Martin Heidegger

Key ideas

1. The question of being. Heidegger argued that philosophy has forgotten the question of what it means for anything to be. Being is not itself one more entity among others: the distinction between being and beings, the ontological difference, is basic to his thought.
2. Dasein and being-in-the-world. Dasein (“being-there”) is his term for the kind of being we have: a being for whom being is an issue, and whose existence is always being-in-the-world, engaged with a world of practical significance, never a detached mind facing objects.
3. Equipment and worldhood. We first meet things not as objects with properties but as equipment we use without noticing, which Heidegger calls ready-to-hand. Only when the tool breaks does it become present-at-hand, something we look at, so theoretical detachment grows out of practical engagement.
4. The anyone and authenticity. Everyday life is shaped by das Man, “the they” or “the anyone”, the shared norms of what one does. Authenticity (Eigentlichkeit) is owning one’s existence instead of drifting with them, and commentators disagree about what that requires.
5. Anxiety. Anxiety is a mood in which everyday involvements lose their grip and we see that we still care about our own being. Being-towards-death individualises Dasein, and its care is structured by time, which Heidegger names as the horizon for understanding being.
6. The history of being. In the 1930s Heidegger’s thinking turned (die Kehre) from the analysis of Dasein to the history of being: how entities make sense to us changes from epoch to epoch, and language, art and poetry take part in the change. “Language is the house of being”, he wrote in the Letter on Humanism.
7. Technology as enframing. Modern technology, Heidegger argues, is not just machinery but a way of revealing in which everything shows up as stock to be ordered and used. He calls this Gestell, usually translated enframing, and sees the danger in its hiding every other way things can show up.

Martin Heidegger (1889–1976) was a German philosopher whose Being and Time (1927) asks what it means for anything to be, and answers by analysing human existence, which he calls Dasein. It shaped phenomenology, existentialism and hermeneutics, and his later essays on language, art and technology are widely read. He was also a member of the Nazi Party from 1933 to 1945, a fact no account of his work can leave aside.

Who was Heidegger?

He was born in Meßkirch in 1889 into a Catholic family, and was at first prepared for the priesthood. At seventeen he read Franz Brentano’s book on the many meanings of being in Aristotle, which by his own account began his lifelong question. He studied at Freiburg, became Husserl’s assistant in 1919, taught at Marburg from 1923 and published Being and Time in 1927, dedicating it to Husserl. In 1928 he took the Freiburg chair that Husserl had held. He died in Freiburg on 26 May 1976.

What is the question of being?

Heidegger held that philosophy has forgotten the question of what it means for anything to be. Being is not itself an entity: the distinction between being and beings, the ontological difference, is basic for him. His question is not ontology in the usual sense of asking what exists; it asks what it means for something to be. To approach it he starts from the one being for whom being is an issue, human existence, or Dasein, “being-there”. Being and Time is unfinished: only about a third of the planned book was ever published.

Dasein, tools and “the anyone”

Dasein is being-in-the-world. We are not first detached minds that then come to know objects; we are already engaged with a world of practical significance. A hammer in use is not noticed as an object with properties; it is ready-to-hand. When it breaks it becomes present-at-hand, something we look at. Theoretical detachment grows out of practical engagement, not the other way round. My phenomenology page notes why this account of tools bears on conversational AI.

Dasein is also being-with others. In everyday life we do what “one” does, following the norms of das Man, “the anyone”. Heidegger calls the conformity that results inauthentic.

Anxiety, death and authenticity

In anxiety our everyday involvements lose their grip and we see that we still care about our own being. Being-towards-death individualises Dasein and makes authenticity possible: owning one’s existence instead of drifting with the anyone. Commentators disagree about what that demands; readings include expertise, loyalty to oneself and narrative coherence. Dasein’s care is also temporal, and in Being and Time time is the horizon for understanding being.

The turn: language, art and technology

After the early 1930s his thought turned, in what is called die Kehre, from the analysis of Dasein to the history of being: the way entities make sense to us changes between epochs, and language, art and poetry take part in the change. Scholars dispute how sharp the break is. “Language is the house of being” comes from the Letter on Humanism, written in December 1946 in reply to Jean Beaufret.

In “The Question Concerning Technology” he argues that modern technology is not just machinery but a way of revealing in which everything shows up as stock to be ordered and used. He calls this gathered way of seeing Gestell, usually translated “enframing”. The danger is not machines but that this one way of seeing hides all others; his response is non-calculative thinking and “poetic dwelling”. He regarded Western metaphysics as a whole, and modern technological culture in particular, as nihilistic.

What about his Nazism?

Heidegger was elected rector of Freiburg in April 1933, joined the Nazi Party in May and resigned the rectorship in April 1934, remaining a member until 1945. After the war he was barred from teaching until 1949. The Stanford Encyclopedia judges that his involvement was a matter of conviction rather than opportunism, that he was an anti-Semite, that he repeatedly distorted the record afterwards, and that he never publicly and explicitly renounced his support. The Black Notebooks, written from 1931 and published from 2014, contain anti-Semitic passages and prompted a fresh assessment.

Scholars disagree about how far the philosophy is implicated. Julian Young argues that it can be “de-Nazified”; Emmanuel Faye argues that it cannot be separated from the politics. The Encyclopedia takes a middle view: the Nazi-era work has unmistakable affinities with Nazi ideology, yet his thought remains fruitful in fields from philosophy of mind to art. The record is not in doubt; its bearing on the work is.

Influence and how to start reading

Sartre drew on Being and Time for Being and Nothingness, and Heidegger replied in the Letter on Humanism that reversing the old priority of essence over existence leaves one inside metaphysics. Hannah Arendt, Gadamer, Merleau-Ponty, Derrida, Levinas and Rorty all worked through him, and the Kyoto School in Japan was influenced by Being and Time.

His English translations are in copyright, so there is no free full text to link. Start with the Stanford Encyclopedia or Internet Encyclopedia entry, then read the Introduction and Division One of Being and Time, and the essay on technology. The UGC NET syllabus lists “Heidegger: The concept of Being (Dasein), Man as being in the world, critique of technological civilization”; see the UGC NET guide.