a garden variety conservatard

>>16284359
So what, that still makes him a Nazi in the period before that.

>>16284365
jesus larper?

>>16284388
Sauce on renunciation? He said jack shit about the shoah.

>>16284213

>There was a limit to this anti-sémitismes, as he had a love affair with Jewish writer Hannah Arendt
>It’s unclear what he thought of the holocaust...I suspect he was shocked by it and at a loss for words.

Do you know how many racists will sleep with a black or brown woman, even call them slurs in bed, than go on supporting white supremacy? His sex life is a poor argument to make for assuaging his nazism. And you think he was at a loss for words, seriously? Heidegger? At a loss for words? It doesn’t take much to just acknowledge the existence of tragedy, even the dullest of minds can do it, what would make him different? I find his philosophy brilliant, but I couldn’t care less about trying to soften his nazism. Didn’t he call Hitler Da-sein personified? The Führer the will of the people? And according to Husserl, have a “very theatrical entrance to the Nazi party”? I’m confused here.

>>16284388
>>16284413
>>16284338
>>16284268

>>16284410
the holocaust is real deal with it basedboy

>>16284434
Yawn, it's as relevant as his love of skiing

>>16284233
>writting footnotes for a post on 4chan

>>16284467

>>16284157
>Are we sure there are no other alternatives?
What other alternative could there be for supporting a regime which genocided and murdered tens of millions, and whose plan was to colonise, murder, and enslave the entirety of Eastern Europe and the Baltic States out of some notion of racial superiority? Surely, if this is not a character defect, it must at least be a philosophical error.

What are the prerequisites for Contributions to Philosophy? I've already read Being and Time, Basic Writings, Lectures on Phenomenology of Religious Life, and What is Metaphysics. Is there anything crucial I'm missing?

>>16284620
>What other alternative could there be for supporting a regime which genocided and murdered tens of millions, and whose plan was to colonise, murder, and enslave the entirety of Eastern Europe and the Baltic States out of some notion of racial superiority?
Surely you jest

>>16284645
What do you mean?

>>16284643

Yeah, a gf.

>>16285000
anon why do you hurt me so

>>16284620
>What other alternative could there be for supporting a regime which genocided and murdered tens of millions, and whose plan was to colonise, murder, and enslave the entirety of Eastern Europe and the Baltic States out of some notion of racial superiority?
you do understand that this wasn't known to everyone in Germany at the time? AND that if i can agree almost wholly with someone like ted kaczynski and not think mailbombing people is righteous? so not only does what you're saying not matter, but there isn't even a moral imperative to apologize for sympathy with a mass murderer's views?

>>16284643
Nietzsche, Hölderlin in general

The Origin of the Work of Art

>>16285272
I've read most Nietzsche, and The Origin of the Work of Art is in Basic Writings. Hölderlin I'm just scratching the surface of right now.

>>16284643
You're ready. In fact, I would advise against "preparing" too much as much of what is laid out in Contributions receives a fuller treatment in his later work. I found Contributions to be underwhelming for this reason as there aren't ideas in it that are dealt with only here. Reading it after being familiar with his later articles and lectures makes it feel like a blueprint for his post-Turn thinking.

As long as you're familiar with the concepts of "aletheia" and "Ereignis" you shouldn't have much trouble understanding it.

>>16285538
Thank you very much, I'll get started right away then.

>>16281623
Bump

>tfw I put off reading Gadamer's critique of Hegel's dialectic in the light of Platonic dialectic for so long, and it's the greatest thing I've read in years

>>16283768
>>16284106
Many thanks for the input, anons

>>16281637
I don't mean to hijack this thread, but Pascal already talked about it at length in the 1600s. Half of the Pensées is about that very problem. It's not as much of a contemporary issue as we might think.

>>16282706
>>16282711
So essentially, German is a better philosophical language because it's easier to understand etymology for a non-educated speaker? A nice idea but it seems a bit flimsy. It also reeks of a kind of linguistic overemphasis that did get worse with the postmodernists, as you mention. The vocabulary formation effect you mention has rough equivalent in French in the time of Rabelais, and in English in the time of Shakespeare, although unlike the Greek both had earlier scholarly language for reference.

The sense of reading a philosopher as he's grappling with concept for the first time is something you always get if the philosopher is good and you're reading seriously imo, but that's perhaps just my experience.

>>16284164
Yes, see Leon Bloy.

>>16284405
Larper unjesus

>>16284388
In this case garden variety can be understood quite literally. He really was into gardening.