[3rdEye]

Purpose
The purpose of this thread is to discuss a single work of philosophy, namely Martin Heidegger's Sein und Zeit, in English Being And Time.

It is not required that you are actually reading the book. But I have just come 50 pages in my copy so far, and it is well worth reading. Personally I'm no longer content with going solely by other people's opinions about this book. On the other hand I'm issuing this thread because I very much want to discuss it with you.


General notes on the critique of Sein und Zeit
There are some rumours to the effect that the book is impossible to understand. Some people who claim to understand it call it nonsense. I think they are wrong. Others say that Heidegger wrote in the most tedious, strained and difficult way about things that he could have written about in a much more straightforward manner. I can only judge the beginning of the book. Nevertheless, I find both these points of view to be examples of superficial quasi-critical snobbery. The book is not an easy read, but it is not impossible to understand it if you want to. To be able to judge a text you must first have come to understand it, and my hunch is that many of the self-acclaimed critics did a bad job in that regard.

It doesn't even mean much that some critics who have most likely understood the text claim that it is "notoriously difficult" or something like that. They don't help readers in understanding it by saying that. My copy is a translation to Swedish by Richard Matz where in addition many phrases from the original are supplied. In his preface Matz exclaims that the message of the book is there in broad daylight. Let's embrace that spirit in this thread, but also I suggest that we be open to the subtleties of time and being.


The how-to of this thread
For as long as we are discussing Sein und Zeit we are doing the right thing. To keep it alive, and hopefully to make things more lively, I will present selected points from my notes for discussion. These statements, definitions, arguments and ultimately the philosophical questions I wish to be discussed themselves, and not necessarily or even preferrably from a position of general philosophical knowledge. Just go ahead and voice your thoughts.

But first of all, let's warm up with some biographies, pictures, curiosities and so on.