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Top 10 Astonishing Facts about Martin Heidegger

Martin Heidegger (1889鈥�1976) was a German philosopher whose work is perhaps most readily associated with phenomenology and existentialism.

His ideas have exerted a seminal influence on the development of contemporary European philosophy. They have also had an impact far beyond philosophy, for example in architectural theory.

Heidegger developed his own way of describing the nature of human existence. It wasn鈥檛 religious and it wasn鈥檛 scientific; it got its arms around everything, from rocks to the soul.

Instead of subjects and objects, Heidegger  talked about 鈥渂eings.鈥� The world, he argued, is full of beings鈥攏umbers, oceans, mountains, animals鈥攂ut human beings are the only ones who care about what it means to be themselves.

Martin Heidegger’s radical break with traditional philosophical assumptions reinvigorated phenomenology and existentialism and contributed to new movements such as philosophical hermeneutics and postmodernism.

Here are the top 10 astonishing facts about Martin Heidegger.

1. Martin Heidegger is an Important Philosopher

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One of the most important philosophers of the 20th century, Martin Heidegger originally studied to become a Jesuit priest at Ludwig University in Freiberg, Germany. However, he eventually changed his major from theology to philosophy and mathematics.

Heidegger was a major influence on Sartre and other existentialists 鈥� largely because of his concern with human experience. Although he never worked in the area himself, his concept of Being鈥恑n鈥恡he鈥恮orld and related ideas also led to the development of existential psychoanalysis.

Martin Heidegger’s radical break with traditional philosophical assumptions and language, and the novel themes and problems treated in his work, reinvigorated phenomenology and existentialism and contributed to new movements such as philosophical hermeneutics and postmodernism.

2. Heidegger Contributed to Phenomenological Philosophy 

Heidegger put forth a broad array of key tenets within his phenomenological philosophy. These tenets include the concept of being, being in the world, encounters with entities in the world, being with, temporality, spatiality and the care structure.

Phenomenology is the philosophical study of the structures of experience and consciousness. As a philosophical movement, it was founded in the early years of the 20th century by Edmund Husserl.

It was later expanded upon by a circle of his followers at the universities of G枚ttingen and Munich in Germany. It then spread to France, the United States, and elsewhere, often in contexts far removed from Husserl’s early work.

Phenomenology is not a unified movement; rather, different authors share a common family resemblance but also many significant differences.

In fact, it is not a doctrine, nor a philosophical school, but rather a style of thought, a method, an open and ever-renewed experience having different results, and this may disorient anyone wishing to define the meaning of phenomenology.

3. He was a Member of the Nazi Party 

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He has been widely accused of supporting the Nazi Party after his election as a rector at the University of Freiburg in 1933. His Nazism was a reason for his diminishing philosophical reputation.

Martin Heidegger never apologized for his support of the Nazis and remained a member until the bitter end, in 1945. First, he spoke out enthusiastically in favour of a conservative revolution with Hitler at its helm.

From about 1935, he found his own ambitions disappointed, and grew more silent. Yet, when he called his dalliance with National Socialism his greatest mistake after the war, he was upset not at his crime, but at the fact that he got caught.

After he resigned from the rectorship, Heidegger withdrew from most political activity but he never withdrew his membership in the Nazi party.

4.  Martin Heidegger Rejected Catholicism

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Although born into a Roman Catholic family, Heidegger rejected this religion after studying the writings of Protestant thinkers like Martin Luther and John Calvin. He married a Lutheran, Elfride Petri, in 1917.

Martin Luther OSA was a German priest, theologian, author and hymn writer. A former Augustinian friar, he is best known among Christians as the seminal figure in the Protestant Reformation and as the namesake of Lutheranism

John Calvin is known for his influential Institutes of the Christian Religion (1536), which was the first systematic theological treatise of the reform movement. He stressed the doctrine of predestination and his interpretations of Christian teachings, known as Calvinism, are characteristic of Reformed churches.

5. Heidegger鈥檚 Seminal Work Being and Time (1927) is Unfinished

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Though unfinished, Heidegger鈥檚 seminal work, Being and Time (1927), is considered to be one of the most important philosophical works of the 20th century. In it, he attempted to analyze the concept of 鈥淏eing.鈥�

Being and Time is a long and complex book. The reader is immediately struck by the 鈥渢ortured intensity of [Heidegger’s] prose鈥�.  If the text is read in its original German it is possible to hear the vast number of what appear to be neologisms as attempts to reanimate the German language.

Each of these aspects of Heidegger’s framework in Being and Time emerges out of his radical rethinking of Aristotle, a rethinking that finds its fullest and most explicit expression in a 1925鈥�6 lecture course entitled Logik (later renamed Logik (Aristoteles) by Heidegger’s student Helene Wei脽.

6. Michael Heidegger Recorded his thoughts In Black Books

Thinking is 鈥渁 means of mastery鈥� or control over the ‘problems’ which confront us in achieving our ends. On the special kind of thinking that occurs in science, Heidegger says that it is true that 鈥淸s]uch thought remains indispensable.

In the 1930s, Heidegger started recording his thoughts in diaries he called the Schwarze Hefte, or 鈥渂lack notebooks.鈥� The first three were published in 2014, creating controversy because they exposed his pro-Nazi stance.

The publication of Heidegger’s Black Notebooks (Schwarze Hefte) provoked a storm of controversy. Much of it centred on the pro-Nazi and anti-Semitic comments the volumes contain.

The Notebooks provide a preliminary assessment of their overall significance, especially in relation to what they show about the nature and development of Heidegger’s thinking from the early 1930s to the late 1940s.

7. He Defended pro-Nazi Views till his Death

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Although Heidegger was one of the seminal thinkers of the twentieth century, few such men of his time were criticized more severely or resented more bitterly than he.

Much of this criticism arose because of an association with the Nazis while Rector of the University of Freiburg, 1933-34, one that publicly he neither repudiated, justified nor explained.

In 1966 the editors of the German news weekly, Der Spiegel, requested Heidegger for an interview to discuss these issues. In granting the interview, which took place on September 23, 1966, Heidegger insisted that it remain unpublished during his lifetime. (It appeared in Der Spiegel on May 31, 1976, five days after his death.)

Its substance goes far beyond the personal issues involved and rephrases his entire philosophical experience. He saw this as an opportunity to meditate upon the meaning of Being. In these terms, the interview takes on the quality of a last will and testament.

8.  Heidegger鈥檚 Work was Diluted by Association with Hitler

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Despite his prominence as a philosopher, Heidegger was harshly criticized by many for his support of Adolf Hitler before, during, and after WWII.

Throughout history, educated classes have always adhered to dictatorial regimes. Plato and his failed 鈥榤ission鈥� in service of Dionysius I, tyrant of Syracuse, bequeathed us the Seventh Letter.

This legendary episode is often taken as a metaphor for all philosophers and artists of the 20th century who were impressed by autocratic leaders and politics.

Heidegger鈥檚 marvelling at Adolf Hitler鈥檚 鈥榟ands,鈥� allegiance to Nazism and thoughts from his black books classify him as an anti-Semitic philosopher.

9. Heidegger owned a 鈥楾hinking Hut鈥� in the Black Forest

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Heidegger enjoyed spending time at his secluded vacation home in the Black Forest, where some of his philosophical ideas were shaped.

Beginning in the summer of 1922, philosopher Martin Heidegger (1889-1976) occupied a small, three-room cabin in the Black Forest Mountains of southern Germany. He called it “die H眉tte” (“the hut”).

Over the years, Heidegger worked on many of his most famous writings in this cabin, from his early lectures to his last enigmatic texts. He claimed an intellectual and emotional intimacy with the building and its surroundings.

He even suggested that the landscape expressed itself through him, almost without agency. Heidegger’s cabin in the Black Forest has been the focal point of his work, and it has been shrouded in mystery and rumour.

10. Michael Heidegger Postulated that Truth is about what we care

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He believed that, before you could know the truth about things, you had to care about them. Caring comes first, because it鈥檚 caring about things that 鈥渦nconceals鈥� them in your day-to-day life, so that they can be known about.

If you don鈥檛 care about things, they stay 鈥渉idden鈥濃�攁nd, because there are limits to our care, to be alive is 鈥渢o be surrounded by the hidden.鈥� (A century鈥檚 worth of intellectual history has flowed from this insight: that caring and not caring about things has a history, and that this history shapes our thinking.)

This is a humble way to think about truth. It acknowledges that, while we claim to 鈥渒now鈥� about a lot of things intellectually, we usually seek and know the deeper truth about only a few. Put another way: truth is as much about what we allow ourselves to experience as it is about what we know.

According to Heidegger, man, if he does not question the existence and His truth, fails to achieve an authentic life. Man, as a creature among creatures associated with him, has states such as fear, anxiety, individualism and death. He is also aware that the Council seeks to deepen and reveal the meaning of his existence.