John opens explaining that although he used to hate Heidegger just like most analytic philosophers, he’s come to quite like him as a thinker. But Ken thinks that his terminology is confused; likeDasein, what is that? John explains that Heidegger’sDaseinis contrasted with the Cartesian ego. For Heidegger the world doesn’t present itself to the world through ideas and representation; rather, the human is immersed in the world through experience. Ken thinks Heidegger then sounds like quite a naturalist. John agrees in the sense that all that we do as humans is grounded in nature and the world around us. Ken then reminds John that Heidegger was a Nazi! John feels a little uncomfortable but good ideas are good ideas.

John and Ken are joined by guest Thomas Sheehan, a professor of philosophy and religious studies from Stanford University and the author ofMaking Sense of Heidegger: A Paradigm Shift. Just to get it out of the way, John asks Sheehan if he could discuss Heidegger’s anti-Semitism, especially since Sheehan was one of the first to bring this to the attention of the intellectual community. Sheehan is in favor of throwing out the windowDaseinas a topic. Sheehan saysDaseinreally means to be thrown ahead for the purpose of meaning. In anything we are doing, we are looking ahead to a goal, and so use things as means to reach our purposes and goals. Being in the world means being in the world of meaning which gives its significance to things that we come into contact with.

Ken asks to clarify the difference between the Cartesian in the world and the Heideggerian in the world. Sheehan explains that for the Heideggerian the world is a problem only when we fail and make a mistake, but the world is not presented to us by default as a problem as the Cartesian asserts. When the Heideggerians learn of their meaning making ability and their inability tonotmake meaning, then they experience dread. Ken then asks what Heidegger’s relationship is to existentialism. Sheehan agrees with an existentialist reading since Heidegger always asked how to make sense of death.

A caller asks what Heidegger’s relationship was to Husserl. Sheehan explains that Heidegger learned phenomenology and lived experience and logic of lived experience from Husserl. The notion that the mind is not locked in your head but all over the world is taken from Husserl. Ken returns to the topic of Descartes. He asks if there really is a big divorce between Descartes and the phenomenologists. Sheehan pushes back and says that it is two ways of doing philosophy. Heidegger’s concept of human beings is someone making meaningful order out of chaos. Everything is meaningful, but not everything is true. Heidegger is after why we make meaning and why we have to. Ken asks if Heidegger believes there is a world out there, and Sheehan argues that Heidegger really does believe in truth as correspondence to reality, but what is important in Heidegger is that the individual constitutes that reality.

约翰评论说，海德格尔似乎提出，他的哲学有助于人类更真实地生活。希恩表示，问题在于这是否真的能套现。虽然海德格尔确实邀请你对你的无根据感到敬畏和恐惧，但他绝对没有伦理，也不可能有伦理。肯怀疑这是否是存在主义者普遍存在的问题。肯接着问:对于海德格尔来说，真实地生活到底意味着什么?希恩说，死亡是一种走向死亡的过程，死亡总是萦绕在心头。回到海德格尔的纳粹主义，希恩说海德格尔只是他那个时代的人。但肯怀疑海德格尔的哲学是否可以用来支持纳粹主义。希恩承认这是可能的，因为他的历史性概念，这让人们可以从历史中挑选一些东西，并认可和拥有它到未来。希恩总结道，真实和活出真实是不够的，这是海德格尔和存在主义者的教训。 We see here the limits of Heidegger’s philosophy.

• Roving Philosophical Report(Seek to 5:40): According to Joshua Rothman at theNew Yorker, Heidegger was very charismatic and an intellectual star in Germany, which is what drew Hannah Arendt to be his mistress, even though he was married. When Hitler came to power he became the president of Freiburg University, but once Hitler fell, Heidegger fell from grace. Although Arendt was Jewish, she defended Heidegger by saying he was simply politically wise. In his Black Notebooks, he used his philosophy to make anti-Semitic remarks. So, although his thoughts can be used in anti-Semitic ways, this doesn’t necessarily imply that his thought is inherently anti-Semitic.
  
• Sixty-Second Philosopher(Seek to 48:30): When it comes to Heidegger, even though he was a Nazi he didn’t suffer a bad fate at all. He had it pretty good compared to other philosophers such as Nietzsche, Spinoza, St. Augustine, Marquis de Sade, Ayn Rand. Socrates, Schopenhauer, Leibniz, and Kant!