Show Notes
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Everything exists, and we almost never wonder why. Fall asleep to the complete philosophy of Martin Heidegger.
The sky. The ground beneath you. The fact that there is something rather than nothing at all. For Martin Heidegger, this overlooked astonishment was the most important question in the entire history of philosophy, and the one we have most thoroughly forgotten how to ask.
This three-hour episode traces Heidegger’s thought from its roots in Husserl’s phenomenology through the existential analytic of Being and Time to his later meditations on technology, language, poetry, and dwelling. We explore what Heidegger meant by Dasein, the kind of being that each of us is, already thrown into a world we did not choose, already running out of time. We follow his analyses of mood, anxiety, conscience, and being-toward-death, and we ask what it would mean to live authentically rather than drifting along with the crowd.
We also address, honestly and without evasion, his involvement with National Socialism, and the scholarly debate about what that involvement means for his philosophy.
Please listen only in safe, restful contexts.
(0:00:00) The Question Nobody Asks (0:15:59) Phenomenology and the Return to Things Themselves (0:32:11) Dasein and Being-in-the-World (0:48:13) Thrownness, Mood, and Facticity (1:04:03) Anxiety, the Nothing, and Conscience (1:19:44) Being-Toward-Death and Authenticity (1:35:41) Time, Temporality, and the Meaning of Being (1:51:35) The Turn, Technology, and Modernity (2:07:27) Heidegger and National Socialism (2:24:08) Language, Poetry, Dwelling, and What Remains
Books Recommended: Being and Time, trans. Macquarrie and Robinson: https://amzn.to/4l7Wn9h Basic Writings, ed. David Farrell Krell: https://amzn.to/4stIEwh The Question Concerning Technology and Other Essays: https://amzn.to/4b2aZlV Poetry, Language, Thought: https://amzn.to/4aNqCPp Richard Polt, Heidegger: An Introduction: https://amzn.to/3NbZj8q Hubert Dreyfus, Being-in-the-World: https://amzn.to/3NbZm46 Michael Inwood, Heidegger: A Very Short Introduction: https://amzn.to/4l9cBiG Rudiger Safranski, Martin Heidegger: Between Good and Evil: https://amzn.to/4aZgcLl
All research and writing is done personally. Subscribe to Sleepy Philosophy Radio on YouTube, Spotify, and Apple Podcasts. Music by Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com) Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 4.0 License https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ Tracks used: Anguish, Blue Feather, Evening Fall (Harp), Gregorian Chant, Heartbreaking, Lightless Dawn, Lone Harvest, Magic Forest, Mesmerize, Mourning Song, Oppressive Gloom, Promising Relationship, Quinn's Song: A New Man, Relent, Smoother Move, Sunset at Glengorm, Trio for Piano Cello and Clarinet, Wounded
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