Or cheap gaming.

My thinking made sense to my philosophy teachers at university and their opinions count becsuse they understand what philosophy is - not that I depend on approval from others in any case, which would be a very silly character flaw for a philosopher to have. I am not a "massive hypocrite", I am extremely honest. I don't understand why your reply was so aggressive :) I hope your alarm bells have stopped ringing now. Do you think I'm an Islamic terrorist or something ? I've no idea what you meant by your alarm bells and you didn't explain. Anyway, I found it amusing. Philosophical types have always thought in ways which seem strange to their contemporaries.

I studied philosophy at university in the early nineties but had already read Heidegger five years previously, because I was intensely aware at the age of eighteen that one day I was going to die and I needed to know why and what I might have to do. Also I was wonderstruck by the existence of things (at all !) and found philosophy as a result of both my anxiety about death and this wonder.This is not particularly unusual : many young people do this, though not many keep it up. Heidegger's thought is really all one question : What does Being mean ? it is the same question which the ancient Greeks asked but which modern man has forgotten HOW to ask. Even the question itself means nothing to modern thinking so the first task for Heidegger is to reawaken an understanding of the question. If you want to know the "answer" I'm going to give you a reply which you may find annoying or a "cop out" : the QUESTION is the answer. Philosophical conclusions are not like scientific conclusions, they do not satisfy ordiinary everyday thinking. Heidegger is an enormous presence in present day thought and whether you or I like it or not that presence wil continue to grow. As to why it is the coming philosophy I will sum it up by saying that since it leads to the truth ultimately it cannot be avoided. If you want to understand more go and read some of his thought for yourself. I recommend his Introduction to Metaphysics as a starting point.

I am grateful to science for all the benefits it brings but I don't have much choice but to live in the scientific age and science does not bring only benefits, it also has an alienating effect - a fact which many philosophers have been aware of, not only Heidegger. There is in any case something missing from life now which was not missing in previous eras. If you don't feel that there is something missing then there is something missing in you. Science cannot access this "something missing" and so another approach is needed. Philosophy is this approach. But you cannot really understand philosophy without entering into it.

Anyway, that was off topic and I apologise for another thread derailment, but you did challenge me to explain so I've obliged you. What is being thought and practised in the world today IS the result of a particular "philosophy", however, and it is never irrelevant to bring philosophy into any discussion. In fact if you want to get to the root of why the world is such a mess you will find the answers and the remedies only in philosophy. There are no scientific answers (it doesn't even have access to the right questions) and no fundamental scientific solutions.

Edit : typo.

Appeal to Authority

Are you sure? You can be honest and a hypocrite. It's called Cognitive Dissonance.

utterly: absolutely: completely and without qualification

So to make the hypocrasy here obvious, this is what you actually wrote put into one sentence. Something can't be both utterly retarded and responsible for the most progress made, in the smallest time, in our (known) history.

And I don't understand how you could read a post with ":P" in it and think I was being aggressive..

It wasn't a constant ringing. It was triggered because your reply was off-topic and directed to me, so I thought you may have been someone else who tried to engage me in discussion a couple of months ago. This is why I didn't explain it further. I don't want to throw the label "troll" around if it didn't apply. Looks like it was the right call :)

18? Doesn't the realisation that you are going to die normally hit you much earlier than that? I had figured out I was going to die and what I needed to do (or rather, that there was nothing I could do) before I was 13.

I don't find the answer annoying or a cop out. I do, however, find it to be incorrect. You/Heidegger are basically saying "The meaning of my existence is to question the meaning of my existence". An absolutely answered question like that is no longer a question. The correct answer is "nothing". The answer may be different if you change the scope though (i.e. what does being mean to you?)

Obviously, because philosophy is the arena of that which cannot be objectively concluded.

I presume you mean the presence of his works :P And I am ambivalent to whether they do or not. While I believe the direction of his works is pointless from the quick summary of 'Being and Time' I've read, they are hardly damaging.

It doesn't lead to any truth. I have read some of his thoughts and one in particular is particularly egregious. Yeah.. no. If what you are proposing cannot withstand [i[being understood[/i], it is clearly and obviously wrong. At least religious people stop at "you can't understand God". This is equivalent to saying "If you understood God, he would cease being God". (which I personally find quite apt, because I believe an increased understanding of "God" leads to the belief that he doesn't exist :P).

And according to above, you can either not achieve understanding or achieving understanding will kill philosophy.

And I appreciate it a lot, especially considering your response was very civil, despite your belief that I was being hostile(?)/aggressive. We can continue this discussion in another thread or over PM/email, if you wish to continue but not continue it here.

The world is in such a mess because we (here specifically, you) have defined it to be a mess :) There is no point in human history where I would define it any other way as there is always something messy about the world. However, I believe we can achieve "non-messyness" in our future and that the only way to achieve it is through increased understanding of what we exist in.. and that is done using science.

I find it really interesting that the person you are claiming who has revealed the ultimate truth in our modern era was a (unapologetic and non-regretful!) member of the Nazi party until the end of the war.

This alone makes him lose a lot of credibility in my eyes. You can't go espousing the idea of Being, the importance of being able to question it and that technology is bad.. and then support a party that deprives millions of people of the ability to question their Being by using technology to put them into camps and then gas them to death.

I was going to end this post with what I thought was the most important philosophical question ("Who am I in the dark?") but in light of information about this philosopher, I feel better about the answer to that question because:

I am not Martin Heidegger.

So, after all that, I guess the only question left to ask is:

What's the conversion rate for pounds to Heideggers? :-)

It's interesting that you think that's what Xyem was saying... >_>

I didn't say that xyem necessarily thought so, but he (she ?) did leave room for me to doubt. Anyway, there's certainly no hate coming from my side and I don't think there's any hate coming from xyem - or from you ! - but it is a very common reaction to connect H. and Nazism and I certainly understand why, though I don't connect metaphysics (Heidegger's or anyone else's) and politics personally, and even have very strong views why it should be possible to philosophise (speculate on the nature of all things) without being forced to take up a "political" stance. But do YOU understand the relationship between philosophy and politics ? I tell you now : politics depends on philosophy but philosophy does not depend on politics. It is possible to know nothing at all about the "world" (of human beings) and yet to understand the essence of all things. This kind of knowledge is certainly is not going to help you take over the world. All the same this knowledge is superior to "worldly" knowledge.

But this could of course be mere "rhetoric". Please continue to be suspicious if you feel the need.

No no, it just seemed overly defensive for what Xyem had said but for all I know perhaps you do get a lot of people accusing you of being a nazi for reading Heidegger. ;)

Well most of the time in my life there is no need to bring Heidegger or philosophy in general into any conversation - though sometimes it absolutely IS necessary. It was daft of me to bring it into a thread about currency conversion : this was not an occasion where it was necessary really, I just got carried away. I'm well aware of the connection between Heidegger and the Nazis and that it (the connection) is undeniable as a "fact", though I don't believe that the connection is understood. And yes, I have been "accused" of being any number of things for posting such thoughts online before (e.g. on YouTube) : a "neo-Nazi" or a terrorist of some sort. It is so far from being true it is hilarious. To be a Heidegger reader / advocate you do not have to be that kind of person. On the other hand his thought does throw a certain light on the world as it is at present which allows you to see it in a different way.

Please do. I'm only planning to use the block function for those that spam my inbox (like I only use downrep to mark spam). Pretty sure that won't be your intention :)

I'm glad to hear that. I wrote it over several hours (yay, multitask) and am glad to hear it was somewhat coherent!

I just want to clarify that I don't believe you have any agreement with any of Heidegger's views other than the one you stated you did (i.e. his philosophy regarding Being). So don't worry, I don't and won't think you are a Nazi unless you start expressing Nazi beliefs!

I only brought it up because, as I said, I found it interesting that he was an unapologetic Nazi party memeber as that doesn't "match" the philosphy he was espousing. It isn't his Nazi-ism that makes his views lose their credibility, it is his inconsistency in applying them.

Just like a physics teacher would lose credibility as a physics teacher if they kept getting physics wrong (most of my A level physics classes consisted of correcting the teacher) and why PETA have no credibility when it comes to animal welfare (i.e. "We're for the ethical treatment and saving of animals, so we release them into the wild where they suffer needlessly and die, or we just kill them ourselves!"); Heidegger loses credibility when he espouses the importantance of Being when he supports people rounding people up and stopping them from Being.

While this was truly interesting to read I got a little lost on why this had something to do with a £ - conversion for the GOG shop.

If you care to explain that for our other philosophical inclined members and to my humble self, a rather Schopenhauer'ish inclined hobby philosopher.

I'm 99% sure the answer is "nothing". GOG topics seem to be an open world adventure so people regularly seem to ignore the main story line and instead focus on unrelated quests.

GOG = Skyrim (only bigger and less stupid Steam DRM)