Comments on: Heidegger’s Secular Fall

By: Jerome Madumelu

Jerome Madumelu — Thu, 15 Sep 2011 21:38:47 +0000

This is a wonderful analysis of the tension-filled chapter four of Heidegger’s Being and Time. The different lenses of interpretation brought to this chapter is indicative of the fact that Heidegger is a powerful writer who can generate functional ideas in others. The das Man and the Dasein, the they and the self, authenticity and in-authenticity of Dasein explained in the concepts of distantiality, averageness and levelling-down can be found in the real life of individuals in the real world.

By: Sean Pudmoe

Sean Pudmoe — Sun, 07 Mar 2010 18:26:37 +0000

Excellent paper. I think you really captured the essence of the text and explained it in a modernly relevant fashion.

By: Jacob Levin

Jacob Levin — Mon, 22 Feb 2010 17:02:23 +0000

Very well argued. The self-contradictory nature of BT on the issue of community is something that has been picked up by a number of post-liberal and communitarian interpreters of Heidegger. They often look back to Heidegger’s earlier writings as a place in which Heidegger leaves more room for the possibility of authentic community. In his Lectures on the Phenomenology of Religion (especially the part on the having-become of the Thessalonians), Heidegger seems to suggest that early Christians achieved some level of authenticity without escaping the being-with of their local community (though one should not overlook that this community was offering an alternate identity to the one offered by society at large). While this possibility remains vaguely present in BT (see the positive mode of solicitude in BT 159/122), Heidegger seems to have been somewhat seduced by the liberal valorization of the autonomous individual and forgotten his earlier insight into the inability to escape our own presuppositions (see James K. A. Smith’s essay “Against Christian Atheism”).

By: der mollocate

der mollocate — Sun, 21 Feb 2010 22:48:57 +0000

unless you can relate any of this to your own existence it means nothing. show people what it means to you in your own life through examples and then it becomes something other than an excuse to make a career. in what way does your being relate to what you have written.

By: the animal that therefore I blog…

the animal that therefore I blog… — Thu, 07 Jan 2010 01:09:40 +0000

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