Basic Heidegger... Trivia Quiz

Answer: Dialectical Materialism

Heidegger was a student of Husserl, repudiated his identification with Existentialism and was a Nazi party member. The question of his affiliation with the party is much debated; for better or for worse, his association with Existentialism is not - quite in spite of his feelings on the matter. Finally, Heidegger did credit Marx for recognizing the place of alienation in history; he could never accept Marx's materialism. Nonetheless some of his students were Marxists, notably, Herbert Marcuse and Jean-Paul Sartre (although Sartre was never really his proper student).

Answer: Edmund Husserl

Husserl was Heidegger's mentor.

Answer: giants

The "giants" are probably Heraclitus and Parmenides.

Answer: Questioning concerning Being

His project is to revive this question, thus his project is "fundamental ontology".

Answer: Understanding of Being

"The question of Being, the striving for an understanding of Being, is the basic determinant of [human] existence." As for Being-present-at-hand and readiness-to-hand, they are the manners in which entities are disclosed - as entities, i.e. in terms of their thingness or their ontic facticity, and as equipment or tools disclosed in concernfulness, i.e. with respect to a given project.

The concept of Being-for-itself is not Heidegger's but Sartre's, from "Being and Nothingness".

Answer: The they

"Thus the particular Dasein in its everydayness is disburdened by the 'they'.... The Self of everyday Dasein is the they-self, which we distinguish from the authentic Self-that is, from the Self which has been taken hold of in its own way."

Answer: Anxiety

"Anxiety makes manifest in Dasein its Being towards its ownmost potentiality-for-Being." Falling, or inauthenticity, is a natural part of everydayness, but in anxiety inauthenticity qua inauthenticity becomes apparent. Thus anxiety reveals the possibility of authentic Being.

Answer: Death

"With death, Dasein stands before itself in its ownmost potentiality-for-Being." This is not (necessarily) as morbid as it sounds (although Adorno would beg to differ).

Answer: "In reality ontology and ethics are one."

"In the clear night of the nothing of anxiety the original openness of beings as such arises: that they are beings - and not nothing." In his brief volume on "Being and Time", Jonathan Rée suggests, parenthetically, that, "People are sometimes praised for being 'generous with their time'; and perhaps there is no other kind of generosity: the idea of generosity would not make much sense if we were never going to die."

Answer: "A ham sandwich is better than God"

Carnap wrote "The argument of 'Being and Time' can be summed up in three lines: a ham sandwich is better than nothing; nothing is better than God; therefore, a ham sandwich is better than God." But then Carnap did not prove it. The other lines are from Bertrand Russell.