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Heidegger Quotes

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Heidegger Quotes

“The novel was born with the Modern Era, which made man, to quote Heidegger, the "only real subject," the ground for everything. It is largely through the novel that man as an individual was established on the European scene. Away from the novel, in our real lives, we know very little about our parents as they were before our birth; we have only fragmentary knowledge of the people close to us: we see them come and go and scarcely have they vanished than their place is taken over by others: they form a long line of replaceable beings. Only the novel separates out an individual, trains a light on his biography, his ideas, his feelings, makes him irreplaceable: makes him the center of everything.”

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Book:Encounter
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“Também o pensamento de Heidegger abdica, como se sabe, de toda representação metafísica do fundamento no qual a pergunta pelo porquê chegaria à paz, de um fundamento de explicação [Erklärungsgrundes] ao qual se deveria remeter o ser de todo ente. Heidegger cita Silesius: “A rosa é sem porquê, ela floresce porque floresce”. Heidegger contrapõe esse sem-porquê ao “princípio de razão suficiente”: Nihil est sine ratione [nada é sem razão]. Certamente, não é fácil se demorar no sem razão ou habitar nele. Ter-se-á, afinal, que clamar por Deus? Heidegger cita novamente Silésio: “Um coração que por razão de Deus é silencioso como Ele quer, é de bom grado tocado por Ele: Ele é o seu instrumento”. Sem Deus, o coração permaneceria, então, sem “música”. Enquanto Deus não tocar, o mundo não soa. Precisa o mundo, então, de um Deus? O mundo do zen-budismo não é apenas sem “porquê”, mas também sem qualquer “música” divina. Também o haiku, caso se o escute mais atentamente, não é “musical”. Ele não tem nenhum desejo, é livre de todo clamor ou nostalgia. Assim, ele soa insípido. Essa insipidez intensiva constitui a sua profundidade.”

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Book:Filosofía del budismo Zen
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“What is the motive for this ‘fugitive’ way of saying “I”? It is motivated by Dasein’s falling; for as falling, it *flees* in the face of itself into the “they.” When the “I” talks in the ‘natural’ manner, this is performed by the they-self. What expresses itself in the ‘I’ is that Self which, proximally and for the most part, I am *not* authentically. When one is absorbed in the everyday multiplicity and the rapid succession [*Sich-jagen] of that with which one is concerned, the Self of the self-forgetful “I am concerned” shows itself as something simple which is constantly selfsame but indefinite and empty. Yet one *is* that with which one concerns oneself. In the ‘natural’ ontical way in which the “I” talks, the phenomenal content of the Dasein which one has in view in the "I" gets overlooked; but this gives *no justification for our joining in this overlooking of it*, or for forcing upon the problematic of the Self an inappropriate ‘categorial’ horizon when we Interpret the “I” ontologically. Of course by thus refusing to follow the everyday way in which the “I” talks, our ontological Interpretation of the ‘I’ has by no means *solved* the problem; but it has indeed *prescribed the direction* for any further inquiries. In the “I,” we have in view that entity which one is in ‘being-in-the-world’. Being-already-in-a-world, however, as Being-alongside-the-ready-to-hand-within-the-world, means equiprimordially that one is ahead of oneself. With the ‘I’, what we have in view is that entity for which the *issue* is the Being of the entity that it is. With the ‘I’, care expresses itself, though proximally and for the most part in the ‘fugitive’ way in which the “I” talks when it concerns itself with something. The they-self keeps on saying “I” most loudly and most frequently because at bottom it *is not authentically* itself, and evades its authentic potentiality-for-Being. If the ontological constitution of the Self is not to be traced back either to an “I”-substance or to a ‘subject’, but if, on the contrary, the everyday fugitive way in which we keep on saying “I” must be understood in terms of our *authentic* potentiality-for-Being, then the proposition that the Self is the basis of care and constantly present-at-hand, is one that still does not follow. Selfhood is to be discerned existentially only in one’s authentic potentiality-for-Being-one’s-Self—that is to say, in the authenticity of Dasein’s Being *as care*. In terms of care the *constancy of the Self*, as the supposed persistence of the *subjectum*, gets clarified. But the phenomenon of this authentic potentiality-for-Being also opens our eyes for the *constancy of the Self*, in the double sense of steadiness and steadfastness, is the *authentic* counter-possibility to the non-Self-constancy which is characteristic of irresolute falling. Existentially, “*Self-constancy*” signifies nothing other than anticipatory resoluteness. The ontological structure of such resoluteness reveals the existentiality of the Self’s Selfhood." ―from_Being and Time_. Translated by John Macquarrie & Edward Robinson, pp. 368-369”

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Author:Martin Heidegger
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“Dasein *is authentically itself* in the primordial individualization of the reticent resoluteness which exacts anxiety of itself. *As something that keeps *silent*, authentic *Being*-one’s-Self is just the sort of thing that does not keep on saying ‘I’; but in its reticence it ‘*is*’ that thrown entity as which it can authentically be. The Self which the reticence of resolute existence unveils is the primordial phenomenal basis for the question as to the Being of the ‘I’. Only if we are oriented phenomenally by the meaning of the Being of the authentic potentiality-for-Being-one’s-Self are we put in a position to discuss what ontological justification there is for treating substantiality, simplicity, and personality as characteristics of Selfhood. In the prevalent way of saying “I,” it is constantly suggested that what we have in advance is a Self-Thing, persistently present-at-hand; the ontological question of the Being of the Self must turn away from any such suggestion. *Care does not need to be founded in a Self. But existentiality, as constitutive for care, provides the ontological constitution of Dasein’s Self-constancy, to which there belongs, in accordance with the full structural content of care, its Being-fallen factically into non-Self-constancy*. When fully conceived, the care-structure includes the phenomenon of Selfhood. This phenomenon is clarified by Interpreting the meaning of care; and it is as care that Dasein’s totality of Being has been defined.” ―from_Being and Time_. Translated by John Macquarrie & Edward Robinson, pp. 369-370”

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Author:Martin Heidegger
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“Death, in the human perspective, is not a given, it must be achieved. It is a task, one which we take up actively, one which becomes the source of our activity and mastery. Man dies, that is nothing. But man is, starting from his death. He ties himself tight to his death with a tie of which he is the judge. He makes his death; he makes himself mortal and in this way gives himself the power of a maker and gives to what he makes its meaning and its truth. The decision to be without being is possibility itself: the possibility of death.”

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Book:The Space of Literature
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“It is wrong to oppose to objects an isolated ego-subject, without seeing in the Dasein the basic constitution of being-in-the-world; but it is equally wrong to suppose that the problem is seen in principle and progress made toward answering it if the solipsism of the isolated ego is replaced by a solipsism en deux in the I-thou relationship. As a relationship between Dasein and Dasein this has its possibility only on the basis of being-in-the-world. Put otherwise, being-in-the-world is with equal originality both being-with and being-among.”

OntologyHeideggerSolipsismBeing WithDaseinI ThouBeing AmongBeing In The World
Book:The Basic Problems of Phenomenology
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“Every civil war builds on illusions and fear Even war between individuals; whatever bonds may exist between them To recapitulate images from history: After the first world war, exhaustion, victory, inability to build a new order, growing dissolution, chaos Revanchism Economic depression Then the waiting for Germany, the generalized war initiated by Germany This dread waiting, 1938, 1939 When I was conceived After the cold war another period of exhaustion, another victory Perhaps we are in the presence of generalized civil war, internal division, hatred Should we prefer the empire? As Dante did? Or Ezra Pound, Heidegger Or for that matter Brecht? We love dissolution and chaos passionately, I hear a voice say, I know whose It is not here that I shall say it It is not easy There are no nations Pillars of fire precede the returning, in human terms, lost son.”

FearHistoryChaosCivil WarIllusionsDanteHeideggerBrechtWorld WarEzra Pound
Book:Mozart's Third Brain
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“Physis (Emerging-Abiding Sway), yes that’s the oink thing’s christian name, the café’s semi-official mascot, philosophical provocateur, and occasionally extradimensional notary, chose this exact moment to poke his head, feathered, contemplative, and faintly iridescent, through the bead curtain that separated the main patio from what the proprietor called the “Reflexology Lounge,” but which was, in truth, just where they stored the broken espresso machine and three cursed stools. Physis tilted his head, blinked once, slowly, as if absorbing not light but context, and let out a warbling honk that echoed like a misremembered thesis defense. He was, as ever, the embodiment of that which emerges and then stubbornly, inexplicably abides. And then, as mysteriously as he had arrived, he withdrew.”

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Book:Schlemiel Gaucho: An Improv Comedy Magick Grimoire
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“In his field, and with his means, Rilke carries out an operation that one could philosophically describe as the 'transformation of being into message' (more commonly, 'linguistic turn'). 'Being that can be be understood is language', Heidegger would later state - which conversely implies that language abandoned by being becomes mere chatter.”

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Book:Du mußt dein Leben ändern
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“Gostaria de dizer que a abordagem de Ser e Tempo [...] não é talvez em momento algum mais ideológica do que quando o seu autor procura compreender a morte a partir de um "esboço do ser-todo do ser-aí", uma tentativa pela qual suprime o carácter absolutamente inconciliável da experiência da vida com a morte tal como se nos apresenta com o declínio definitivo das religiões positivas. Heidegger procura, dessa forma, salvar as estruturas da experiência da morte como se fossem estruturas do ser-aí, do próprio ser humano, mas estas estruturas, tal como ele as descreve, só existem no mundo positivo da teologia, em virtude da esperança positiva da ressurreição. Heidegger não compreende que, ao secularizar essa estrutura, que em todo o caso ele assume tacitamente na sua obra, esses conteúdos teológicos não são simplesmente decompostos, mas que, sem eles, essa mesma experiência deixa de ser possível. Aquilo que censuro realmente nessa forma de metafísica é a tentativa de se apropriar sub-repticiamente sem teologia das possibilidades da experiência que foram teologicamente colocadas.”

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Book:Metaphysics: Concept and Problems
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“Es un secreto a voces que los intelectuales de biblioteca y los hombres que se pasan la vida rodeados de palabras, de textos, pueden experimentar con especial intensidad las seducciones de las propuestas políticas violentas, particularmente cuando tal violencia no toca a su propia persona. En la sensibilidad y la visión del maestro carismático, del absolutista de la filosofía, puede haber más que un simple toque de sadismo vicario (La lección, de Ionesco, es una macabra parábola de esto).”

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Book:Heidegger
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“Within certain limits terminology is always arbitrary. But the definition of being-true as unveiling, making manifest, is not an arbitrary, private invention of mine; it only gives expression to the understanding of the phenomenon of truth, as the Greeks already understood it in a pre-scientific as well as philosophical understanding, even if not in every respect in an originally explicit way. Plato already says explicitly that the function of logos, of assertion, is deloun, making plain, or as Aristotle says more exactly with regard to the Greek expression of truth: aletheuein. Lanthanein means to be concealed: a- is the privative, so that a-letheuein is equivalent to: to pluck something out of its concealment, to make manifest or reveal. For the Greeks truth means: to take out of concealment, uncovering, unveiling.”

TruthBeing TruePlatoAssertionLogosAristotleUncoveringHeideggerUnveiling
Book:The Basic Problems of Phenomenology
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“The daimonic refers to the power of nature rather than the superego, and is beyond good and evil. Nor is it man's 'recall to himself' as Heidegger and later Fromm have argued, for its source lies in those realms where the self is rooted in natural forces which go beyond the self and are felt as the grasp of fate upon us. The daimonic arises from the ground of being rather than the self as such.”

MenSelfLyingEvilForceFeltNaturalFateSourceAriseRealmsGood And EvilRootedRecallsHeideggerPower Of NatureBeyond Good And EvilFrommSuperego
Book:Love and will
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“To avert the danger [posed by theory] to life, Nietzsche could choose one of two ways: he could insist on the strictly esoteric character of the theoretical analysis of life - that is, restore the Platonic notion of the noble delusion - or else he could deny the possibility of theory proper and so conceive of thought as essentially subservient to, or dependent on, life or fate... If not Nietzsche himself, at any rate his successors [Heidegger] adopted the second alternative.”

IfsWayTwoCharacterFateDangerPossibilityTheoryNotionRateDenyNobleAlternativesAnalysisDependentDelusionAdoptedTheoreticalTwo WaysSuccessorsEsotericPlatonicSubservientAvertHeidegger
Author:Leo Strauss
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“If you read philosophical texts of the tradition, you'll notice they almost never said 'I,' and didn't speak in the first person. From Aristotle to Heidegger, they try to consider their own lives as something marginal or accidental. What was essential was their teaching and their thinking. Biography is something empirical and outside, and is considered an accident that isn't necessarily or essentially linked to the philosophical activity or system.”

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Author:Jacques Derrida
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“What it does remind us is that 'God' is not to be separated from the quest for the Kingdom of God and is not and cannot be the object of any detached 'scientific' contemplation. Heidegger's critique of onto-theology is also driving a wedge between speaking of God and the aims of science - not so as to get rid of God but rather to free God from a false objectification.”

DoeObjectsAimDrivingTheologyKingdomsContemplationQuestsKingdom Of GodCritiqueDetachedObjectificationWedgesHeidegger
Author:George Pattison
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“Positively, he [Heidegger] shows that the prospect of death doesn't of itself destroy all possibilities of meaning but calls instead for these to be relocated from fantasies about a future post-mortem life. However, I don't think he does enough in this work to show that this relocation has - I believe - a primarily ethical character (in Levinas's sense of 'ethical').”

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Author:George Pattison
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“In brief, I regard love as a more decisive focus of meaning than death. In terms of Heidegger's argument, this is because I think he misdescribes the importance of the deaths of others and focuses exclusively on my relation to my own death. But, in reality, the deaths of others have a more urgent and immediate impact on our lives than the purely notional knowledge that I too will one day die.”

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Author:George Pattison
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“Of course, if one's reading Kierkegaard for personal interest that's fine - but it's sloppy scholarship just to cherry pick what suits one from a particular author, whether it's Kierkegaard, Heidegger, or whoever. Nevertheless, it does seem to me that even the more religious parts of the authorship can offer significant insights into the meaning of the human condition to those who can't then say that, e.g., they believe Jesus Christ is the Son of God and their personal Saviour.”

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Author:George Pattison
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“Every stroke a tennis player plays is different, yet we perceive them as playing in a distinctive and unique way. It's what Heidegger called a certain 'how' of existing. It's ultimately always singular, and the double task of (a) getting it in view and (b) communicating it to others will inevitably be marked more often by failure than success!”

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Author:George Pattison
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“Heidegger wrote a book called Was Ist Das Ding - What Is a Thing? which was kind of interesting and influential to me, as a matter of fact. It's a small paperback, which I read. It's about the nature of thingness; what is it? It's a very penetrating analysis of that, and I think a rather influential book. I know other artists who have read it and come up with it.”

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Author:Robert Barry
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“There are really three players: 'absolutists', for whom it is possible to describe reality as it anyway is; 'constructivists' or 'humanists', for whom there is nothing beyond a world that is relative to human interests and conceptual schemes; and 'ineffabilists', like myself, for whom any describable world indeed exists 'only in relation to man', as Heidegger put it, but for whom, as well, there is an ineffable realm 'beyond the human'.”

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Author:David E. Cooper
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“I was keen to dispel a familiar misunderstanding: that existentialists somehow relish the alienation of human beings from the world. This may have been Camus's attitude, but it was certainly not that of Heidegger, Sartre and Merleau-Ponty, each of whom tried to show that we can only experience the world in relation to our own projects and purposes. The world is initially one of 'equipment', said Heidegger: it is a world of 'tasks', said Sartre.”

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Author:David E. Cooper
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“Like Nietzsche, Heidegger also gave up on the prospect that schools and universities would nurture the kind of reflective openness to the way of things that, certainly by the 1940s, he identified with authentic thinking. The authentic person is not the Promethean, iron-willed figure that pops up in Nietzsche, but someone more like the Daoist sages whom Heidegger admired.”

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Author:David E. Cooper
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“I now wish that I had spent somewhat more of my life with verse. This is not because I fear having missed out on truths that are incapable of statement in prose. There are no such truths; there is nothing about death that Swinburne and Landor knew but Epicurus and Heidegger failed to grasp. Rather, it is because I would have lived more fully if I had been able to rattle off more old chestnuts — just as I would have if I had made more close friends.”

IfsMadeAbleWishStatementsProseVersesIncapableClose FriendsChestnutsHeidegger
Author:Richard Rorty
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