Member-only story
What Heidegger and Anthropology Can Teach You About Yourself
A framework for understanding what anthropologists study.
In the introduction of Being and Time, continental Philosopher Martin Heidegger criticizes various sciences by claiming that they have remained blind and perverted — because they lack an answer to the question “what is being.”
Interestingly, Heidegger gives us the answer in the introduction when he says that being (which determines entities as entities) is that on the basis of which entities are already understood. Understanding what that meant was an unexpected beginning for me, and it laid the foundation of my thinking on existentialism.
Expanding Heidegger’s Initial Answer To “What Is Being?”
Dasein, the being for which being is an issue, is a term Heidegger utilizes throughout Being and Time. Dasein is not a mind or a body in the Cartesian sense, rather it is a human being embedded in the world. Dasein is that being that is us, that makes choices on who we are, and whose choices redefine our identity.
From a phenomenological perspective, we as Dasien, are living and changing daily as a result of our taking a stand on our being. When we as Dasein encounter another being, we already have an understanding of…
