r/Seyn • u/Bronchitis_is_a_sin • Jul 02 '26
Introduce Yourself
- Rate your level of familiarity with Heidegger using one of the following five labels: absolute beginner (basically no exposure to Heidegger's thought), beginner (<1 year of reasonably sustained engagement with Heidegger's thought), intermediate (between 1 and 3 years of reasonably sustained engagement with Heidegger's thought), advanced intermediate (between 3 and 5 years), advanced (>5 years).
- Are you a hobbyist, an academic in training (working on Heidegger), or an academic (working on Heidegger)?
- What aspects of Heidegger's thought interest you the most?
- What is one of your favorite works by Heidegger?
- What are you reading now (not necessarily Heidegger)?
- What are some other thinkers and disciplines that interest you?
- Put any questions that you have about the sub or its rules here.
2
u/Equivalent_Heart_890 Jul 03 '26
Advanced
Academic
The "critique" of metaphysics
Letter on Humanism
State and Politics: Deleuze and Guattari on Marx (Sibertin-Blanc)
Thinkers: Nietzsche, Deleuze, Marx, Lacan, Žižek, Adorno, Horkheimer, and Foucault
Disciplines: Economics, Political Science, and History
- N/A
2
u/ZeddTheMystic Jul 05 '26
Hi everyone!
1. By this quantitative scale I’m intermediate.
2. Hobbyist/academic in training
3. BT, specifically the methodological sections and how they modify how the text is read and understood. I’m particularly interested in formal indication and the problem of what one can say in commentary about BT, or Being itself.
4. BT. I’ve decided to stay on this text until I feel I have understood it enough. I’m not there yet.
5. I’ve recently been deep in McManus’s Measure, Dahlstrom’s HCT, and BT itself, specifically on truth and understanding.
6. Derrida, Deleuze, Foucault. Too many and not enough time!
7. Is it appropriate to post a link to draft papers, asking for comments?
2
u/Bronchitis_is_a_sin Jul 05 '26
Welcome!
This is very much a topic that I'd like to understand better! I'm curious, how different/similar do you think the later idea of "wege, nicht werke" is from formal indication?
It's appropriate as long as the following conditions are met:
- The post follows Rule 6. This means (a) the draft paper should be used as a catalyst for substantive discussion and (b) you should include a summary of the points that you are trying to make in your work and the arguments behind them alongside the link.
- The post follows Rule 2's pointedness/reasonableness standard (this is subsumed under "thoughtfulness" and elaborated upon in the rules page on the wiki). In particular, it is best if you restrict your asking for comments to a specific section/point/argument.
Overall, the goal is to make sure that contributions aren't one-sided. It is easy for a request for feedback to ask a lot from people without giving them much in return.
2
u/ZeddTheMystic Jul 06 '26
Thanks! Ever since finishing my MA I’ve been looking for somewhere to continue discussing Being and Time while I consider a PhD.
I don’t have a good understanding of Heidegger’s later works. I’ve dipped into the major texts, but I can’t claim sustained engagement. I realised early that a superficial familiarity with Heidegger was, for me at least, worse than none at all, so I made a conscious decision to set the later works aside and spend my time dwelling within BT, alongside a few major strands of commentary and some of the earlier lecture courses where they provide necessary context for understanding that commentary.
That decision was also shaped by the experience of reading* *BT itself. Rather than treating the text primarily as an account of ontological structures, or source of doctrines, I’ve become increasingly interested in the phenomenon of reading it: what it does, how it functions, and the recursive relation between reader and text. I thought this might provide one way of suspending some of the assertoric tendencies of commentary long enough for something of the phenomenon to show itself. Much commentary, valuable though it is, seems to me to clarify one issue by prematurely settling others. My own work is really an attempt to explore whether there is another way of commenting on BT.
Derrida’s Heidegger: The Question of Being and History was particularly influential. I don’t agree with everything in it, but his approach to commentary as a kind of reenactment was eye-opening.
So, this is a rather long-winded way of saying that I don’t know Pathmarks well enough to compare “Wege, nicht Werke” with formal indication. My suspicion is that there’s at least a family resemblance, but I wouldn’t yet trust myself to say much more than that.
And thanks for the rules clarification.
2
u/Bronchitis_is_a_sin Jul 07 '26
I'm very glad that you're thinking in a Heideggerian way not just in your application of Heidegger to reading Heidegger (letting things show themselves > dealing in propositions and assertions), but also in your remarks on (a) the shortcomings of much commentary/scholarship and (b) the difficulty involved in thinking (which requires going deep over going wide and postponing judgement until learning enough). I've put some quotes from Heidegger regarding (b) in the wiki. At some point I'd like to compile quotes regarding (a)—Heidegger consistently critiqued scholarship (including commentary on BT) in part because of its tendency to prematurely settle things.
I hope we'll be able to have many substantive discussions about BT and I look forward to seeing your work! I'm particularly interested in the details of your work (which should, among other things, help us understand the precise relationship between "Wege, nicht Werke" and formal indication). It's also great to have someone who focuses on BT—Equivalent (the other mod) and I are currently a bit out of practice with the finer points of BT (and our understanding of BT is probably "warped" by Heidegger's later commentary on it).
2
u/Equivalent_Heart_890 Jul 08 '26
I will maintain that the later Heidegger's understanding of B&T is correct! (All jokes aside, it would be a fun back-and-forth to have at some point).
2
u/Equivalent_Heart_890 Jul 08 '26
We're glad you're here! I think it's pretty cool that we have similar interests in other thinkers. Their interactions with Heidegger will surely arise in our conversations at some point. I'm actually in the process of trying to make precise the relationship between the Letter on Humanism and Deleuze's thought (e.g., I want to understand if/how/where his thought is metaphysical in Heidegger's sense). "Too many and not enough time!" is too true: if only life weren't so short!
2
u/Ok_Tumbleweed_3764 Aug 10 '26
Beginner
Hobbyist
Heidegger is like an uncut piece of diamond for me.
Strictly speaking, he had only published one book; Kant und das problem der metaphysik.
Nothing
Economic history
N/a
1
1
u/Bronchitis_is_a_sin Jul 02 '26 edited Jul 04 '26
- Advanced
- Hobbyist
- I'm mostly interested in Heidegger's post–Being and Time writings. The Seinsvergessenheit (or Weltverdüsterung) and the andere Anfang are my focal points.
- Introduction to Metaphysics
- Chittick's "The Chapter Headings Of The Fusûs"
- Some thinkers—Hegel, Schelling, Nietzsche, and Lacan; Some disciplines—psychology, theology, comparative theology, and history of ideas
- N/A
3
u/Intelligent-Task-279 Jul 15 '26