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Philosophy Final

Heidegger critiques the way Western history has reduced being to mere presence and utility. He argues that this obscures our understanding of Dasein, or the being of human beings. Dasein refers to humans' unique ability to question and understand being. For Heidegger, authentic Dasein involves standing outside of oneself and societal expectations to take responsibility for one's own existence in the face of mortality. He is also critical of modern technology which reduces everything to a resource and causes us to exist in an inauthentic way by conforming to mass culture.

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34 views2 pages

Philosophy Final

Heidegger critiques the way Western history has reduced being to mere presence and utility. He argues that this obscures our understanding of Dasein, or the being of human beings. Dasein refers to humans' unique ability to question and understand being. For Heidegger, authentic Dasein involves standing outside of oneself and societal expectations to take responsibility for one's own existence in the face of mortality. He is also critical of modern technology which reduces everything to a resource and causes us to exist in an inauthentic way by conforming to mass culture.

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Nafeha Khan
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5) Heidegger claims that Dasein, the being of the human being, has been obscured from view

because western history has reinterpreted being as intelligence and reduced it to the status of a
tool in the service of something else.
This reduction of reality to the endless business of of utilitarian goals (Gestell) means we have
lost the ability to understand the language as “the house of being”. To the extent that we reduce
all being to the status of “presence” (beings) we cannot understand Dasein as ek-sistence,
standing out in the clearing of Being, through its relation to non-being.
Explain Heidegger’s conception of Dasein, his contestation of modern humanism and
and its relation to logos and techne, and his understanding of eksistence in relation to
time.

Heidegger questions the being of the beings in the context of western history. He urges us to
think of the human being from a distance, in order to better understand the human as an object
but it is not possible because we are human and we study it from where are. Heidegger says
that to be human means to ask the question ‘what is being?’ Being is essence, it is bigger that
oneself and it is definitely bigger than what the mind can encompass. Being is something that
does not show itself, it is a state of existence. We will be so close to the being, but we won't be
able to see it.

Dasein refers to the way in which creatures exist who can pose the Seinsfrage, the question of
the nature of Being. This characteristic makes them different from anything else in the world.
Dasein is not the biological human being, nor the person in an abstract legal or philosophical
sense. Dasein is a way of life shared by the members of a community, similar to the way in
which a language exists as an entity, or as a communally shared form of communication.
Human existence, or the fundamental character of ​Dasein​, is a condition of already
“Being-in-the-world.” Before any reflection begins, we are already caught up in, involved with, or
committed to other individuals and things. Dasein is “being there”, it is being in mundane
everyday activities, which don't require mental synthesis. We manipulate tools that already
meaningful in a world that already has meaning. The self and the world belong in a single entity.
The materialistic culture that is dominant in our society prevents us from seeing the actual truth
of an object because we are busy using it.
The dasein prevents us from engaging in the Epoche, which is the suspension of knowledge,
where one unlearns and let goes of habit functions in order to ​see​ the form of the object rather
than just look at it as a tool that is to utilised.

The advancement of technology facilitates our view of the world as “‘resource,” but this
orientation betrays both our own nature and the nature of our relationship to the world.
Furthermore, competition and consumerism diminishes us to a point where we are no longer
authentically engaged with the world. Technology makes our lives more convenient, but it also
creates a world of blind consumption, and even an option for technological self-destruction.
Technology invites us to “fall back” into an inauthentic existence, we submerge into a
technologically facilitated mass culture that seems to be social, but its common denominator is
loneliness.
Heidegger refers to the modern tech as Gestell ie enframing, the way of thinking that look at
human being as mere mechanical objects that are to be utilised. Everything in the society is
reduced to utility. Everything is calculated and stockpiled as a reserve in order to achieve a task.
Technology is not “used” as a means to an end, but rather a mode of ​human​ ​existenc​e because
Western philosophy has “understood” being as presence and not essence ie, we have become
puppets to tech.

Heidegger urges us to develop ‘the self’.


Heidegger tells us that human nature is neither immediate nor transparent, and thus
self-recognition requires the hard work of thinking against the temptation to turn outward, create
useful tools, and transform everything into a ready-made resource.
We should stray away from conforming into expectations that “they” have for us, rather we
should exist (ex+ist // out + to be). One should stand out from oneself. One is the projection of
their own potentiality and once you realise that no one will die your own death for you, you
realise the potentiality of life. One needs to take responsibility of their own life and existence
because of the temporality of time. The being of our being is time.

The recognition of our own mortality strikes so hard because reflection makes it clear that we
face a necessary termination of our life, but normally we just ignore it and exist in a state of
forgetfulness or denial. Not taking mortality seriously is one of the main elements of “fallenness.”
Our mortality prompts us to take hold of ourselves in an authentic “resolution” that affirms our
own existence. It also forces us to appreciate our limitations and immerse ourselves in our
historical situation with a perspective towards acceptance. The realization that we all live with a
death sentence creates a commonality among human beings and allows us to see ourselves
and our lives as a unity.

/ language and tech


Heidegger argues that Western Thought is mostly a reactive posture that tries to preserve the
autonomy of thinking against the immediacy in the impulse to act. He claims that philosophy
gets more and more absorbed into science, and this forces academic philosophers to defend
the prestige of their discipline by emulating scientific methods and the rhetoric of “progress” in
their own field. Philosophy today becomes specialized like other sciences, and philosophical
papers are increasingly abstract or technical. Heidegger rejects this trend and contends that
thinking loses its essence when it turns itself into a science or merely a theoretical activity. That
which is lost, abandoned in the technical interpretations of language, meaning, and logic, is the
question of Being and its truth. Heidegger’s project in “Being and Time” is to recover not only
the original question but the form of Dasein that goes along with it.

http://braungardt.trialectics.com/philosophy/philosophers/heidegger-made-simple/

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