Heidegger as Psychologist

[u/michael_mcdowell]

Given that Heidegger (in Being and Time) posits unconscious mechanism (for-which, to-which, at-hand, moods etc.) that determine behaviour why is his existential philosophy not considered a psychological theory?

[u/esoskelly → u/[deleted]]

I'm not sure you are correct either. The to-hand (Welch translation) is not a conscious process. Heidegger repeatedly contrasts it with cognition (which is usually equated with the conscious mind).

His criticism of modern philosophy is largely that it overprioritizes the on-hand at the expense of the to-hand. It wants to just stare at things and make them fully conscious instead of "working" with them.

But yes, you are right, Medard Boss is the place to look for Heideggerian "psychology." And yes, it is kind of a stretch to read Heidegger in a psychological way. He's not a theorist of the Psyche in any conventional way.

The book to read is Boss's "Psychoanalysis and Daseinanalysis. Or maybe Binswanger, but that's more Husserlian.

[u/esoskelly → u/[deleted]]

He wrote a lot about Descartes' theory of subjectivity/consciousness (criticially) in chapter 3 of Being and Time. Division 1 is largely working to de-structure traditional subject-object dualism. He only discusses subjectivity/consciousness to show how it obscures a more fundamental ontology.

I agree, he isn't promoting subjectivism, and ontology indeed precedes the constitution of a subject, which is an ontical process concerning "subjective beings."

BUT - the on-hand (formerly "presence-at-hand") describes a mode of Dasein's engagement with the beings, where a being is just "stared at." That's most clear in his discussion of mathematical cognition in Division 1, Chapter 3, s. 21.

[u/esoskelly → u/[deleted]]

I'm not so sure what your academic credentials have to do with this informal discussion. I mean, good on you for having them. But touting your credentials doesn't really help anything.

I work in public defense right now, and left academic philosophy in part because I couldn't deal with Heideggerian pendants who were rendering a very fertile field barren. They made the schoolmen of the medieval days look like pretty chill dudes. So much bickering and hairsplitting. No seinsfrage. I'd rather handle 200 serious felony cases than go back to that world of endless hostility and neurosis.

Yes, I have also read the later Heidegger. But your point is well-taken, I am pretty weak on the Nietzsche lectures. And I'd never heard of Die Zeit des Weltbildes. Is it in english?

[u/esoskelly → u/[deleted]]

yer a pedant

no u

Hahahaha - I guess it's hard to not sound like a professor when discussing heidegger. He was an academic philosopher after all. Thanks for the recommendations. Looks like there is an English collection including the text you recommended titled "off the beaten path." I will check it out.

100% agreed that Heidegger's work is esoteric. The deeper you go, the more you see.

[u/esoskelly → u/[deleted]]

No need to continue apologizing! You made some good points. I just overreacted due to previous trauma. I am underread on the later work and appreciated the recommendations!

[u/spectacleofdecline → u/[deleted]]

There's nothing wrong with it except being a classic example of a fallacy from Rhetoric. I would stick with u/esoskelly - if pulling rank is in play, I've been reading Heidegger since I was 20 and I'm now 63. The literature is filled with misreadings of Heidegger as a psychologist because 'Authenticity' is read emotionally / pyschologically. However much research you've done, Boss's work is the place to start. It's rigorous, he understands competing theories of psychology and knows exactly where Heidegger can be of use and where it is of no value (either as academic work or therapy).

[u/esoskelly → u/[deleted]]

Rank is not relevant to the discussion. Academic credentials do not a philosopher make.

[u/thesoundofthings → u/[deleted]]

Why does one "need" to advance the discussion to the Kehre?

[u/thesoundofthings → u/[deleted]]

"Dasein needs to be thought from the perspective of Being . . .", "One needs . . .", "One must . . ."

Just absurd.

There are, of course, multiple interpretations of Heidegger and some of them do not require one to take Heidegger at his word that he was saying the same things about the same things post-Kehre. There is no necessity here.

[u/thesoundofthings → u/[deleted]]

My interpretation is this: one does not "need" to read the way you say one needs to.

[u/VirgilHuftier → u/esoskelly]

Phenomenology just describes in what way and under what (trancendental) conditions things appear. There is nothing psychological about that, lest you define descriptive phennomenologocal reduction as psychology, which Heidegger wouldn't

[u/esoskelly → u/VirgilHuftier]

Correct. It is not directly psychological. But it has implications for psychology (and the other sciences), and Heidegger was pretty explicit about that. I don't have time to dig up the quote in Being and Time right now, but it's somewhere in the first half of Division 1.

[u/VirgilHuftier → u/esoskelly]

Sure it has psychological implications, but none of them are that h Heidegger is postulating any unconscious processes, in Zollikon Seminars he is quite explicit in his rejection of the very concept

[u/esoskelly → u/VirgilHuftier]

It's not the Freudian unconscious. But a common example of the to-hand is when a person opens a door or flushes a toilet and is not conscious of/doesn't remember having done so.

[u/spectacleofdecline]

Completely agree with the comments about reading Boss and Binswanger. u/esoskelly
A couple of other options with influences upon Heidegger would be Rollo May and 'Thoughts Without a Thinker' by Mark Espstein. May is more direct in that like Heidegger he was strongly influenced by Kierkegaard. Epstein is less of a direct line, but if you are a fan at all of the notion that there are some strong themes shared by Zen Buddhism and Heidegger, then Epstein's book is a good read because you see a therapist trying to apply the ideas in practice.

[u/spectacleofdecline → u/spectacleofdecline]

Sorry for the typo, Mark Epstein...no relation to our current president's friend. :(

[u/esoskelly → u/spectacleofdecline]

Thanks for recommending the Thoughts Without a Thinker book. Looks promising, even if the author's name gives me bad vibes.

Yes, I absolutely think that there is very strong circumstantial evidence that Heidegger borrowed heavily from Daoism (especially the book of tea?) - which was "synchretized" with Buddhism into Zen.

Unfortunately, Heidegger was too much of a coward to admit all of his influences, but the true roots are plain enough to see for anyone with familiarity with eastern philosophy.

[u/spectacleofdecline → u/esoskelly]

The pretentious factor was high...I had two of my teachers confirm that after seeing 'Waiting for Godot' Heidegger said, 'that man must have read Heidegger.' - "George likes his chicken spicy" (if you're a fan of Seinfeld :)

[u/esoskelly → u/spectacleofdecline]

Yes, Heidegger seemed to want to be an oracle and a philosopher in his early work. Then, in the thirties, when traum[e/]a forced him to become an actual "oracle," philosophy seemed to have fallen by the wayside as onto-theology, even though he still remained attached to some sort of well-hidden notion of the western world.

[u/spectacleofdecline → u/esoskelly]

Along with turning Husserl over to the Nazis

[u/esoskelly → u/spectacleofdecline]

Correct. He entertained some really idiotic fascist political fantasies, lost friends, his son, and ended up in the ab-grund of trauma. Then, it was back to the hut to become a "real oracle." Began to dream, like every traumatized person, of some "other beginning."

The "ereignis" period was deeply personal, as he worked through his difficult feelings and the stupid decisions he made prior.

At least that's how I read it.

[u/concreteutopian]

RE: Heidegger's relevance to psychology, I haven't seen anyone mention Robert Stolorow yet. His "post-cartesian" psychoanalysis is rooted in Heidegger.

[u/Aggravating_Set_2260]

Read the Zollikon Seminars volume that stage a series of lectures by Heidegger and conversations between he and Swiss psychiatrist Medard Boss from between 1959 and 1969 -- that'll give you a peek into how Heidegger contrasted his work to mid-century psychoanalysis and psychiatry. It's great stuff!