9.11.08
Metaphysics: Heidegger (1889 - 1976)
Kant's critique of traditional metaphysics aimed finally to lay to rest the claims of philosophers to describe the ultimate nature of reality as it is in itself. Many of those who followed him continued to practice metaphysics, and still sought to provide a general philosophical view of the world and our place in it, but the characteristic orientation of these inquiries now tend to allow a central role to human consciousness.
In the early twentieth century the German philosopher Martin Heidegger reintroduced the fundamental question of "Being' as the chief topic of philosophy. Heidegger was convinced that Philosophy had been asking the wrong questions since the period of the ancient Greeks, specifically since Plato. The error of philosophy lay in the emphasis, which had been placed upon "dualisms" such as the subject object dichotomy.
In his monumental work "Being and Time" Heidegger insisted that the question of being must be prior to all other philosophical inquiries. In this he was partly harking back to Aristotle's notion of a general metaphysics of being qua being, a general "ontology" mapping out the fundamental categories of being, over and above the detailed descriptions of the particular sciences. Heidegger's life long project centered upon answer the question of being. Heidegger rejects the traditional approach to metaphysics, which attempted to discover the "properties" of being. Rather, Heidegger searched for "the background conditions that enable entities to show up as counting or mattering in some specific way in the first place" which he equates with "authentic existence." (Cambridge Dictionary of Philosophy, 2 Ed, 370))
Heidegger's early work focused upon the significance of "Dasein" or human existence. The term translates as "being-there" and should understood as "a perspective from which action originates." (Philosophy: 100 Essential Thinkers, "Martin Heidegger, p. 151) Heidegger emphasized the categories of "authenticity" versus "inauthenticity" as related to human existence. According to Heidegger we are authentically human to the extent that we are fulfilling our true purpose in relation to the world around us. In this context, Dasein becomes a unitary function of the individual in relation to the surrounding world.
The analogy of the hammer is helpful for understanding Heidegger's emphasis at this point. In Heidegger's understanding a hammer has authenticity through its practicality in that in the workshop in which the hammer is it does not stand-alone. Rather, the hammer exists in the context of relationships and is used for the purpose of uniting boards in order to construct bookshelves for the purpose of containing books so that the individual may study and be an organized and neat context for study. In this sense, Heidegger reminds us that an entity does not exist in isolation from others, but only in the context of a complexity of relationships.
However, Heidegger reminds that there is also the risk of "inauthenticity". For Heidegger, inauthenticity consists of the individual's potential drift of focus upon his purpose in life. There is the inclination in every human to experience a sort of existence drift in which the individual becomes swept up by the crowd, goes along with the crowd, thereby losing a sense of personal significance.
This failure of focus requires that we face up to the reality of our mortality, which in turn will bring us back to a striving for authentic existence. In short, no one ever lives authentically until they have addressed their own morality. "It is precisely death that allows human life to have meaning" and we are "to live in the realistic anticipation of death." (Newport, Ultimate Questions, 292) In this sense, Heidegger is very concerned with the acknowledgement of death. "To be authentic is to clear sightedly face up to one's responsibility for what one's life is adding up to as a whole." (Cambridge Dictionary of Philosophy, ed. Robert Audi, 372, "Heidegger", 372)
Heidegger's philosophy constitutes not only a decisive, but also a unique and highly significant turn in metaphysic speculation. His approach to philosophy forms part of what has come to be known as existentialism, an approach that starts not from the objective definitions or essences of things, but from the immediate predicament of the existing human being as he or she confronts the world.
The Heideggerian metaphysic thus turns out in the end to be not an abstract study of being, but rather an enterprise where understanding and valuing are inextricably intertwined. In coming to terms with the world we are drawn into a practical community of other involved agents, and thus into "solicitous concern for others" or what Heidegger calls Sorge, or Caring. Despite its complexity, Heidegger's insights and proposals merit not only in depth analysis, but also personal contemplation of light of one's own existence.