Archive for category Analytic Philosophy
Understanding Heidegger’s Notion of Dasein – Part 1
“There is music in the midst of desolation/ And a glory that shines upon our tears.”
Laurence Binyon, For the Fallen (1914).
Contemporary Western philosophy is divided in two main branches: continental philosophy and analytical philosophy. The former developed many movements or fields like phenomenology, hermeneutics, Marxism, existentialism, structuralism, postmodernism, etc. The latter studies mainly language, truth and logic. To the followers of analytic philosophy, philosophy ought to be restricted to the analysis of language, especially to the study of meaning. On the other hand, the most persistent feature of continental philosophy is the commitment to the questioning of foundations. Despite the vast range of themes, we can say that subject and truth are the two big themes which have dominated the contemporary philosophical discussion.
A survey of the history of continental philosophy reveals the name of Martin Heidegger (1889-1976) as one of the most innovative thinkers of the 20th century. Like Marx, Nietzsche, Freud, Weber, Wittgenstein and Adorno, Heidegger was a critic of modern culture. Writing in the aftermath of the First World War (1914-1918), he tried to understand the intimate relationship between ourselves and world through the study of the nature of being. Heidegger believed that the entire philosophical tradition was misdirected. As Heidegger sees it, Western philosophy from Plato to modern times has been preoccupied chiefly with entities or things of the world, without seeing that the more primordial fact is the very existence of the world. In other words, the Western philosophical tradition has forgotten the “question of being”, the Seinsfrage.
George Steiner observes that the leitmotiv of Heidegger’s task was the question formulated by Leibniz: why is there something rather than nothing? In that sense, Sokolowski notes that Heidegger formulates his task on classical terms and shows profound knowledge of the history of philosophy. In fact, Heidegger was a philosopher which always had an eye on the history of philosophy. His work represents a constant dialogue with historical sources. Besides, it was Heidegger’s deep conviction that Germans inherited the philosophical mission from the Greeks. Our aim in this essay is to sketch out a broad picture of Heidegger’s thought in order to deal with the account of Dasein. Read the rest of this entry »
Tags: analytic philosophy, Heidegger's NotionRelated posts
Continental Philosophy
Beginning in Europe, the response to Hegelian idealism spread out across the European continent but also into the United States where it became known as Continental philosophy. Analytic philosophy was the preferred tradition in England. At the same time in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, pragmatism was being developed in the United States. It seems there are many schools of thought concerning pragmatism which include: existentialism, phenomenology, hermeneutics, deconstruction, and critical theory.
Both existentialism and phenomenology have their roots in the nineteenth century, and many of their themes can be traced back to Socrates and even to the pre-Socratics. Each school of thought has influenced the other to such an extent that two of the most famous and influential Continental philosophers of this century, Martin Heidegger (1889-1976) and Jean-Paul Sartre (1905 -1980), are important figures in both, although Heidegger is primarily a phenomenologist and Sartre primarily an existentialist (The Continental Tradition, Axia College, 2005). (solid introductory paragraph)
Søren Kierkegaard (1813 -1855) scorned Hegel’s system, in which the individual dissolves into a kind of abstract unreality. By contrast, Kierkegaard emphasized the individual and especially the individual’s will and need to make important choices. Where Hegel was abstract to a degree rarely found outside, say, mathematics, Kierkegaard was almost entirely concerned with how and what the individual actually chooses in the face of doubt and uncertainty.
Friedrich Nietzsche (1844 -1900) read Arthur Schopenhauer (1788 -1860) and became convinced that the world is driven by cosmic will, not by reason. Nietzsche rejected Hegel’s idealism and all similar rationalist metaphysics. However, he disagreed with Schopenhauer as to the nature of the cosmic will (The Continental Tradition, Axia College, 2005). Read the rest of this entry »
Tags: analytic philosophy, Continental PhilosophyRelated posts
Science Fiction, Fantasy and Religion
Science fiction and Fantasy (SF/F) novels and stories often use religious themes as an integral part of the story. This may be due generally to the experimental or exploratory nature of the Science Fiction and Fantasy genre. Of course, the use of religious themes by SF/F authors does not mean that religious faith is necessarily being promoted. Often, the stories are critical of religion as a human institution and theology as a relevant way of thought. However, in this article we consider the use of religious themes in SF/F to achieve different storytelling perspectives using stories that deal with questions of a spiritual or religious nature.
Religious themes cataloged in SF/F as follows:
- After life, eternal state
- Angels and Demons
- Church
- Eschatology, end times
- God(s)
- Hell and punishment
- Humanity, what it means to be human
- Jesus (divine, human, fictional)
- Messiah, who saves humanity
- Metaphysics, forces, powers, and knowledge
- Morality
- Sin and evil
- Theocracy, political governance by religion.
Within these themes, some characters assume a Creator exists while others are agnostic or atheistic. But they all operate and behave in ways that shed light on the author’s use of religion. Read the rest of this entry »
Tags: analytic philosophy, ReligionRelated posts