Essence of Human Freedom: An Introduction to Philosophy Book

This was a really great book and I'll probably be caught reading it a few more times throughout the course of my life. The title of the book, Introduction to Philosophy-Thinking and Poetizing, is about as abstract as one could imagine, and Heidegger is attuned to this fact throughout, constantly exploring interpretations via what he calls the "thinking of thinkers and the poetry of poets." An unfinished series of lectures that Heidegger started writing in 1944 (I didn't know this until I was halfway through the book!!!), he leaves many more questions asked than answered. But in this, he accomplishes a general goal: to open up a space for reflection and thinking.

The book starts off with a simple question: What is philosophy? According to Heidegger, philosophy needs no "introduction" because it is not a discipline that one is initially outside of until a series of facts have been retained that make that person within the discipline of philosophy. Rather, everyone is a philosopher because we are all "thinkers". We sojourn and wander in the realms of thinking, contemplation, and reflection. Although we are all philosophers because we think, Heidegger does note that not everyone is "at home" in philosophy and that becoming more intimately acquainted with thinking deeply about things (to put it simply) is a process that is learned via experience. The goal of philosophy according to Heidegger is to be at home with what he refers to as "genuine" or "authentic" thinking. Being at home with thinking is accomplished through constant thought and reflection. According to a conversation I had with a friend, the placement of the word "authentic" may be a translation issue because the word "authentic", or "eigentlichkeit" in German has a really specific meaning in Heidegger's work that wouldn't make sense expressed in the current context. The most sensible translation of authentic here would be something along the lines of "as such" or "as it is."

Heidegger wants to explore this concept of thinking deeply, genuinely, and authentically. But he needs to reify this really abstract concept by presenting a way of thinking about it that is clear and lucid. The vehicle he uses for this is the process of demonstrating the relationship between thinking and poetizing, or philosophy and poetry, by analyzing Nietzsche's poetic work and pointing to how it illuminates his philosophical thinking, and vice versa.

The fundamental thought expressed in all of philosophy, or the "destiny of western thought" according to Heidegger is an answer to the question of "What now is?" What is Being and its difference from beings? A door is a being because it is and it "has" Being because the "is-ness" of a being is a quality that manifests itself in its Being. But even though the two go together, they are not the same thing. We do not say that individual beings are the essence of Being itself, or even that Being is a being. Being is also not a quality that is found when one looks "deeper" into a thing, because Being pervades the entire door itself, it is not a thing that lies beyond it. This is the question that Heidegger claims all philosophy is centered around in one form or another, and that the way that it is illuminated, obfuscated, or thought of manifests itself differently throughout history.

His focus on Nietzsche's take on this issue is important because according to Heidegger, Nietzsche is one of the most misread philosophers who has ever lived. His many aphorisms are often isolated out of context because of the direct, emotional appeal of his language and how his ideas have the potential to relate to one's own personal desires in a way that covers up his own thinking and merely renders his ideas as a catalyst to reaffirming one's own biases. The appearance of ease and superficiality is what makes Nietzsche so hard to read. It is deceiving. He makes you think you've understood what he is saying and gives you no direct indication that his seemingly charming aphorisms contain fundamental ideas that have pervaded the west for thousands of years.

Nietzsche's fundamental experience and fundamental attunement can be summed up in two aphorisms, both of which contain at least another five paragraphs of discussion. If you've gotten this far, I encourage you to read this book yourself to delve more deeply into the ideas behind the aphorisms. If you want to know more about it but don't feel like reading the book, feel free to send me a message and we can chat about it.

An idea I found very interesting was Nietzsche's notion of metaphysical homelessness that is expressed in his two poems "Without Home" and "Answer." When it came to systems of belief or put another way, the fundamental principle of interpretation of the meaning of Being that guides people through life, Nietzsche saw three types of thinking: The first level is that of finding one's home in an already existing interpretation of the meaning of Being, the second type of thinking is a homelessness in which one has no fundamental attunement to a principle or interpretation of Being, and the third is that the homeless one creates a new home for themselves in which he or she finds their fundamental interpretation of the meaning of Being. Most find themselves in accordance with the first type, only some the in second, and few ever find the third. Nietzsche expressed how he hated modern German culture at the time because it conformed to a fundamental way of Being that was predicated on a type of rationality that only calculated and sought the value or profit in things or ideas, a very utilitarian perspective on reality, most likely brought into place via the industrial revolution. Nietzsche thought that only being attuned to reality in terms of its efficiency and "clarity" was a good example of his main thought manifesting itself which was that the essence of all beings is a Will To Power.

I really enjoyed this book and will definitely keep reading more Heidegger in the future. For me, he constantly opens up new spaces of thinking and creates a lot of potential to have meaningful experiences. His late philosophy isn't a dogma in the slightest sense. He'll poke holes in your thinking and experience for the sake of saying: "Hey have you thought about it in this way?" or "What makes you experience this like that?" but he never seeks to reduce your thinking to a state of singularity in which your fundamental attunement becomes immutable and static. He even says that "All genuine thinking and thinking-along with a thinker is a wandering, indeed the wandering into that which, as the simple, lies near. Experience only exists in such wandering. Only in experience do we become more experienced." His purpose is communicating a sort of expansion. He creates a potential for thinking instead of reducing it, something that I wish there was more of in the world.