Rick Roderick on Heidegger - The Rejection of Humanism [full length]
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- Опубликовано: 26 сен 2024
- This video is 2nd in the 8-part video lecture series, The Self Under Siege: Philosophy in the Twentieth Century (1993).
Lecture notes:
I. Heidegger developers a powerful account of meaning by recasting traditional talk of the self and the human into an analysis of "Dasein", literally "being there". He hopes to discard much of the baggage of the philosophical past in a kind of "deconstruction" that has, and continues to be, very influential with thinkers as diverse as Derrida, Macuse, and Sartre.
II. We should not let Heidegger's infamous connect to fascism blind us to his real insights. It is sad, but true, that even very bad people may have important things to teach us.
III. Heidegger does not begin with a "method". He begins by beginning. He offers a hermeneutic of Dasein, or the historical and cultural self. A hermeneutic is a narrative, a story , whose humans are always already interpreting beings and, from this, the analysis of Dasein can begin.
IV. In "Being and Time", Heidegger is guided by the distinction between Being and being. The only priority of human being or Dasein is that we are the beings that ask the question concerning the meaning of Being (what does it all mean?). He is no "humanist", rather it is Being that draws his concern toward Dasein which he proceeds to analyze across the dimension of time.
V. Humans relate to the past by being "thrown" into a world. This means we are socialized and have a language and a view of the self already. Thus, it is impossible to begin without a structure of prejudices as built into our culture and our history.
VI. Humans relate to the present as "being at home in or not being at home in". This means that we try to find a satisfying place view of ourselves and out world.
VII. Humans relate to the future as "being ahead or ourselves" or "on the way to". This means that we formulate projects and make plans. The fundamental structure thus revealed is that humans are beings who care, who have concern. This can be seen in what they build and do even more than in what they say or think.
VIII. Anxiety before death is the fundamental human mood, since death is the end or our projects and our concern. For Heidegger, authentic existence must not "flee from" this insight into the unthinking mass of people (the "they"), but rather use this insight to give meaning and purpose to our projects. Such projects are "free for" and "free from" the stifling yoke of conformity to "the they" or what other people think.
IX. Against Heidegger's powerful account of being human it can certainly be argued that "authenticity" is too abstract as a means to measure our projects. One can be an authentic Nazi, for example, just as well as an authentic Christian. Heidegger gives us absolutely no grounds for choosing one over the other.
X. Authenticity will be important in our account of the self, as will care and concern with a project, but it will not be enough to save the self under siege as the case of Heidegger himself makes clear.
For more information, see www.rickroderic...
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High Digger
Gold
Eye Digger
Lol
@Lyle Avi worked for me too! now I know my girlfriend is in cahoots with the cia! fucking psy op!
4 years later and im cackling
"Instead of investigating salamanders, newts or analytic philosophers, he tries to investigate human beings." 12:10
Listening to Rick never gets old. He sits on the tack sharpened on one side by pop culture and on the other decades of philosophical reading and consideration.
Sounds painful
All his jabs at analytic philosophy are pretty hilarious mostly b/c they're so spot on
He is exactly what I expected philosphers would be like when I was a wee baern
But where is the problem? Most philosophy that I have been reading is plain language "analytic" philosophy published in journals like the Monist, and it looks like they make progress, unlike the fence-sitting continentals.
Matthew Kwak "progress"
@@matthewkwak8934 lmao "progress"
@@marchdarkenotp3346 Found the Cuntinental. Also, try to actually answer my question rather making those petty jabs you seem to like. Boy, that shows how really "deep" you are.
I think this is the best standup I have ever heard
slavoj zizek does a good southern accent
he does indeed look like slavoj zizek.
So tired of that guy.
No, Bill Hick's texas accent is completely appropriate.
haha
despite the (small) physical resemblance, Rick makes sense. Zizek doesn't. That dude is an entertainer. Rick is a philosopher. Quite different stuff, if you ask me.
This looks and sounds like I'm watching one of those televised Southern Baptist preachers but instead of hell and salvation, he's talking about Heiddeger and Humanism.
its supercool
Hell yea! Feels like that’s not blind coincidence, considering the Texan accent. Wonder if it’s intentional, but imagine how less valuable this series would be if he were straining to put on airs of sophistication
Spectral V like Billy Graham / Adrian Rodgers
The best lecture I've enjoyed for a long time continue the good work
Not humanism but Being ;)
I think it takes a very special kind of skill to take complex ideas and explain them in a way that makes sense to everyone.
The RUclips channel Plastic Pills is excellent at this as well: ruclips.net/user/PlasticPills
"Salamanders, newts or analytic philosophers". 👍
Good, but Rick was referring to those participating in the then-new fitness craze in order to "look younger" and those trying to live longer simply for its own sake. Conforming to social norms of beauty and fleeing from death are both inauthentic behaviors per Heidegger. Anyway, it's unimportant what activity Heidegger would classify as inauthentic. Conforming to H's standards would itself be inauthentic. Note that Rick warns even reading Being & Time could become its own "kind of stairmaster"!
The Partially Examined Life I talk a lot of shit about post modernism on your videos but I appreciate the posts.
Your comment is a really good way to put it. Couldnt one also say that the nazi pure race ideology is a form of inauthenticity as it projects evil onto non aryans so as to be able to project the aryan as pure? One big problem with most ideology is the otherizing of outsiders. In fact I think thats a good point a post modernist might make.
Why is it Rick Roderick could make the most abstruse philosophy sound like common sense?
Heidy has a lot of "common sense" in him. Just his language is a bit hard to understand sometimes
I think it’s the accent, just makes him seem so relatable.
because it might be common sense
Texans are generally just good at that kind of thing
Texas, Son...
The ending to this kills me. He was at a "meaning of life" type moment, saying "that's important to being human. Fear death and realize..." and cut off. lol.
Ha I know this comments a couple years old, but I just noticed that looking for the transcript for someone that that part and that chunk that cuts out right after he says "I guess they don't call it the big bang anymore" (I was really interested in that part too) are both in it. Apparently he said "Fear death and realise that even if you don’t smoke, and even if you jog, you are still going to die, and that should come as a great relief to all of you. Thank you." which sums it up really in a way only he could.
rickroderick.org/302-heidegger-and-the-rejection-of-humanism-1993/
Honored to have hung out with Rick Roderick at the Durham Waffle House late night. Thankful for RR
I was going to make the obvious comment that he’s been dead for 17 years but then I realized I’m sitting at lunch watching this and pretty much hanging out with him as well. Your comment made me rethink a lot about philosophy (or at least what it should be), cheers!
Sheeeeeeiiiiitt!!!
16:24 Just realized Jim Morrison must've been referencing Heidegger with the lyric "into this world we're thrown".
I wish we got to experience the magic and genius of Jim Morrison so much more than we did.
I think Rick Roderick is slightly misunderstanding the rapport to death in our societies. He claims in the video that people nowadays have evicted the question of death. Nobody thinks about it anymore; we're too busy shopping, watching television, dieting, and so on. Therefore, according to Rick, Heidegger's focus on being-towards-death is somewhat outdated. I disagree with this view.
I think that our relationship to death is actually that of repression. It's not that we moved along and the existential angst we have towards it has disappeared. Rather, we as a society, on the collective unconscious level so to speak, have moved in a direction that occults anything that has to do with death. The symbolic relation that humans had to death has largely disappeared: the dead slow us down, and so we have gotten rid of them. But our problem is the return of the repressed: we try to get rid of death, but death haunts us in different and more indirect ways. Instead of death disappearing from our horizon, it has become embedded in our very lives. Instead of living life-without-death as we would like to, we live life-in-death. And that produces the very example he uses himself: the jogging people, the beauticians and make-up artists, the diet coke, the yogis, the hysteria of health, etc. This is also what explains our fascination with machines and robots, which counterpart is the hate of what is actually human, too human. It may also explain the over-presence of death in our cultural artifacts, from movies to video games. Even music itself... (think death metal, black metal, hardcore hip hop, etc.). In many ways, there has been a shift or a transformation in our apparent attitude towards death, but by in large, Heidegger's core statement about being remains as true as ever. It's just the anxiety takes different forms. But it's still there.
Here is philosophy in action. Love this man. RIP.
"Is to want to make your life a STORY." Pause the tape again--this is mind-blowing, and pieces of the puzzle of Heidegger here begin to fall into place. Thank you for this, Rick Roderick.Also thanks for the explanation of ANXIETY. As children, Catholics, we were taught about SIN, not anxiety. Thanks to Heidegger's new definition of Being, we can now evolve from the problem, into more meaningful SOLUTIONS. But we can never rest on our laurels, because anxiety is part and parcel of who we are. Thus we are back to the ancient Greek wisdom: KNOW THYSELF. Now let's continue on...
Thanks to whoever uploaded this.
Best uploads of all time. The "partially examined life" guys know what the hec they are doing.
The jab at Jesse Helms around 5 minutes in is much appreciated from a fellow North Carolinian.
34:21 *freedom to pursue one’s life project* “I’m gonna feel free to engage in my project without worrying about what *they* told me about how I should do philosophy. So I think there’s a moment of truth or a moment of interest in Heidegger’s account. Also, it’s made me rather short and sharp with small talk-it really does. I mean it makes me where people go _’well gee you know the weather today is just... che ehh ugh uhh’_ you know. I mean I’m sorry but I prefer conversations about sex, religion, politics, of course being a man-sports. But if it’s not something that you know _grabs me_ I feel perfectly free to go _’well it’s chatter-I haven’t got time for it-be dead soon, can’t do it.’”_
Is it just me or does the video and audio break up between 34' and 34'24" ? After that, there seems to be a lag between the two.
it does
You’re not alone, buddy
right at the best moment too
ruclips.net/video/1rvC93-6D6Q/видео.html
Here's a version with a fixed sound
If anyone is still curious
Thanks @@Kroshidze 👍
reducing "Dasein" to "self" makes for an interesting conversation, but it sacrifices the abstraction level that makes Heidegger such a pivotal thinker
I could be wrong, but I see the core of Nietzsche's philosophy, whether he meant it or not, as self affirmation and the search for authenticity through narcissism ( Greek master morality). An individual's desire for power and domination is a by-product of that. The fact that this passes for "authentic" is an outgrowth of petty bourgeois angst. He's right to see the patterns of life beginning at the molecular level. However, cell structure, imo, is more about harmony than "power."
If you think the core of Nietzsche's philosophy is self indulgence and the search for pleasure, you just haven't read Nietzche. He repeatedly stressed that driven by the Will to Power, a person might endure all kinds of sufferings and sacrifice in the process of self-overcoming. Rick focused far too much on political power and power over others. Nietzsche talks about cells and protoplasm having Will to Power. The power of growth, expansion. The power of Life. Power over others is Force.
With regard to Rick's comments about fitness, it could be said that committing yourself to a healthy lifestyle and physical fitness cannot necessarily be construed as unauthentic. I think there needs to be a distinction made between doing something for image and approval of the 'they' vs spending time on a project because one finds personal value in it. Just because a project doesn't have significant impact on the advance of the human race doesn't disqualify it as authentic or worthwhile.
cimmeriantower I agree. I think he would agree that what is reprehensible in the image of someone running for hours a day is not so much the activity itself so much as the idea of mindless indulgence in empty cultural values. If it is something that you value precisely because YOU value it, then I think it constitutes something else entirely - certainly something much more admirable.
Rick Roderick is such a mensch.
Übermensch :-D
Thank you for uploading this lecture, it made me start Reading Sein und Zeit.
Reading it in German, I have an issue with his use of the self.
The self is the main subject of his lecture, but the way he equates self with Dasein seems odd to me, especially regarding Heideggers concept of Jemeinigkeit. Jemeinigkeit describes the the possibility of something to be itself or not to be itself. Jemeinigkeit is defined by giving Dasein designation (Bestimmung). Now if the Dasein is itself (eigentlich) or not (uneigentlich) does not give less degree of being to the Dasein. Also the Dasein having the possibilty to be its true self (eigentlich) or not (uneigentlich) makes equating both concepts impossible.
I think Rodericks topic of the lectures self-under-siege fits much better with Heidegger's Jemeinigkeit related context of the true (eigendlich) self, since the self-under-siege is an entity that can be harrassed (Otherwise the siege would have no meaining).
The Dasein in contrast might not have an antagonist. But I'm not sure, I just started getting into it and glad for any reply.
I hope it's not a stairmaster for us.
You're all familiar with remarks like, "well, they say" or "they say". 24:20. He's an unpretentious and wonderful explainer.
The stairmaster bit is a perfect example of a neurotic and backwards-facing culture. Some might see it as a small detail, but it's a sign of a larger pathology.
I'm guilty
20:51 *The mood that reveals what Dasein really is is* _anxiety_
Roderick could not be more eloquent talking about the ills of society. He is a modern Socrates. Someone who got too close to the truth for the status quo to handle and so he was quieted (fired from Duke). Whoever says anything that is not constructively negative on this post is part of the problem. The truth hurts, but it is the truth.
"Constructive negativity" made me chuckle. Boy if that's not all we've had for centuries.
Great until 33.57 when there is some sort of malfunction. Still, have really enjoyed and appreciated the videos of these lectures. Kindest thanks!
Wonderful speaker and educator.
I wonder what would happen if each of us had have all our teachers like Rick Roderick.
Running on the treadmill.. I used to think the same thing but now that I'm older I really appreciate the ability to run in a controlled safe environment. And running on the treadmill in a gym is so much more real than most activities that may or other people do these days lol.
Heidegger is ok, but I myself will deal a heavier blow to philosophy. Rick Roderick is tha man. Love these lectures.
4:55 *The non-footnoting public* “I’m going to attempt to do it in forty-five minutes-now, for Heidegger scholars this is an _obscenity,_ but I mean we’re trying to cover a lot of material in a short while. And we’re also trying to cover it in a way where what you might call _the non-footnoting public..._ I don’t want to call them non-scholarly because many people read many more books than academics [...] I’m talking about the non-footnoting public, you know people who haven’t footnoted every article on Heidegger-we’re gonna try to make the account popular in that sense, I have no problem with that-I also want it to be as accurate as I can.”
Well the "I' is an equiprimordial moment of Dasein. It is not a matter of replacing the "i-self" by Dasein. the 'I' is included in Dasein.
I like his thinking and this lecture is really eye opening. Like his rant about people trying to be young into their older age not accepting responsibility, but exercising, or jogging can have substantial benefits. And to discount those who working to improve their health is too miss the mark but i think he might be suggesting people's obsession with youth, and unwillingness to mature and evolve and use running in place as a substitute for aging
Was listening to this on my run. Had to stop because I was dying from laughter at the point he talked about running :))
Haha, indeed! 😃💪
Great talk, I like the humor. It is truth, the working on the body, how to look younger, how to look like models, it is crazy. But there is also another side...
Anyway I do yoga, I have to watch out:))
22:54 “We’re not depressing people here, we’re not trying to depress people but these are structures of the selves-these aren’t symptoms that Phil Donahue or Oprah Winfrey can fix! To be asked to be cured of your fundamental despair, your anxiety, is to ask to be cured of what little self you may have. It is a stupid thing to even want in a way because it is our anxiety that makes us look at how we came up from the past.”
Thank you for these videos, really appreciate it!
Using the virginia reel as example of knowing/learning your culture is brilliant.
As with the virginia reel, mot knowing the set up or where to stand could find you with an unhappy partner, or not depending on your preference
31:17 “The recognition of ones own nothingness in ones own death is the ultimate possibility. This recognition and acceptance frees us for our projects.”
And the next step is self-reflexivity, to recognize components of your own ideological footprint so you don’t stumble into fascism like Heidegger.
at the very end ; "Remember, Fear Death and .... ". It is cut off.
Wow I love this man
Great lecture, insightful and inspiring. Thank you for the upload.
28:19 “Now I mean sure-some people are afraid of death and other people are afraid of being seen carrying people magazine. I mean we live in a society that may be _far_ too superficial for the account I’m giving, so I’m hoping to try to make some sense out of it. I mean different things bother different people. I mean the culture that really scares me is the one in which death has no significance for our projects-that’s the culture in which the self is under siege.”
I'm always looking for new interesting lectures on Psychology/Philosophy, please let me know if you guys have any recommendations, would be highly appreciated
I took exam on Heidegger 1979 in Bergen Norway and later I have studied the eastern Vedanta Philosophy. And found that both asks the same questions and points out the same point about Dasein as the being that asks questions about being. Vedanta sutra starts: atathatha brahma jijnasa: "Now, therefore (as you have come to human life) it is time to ask about Brahman - Being ("Was ist Sein").
Confirms that this is THE question of philosophy and this is THE special mission for humans. Technology all beings have in their way anyway.
Sorry but I find those the least interesting questions we can ask. You’re entitled to your tastes, and I only comment to make you aware that it is a unique set of tastes. I find interesting what is true when humans are removed from the equation. I want to know about objective reality and escape this self-indulgent subjectivity. Humans have existed for such a short time in such a small space as to be essentially irrelevant to whatever is actually going on in the universe. Perhaps reality is inaccessible but it is far more important to me.
I am not a fascist. How could I be? I have never heard a comprehensive definition of its tenets, or why those tenets are so evil. All I ever hear is a rather unsophisticated "fascism bad; everything else good."
One of the general characteristics of fascism is it's contradictory and adaptive nature. It's really hard to pinpoint it's essential qualities on a way that will hold lets say for the next century
@@mates.2994You said literally nothing, proving his point.
@@Goobywoobygoo read a book perhaps
Interesting lecture. I thought that only Althusser had critized the Humanist ideology.
Sérgio Braga Heidegger is the original anti-Humanist. Before it was cool!
@@duffharris9295 max stirner was critiquing humanism before heidegger was born.... he was the reason marx abandoned it....
I’m sure someone had brought this up before but this reminds me so much of Bill Hick’s ideas. A bit kinder and softer though.
20:00 West Texas doesn't have moods! We have fighting words, but no moods.
Looking forward to the next one, on Sartre, who appears to have taken this torch of light he received from The Master, and to have run with it, so to speak...
Love this guy! However, he doesn't seem to realize that exercise doesn't necessarily mean avoiding death. Treadmill's and stair masters also allow us to enjoy health in the present, are psychologically challenging, and are directly connected with increased happiness. It may be his own justifications cloud his vision a bit.
yes... one gets to that pretty quickly ... its a common path for overweight smokers to go down lol ,,,, vitality is actually a totally present moment consideration,,, longevity means little ...
Allan Groves Yes. Though often an attempt to live longer or look younger, exercise is also a way to avoid feeling so shitty in the present that the time saved by not exercising is mostly spent groaning in pain.
You're got to love the symbolism of the Stairmaster though.
It seems that people are not really getting the main point, and that it is not an attack on exercise but on the type of exercise (symbolic as mentioned by previous commenter).
27:50 “Being free in this sense is not an easy thing to want to be-let me just say that right away.”
21:36 “This account of the mood of anxiety I’m about to give you briefly is not the kind of anxiety for which you run to the doctor or the psychiatrist and you take a Valium or talk it out or get on a damn twelve-step program-because it is an anxiety in before the fear of nothingness. It’s an anxiety in the face of death. I don’t want to make it sound too scary but I’ve already said it is a democratic institution, it is something you need to deal with. And again we’re looking for universal structures. One of the structures of all stories about the selves, even the ones we tell ourselves, no matter how disconnected they may be.. they end in this rather interesting institution-death. Very interesting institution. Well he examines the mood of anxiety then not as a mere mood that just comes upon you once in awhile, but as an _underlying structure of what it means to be human._ In other words *if you remove this anxiety you would also remove the self.”*
Like James', "Ulysses", Heidegger's, "Being and Time", is a must read. Now, is the 'event horizon'.
“If we are to understand the problem of Being, our first philosophical step consists in not “telling a story”
Heidegger, M., & Robinson, E. (2008). Exposition of the Question Of The Meaning of Being. In J. Macquarrie (Trans.), Being and Time (7th ed., p. 26). introduction, HarperPerennial/Modern Thought.
Hermeneutic is not the ‘English equivalent’ of narrative or story.
MH says explicitly that we do not begin by “telling a story”.
That being said this belongs to the most engaging lecture series that helped me jump from YT lectures to the text themselves.
Checkout Sugrue and Calhoun lectures on Heidegger.
33 minutes 57 seconds the video loses audio and some video
Ultimately, I believe, all philosophy has an underpinning of existential madness.
The nature of Nietzsche's understanding of "power" as decadent or some bourgeois pathology is not correctly understanding what N meant by "power" or how he understood "harmony". To make sense of it using a biological model, in evolution is cooperation in systems and groups but you also have competition. The "winners" (a gene, an organism, a species,etc) are not "oppressing" others, they are merely existing. It's not force for the sake of cruelty or domination, but genuine intent. Cruel or Kind.
Interesting. Yes.
10:57 *Being vs being* “Classically in philosophy there was a distinction drawn between “Being” with a capital _B,_ which is a philosophical way of writing God or fundamental entity-Being, big _B)_ and “beings”, entities, like one among which is dasein.”
And thank you for an actual response! I think that's the first time I haven't been berated with nonsense from a RUclips comment...
This is quite good. I would suggest an alternative translation for "das Man" not the-they but "everyone" That's Jean-Luc Nancy's suggestion and it makes sense.
Great lecture!
IX. It is right to put authenticity into its proper place. Heidegger was well aware that the analysis of logos proceeds authenticity. Authenticity means nothing without having a theory of knowledge at hand to judge it. More than anything else, authenticity is a reflection on the status of self (Dasein) in his environment mediated by the self, and more cannot be expected. It would be hard not to admit you are a wolf if you live only among wolves.
I concur with your interpretation. And I don't think Rick was criticizing any activity done for its own sake.
that ending. these are amazing thank you. Part philosophy part G. Carlin. Or Hicks even at some points lol. well, the ranting is apreciatedx)
Sorry he's gone. Wonderful stuff.
Re: Odysseus and the Stairmaster™. Rick forgets that there was a shit-ton of rowing involved. The wind was not always favorable, not the least because he'd both pissed off Poseidon and because his crew had opened the bag of unfavorable winds passed to him by Aeolus.
While I disagree with some of his views on Nietzsche, Roderick is a fantastic teacher.
Looks like he was right given the way modernity has turned out.
is he not describing qualities and functions but avoiding the question as to whether there is a self as an a priori entity, which buddha denied in his anatta doctrine
great lecture!!
What 's wrong with these videios between 33:58 and 34:21?, Can that bit be found somewhere else?
Óscar Maldonado
Yeah the completionist in me is deeply frustrated to miss out on that part haha
I can't help earing "nudes" when he says "moods" ☠️ great lecture, what an outstanding professor 🙏
i appreciate it when he says, " there has been a shift" in the self....an idea of destiny....like in the fighters at the alamo, or in Oddysseus; that talk show hosts are not living in the same register- and that has been lost in modern civilized humans. THe fleeing from self, fleeing from death.... with the stairmaster and chasing youth...right! i totally dig this guy, he;s funny. And, yeah.. Athena transformed Oddyseus, so no stairmaster necessary.
Love this!!❤❤
Destiny got destroyed in this debate.
There is nothing new under the Sun. Same advise Krishna gave to Arjuna.
What a beautiful, brilliantly humoured man (not Heidegger). It's the closest thing I've seen to Bill Hicks teaching philosophy. This is a great introduction for the non "footnoted audience" to Heidegger.
15:38 *Dasein = Sorge (care/anxiety)* “The human structure as uncovered by Heidegger is _care,_ and in terms of the past it shows we are beings already in the world. Which means that the philosophical project of starting without prejudices, starting without biases, starting without interpretations would be as _stupid_ as to have someone start speaking Shakespeare without having a language.
In a way the deep and powerful blow that Heidegger lays against philosophy is: _as a discipline that can start from scratch and tell us who we are, that can just start with a clean slate and build it up._ No-the way we experience our lives is we wake up and hell we’re already here! We are in his phrase: _thrown into the world._
You were born somewhere, some when, some race, some class, some gender-and all of that already comes along and from the minute you begin to speak a language and learn a culture... and learning a culture, contrary to what analytic philosophers say, is _not_ like learning to pick out patches of blue or being sure that _this_ is your hand. Learning a culture, to _live in it,_ is more like learning how to dance the Virginia Reel than it is learning how to pick out patches of blue-involves many complex steps before you’re _in_ one. And I mean even in a crude and vicious culture like West Texas that’s true-the one I come from. I mean there’s a lot of subtle little machismo rituals that if you don’t know they will beat you to death. You just have to learn them-they’re complex, they’re much more complex than the standard philosophical examples, which are picking out patches of blues and so on.
So Heidegger says that in terms of the *past* we’re already in a world. In terms of the *present,* _care_ reveals us as trying to be _at home_ in the world. See you may notice this sort of _home-y_ language of Heidegger’s-the fact that he turns out to be a fascist, this has made me to this day wary of language that’s overly _home-y._ [...] But anyway _care_ reveals us as being _at home among_ or _being among_ or trying to feel that you’re in the _right place,_ you know that you belong in a place. In terms of the future we are always according to Heidegger _ahead of ourselves._
Have you ever.. now this is I think another profound part about the narrative of the self. In a certain way what our plans and projects are, are not a part of our future but a part of our present, we’re always ahead of ourselves we’re always... it’s like, _’Well you know lunch later what do we want-Big Mac, Bouillabaisse...’_ it depends on your class I guess more than anything else. And even in terms of like college, _’what are my kids gonna do for college?’ - ‘what about my retirement?’_ This is a characteristic... and again what I’m telling you here from Heidegger-remember we just started with a story about the self and now we’re just telling one and it’s supposed to capture sort of the general features of selfhood, being a self. And so that’s what he sees there in that structure.
Dasein reveals itself in terms of the *past* as being _thrown into_ a world, in terms of the *present* as being able to try to _articulate_ our place within it, and in terms of the *future* in terms of projecting ourselves forward and so on.
Now, here’s the bad part: Heidegger realizes that you can’t just simply abandon this old philosophical project and then just tell this story and hope to capture its universal features (in other words the features that are shared by dasein wherever we happen to bump into dasein or to the self or selves-being-there type creatures like us that asks these questions about being) without looking into what he calls _moods._
It’s very interesting, Heidegger is one of the few philosophers to discuss something that’s very important to people-moods. I mean most analytic philosophers have no interest in moods. It’s funny, I think this is why when you read these continental philosophers like some I’m discussing today they’re considered a bit effeminate because this mood talk is not really macho you know. [...] But in any case it’s clear to me that mood is an important characteristic when you discuss the self and what selfhood is.
And this is I think one of the most profound parts of the analysis that the young Heidegger gives. The mood that he thinks that reveals what dasein really is (and this will connect with my first lecture about the masters of suspicion) is _anxiety._ That is the mood that will reveal, as it were, the formal, existential character of dasein-his anxiety. *Anxiety.*
Now when I say _mood_ here you could easily misunderstand me. All the account Heidegger is giving, while it is an account of the human itself, this account of the mood of anxiety I’m about to give you briefly is not the kind of anxiety for which you run to the doctor or the psychiatrist and you take a Valium or talk it out or get on a damn twelve step program, because it is an anxiety before the fear of _nothingness._ It’s an anxiety in the face of death-don’t want to make it sound you know, too scary, but I’ve already said it is a democratic institution, it is something you need to deal with and again we’re looking for universal structures. One of the structures of all stories about the selves, even the ones we tell ourselves, no matter how disconnected they may be-they end in this rather interesting institution: _death._ Very interesting institution.
Well he examines the mood of anxiety then not as a _mere_ mood that just comes upon you once in awhile, but as an underlying structure of what it means to be human. In other words, _if you remove this anxiety you would also remove the self;_ the same view Kierkegaard holds of _despair._
I mean we’re not depressing people here, we’re not trying to depress people but these are structures of the selves, these aren’t symptoms that Phil Donahue or Oprah Winfrey can fix! To be asked to be cured of your fundamental anxiety is to be asked to be cured of what little self you may have, it is a stupid thing to even want in a way because _it is our anxiety which makes us look at how we came up from the past._
The way that that’s described by Heidegger is that we were abandoned to the _they,_ to _das man,_ the crowd. What does he mean by that? Well he means we grew up in a place like West Texas or Cleveland, Ohio or Bangladesh where the way we grew up and the way our past is structured, we didn’t learn our moral theories from Kant or Mill-we learned them because our mama’s spanked our butts! Said, _’Don’t steal!’_ Whap! You know, we were _thrown-into_ that, we were abandoned to those values as it were. It’s not a scary thing, that’s how we learn.
See this is a way to try to redirect our attention to the _concreteness_ of being a self as opposed to giving a philosophical account. This was Heidegger’s attempt: _you’re abandoned to the they._ You’re all familiar with remarks like, _’well they say’_ or _’they say’,_ well that’s exactly the spirit in which Heidegger’s using the concept here. You know if you violate certain restrictions of your culture somebody’s gonna go, _’well but you know they say...’_ That’s the way in which Heidegger sees us relating to our past-anxiety reveals that to us.
Now why is it anxiety? Well if we want to make our lives a project (and Heidegger thinks fundamentally we do-thinks that’s part of the structure of dasein) is to want to make your story a story. _A story,_ not just a bunch of disconnected junk and debris that happened to happen to you but a story, a _project._ If that’s true then our relation to the past is filled with anxiety because we all started from this time of abandonment to the values of others-to _They._
It’s not an evil thing this just means the culture around you-it means the opinion of people. _’Well you know they say you wear your hair like that...’_ and so on, it’s not unusual stuff it’s the common way in which we’re brought up.”
these talks are wonderful!
This was quite a poor summary i think, Rick didn't cover the main points with enough depth or clarity which i have seen done before, particularly from Jason Jorjani and Hubert Dreyfus.
@@lorax121323 The intention of my comment is to recommend people to the thinkers i suggested. I don't submit to the presupposition that to give a subjective critique of something is to therefore be responsible to build something better in it's place. I like some of Rick's other stuff, but my comment is stating that i don't believe this is a great summary - my comment is not that i personally could do better. If the only people who critique something are those who believe they could do better then feedback would be drastically diminished and we all know feedback is essential for the healthy operation of systems. What do you reckon?
@@lorax121323 sweet as
Philosophers unfortunately take "language" for "self". It is just as thinking "vision" is "self". It would bring up a lot of stupid mistakes. Language is just a function of human self - a small part, not everything; not the only door to reality etc. It's when you can experience yourself beyond language, as a whole, that you come to face the real self. Just as you can feel and experience with your eyes closed, you can feel and experience without thinking and that's also you. Without thinking, philosophers feel kinda like the dude who owns a boat, when he can't show off his boat, so it's tough on them, I guess.
Probably the only worthwhile thing to come out of Abilene Texas.
thanks for the upload x
I enjoyed this immensely thank you.
Hahaha, best comment I've read in months. Brilliant analogy. However, I think Rick lacks the classic "and so on and son" of Zizek.
The account of authenticity he gives is a little bit wrong, it’s also about being more open to the potentiality of others outside of yourself, it enhances not only your own destiny but the destiny of others. This is a huge difference
Does anyone know if Prof Rick Roderick was at Texas at the same time as the sociologist George Kirkpatrick, a professor at San Diego State University who died about the same time as Roderick of the same ailment. They had, it seems, common interests and perspectives and even, to me, a physical resemblance.
15:23 Maybe Rick Roderick and Slavoj Zizek are the same Cylon model.
Love Bill, does he have lectures on analytical philosophers?
indeed, perhaps that skill is comprehension, which is a feat in itself. It's hard to explain because the topics at hand are hard!
wait a sec didnt he listen to the interview with heidegger where he describes in detail what he means exactly when he speaks of the "dasein" which is "the nature of the human"? Its kind of important to listen to it carefully to understand Heidegger
I watched this lecture to find out why Heidegger rejects humanism. Humanism was never mentioned.
+Ted Engels when looking at the definition of the term humanism, u'll clearly see an answer. authenticity in heidegger's sense beats humanism because it destroys the universal "model" of what it is to be human. it's about moments, hope, existential freedom and death.
Humanism has many definitions. The one I use, that shows up in the Oxford Dictionary, is "A rationalist outlook or system of thought attaching prime importance to human rather than divine or supernatural matters" which is entirely consistent with atheistic existentialism, of which Heidegger is considered a proponent. And Heidegger doesn't eliminate the idea of human nature, he says human beings are beings for which Being is an issue, and elaborates from there. Even radical individualists like Sartre emphasize the shared nature of human anguish, despair, and abandonment as well as the universal intelligibility of human projects. So I still see no reason why existentialism isn't in fact a humanism.
*****
humanism in this sense is an outcome of the rationalists themselves, which was based on people as machines and a mechanical worldview, so it creates an image of god or homofaber. heidegger simpely refuses that idea, cos ofcourse he notices universal characteristics, but the emphasis lays in the relation with husserl and descartes, he wants to get rid of this way of studying what it is to be human. with other words, humans (or consciousness) not as objects, but as happenings, a relation with the lifeworld and their will, even that is too much, is just is just being. humanism isn't really atheistic in symbolic terms, cos the language game wants to claim that in theory, humanism has a god, and it's the idea of the absolute human, so someone who's living in harmony with (let's say) ethical egoism isn't necessarily a humanist (perse). it's about the effects of humanism, and that's why the title says heidegger rejects it.
heidegger has a some what different metier compaired to husserl, jaspers etc. but that doesn't mean that the very way we think of "beings" doesn't change the actual "beings" too btw, this is a side note.
in general about existentialism I'd say it could be a humanism but it isn't always the case.
existentialism can still enjoy an enchanted world since they choose for it, since they have the total freedom and responsibility.
in short, the difference between sartre's "existentialism is a kind of humanism" and heidegger's negation of that, lays in the fact that sartre says our essence is determined by action. heidegger on the other hand underlines that the essence of action hasn't been pondered decisively enough, so essence can't be determined by action. the fullness of a being or its essence can't be captured according to heidegger hence it's no humanism. heidegger turns sartre's words around: "essence precedes existence, what “is” (prior action) above all is Being."
(I even doubt whether sartre fully understood heidegger's sein und zeit... sartre to me promotes purely subjectivism (eventhough it's not his intention), and it creates nothing but amour propre... no wonder his friendship with a friendly friendloving friend called camus went wrong.)
Ok. I'll have to think about that some more.
+Ted Engels By virtue of focusing the discussion on the existential situation according to Heidegger (being thrown into the crowd and facing inevitable death), humanism is rendered irrelevant and thus rejected.
I definitely agree. I don't know if that's something specific to capitalism though. Perhaps the degree to which capitalism frames needs in terms of pleasure is the issue...the spectacle?
Homosexuality has been looked down upon long before capitalism had any say in the discourse. Not necessarily in all ancient cultures, but in many.
I would argue that capitalism magnifies pre-existing human characteristics to absurd levels. Is that fair? I'm certainly not defending capitalism, by the way.