Heidegger's Being And Time
by William Blattner · first published 2007
40% recommend55% neutral5% critical
Why HN recommends it
A dense but rewarding entry into Heidegger's project on the meaning of being. It raises questions about how humans understand the world, and its Dreyfus-style readings suit newcomers to continental philosophy.
Summarised by Claude from recommending comments
Continuum's Reader's Guides are clear, concise and accessible introductions to classic works of philosophy. Each book explores the major themes, historical and philosophical context and key passages of a major philosophical text, guiding the reader toward a thorough understanding of often demanding material. Ideal for undergraduate students, the guides provide an essential resource for anyone who needs to get to grips with a philosophical text. Heidegger's Being and Time is one of the most influential and controversial philosophical treatises of the 20th century. It had a profound impact on S
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…it? Language is a technology that allows for the production of concepts like 'probability' or 'apple'. Language as a tool is so fundamental to cognition that it becomes difficult to separate the two. Heidegger's Being and Time explores that line of thinking, and Derrida loves to play the game of "well that means you can't say anything!" Both have provided me with insight into what "magic" is referencing here (rather than your…
on “Noam Chomsky on Where Artificial Intelligence Went Wrong” ↗I'd add Heidegger's Being and Time to that list, and Nietzsche's Thus Spoke Zarathustra or The Gay Science to that list. These are are probably the most significant works of Continental philosophy, and should definitely take precedence…
on “Ask HN: Learning about philosophy” ↗Personally I recommend Martin Heidegger's "Being and Time" as well as Brian Greene's "Fabric of the Cosmos." Hedeigger's masterpiece cover's his exploration of the question of the meaning of "being." This might sound vague, but essentially he's asking questions…
on “Must-read Non-fiction” ↗Lately I've been going through Dreyfus's book about Heidegger's Being and Time, called Being-in-the-world, and I've found it majorly inspiring and wonderful. Now I rave about Heidegger to anybody who will listen, more or less coherently. Dreyfus has made important and influential…
on “Ask HN: Do you read philosophy?” ↗I loved his lecture series on Heidegger's "Being and Time". It helped me finally understand what continental philosophy was all about. I first heard it on iTunes U but it's also on archive.org: https://archive.org/details/Philosophy_185_Fall_2007_UC_Berk...
on “Hubert L. Dreyfus, Philosopher of the Limits of Computers, Dies at 87” ↗Try Heidegger's Being and Time. It's a super tough read (I read portions of it for a class) but it's motivated by the same frustrations you mention.
on “Wondering about the link between intelligence and meaning” ↗…overview of epistemological problems read: Descartes Mediation, Spinoza's On the Improvement of The Understanding and Ethics, Leibniz's Monadology, Kant's three critiques, Hegel's Phenomenology and Logic, Heidegger's Being and Time. I would stay away from analytic philosophy, if you are not an US based academic.
on “Ask HN: Learning about philosophy” ↗I must say this truly depends. I can sometimes be more focused with an audiobook. An extreme example? Heidegger's Being and Time, Macquarie and Robinson translation. The audiobook version read by Martyn Swain is a godsend for helping one try to grapple with this monster. Though his only commentary is in timbre, rhythm, speed, it…
on “No Spanish Reading Crisis?” ↗…July, 13th 2015 27- Self comes to mind by Antonio Damasio. July, 31st2015 28- Muhammad: The First Muslim by Lesley Hazleton. August, 4th t2015 29- Sapiens by Yuval Noah Harari. August, 15th 2015 30- Heidegger's Being and Time by William Blattner. August, 18th 2015 31- Heidegger and a hippo walk through those pearly gates by Thomas Cathcart and Daniel Klein. August, 19th 2015 32- Why nations fail by Daron Acemoglu and James…
on “Ask HN: Books you read in 2015?” ↗I've wanted to read A Thousand Plateaus for a few years. The first time I tried it, all that stuff about wolves and geology just lost me. I will have to try again. Honestly, I found it harder than Heidegger's Being and Time, which I worked through while listening to Hubert Dreyfus's lectures on iTunes U a few years ago. Whenever I read about Deleuze and Guattari I get this feeling they are on to something - I just don't…
on “Ask HN: What books changed the way you think about almost everything?” ↗…into rehab. Taking a holiday in mid-August for about 3 months, and I have bought/downloaded a huge amount of very very heady reading material (including the crem-da-la-crem of heady mind fuck material - Heidegger's Being and Time) which I intend to use to rewire my brain.
on “Ask HN: My brain refuses to think, what should I do?” ↗…McGowan and Walter Davis on Kafka[1] which you might enjoy. There's a bit in the aforementioned interview where they mention if one is learning German, a good introductory route is reading Kafka and Heidegger's Being and Time. I've been contemplating whether I should learn German to read my favorite thinkers in their primary written language (and even potentially make a move to Germany, away from the weariness of California),…
on “Franz Kafka’s Dissenting Bodies” ↗…philosophy. I would be far more impressed with someone saying that had spent the last 3 years working through the first section of Spinoza's Ethics (a fairly lean volume) than someone who claims to have read Heidegger's Being and Time over a break. I was talking to someone recently who remarked that it's embarrassing to see a bookshelf covered with bookmarks visibly only part way through the text, implying the reader has never "completed"…
on “My Lifetime Reading Plan” ↗…and jargon for discussing it, and understanding it often requires a decent knowledge of the history of philosophy (most philosophy is done in reaction to earlier philosophy). The person here suggesting Heidegger's Being and Time is suggesting the equivalent of "try doing brain surgery" to someone thinking about learning more about medicine. It's literally one of the hardest texts to even start, let alone understand. From your…
on “Ask HN: Learning about philosophy” ↗…mathematics/logic extremely interesting. I've read both of Wittgenstein's major works ("Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus" and "Philosophical Investigations") and found them very compelling. I tried to read Heidegger's "Being and Time", but it was beyond me at that point. I'll attempt it again next year maybe. The essential point of the article is that systems without contradictions are not interesting. The contradictions create…
on “The logic of Buddhist philosophy” ↗