Want to understand Heidegger?

Heidegger! If you are someone who is "interested in" philosophy but for some reason you have never managed to get into him or you've heard that it's not worth the effort...keep trying. It is.

I have books, essays, interviews, and video courses, as well as free videos on this channel, all designed to help you get on Heidegger’s wavelength.

In this live off-the-cuff introdution to Heidegger, we’ll walk through some of his basic concepts and hopefully something sticks!

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[gokhanegene]

Wowww this is really fantastic, this guy loves to teach, knows to teach.. has a great talent to present complex subjects like daily easy matters.

[AIainMConnachie]

Another great entry from you.
I came to Heidegger (and indeed Western Philosophy in general) AFTER a childhood & adolesence spent reading through and about Eastern Philosophy. Christopher Isherwood, Jiddu Krishnamurti, Christmas Humphreys, Alan Watts, Paramahansa Yogananda, and Shunryu Suzuki, among others. So when I discovered Heidegger while studying at Glendon (York U) he fell easily into place for me. (Of note, I had a much more difficult time with the work of Hume, Kierkegaard, Descartes, et al.)
The great thing is, you're refreshing my memory. Thank you.

[areyoutheregoditsmedave]

i think i’ll watch and rewatch all of your heidegger videos several times over a couple of years before i attempt Being in Time.

[davidthompson]

Thank you. You have helped clarify something that I first began to struggle with 61 years ago! It never bothered me daily, but periodically and so will now bother me less.

[zenanon]

Michael, I have chatted with you before and let you know that I just "didn't get Heidegger" but that I wanted have your first book but have not really read it all the way through yet....I recently listened to an audio book in it's entirety named Heidegger A very short introduction which was good and I became familiarized with his philosophy. However this video really helped me the most in understanding the most important essence of his philosophy. I get it now. This was a brilliant explanation of Heidegger that gives me confidence of giving "Being and Time" which I have...another try. Thank you for this. I plan on revisiting Heidegger with this new found understanding that you have imparted in this video.
Also want to add that in my view "Being" that Heidegger is interested seems related to consciousness in our every day lives...that which is aware and how we live our lives moment to moment. I'm also interested in consciousness and Jungian psychology so Heidegger seems very relevant to that.

[Mongoloid]

Keep up the awesome videos. I'm learning about philosophers I've never heard of (I wonder why). The younger generations are hungry for philosophy that has stood the test of time and has grounding in reality.

[juancarloszamoradelgado-pi]

I understood something of Heidegger from the Introduction to Metaphysics to Being and Time... Where I started to feel lost was with The Event...

[oumod_]

Great discussion on the They Self vs The Self.

[markcounseling]

This was really amazing and I deeply appreciate it. Knowing little about Heidegger, I don't want to make ignorant correspondences, but I can't help 😂 but see the discernment he makes between Being and beings as _essentially_ similar to the distinction in Buddhist thought between mind and the nature of mind; or similarly between consciousness and primordial awareness; or between appearance and emptiness.

The difficulty in realizing this distinction has so many after-effects, including in my view, the current confusion about what AI intelligences signify (in my view, it certainly ain't that they are aware of Being). Many times I've beaten my head against a wall attempting to make this point, in a clumsy way, that you just elegantly laid out in Heidegger's thought.

So this is very exciting, and thanks again!

[norsegaud]

This is the greatest video on YouTube. Thank you!

[sina]

Thank you for this explanation. I am struggling to understand Heidegger, and this is one of the most clear explanations I have heard yet.

One thing that strikes me about this approach is the echoes of German idealism I think I hear: from Kant’s ideas of “the thing in itself” to Fichte and Schelling.

Is this something Heidegger himself ever explicitly acknowledged? Is this a misimpression on my part?

[georgedrazenovich]

I don't know whether I captured all of what Heidegger meant by dasein. But I wanted to explore what is meant by this term "America" as someone (like myself) who is by birth an American. The Searchers was John Ford's Heideggarian treatment of America through the mythology of the American West

[bobf]

I understood being as that which causes beings to be. Every being has a cause except the uncaused First Cause. And there must be a First Cause because otherwise there would be an infinite regress. That would be true even in an eternal universe. So a supreme being follows from the logic. I’ve never been sure whether Heidegger was on to a real problem with traditional philosophy or was making problems for himself.

[mattbennett]

That was helpful! Thanks. I think I can sketchily see how Heidegger’s thought could align with Dugin’s. It doesn’t seem like Heidegger would endorse, for a basis of a political theory, anything that would be normative (ought / right) or ontotheological (the good). That means liberalism is out and de Maistre is out. I don’t know much about Heidegger, but it seems like he could endorse Carl Schmitt’s interpretation of legality and legitimacy. Carl Schmitt influenced Dugin, so there might be a connection to be drawn there.

In addition, in Inside "Putin's Brain" you write about how Dasein exists as ‘the people’ and compare Heidegger’s volk with Dugin’s narod. Perhaps Heidegger offers another critique and alternative to modernity that fits in with 4PT. Technology and modernity alienates, uproots and homogenizes the volk, whereas a certain kind of authenticity can be derived from being rooted in a historical context of the volk.

Lastly, realizing that the way one thinks about ‘being’ influences so much of a person's outlook gives a new meaning to noomachia; perhaps as a war for ‘being’ itself.

[PaulCali-nt]

Curious layman here. It seems to me that 'ontology' would be the better word to designate the study of of being per se, ie, what it means for something to be or questions about the nature of being. "Metaphysics' has been used in so many ways that its meaning has been kicked out of it. And a related question: Under current philosophic usage, what is the difference between 'metaphysics' and 'ontology?' Is there any key usage distinction between the two words?

[lonecanadian]

A short read of Being and Time caused my fontal lobes to overheat, but thanks to you and Aleksandr Dugin, the depth of it became more accessible to me without the need for a mini submarine. Quite literally, the title of the book is the proof of Heidegger's proposition.

[MegaFount]

I have a problem with Heidegger. I can’t get around his allegiance to the Nazis. He is a deplorable man. I never understood Arendt’s obsession with him.

[rrosaseconda]

I am indeed interested in Heideggerian philosophy, but not as presented by a right-leaning conservative thinker such as yourself.