Heidegger And A Metaphysics Of Feeling

The early Heidegger of Being and Time is generally believed to locate finitude strictly within the individual, based on an understanding that this individual will have to face its death alone and in its singularity. Facing death is characterized by the mood of Angst (anxiety), as death is not an experience one can otherwise access outside of one's own demise. In the later Heidegger, the finitude of the individual is rooted in the finitude of the world it lives in and within which it actualizes its possibilities, or Being. Against the standard reading that the early Heidegger places the emphasis on individual finitude, this important new book shows how the later model of the finitude of Being is developed in Being and Time. Elkholy questions the role of Angst in Heidegger's discussion of death and it is at the point of transition from the nothing back to the world of projects that the author locates finitude and shows that Heidegger's later thinking of the finitude of Being is rooted in Being and Time.

In a critical dialogue with the metaphysical tradition from Plato to Hegel to contemporary schools of thought, the author convincingly argues that traditional rationalist metaphysics has failed to accomplish its goal of demonstrating the existence of a divine cause and moral purpose of the world. To replace the defective rationalist metaphysics, the author builds a new metaphysics on the idea that moods and affects make manifest the world's felt meanings; he argues that each feature of the world is a felt meaning in the sense that each feature is a source of a feeling-response if and when it appears. The author asserts that we must synthesize our two ways of knowing-poetic evocations and exact analyses-in order to decide which mood or affect is the appropriate appreciation of any given feature of the world. Smith gives evocative and exact explications of such features as the world's temporality, appearance, and mind-independency, as these features appear in the appropriate recitations.

Tool-Being offers a new assessment of Martin Heidegger's famous tool-analysis, and with it, an audacious reappraisal of Heidegger's legacy to twenty-first-century philosophy. Every reader of Being and Time is familiar with the opposition between readiness-to-hand (Zuhandenheit) and presence-at-hand (Vorhandenheit), but commentators usually follow Heidegger's wishes in giving this distinction a limited scope, as if it applied only to tools in a narrow sense. Graham Harman contests Heidegger's own interpretation of tool-being, arguing that the opposition between tool and broken tool is not merely a provisional stage in his philosophy, but rather its living core. The extended concept of tool-being developed here leads us not to a theory of human practical activity but to an ontology of objects themselves. Tool-Being urges a fresh and concrete research into the secret contours of objects. Written in a lively and colorful style, it will be of great interest to anyone intrigued by Heidegger and anyone open to new trends in present-day philosophy.

This book offers the first comprehensive assessment of Heidegger’s account of affective phenomena. Affective phenomena play a significant role in Heidegger’s philosophy — his analyses of mood significantly influenced diverse fields of research such as existentialism, hermeneutics, phenomenology, theology and cultural studies. Despite this, no single collection of essays has been exclusively dedicated to this theme. Comprising twelve innovative essays by leading Heidegger scholars, this volume skilfully explores the role that not only Angst plays in Heidegger’s work, but also love and boredom. Exploring the nature of affective phenomena in Heidegger, as well as the role they play in wider philosophical debates, the volume is a valuable addition to Heideggerian scholarship and beyond, enriching current debates across disciplines on the nature of human agency.

A new 2024 translation of Martin Heidegger's major work "Being and Time" (Sein und Zeit), originally published in 1927 in multiple publications. This edition contains a new afterword by the Translator, a timeline of Heidegger's life and works, a philosophic index of core Heideggerian concepts and a guide for terminology across 19th and 20th century Existentialists. This translation is designed for readability and accessibility to Heidegger's enigmatic and dense philosophy. Complex and specific philosophic terms are translated as literally as possible and academic footnotes have been removed to ensure easy reading. Being and Time presents a complex philosophical discourse on the nature of being (Sein) and time (Zeit), focusing in particular on the temporal-existentialist concept of Dasein, a term that combines the German words for "to be" (sein) and "there" (da). This classic philosophic work examines the traditional metaphysical understanding of being, arguing that this understanding, typically based on the idea of a constant presence, fails to account for the temporal and existential dimensions of being. Heidegger proposes that an understanding of being requires an analysis of Dasein, which is characterized not only by its existence, but also by its being in the world and its temporal existence. The concept of Dasein is central to the his argument, emphasizing that Dasein is always already situated in a world, and its understanding of being is shaped by its temporal existence. This perspective challenges traditional metaphysical notions of being as static and unchanging, proposing instead that being is fundamentally temporal and connected to human existence and understanding. As the title suggests, Heidegger sees the question of Being as indistinguishable from Time, arguing that Newtonian conceptions of time as a series of now-points are inadequate for understanding the being of Dasein. His Ontochronology argues that the existential and ontological analysis of Dasein reveals a more fundamental concept of time, one that is integral to the structure of Being itself. The text further elaborates on the idea of "thrownness" and several other existentialist themes. Thrownness is one of the three conditions that signifies Dasein's immersion in the world, where it finds itself already entangled in a web of relations and meanings. This "thrownness", combined with Dasein's inherent being-toward-death, underscores the existential condition of human beings, framing their existence as a continual engagement with their own finitude and the possibilities of their being. Heidegger posits that understanding the nature of being requires a fundamental rethinking of both being and time, dogmatically stating that the true nature of being can only be grasped through an understanding of the temporality that characterizes the existence of being.

The two lectures translated here were published in 1957 under the title Identitat und Differenz. The sensitive and attentive reader will come away with a feeling that he now knows Heidegger, the man, the teacher, better. Heidegger provides illuminating insights and thoughts on many a vital issue—our technological age, religion, language, history, and more—all of which he touches upon here, if only epigrammatically. What makes Heidegger important is his receptiveness, his sensitivity, his ability to be at the heart of the problem and “see” and “hear” when others see and hear nothing.

There are bizarre moments when we feel like strangers to ourselves. Through an investigation of Heidegger’s concept of uncanniness, Katherine Withy explores what such experiences reveal. She shows that we can be what we are only if we do not fully understand what it is to be us, and points toward what it is to live well as an uncanny human being.

A new 2024 translation of Martin Heidegger's major work "What is Metaphysics?", originally published in 1929. This edition contains a new afterword by the Translator, a timeline of Heidegger's life and works, a philosophic index of core Heideggerian concepts and a guide for terminology across 19th and 20th century Existentialists. This translation is designed for readability and accessibility to Heidegger's enigmatic and dense philosophy. Complex and specific philosophic terms are translated as literally as possible and academic footnotes have been removed to ensure easy reading. This edition contains his last introduction to the third edition Heidegger published a Foreword consisting of his letter to Ernst Jünger on his sixtieth birthday (where he muses on What is Metaphysics decades later) and his Afterword and Epilogue, which he published years after the original. This classic treatise begins by questioning the nature of metaphysics, pondering its fundamental principles and the nature of its inquiry into being. The paper critically examines the concept of being, not only in its existence, but in its essence and truth. This leads to an examination of the role of metaphysics in understanding the nature of reality and existence. The text deals with the idea of being as it is perceived within metaphysical thought, where being is often illuminated only in relation to itself, leaving other aspects of its essence unexplored. This approach highlights the limitations of metaphysical thought in fully comprehending the essence of being, suggesting a kind of inherent blindness within metaphysical philosophy to certain aspects of reality. Heidegger comments extensively on the relationship between metaphysics and the concept of nothingness, or 'the nothing', as a crucial aspect of understanding being. It discusses how metaphysics, in its traditional form, tends to overlook the significance of nothing in its quest to define and understand being. This oversight is presented as a critical gap in metaphysical thought, as it fails to recognize the integral role that nothingness plays in the broader context of existence and reality. The discussion extends to the implications of this oversight, suggesting that a deeper understanding of metaphysics requires a reevaluation of the role and significance of nothingness within philosophical discourse. This aspect of the paper reflects a profound challenge to conventional metaphysical doctrines, urging a rethinking of fundamental philosophical concepts in order to achieve a more comprehensive understanding of the nature of being and existence.