On Heidegger’s understanding of philosophy
What is one of the greatest tasks of philosophy?
Martin Heidegger would probably reply: Philosophy must rely upon itself as the “free questioning of the Dasein (there-being) on its own” (from: Phänomenologie und Theologie).
Philosophy must not give in to any kind of religion or even metaphysics, it cannot view the world from a singular point from where everything is explainable. It must not despair in the face of the insecurity and ambiguity of human there-being and escape into some archimedic lynchpin.
Heidegger’s understanding has my agreement and, taking many ideas from Kierkegaard and Nietzsche, forms the basis of modern existential thought.
