The existentialist theory of Martin Heidegger

This controversial German philosopher developed his own concept of "being", the so-called "Dasein".

Martin Heidegger's existentialist theory is considered one of the main exponents of this philosophical movement. is considered one of the main exponents of this philosophical movement, associated mainly with authors of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. In turn, existentialism has been a movement that has greatly influenced the current of Humanistic Psychology, whose main representatives were Abraham Maslow and Carl Rogers, and which during the last decades has been transformed into Positive Psychology.

In this article we will analyze the main approaches of the controversial German philosopher Martin Heidegger in his contributions to existentialist philosophy, including the very understanding of his work as part of existentialism. Let us begin by looking at what exactly this philosophical current is.

What is existentialism?

Existentialism is a philosophical current in which thinkers as disparate as Søren Kierkegaard, Friedrich Nietzsche, Martin Heidegger, Jean-Paul Sartre, Simone de Beauvoir, Albert Camus, Miguel de Unamuno, Gabriel Marcel, the psychologist Karl Jaspers, the writer Fyodor Dostoevsky or the film director Ingmar Bergman have been categorized.

All these authors have in common their focus on the nature of human existence. In particular, they focused on the search for meaning as the engine of an authentic life, for which they emphasized the importance of individual freedom. They were also united by their criticism of abstraction and the conception of thought as central.

Martin Heidegger, the philosopher in question, denied his connection with existentialist philosophy.In fact, two periods have been distinguished in his work, and the second of them cannot be classified within this current of thought. Nevertheless, the proposals and objects of study of his first stage have an evident existentialist character.

Biography of Martin Heidegger

Martin Heidegger was born in the year 1889 in Messkirch, a village in Germany. His parents were devout Roman Catholics; this led Heidegger to study theology at the University of Freiburg, although he finally decided to devote himself to philosophy. In 1914 he received his doctorate with a thesis on psychologism, a current that emphasizes the role of mental processes.

In the 1920s he worked as a professor of philosophy at the University of Marburg and later at the University of Freiburg.where he remained for the rest of his career. During this period he began to give lectures focused on his ideas about human existence and its meaning, which he would develop in his book "Being and Time", published in 1927.

In 1933 Heidegger was appointed rector of the University of Freiburg, a position he left 12 years later. It is worth mentioning his affiliation and active active participation in the National Socialist German Workers' Party, better known as the "Nazi Party".In fact, Heidegger tried unsuccessfully to become the philosopher of reference for this movement.

Heidegger died in 1976 in the city of Freiburg im Breisgau; at that time he was 86 years old. In spite of the criticism he has received for his collaboration with the Nazis, for the contradictions between his works and for his ignorance of other authors of his own time, today this philosopher is considered one of the most important of the 20th century.

Heidegger's existentialist theory.

Heidegger's main work is "Being and Time". In it the author tries to answer a key question: what exactly does "being" mean? In what does existence consist, and what is its fundamental characteristic, if there is one? In this way he recovered a question which, in his opinion, had been neglected by philosophy since the classical period.

In this book, Heidegger argues that this question must be reformulated in search of the meaning of being, rather than of being itself. In this regard, he affirms that it is not possible to separate the meaning of being from a given spatial and temporal context (with death as a structuring element); thus, he speaks of human existence as "Dasein" or "being-in-the-world".

Unlike Descartes and other previous authors, Heidegger considered that people are not thinking entities isolated from the world around us, but that interaction with the environment itself is a core aspect of being. This is why it is not possible to master the self and attempting to do so leads to a life lacking in authenticity.

Consequently, the human capacity to think has a secondary character and should not be understood as that which defines our being. We discover the world through being-in-the-world, that is, through existence itself; for Heidegger cognition is only a reflection of this, and therefore so are reflection and other similar processes.

Existence does not depend on the will, but we are "thrown" into the world. We are "thrown" into the world and we know that it is inevitable that our life will end.. Acceptance of these facts, as well as the realization that we are just another part of the world, allows us to make sense of life, which Heidegger conceptualizes as the project of being-in-the-world.

Heidegger's interests later shifted to other topics. He emphasized the relevance of language as a fundamental tool for understanding the world, explored the relationship between art and the search for "truth" and criticized the contemptuous and irresponsible attitude of Western countries towards nature.