Philosophy

Martin Heidegger

1889 to 1976, Messkirch, Germany

Being, Dasein, being-in-the-world, authenticity, death, and the question of technology.

Lessons

The Question of Being

Heidegger reopened the oldest and most forgotten question in philosophy: what does it mean to be? Not what particular things exist, but what ‘being’ itself means - a question, he charged, that the whole West…

Dasein and Being-in-the-World

Heidegger overturns the picture, dominant since Descartes, of a mind locked inside, looking out at an external world. The human being (Dasein) is not a subject confronting objects but being-in-the-world - always already…

Being-Toward-Death and Authenticity

Death, for Heidegger, is not merely the event that ends life but a structure of life itself: Dasein exists as being-toward-death , always running ahead toward its own end. To face this honestly - to own one’s fini…

The ‘They,’ Fallenness, and the Uncanny

Most of the time we are not ourselves. We live as ‘one’ lives - doing what one does, thinking what one thinks, dispersed into an anonymous public Heidegger calls das Man , ‘the they.’ This everyd…

The Question Concerning Technology

In his later thought, Heidegger turned to technology - not as gadgets and machines, but as a way of revealing the world that has come to dominate the modern age. Modern technology, he argues, discloses everything as &ls…