Martin Heidegger

- one of the most important philosophers of the 20th century

- very difficult to read, filled with many technical terms
- a literal Nazi

Being and Time

- His magnum opus, deals with the question of being
- What does it mean to be?

Technical Terms
- Sein: Being (capitalize)
- Seinde: being
- Dasein: being-there, being in the world

Spatiality
- Our bodies have a different experience of the world than what the world is
objectively or numerically.
- Example: Difficulty in experiencing time
- It is primordial to the other.

The Spatiality of Innerworldly Things at Hand

- Things at hand are just external objects. In is in the essence of things at hands
where these things become installed to the world.
- Region: Things are never objectively scattered around, they have a region where
we might be more inclined to place the things at hand.
- Inconspicuous familiarity: We are always trying to make the things at hand a part
of our Being
- We are Pre-ontological - An implicit understanding of being. Whereas an ontology
is explicitly developed
(theoretical and conceptually articulated), a pre-ontology is merely implicit in
the way in which we relate to entites.

The Spatiality of Being-in-the-World

-The world is an extension of our body
- We interact with the world through our corporeal bodies.
- We're always directed towards certain things, this causes a de-distancing effect
where we become separated from our region
- Space is not homogeneous,

Heedful Being
- About paying attention in the world.

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SECOND WEEK LECTURE: HEIDEGGER ON THE THEY

Who is the I? - Brainstorm

- My memories, subjective experience and conciousness

Heidegger: We are very rarely ourselves authentically

- As such, the self consist of other people and how they shape our existence, the
They.
- Who is this They?

On Solipsism:
- The structure of the Dasein is being with other and to be with the self.
- Who is everyone? Who is society? The agents behind the They, usually the powers
that be.
Ontic
- Contrast to the term ontological
- Ontic is what makes something what it is.
- For an individual discussing the nature of "being", one's ontic could refer to
the physical, factual elements that produce and/or underlie one's own reality -
the physical brain and its substructures.

Ontological

Metaphysics of Presence
- referential totality of significance - how do they relate to one another
- In Being and Time (1927), Martin Heidegger argues that the concept of time
prevalent in all Western thought has largely remained unchanged since the
definition offered by Aristotle in the Physics. Heidegger says, "Aristotle's essay
on time is the first detailed Interpretation of this phenomenon [time] which has
come down to us. Every subsequent account of time, including Henri Bergson's, has
been essentially determined by it."[1] Aristotle defined time as "the number of
movement in respect of before and after".[2] By defining time in this way Aristotle
privileges what is present-at-hand, namely the "presence" of time. Heidegger argues
in response that "entities are grasped in their Being as 'presence'; this means
that they are understood with regard to a definite mode of time – the 'Present'".
[3] Central to Heidegger's own philosophical project is the attempt to gain a more
authentic understanding of time. Heidegger considers time to be the unity of three
ecstases, the past, the present and the future.

Mitdasein
- Being-with
- ontological characteristic of the human being that it is always already with
others of its kind.
- Humans are an "ultrasocial" species, we can't survive without others
- Authenticity

Care (or concern)

- All these ways of Being-in have concern (Sorge, care) as their kind of Being.
Just as the scientist might investigate or search, and presume neutrality, we see
that beneath this there is the mood, the concern of the scientist to discover, to
reveal new ideas or theories and to attempt to level off temporal aspects.
- Heidegger is concerned with our relation to and interaction with the world but
always keeping in mind that Dasein is always in and of the world.
- Dasein is related to the world through its care or concern.

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HEIDEGGER'S MEMORIAL ADDRESS

- written in 1955, Nazi past was revealed
- shift in focus from Being in Time; later work more concerned with being of age
rather than being itself

Analysis paragraph by paragraph

1. Reflection on art and music
2. Calculative vs Meditative Thinking: The thesis
3. Over reliance on technology as sign of calculative thinking
4. The essence of the age is not about rejecting the present. The essence of the
age is connected to technology and language. Language is the house of being.
Example: We can't just all become Luddite and reject our iphones. It is
connected to our everyday interaction.
 Example: The modern society we live in today that rejects the aesthetic in
favour of efficiency. The population becomes a cog in the machine.
We can't and must not reject calculative thinking - Heidegger's concern is
with ONLY using calculative thinking.
5. Calculative thinking on people is understanding them in terms of consumers or
population data.
6. Meditative thinking on people is understanding them on a normative level.
7. Everyone has the CAPACITY to question their being, this is the central fix.
8. He is channelling Nietzsche when he mentions how the shift in thinking came from
ancient Greece.

Comment to self: This resembles the Unibomber Manifesto and his power process.
Possible essay topic, although Ted's problem is explicitly political.

9. Relation of human to the world: Heidegger's existential anxiety

10. Hubris of humans thinking they can control the world.

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THE GAZE - Luce Irigaray

1. For Irigaray, the question of being is the question of sexual difference -

2. Irigaray studied linguistics and of how it relates to the question of sexual
differences. Women tended to put themselves as indirect subjects.
a. I wonder if I am loved? (Direct subject with 'I')
b. Do you love me? (Indirect subject)
3. Psychoanalysis: How do we understand a cultural understanding of who other are
and who we are?
4. The backstory of the essay: A response to Heidegger and Aristotle
5. What does it mean to perceive another object? Mystery of our relationship to
being.
6. Heidegger is too pessimistic, when the becomes the Dasman, our relationship with
them completely morphs.
7. (Aristotle) When making something, you have to have an idea of the Form and its
essence.
8. What of objects made from men? Even language is a structure that must be
encompassed by some form.
9. Can philosophers even do anything? They only understand in terms of concept.
10. What is the difference between an artistic gaze and a normal gaze?

The Binary - oppositional terms with no middle

11. Masculinity and femininity can also be considered binary. But Iragaray doesn't
think they are polar opposites, just different from one another.
12. Trash can of ideology critique, there is no 'neutral' perspective on something
concerning normative demonstrations, only the dominant perspective.

QUESTION TIME:
- Humans are the one who reveal being,
- Most Western language have feminine and masculine connotation and Luce argues
that this affects how we see the world
- China, One child policy favoured male babies because the consequences of a
linguistic emphasis on male representation

- Casual language, referring to girls as 'guys'

- Calling someone beautiful for example. There is more words describing a women's
look and thus places a bigger emphasis on their appearances.
- Some words describing men's sexuality just don't have the same emphasis like
'man-whore'
-

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RACE IDENTITY AND BEING - Frantz Fanon

Frantz Fanon
- Wrote Black Skin, White Mask, one of the first text of post-colonial study
- Also wrote The Wretched of the Earth
- Fought with the French Algeria resistance
- Colonial understanding was shaped by torture he was told of in Algeria

Quick Note on Sartre and The Look

- The Gaze:
- Anxious state of being viewed. Lose state of autonomy by realizing one is a
visible object.
- Recognition of subjectivity.
- Shame:
- Story about peeking in a keyhole to spy on others only to hear footsteps coming
up around the corner

Fanon: the Racialized Subject

- Our being for others is unrealisable in a colonized and civilized society.
- Get the sense of the self from being the opposite
- The racist does not just see a black man, but the preconceived prejudices and
myths he has built up. The black man is never a man.

Hegel: History is the story of dialectical progress.

- Hegel saw non-European civilization as being outside this dialectical system.
- Fanon doesn't care about Hegel's racism. Actually finds this as proof for his
master/slave dialectic.
- Dialectic process works as follow:
(a) Two parties recognize each other as an object
(b) the other party poses a threat to each others autonomy
(c) Conflict. Submissive and Dominant positions established.

- Fanon: This works a bit differently with colonization. The master wants to
exploit the black for his labour.

Corporeal Schema
- The structure of my I-can. The wide selection of his possibility of interaction.
- But he constantly faced with I-cannot

Historical-racial schema
- The mythical history that is projected onto him (cannibalism, hyper-
sexualization)

Racial-Epidermal Schema
- The skin then becomes the essential meaning in itself.
- Example: Arab murder is immediately identified as terrorism.

Binary Idealism
- Black man, white women in the elevator story
- Shows the cage the black man is put into within the binary idealism
- Even when asserting you are one of the "good ones", you at the same time
implicitly assert that there exist the "bad ones"