Husserl, Heidegger & Existentialism

<p>Husserl, Heidegger &amp; Existentialism - Hubert Dreyfus
An introductory discussion of Husserl, Phenomenology, Heidegger, and Existentialism with Hubert Dreyfus and Bryan Magee from 1987. Edmund Husserl was a 20th-century German philosopher, best known for founding phenomenology, a philosophical movement and methodology of examining the underlying structure of experience. Martin Heidegger was also a 20th-century German philosopher, best known for his contributions to phenomenology and existentialism. Existentialists take human existence and the human condition to be a fundamental issue. They tend to be radical individualists who privilege our lived experience and choice. They focus on themes such as: freedom, authenticity, the individual, meaning, anxiety/angst/dread, alienation, death, the absurd, contingency, and nihilism. They are often suspicious of any fixed, pre-determined human nature, objective/universal values, and abstract philosophical systems. Some of the most important existentialist thinkers include Jean-Paul Sartre, Martin Heidegger, S&oslash;ren Kierkegaard, Friedrich Nietzsche, Dostoyevsky, Albert Camus, Karl Jaspers, and Simone de Beauvoir. (My Summary).
https://youtu.be/KR1TJERFzp0
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[Music]
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one philosopher active earlier in this
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century who was much more important than
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his reputation outside the subject might
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suggest was the German Russell Edmund
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Husserl who was born in 1859 and died in
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1938 his acknowledged masterpiece is a
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book called logical investigations
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published in two volumes in 1900 and
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1900 and one and perhaps I might also
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mention a book called ideas published in
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1913 Russell's basic approach went
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something like this for each one of us
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there is one thing that is indubitably
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certain and that is our own conscious
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awareness therefore if we want to build
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our knowledge of reality on rock-solid
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foundations that is the place from which
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to start but as soon as we analyze it we
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find that awareness has to be awareness
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of something consciousness must be
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consciousness of something and we are
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never able to distinguish in experience
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between states of consciousness and
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objects of consciousness in actual
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experience however careful the analysis
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they seem to be the same thing now
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skeptics down the ages have argued that
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we can never know whether the objects of
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our consciousness have a separate
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existence from us independent of our
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experience of them Russell conceded that
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but insisted that they do indubitably
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exist as objects of consciousness for us
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whatever other status they may have or
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neck and therefore that we have direct
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access to them as objects of
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consciousness and can investigate them
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as such without making any assumptions
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about their independent existence thus
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he launched a school of philosophy
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devoted to the systematic analysis of
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consciousness and its objects this
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school is known as phenomenology and one
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use of that word phenomenology it
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continues to this day to refer to
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whatever is given in direct experience
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regardless of any question of
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independent existence and our direct
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experience of course encompasses not
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only material objects but all sorts of
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abstract things such as music
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it's not to mention our own thoughts
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pains emotions memories and so on one of
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hustles followers Heidegger struck out
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on his own with a book called being and
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time published in 1927 and dedicated to
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Russell this book became the
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Fountainhead of modern existentialism
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though hiding I never actually liked
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having the label existentialist attached
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to him he went on to produce a great
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deal more philosophical work in the
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course of a long life he died in 1976 at
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the age of 86 and much of that work was
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influential but being and time remains
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his masterpiece later existentialist
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thinkers especially jean-paul Sartre
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became better known to the general
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public and did more to propagate
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existentialist ideas outside the
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confines of academic philosophy but
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highly they remained very much their
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master the very title of Sartre was main
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philosophical work Being and Nothingness
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published in 1943 is a direct allusion
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to Heidegger's being in time so here we
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have a clear-cut line of philosophical
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development which were going to discuss
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in this program from hustle to Heidegger
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and Heidegger to Sartre and perhaps we
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might mention one other figure maurice
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merleau-ponty
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who published an important book in 1945
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called the phenomenology of perception
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he and sarra were great friends at one
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time together they founded edited the
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journal they Tom Modell but Manuel Ponte
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died early at the age of only 53 in 1961
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here to discuss this major tradition
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within modern philosophy is Professor
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Hubert Dreyfus of the University of
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California at Berkeley professor Dreyfus
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I said at the beginning of that
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introduction to our discussion but
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Hustle is is probably not well known
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outside academic philosophy how could
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does it come about can you explain this
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far as how somebody so little known
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generally is of such enormous importance
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inside philosophy well it was corrals
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own idea that he was important that
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helped and he was important in a
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reactionary kind of way that is he
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dominated a whole philosophical
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tradition the Cartesian tradition the
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thinks of man's relationship to the
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world in terms of subjects knowing
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objects in fact literal thought he
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culminated the whole philosophical
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tradition from Plato on because he had
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discovered the indubitable basis on
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which one could ground an understanding
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of everything setting himself up like
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that
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he's similar to the way Hegel set
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himself up as the culmination of
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idealism so that Kierkegaard could rebel
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against Hegel in the name of the
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beginning of existentialism and Marx in
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the name of materialism so personal
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effects himself up is the culmination of
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cartesianism his last book is called
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Cartesian meditations and then other
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thinkers like Heidegger like
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merleau-ponty can't understand what the
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tradition really comes to and then they
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can rebel against it I try to give a
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sort of lightning sketch in my own words
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of hustles basic approach but I think we
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need something a bit more substantial
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than that to get our teeth into
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can you fill that out a bit yes literals
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basic idea was that the mind is always
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directed toward objects under some
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aspect so I am perceiving that table
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roughly I'm preceding that as a table
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and from the top I can remember it
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I have beliefs about it I could have
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desires about it all my mental content
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is directed and literal thought that was
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in fact what the essence of the mind the
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mind and nothing else in the universe
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has this kind of directedness toward
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something outside of there other than it
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and there is a mystery here isn't there
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how for example if I think about
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astronomical questions how events inside
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my head can relate to distant galaxies
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right literal thought that was a Wonder
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Bra phenomenon and he was ready to
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devote his life to trying to understand
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it and his way of understanding it was
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to say there must be some kind of
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content in the mind that accounted for
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this aboutness or directedness the
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aboutness or directness is called
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technical intentionality in the
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tradition and not because it has to do
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our intentions but because it has to do
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with this directedness and he said there
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was something which he called
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intentional content in the mind which
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was sort of like a description of
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reality and it was by virtue of that
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description that I could perceive or
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remember this table under some aspect ah
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you said earlier that thinkers like
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Heidegger reacted against this how did
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they react well at first we should say
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what was report got out of this he got
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out of it an amazing finished edifice
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that so impressive that one would
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naturally want to react against it he
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thought and quite rightly that it didn't
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matter whether there was a table there
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or not that is it didn't matter to his
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philosophy he could just Brack at the
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table in fact he could bracket the whole
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world all he needed to study was the
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fact that he took it that there was a
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table there he performed what he called
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the phenomenological reduction he
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reflected on his own intentional content
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and what was special about that
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according to him was he had an
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indubitable basis to start from it
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wasn't just that he had some kind of
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evidence that he took that to be a table
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as he put it he had indubitable evidence
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that he had himself produced taking it
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to be a table was just taking it to be a
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table he couldn't be wrong about that
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secondly you had absolute grounding
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because I couldn't experience anything
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music other people tables galaxies as
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you mentioned I couldn't experience
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anything at all except by virtue of my
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directed mental content so he thought he
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had discovered the indubitable
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foundation which is the condition of the
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possibility of our being able to
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encounter anything and he found it in
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this relation of subjects directed
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toward object now that is as you say the
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combination of a whole tradition of
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philosophy stemming at least from
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Descartes if not from before of see of
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seeing man's situation is that of a
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subject confronted by objects now to
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that that really Heidegger reacted
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against that's right that that
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tradition became so clear and in a
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certain way so persuasive in literal but
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Heidegger was driven to see whether that
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really was the true description of the
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phenomena because what's real kept
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saying we must go to the things
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themselves and let them show themselves
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as they are in themselves and when
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Heidegger actually looked at the way
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human beings are related to the world he
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found that it wasn't as subjects related
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to objects at all but awareness and
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consciousness didn't play any role now
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that seems very strange how could it be
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well he took of his example and he was
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good at going two simple examples
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hammering when an expert harbinger is
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simply hammering if the hammer is
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working well and he's a master at what
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he's doing the hammer becomes
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transparent for him it isn't as if he's
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a subject contemplating the hammer
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maybe he's paying attention to the nails
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but if the nails are going in well and
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he's really good and it's been doing it
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all day he doesn't even have to pay
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attention to that he can think about
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lunch or he can talk to some fellow
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carpenter and everything is going on
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with what I would call transparent
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coping Heidegger calls that the ready to
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hand when you look at our ready to hand
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relation to things you just don't find
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subjects contemplating objects this is
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such a contrast with the traditional
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approach to philosophy that I think it's
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worth going over it again perhaps in
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slightly different terms but from
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Descartes onwards philosophers that
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thought of the human being is a subject
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relating to objects and therefore
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because of that the central
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philosophical problems were seem to be
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how do we as subject have knowledge of
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these objects and that the central
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problems to which philosophers address
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themselves we're about perception about
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whether we have any certain knowledge at
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all if so how we got it how we knew we
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had it and so on now
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Heidegger isn't saying that these
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problems that exist but what he's saying
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is that this is not what is central to
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the human situation we aren't as it were
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separate subjects looking through some
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invisible plate-glass window an
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objective reality which is out there and
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to which we try to relate or over which
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we try to get knowledge
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we are from the beginning in amongst it
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all we are in there in the world so to
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speak coping with it so that we are not
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primarily observing or knowing beings at
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all in the way the traditional
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philosophers has treated us as being we
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are we're two pink beings or we're even
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he might have been in kind of sex
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we're being things and it's from there
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that we start that's right
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it's a relationship of for instance as
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Gilbert Ryle put it when he reviewed
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being in time he reviewed both thing and
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time and literals logical investigations
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he thought they were both good but he
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thought Heidegger was really onto
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something interesting Ryle distinguished
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knowing that which is what the tradition
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always been interested in from knowing
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how which is what he took Heidegger to
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be interested in and that isn't just to
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claim the primacy of practical activity
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though that's radical enough pragmatists
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have claimed that too it was to have an
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analysis of practical activity that
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didn't need to bring in mental content
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like desiring believing the following a
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rule you could you could try to explain
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hammering as in more mental activity but
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Heidegger said if you really observe it
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or to take another of his favorite
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examples he said to his students when
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you come into the classroom you must
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turn the doorknob but you don't observe
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the doorknob believe that you have to
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turn the doorknob to get in try to turn
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the doorknob all you do all we know is
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here you are in a classroom and you
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couldn't have got here without turning
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the doorknob you have no memory of it
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because the whole activity was so
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transparent it didn't even pass through
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consciousness a driver has the same
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experience shifting from first to second
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they do a lot of fancy footwork with the
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clutch but they can be carrying on a
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deep philosophical conversation it
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doesn't even have to be conscious low
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these although these examples are
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mundane and trivial what they actually
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illustrate is of enormous importance
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isn't it because what they show is that
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our conscious act or Blair even that is
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begging questions that our activity is
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not characteristically determined by
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conscious choices and aware states of
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mind at all and that is a great
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significant that's right
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now Heidegger didn't want to deny that
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there was a place for that he said in
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his language first and foremost we are
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coping beings already involved in the
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world but if something should go wrong
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for instance in a hammer case if the
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hammer is too heavy
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then I will notice this aspect too heavy
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and I'll become a problem solver like
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the tradition thought human beings where
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I'll become a rational animal and I will
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say for this task it's too heavy
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if I take another hammer then it might
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work better the kind of Aristotelian
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practical syllogism all of that has its
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place the same as the doorknob sticks
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then I have to try to turn the doorknob
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Heidi recalls that the unready to hand
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and he thinks that's the level I presume
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if he thinks that's the level at which
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whistle came into the story one crucial
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step to late and there is another level
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while we're at it which Heidegger calls
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the present at hand which is important
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too we can get in the stands of just
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staring at the object if the hammer the
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head slides off the hammer for instance
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or if the nails are missing or if we're
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just feeling in a relaxed attitude of
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wonder we can see the hammer as a wooden
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shank with a iron blob on the end then
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we see it as a object with properties we
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get wave say one pound if that's the
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level to the philosophers have always
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studied there's a whole logic of
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subjects and predicates discussed in
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what's called the predicate calculus
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that has its place Heidegger would say
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but that's a third level down the line
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after you left out the everyday coping
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and even left out the practical
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situation in which things can break down
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because that hammer isn't even a broken
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down hammer it's just a piece of wood
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with metal on the end but that's
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important too Heidegger would say
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because it's by relating those kinds of
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predicates with laws that we get science
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and theory and Heidegger thought science
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and theory was very important he has
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what he calls an existential account of
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science in being in time but what's
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important to him is to realize that to
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get to these predicates and laws of
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science you have to leave out the whole
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level of practical coping in the world
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so you shouldn't have the idea that
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scientific theory that can explain
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causal things very well could ever
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explain the
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a meaningful world of significance that
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Heidegger want to talk about that's what
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he's saying in effect is that we only
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become conscious of things in most cases
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when something goes wrong when there's a
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specific problem but but for most of the
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time we are kind of moving in a medium
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we're swimming in a medium that we take
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utterly for granted and are not
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conscious of don't direct our attention
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to at all and one consequence of that is
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that unlike traditional philosophers he
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sees the world as being not as being
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something that's in third I mean the
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traditional philosopher talks as if what
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I have access to his mind mind with its
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contents and from these contents I infer
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the existence of the world external to
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myself and hide ago saying no no that is
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not actually what the situation is at
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all the world is not something I infer I
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start with it and in it is that that's
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right the way he put it was that
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philosophers since Descartes had been
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trying to prove the existence of the
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external world and Kant said that it was
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a scandal that no one had successfully
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proved the existence of the external
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world Heidegger says in being in time
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it's a scandal that people are trying to
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prove the existence of the external
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world as if we were stuck with this
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internal world and couldn't get out
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whereas we are as he puts it being in
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the world I think I should explain that
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a little bit further because we've only
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talked so far about the directedness
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being not the kind of mental
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directedness but what Cyril was
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interested in but any particular
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directedness of my mind towards a hammer
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on using my above me not my mind toward
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the hammer are using this hammer takes
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place on a whole background which he
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calls the world the hammer only makes
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sense in terms of nails and wood and
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houses and other totality of equipment
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which he calls significance and my skill
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of hammering only makes sense in a whole
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background of other skills of standing
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and moving and wearing my clothes and
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talking and so forth so it's on the
17:34
background of the world and my
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capacities for being in that world or
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really being of that world you might say
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that anything gets encountered at all so
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as you say you can
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call that into question and this
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launches him into performing a view of
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human beings which is radically
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different from the traditional
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philosophers view of human beings isn't
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it
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now can you begin to tell us what that
18:01
is well it certainly he can't talk about
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subjects or persons or minds or the and
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he he needs a completely new word to
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even talk about this ongoing activity on
18:15
a background and he chooses brilliantly
18:18
to use a word design in German design
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means simply existence like you earn
18:25
your daily bread you would earn your
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daily design and but it also means if
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you take it apart being the there and so
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he thinks that this activity of human
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being which Easy's as an activity is an
18:40
activity of being the there which for
18:43
him is being the situation in which this
18:46
coping is going on so when I'm driving
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it is if we're looking at that aspect of
18:52
me which is topping not in my body
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it's just identical with the driving
18:57
situation so that being the there is
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actively being a situation in which
19:05
directed activity is going on and that's
19:09
a completely new understanding of what
19:12
it is to be a human being and design
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also gives them the possibility as we
19:17
have with the word human being of either
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talking about that activity human being
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or to talk about a human being and
19:25
instance of that activity and he does
19:28
both and he actually offers us an
19:30
analysis specialty of this particular
19:32
kind of being or way of being what we
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are
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which relates it directly to time and
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hence the title of his most famous book
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can you explain what that relationship
19:44
is as we better spell that out the
19:46
relationship of he another word that's
19:49
handy here this relationship of opening
19:51
a clearing because another word for the
19:53
situation is a clearing and there is
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this activity of clearing this clearing
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which we are and he says this activity
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three full structure first he says we
20:06
that is design as what he calls
20:09
disposition the best example of which is
20:11
moods that is thanks to a basic
20:14
characteristic of us we are things show
20:17
up for us as mattering as threatening or
20:20
attractive or stubborn or useful and so
20:24
forth or just important in some way or
20:26
important in some way and the tradition
20:28
has generally overlooked that he thinks
20:30
because it doesn't easily fall into
20:33
these knowing interests but he says of
20:36
course rightly that it's very important
20:38
to things show up for us as mattering
20:39
and they do because we have this basic
20:41
characteristic called disposition and
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we're always already in a situation and
20:47
it always already matters some way we
20:49
don't ever get behind our moods and
20:51
start from no mood and then step into
20:53
one the second structure
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he calls discourse which is a little bit
21:00
misleading but it grows out of a kind of
21:02
interesting ton of that is he says the
21:05
world is always articulated that is
21:08
right now everything is already laid out
21:11
in this what he calls context of
21:14
significance all pieces of equipment
21:16
fitting together so that we can use any
21:19
particular one and I'm always
21:22
articulating the world that is breaking
21:24
it up at its joint by using a piece of
21:26
equipment if I take out of this total
21:29
which he calls a referential or a
21:30
totality of significance a hammer I can
21:33
articulate it by hammering with it as a
21:35
hammer or I can articulate it as a nail
21:37
puller under different aspects and then
21:40
of course I can talk about what I'm
21:41
doing I can say this name was hard to
21:44
pull then I will be articulating even
21:47
further what I had already articulated
21:50
and that's constantly going on that's
21:52
called discourse and the third aspect
21:55
which has been implicit in what we've
21:57
been saying is the design is always
21:59
pressing into the future if I'm
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hammering with a nail it's in order to
22:03
say repair a house in order to do my job
22:07
as homemaker say or carpenter design and
22:11
Heidegger
22:11
talk is using equipment in order to
22:15
pursue some goal which he calls towards
22:18
which for the sake of some ultimate
22:21
let's say life plan which he called for
22:24
the sake of now it's important not to
22:26
speak about goals and life plans his
22:28
funny language is necessary because a
22:31
goal is what you have in your mind or a
22:33
life plan whereas he just says design is
22:36
always oriented toward the future doing
22:38
something now in order to get to do
22:40
something later and that all of this
22:43
makes sense as oriented toward something
22:46
which is what that person is up to and
22:50
that threefold structure which is being
22:54
already in amidst things and always
22:57
ahead of itself pressing into the future
23:00
is as you let the cat out of the bag the
23:03
structure of time in the second half of
23:06
being in time lo and behold the
23:08
threefold structure of being in the
23:11
world or being in a situation turns out
23:13
to be mapable on past present and future
23:16
but he ends up saying almost of being is
23:19
time that's right well Dada
23:21
anyway we are embodied time and sake
23:24
design design in his language is care
23:27
and the structure of care is temporary
23:30
yeah now we've talked up to this point
23:33
just about the individual human being
23:36
what I do calls design and it's
23:39
positioned in the world and all these
23:41
various aspects of it but you've been
23:43
spelling out but of course
23:45
Heidegger doesn't suppose that he's the
23:47
only being that exists and to you and I
23:50
when we talk about this then suppose
23:51
that you or I are the only beings that
23:53
exist the world is full of people how do
23:56
all the other people all the other
23:58
designs come into this picture well it's
24:02
very important that they come in from
24:03
the very start in fact it's a big
24:05
problem for Cartesians like Descartes
24:08
and literal they have the same problem
24:10
about other minds that they have about
24:11
the external world because they start
24:13
with an individual autonomous isolated
24:16
subject Heidegger starts an entirely
24:18
different way closer to the phenomena
24:21
and saving him from this problem he says
24:23
we all already do what anyone does i
24:27
hammer with a hammer
24:28
one hammers with hammers in our culture
24:31
I eat the way one eats I pronounce words
24:33
the way one pronounces words in our
24:35
country and after or you wouldn't be
24:37
understood that's right
24:38
and in fact people subtly constantly
24:41
people can't stand distance Heidegger
24:43
says meaning people subtly lead other
24:47
people to correct their pronunciation or
24:50
whatever and they don't have to be
24:52
coerced into it people are eager not to
24:54
deviate from the norm it's just a basic
24:56
fact about human beings so we grow up
24:59
Heidegger doesn't talk genetically but
25:01
we could say it helpfully a baby get
25:04
socialized into a bunch of shared public
25:07
practices and starts doing what one does
25:10
and saying what one says and at that
25:13
point this baby has design in it to talk
25:16
like Heidegger and of course this one
25:19
doesn't mean just the masses of
25:20
Heidegger says in one point we flee from
25:23
the crowd the way one flees from the
25:25
crowd but even when we flee from the
25:27
crowd we do it the way one does it
25:28
so finally Heidegger says about design
25:31
that normally design is what it does and
25:35
or one is what one does or does on self
25:41
is an any other oneself if one takes
25:44
together various aspects of what you
25:46
said up to this point they could be
25:48
rather disquieting I mean you've just
25:50
said that that one does what one does it
25:52
lives the way one does because that is
25:55
how we are socially conditioned and we
25:57
have to do it for the most part you were
26:01
saying much earlier but Heidegger
26:03
rejected the idea that most of our
26:05
activity is directed by conscious
26:08
choices and decisions and mentally aware
26:13
reflection if you take these things
26:15
together doesn't that rather reduce the
26:18
human agent to a sort of zombie I mean
26:21
somebody who is merely responding to
26:23
pressures on him from outside in an
26:25
unreflecting way that's quite right this
26:29
this anyone this self that just does
26:31
what one does in an unreflective way
26:33
sounds pretty much like a very Dom be
26:37
like character but Heidegger is trying
26:39
to do things the other way around he
26:41
now we'll show you how we can get free
26:44
individuals to crystallise out of this
26:46
rather amorphous public us and that's
26:50
the subject of division two of being
26:51
time the subject of authenticity what
26:54
the part of Heidegger which is really
26:57
existentialist so far we haven't said
26:59
anything very existentialist but in
27:01
Division two Heidegger talks about guilt
27:03
and about death which I don't have time
27:05
to go into here the guilt death all turn
27:08
out to be versions of anxiety which we
27:10
better talk about for a minute
27:12
a das on according to Heidegger any
27:14
design anywhere is always dimly aware
27:18
that thus the way the world is is
27:23
ungrounded by that I mean there's no
27:25
reason why one has to do things this way
27:27
if there it isn't because it's rational
27:30
reducing this way it isn't because God
27:32
ordered us to do things this way it
27:34
isn't because human nature requires we
27:36
do them this way Heidegger is as an
27:39
existentialist says at one point that
27:42
the essence of design is its existence
27:44
meaning there is no human nature we are
27:46
what we take ourselves to be how we
27:48
interpret ourselves in our practices but
27:51
that is rather unsettling and that's
27:53
exactly his word for it anxiety is the
27:56
experience is the disposition that is
27:59
our response to the fundamentally
28:02
unsettling character of being design and
28:05
the question then is what do you do
28:08
about it on what you have to do about it
28:10
is you can either flee it in which case
28:15
one goes back to the kind of conformity
28:19
which is required just to be
28:21
intelligible I have to do what one does
28:23
and talk like one talks but you become a
28:25
conformist you try even more to shape up
28:29
to the norms to pronounce things the
28:31
right way and dress the right way and
28:33
everything that's how you could flee
28:35
into inauthenticity literally that would
28:38
mean something like disowning what it is
28:39
to be does or you can own up to what it
28:42
is to be designed to own up it means for
28:46
Heidegger to hold on to anxiety and not
28:48
see it and if you do that you will be
28:51
catapulted into an entirely different
28:54
way of being human
28:55
now what you do needn't change because
28:57
you only can do what one does whether
28:59
you just be kooky and insane so you go
29:02
on doing probably the same thing you did
29:03
but how you do it changes completely you
29:07
no longer expect to get any deep final
29:10
meaning out of anything so you don't
29:12
embrace projects with the conviction
29:15
that now at last this is going to make
29:17
sense of your life so and you also don't
29:19
then drop all your projects because they
29:21
failed to make the ultimate meaning
29:23
you're looking for as one of my students
29:25
once said you are able to stick with
29:27
things without getting stuck with them
29:29
in in often in this authentic activity
29:33
Heidegger says you no longer have to
29:35
respond to what he calls the general
29:37
situation you can respond to what he
29:40
calls the unique situation he doesn't
29:42
give any examples but I take it to be
29:43
something like this take his carpenter
29:45
that he's always talking about with his
29:47
hammer when he puts his hammer down for
29:49
lunch he could just have his sausages
29:52
and sauerkraut but if there's beautiful
29:54
flowers blooming outdoors and he's
29:56
authentic he doesn't have to do what a
29:59
respectable carpenter does he can go out
30:01
and wander in the flowers and but it's
30:04
important that he can do only what one
30:06
does he can't take off all his clothes
30:07
and roll in the flowers one doesn't do
30:09
that but there's a little space for
30:12
authenticity namely doing the sort of
30:15
thing that one does enables you to
30:17
respond to the unique situation without
30:19
concern for respectability and
30:21
conformity and that kind of life not
30:24
trying to get absolute meaning and
30:26
responding to the current situation
30:28
makes you an individual Heidegger says
30:31
makes you flexible alive gay Oh in in
30:36
German and that is his idea of how one
30:38
should live but that way you make it
30:39
sound like a sort of philosophy of
30:41
personal liberation from his this phrase
30:43
philosophy of liberation used about a
30:45
lot of political philosophies but this
30:48
is where an individual liberation
30:50
philosophy is it not but it's an
30:52
existentialist liberation for us which
30:54
makes it sort of last and strangest
30:57
liberation flosses we don't liberate say
30:59
our sexual drives or our repressed
31:01
classes the liberation comes from
31:04
realizing that there's no deep truths to
31:07
liberate
31:08
meaning InDesign accepting the
31:10
ungrounded and unsettledness is itself
31:14
liberate yeah now in the whole of this
31:16
discussion you've been forced to use
31:18
some very strange terms like like design
31:20
and to use ordinary words in some
31:23
unusual ways and when one reads being in
31:26
time because everything we've talked
31:27
about so far is what's contained in
31:29
being and time the early Heidegger when
31:33
one reads this book in this vocabulary
31:35
it really does become very difficult to
31:37
cope good in fact I think it's one of
31:39
the most difficult books to read and
31:40
understand that I ever have read but
31:43
you've actually in spite of that
31:45
difficulty succeeded in making a lot of
31:47
these ideas clear why didn't Heidegger
31:51
do that why did he have to be so obscure
31:53
well it's implied in what I did if he
31:57
could have done what I was just doing
31:58
they were using the wrong word and then
32:00
backing off and using the right word
32:02
that probably would have been the best
32:04
thing to do for instance I talked about
32:05
goals and then said but of course
32:07
they're not really gold because that's
32:08
to mental and life plans but they're not
32:10
really planned and then I introduced his
32:12
funny language the towards which and the
32:14
for the sake of and I said we had to use
32:16
design because we're a way of being but
32:18
not a mine directed toward things in
32:21
general he would say the whole
32:23
philosophical tradition has passed over
32:26
the world and our usual kind of involved
32:30
coping with the world not only because
32:34
it's something you don't notice if
32:35
everything is going well but also
32:37
because we have no language for it since
32:39
we don't need any language for it we
32:40
need language for how to repair the
32:42
doorknob and how to get a light or
32:43
hammer if the hammer is too heavy but we
32:45
don't need language to describe the way
32:47
everything is when it's going
32:49
transparently well and the kind of being
32:52
we are when everything's going
32:54
transparently well so Heidegger would
32:56
say you have to make up a whole new
32:57
vocabulary for this and once you get in
33:01
it it does seem to be the right cannot
33:04
economical vocabulary and he uses it
33:06
rigorously so that when he's taken up a
33:08
new word like ready to hand unready to
33:10
hand or present at hand he sticks to it
33:13
so once you get in this language it's
33:15
really a very elegant and simple
33:17
language being in time was published it
33:20
was presented but it was
33:22
this is being the first volume of what
33:24
was to be of two volume work but
33:26
Valentin ever came out did it because
33:29
Heidegger in fact changed his views and
33:32
that made him unable to finish the
33:34
project and this change is itself very
33:38
frequently referred to in the literature
33:39
about Ida gates it's called the term des
33:42
Keller the German word now in what way
33:46
does the later Heidegger differ from the
33:49
earlier I do what one of the real
33:51
grounds of the difference there are a
33:53
lot of different views of this and it's
33:55
not a settled question in I do sculpture
33:57
people say he got he went from a
33:59
resolute sort of grasping of things to a
34:02
kind of openness and so forth that's
34:04
probably true but I don't think that's
34:06
the essence of it there is at one point
34:08
I think he says it clearly where he says
34:11
that he has changed to thinking being
34:14
historically and that that's what he
34:16
wasn't doing before you can see that he
34:19
wasn't doing it before because
34:20
everything I've explained so far was
34:22
supposed to be about the structure of
34:23
all human beings anywhere anytime even
34:27
anxiety was supposed to be this what any
34:30
human being experienced and fled from or
34:33
faced up to but now he gets the idea
34:36
that there is something special about
34:38
each epoch of our understanding of being
34:41
and that he had been talking only about
34:42
the modern ethics without realizing it
34:45
and he begins to try to describe these
34:46
various efforts for the Greeks they felt
34:49
rooted they weren't unsettled and things
34:51
showed up for them as natural and they
34:53
appreciated them and for the Christians
34:55
they felt that they were creators
34:57
created and that the all the things they
35:01
dealt with were creatures and that they
35:03
could read God's plan out of the world
35:04
and for us we have another understanding
35:07
of being an understanding of being where
35:08
everything is objects for us to control
35:12
and use and we're subjects with with
35:15
desires to satisfy so that these are all
35:18
different understandings of what it is
35:21
to be a thing what it is to be a person
35:23
what it is to be an institution
35:24
Heidegger would say different
35:26
understandings of what it is to be and
35:28
if you have a different understanding of
35:30
what it is to be then different sort of
35:32
things show up for the Greeks heroes
35:34
showed up
35:35
and and beautiful things in Homer for
35:37
the Christians saints and sinners showed
35:40
up you can't have anything sinners in
35:41
Greece they would just be poor people
35:43
everybody walked all over you can't have
35:45
any heroes in the Middle Ages they would
35:47
be proud people who were dance so
35:49
different sorts of people's and things
35:50
show up and Heidegger now thinks he
35:53
should talk about the kind of people's
35:55
and things that show up in our
35:56
understanding of being now one of the
35:59
ways you can point out this change is
36:01
for an example if he thinks anxiety
36:03
isn't a universal structure when he gets
36:06
to later Heidegger thinks this anxiety
36:09
the griefs didn't have it Christians
36:11
didn't have it he thinks we have it
36:13
because we have what he calls a
36:14
technological and nihilistic
36:16
understanding of being and that that is
36:18
a distressing rootless anxious making
36:22
understanding of me if he's moving from
36:25
something which is perennial or at least
36:28
which he regards a big perennial
36:31
Universal in human experience to
36:34
considering something which he regards
36:36
as being as it were topical to our age
36:38
and for that reason he femural so that
36:41
in 200 years time we're all dead that
36:43
this will all be past history and
36:45
something else will be the case isn't
36:48
his philosophy ceasing to be a concern
36:51
itself with the permanent I'm just
36:54
concerning itself with the superficial
36:55
well if this were any old culture or
36:58
even any old stage of our culture he
37:01
would say yes and what he was doing
37:02
would then be soon passe is were saying
37:05
but he thinks that this is a very
37:06
special culture and we're in a very
37:08
special stage of this very special
37:09
culture it's a special culture for him
37:12
because we're the only culture that has
37:13
history in any culture events follow one
37:16
after another but only in ours does the
37:18
understanding of being changed from the
37:21
Greek to the Christian to the modern and
37:23
that's that historicity in Heidegger
37:27
language and we happen to stand in a
37:30
special place in our culture an
37:31
understanding of being it started with
37:33
Plato 2,000 years ago has gone through
37:36
all sorts of philosophical and practical
37:39
transformations until it is now finished
37:42
in Heidegger turns that means all the
37:44
philosophical moves have been tried and
37:47
played out completely
37:49
it and now it's done for is that sort of
37:53
pun on finished it if he gets this idea
37:55
from Nietzsche influenced in a lot we're
37:57
in we have reached the stage of
38:00
planetary technology where we are now
38:02
taking over the whole planet our
38:04
understanding of being is dominating
38:07
every understanding of being and our
38:09
understanding of being has come to a
38:10
dead end which I either called Neil ISM
38:13
one aspect of the late Heidegger which
38:16
we hadn't touched on and we must I think
38:17
before we move on to the thinkers after
38:21
Heidegger is his concern with language
38:24
the later Heidegger is not just
38:26
concerned with language he's almost
38:27
obsessed by language isn't it why is
38:29
that well we're in a way set to see that
38:32
because since there's no way the world
38:34
is in itself language isn't there to
38:37
correspond to reality nor is language
38:40
there just to be made up arbitrarily for
38:42
Heidegger a vocabulary or the kind of
38:46
metaphors one uses named things into
38:50
being when in California somebody said
38:52
that everybody was laid back there were
38:55
already people with hot tubs of taking
38:57
it easy and taking drugs but now they
38:59
discover that that all fitted together
39:01
and they were laid back so that it was
39:03
more of it so language is a marvelous
39:06
and powerful way to change the practices
39:09
focus them and add new practices to
39:13
designs way of life so it's the poets
39:15
not the philosophers or the priests or
39:17
the scientists who are the vanguard of
39:20
humanity and the hope of some new
39:23
understanding of being now I think we've
39:26
been quite right to devote almost the
39:28
whole of this discussion to Heidegger
39:30
because he is far and away the most
39:31
important 20th century existentialist
39:35
philosopher but I did say in the
39:37
introduction to this discussion that we
39:39
would touch on others and I think we
39:40
must do so now before we bring the
39:42
discussion to a close what I mentioned
39:47
specifically software and merleau-ponty
39:50
let's take them in that order the
39:52
chronological order and how would you
39:55
characterize sapless relationship as a
39:58
philosopher to hiding it well start
40:01
start
40:02
as a lacera lien and becomes a
40:04
phenomenologist writes a good novel
40:06
called nausea which is a
40:07
phenomenological description of a world
40:09
breaking down but then he read Heidegger
40:12
and he was converted to what he thought
40:14
was Heidegger but he felt he had a fix
40:16
up Heidegger as a Frenchman and make it
40:18
Cartesian so he starts with the
40:21
individual subject and tries to get and
40:23
to talk about death and guilt and all
40:25
the things that Heidegger talks about
40:27
but that's a disaster because as this
40:29
story we've been telling his right
40:30
that's what Heidegger was trying to free
40:32
us from in fact when I went to visit
40:34
Heidegger he had Being and Nothingness
40:35
on his desk in German translation and I
40:37
said oh you're reading Sartre and he
40:40
said how can I even begin to read this
40:42
muck is where it was dreck
40:44
and that's pretty strong and I think
40:46
that's accurate because what happens if
40:48
you treat a Heidegger as if he were
40:50
talking about subjects is you really
40:52
push him back to her Cyril it's
40:53
difficult to believe actually that South
40:55
Louisville survivors a philosopher at
40:56
all they might survive as a novelist and
40:59
the playwright
41:01
what's your view of metal Oh Ponty I'm
41:04
very much more impressed with
41:06
merleau-ponty I think he's a great
41:07
philosopher and will survive his great
41:10
contribution was to bring in the body as
41:13
our way of being in the world there are
41:16
two big gaps in being time one of them
41:18
is that heilige never talks about the
41:20
body or even about skills or practices I
41:23
put all that in to explain the ready to
41:25
hand in the understanding of being now
41:28
maralell Ponte because he does talk
41:30
about the body and it's the body that
41:32
acquires skills he answers Sartre for
41:35
one thing he says we're not free we are
41:37
restricted by having the same sort of
41:39
bodies everyone has and by the fact that
41:42
what we do becoming habits in our bodies
41:44
and skills in our bodies which were not
41:46
arbitrarily free to change and this both
41:50
answers Sartre and in a way oddly enough
41:53
merleau-ponty answering Sartre who would
41:56
like literal reinvents Heidegger but
42:00
filling in the gaps the other gap is
42:02
perception Heidegger talks about
42:04
perception as if it was just staring at
42:06
things and that is unfortunate because
42:08
it does seem as if we spend a lot of
42:10
time not only using things but seeing
42:13
things but
42:14
no party has an analysis of perception
42:16
as a embodied activity in which we move
42:20
to get an optimal grip on things which
42:23
makes it more of the ready to hand
42:26
thereby completing the Heidegger picture
42:29
now all the four named philosophers that
42:33
we've been discussing hustle
42:35
Heidegger jean-paul Sartre and Merrill
42:39
Ponte they're all dead
42:41
software only recently dead do you
42:43
regard the this whole tradition of
42:46
philosophy that we've been talking about
42:47
as something that's now closed or do you
42:49
regard it as very much and alive and
42:52
ongoing enterprise
42:54
I think it's very much alive even the
42:56
phenomenology the her cyril side which
42:58
Heidegger was trying to kill off is very
43:01
much alive the literal is alive in two
43:03
ways one is that if you want to describe
43:06
the phenomena but what it's like to
43:08
listen to music what it's like to have
43:10
sexual desire any phenomenon literal
43:13
gives you a license to do it and a
43:15
method for doing it and we have young
43:17
philosophers in Britain who are doing
43:19
precisely that sort of thing though and
43:20
in the United States to the other side
43:23
of us Roe is if anything even more alive
43:26
and active namely he was interested in
43:28
the structure of the intentional content
43:30
of that in the mind that enables us to
43:32
refer to things now there's something
43:34
called cognitive science actually trying
43:36
to investigate empirically the structure
43:39
of our mental representations as they
43:41
would say and clitoral has laid down the
43:44
general guidelines that anybody doing
43:46
that investigation will follow or if
43:48
you're trying to build a mind if people
43:50
using computers and artificial
43:52
intelligence are doing Puss rule is also
43:54
the father of artificial intelligence
43:55
many of his ideas that the mind follows
43:57
hierarchies of strict rules are now
44:00
being cashed out into computer programs
44:03
so personal is doing fine Heidegger is
44:05
doing fine too early higher being time
44:08
is not perhaps as much follow now as it
44:13
should be I'm using it the way I use it
44:16
is as I've been using it here if you if
44:19
you actually get back to the phenomena
44:21
of our engaged everyday activity you can
44:24
criticize the linguistic analysts who
44:26
either trust their into
44:28
missions or trust our linguistic
44:30
categories
44:32
Heidegger would say and I think a
44:33
description of skills shows it that if
44:36
you trust our intuitions you talk always
44:38
about beliefs desires and so forth and
44:40
that that's not an adequate description
44:42
of what's normally going on it's only a
44:44
breakdown description and likewise we
44:46
talked about how our language mirrors
44:48
not the everyday hoping but the
44:51
breakdown so there
44:52
Heidegger phenomenology it gives us a
44:54
good point for criticizing some
44:57
unquestioned assumptions of contemporary
44:59
angle American philosophy and finally in
45:02
Europe now particularly in France later
45:04
Heidegger is the great father of those
45:09
who want to if he already put it
45:11
deconstruct the tradition for instance
45:14
Michel Foucault and Jacque Derrida are
45:16
trying to follow out the Heidegger
45:18
project of defining exactly what our
45:21
understanding of being is in order to
45:24
help us get over it so I would say that
45:26
there is hardly any area of intellectual
45:28
activity these days in which the
45:31
concerns of these thinkers don't play a
45:33
large role well thank you very much for
45:35
that professor glasses
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[Music]
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