Martin Heidegger: The Only Philosopher You Need — Transcript

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1. 0:00Many people dislike philosophy [music]
2. 0:01and not without reason. In its
3. 0:03intellectual ambitions, philosophy often
4. 0:05goes too far. Sometimes philosophical
5. 0:07thinking becomes so abstract that it
6. 0:09seems to drift away from the very world
7. 0:11it claims to explain. As Tropenhau once
8. 0:14said, philosophy when it turns into a
9. 0:16system is rarely popular. To outsiders,
10. 0:19it looks strange and impractical like a
11. 0:22kind of academic magic whose spells
12. 0:24sound impressive simply because no one
13. 0:26understands them.
14. 0:28Philosophy is supposed to help us
15. 0:29understand existence and the world. But
16. 0:31the more sophisticated it becomes, the
17. 0:33more distant that world can seem. It
18. 0:35often feels like philosophers talk about
19. 0:37reality as if they don't actually live
20. 0:39in it. But there is one philosopher who
21. 0:42manages to keep the balance. He reaches
22. 0:44exceptional intellectual depth without
23. 0:46leaving the world behind. In fact, his
24. 0:49entire project moves in the opposite
25. 0:50direction. Instead of leading you away
26. 0:52from the world, he brings you back to
27. 0:54reality itself and [music] sometimes
28. 0:56even disturbingly close. And his name is
29. 0:59Martin Haidiger. [music]
30. 1:01I want to say that I'm not going to
31. 1:02explain Haidiger's whole philosophy
32. 1:04here. Instead, I'll try to help you
33. 1:06catch the vibe of what he's doing. I
34. 1:10could explain the difference between
35. 1:11being and being summarized design and
36. 1:14bullet points, but I don't want to do
37. 1:16that because that wouldn't be real
38. 1:17Haidigga because his philosophy should
39. 1:19be experienced, not just academically
40. 1:21[music] explained.
41. 1:23And even though I'm not giving you a
42. 1:24detailed map, I still want to give you
43. 1:26just enough of the overall shape of what
44. 1:28he's doing because otherwise it would be
45. 1:30impossible to speak about him at all.
46. 1:32Haidiger isn't like other philosophers.
47. 1:34[music] He doesn't offer new theory like
48. 1:36many before him. He questions the ground
49. 1:39on which all theories stand. Hideigga's
50. 1:42central question is simple, at least at
51. 1:44first sight. What does it mean to be? We
52. 1:49move through life using words like is
53. 1:51and being constantly. We talk about
54. 1:54objects, about consciousness, about the
55. 1:56world, always already assuming that
56. 1:59these things are. Yet we almost never
57. 2:01pause to ask what we actually mean when
58. 2:04we say that something exists because it
59. 2:06feels too obvious. We feel like we
60. 2:08already understand what being means even
61. 2:10if we can't put it into words. But Haid
62. 2:12argues that without first clarifying the
63. 2:15meaning of being, philosophy can't truly
64. 2:17go any further. For him this question
65. 2:20stands at the very beginning of all
66. 2:22philosophy. And he believed that
67. 2:24starting with Plato, philosophical
68. 2:27thought became increasingly focused on
69. 2:29the wrong things, ideas, substances,
70. 2:32objects, minds, [music] and quietly
71. 2:34forgot the more basic question of what
72. 2:36it means for anything to be at all.
73. 2:39Rather than building another theoretical
74. 2:41system on top of inherited ones,
75. 2:43Haidiger returns to the most fundamental
76. 2:45issue. And in trying to understand what
77. 2:48it means to [music] be, he forces us to
78. 2:50return to ourselves. Not in a
79. 2:52psychological way. Haidigga isn't asking
80. 2:55you to examine your feelings. He's
81. 2:57pointing to something [music] deeper. We
82. 2:59are the ones who already somehow
83. 3:02understand being. We refer to it
84. 3:05constantly. We say things are. We make
85. 3:07sense of what exists. [music] And when
86. 3:10you want to understand something, you go
87. 3:12to whoever already has some
88. 3:13understanding of it. So if you truly
89. 3:15want to understand what being is, we
90. 3:17have to return to the ones who already
91. 3:19in some way [music] understand it to
92. 3:22ourselves. But Haidigga doesn't talk
93. 3:24about humans in the usual sense. He uses
94. 3:27the word design [music] which simply
95. 3:29means being there. Because what he is
96. 3:31describing isn't a type of creature. Is
97. 3:33the kind of being that understands
98. 3:35being. So design is [music] you, but not
99. 3:40as a biological or rational animal.
100. 3:42rather as the one who already lives in a
101. 3:44world that makes sense. [music] And this
102. 3:46is where the magic of Haidiger's thought
103. 3:48begins. He makes you look at what you've
104. 3:50always taken [music] for granted. He
105. 3:52wants you to notice your own being. How
106. 3:54you exist, how the world shows up for
107. 3:56you. Hideera doesn't want you to explain
108. 3:58reality. He asks you to pay attention to
109. 4:01how you already in it. We usually
110. 4:04imagine that we start with consciousness
111. 4:06and then from there we perceived objects
112. 4:08around us, identify them, name them and
113. 4:10build up a picture of the world. But
114. 4:13Haidigga says that long before you
115. 4:14think, name or analyze anything, you are
116. 4:17already involved handling things, moving
117. 4:20among them, absorbed in what you are
118. 4:22doing. For example, when you're typing,
119. 4:25you're not really thinking about the
120. 4:26keyboard. [music] You just type. At a
121. 4:28certain point, the keyboard disappears
122. 4:30from your awareness. You don't even
123. 4:32experience yourself as someone using it.
124. 4:35You're simply in the act.
125. 4:38Same with a cup of tea. You don't sit
126. 4:40there thinking this is a cup. I'm
127. 4:42lifting it. It has liquid inside. You
128. 4:45just drink without even thinking about
129. 4:47it. And this mode of involvement is the
130. 4:49default mode of existence. You live this
131. 4:51way almost all the time. Even if you
132. 4:53never notice it. [music]
133. 4:55Even consciousness for Haidigga is a
134. 4:57concept built on top of something more
135. 4:59basic. Involvement. Haida also shows
136. 5:01that the world isn't a collection of
137. 5:03objects. The world is a web of relations
138. 5:05and meanings and you never experience a
139. 5:07single object in isolation. You see a
140. 5:09[music] car and you already understand
141. 5:11roads, traffic, movement. It all shows
142. 5:14up as a whole. You don't live among a
143. 5:16bunch of object. You live in a world
144. 5:17that comes to you all at once in [music]
145. 5:19its totality of references. And step by
146. 5:22step, Haidiger exposes how you really
147. 5:24exist in the world. He shows you that
148. 5:25you always exist in a [music] mood. You
149. 5:27never see the world as a detached
150. 5:28observer. You are always already
151. 5:30attuned. And this is important. He
152. 5:33forces you to rethink something even
153. 5:35more basic than objects or perception.
154. 5:38Time. We're used to thinking about time
155. 5:40as a [music] straight line. Past,
156. 5:41present, future. But we don't actually
157. 5:44live that way. If you know your mom is
158. 5:46coming over tomorrow, you clean your
159. 5:48apartment today. If you have an early
160. 5:50meeting, you go to bed earlier. If
161. 5:52tomorrow is a day off, you stay up late.
162. 5:54In other words, your future shapes your
163. 5:56present. And in that sense, your future
164. 5:59comes before the present. [music] That's
165. 6:00how you live. I'm only describing
166. 6:03fragments of his philosophy. So don't
167. 6:05try to fully understand it as a system.
168. 6:08I'm not trying to teach Hideka. I'm
169. 6:10trying to show you that he isn't the
170. 6:12kind of philosopher who builds theories
171. 6:14divorced from reality. He points to
172. 6:16things you already leave but don't
173. 6:18usually notice. Your relation to
174. 6:20objects, your sense of time, the way you
175. 6:22move through the world, and it changes
176. 6:25you. And [music] that's fascinating, but
177. 6:28it's not the most important part of his
178. 6:29thinking. The point is not that Haidigga
179. 6:32cracks your habitual world, forces you
180. 6:34to notice what was always unnoticed, and
181. 6:36then leaves you there. No, he teaches
182. 6:39you to stay with that openness even when
183. 6:42it feels disturbing. He thinks that if
184. 6:44we're ever going to understand being, we
185. 6:47have to start here [music] in life.
186. 6:49Whatever answers we're looking for,
187. 6:50they're in the world we're already
188. 6:52inside. What you have to do is to live
189. 6:54in it more clearly. And that approach to
190. 6:57philosophy is risky. This kind of
191. 6:59thinking comes close to poetry or even
192. 7:02mysticism. But Haidigga manages not to
193. 7:04go there. He finds a way to describe
194. 7:07this raw lift experience with
195. 7:08philosophical precision. And that's what
196. 7:11make him so rare and so strange. And I'm
197. 7:14not saying that his writing is easy.
198. 7:16Sometimes it's extremely difficult. But
199. 7:18it doesn't change the fact that he's
200. 7:19brilliant. Haidigga isn't the kind of
201. 7:22philosopher who gives you answers or
202. 7:24explains everything the way Hegel does,
203. 7:26for example. Instead, he gives you a new
204. 7:29way of seeing. And yes, his philosophy
205. 7:31is deeply unsettling. But that's because
206. 7:34Haidigga doesn't want to be understood
207. 7:35in the usual academic sense. He wants a
208. 7:38shift in how you inhabit your own life.
209. 7:41He wants you to feel uncomfortably close
210. 7:44to reality. [music]
211. 7:45And only then, maybe you begin to
212. 7:48understand what being means. [music] And
213. 7:50that's why you need him. Reading him
214. 7:52feels like waking up in the middle of
215. 7:54your life. And maybe it doesn't sound
216. 7:56like something you want, but believe me,
217. 7:59this is exactly [music] what you need.
218. 8:02Thanks for watching and have a nice day.
219. 8:05Bike.