G.A. Schrader: “The Structure of Emotion”

George A. Schrader attempts, in his article “The Structure of Emotion,” to use the theory of phenomenology to concretely define human emotion. He begins this definition through a short analysis of the words “feeling” and “emotion,” applying the Heideggarian concept of the structure of language to these two basic words so crucial to human existence. [...]

Read Full Post »

J. Wild: ‘Authentic Existence: A New Approach to “Value Theory”‘

In Wild’s essay ‘Authentic Existence: A New Approach to “Value Theory,”’ he attempts to expand upon efforts made by such thinkers as Kierkegaard, Heidegger, and Merleau-Ponty to designate the norming sense of particular experiences with ‘real,”genuine,’ and ‘authentic’ states. These terms and the states they apply to are observed by a newly emerging attitude towards [...]

Read Full Post »

S. Ahmed: ‘Orientations: Toward a Queer Phenomenology.’

Ahmed begins by questioning what it is to be oriented. Simply by existing in a space, we are oriented, that is to say we have an understanding of what we can see, where we are in relation to other things and where these things lead us. We are oriented around objects in a [...]

Read Full Post »

L. Ma and J. van Brakel: ‘Heidegger’s Comportment Toward East-West Dialogue’

Known as one of the most influential Western philosophers of the twentieth century, Martin Heidegger’s connection with Eastern thinking, both as he as influenced it and as it has influenced him, has long been an area of debate. In a very detailed and comprehensive article called Heidegger’s Comportment [...]

Read Full Post »

K. Deluca: ‘Thinking With Heidegger: Rethinking Environmental Theory and Practice’

Kevin Michael Deluca’s article on “Rethinking Environmental Theory and Practice” is self-evidently an excellent resource for anyone interested in environmentalism or at all concerned with ecological perception. In this essay, Deluca puts Heidegger’s writings on technology in the context of environmental political strategy in order to ask what it would mean to make Being-in-the-World [...]

Read Full Post »

M. Ermarth: “Heidegger on Americanism: Ruinanz and the End of Modernity”

Michael Ermarth conducts a close investigation of the use of the term “Americanism” and “Americanization” in Heidegger’s writings from the mid-1930’s to the late-1960’s. In order to address these terms, he first addresses Ruinanz, Heidegger’s concept of the ruination of the world and obscuring of Being by way of modernity and technological progress (the “unworlding” [...]

Read Full Post »

Letter on Humanism pt. 1

Class on 12th November… Today in class we began by a wrap-up of the What is Metaphysics lecture, and then moved on to a discussion about the first portion of the Letter on Humanism, on Being and Language. On the subject of What is Metaphysics, we began with the concept of mood, which Heidegger distinguishes [...]

Read Full Post »

The Essence of Truth

Class on October 24th…Today we opened with a final word on the concept of World in Heidegger, namely, that it is what is closest to us, yet most difficult to bring into view. This follows from the enormous breadth of the what the concept signifies. Our comportment toward it as a concept, or attempts to [...]

Read Full Post »

The Cartesian Meditations

Has anyone here read them? I don’t want to stray much from the texts at hand, but I’m wondering about Husserl’s articulation of the “thereness-for-me” in the Fifth Meditation. In Husserl’s account of other subjectivities, he seems to suggest that we can begin to talk about an ‘objective’ reality because there are certain [...]

Read Full Post »

Heidegger Podcast

Hubert Dreyfus is teaching a course at UC Berkeley on Heidegger this semester. The entire course is centered around Being and Time. If anyone is interested, the podcast is available here. Another member of the class mentioned it in a comment, but I figured it deserved its own post.

Read Full Post »