Martin Heidegger (1889-1976)

Heidegger was impressed by Nietzsche's criticism of Socrates and he returned to the pre-Socratic philosophers.  Like them, he raises what he calls the fundamental question of metaphysics: Why is there something rather than nothing?  Why does anything at all exist?

From a religious point of view, he says, the question is foolish.  BUT this foolishness is what philosophy is.  And faith that refuses to ask such fundamental questions is not so much true faith as laziness. 

"Every essential form of spiritual life is marked by ambiguity."

Philosophy can help provide such ambiguity by raising questions and challenging conventional beliefs.  So it will always appeal only to a few.

It will also always seem useless, since its aim is to raise questions more than to answer them.  Its job is not to help science or religion establish themselves but to make life more difficult.  Philosophy throws up challenges that can provide new ways of thinking, new ideas, and stop us getting complacent.  We can then truly notice and appreciate things we might otherwise take for granted.

It is true that you cannot do anything with philosophy.  BUT philosophy might do something with you.

"To philosophize ... is an extraordinary inquiry into the extraordinary."

The goal is not information or facts but a full appreciation of what is.  This means willing, being resolved, to let things be as they are.  To know something is to experience it fully and to be open to it.  To know is "to be able to learn."

We need also to free ourselves of the will to use or dominate other things.

It is, Heidegger admits, illogical to ask about nothing.  Nothing is nothing.  BUT the question "Why is there something rather than nothing?" is an ancient one not easily given up.  Since talk about nothing is illogical it is beyond philosophy.  And it is certainly not scientific.  BUT philosophy is prior to science (historically and foundationally) and what philosophy cannot speak about, poetry can.

"the spirit of poetry ... is essentially superior to the spirit that prevails in all mere science."

It is very hard to say what being is.  BUT does this show that the question is not worth asking, or that we have lost touch almost completely with reality?

We need to re-start our "historical-spiritual existence."  We cannot repeat the past but must start anew in darkness.

"We have said that the world is darkening.  The essential episodes of this darkening are: the flight of the gods, the destruction of the earth, the standardization of man, the pre-eminence of the mediocre."

There is more to life than the efficient production of material goods.  There is the natural environment and our own humanity.  For their sake we must rekindle our spirit.  Asking the question of being is a good way to do this.