Being and Time (Martin Heidegger)

Besides simply being lengthy, this book was a formidably difficult read — unless it was utter nonsense, in which case it was laughably easy. I can’t really decide which because the language was used in such an obscure way that it was extremely difficult to follow the lengthy lines of reasoning and maintain whether or not they were actually consistent. The book is further clouded by the gratuitous use of home-made words which already sound odd in German, “Zuhandenheit”, but even more so in English, “Ready-to-Hand”. Perhaps this is done on purpose, as the author is fond of the hermeneutic circle and feels this is the only way to approach the main topic of the book: What is the true nature of Being?

Being and Time, which is considered one of the premier philosophical works of the 20th century, was written my Martin Heidegger to address a question which he felt had been overlooked in philosophy. He believed that while most philosophers had been chiefly concerned which things that exist, they’d never given a satisfactory definition of what it actually means to exist. The fact that Being seems self-evident to us is exemplified by how easily it is overlooked in quotes such as “I think, therefore I am”. Even the question “what is being?” contains a form of Being in it. While Martin had originally planned on addressing the whole issue in six parts spread out over two books, he was only given time to finish two parts before having to prepare the material for publication. In these two parts he discusses three subjects, namely the meaning of Being, a being called Dasein, and Temporality.

In Martin’s ontological structure, the meaning of Being is grasping how something becomes intelligible, which necessarily precedes things like propositions or science, and may be viewed as a destruction of traditional meta-physics.  Since there is no way to access Being other than via beings themselves the next step is asking a being about its own Being. The one chosen to answer these questions is Dasein. By quantifying a set of characteristics that a being interested in its own existence might have, such as angst and care, Martin reaches the prerequisite of those characteristics which is temporality, because Dasein is mortal. To truly grasp the meaning of his own Being, Dasein must first authentically embrace the fact that it will die. The book ends with questions concerning the nature of temporality itself which were supposed to be answered in the continuation of his project.