• Log In

The Partially Examined Life Philosophy Podcast

A Philosophy Podcast and Philosophy Blog

Subscribe on Android Spotify Google Podcasts audible patreon
  • Home
  • Podcast
    • PEL Network Episodes
    • Publicly Available PEL Episodes
    • Paywalled and Ad-Free Episodes
    • PEL Episodes by Topic
    • Nightcap
    • Philosophy vs. Improv
    • Pretty Much Pop
    • Nakedly Examined Music
    • (sub)Text
    • Phi Fic Podcast
    • Combat & Classics
    • Constellary Tales
  • Blog
  • About
    • PEL FAQ
    • Meet PEL
    • About Pretty Much Pop
    • Philosophy vs. Improv
    • Nakedly Examined Music
    • Meet Phi Fic
    • Listener Feedback
    • Links
  • Join
    • Become a Citizen
    • Join Our Mailing List
    • Log In
  • Donate
  • Store
    • Episodes
    • Swag
    • Everything Else
    • Cart
    • Checkout
    • My Account
  • Contact
  • Mailing List

Heidegger on TV

February 8, 2011 by Seth Paskin Leave a Comment

During the podcast, I mentioned some video of Heidegger from television back in the 70s.  I think I uncharitably characterized him as being a bit out of touch with a broader audience and arrogant.  You be the judge:

(This is an excerpt from a longer piece which is (I think) in full available on YouTube, but broken into two parts, only the first of which is translated.  This is from the second part.)

So if you were a teacher being interviewed on national television, you might find some way to articulate your views in a way that didn't come off as aloof and prophetic.  That being said, you see him here packing in a bunch of Heidegger-tastic notions.  The key one is the distinction between 'thinking' and 'philosophy', which is central to his later work and only suggested in B&T.   Heidegger wanted to open a dialogue about Being that wasn't bound by the strictures of the philosophical tradition - Ontology without Metaphysics, if you will.  In Being and Time, he thought there was a systematic way to do this, by 'destroying' the history of philosophy and doing a kind of hermeneutic maneuver to recover some ancient lost meaning.

In his later work, he spends more time playing with language and interpreting poetry vs. directly engaging the tradition.  In part, this was his attempt to engage in 'thinking' vs. 'philosophy'.  Ultimately, he realized that wrestling with the philosophical tradition only generated more philosophy, when what he wanted was something else.  He realized the path was through language, which led him to focus on thinkers who used language in 'thoughtful' ways but who weren't philosophers - poets like Rilke & Hoelderlin.  Reading them was an attempt to get at Being - a project he never gave up even though he abandoned the methodology of B&T.

This focus on language and thought was in part why he was so influential on many of the so-called 'continental' thinkers, particularly French ones.  (They, however, didn't express the same love for German speaking poets.)  While I think the fact that he references one of his own lectures as a 'proof point' in his conversation and talks about the messianic or perhaps more aptly described 'uebermench' who will come to 'attempt the thought' qualifies as a bit beyond the pale, I'm sympathetic to his other big point that philosophy dies in science.  Philosophic inquiry ends in the scientific enterprise and, if you follow Heidegger, begins the task of thinking.  If not, maybe you try to write Principia Mathematica or the Cartesian Meditations.

--seth

Facebooktwitterredditpinterestlinkedinmailby feather

Filed Under: Things to Watch Tagged With: Martin Heidegger Interview, Task of Thinking

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

PEL Live Show 2023

Brothers K Live Show

Citizenship has its Benefits

Become a PEL Citizen
Become a PEL Citizen, and get access to all paywalled episodes, early and ad-free, including exclusive Part 2's for episodes starting September 2020; our after-show Nightcap, where the guys respond to listener email and chat more causally; a community of fellow learners, and more.

Rate and Review

Nightcap

Listen to Nightcap
On Nightcap, listen to the guys respond to listener email and chat more casually about their lives, the making of the show, current events and politics, and anything else that happens to come up.

Subscribe to Email Updates

Select list(s):

Check your inbox or spam folder to confirm your subscription.

Support PEL

Buy stuff through Amazon and send a few shekels our way at no extra cost to you.

Tweets by PartiallyExLife

Recent Comments

  • Randy Strader on Ep. 309: Wittgenstein On Certainty (Part Two)
  • Wes Alwan on PEL Nightcap February 2023
  • Kunal on Why Don’t We Like Idealism?
  • Ronald Cogen on Ep. 311: Understanding the Dao De Jing (Part One)
  • Brian Grindel on PEL Nightcap February 2023

About The Partially Examined Life

The Partially Examined Life is a philosophy podcast by some guys who were at one point set on doing philosophy for a living but then thought better of it. Each episode, we pick a text and chat about it with some balance between insight and flippancy. You don’t have to know any philosophy, or even to have read the text we’re talking about to (mostly) follow and (hopefully) enjoy the discussion

Become a PEL Citizen!

As a PEL Citizen, you’ll have access to a private social community of philosophers, thinkers, and other partial examiners where you can join or initiate discussion groups dedicated to particular readings, participate in lively forums, arrange online meet-ups for impromptu seminars, and more. PEL Citizens also have free access to podcast transcripts, guided readings, episode guides, PEL music, and other citizen-exclusive material. Click here to join.

Blog Post Categories

  • (sub)Text
  • Aftershow
  • Announcements
  • Audiobook
  • Book Excerpts
  • Citizen Content
  • Citizen Document
  • Citizen News
  • Close Reading
  • Combat and Classics
  • Constellary Tales
  • Exclude from Newsletter
  • Featured Ad-Free
  • Featured Article
  • General Announcements
  • Interview
  • Letter to the Editor
  • Misc. Philosophical Musings
  • Nakedly Examined Music Podcast
  • Nakedly Self-Examined Music
  • NEM Bonus
  • Not School Recording
  • Not School Report
  • Other (i.e. Lesser) Podcasts
  • PEL Music
  • PEL Nightcap
  • PEL's Notes
  • Personal Philosophies
  • Phi Fic Podcast
  • Philosophy vs. Improv
  • Podcast Episode (Citizen)
  • Podcast Episodes
  • Pretty Much Pop
  • Reviewage
  • Song Self-Exam
  • Supporter Exclusive
  • Things to Watch
  • Vintage Episode (Citizen)
  • Web Detritus

Follow:

Twitter | Facebook | Google+ | Apple Podcasts

Copyright © 2009 - 2023 · The Partially Examined Life, LLC. All rights reserved. Privacy Policy · Terms of Use · Copyright Policy

Copyright © 2023 · Magazine Pro Theme on Genesis Framework · WordPress · Log in