Being and Time

Before we proceed, a perhaps typical reminder: I have not understood a lot/most/anything of this book.

I have a very mixed feeling regarding this book.

Heidegger wanted to answer the question of all questions, the question of our being. He stopped halfway (the second part of the book has never been published). However, the first part is thought-provoking enough for generations of philosophers.

A personal takeaway of mine from this unfinished magnum opus is the approach of expressing a body of interconnected content pretty coherently because nowadays I often find myself not talking at all in the fear that there is too much to explain.

Here go the things that bothered me...

In existential philosophy, the point of departure is to be expected from existence, not some idealized essence. Heidegger was existential all the way. However, even metaphysics should conform with physics, must me so that we can derive physics from that. We cannot redefine time (at least not usefully) without taking note of what physics says of the time.

The same goes for the Dasein. Dasein, the conscious being is modelled after only conscious beings we know, that is, Human. I think it is important to consult biology in this regard if we want anything verifiable at all.

Both of these two issues, of course, stems from the tendency of not bothering with proof common amongst philosophers.