Resources for understanding the philosophy of Heidegger?

[DocWatts]

I've been interested in the philosophy of Martin Heidegger, but I've been having some trouble wrapping my head around his ideas (they haven't been clicking for me the same way that say, Hegel's philosophy did).

Would anyone here be able to suggest some resources for making his work more approachable? What's the gist of what he's trying to convey in something like Being and Time?

 

[vizual]

There are countless easily digestible videos on Heidegger on YouTube 

Edited January 23, 2022 by vizual

[Bernardo Carleial]

On 23/1/2022 at 6:10 PM, DocWatts said:

I've been interested in the philosophy of Martin Heidegger, but I've been having some trouble wrapping my head around his ideas (they haven't been clicking for me the same way that say, Hegel's philosophy did).

Would anyone here be able to suggest some resources for making his work more approachable? What's the gist of what he's trying to convey in something like Being and Time?

 

@DocWatts If you try to strictly follow what Heidegger is telling with his categorization of the pre-ontological nature of Dasein...You'll probably get lost and will not understand the juice of what he's saying, because his book is extremely difficult to read (not as Hegel of course) he wasn't as good of a teacher as his mentor, Edmund Husserl...

What worked for me while I was reading Heidegger was to look at my direct experience and try to extract the being-in-the-world that he was talking about... and I came out with two examples:

1 - the experience of freshness when a baby explores the world

2 - the experiential component someone has when moving to another country, especially if it is one by which their culture is very different than his, there's an element of discovery and surprise,  you don't take anything for granted anymore,  your dealings with the environment gets shifted a little bit,  even if some of your activities may look familiar.

These are the examples I could find where the sense of averageness/everydayness start to fade away, and  leaves room for the manifestation of Dasein to arise (once again) in our consciousness,  an then it becomes much easier to grasp the concepts that he was trying to convey in his book.

@DocWatts I hope that Helped!??

Edited January 28, 2022 by Bernardo Carleial

[Bernardo Carleial]

On 23/1/2022 at 6:10 PM, DocWatts said:

I've been interested in the philosophy of Martin Heidegger, but I've been having some trouble wrapping my head around his ideas (they haven't been clicking for me the same way that say, Hegel's philosophy did).

Would anyone here be able to suggest some resources for making his work more approachable? What's the gist of what he's trying to convey in something like Being and Time?

 

But it is still very difficult to follow at times... and, to be honest, and didn't like the way he wrote that book, however,  the message that he tried to convey is brilliant.

Here I present you two great resources for understanding Heidegger and his Existential Phenomenology: one is a documentary, and the other is a book by an american philosopher, called Hubert Dreyfus, who was specialized in Heidegger's Philosophy, and wrote a book with his commentary on "Being and Time" which helped me a lot??

 

 

https://www.amazon.com/Being-World-Commentary-Heideggers-Division/dp/0262540568

Edited January 27, 2022 by Bernardo Carleial

[DocWatts]

@Bernardo Carleial Thanks! That's pretty much exactly what I was looking for. I've been putting off Heidegger for a while since I knew his work had a reputation for being somewhat impenetrable, so having some contemporary sources to help make his ideas more accessible is really helpful.

[Fleetinglife]

2 hours ago, Bernardo Carleial said:

@DocWatts If you try to strictly follow what Heidegger is saying with his categorization of the pre-ontological nature of Dasein...You'll probably get lost and will not understand the juice of what he's telling, because his book is extremely difficult to read (not as Hegel of course) he wasn't as good of a teacher as his mentor, Edmund Husserl...

What worked for me while I was reading Heidegger was to look at my direct experience and try to extract the being-in-the-world that he was talking about... and I came out with two examples:

1 - the experience of freshness when a baby experiences the world

2 - the experiential component someone has when moving to another country, especially if it is one by which their culture is very different than his, there's an element of discovery and surprise,  you don't take anything for granted anymore,  your dealings with the environment gets shifted a little bit,  even if some of your activities may look familiar.

These are the examples I could find where the sense of averageness/everydayness start to fade away, and  leaves room for the manifestation of Dasein to arise (once again) in our consciousness,  an then it becomes much easier to grasp the concepts that he was trying to convey in his book.

@DocWatts I hope that Helped!??

Thanks a lot as well from me and I appreciate it also a lot,  the down to earth easily understandable explanation of Heidegger's concept of Dasein (Being-in-the-World) as well! Helps me a lot now compartmentalize, integrate, and better contextualize my leftover prior knowledge of encounters and experiences with works of the phenomenologist (such as the Construction of the Social World by Alfred Schutz) philosophers such as Schutz and Husserl that I did work on, and read a bit in University in the first years.

Edited January 28, 2022 by Fleetinglife