Thursday 11 June 2009
Why Heidegger matters
RSB-interviewee Simon Critchley is writing in the Guardian's Comment is Free blog on Heidegger's Being and Time. I link here to what is promised to be the first of eight articles that Critchley hopes will "give a taste of the book and offer some signposts for readers who would like to explore further."
Martin Heidegger (1889-1976) was the most important and influential philosopher in the continental tradition in the 20th century. Being and Time, first published in 1927, was his magnum opus. There is no way of understanding what took place in continental philosophy after Heidegger without coming to terms with Being and Time. Furthermore, unlike many Anglo-American philosophers, Heidegger has exerted a huge influence outside philosophy, in areas as diverse as architecture, contemporary art, social and political theory, psychotherapy, psychiatry and theology... the basic idea of Being and Time is extremely simple: being is time. That is, what it means for a human being to be is to exist temporally in the stretch between birth and death. Being is time and time is finite, it comes to an end with our death. Therefore, if we want to understand what it means to be an authentic human being, then it is essential that we constantly project our lives onto the horizon of our death, what Heidegger calls "being-towards-death". (More...)
Posted by Mark Thwaite
Tags: blogosphere, philosophy
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