Husserl believed that knowledge is a structure, with some ideas having more priority than others, depending on intention.
In the 1920s, Descartes made the statement "Cogito Irgo Sum" (I think, therefore I am). If a person is thinking, they must exist. He believed consciousness was in 2 parts (Dualism): me, and the world. This was accepted by all until 1927, when Heidegger claimed this was not true, all you can say is that there are ideas. This poses the question: What are ideas? Heidegger says that they are intentions, moods, ambiguity and the act of choosing.
Ideas and meaning is a structure of subjective values, and of decisions. This is where existentialism comes in. Existentialists are obsessed with decisions and choosing. Their lives are endless choices, responsibilities and consequences. The source of these decisions being social interaction, or convenience.
Everybody is a reflection of each other from the people you grow up with, to the people you meet at work. We live
inauthentic lives, meaning you are not the author of your own life.
One thing that was brought up in this lecture is phenomonology. This is looking at the familiar as unfamiliar and vice versa.
For example: Look at the image below. Do you see a duck, or a rabbit? Or both?
In existentialism, the self-possessed individual, a bedrock of the enlightenment and romanticism, is abandoned.
Heideggers claim proved Locke, Smith, Kant, Nietzsche and Freud wrong. Kant believed that all people are fundamentally the same. This is not true, according to Heidegger.
If you take away human interaction and senses, you become nothing. Studies have shown this using isolation tanks.
Heidegger believed that existence is a way of being, a structure of choices. It's not what you do, it's the way you do it. That's what really counts.
Kant said that time is not a unified thing. There are different types of time. This was backed up by Einstein, who claimed that time is a dimension of the Universe. We perceive the Universe in 3 dimensions. Time is the 4th. We cannot imagine a 2d universe, nor a 4d one.
If you were travelling at the speed of light, there would be no time.
If you were travelling faster than the speed of light, you would arrive before you had left.
Heidegger said that time is the structure of being, and has a 3-fold structure:
1) The past = guilt
2) The future = unknown
3) The present = dread
Existential morality aims to reduce feelings of guilt about the past, and promote indifference about the future.
The subjects mentioned in this blog are both featured in Sartres' play: No Exit: A drama set in a timeless universe. There are 3 characters in a blank waiting room. A beautiful lesbian who is in love with an unattractive heterosexual woman who is in love with a heterosexual man, who loves the lesbian. They are stuck in this love triangle, and in the waiting room, wracked with guilt and fear, which consigns them to a "hell" or eternal inauthenticity.
This weeks reading is Albert Camus-The outsider. The character Messarault is an existential hero-he refuses to be determined by other people, he seeks authenticity and tries to live by it. He has no guilt about his actions and does not care about the consequences, thus if his life is not authentic, it is less inauthentic than others.
There will be more about this reading after this weeks seminar.
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