Topics in Modern European Philosophy

Abstract

The subject matter of Heidegger’s Being and Time is human existence in a secular world (Dasein) after the death of God. Heidegger starts with our involvement with tools in everyday worlds of work (in the kitchen using a coffee machine) and play (in the gym wearing running shoes) and asks how the being of a human being (the “essence” of “existence”) is different from the being of the “equipment” that we are actually using or the being of a “thing” that is merely being perceived. In Being and Time, these everyday worlds of work and play are presumed by Heidegger to be independent of modern technology. The first part of the course explores the ontological answers Heidegger gives in Being and Time to these questions. The second part of the course starts with human being in a secular world dominated by modern technology and reexamines Heidegger's conclusions in Being and Time about the "essence" of human "existence" and related matters.