What Is The Significance Of Human Mortality, According To Heidegger E

What Is The Significance Of Human Mortality, According To Heidegger? Martin Heidegger (1889 1976) was, and still is considered to be, along with the likes of Soren Kierkegaard, Edmund Husserl and Jean-Paul Sartre, one of the principal exponents of 20th century Existentialism. An extraordinarily original thinker, a critic of technological society and the leading Ontologist of his time, Heideggers philosophy became a primary influence upon the thoughts of the younger generations of continental European cultural personalities of his time. The son of a Catholic sexton, Heidegger displayed an early interest in religion and philosophy; at school he began an intensive study of the late 19th century Catholic philosopher Franz Brentano and, as we shall see, Brentanos descriptive psychology, as presented in his On the Manifold Meaning of Being According to Aristotle, played a major role in Heideggers philosophy. Upon leaving school, he was enrolled at the University of Freiburg and, whilst there, he studied both Catholic theology and Christian philosophy. Heideggers early study of Brentano encouraged him to look more closely at the Greek philosophers such as Plato, Aristotle and the Gnostics. He was particularly influenced, however by several 19th and 20th century writers and philosophers such as Soren Kierkegaard (often referred to as the father of Existentialism), Friedrich Nietzsche, Wilhelm Dilthey (noted for directing the attention of his contemporary philosophers to human and historical sciences), and by the founder of Phenomenology, Edmund Husserl. Husserls Phenomenology can be seen as a response to the intrusion of psychology into the essential studies of man; he felt that the study of man should, instead be conducted on a purely philosophical level. His way of thinking determined, to a large extent, the background of Heideggers later work. Indeed, Heideggers comments upon existential themes such as anxiety, distress and care were not meant as psychological or anthropological comments or propositions. Instead, they were specifically proposed as philosophical (or, more accurately, ontological) statements and phenomenological observations. Remembering the influence of Brentano and Aristotle, we will see that Heideggers principle philosophical concern was the disclosure of the various ways of Being and particularly, Human Being. In 1927, Heidegger astonished the German philosophical domain with the publication of his magnum opus Sein und Zeit , a work that, although almost unreadable, was immediately felt to be of primary importance. Perhaps partly due to its intriguingly difficult style, the book was acclaimed as a very deep and important work not only in German speaking countries but also in Latin countries, where Phenomenology had already been popularised. It strongly influenced Jean-Paul Sartre (although, as with Husserl, Sartres phenomenological ontology concentrated more upon consciousness than Heidegger believed was necessary). Despite his protestations, Heidegger was classed, on the strength of Being and Time as the leading atheistic Existentialist. However, the book received a colder reception in England and its influence was negligible for several decades. In order to understand the above titled question, we must first attempt to understand some of the fundamental points that define Heideggers difficult philosophy. To begin with, it may useful for us to consider Heideggers reasons for writing Being and Time and, to consider some of the philosophical problems that the book addresses. Heidegger believed that traditional philosophy was inherently problematic due to a particular way of understanding the nature of reality. This particular way, prevalent ever-since the dawn of western history due to the likes of Herecleitus and Aristotle, is an ontology which states that what is ultimately real is that which lies underneath properties (or entities) and remains continuously present throughout change. As pointed out by Charles B. Guigon in The Cambridge Companion to Heidegger, this naturalistic philosophy is sometimes referred to as Substance Ontology. Substance Ontology reaches its problematic peak with the Cartesian Cogito, as Guigon states, Ever since Descartes, this substance ontology has bred a covey of either/ors that generate the so-called problems of philosophy: either there is a mind or everything is just matter; either our ideas do represent objects or nothing exists outside the mindeither something in me remains constant throughout change or there is no personal identity; either values have objective existence or everything is permitted. Heidegger believed that the constant move and countermove arguments resulting from this naturalistic ontology were counter-productive and hence, could