Essay Sample on Heidegger's Philosophy

Heideggers Philosophy

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Introduction

The works of Martin Heidegger were inspired by the philosophical writings of Aristotle and Brentano. Aristotle's works were based on the metaphysics to comprehend what unites all possible modes that can be used to mean Being. In fact, it is this question that ignites the philosophy of Heidegger. The philosophy of Being drove him to write the book Being and Time. The central issue in Being and Time is the question of what the term Being means.

The importance of the question, what is Being?

According to Heidegger, one of the problems posed by metaphysics classes is an assumption which results in phenomenology problems. Phenomenological problems are raised when the philosopher ignores the topical meaning and argues that the ontological difference is not important. The ontological difference in this undertaking is making the distinction between beings (entities) and Being. The question of what the term Being refers to is concerned with determining what causes other beings to become intelligent. Further, whatever a philosopher views as Being is a factor (Being) and it does not seem to be itself, but can only be viewed as another being among beings.

Also, the tradition (estimating, Western Philosophy that commences with Plato onwards) seems to have forgotten the question that asks the meaning of the term Being. In this regard, the Western history philosophical thought has failed to stick to the ontological difference, leading to the articulation of Being as an ultimate being of some kind. The new articulation is evidenced by some names of Beings such as an idea, substance, energia, will to power or monad. In this way, the actual meaning of Being has been forgotten.

Heidegger argues that Being refers to our ability to make sense of things. However, in his study, he had a particular being the human being, whom he referred to as Dasein. Daseins literal meaning is Being-there. By introducing the expression Dasein, he brought to attention a simple fact that; it is not possible to take a human being into account except when he/she is studied as a being that exists amongst others.

His concern for the 'limits' of Being in some different domains

In other words, Dasein means to be there, whereby; there refers to the world. Further, Heidegger argues that being human relates to being immersed, embedded, and fixed in the physical, literal and physical day to day world. Thus, in the world Dasein can only exist in one of the two modes; inauthenticity or authenticity. However, it is critical to understand that Daseins character is grounded/ being-in-the-world.

Additionally, he uses the term concern to distinguish between authentic and inauthentic living. He argues that every individual has options that are limited. In light of this, the concern is an example of a way that humans can decide what is correct or incorrect and move from inauthentic living to authentic life. Therefore, people are unique because they can make a distinction between themselves and other masses. This is what Heidegger refers to as inauthentic living. Authentic living, on the other hand, refers to self-realization.

Conclusion

The focus of this article was to understand the meaning of Being as per Heideggers arguments. In summary, he argues that death is the possibility of being and it depicts not being able to be there. Nevertheless, Heidegger argues that accepting death as part of being human is embracing humanity completely that is embraces the sheer potentiality of being, which he termed as Beings-Towards-Death.

Works Cited

Guignon, Charles B. and Derk Pereboom. Existentialism: Basic Writings. Hackett, 2001. Print.