All Things Shining

This book, written by Hubert Dreyfus and Sean Dorrance Kelly, asks how we can find meaning in our modern, secular age. Dreyfus and Kelly diagnose our modern predicament, trace the historical path we took to get here, identify the outlines of a possible solution (by way of the novel Moby Dick), and flesh this out in the final chapter.
Borrowing heavily from Martin Heidegger, this book is invaluable in the way it brings Heidegger down from the clouds of Being and delivers his ideas to us in a concrete and practical form. Worth reading for its deep insights into the value of the Homeric gods alone (of all things!), this book tops my must-read list for anyone who wants to live a more meaningful life.
Website: www.absurdbeing.com
Twitter: / absurdbeing
Patreon: patreon.com/user?u=84430098

[@rapidopato]

The notion of the divinities in Heidegger's later philosophy, particularly in his concept of the Fourfold, bears some resemblance to the ancient Greek gods in terms of their connection to human experience. In both cases, the divine is understood as intimately intertwined with the human world and human existence.They reveal themselves through poetic and artistic expression, as well as through the unfolding of historical and cultural events. In essence, Heidegger's statement "only a god can save us" expresses a call for a new way of thinking and being that transcends the limitations of modernity and opens up the possibility for genuine salvation or transformation. It reflects his belief that only a radical reorientation of human understanding and existence, akin to a divine intervention, can lead to a meaningful and authentic mode of being in the world.

[@rapidopato]

Heidegger's conception of moods is connected to his understanding of the gods as world-disclosers, especially in the context of dwelling and poetic language. Moods play a role in how we attune ourselves to the world and allow different aspects of reality, including the gods, to be revealed to us. Moods are closely tied to poetic language, as they shape the way we experience and interpret the world. There are different modes of Being in the World. For example, anxiety (Angst) is a mood that reveals the fundamental uncertainty and vulnerability of human existence. In contrast, Heidegger associates the mood of dwelling (Gelassenheit) with the gods. Gelasenhait can be translated as Serenity, I think. Let the things be themselves. Dwelling involves a receptive attunement to the world, a letting-be of things as they are. It is a state of openness to the world that allows things to reveal themselves in their own way. All this seems to me to be closer to Husserl's phenomenology than the first Heidegger of Being and Time. The anguish of man is overcome with the serenity of the philosopher: going to the things themselves. Or better: let the things be themselves.

[@rae-annhendershot508]

Thank you so much for taking the time to share your insights; it has helped me gain so much more value from this book.

[@absurdbeing2219]

Excellent. Thanks. It's such a great book.

[@rapidopato]

Gelassenheit (Serenity) is one of my favourite books of Heidegger, where he addresses meditative thinking versus calculating thinking. And his books about Technology. I think that in his Beitrage he says the same things but in a more convoluted way. I'll look for the book you recommend that also seems more accessible. I don't know if there will be a Spanish translation. I would like to read it because it talks about the relationship between philosophy and literature, which I love. Greetings. And thank you for your insights.

[@absurdbeing2219]

Yes, I really enjoyed this book. Fingers crossed for a Spanish translation, although it seems you are more than capable of tackling the English! And thanks for your own recommendation. That book seems to very much tie in with sone of your other comments.

[@salehalhaggass8504]

I cannot thank you enough for taking this video. Will share this great value to my friends and family. Thank you again

[@absurdbeing2219]

Thanks Saleh. Happy to introduce this book to you.

[@tuomasansio]

It seems that in the modern age explicit are problems and solutions, not mysteries and redemption/salvation. The german language illustrates these two terms in a great way: the german word for solution is Lösung, and for redemption Erlösung. This illuminates the quintessence out-of character of the idea of redemption and the still-there only temporal and not-permanent character of solution.

[@absurdbeing2219]

Hey Miesmystinen. That's so true, isn't it. Reading Heidegger has made me more sensitive to the tension between certainty and knowledge on the one hand and mystery on the other; in particular, that the former may not necessarily be an unalloyed good. It's interesting those two words share a common linguistic root in German, and, if I've understood you right, Erlösung seems to carry a little more depth.

[@oscarjablon4297]

Great video! This has become a weekly thing for me now. Do you have any tips on reading difficult philosophy?

[@absurdbeing2219]

Thanks a lot Oscar. Tips on reading difficult philosophy? That's an interesting question. Let me think... pure grit and perseverance? Goes without saying, right. When I read material I want to fully absorb, there are three things I always do. The first is underline key points as I'm reading. Next, once I've finished the book, I go back through it from the beginning and write my own summary based on the sections I underlined. Finally, I diagram that summary. The length of the summary and diagram vary depending on the material. My summaries of _B&N_ and _B&T_ are massive, and the diagrams are also quite involved, because I wanted to understand them in depth (pretty much everything I have ever written on philosophy is available on my website, by the way). On the other hand, my summary of _All Things Shining_ was a fairly concise set of notes which I used to make this video. The diagram is also pretty brief. Isn't this time consuming? Absolutely. But at the end, you have a solid, organised body of work which you can refer to. I might add that there is a balance between passing over sections you don't fully understand, and re-reading and re-reading until you get them. The reason I say that is sometimes the key to unlocking tough passages comes a little later. You agonise over a specific section, trying to get it, and then finally read on only to find everything is explained in a crystal clear analogy one page later. This has happened to me on more than one occasion. Hope that helps. Thanks again for watching!

[@oscarjablon4297]

@@absurdbeing2219 Interesting website, is there a discussion forum? I could tell you put a lot of time into making the website. Your notes on being and time helped tremendously!

[@absurdbeing2219]

@@oscarjablon4297 Oh yeah, plenty of blood, sweat, and tears are wrapped up in that website, for sure! To be honest, the thought of making a discussion forum had never crossed my mind, but your suggestion (and the discovery that it is much easier to add than I could have ever imagined) had me thinking about it all day... so, I've added one. Thanks for the good suggestion.

[@badexperiences]

Great video!. By the way, Aphrodite is the goddess of love, Athena is wisdom.

[@absurdbeing2219]

Oops, my mistake. Thanks for pointing that out.

[@reginaldmolehurst459]

Much of what you refer to (swept up, caught up in the crowd, moods, the power of wonder, whooshing, sleep coming over us) is really pointing to the ontological primacy of affect. Or what Massumi calls the "autonomy of affect". Looking at All Things Shining through the lens of affect as immanent would give a very different reading and lay out alternative possibilities. Do the Gods call to us and disclose a world of meaning that is ideologically loaded? Do they hail us and interpellate us as Althusser suggests? Describing the value of the book as "useful" in your summary, tends to contradict your earlier criticism of the utilitarian tendency to turn the world into things based solely on their use value.

[@absurdbeing2219]

I totally agree with your first point, the "ontological primacy of affect" as you call it. That is totally how I read _All Things Shining_ and precisely what I was getting at with all of those terms. I don't think my criticism of utilitarianism means I can't use the word 'useful.' Things can still be useful (and useless) without 'use' being made the sole criterion of moral value.

[@rapidopato]

Heidegger's understanding of the gods departs from traditional religious conceptions and is rooted in his exploration of the nature of Being and human existence. They are not to be understood in the traditional religious sense as supernatural deities with human-like qualities. Instead, he conceives of the gods as poetic and mythic beings that emerge from the realm of human experience, culture, and language. The gods are symbolic and archetypal figures that play a crucial role in shaping how humans interpret and relate to the world. The gods are seen as world-disclosers or world-revealers. They are not beings that exist independently of human experience, but rather emerge in and through human existence.