display all the ideas for this combination of texts
7 ideas
21051 | Check your rationality by thinking of your opinion pronounced by the supreme court [Rawls] |
Full Idea: To check whether we are following public reason we might ask: how would our argument strike us presented in the form of a supreme court opinion? | |
From: John Rawls (Political Liberalism [1993], p.254), quoted by Michael J. Sandel - Justice: What's the right thing to do? 10 | |
A reaction: A very nice practical implementation of Kantian universalisability. How would your opinion sound if it were written into a constitution? |
22166 | Dasein has the potential to be itself, but must be shown this in the midst of ordinariness [Heidegger] |
Full Idea: Because Dasein is lost in the 'they', it must first find itself. It must be 'shown' to itself in its possible authenticity. In terms of its possibility, Dasein is already a potentiality-for-Being-its-self, but it needs to have this potentiality attested. | |
From: Martin Heidegger (Being and Time [1927], II.2.54) | |
A reaction: I wish there was some criterion for knowing when you are being yourself and when you are not. |
22165 | Anxiety reveals the possibility and individuality of Dasein [Heidegger] |
Full Idea: Anxiety discloses Dasein as Being-possible, and indeed as the only kind of thing which it can be of its own accord as something individualised in individualisation. | |
From: Martin Heidegger (Being and Time [1927], I.6.40) | |
A reaction: Is sounds like insecurity, as a sort of trauma that shocks one into self-realisation. The idea means very little to me personally. |
21952 | Anxiety about death frees me to live my own life [Heidegger, by Wrathall] |
Full Idea: For Heidegger, as a consequence of my anxiety in the face of death, I am set free to live my life as my own rather than doing things merely because others expect me to do them. | |
From: report of Martin Heidegger (Being and Time [1927]) by Mark Wrathall - Heidegger: how to read 7 | |
A reaction: Contrary to Epicurus, Heidegger thinks anxiety about death is a good thing. The point is, I suppose, that we all die alone, and people who are very socially contrained need to face up to death in order to grasp their autonomy. |
22224 | Anxiety is the uncanniness felt when constantly fleeing from asserting one's own freedom [Heidegger, by Caputo] |
Full Idea: Anxiety [angst] is the disturbing sense of uncanniness by which Dasein is overtaken (thrownness) when it discovers there is nothing other than its own freedom to sustain its projects (projection), and from which Dasein constantly takes flight (falling). | |
From: report of Martin Heidegger (Being and Time [1927]) by John D. Caputo - Heidegger p.227 | |
A reaction: This seems to be Kierkegaard's idea, unamended. In my experience anxiety only comes when I am forced into making decisions by worldly situations. An 'existential crisis' is a sort of blankness appearing where a future life was supposed to be. |
15572 | Being what it is (essentia) must be conceived in terms of Being (existence) [Heidegger] |
Full Idea: Dasein's Being-what-it-is (essentia) must….be conceived in terms of its Being (existentia). | |
From: Martin Heidegger (Being and Time [1927], 67/42), quoted by Richard Polt - Heidegger: an introduction 3.§2 | |
A reaction: This seems to be the origin of Sartre's famous slogan 'existence before essence'. It seems to be a rebellion against Husserl's quest for essences. |
20453 | Heidegger says we must either choose an inauthentic hero, or choose yourself as hero [Heidegger, by Critchley] |
Full Idea: Heidegger says you must choose your hero; either you choose 'das Man', the inauthentic life, or you choose yourself - the point being that you have to choose yourself as your hero in order to be authentic. | |
From: report of Martin Heidegger (Being and Time [1927]) by Simon Critchley - Impossible Objects: interviews 5 | |
A reaction: If Nietzsche's 'Ecce Homo' is the model for choosing yourself as hero, I am not too sure about this idea. Needing a hero seems awfully German and romantic. Ein Heldenleben. Be your own anit-hero (like a standup comedian)? |