How to See the World Like Heidegger — Transcript

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1. 0:00Heidegger's an unusual philosopher. He
2. 0:02starts from the idea that philosophy
3. 0:04shouldn't begin with abstract
4. 0:05structures, but with life which we are
5. 0:07always already in. His philosophy is
6. 0:09aimed at clarifying how factual life is
7. 0:11structured and how meaning emerges
8. 0:13within it. His way of thinking is very
9. 0:16different from how we usually think
10. 0:17about the world. Heidegger is trying to
11. 0:19grasp the very way of being, how life
12. 0:22actually unfolds. And today I want to
13. 0:24show how he does that and how this way
14. 0:26of seeing can be practiced.
15. 0:28For this I'll be using his lecture the
16. 0:30phenomenology of religious life. This is
17. 0:32one of his early lectures. He was about
18. 0:3431 when he gave it. You can already see
19. 0:37ideas here that will later be developed
20. 0:39in Being and Time. But I won't focus so
21. 0:41much on those. Instead, I want to focus
22. 0:43on his method, how he actually does
23. 0:45philosophy. This is not a full summary
24. 0:47of the lecture. I won't go through
25. 0:49everything. I'll focus specifically on
26. 0:51the method. If you want to understand it
27. 0:53more deeply, I really recommend reading
28. 0:55it yourself. It's a very good lecture,
29. 0:57one of my favorites.
30. 0:59So, the title already tells us that in
31. 1:01this lecture Heidegger is focusing on
32. 1:03religion. More specifically, he is
33. 1:04trying to understand the life of early
34. 1:06Christians. But he deliberately refuses
35. 1:08to start with ideas, doctrines, or
36. 1:10teachings. He also refuses to treat
37. 1:12early Christianity as just something to
38. 1:14be studied historically. For Heidegger,
39. 1:16Christianity is not just a set of
40. 1:18beliefs or a series of historical
41. 1:20events. As I mentioned before, his goal
42. 1:22is to uncover a mode of existence. To
43. 1:24understand how this life is structured
44. 1:26from within.
45. 1:27And this isn't possible if we look at it
46. 1:29purely theologically or historically. In
47. 1:31his lecture, Heidegger turns to the
48. 1:33letters of the Apostle Paul. For him,
49. 1:35these letters are traces of lived
50. 1:37experience. But he emphasizes that we
51. 1:39are not trying to figure out what Paul
52. 1:41felt. We're not doing psychology.
53. 1:43Instead, we're trying to see how the
54. 1:45structure of the world reveals itself
55. 1:47through this. And one of the most
56. 1:49important things here is to notice how
57. 1:50time is experienced in this way of life.
58. 1:53In his letters, Paul talks about the
59. 1:54second coming of Christ. But he doesn't
60. 1:57say when it will happen. In fact, he
61. 1:59says that there is no need to write to
62. 2:00you about times and dates. Heidegger
63. 2:03sees this as pointing to a different
64. 2:04experience of time. For the usual way of
65. 2:07thinking, the key question is when?
66. 2:09Because the second coming is understood
67. 2:11as something that will happen in the
68. 2:13future. But for someone living in this
69. 2:15Christian mode of existence, the exact
70. 2:17when doesn't really matter because the
71. 2:19second coming is not just a future
72. 2:21event. It already structures life. It's
73. 2:23not simply a belief about a future end.
74. 2:26Life right now is lived in a world that
75. 2:28doesn't feel stable and can end at any
76. 2:30moment. And because of that, the
77. 2:31question when loses its importance.
78. 2:34People often say that faith is a way of
79. 2:36escaping reality. But Heidegger shows
80. 2:38that Christian life is actually the
81. 2:40opposite. It's a more demanding, more
82. 2:42intense way of living. Because the world
83. 2:44stops feeling stable, it becomes
84. 2:46impossible to fully dissolve into it.
85. 2:48Instead, you find yourself in kind of
86. 2:50wakefulness, sobriety, a different way
87. 2:53of living.
88. 2:55Notice what Heidegger is doing here.
89. 2:57He's trying to reconstruct how the world
90. 2:59reveals itself, to catch how the entire
91. 3:01structure of life changes for early
92. 3:03Christians. Time becomes urgent. The
93. 3:05world loses its stability. Actions
94. 3:08become irreversible. And life itself
95. 3:10becomes a constant tense enactment.
96. 3:12Heidegger is trying to bring to light
97. 3:14the structure in which meaning becomes
98. 3:16possible at all. Because meaning always
99. 3:18emerges from the horizon in which life
100. 3:20is already unfolding. If life unfolds in
101. 3:23a world that cannot serve as a final
102. 3:24ground, then all meaning is shaped by
103. 3:26that. It's not only about Christianity.
104. 3:29You can see this everywhere. In everyday
105. 3:31life, I often try to notice from what
106. 3:33kind of horizon the world is already
107. 3:35revealing itself and how this changes.
108. 3:37We are always already inside a situation
109. 3:40and this can be observed at any moment.
110. 3:42There's no need to invent anything or
111. 3:44look for a hidden depth. It's enough to
112. 3:46shift attention from content to
113. 3:47structure.
114. 3:49The crucial point is not to explain
115. 3:51things in terms of inner feelings, but
116. 3:53to notice how the world reveals itself
117. 3:55through them.
118. 3:56For example, a feeling of safety or
119. 3:58anxiety doesn't have to be understood as
120. 4:00I feel safe or I feel anxious, but as
121. 4:04the world itself is showing up as a safe
122. 4:06or as a threatening.
123. 4:08It's also important not to think of this
124. 4:10as a split between subject and world.
125. 4:12There is no separate self observing the
126. 4:14world. It's one. I can try to describe
127. 4:17how I do this. For example, when I send
128. 4:19a long, honest message to someone, I
129. 4:22often feel cringe right after sending
130. 4:23it. Like I've shared too much.
131. 4:26And I try to trace how this shift
132. 4:28happens. I notice that while writing,
133. 4:31choosing words, the world shows up as a
134. 4:34continuous field of action. I'm
135. 4:36completely within the process. Nothing
136. 4:38stands out. Everything is connected.
137. 4:40Even the person I'm writing to is not
138. 4:42separate. They are the direction of the
139. 4:44action. But the moment the message is
140. 4:46sent, right after I press the button,
141. 4:48something shifts. The message becomes
142. 4:50something finished, something that can
143. 4:52now be interpreted.
144. 4:54And the world begins to appear as a
145. 4:56space of evaluation and interpretation.
146. 4:59Suddenly, everything becomes unstable.
147. 5:01Everything can be read differently. The
148. 5:03world reveals itself as a space of
149. 5:05vulnerability.
150. 5:07What has been done no longer belongs to
151. 5:09where it came from. It is open to how it
152. 5:11can be received. Time changes as well.
153. 5:13It becomes looping, returning again and
154. 5:15again to what has already happened, to
155. 5:17the message I've just sent, but each
156. 5:19time in a different light. So, this
157. 5:21feeling of cringe isn't just an emotion.
158. 5:24It's a way in which the world reveals
159. 5:25itself as unstable, unfixed, dependent
160. 5:28on a possible perspective. And the more
161. 5:30I start to see the structures, the
162. 5:31clearer it becomes that the world was
163. 5:33never simply the way it is. And this
164. 5:35helps to stop confusing how the world
165. 5:37appears right now with what it
166. 5:39supposedly is. Reality is always given
167. 5:42through the way it is disclosed.
168. 5:44Heidegger teaches you to notice the
169. 5:45horizon in which everything happens. He
170. 5:47shifts attention from fixed meanings to
171. 5:50the very process through which meaning
172. 5:51arises. This lecture on religious life
173. 5:53shows how Heidegger does this through
174. 5:55the example of Christianity. But it's
175. 5:57just one example. In fact, Heidegger is
176. 5:59not interested in a specific religious
177. 6:01situation. What he shows here applies to
178. 6:04experience more generally, to how
179. 6:06meaning becomes possible at all.
180. 6:08You can even see that the idea of the
181. 6:10second coming, not as a future event,
182. 6:12but as something that shapes life now,
183. 6:15resembles Heidegger's later idea of
184. 6:16death in Being and Time. Where death is
185. 6:19also not just something that will
186. 6:21happen, but something that already
187. 6:23structures existence. One of Heidegger's
188. 6:25key ideas is that philosophy shouldn't
189. 6:27just explain things, but transform the
190. 6:29way of being. And in this sense, his
191. 6:31philosophy really does that. At least I
192. 6:33can say for myself, this way of
193. 6:35experimenting with how the world reveals
194. 6:37itself has genuinely changed how I see
195. 6:40things.
196. 6:41And I'm enormously grateful to him for
197. 6:43that.
198. 6:44And to you as well for watching until
199. 6:46the end.
200. 6:48>> [gasps]
201. 6:48>> Thank you. Bye.