WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:02.299 You know, usually when we pick a topic for these 00:00:02.299 --> 00:00:05.719 deep dives, I feel a sense of, let's call it 00:00:05.719 --> 00:00:08.199 intellectual excitement. We grab a stack of papers 00:00:08.199 --> 00:00:12.539 on AI or history or economics, and we just tear 00:00:12.539 --> 00:00:15.580 into it with this sense of adventure. But today... 00:00:16.240 --> 00:00:19.320 Today feels different. It feels heavier. How 00:00:19.320 --> 00:00:21.960 so? It feels like we're walking into a minefield. 00:00:22.120 --> 00:00:24.120 We aren't just talking about a set of abstract 00:00:24.120 --> 00:00:27.019 ideas. We're talking about a figure who sits 00:00:27.019 --> 00:00:29.260 right at the center of the 20th century like 00:00:29.260 --> 00:00:32.320 a massive black hole. You can't escape his gravity. 00:00:32.340 --> 00:00:34.600 He pulled everyone in. But if you get too close, 00:00:34.659 --> 00:00:38.479 you get crushed. We are talking about... Martin 00:00:38.479 --> 00:00:40.619 Heidegger. That is actually a perfect description. 00:00:40.759 --> 00:00:42.880 And you're right to feel that way, because with 00:00:42.880 --> 00:00:44.799 Heidegger, you don't just get a philosophy. You 00:00:44.799 --> 00:00:47.420 get a moral crisis wrapped inside a metaphysical 00:00:47.420 --> 00:00:49.460 enigma. Right. And that's the elephant in the 00:00:49.460 --> 00:00:51.280 room we have to acknowledge before we even open 00:00:51.280 --> 00:00:53.579 the books. On one side of the ledger, you have 00:00:53.579 --> 00:00:55.840 a man who is arguably the most important philosopher 00:00:55.840 --> 00:00:58.579 of the last hundred years. Oh, easily. Some would 00:00:58.579 --> 00:01:00.619 say the most important since Kant. I mean, look 00:01:00.619 --> 00:01:02.740 at the sources we have here. He influenced Sartre, 00:01:02.780 --> 00:01:06.260 de Beauvoir, Derrida, Foucault. He's cited in 00:01:06.260 --> 00:01:09.280 architecture, in psychotherapy, even in the Code 00:01:09.280 --> 00:01:12.000 of Artificial Intelligence. Absolutely. He effectively 00:01:12.000 --> 00:01:14.540 rewrote. the source code of how we think about 00:01:14.540 --> 00:01:17.140 existence. If you've ever used the phrase lifestyle 00:01:17.140 --> 00:01:20.120 or talked about authenticity, you're unknowingly 00:01:20.120 --> 00:01:23.719 speaking Heidegger. His ideas have just, they've 00:01:23.719 --> 00:01:26.260 seeped into the culture. But then you flip the 00:01:26.260 --> 00:01:28.760 page and you see the photos, you see the pin 00:01:28.760 --> 00:01:32.540 on the lapel. The man was a Nazi. And not just, 00:01:32.579 --> 00:01:35.519 I need to survive, Nazi. He was the rector of 00:01:35.519 --> 00:01:38.140 Freiburg University under Hitler. He signed his 00:01:38.140 --> 00:02:00.250 letters, Heil Hitler. No. That. is the mission 00:02:00.250 --> 00:02:02.790 today. We are going to try to do two things that 00:02:02.790 --> 00:02:05.310 seem impossible to do at the same time. We are 00:02:05.310 --> 00:02:08.490 going to unpack his fundamental ontology, and 00:02:08.490 --> 00:02:11.050 I promise we will make that actually understandable. 00:02:11.250 --> 00:02:14.250 His noble goal. And we are going to look unflinchingly 00:02:14.250 --> 00:02:17.300 at his descent into National Socialism. We're 00:02:17.300 --> 00:02:18.840 stripping the varnish off. Yeah, we have the 00:02:18.840 --> 00:02:21.319 documents to do it. We've got his magnum opus, 00:02:21.319 --> 00:02:24.139 Being in Time. We've got the biographies. And 00:02:24.139 --> 00:02:27.680 crucially, we have the Black Notebooks, his private 00:02:27.680 --> 00:02:29.780 journals that were only published recently, which 00:02:29.780 --> 00:02:32.180 really, really changed the game on how we view 00:02:32.180 --> 00:02:35.099 his anti -Semitism. No sugarcoating. So let's 00:02:35.099 --> 00:02:36.840 start with the human being. Before he becomes 00:02:36.840 --> 00:02:39.719 this giant of philosophy who is Morton Heidegger, 00:02:39.819 --> 00:02:41.860 where does this guy come from? He's a nobody 00:02:41.860 --> 00:02:45.000 from nowhere. Born 1889 in Meskirch. Meskirch. 00:02:45.099 --> 00:02:47.379 That sounds very rural. It's deep in the Black 00:02:47.379 --> 00:02:50.280 Forest, and that matters. This isn't some cosmopolitan 00:02:50.280 --> 00:02:53.020 city boy like Walter Benjamin or some of his 00:02:53.020 --> 00:02:56.080 contemporaries. He was a child of the soil. Right. 00:02:56.159 --> 00:02:58.340 His father was the sexton of the local Catholic 00:02:58.340 --> 00:03:00.599 church, literally the guy who rings the bells 00:03:00.599 --> 00:03:02.800 and digs the graves. So he grows up surrounded 00:03:02.800 --> 00:03:06.099 by religion and dirt. That's a stark beginning. 00:03:06.569 --> 00:03:08.930 A very elemental kind of childhood, I imagine. 00:03:09.110 --> 00:03:11.689 Exactly. A very conservative, Catholic, blood 00:03:11.689 --> 00:03:14.990 and soil environment. In fact, his first ambition 00:03:14.990 --> 00:03:17.990 wasn't philosophy. It was the priesthood. He 00:03:17.990 --> 00:03:21.270 actually joined a Jesuit seminary in 1909. Father 00:03:21.270 --> 00:03:24.219 Heidegger. That's a strange alternate timeline 00:03:24.219 --> 00:03:26.960 to imagine. Well, he didn't last long. He was 00:03:26.960 --> 00:03:29.319 discharged within a few weeks. The official reason 00:03:29.319 --> 00:03:32.039 was a heart condition, psychosomatic chest pains. 00:03:32.580 --> 00:03:35.219 But you can see this tension early on. He wanted 00:03:35.219 --> 00:03:37.139 the structure of the church, the rigor of it, 00:03:37.219 --> 00:03:39.879 but he physically couldn't handle the constriction. 00:03:39.879 --> 00:03:41.770 It was too small for him. Something like that. 00:03:41.949 --> 00:03:44.449 So he leaves the Jesuits, walks across the street 00:03:44.449 --> 00:03:46.909 to the University of Freiburg, and trades theology 00:03:46.909 --> 00:03:49.930 for philosophy. But he keeps that religious intensity, 00:03:50.229 --> 00:03:52.169 doesn't he? I mean, looking at the accounts of 00:03:52.169 --> 00:03:54.449 his early lectures, he doesn't sound like a typical 00:03:54.449 --> 00:03:57.509 academic. He doesn't sound like he's just explaining 00:03:57.509 --> 00:03:59.860 Aristotle. Oh, absolutely not. When he starts 00:03:59.860 --> 00:04:02.400 teaching in the 1920s, he isn't lecturing like 00:04:02.400 --> 00:04:05.319 a normal professor. Yeah. Accounts from his students, 00:04:05.520 --> 00:04:07.620 people like Hannah Arendt or Hans Gorgatimer, 00:04:07.780 --> 00:04:11.199 describe him as a magician. A magician. Yeah. 00:04:11.400 --> 00:04:14.180 He wasn't just analyzing logic puzzles. He made 00:04:14.180 --> 00:04:16.639 philosophy feel like a thunderstorm. Yeah. He 00:04:16.639 --> 00:04:19.660 was intense, charismatic, and used language in 00:04:19.660 --> 00:04:22.079 a way that hypnotized people. There was a rumor 00:04:22.079 --> 00:04:24.339 going around German universities that the hidden 00:04:24.339 --> 00:04:27.060 king of philosophy was reigning in the Black 00:04:27.060 --> 00:04:30.360 Forest. the hidden king. And a king needs his 00:04:30.360 --> 00:04:35.019 declaration. His manifesto. Which brings us to 00:04:35.019 --> 00:04:38.959 1927. The book that drops like a meteor. Sein 00:04:38.959 --> 00:04:42.449 and Zeit. Being and Time. The book that changed 00:04:42.449 --> 00:04:45.110 everything. Okay, I have tried to read this book. 00:04:45.209 --> 00:04:46.810 I think many of our listeners have probably tried 00:04:46.810 --> 00:04:49.250 and failed. It is notoriously difficult. The 00:04:49.250 --> 00:04:52.970 language is thick. He invents words. He uses 00:04:52.970 --> 00:04:55.230 hyphens like they're going out of style. It is 00:04:55.230 --> 00:04:57.069 a fortress of a book. It was written in a rush, 00:04:57.170 --> 00:04:58.829 actually, because he needed to publish something 00:04:58.829 --> 00:05:00.790 to get a promotion to a full professorship. He 00:05:00.790 --> 00:05:02.670 basically locked himself in a cabin for a year 00:05:02.670 --> 00:05:05.110 and hammered it out. But despite the density, 00:05:05.449 --> 00:05:08.850 the core idea is revolutionary. So let's play 00:05:08.850 --> 00:05:11.360 Blinkist here. What is the central problem he 00:05:11.360 --> 00:05:14.600 is trying to solve? Why did he write 400 pages 00:05:14.600 --> 00:05:17.120 of hyphenated German? The core complaint is actually 00:05:17.120 --> 00:05:20.100 stunningly simple. Heidegger looks at the entire 00:05:20.100 --> 00:05:22.680 history of Western thought from Plato and Aristotle 00:05:22.680 --> 00:05:25.980 all the way down to Descartes and Kant. And he 00:05:25.980 --> 00:05:29.199 says, you have all made a mistake, a fundamental 00:05:29.199 --> 00:05:31.519 error. You have forgotten the most important 00:05:31.519 --> 00:05:34.560 question of all. Which is? The question of being. 00:05:34.819 --> 00:05:37.519 Okay. I'm going to play the skeptic here. Yeah. 00:05:37.579 --> 00:05:39.899 Being. Seems like the most obvious thing in the 00:05:39.899 --> 00:05:42.560 world. Things are. I am, the table is, the microphone 00:05:42.560 --> 00:05:45.100 is. It seems pretty self -evident. Why is forgetting 00:05:45.100 --> 00:05:48.500 this such a crisis? Because we treat being like 00:05:48.500 --> 00:05:50.259 it's just a fact, like it's the most general 00:05:50.259 --> 00:05:52.220 property of things. You have a red apple. It 00:05:52.220 --> 00:05:54.339 has the property of redness, the property of 00:05:54.339 --> 00:05:57.819 roundness, and the property of existence. We 00:05:57.819 --> 00:05:59.699 treat existence like it's just another trait 00:05:59.699 --> 00:06:01.680 on a list. We just sort of check the box. Yep, 00:06:01.759 --> 00:06:05.060 exists. Exactly. And Heidegger says that is catastrophic. 00:06:05.459 --> 00:06:08.540 Right. Because being isn't a thing. It's not 00:06:08.540 --> 00:06:10.980 an entity. He makes this distinction, and this 00:06:10.980 --> 00:06:12.639 is the first technical hurdle, so speak with 00:06:12.639 --> 00:06:15.399 me, between the ontic and the ontological. Ontic 00:06:15.399 --> 00:06:17.740 versus ontological. break that down. The ontic 00:06:17.740 --> 00:06:21.560 is the realm of stuff, entities, rocks, trees, 00:06:21.879 --> 00:06:25.899 atoms, voters, stars. Science deals with the 00:06:25.899 --> 00:06:28.720 ontic. You measure it, you weigh it, you categorize 00:06:28.720 --> 00:06:30.779 it. It's the what of the world. Okay, that makes 00:06:30.779 --> 00:06:32.800 sense. The inventory of the universe, all the 00:06:32.800 --> 00:06:35.319 things in the room. Right. The ontological is 00:06:35.319 --> 00:06:37.939 the investigation of the meaning of being itself. 00:06:38.509 --> 00:06:41.110 How is it that things appear to us at all? What 00:06:41.110 --> 00:06:43.410 is the background lighting, if you will, that 00:06:43.410 --> 00:06:45.569 allows a rock to show up as a rock in the first 00:06:45.569 --> 00:06:47.689 place instead of just a meaningless blur? So 00:06:47.689 --> 00:06:49.949 science asks, what is that thing? And Heidegger 00:06:49.949 --> 00:06:52.410 asks, what does it mean to be? Precisely. Think 00:06:52.410 --> 00:06:54.629 of it like a movie theater. Western philosophy 00:06:54.629 --> 00:06:56.769 has been obsessed with the actors and the props 00:06:56.769 --> 00:06:59.110 on the screen. Look at that hero. Look at that 00:06:59.110 --> 00:07:01.670 car. Look at that explosion. We analyze the plot, 00:07:01.810 --> 00:07:04.089 the characters, the script. Heidegger is the 00:07:04.089 --> 00:07:05.889 guy standing at the back of the room pointing 00:07:05.889 --> 00:07:08.319 at the projector. The projector. He's asking 00:07:08.319 --> 00:07:11.019 about the light. Without the light of the projector, 00:07:11.300 --> 00:07:13.819 there is no movie. There are no characters. There 00:07:13.819 --> 00:07:16.620 is nothing. He says we have been staring at the 00:07:16.620 --> 00:07:19.500 screen for 2 ,000 years, obsessing over the entities, 00:07:19.699 --> 00:07:21.879 and we have completely forgotten that there is 00:07:21.879 --> 00:07:24.339 a projector humming behind us that makes it all 00:07:24.339 --> 00:07:26.800 possible. We've forgotten the light of being. 00:07:27.319 --> 00:07:30.160 That's a helpful image. So we are so distracted 00:07:30.160 --> 00:07:33.540 by the stuff of our lives, our jobs, our phones, 00:07:33.620 --> 00:07:36.490 our objects, that... We've lost touch with the 00:07:36.490 --> 00:07:38.629 miracle that there is anything at all. And more 00:07:38.629 --> 00:07:40.730 importantly, we've misunderstood our own being. 00:07:40.910 --> 00:07:43.490 And this is where he introduces his most famous 00:07:43.490 --> 00:07:47.009 term. He refuses to call us humans. He refuses 00:07:47.009 --> 00:07:49.529 to call us people or subjects or consciousness. 00:07:49.889 --> 00:07:52.810 He calls us Dessign. Dessign. I always sound 00:07:52.810 --> 00:07:54.970 this pretentious, honestly. It feels like a way 00:07:54.970 --> 00:07:57.649 to gatekeep the conversation. Why use a German 00:07:57.649 --> 00:08:00.029 term when human works fine? Is he just being 00:08:00.029 --> 00:08:02.170 difficult? For once, no. He's trying to break 00:08:02.170 --> 00:08:05.339 a habit. If I say the word human or consciousness, 00:08:05.779 --> 00:08:08.379 what image pops into your head? Probably a brain. 00:08:08.500 --> 00:08:11.019 Or a person, like a distinct biological unit. 00:08:11.079 --> 00:08:14.759 A mind inside a skull. A thinking thing. Exactly. 00:08:15.019 --> 00:08:17.699 You picture a subject here, inside your head, 00:08:17.839 --> 00:08:20.819 looking at an object there, the world. It's the 00:08:20.819 --> 00:08:24.279 Cartesian view. Descartes said, I think, therefore 00:08:24.279 --> 00:08:27.480 I am. He started with the isolated mind. The 00:08:27.480 --> 00:08:29.860 ghost in the machine. Yes. And Heidegger hates 00:08:29.860 --> 00:08:33.179 that. He wants to smash that box. Desaigne translates 00:08:33.179 --> 00:08:37.860 literally to being there. Being there. The there 00:08:37.860 --> 00:08:40.559 is crucial. You are never just a mind in a jar. 00:08:40.620 --> 00:08:42.940 You are always already there in a world, in a 00:08:42.940 --> 00:08:45.500 context, in a situation. You cannot be separated 00:08:45.500 --> 00:08:47.500 from your world any more than a smile can be 00:08:47.500 --> 00:08:50.340 separated from a face. We are being in the world. 00:08:50.809 --> 00:08:52.990 Okay, being in the world, that still sounds a 00:08:52.990 --> 00:08:55.470 little abstract. It is, but he grounds it immediately. 00:08:55.730 --> 00:08:57.710 And this is what makes him so powerful. He brings 00:08:57.710 --> 00:08:59.750 it down to earth. This brings us to what I think 00:08:59.750 --> 00:09:01.830 is the best example in all of philosophy. If 00:09:01.830 --> 00:09:04.370 anyone remembers one thing about Heidegger, it's 00:09:04.370 --> 00:09:06.450 usually the hammer. The famous hammer analysis. 00:09:06.730 --> 00:09:09.389 It's brilliant because it grounds all this high 00:09:09.389 --> 00:09:12.049 -flying talk in sweat and wood. So walk us through 00:09:12.049 --> 00:09:14.169 it. How does a hammer explain the meaning of 00:09:14.169 --> 00:09:17.769 existence? Okay. Imagine you are a carpenter. 00:09:17.850 --> 00:09:19.750 You're in your workshop. You're building a table. 00:09:20.070 --> 00:09:22.570 You reach out, grab a hammer, and start driving 00:09:22.570 --> 00:09:25.909 in a nail. In that specific moment of action, 00:09:26.090 --> 00:09:29.350 what is your relationship to the hammer? I'm 00:09:29.350 --> 00:09:30.750 not really thinking about it. I'm thinking about 00:09:30.750 --> 00:09:33.269 the nail or the table. The hammer is just... 00:09:33.799 --> 00:09:35.960 An extension of my arm. It's not even a thing. 00:09:36.100 --> 00:09:38.580 Exactly. It's transparent. It withdraws from 00:09:38.580 --> 00:09:41.659 your view. It is, in Heidegger's terms, zuhanden. 00:09:41.700 --> 00:09:44.519 Ready to hand. It is defined by its usefulness. 00:09:44.679 --> 00:09:48.600 It's in order to. You don't stare at its properties, 00:09:48.820 --> 00:09:50.980 its weight, its color, its material composition. 00:09:51.279 --> 00:09:54.139 You use it. You are absorbed in the task. It's 00:09:54.139 --> 00:09:56.659 invisible because it works. Right. And Heidegger 00:09:56.659 --> 00:09:59.759 argues that this. This absorbed practical coping 00:09:59.759 --> 00:10:02.580 is our primary way of being. We aren't scientists 00:10:02.580 --> 00:10:04.899 staring at the world. We are agents doing things 00:10:04.899 --> 00:10:07.419 in the world. But what happens if the hammer 00:10:07.419 --> 00:10:09.799 breaks? The head flies off. Yeah. Or the handle 00:10:09.799 --> 00:10:13.320 snaps. Snap. Now suddenly the transparency is 00:10:13.320 --> 00:10:15.340 gone. You stop. You look at the handle in your 00:10:15.340 --> 00:10:18.139 hand and the metal head on the floor. Now for 00:10:18.139 --> 00:10:20.879 the first time you see the hammer. Right. Now 00:10:20.879 --> 00:10:22.850 I'm looking at it, not through it. You see it 00:10:22.850 --> 00:10:25.429 as a wooden object with a specific weight and 00:10:25.429 --> 00:10:28.669 mass. You might analyze why it broke. It stops 00:10:28.669 --> 00:10:30.710 being a tool and becomes a thing. It becomes 00:10:30.710 --> 00:10:33.889 an object of study. Yes. It goes from ready to 00:10:33.889 --> 00:10:37.450 hand, zuhenden, to present at hand, vorhenden. 00:10:37.610 --> 00:10:40.210 It becomes an object of theoretical study, something 00:10:40.210 --> 00:10:43.090 with properties. So the scientific view looking 00:10:43.090 --> 00:10:46.509 at things as cold, static objects only happens 00:10:46.509 --> 00:10:49.190 when things go wrong. Or when we're detached. 00:10:49.490 --> 00:10:51.350 Or when we step back and intentionally detach 00:10:51.350 --> 00:10:53.649 ourselves like a scientist does. But Heidegger's 00:10:53.649 --> 00:10:56.049 point is that Western philosophy, since Plato, 00:10:56.210 --> 00:10:58.789 has assumed that the present at hand view, the 00:10:58.789 --> 00:11:01.710 scientific view, is the real reality and our 00:11:01.710 --> 00:11:05.029 everyday use is just secondary or sloppy. Heidegger 00:11:05.029 --> 00:11:09.750 flips it. He says, no, our everyday messy involved 00:11:09.750 --> 00:11:13.139 engagement is the primary reality. The scientific 00:11:13.139 --> 00:11:16.320 view is a derivative, a more abstract way of 00:11:16.320 --> 00:11:18.299 looking at things that only emerges when our 00:11:18.299 --> 00:11:21.220 practical flow is interrupted. We know the world 00:11:21.220 --> 00:11:24.320 by using it, not by staring at it. That's actually 00:11:24.320 --> 00:11:27.500 a huge shift. It feels humbler. It puts philosophy 00:11:27.500 --> 00:11:29.860 back in the workshop in the kitchen, not just 00:11:29.860 --> 00:11:32.720 the ivory tower. It says that the carpenter knows 00:11:32.720 --> 00:11:34.720 the hammer better than the physicist who could 00:11:34.720 --> 00:11:37.120 tell you its atomic structure. In a fundamental 00:11:37.120 --> 00:11:40.200 way, yes. The carpenter knows it's in order to... 00:11:40.480 --> 00:11:42.799 The physicist knows its properties. Heidegger 00:11:42.799 --> 00:11:45.980 privileges the in order to. This also redefines 00:11:45.980 --> 00:11:48.600 what knowing is. It isn't just data processing. 00:11:48.840 --> 00:11:52.080 Knowing is know -how. It's familiarity. Like 00:11:52.080 --> 00:11:54.419 driving a car. I don't think about the physics 00:11:54.419 --> 00:11:56.980 of internal combustion. I just drive. The car 00:11:56.980 --> 00:11:59.320 is ready to hand. But if it breaks down... It 00:11:59.320 --> 00:12:01.220 becomes very present at hand. Suddenly you're 00:12:01.220 --> 00:12:03.120 looking at this lump of metal and thinking about 00:12:03.120 --> 00:12:05.159 spark plugs and engine oil. You know your house 00:12:05.159 --> 00:12:07.039 not because you've memorized the blueprints, 00:12:07.120 --> 00:12:08.759 but because you can walk to the bathroom in the 00:12:08.759 --> 00:12:11.230 dark without stubbing your toe. That is Dasein. 00:12:11.409 --> 00:12:13.549 That's a perfect example of it. That's being 00:12:13.549 --> 00:12:15.610 in the world. I love that distinction. It feels 00:12:15.610 --> 00:12:18.509 very intuitive. So if we are these beings who 00:12:18.509 --> 00:12:20.889 are absorbed in the world, dealing with tools 00:12:20.889 --> 00:12:24.350 and tasks, how are we structured? Because Heidegger 00:12:24.350 --> 00:12:27.029 doesn't just stop at we use hammers. He builds 00:12:27.029 --> 00:12:29.710 a whole anatomy of the soul, or at least the 00:12:29.710 --> 00:12:32.409 self. Yes, this is division two of the book. 00:12:32.549 --> 00:12:35.889 This is where he gets into what we now call existentialism, 00:12:35.889 --> 00:12:37.950 even though he didn't like the term. He asks, 00:12:38.909 --> 00:12:41.629 If we aren't just biological machines, what are 00:12:41.629 --> 00:12:44.289 the fundamental structures, the existentialia 00:12:44.289 --> 00:12:46.990 that make Dasein tick? And he finds three big 00:12:46.990 --> 00:12:50.730 ones. First is understanding. But again, this 00:12:50.730 --> 00:12:52.570 is Heidegger, so it's not intellectual understanding. 00:12:52.870 --> 00:12:55.870 He means the ability to project into possibilities. 00:12:56.370 --> 00:12:59.070 What does that mean? To Dasein, a chair isn't 00:12:59.070 --> 00:13:01.370 a collection of atoms. It's a possibility for 00:13:01.370 --> 00:13:04.460 sitting. A road is a possibility for travel. 00:13:04.679 --> 00:13:08.179 A door is a possibility for entering or exiting. 00:13:08.460 --> 00:13:11.000 We are constantly seeing the world in terms of 00:13:11.000 --> 00:13:12.899 what we can do. We're throwing ourselves into 00:13:12.899 --> 00:13:15.240 the future. We are always ahead of ourselves. 00:13:15.600 --> 00:13:19.080 We are possibility machines. We are defined not 00:13:19.080 --> 00:13:21.519 by what we are at this exact moment, but by what 00:13:21.519 --> 00:13:25.240 we can be. Yes, that's the core of his existentialism. 00:13:25.440 --> 00:13:28.899 The second structure is attunement or moods, 00:13:28.899 --> 00:13:31.679 stimming. Now, usually when people talk about 00:13:31.679 --> 00:13:34.259 moods, they dismiss them. Oh, I'm just cranky 00:13:34.259 --> 00:13:36.940 today. Ignore me. Or I'm being irrational. We 00:13:36.940 --> 00:13:39.039 treat them like clouds passing over the sun of 00:13:39.039 --> 00:13:41.340 our real rational mind. Heidegger says that's 00:13:41.340 --> 00:13:44.460 a profound mistake. You are never not in a mood. 00:13:44.659 --> 00:13:48.159 Even being calm or neutral is a mood. And moods 00:13:48.159 --> 00:13:50.519 aren't just internal weather. They are how the 00:13:50.519 --> 00:13:52.940 world is disclosed to us. They are fundamental 00:13:52.940 --> 00:13:55.679 ways of knowing. How so? Give me an example. 00:13:55.940 --> 00:13:58.269 Think about when you are deeply anxious. How 00:13:58.269 --> 00:14:01.289 does the world look? It looks hostile or strange. 00:14:01.590 --> 00:14:03.870 A ringing phone feels like a threat. Every sharp 00:14:03.870 --> 00:14:07.070 corner looks dangerous. The world feels alien. 00:14:07.330 --> 00:14:09.610 And if you were in deep love? Everything glows. 00:14:09.769 --> 00:14:11.509 The annoyance of traffic doesn't matter. The 00:14:11.509 --> 00:14:13.590 city sounds like music. It's like wearing rose 00:14:13.590 --> 00:14:16.610 -colored glasses, but more than that. The world 00:14:16.610 --> 00:14:19.629 itself seems to have changed. Exactly. The mood 00:14:19.629 --> 00:14:22.090 isn't paint you put on the world. It's the light 00:14:22.090 --> 00:14:24.269 you see the world in. You can't see the world 00:14:24.269 --> 00:14:26.740 without a mood. Moods disclose what matters. 00:14:26.940 --> 00:14:29.440 Think of a do not disturb sign on a hotel door. 00:14:29.720 --> 00:14:32.299 A mood hangs a sign on the world telling it how 00:14:32.299 --> 00:14:34.679 to appear to you. And this connects to another 00:14:34.679 --> 00:14:37.919 big Heidegger word, right? This feeling of being 00:14:37.919 --> 00:14:41.100 subject to moods we don't choose. We are thrown. 00:14:41.480 --> 00:14:45.399 Yes, geworfenheit, thrownness. We don't choose 00:14:45.399 --> 00:14:48.149 to be born. We don't choose our parents, our 00:14:48.149 --> 00:14:50.190 time period, our native language, our body type. 00:14:50.330 --> 00:14:52.850 We are thrown into this movie halfway through, 00:14:52.950 --> 00:14:54.830 and we have to figure out the plot while we're 00:14:54.830 --> 00:14:57.769 acting in it. That is the tragedy and the beauty 00:14:57.769 --> 00:15:00.350 of Dasein. And this leads to the third feature, 00:15:00.570 --> 00:15:04.149 discourse or language. We articulate this world 00:15:04.149 --> 00:15:06.090 we are thrown into. We talk about it. Right. 00:15:06.330 --> 00:15:08.350 Language is how we make sense of our understanding 00:15:08.350 --> 00:15:10.509 and our moods. But all of this, understanding, 00:15:10.750 --> 00:15:13.450 mood, discourse, is held together by one superstructure. 00:15:13.590 --> 00:15:15.909 He says it's the fundamental constitution of 00:15:15.909 --> 00:15:20.450 Dasein. Care. Sorge. Sorge. Care. It sounds nice 00:15:20.450 --> 00:15:22.889 and gentle, like, I care about you. But he means 00:15:22.889 --> 00:15:24.950 it more structurally, right? It's not an emotion. 00:15:25.450 --> 00:15:27.809 Exactly. It's not a feeling. It's the architecture 00:15:27.809 --> 00:15:30.769 of our being. He means that to be Dasein is to 00:15:30.769 --> 00:15:32.909 be concerned. A rock doesn't care that it's a 00:15:32.909 --> 00:15:35.210 rock. A table doesn't worry about tomorrow. But 00:15:35.210 --> 00:15:37.850 Dasein is a being for whom its own being is an 00:15:37.850 --> 00:15:40.230 issue. We care about our existence. We are anxious 00:15:40.230 --> 00:15:42.769 about it. We plan for it. We regret it. To be 00:15:42.769 --> 00:15:45.559 human is to care. So we are thrown into this 00:15:45.559 --> 00:15:47.519 world, projecting ourselves into the future, 00:15:47.639 --> 00:15:50.580 caring about what happens. But we aren't alone. 00:15:51.019 --> 00:15:54.080 We aren't doing this in a vacuum. And this brings 00:15:54.080 --> 00:15:56.179 us to the part of Heidegger that hits the hardest 00:15:56.179 --> 00:15:59.120 in the age of social media. The social self. 00:15:59.539 --> 00:16:02.519 The they. Das Man. Oh, this is the most blistering 00:16:02.519 --> 00:16:04.159 critique in the book. It's absolutely savage. 00:16:04.480 --> 00:16:07.019 Heidegger asks, who are you, really? And his 00:16:07.019 --> 00:16:09.480 answer is, most of the time, you aren't you at 00:16:09.480 --> 00:16:13.580 all. You are Das Man. The one. or the they, or 00:16:13.580 --> 00:16:15.600 some people translate it as the anyone. It's 00:16:15.600 --> 00:16:17.799 that invisible authority we refer to when we 00:16:17.799 --> 00:16:19.899 say, well, one doesn't do that, or they say kale 00:16:19.899 --> 00:16:22.899 is good for you. Who is they? Nobody. Everybody. 00:16:23.019 --> 00:16:24.820 It's the phantom consensus, the voice of the 00:16:24.820 --> 00:16:27.940 average. Exactly. It's the average, the herd. 00:16:28.460 --> 00:16:30.399 Heidegger says that because we are social beings, 00:16:30.639 --> 00:16:32.820 our default setting is to drift along with the 00:16:32.820 --> 00:16:35.080 crowd. He has this savage quote. We take pleasure 00:16:35.080 --> 00:16:37.480 and enjoy ourselves as they take pleasure. We 00:16:37.480 --> 00:16:40.659 read, see, and judge literature and art as they 00:16:40.659 --> 00:16:43.159 see and judge. We find shocking what they find 00:16:43.159 --> 00:16:45.340 shocking. That part always gets me. Even our 00:16:45.340 --> 00:16:47.899 outrage is scripted. It's the dictatorship of 00:16:47.899 --> 00:16:50.860 the norm. It is a dictatorship. And the seductive 00:16:50.860 --> 00:16:53.120 thing about the they is that it relieves us of 00:16:53.120 --> 00:16:55.360 the burden of choice. Right. It makes life easy. 00:16:55.480 --> 00:16:57.720 So easy. If you just do what everyone else does, 00:16:57.840 --> 00:16:59.759 go to the right college, get the stable job, 00:17:00.019 --> 00:17:02.679 buy the gray sectional sofa, watch the popular 00:17:02.679 --> 00:17:04.700 Netflix show, you don't have to take responsibility 00:17:04.700 --> 00:17:07.180 for your own existence. You can just float along. 00:17:07.599 --> 00:17:10.359 Heiger calls this fallenness. It's inauthentic 00:17:10.359 --> 00:17:13.819 existence. Inauthenticity. So most of us are 00:17:13.819 --> 00:17:16.730 walking around as they selves. just copying the 00:17:16.730 --> 00:17:19.710 script written by an anonymous public. But Heidegger 00:17:19.710 --> 00:17:22.049 thinks we can be authentic, right? He offers 00:17:22.049 --> 00:17:24.990 a way out. What does authenticity look like for 00:17:24.990 --> 00:17:27.910 him? Authenticity, or eigenlichkeit, literally 00:17:27.910 --> 00:17:31.470 means ownedness, taking hold of your own life. 00:17:31.970 --> 00:17:34.289 But the path to get there is not fun. You don't 00:17:34.289 --> 00:17:36.109 get there by going on a retreat or meditating 00:17:36.109 --> 00:17:39.680 on a beach. No. You get there through... Anxiety. 00:17:39.759 --> 00:17:42.859 Angst. Angst. And he distinguishes this from 00:17:42.859 --> 00:17:45.200 fear. Fear is always about something specific. 00:17:45.339 --> 00:17:47.160 I'm afraid of a spider. I'm afraid of losing 00:17:47.160 --> 00:17:50.359 my job. I'm afraid of that dark alley. Anxiety 00:17:50.359 --> 00:17:53.859 is different. Anxiety is about nothing. Nothing 00:17:53.859 --> 00:17:55.559 in particular. Right. It's that feeling when 00:17:55.559 --> 00:17:58.319 the world suddenly loses its significance. The 00:17:58.319 --> 00:18:01.099 normal ready to hand world of tools and tasks 00:18:01.099 --> 00:18:03.500 just. falls away the they stops making sense 00:18:03.500 --> 00:18:05.960 the things you usually do seem meaningless you 00:18:05.960 --> 00:18:08.500 feel uncanny unheimlich literally not at home 00:18:08.500 --> 00:18:11.099 anxiety strips away the comfort of the herd and 00:18:11.099 --> 00:18:13.299 leaves you standing alone face to face with the 00:18:13.299 --> 00:18:15.319 sheer strangeness of your own existence that 00:18:15.319 --> 00:18:17.299 sounds terrifying why would we want that yeah 00:18:17.299 --> 00:18:19.400 because only when you are stripped of the illusions 00:18:19.400 --> 00:18:22.240 of the they can you choose your own life anxiety 00:18:22.240 --> 00:18:25.339 individualizes you it forces you to ask what 00:18:25.339 --> 00:18:27.240 am i going to do with my life now that the public 00:18:27.240 --> 00:18:30.220 script is gone And the ultimate clarifier for 00:18:30.220 --> 00:18:32.380 this, the thing that makes anxiety truly hit 00:18:32.380 --> 00:18:35.519 home is death. Being towards death. Exactly. 00:18:35.700 --> 00:18:38.900 Death is the one possibility that is non -transferable. 00:18:39.279 --> 00:18:41.900 No one can die for you. The they can't save you 00:18:41.900 --> 00:18:44.079 from it. The public talks about death as something 00:18:44.079 --> 00:18:46.220 that happens to other people, an event we'll 00:18:46.220 --> 00:18:48.880 all get to eventually. But Heidegger says you 00:18:48.880 --> 00:18:51.680 have to confront it as your own most possibility. 00:18:51.900 --> 00:18:55.180 When you truly confront your own finitude, not 00:18:55.180 --> 00:18:57.500 just intellectually knowing you'll die, but feeling 00:18:57.500 --> 00:19:00.460 the limitedness of your time, that shatters the 00:19:00.460 --> 00:19:03.079 triviality of everyday life. It frees you to 00:19:03.079 --> 00:19:05.059 live authentically, to make choices that actually 00:19:05.059 --> 00:19:07.460 matter to you. So death is the ultimate life 00:19:07.460 --> 00:19:11.109 coach. In a very dark German way, yes. It's the 00:19:11.109 --> 00:19:12.910 wake -up call that pulls you out of the slumber 00:19:12.910 --> 00:19:16.329 of the they. Okay, so up to this point, Heidegger 00:19:16.329 --> 00:19:18.990 sounds like this profound existential guide. 00:19:19.250 --> 00:19:21.769 He's telling us to wake up, stop following the 00:19:21.769 --> 00:19:24.069 herd, face our mortality, and live our own lives. 00:19:24.190 --> 00:19:27.250 It's powerful stuff. It is. It's heroic. It inspired 00:19:27.250 --> 00:19:30.400 a generation. But... We have to turn the page. 00:19:30.619 --> 00:19:32.500 Because while he was writing about authenticity 00:19:32.500 --> 00:19:34.960 and escaping the herd, history was moving in 00:19:34.960 --> 00:19:37.420 a very dark direction. And Heidegger didn't just 00:19:37.420 --> 00:19:39.400 get swept up in it. He stepped right into the 00:19:39.400 --> 00:19:41.720 front row. He joined a different kind of herd. 00:19:41.920 --> 00:19:44.660 This brings us to Section 3, the dark chapter. 00:19:45.339 --> 00:19:47.599 Heidegger and Nazism. And we have to be very 00:19:47.599 --> 00:19:49.440 precise here with the facts and the timeline. 00:19:49.779 --> 00:19:53.140 Laid out for us. Hitler comes to power in January 00:19:53.140 --> 00:19:57.150 1933. Where's Heidegger? What is he doing? Heidegger 00:19:57.150 --> 00:19:59.309 is a full professor at the University of Freiburg. 00:19:59.390 --> 00:20:02.970 He's a star. In April 1933, just a few months 00:20:02.970 --> 00:20:05.490 after Hitler becomes chancellor, Heidegger is 00:20:05.490 --> 00:20:07.809 elected rector of the university, basically the 00:20:07.809 --> 00:20:09.849 president of the university. And he joins the 00:20:09.849 --> 00:20:13.269 party. Yes. On May 1st, 1933, he officially joins 00:20:13.269 --> 00:20:15.130 the Nazi party. And this wasn't just a paperwork 00:20:15.130 --> 00:20:17.710 thing. He gave an inaugural address, right? The 00:20:17.710 --> 00:20:20.470 rectorate's raid. Yes. The self -assertion of 00:20:20.470 --> 00:20:22.849 the German university. It's a chilling speech 00:20:22.849 --> 00:20:25.809 to read today. He delivered it in a hall decorated 00:20:25.809 --> 00:20:29.029 with swastikas. He spoke about the self -assertion 00:20:29.029 --> 00:20:31.369 of the university, but he tied it directly to 00:20:31.369 --> 00:20:34.730 the German Revolution. He urged students to service 00:20:34.730 --> 00:20:37.130 labor service, military service, and knowledge 00:20:37.130 --> 00:20:39.789 service, all aligned with the fate of the nation. 00:20:40.029 --> 00:20:42.289 He was trying to align the university with the 00:20:42.289 --> 00:20:44.309 Fuhrer principle. He wanted to be the spiritual 00:20:44.309 --> 00:20:46.930 leader of the university in the Nazi state. He 00:20:46.930 --> 00:20:49.430 saw a greatness in the movement. We know this 00:20:49.430 --> 00:20:51.529 from his lectures. And we have sources saying 00:20:51.529 --> 00:20:54.529 he ended lectures with Heil Hitler. In November 00:20:54.529 --> 00:20:57.849 1933, he signed a vow of allegiance to Hitler 00:20:57.849 --> 00:21:00.450 and the National Socialist State. But it's not 00:21:00.450 --> 00:21:03.190 just the public speeches. It's the personal betrayals. 00:21:03.230 --> 00:21:05.710 We have to talk about Edmund Husserl. His mentor. 00:21:06.269 --> 00:21:09.329 The man who championed Heidegger's career. The 00:21:09.329 --> 00:21:12.450 man to whom being and time was dedicated. Husserl 00:21:12.450 --> 00:21:15.650 was Jewish. Yes. Husserl had retired, but he 00:21:15.650 --> 00:21:17.789 was still an emeritus professor with library 00:21:17.789 --> 00:21:21.750 privileges. In April 1933, under the new Nazi 00:21:21.750 --> 00:21:24.450 laws, Jewish government employees were suspended. 00:21:25.190 --> 00:21:28.109 Now, formally, the order to suspend Husserl came 00:21:28.109 --> 00:21:30.890 from the state, not Heidegger personally. But 00:21:30.890 --> 00:21:34.150 Heidegger, as rector, signed the order forbidding 00:21:34.150 --> 00:21:36.410 Husserl from using the university library. He 00:21:36.410 --> 00:21:38.250 locked his own mentor out of the library, the 00:21:38.250 --> 00:21:40.269 man who made his career possible. Effectively. 00:21:40.289 --> 00:21:42.509 And more than that, he broke off all contact. 00:21:42.940 --> 00:21:45.880 When Husserl died in 1938, Heidegger didn't attend 00:21:45.880 --> 00:21:48.599 the funeral. He later apologized to Husserl's 00:21:48.599 --> 00:21:51.039 widow, but the damage was done. And in 1941, 00:21:51.180 --> 00:21:53.599 under pressure from his publisher, Heidegger 00:21:53.599 --> 00:21:55.839 removed the dedication to Husserl from new editions 00:21:55.839 --> 00:21:58.740 of Being and Time. That is cold. It's professional 00:21:58.740 --> 00:22:01.380 and personal erasure. But Heidegger stepped down 00:22:01.380 --> 00:22:05.460 as rector after only a year, in 1934. Why? Did 00:22:05.460 --> 00:22:07.740 he have a change of heart? Did he see the error 00:22:07.740 --> 00:22:10.759 of his ways? This is where it gets murky. Heidegger's 00:22:10.759 --> 00:22:13.220 defenders, and Heidegger himself later, claimed 00:22:13.220 --> 00:22:15.039 he resigned because he wouldn't compromise enough 00:22:15.039 --> 00:22:17.339 with the Nazi officials. Basically, he claimed 00:22:17.339 --> 00:22:19.039 he was trying to protect the university from 00:22:19.039 --> 00:22:21.259 the worst of the politicization. He was trying 00:22:21.259 --> 00:22:24.099 to be a bulwark from within. That was his story. 00:22:24.339 --> 00:22:26.880 But historians view it differently. They suggest 00:22:26.880 --> 00:22:29.180 he resigned out of administrative frustration, 00:22:29.619 --> 00:22:32.700 he wasn't a good bureaucrat, and frankly, some 00:22:32.700 --> 00:22:34.559 of the hardline Nazis thought his philosophy 00:22:34.559 --> 00:22:37.079 was too abstract and weird. He wanted to be the 00:22:37.079 --> 00:22:39.279 philosopher king of the Nazi party, but they 00:22:39.279 --> 00:22:42.380 preferred simpler biological racism. His vision 00:22:42.380 --> 00:22:45.400 of a spiritual national socialism lost out to 00:22:45.400 --> 00:22:47.500 the thuggery. But he stayed in the party until 00:22:47.500 --> 00:22:49.420 the end of the war. He did. He never turned in 00:22:49.420 --> 00:22:52.680 his card. He paid his dues until 1945. Now, for 00:22:52.680 --> 00:22:56.319 a long time, there was this debate. Was his Nazism 00:22:56.319 --> 00:22:59.599 just a political error, a stupendously bad judgment 00:22:59.599 --> 00:23:02.480 call by a man who was naive about politics? Or 00:23:02.480 --> 00:23:05.069 was it rooted in his philosophy? And this brings 00:23:05.069 --> 00:23:06.950 us to the Black Notebooks. These were published 00:23:06.950 --> 00:23:09.529 only recently, starting in 2014. What did we 00:23:09.529 --> 00:23:11.829 find in there? The Black Notebooks were the smoking 00:23:11.829 --> 00:23:14.210 gun for many scholars. There's private philosophical 00:23:14.210 --> 00:23:17.289 journals. Before 2014, defenders could argue, 00:23:17.369 --> 00:23:19.630 well, his philosophy is about being. It has nothing 00:23:19.630 --> 00:23:22.450 to do with biological racism. You can't find 00:23:22.450 --> 00:23:25.329 anti -Semitism in being and time. But in these 00:23:25.329 --> 00:23:27.670 private journals, Heidegger writes explicitly 00:23:27.670 --> 00:23:30.609 about world Judaism. And what does he say? He 00:23:30.609 --> 00:23:32.650 connects it directly to his philosophical critique 00:23:32.650 --> 00:23:35.150 of modernity. He talks about Judaism as being 00:23:35.150 --> 00:23:38.430 ungraspable and rootless. He claims that Jewish 00:23:38.430 --> 00:23:41.130 people have a talent for calculation, but lack 00:23:41.130 --> 00:23:44.710 a connection to the soil or to being. He suggests 00:23:44.710 --> 00:23:47.089 that world Judaism is a primary force of the 00:23:47.089 --> 00:23:49.589 modern technological world that uproots everything. 00:23:49.930 --> 00:23:52.750 So he's tying his philosophical hatred of calculation 00:23:52.750 --> 00:23:56.230 and modernity directly to classic anti -Semitic 00:23:56.230 --> 00:23:58.630 tropes. Exactly. It's in just as anti -Semitism 00:23:58.630 --> 00:24:01.230 wasn't just political opportunism. It was metaphysical. 00:24:01.430 --> 00:24:04.470 He saw Jewish as the philosophical embodiment 00:24:04.470 --> 00:24:06.730 of the modern, technological, rootless world 00:24:06.730 --> 00:24:09.950 he hated. It's deeply disturbing because it weaves 00:24:09.950 --> 00:24:12.269 the hate right into his core concepts. It's not 00:24:12.269 --> 00:24:15.289 a bug. It's a feature. And after the war, when 00:24:15.289 --> 00:24:17.849 the full horror of the Holocaust was revealed 00:24:17.849 --> 00:24:20.910 to the world, what did he say? Did he fall to 00:24:20.910 --> 00:24:24.170 his knees and beg for forgiveness? Silence. Almost 00:24:24.170 --> 00:24:26.730 total silence. He never fully apologized for 00:24:26.730 --> 00:24:29.349 the Holocaust. He never fully apologized for 00:24:29.349 --> 00:24:31.329 his involvement. In fact, he said something in 00:24:31.329 --> 00:24:34.529 a 1949 lecture that is, well, it's infamous. 00:24:34.769 --> 00:24:37.259 Let's hear it. He was giving a lecture on technology 00:24:37.259 --> 00:24:40.319 and how it dehumanizes the world, he said. Agriculture 00:24:40.319 --> 00:24:43.940 is now a motorized food industry. The same thing 00:24:43.940 --> 00:24:46.079 in its essence as the production of corpses in 00:24:46.079 --> 00:24:48.000 the gas chambers and the extermination camps. 00:24:48.119 --> 00:24:50.200 The same thing as blockades and the reduction 00:24:50.200 --> 00:24:52.559 of countries to famine. The same thing as the 00:24:52.559 --> 00:24:55.720 manufacture of hydrogen bombs. Now, he equated 00:24:55.720 --> 00:24:57.799 factory farming with the gas chambers. In its 00:24:57.799 --> 00:25:00.789 essence. He viewed them all as examples of technology 00:25:00.789 --> 00:25:03.630 gone wrong, of treating beings as mere material 00:25:03.630 --> 00:25:06.490 to be processed. While philosophically you can 00:25:06.490 --> 00:25:08.650 trace his logic about the essence of technological 00:25:08.650 --> 00:25:11.269 thinking, morally it's a monstrous comparison. 00:25:11.650 --> 00:25:14.630 It flattens the specific horror of the genocide 00:25:14.630 --> 00:25:16.930 into just another technological problem. It's 00:25:16.930 --> 00:25:20.470 an act of profound moral evasion. Yes. And in 00:25:20.470 --> 00:25:22.650 his famous final interview with Der Spiegel, 00:25:22.769 --> 00:25:25.869 recorded in 1966 but published only after his 00:25:25.869 --> 00:25:28.910 death, he still defended his rectorship. He never 00:25:28.910 --> 00:25:31.190 uttered a word of apology. He just said, only 00:25:31.190 --> 00:25:34.569 a God can save us. That is hard to stomach. It 00:25:34.569 --> 00:25:36.470 really highlights the central conflict we started 00:25:36.470 --> 00:25:39.089 with. The man who thought so deeply about care 00:25:39.089 --> 00:25:41.710 and authenticity seemed to have a massive blind 00:25:41.710 --> 00:25:44.309 spot when it came to actual human suffering on 00:25:44.309 --> 00:25:47.269 a mass scale. That is the tragedy of Martin Heidegger. 00:25:47.640 --> 00:25:50.440 A genius of the abstract, a moral failure in 00:25:50.440 --> 00:25:52.880 the concrete. So after the war, he was banned 00:25:52.880 --> 00:25:54.880 from teaching for a while during the denazification 00:25:54.880 --> 00:25:58.460 process. He was classified as a follower, but 00:25:58.460 --> 00:26:00.880 he didn't stop thinking and his philosophy shifted. 00:26:01.019 --> 00:26:04.839 Scholars call this the turn or die care. Yes. 00:26:04.960 --> 00:26:07.539 In his later years, roughly from the 1940s on, 00:26:07.599 --> 00:26:09.859 his focus shifts. He stops talking so much about 00:26:09.859 --> 00:26:12.119 Dase and human existence and starts talking about 00:26:12.119 --> 00:26:14.240 the history of being itself. He becomes much 00:26:14.240 --> 00:26:17.299 more. mystical, poetic. Less about the human 00:26:17.299 --> 00:26:21.119 condition and more about something grander. Exactly. 00:26:21.220 --> 00:26:24.000 He claimed it wasn't a reversal, but a change 00:26:24.000 --> 00:26:27.400 in orientation. In Being and Time, he approached 00:26:27.400 --> 00:26:30.819 the question of being through Dasein. In his 00:26:30.819 --> 00:26:33.279 later work, he tries to think about being itself 00:26:33.279 --> 00:26:35.960 and how it has revealed itself differently throughout 00:26:35.960 --> 00:26:38.619 history. And a big part of this later work is 00:26:38.619 --> 00:26:41.619 about technology. And honestly, this part feels 00:26:41.619 --> 00:26:44.400 more relevant today than ever. We touched on 00:26:44.400 --> 00:26:46.720 it with the gas chamber quote. But what is his 00:26:46.720 --> 00:26:49.680 actual critique of technology? Because he's not 00:26:49.680 --> 00:26:52.240 just a Luddite smashing machines, is he? No, 00:26:52.299 --> 00:26:53.720 not at all. That's a common misunderstanding. 00:26:54.220 --> 00:26:56.599 He says technology is not just a tool. We usually 00:26:56.599 --> 00:26:58.940 think a smartphone is a tool. It's neutral. I 00:26:58.940 --> 00:27:01.279 can use it for good or evil. Heidegger says no. 00:27:01.740 --> 00:27:03.859 Technology is a way of revealing the world. It's 00:27:03.859 --> 00:27:05.839 a pair of glasses we can't take off. It determines 00:27:05.839 --> 00:27:08.579 what shows up for us as real. And what kind of 00:27:08.579 --> 00:27:11.319 world does modern technology reveal? A world 00:27:11.319 --> 00:27:14.759 of standing reserve. Standing reserve. Right. 00:27:15.000 --> 00:27:17.400 It means we look at the world only as a resource 00:27:17.400 --> 00:27:20.279 to be stored, calculated, and exploited on demand. 00:27:20.660 --> 00:27:23.500 A forest is no longer a forest. It is timber 00:27:23.500 --> 00:27:26.559 inventory. A river is no longer a river. It is 00:27:26.559 --> 00:27:29.839 a hydroelectric power source. A mountain is no 00:27:29.839 --> 00:27:32.019 longer a mountain. It's a pile of coal to be 00:27:32.019 --> 00:27:35.170 mined. And people. That's the ultimate danger. 00:27:35.509 --> 00:27:38.250 Eventually, humans just become human resources. 00:27:38.650 --> 00:27:41.690 We become standing reserve to be optimized and 00:27:41.690 --> 00:27:44.589 used. This is what he calls Gestell or in framing. 00:27:45.009 --> 00:27:47.349 We are trapped in a framework where everything, 00:27:47.509 --> 00:27:49.890 including ourselves, must be efficient, optimized 00:27:49.890 --> 00:27:52.990 and available for use. That sounds exactly like 00:27:52.990 --> 00:27:56.369 the 21st century. The gig economy. Self -optimization, 00:27:56.470 --> 00:27:58.970 tracking our sleep data, personal branding. We 00:27:58.970 --> 00:28:00.849 are turning ourselves into standing reserve for 00:28:00.849 --> 00:28:02.990 the market. Heidegger saw it coming. He believed 00:28:02.990 --> 00:28:05.069 this technological thinking flattens the world. 00:28:05.109 --> 00:28:07.190 It strips away mystery and meaning and replaces 00:28:07.190 --> 00:28:09.589 it with calculability. So what's the solution? 00:28:09.730 --> 00:28:11.670 If technology is turning us into batteries in 00:28:11.670 --> 00:28:15.250 the matrix, how do we escape? Well, only a god 00:28:15.250 --> 00:28:17.329 can save us, as he said in that interview. He 00:28:17.329 --> 00:28:19.789 was pretty pessimistic. But on a human level, 00:28:19.930 --> 00:28:23.109 he turns to art and specifically poetry. Poetry. 00:28:23.190 --> 00:28:25.970 After all this talk of technology and Nazism, 00:28:26.089 --> 00:28:29.819 the answer is poetry. For him, yes. He believed 00:28:29.819 --> 00:28:32.319 that poetic language, especially the work of 00:28:32.319 --> 00:28:34.680 the German poet Friedrich Hölderlin, could help 00:28:34.680 --> 00:28:38.079 us recover a sense of the holy, a non -technological 00:28:38.079 --> 00:28:40.700 way of revealing the world. He famously said, 00:28:40.779 --> 00:28:43.559 language is the house of being. Language is the 00:28:43.559 --> 00:28:45.940 house of being. I love that phrase, even if it 00:28:45.940 --> 00:28:48.619 is a bit cryptic. He means that language isn't 00:28:48.619 --> 00:28:51.019 just a tool for communication like pass the salt. 00:28:51.660 --> 00:28:54.880 Language discloses the world. The kind of language 00:28:54.880 --> 00:28:57.079 we use determines the kind of world we live in. 00:28:57.099 --> 00:28:59.529 In our technological age, our language has become 00:28:59.529 --> 00:29:01.910 technical, data -driven, reduced to information. 00:29:02.309 --> 00:29:05.210 He wants us to listen to the poets who use language 00:29:05.210 --> 00:29:07.690 to reveal truth and mystery, not just to transfer 00:29:07.690 --> 00:29:10.690 information. He has another famous line, language 00:29:10.690 --> 00:29:14.390 speaks, not man. We are participants in language, 00:29:14.490 --> 00:29:18.369 not its masters. It's a beautiful idea that we 00:29:18.369 --> 00:29:20.309 need to re -enchant the world through language. 00:29:20.529 --> 00:29:22.750 It's such a stark contrast to the brutality of 00:29:22.750 --> 00:29:25.109 his political history. It is. It's a philosophy 00:29:25.109 --> 00:29:28.349 of dwelling and letting be. Coming from a man 00:29:28.349 --> 00:29:31.170 who supported a regime of total domination and 00:29:31.170 --> 00:29:34.450 control, the contradiction is staggering. We 00:29:34.450 --> 00:29:36.309 can't wrap this up without looking at his personal 00:29:36.309 --> 00:29:39.549 life a bit more because it's just as messy as 00:29:39.549 --> 00:29:42.950 his politics. Specifically, Hannah Arndt. This 00:29:42.950 --> 00:29:44.730 is one of the most fascinating and troubling 00:29:44.730 --> 00:29:47.289 relationships in intellectual history. Hannah 00:29:47.289 --> 00:29:50.049 Arndt, a brilliant Jewish student, and Heidegger, 00:29:50.150 --> 00:29:52.930 her professor, they began an affair in 1925. 00:29:53.089 --> 00:29:56.210 He was 35, married with two sons. She was 19. 00:29:56.609 --> 00:29:59.029 And this wasn't just a fling. The letters show 00:29:59.029 --> 00:30:01.609 it was an intense intellectual and romantic bond. 00:30:02.009 --> 00:30:05.529 He was the great love of her life. It was. But 00:30:05.529 --> 00:30:07.380 they had to keep it secret. Then, obviously, 00:30:07.480 --> 00:30:10.019 the war comes. He joins the Nazi party, Arndt, 00:30:10.019 --> 00:30:12.460 being Jewish, flees Germany, is interned in a 00:30:12.460 --> 00:30:15.180 camp in France, escapes, and makes her way to 00:30:15.180 --> 00:30:17.180 America. She becomes one of the most important 00:30:17.180 --> 00:30:19.500 political theorists of the century, writing The 00:30:19.500 --> 00:30:21.940 Origins of Totalitarianism, a book about the 00:30:21.940 --> 00:30:24.279 very forces her former lover had allied himself 00:30:24.279 --> 00:30:27.180 with. And yet, after the war, she reconnects 00:30:27.180 --> 00:30:29.750 with him. She does. She visits him in Germany 00:30:29.750 --> 00:30:32.990 in 1950, and she actually becomes one of his 00:30:32.990 --> 00:30:35.450 defenders in the English -speaking world. She 00:30:35.450 --> 00:30:38.069 helped get his work translated and helped rehabilitate 00:30:38.069 --> 00:30:40.410 his reputation in America. She argued that he 00:30:40.410 --> 00:30:42.670 was a great thinker who made a personal error. 00:30:42.890 --> 00:30:45.490 She put error in quotes like a philosopher who 00:30:45.490 --> 00:30:47.470 fell into a well because he was staring at the 00:30:47.470 --> 00:30:50.700 stars. That is incredibly generous. Too generous. 00:30:50.880 --> 00:30:53.700 Many people think so. She once called him a potential 00:30:53.700 --> 00:30:56.420 murderer in a private letter regarding his treatment 00:30:56.420 --> 00:30:59.359 of Hustle, but she later softened. It speaks 00:30:59.359 --> 00:31:02.859 to his personal charisma. He had this magnetic, 00:31:02.940 --> 00:31:05.440 almost hypnotic effect on people, especially 00:31:05.440 --> 00:31:08.160 his students. He also had an open marriage, essentially. 00:31:08.380 --> 00:31:12.000 Yes. His wife, Elfrida, was a strong figure and 00:31:12.000 --> 00:31:14.259 an ardent Nazi herself, by the way. It was a 00:31:14.259 --> 00:31:16.140 complex marriage. In fact, Heidegger knew that 00:31:16.140 --> 00:31:18.119 he wasn't the biological father of one of their 00:31:18.119 --> 00:31:20.519 sons, Hermann, but he raised him as his own. 00:31:20.880 --> 00:31:23.220 And he had another long -term relationship with 00:31:23.220 --> 00:31:26.049 Elisabeth Blockmann, who was also Jewish. His 00:31:26.049 --> 00:31:29.029 personal life was a web of contradictions. Let's 00:31:29.029 --> 00:31:31.609 look at his legacy now. Despite the Nazism, despite 00:31:31.609 --> 00:31:34.690 the black notebooks, you can't walk into a philosophy 00:31:34.690 --> 00:31:37.410 department without tripping over Heidegger. Who 00:31:37.410 --> 00:31:39.660 did he influence? It would be easier to list 00:31:39.660 --> 00:31:42.279 who he didn't influence. In France, you have 00:31:42.279 --> 00:31:45.079 Jean -Paul Sartre, who basically built French 00:31:45.079 --> 00:31:47.779 existentialism on a reading of being and time, 00:31:47.880 --> 00:31:49.940 though Heidegger later said Sartre misunderstood 00:31:49.940 --> 00:31:53.099 him. Then you have Jacques Derrida, who used 00:31:53.099 --> 00:31:55.480 Heidegger's critique of Western philosophy to 00:31:55.480 --> 00:31:59.069 create deconstruction and beyond philosophy architecture 00:31:59.069 --> 00:32:02.069 christian norberg schultz used heidegger's ideas 00:32:02.069 --> 00:32:05.750 of dwelling to rethink modern architecture psychotherapy 00:32:05.750 --> 00:32:08.309 there's a whole field called day sun's analysis 00:32:08.309 --> 00:32:11.470 which is an existential form of therapy and surprisingly 00:32:11.470 --> 00:32:15.029 artificial intelligence wait ai how does the 00:32:15.029 --> 00:32:17.269 anti -technology guy who hung out in the cabin 00:32:17.269 --> 00:32:19.930 influence ai Through an American philosopher 00:32:19.930 --> 00:32:23.390 named Hubert Dreyfus at UC Berkeley. In the 60s 00:32:23.390 --> 00:32:25.990 and 70s, early AI researchers had this idea called 00:32:25.990 --> 00:32:28.230 good old -fashioned AI. They thought the mind 00:32:28.230 --> 00:32:30.589 was just a computer processing symbols. Give 00:32:30.589 --> 00:32:32.369 a computer a dictionary and a set of grammar 00:32:32.369 --> 00:32:34.410 rules and it can understand language. Right. 00:32:34.450 --> 00:32:37.230 The brain as hardware, the mind as software. 00:32:37.450 --> 00:32:41.049 Exactly. Dreyfus used Heidegger to say, no, that's 00:32:41.049 --> 00:32:44.369 completely wrong. Remember the hammer. We function 00:32:44.369 --> 00:32:46.869 by being in the world, having a body, having 00:32:46.869 --> 00:32:49.789 know -how. You can't program a computer to have 00:32:49.789 --> 00:32:51.930 common sense just by giving it facts and rules. 00:32:52.250 --> 00:32:55.670 It needs a world. It needs to be ready to hand. 00:32:56.049 --> 00:32:58.509 So Dreyfus's critique basically said you can't 00:32:58.509 --> 00:33:00.549 build a disembodied brain in a box and expect 00:33:00.549 --> 00:33:03.369 it to be intelligent. Precisely. And this critique 00:33:03.369 --> 00:33:05.849 was hugely influential. It actually changed the 00:33:05.849 --> 00:33:08.109 direction of AI research towards embodied robotics 00:33:08.109 --> 00:33:10.230 and machine learning that learns from context, 00:33:10.309 --> 00:33:12.710 not just rules, all thanks to a guy from the 00:33:12.710 --> 00:33:15.230 Black Forest. That is wild. And I know film buffs 00:33:15.230 --> 00:33:17.869 love him, too. Terrence Malick, the director 00:33:17.869 --> 00:33:20.029 of The Tree of Life and The Thin Red Line, he 00:33:20.029 --> 00:33:21.769 actually translated one of Heidegger's works 00:33:21.769 --> 00:33:24.349 as a student. His movies are visual meditations 00:33:24.349 --> 00:33:27.430 on being, nature, and our thrownness into the 00:33:27.430 --> 00:33:29.569 world. You can feel Heidegger in every shot. 00:33:29.809 --> 00:33:32.289 So here we are. We have unpacked the question 00:33:32.289 --> 00:33:34.569 of being, the hammer, the anxiety, the Nazis, 00:33:34.670 --> 00:33:37.450 the poetry, the technology. What is the final 00:33:37.450 --> 00:33:39.690 synthesis? How do we hold this fractured legacy? 00:33:40.049 --> 00:33:42.500 I don't think we resolve it. I think the lesson 00:33:42.500 --> 00:33:44.500 of Heidegger is that you have to sit with the 00:33:44.500 --> 00:33:46.740 fracture. You have to hold both things in your 00:33:46.740 --> 00:33:49.259 head at once. If you throw Heidegger in the trash 00:33:49.259 --> 00:33:52.140 because he was a Nazi, you lose the most powerful 00:33:52.140 --> 00:33:54.339 tools we have for understanding our technological 00:33:54.339 --> 00:33:57.839 age. But if you read him without the context 00:33:57.839 --> 00:34:00.059 of his politics, you're being naive and irresponsible. 00:34:00.700 --> 00:34:02.660 You have to read it with a warning label. A very 00:34:02.660 --> 00:34:06.640 large, flashing warning label. He teaches us 00:34:06.640 --> 00:34:08.500 that you can be the smartest person in the world, 00:34:08.519 --> 00:34:10.619 you can see deeper into the structure of reality 00:34:10.619 --> 00:34:13.659 than anyone else, and still be a complete moral 00:34:13.659 --> 00:34:16.900 failure. Intelligence is not a guardrail against 00:34:16.900 --> 00:34:20.800 evil. That is a sobering thought. Thinking alone 00:34:20.800 --> 00:34:23.739 isn't enough. You need heart. You need ethics. 00:34:23.980 --> 00:34:26.539 You need the things his philosophy in some ways 00:34:26.539 --> 00:34:28.900 forgot. Exactly. The human things. So here's 00:34:28.900 --> 00:34:30.420 the thought we want to leave you with today. 00:34:30.659 --> 00:34:33.300 We talked about in framing the idea that technology 00:34:33.300 --> 00:34:36.820 forces us to view the world and ourselves as 00:34:36.820 --> 00:34:39.920 data to be mined and resources to be used. Standing 00:34:39.920 --> 00:34:42.119 reserve. Right. Look at your phone. Look at your 00:34:42.119 --> 00:34:44.199 social media feed. Look at how you talk about 00:34:44.199 --> 00:34:47.010 yourself on LinkedIn. Personal brand, human capital, 00:34:47.150 --> 00:34:50.650 optimization, life hacks. Are we treating ourselves 00:34:50.650 --> 00:34:53.369 like standing reserve? Are we inframing our own 00:34:53.369 --> 00:34:56.650 lives? And more importantly, if Heidegger is 00:34:56.650 --> 00:35:00.469 right and language speaks us, what is the language 00:35:00.469 --> 00:35:03.809 of the algorithm doing to our souls? If our language 00:35:03.809 --> 00:35:07.489 is reduced to hashtags, 280 characters, search 00:35:07.489 --> 00:35:10.969 engine optimization, and binary code, can we 00:35:10.969 --> 00:35:13.400 even think anymore? Or are we just processing 00:35:13.400 --> 00:35:15.820 data? Are we still dessing being there or are 00:35:15.820 --> 00:35:18.119 we just users? That's the question. Thanks for 00:35:18.119 --> 00:35:19.940 diving deep with us. It was a heavy one, but 00:35:19.940 --> 00:35:21.480 I think it was worth it. Absolutely. See you 00:35:21.480 --> 00:35:21.800 next time.