The existentialist theory of Martin Heidegger

The existentialist theory of Martin Heidegger It is considered one of the main exponents of this philosophical movement, associated above all with authors from the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. In turn, existentialism has been a movement that has greatly influenced the current of Humanist Psychology, whose main representatives were Abraham Maslow and Carl Rogers and that during the last decades has been transformed into Positive Psychology.

In this article we will analyze the main approaches of the controversial German philosopher Martin Heidegger in his contributions to existentialist philosophy, including his own understanding of his work as part of the existentialism. Let's start by seeing what exactly this philosophical current is.

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What is existentialism?

Existentialism is a philosophical current in which thinkers as disparate as Søren Kierkegaard, Friedrich Nietzsche, Martin Heidegger, have been categorized. Jean-Paul Sartre, Simone de Beauvoir, Albert Camus, Miguel de Unamuno, Gabriel Marcel, the psychologist Karl Jaspers, the writer Fyodor Dostoevsky or the film director Ingmar Bergman.

All these authors have in common their focus on the nature of human existence. In particular, they focused on the search for meaning as the engine of an authentic life, for which they highlighted the importance of individual freedom. They were also joined by their criticisms of abstraction and the conception of thought as a central aspect.

Martin Heidegger, the philosopher at hand, denied linking him to existentialist philosophy; in fact, two periods have been distinguished in his work, and the second of them cannot be classified within this current of thought. However, the proposals and objects of study of his first stage have an evident existentialist character.

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Biography of Martin Heidegger

Martin Heidegger was born in 1889 in Messkirch, a town in Germany. His parents were devout Roman Catholics; this led Heidegger to study theology at the University of Freiburg, although he eventually decided to pursue philosophy. In 1914 he received his doctorate with a thesis on psychologism, a current that highlights the role of mental processes.

In the 1920s he worked as Professor of Philosophy at the University of Marburg and later at the University of Freiburg, in which he would practice for the rest of his career. During this time he began to give talks focused on his ideas about human existence and its meaning, which he would develop in his book "Being and Time", published in 1927.

In 1933 Heidegger was appointed rector of the University of Freiburg, a position he left 12 years later. Noteworthy is his affiliation and his active participation in the National Socialist German Workers' Party - better known as the "Nazi Party" -; in fact, Heidegger tried without success to become the philosopher of reference of this movement.

Heidegger died in 1976 in the city of Freiburg im Breisgau; at that time he was 86 years old. Despite the criticism he has received for his collaboration with the Nazis, for the contradictions between his works and for his ignorance of other authors of the same time, at present this philosopher is considered one of the most important of the twentieth century.

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Heidegger's existentialist theory

Heidegger's main work is "Being and Time." In it the author he tries to answer a key question: what exactly does "be" mean? What is existence, and what is its fundamental characteristic, if there is one? In this way he recovered a question that, in his opinion, had been neglected by philosophy since the classical period.

In this book Heidegger argues that this question must be reformulated in search of the meaning of being, rather than of it in itself. Around this he affirms that it is not possible to separate the sense of being from a specific spatial and temporal context (with death as a structuring element); well, he talks about human existence as "Dasein" or "being-in-the-world".

Unlike what Descartes and other previous authors argued, Heidegger considered that people are not thinking entities isolated from the world around us, but the interaction with the environment itself is a core aspect of the to be. This is why it is not possible to dominate being and trying to do so leads to a life lacking in authenticity.

In consecuense, the human capacity to think is secondary and it should not be understood as that which defines our being. We discover the world through being-in-the-world, that is, through existence itself; for Heidegger cognition is only a reflection of it, and therefore so are reflection and other similar processes.

Existence does not depend on the will, but we are "thrown" into the world and we know that it is inevitable that our life ends. The acceptance of these facts, as well as the understanding that we are one more part of the world, allows us to give meaning to life, which Heidegger conceptualizes as the project of being-in-the-world.

Later Heidegger's interests moved to other subjects. He highlighted the relevance of language as a fundamental tool to understand the world, explored the relationship between art and search for "the truth" and criticized the contemptuous and irresponsible attitude of Western countries with respect to the nature.