being and time

Martin Heidegger

is a book that intends to make manifest what we are already familiar with, not to make it so explicit that a martian or computer could come to know it.

Being and Time is supposed to make manifest what we are already familiar with (although not to make it so explicit that a Martian or computer could come to know it) and in so doing to modify our understanding of ourselves and so transform our very way of being. (dreyfus being in the world ... 8)

is a book which, in its very title, refers to the interplay between the veiled reality of things and their theoretical appearance.

The title Being and Time refers to the interplay between the veiled reality of things and their luminous but oversimplified appearance in what Heidegger calls the “clearing” of human existence, in reference to the occasional treeless spaces found along dark forest paths. This is Heidegger’s entire philosophy in a nutshell; the rest is just commentary. The difficulty of his writing style should not be allowed to conceal the unusual simplicity of his ideas.

is a fragment, a dead end, a "woodpath" that never makes it out of the woods. Heidegger will never show to his satisfaction that time is the horizon of Being. But some of us appreciate a good question at least as much as a good answer, and along the way to the dead end, there is so much to discover in the woods.

Does Heidegger reach this goal? Let us turn to the very last sentence of the book: "Does time itself manifest itself as the horizon of Being?" (488/437). After hundreds of pages, Heidegger sounds more tentative than he did at the start! The fact is that Being and Time is a fragment, a dead end, a "woodpath" that never makes it out of the woods. Heidegger will never show to his satisfaction that time is the horizon of Being. But some of us appreciate a good question at least as much as a good answer, and along the way to the dead end, there is so much to discover in the woods ...

has a "spiral" structure: Heidegger keeps reinterpreting the phenomena in order to get a deeper understanding of them.

Being and Time has a "spiral" structure: Heidegger keeps reinterpreting the phenomena in order to get a deeper understanding of them. Here he claims that temporality is the "meaning" of Dasein's Being. In other wor's, te~porali1 i~ the key to understanding ourselves as we truly are.

is a book that argues that to exist means to have, to be in, a world – always already.

Heidegger’s conception of existence sidesteps such dualism at once. A pivotal argument of Being and Time is that to exist means to have, to be in, a world – always already. The human self is not some enclosed inner realm on the one hand facing an outer world on the other. Dasein is simply ‘Being in the world’: ‘self and world are the basic determination of the Dasein itself in the unity of the structure of being-in-the-world’ (BP: 297).

being and time, n.Memes

Keep exploring being and time→

being and time