Martin Heidegger: biography, philosophy, works and phrases

Martin Heidegger (1889-1976) was a German philosopher and professor.

Heidegger's reflections helped to found existentialism and change the philosophical perspective.

Biography

Martin Heidegger was born in the small town of Messkirch in 1889.

At first he felt a vocation to be a priest and entered a Jesuit seminary. He studied theology and philosophy at the University of Freiburg.

However, on reading the writings of Calvin and Luther, he gives up religious life and marries in 1917.

He works as an assistant to Professor Edmund Husserl at the University of Marburg. Later, he would succeed him in the discipline of Philosophy at the University of Freiburg.

At this time, he wrote his main work “Being and Time” where he exposed his ideas about the existence of being.

This work would be fundamental to the foundations of existentialist philosophy.

With Hitler's rise to power in 1933, Heidegger joins the Nazi Party and this is his most contradicted action. Appointed dean of the University of Freiburg, however, he does not allow anti-Semitic propaganda at the faculty.

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For attitudes like these, his works are censored until 1944 and at the end of the war, he would repudiate Nazism.

Martin Heidegger died in 1976, in Brisgovia, Germany.

Main Ideas

For Heidegger, the main question of philosophy must be about the To be. In the past, philosophers did not inquire about the to be and yes about the loved, one thing.

Or, they sought to understand the human being based on the relationship with objects and with the environment he was in.

Heidegger asks about man, the only one capable of asking himself that question. So who is the man? Who is the being?

Dasein

For the German scholar, man is a “Dasein”.

The verb, of German origin, means “sein” – to be and “from” – there. In this way, man is a “being there” that he is in this world.

This is the big difference with the “Bents”, because the being “is” in the world.

Being able to be is the possibility of each “dasein” of being able to choose in each moment what it wants to be, to use its efforts in this world.

On the other hand, animals cannot choose. Example: a cat. You will always be looking for food and shelter until the end of your days.

Dasein, on the other hand, can choose, but must do so in the world in which they were played. Note that “dasein” did not choose to be in this world or in this time.

Therefore, the "dasein" must transform its existence into a project that will only end with death.

authentic existence

By understanding this proposition, "dasein" will be able to exercise an authentic existence. On the other hand, those who do not understand or do not accept the end of life will live an authentic existence and are called by Heidegger “Dasman”.

An inauthentic existence is one that renounces the possibility of choice, thought, action and lets someone else decide for themselves. This one becomes the mass, losing itself in the crowd.