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The Meaning Behind Some of the Philosophical Passages

Every Passages and words have their meanings in Philosophy. Let me share the meanings for some of the passages I have learned so far as a Philosophy Minor student

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The Meaning Behind Some of the Philosophical Passages
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1. “The essence of truth reveals itself as freedom” (Heidegger, On the Essence of Truth, 128).

Heidegger gives in his system a particular relation to the truth and to the freedom linked to the unveiling of Being or appearance in the face of Dasein or being there. From this follows a link of essence that can demonstrate by the absurd. Truth is classically defined as the agreement between intelligence and a thing/object which is to be distinguished from a judgment that is merely a slight intellectual act. Heidegger retains this definition in his system but adds an ontological origin to it: “there would be truth before judgment or ante-predicative that makes true speech possible.” This ontological truth is none other than the contact of Dasein and Being. Thus, as if to perceive the difference between day and night, we must be open to the dimension of the visible, we must be open to the To be in general to say true on this or that being. That's what Heidegger calls in Greek "Aletheia" or "opening." In other words, the original truth is the unveiling of things or the appearance of Being to Dasein such that the latter can tell the truth about this or that being. Freedom in the Heideggerian system, on the other hand, is the expression of the power to be revisited to a greater depth. It is a behavior and not an attribute of Dasein, letting things be what they are without blocking their buckling or unveiling by subjecting them to classical concepts like the object and its various properties either to let them things in their full manifestation or openness. It is as free behavior towards things in openness that Heidegger speaks of freedom as the essence of truth and as the foundation of all foundation. The principle of liberty as the essence of truth becomes all that is most logical in the knowledge of definitions.

2. The beginning of the slaves’ revolt in morality occurs when resentment itself turns creative and gives birth to values: the resentment of those beings who, denied the proper response of action, compensate for it only with imaginary revenge” (Nietzsche, Genealogy of Morals, 20).

Nietzsche ascribes the origin of Christian morality to a psychological feeling or resentment (which could be defined as the bad anger of the sense of one's weakness and envious jealousy towards those who are not). Resentment brings the weak to create morality, that is to say, the condemnation of the liberty and the assertion of the self of the powerful, it is, therefore, the origin of morality. These three origins are in fact of course linked: psychological resentment comes from the physiological weakness of my body, and likewise, I can only want to receive my morals from society because I am so physiologically weak that I cannot leave the herd. The notion that links these three approaches and ultimately constitutes the true origin of morality is that of interest. If I adopt this or that moral, it is because it is my interest to adopt it. If I am humble, it is because it is my interest, as a weak being, not to be arrogant, so as not to excite the blows of the powerful: The worm recoils when we walk on it.

3. "Anxiety is basicallydifferent from fear. We become afraid in the face of this or that particular being that threatens us in this or that particular respect...Anxiety is indeed anxiety in the face of…, but not in the fact of this or that thing...The indeterminateness of that in the face of which and for which we become anxious is no mere lack of determination but rather the essential impossibility of determining it” (Heidegger, What is Metaphysics? 101).

Anxiety in Heidegger is related to our feeling of finitude. Feelings are affective dispositions that open us more fundamentally to the reality of what we are than reason or understanding. Heidegger gives anxiety considerable importance since it says that it is our fundamental disposition that opens us to what we are. And what we are is a being thrown into the world to die. Anxiety, unlike fear, has no object. Anxiety is the anxiety of nothing determined. Heidegger goes so far as to say that our fears are ways of concealing anxiety because we give them an object. This is the phenomenon of phobias, emptiness, or an animal for example. It is a way of providing a purpose to anxiety much more latent, much more diffuse, which suddenly becomes more localizable and bearable. Heidegger did not want to give an only negative connotation to anxiety. His philosophy is not nihilistic. He wants to show that anguish is a disposition, a test through which we must pass if we're going to be a singular being.

4. “So let us give voice to this new demand; we need a critique of moral values, the value of these values should itself, for once, be examined - and so we need to know about the conditions and circumstances under which the values grew up, developed and changed...since we have neither had this knowledge up till now nor even desired it” (Nietzsche, Genealogy of Morals, 7-8).

Nietzsche rejects the traditional criteria of good and evil. In the Genealogy of Morals, he violently attacks Christian morals whose values are aimed at keeping humanity in a soothing ignorance. He asserts more generally that all the values of the individual derive in reality from his own life (biological, historical and psychological), by which they are neither objective nor transcendent. Nietzsche is also a fervent critic of traditional morality. He refers to it for locking up the individual in a dualistic metaphysics, on the one hand, a real world (universe of the gods), that of the good, and, on the other hand, an apparent world, the one difficulty. However, this distinction does not exist in reality; there are no moral phenomena”, writes Nietzsche, “nothing but a moral interpretation of the phenomena. From the perspective of the philosopher, therefore, the sources of traditional morality such as theology, metaphysics, philosophy and the Christian religion favor suffering by devaluing the universe of men; they erect in virtue, by falsehood and by interest, all that is weak and impotent. Indeed, their morality is born of the resentment of slaves towards teachers and creators who are strong, healthy and free, can define their values and identify their happiness. Slave morality, on the other hand, operates on guilt and bad conscience, feelings that have been unnecessarily superimposed on the punishment of transgression. Nietzsche also ranks asceticism in this morality. He makes a genealogy of morality to substitute his own which is based on a reversal of classical values.

5. “Without the original revelation of the nothing, no selfhood, and no freedom.” (Heidegger, What is Metaphysics? 103.)

It is certain that man is Dasein, briefly catching sight of human beings who are hiding and showing oneself in the light. We are now aware that without this initial realization, there is no has no individuality, no freedom, as products of transcendence, the original essence of these concepts was lost at age. When we talk about Dasein transcendent, we find ourselves taking a turn for the appearance of the truth. Thought to be lost, to the definition of metaphysics over the ages, seeks the truth of freedom. When Dasein is transcendent, he is in the region to open the truth as unconcealedness. That is the first shot of Alētheia's Veil, the atrium of the open region, where beings come from to stand in the light of their beings.This passage refers to the importance of nothing within ourselves. Nothing gives meaning to our existence because to think of ourselves we need to think of nothing and its differences towards our selfhood and freedom.

6. “While the nobleman is confident and frank with himself, the man of resentment is neither upright nor naive, nor honest and straight with himself. His soul squints; his mind loves dark corners, secret paths, and back-doors, everything secretive appeals to him as being his world, his security, his comfort; he knows all about keeping quiet, not forgetting, waiting, temporality humbling and abasing himself. A race of such men of resentment will inevitably end up cleverer than any noble race…” (Nietzsche, Genealogy of Morals, 20).

Nietzsche sees two different moralities. The morality of aristocrats, where one speaks of good and bad, the good coming first and the bad being the one who is not good. This morality comes from the self-assertion that the aristocrats, the nobles, felt. The evaluation of an individual is done on his person, and on the nobility of his character. And the morality of slaves, where one speaks of good and bad, the wicked coming first and the good being the one who is not bad. This morality comes from resentments that "slaves" experienced. And the evaluation of an individual is done on its actions; all the actions are done in favor of those who suffer being good. In all languages, good comes from noble, of distinguished soul, whereas bad would come from simple, harmless. But before that, we discover that the Greeks assimilated the good to the true man, the one who holds the truth, in opposition to the bad which for them designated the liar, the perfidious.

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