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The Concept of Time

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The Concept of Time presents the reconstructed text of a lecture delivered by Martin Heidegger to the Marburg Theological Society in 1924. It offers a fascinating insight into the developmental years leading up to the publication, in 1927, of his magnum opus Being and Time, itself one of the most influential philosophical works this century. In The Concept of Time Heidegger introduces many of the central themes of his analyses of human existence which were subsequently incorporated into Being and Time , themes such as Dasein, Being-in-the-world, everydayness, disposition, care, authenticity, death, uncanniness, temporality and historicity. Starting out by What is time?, Heidegger proceeds to radicalise the concept of time and our relation to it, ending with the Are we ourselves time? Am I time?

80 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1924

About the author

Martin Heidegger

863 books2,846 followers
Martin Heidegger (1889-1976) was a German philosopher whose work is perhaps most readily associated with phenomenology and existentialism, although his thinking should be identified as part of such philosophical movements only with extreme care and qualification. His ideas have exerted a seminal influence on the development of contemporary European philosophy. They have also had an impact far beyond philosophy, for example in architectural theory (see e.g., Sharr 2007), literary criticism (see e.g., Ziarek 1989), theology (see e.g., Caputo 1993), psychotherapy (see e.g., Binswanger 1943/1964, Guignon 1993) and cognitive science (see e.g., Dreyfus 1992, 2008; Wheeler 2005; Kiverstein and Wheeler forthcoming).

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Displaying 1 - 30 of 48 reviews
Profile Image for Chadi Raheb.
425 reviews403 followers
January 22, 2020
خب آقای هایدگر عزیز،
شما با این کتابتون که به گفته خودتون حتا کتاب هم نیست و تازه فقط رساله‌ایست مقدماتی و پیش‌نیاز خوندن کتاب اصلی، به من حس احمق بودن دادید.
متشکرم که بهم فهموندید حالا حالاها نباید سراغ کتاب اصلی برم و بهتره برگردم سراغ مشقای خودم و همون بیبی استپ‌ها. امتیاز کم رو هم بذارید به پای کم‌فهمی خواننده! 😐
Profile Image for Brandon.
149 reviews6 followers
June 22, 2021
This is basically just a summary of Heidegger’s thought before he expanded it into Being and Time. I don't know what is up with my copy, but it's very short, less than 50 pages of English, which doesn't seem to be what other people are reading.

There are some insights here that weren't
clear from Being and Time, mostly about temporality. I was sure I was missing something from that book, but The Concept of Time is pretty much just a restatement of the time sections with slightly different terminology, so I'm somewhat vindicated. Again, it's hard to know with Heidegger because so much of what he says is up to interpretation.

Once again, he critiques the idea of everyday Dasein, calling it inauthentic. Here, Dasein's authenticity is characterized almost completely as embracing the threefold aspect of temporality. The inauthentic mode is generally neglecting the futural aspect, since temporality is primarily futural. It can also be rejecting your past as YOUR past, relegating it to the no-longer-present. It can also be obsessive present-ness.

He thinks that authentic temporality is essentially being futural, of projecting. But these projections can, in turn, only be authentic if the past is authentically recognized and consulted rather than being discarded. Then, in running towards the future in our present, we can become whole, become what we are. Of course, this necessitates a healthy outlook towards death, which basically consists of not fleeing the concept and embracing it as our inevitable possibility.

This is probably better after reading Being and Time rather than before. Also, make sure your copy is a good one. Apparently there are strange editions going around.
Profile Image for Chant.
287 reviews11 followers
January 11, 2019
I AM TIME. AT THE CURRENT TIME I AM THE TIME.
Profile Image for Sofia.
35 reviews4 followers
March 18, 2021
Saps quan un emporrat et fa un monòleg sobre mogudes mentals que sembla que no tenen sentit i després et quedes molt boig pensant en el que acaba de dir? Això és aquest llibre. És una conferència prèvia a la publicació de L’ésser i el temps, on s’hi exposen els conceptes fonamentals de manera sintetitzada.
Profile Image for Milo Galiano.
74 reviews11 followers
July 26, 2022
Es un texto PRECIOSO, además de muy breve.

Quien diga que Heidegger escribe enrevesado, que comience a leerlo sin buscar las prisas.

Relaciona todo el rato el tiempo con el reloj y con el concepto "ser-ahí".
Profile Image for Alessandra.
40 reviews4 followers
April 11, 2021
Domandando [...] del «quando?» e del «quanto?» l’esserci perde il suo tempo. Che ne è di questo domandare che perde il tempo? Dove va a finire il tempo? Proprio l’esserci che fa i conti con il tempo, che vive con l’orologio in mano, proprio questo esserci che calcola il tempo dice costantemente: non ho tempo. Con ciò non si tradisce forse da sé in quello che fa del tempo, in quanto è egli stesso il tempo? Perdere tempo e, per farlo, procurarsi un orologio! Non viene qui prepotentemente alla luce l’inquietante spaesatezza dell’esserci?
Profile Image for Michael Ledezma.
34 reviews9 followers
January 6, 2013
Great little book. Offers some key insights and nuances, especially when it comes to the translator's word choices (Vorlaufen as running ahead to the past=anticipation in S&Z) Ends on an ambiguous note: "What is time?" became the question "Who is time?" More closely: are we ourselves time? Or closer still: am I my time?" Beautiful!!
Profile Image for Daniel Gargallo.
Author 5 books10 followers
December 7, 2017
This very short lecture will tell you very specifically what Dasein means. I wish I had read this lecture before I tried to read Being and Time because it’s very clear. If you’re interested in reading H, but don’t do well with the difficult language in big philosophical texts, this is a good starting point. It touches some major Heideggerian themes like hermeneutics and could form the good basis of your exploration into Heidegger. If you’re already an expert on the man then I suppose this book can only give you an idea of what he was thinking before Being and Time, in which case you should read only if you appreciate thought process.
Profile Image for Saverio Mariani.
176 reviews21 followers
June 8, 2015
Le idee di un giovane Heidegger (il testo propone una conferenza tenuta nel luglio del 1924) sul concetto di tempo. Vengono citati Einstein e Aristotele, come riferimenti per le argomentazioni dell'autore. A mio avviso, però, dietro questo discorso vi è tutta l'intuizione bergsoniana che, in quegli anni, era così di moda da farla sembrare una corrente artistico-letteraria. Tutt'altro.
Come ha più volte detto Lévinas, senza il concetto di durata e la rivalutazione del concetto di tempo di Bergson, non ci sarebbe stato il Dasein e la temporalità dell'essere e dell'esserci di Heidegger.
Profile Image for Jodie Foster.
2 reviews1 follower
November 21, 2021
It definitely made me think, but it was so complicated that I didn’t really understand the nuances in his writing. I recommend reading this after you already know some basic information about Niedegger and his work, or else it could be a bit difficult.
Profile Image for Kia Taheri.
44 reviews22 followers
June 13, 2012
هایدگر از دید تازه‌ای به مفهوم زمان نگاه می‌کند. دیدی که محدود به «بودن» یا «شدن» نیست. زمانِ هایدگر، بی‌توجه است نسبت به فلسفه‌ی یونان باستان.
Profile Image for Epifras.
128 reviews
Read
June 29, 2022
Nedbrytningen av kronos, den döda, anonyma, beräknade tiden till kairos, det ödesmättade, kritiska ögonblicket - själva livs-tiden.

Heideggers utkast till Vara och tid som han presenterade framför Freiburgs teologiska samfund 1924. Det är en provocerande föreläsning då han börjar med att indirekt ifrågasätta Guds evighet. Vi kan inte gå från Guds tid till vår tid som så många andra filosofer och teologer har gjort, utan vi måste börja med tillvarons tid och sedan försöka förstå Guds tid (evigheten).

Tiden timar sig. Tiden är inte någonting, något varande. Och tiden går inte heller att förstå som utsträckning, genom rumsliga metaforer (en samling nupunkter som vi kan mäta och utmarkera på en spatiell linje). Detta senare är vetenskaperna och metafysikens förvillelse. Tiden är inte en sträcka likartade (homogena) punkter av ”nu” som vi passerar genom och som sedan ”förloras” såsom för-flutna. Detta är en nivellering och en slags utradering av tiden till ett dött, formellt och allmänt begrepp som inte bevarar den rikedom som den ursprungliga tiden innehåller. Tiden har inget gemensamt mått, inget mått - ur/klock-måttet är bara "världs-tid" som i sin tur förlitar sig på tillvarons tid. Naturens tid bygger vidare på den förfrämligade världs-tiden genom ett mångfaldigande av nu-punkter. Ju mer vi tror att tiden är mätbar och ”något vi kan ha”/en entitet, desto mindre tid är vi. Vi förlorar tid när vi mäter och räknar den. Ett mer passande vokabulär för att förstå tid är inte ”för-fluten” (oåterkalleligt fluten) eller ”fram-tiden”, utan bör snarare förstås som ”för-gången” (som jag kan gå återigen) och före-löpande” (som jag kan föregripa). Tiden har inte heller bara en riktning som linjen ger ett intryck av. Tillvarons tid går åt alla riktningar, från förgånget till nuet, från föregripande utkast/förelöpande till förgånget, från nuet till förelöpande. Dessa tidsekstaser är aldrig närvarande och realiseras aldrig men de utgör min tillvaro i form av möjligvaro (förelöpande), fakticitet (förgången) och ögonblick (nuet). Vidare så har tiden inte någon given kronologi, såsom den vetenskapliga och ”världsliga” tiden ger sken av, utan alla ekstaser går in i varandra. Tiden är inte en räcka tal som man betar av i en kronologisk eller mängdbaserad ordning såsom Wittgensteins regelföljande.

Tillvaron, jag - vi -, är tid. Guds evighet är en avledd tid av tillvaron. Evigheten konstrueras med hjälp av den ursprunliga tid som vi är. Evighet föreställs med hjälp av den där varje nu-punkt är närvarande. Men frågan är ens om evigheten finns eller ens går att förstå eller föreställa sig. Evigheten verkar antingen vara ett avlett begrepp av vår tillvaro eller ett meningslöst sådant, eller båda två. Guds tid, hans evighet, är nunc stans, ett "stående nu" som aldrig passerar eller kommer. För Heidegger så är tid Jeweiligkeit, det vill säga en specifik tid, - någon tid - och detta innebär att tillvaron är där-varo, det vill säga en tillvaro i en specifik tid och plats. Denna Jeweiligkeit kan gripas av tillvaron som Jemeinigkeit - Min tid!

Spåret av den ontologiska differensen (mellan varanden och varat) i föreläsningen: Det mest förfallna/avartade tidsbegreppet frågar frågan "Hur mycket?" (Wieviel?) [Hur mycket är klockan?] som sätter tiden i relation till ett mått, medan det näst mest förfallna begreppet uppehåller sig vid "Vad?" (Was?), som om tiden är ett ting - det ursprungliga, autentiska frågandet stannar däremot vid "Wie?" (Hur?); Hur är tiden? Hur är tillvaron? Hur är vi? Hur är? Detta är uppväckandet av det ursprungliga frågandet som inte förlorar sig i varanden. Tiden är inget varande, inget ting eller någon entitet. Tiden tidigar sig eller timar sig och går inte att objektifiera eller utmarkera som "något".

Det visar sig alltså att tiden inte alls är blott ett ”begrepp” eller ett ”mått” (på rörelse såsom Aristoteles tänkte) utan tillvarons grundstruktur, själva tillvaron, och att alla andra förståelser av tid och evigheten måste hänvisa till denna tillvaro för att bli förståeliga - tänk också på McTaggarts slag mot idén om en ”objektiv” tid genom sina A- och B-serier (idén om före och efter förutsätter en position i tiden i form av då-nu-kommande). Mängden, mätandet, kalendern, uret, världstiden, räknandet, och Guds evighet finner sina rötter i tillvarons ombesörjande.
Profile Image for Renxiang Liu.
31 reviews19 followers
July 17, 2017
This short text comprises a lecture Martin Heidegger delivered to the Marburg Theological Society in 1924, which should not be confused, due to affinity in titles, with Gesamtausgabe 64 (English translation: The Concept of Time: The First Draft of Being and Time ). The latter elaborates further on the topics in the former, and was submitted to the Journal Deutsche Vierteljahresschrift für Literaturwissenschaft und Geistgeschichte in 1924.

Hans-Georg Gadamer calls this version the "original form" of Being and Time . This seems reasonable, for the short lecture embarks upon what is the central theme in Being and Time: another sense of time that Dasein as its ownmost self is (rather than is in).

The lecture starts with God due to its audience, but soon takes off by raising the question, does time mean nothing more, as it were in theology, than eternity? The inquiry into the question is defined as a "pre-science" which prepares the ontological ground for any scientific study on time.

Like in Being and Time, Heidegger starts with world time or "the time of everydayness". In traditional view, time is the container of events. Then time is measured, both by everyday Daseins and by physicists, as something homogeneous despite the variety of things happening within it. Oriented towards the now, however, this notion of time reveals its foundedness upon Dasein's concerns. But this inauthentic mode of calculating the "nows" indicates yet an authentic mode of living time, that is, living one's own time towards the "indeterminate certainty" of the possibility of death.

Now it becomes clear that ordinary time is constituted only because everyday Dasein evades its ownmost possibility and thus slides from the "how" to the "what" of its being. Then Heidegger argues that authentic time 1) is oriented towards the future, and 2) is precisely Dasein itself as running-ahead, as radical possibility. The tendency towards inauthenticity, however, is not accidental but rather essential to Dasein.

                    

This text contains nothing that later did not get developed in Being and Time. Therefore, it is not very helpful as a source of Heidegger's less-renowned ideas. It still has two uses though. First, it indicates how Heidegger's whole bunch of ideas developed, perhaps through History of the Concept of Time: Prolegomena , into what was eventually presented in Being and Time. Second - and this is related - it lets us glimpse into what Heidegger was initially after in his research. My opinion is that Heidegger was more concerned with re-interpreting time, and, in order to do this, he needs fundamental ontology (the key lying in the sense of the self, the self-alienating nullity that is ontically the closest yet ontologically the farthest), which, in turn, necessitates Daseinanalytik (Being and Time Division I). Accordingly, the detailed analysis on Dasein's everyday comportment, which gets (over-)emphasized in the popular interpretation by authors like Hubert L. Dreyfus, is but some preparatory clarification in Heidegger's own terms. Zuhandensein and Vorhandensein are not even present in this draft. When writing Being and Time, Heidegger chose to start with the Dasein; this by no means implies that his thought took the same course.

Besides its significance for Heidegger scholars, this pamphlet is also a concise presentation of the ideas of Being and Time (though usually without adequate argument), especially of the less clarified second Division.
October 23, 2022
“Il tempo di ora, di adesso che guardo l'orologio: che cos'è questo «ora»? «Ora» che faccio questo; «ora» che, per esempio, qui si spegne la luce. Che cos'è l'«ora»? Dispongo dell'«ora»? Sono io l'«ora»? È ciascun altro l'«ora»? In tal caso sarei io stesso il tempo, ciascun altro sarebbe il tempo. E nel nostro essere l'uno con l'altro saremmo il tempo - nessuno e ciascuno. Sono io I'«ora», oppure sono solo colui che dice «ora»?”
[…]
“La vita umana non è un soggetto qualsiasi che deve fare un qualche artificio per entrare nel mondo. Esserci in quanto essere-nel-mondo vuol dire: essere nel mondo in modo che questo essere significhi: avere a che fare con il mondo; rimanere nel mondo in una modalità dell'eseguire, dell'operare, dello sbrigare, ma anche del considerare, dell'interrogare, del determinare mediante l'osservazione e la comparazione. L'essere-nel-mondo è caratterizzato come prendersi cura.”
Profile Image for Dan.
422 reviews110 followers
September 7, 2023
What is time, what Aristotle and St. Augustine understood by time, why Einstein's concept of time was borrowed from Aristotle, what is wrong with the scientific concept of time, why measuring time is not very helpful or insightful in understanding time, how They/the One understand time, how a succession of “nows” forces past and future into the present, why the obsession with reversible and homogeneous time in physics, what is the connection between authentic history and time, how we humans gain/lose/pass time, why temporarily is the main issue here and not really time, how time and death are connected, and how fundamentally Dasein and time are the same -- are some of the topics in this very brief lecture.
6 reviews
August 4, 2022
The foreword starts off with the introduction of the book as a piece of 2 lectures by Heidegger. Familiarity with Being and Time, and History of The Concept of Time will help greatly since Heidegger doesn't spend much time developing the need for 'Dasein' in this book.
I needed additional material to really understand this piece, and it seems to be a brilliant work of phenomenology.
However, although Heidegger is familiar with the relativistic nature of time and measurement, it seemed like he did not spend much space for it.
However, having not read Being and Time, my ignorance might have the best of me in this case.
Profile Image for Veronica.
96 reviews
February 13, 2023
Il testo è una trascrizione della conferenza tenuta da Martin Heiddeger il 25 Luglio 1924 a Marburgo. Il filosofo affronta il tema del tempo ponendoci una prospettiva altra: nel domandarci cos’è il tempo possiamo trovare la risposta solo nel “come”. Il tempo siamo noi. Il tempo autentico del nostro essere nel mondo non può ridursi ad un orologio. Infatti l’orologio non è che il continuo paragone fra adesso e prima, o fra adesso e dopo. Io sono, invece, di volta in volta e queste piccole parti di tempo costituiscono la mia propria storia. Uno scritto breve, molto intenso, a tratti complesso, ma estremamente attuale per una società che corre e scorre.
Profile Image for Luna Grandón.
68 reviews4 followers
January 3, 2023
Es mi primera lectura seria de Heiddeger, a quien había evitado por la fama de complejo. Y, pese a que lo es, este libro es una joya, que compila una conferencia que dictó en 1924, tres años antes de publicar Ser y Tiempo. Expone de forma muy clara y pedagógica las tesis centrales sobre su reflexión en torno a la relación entre el ser-ahí y el tiempo, pasando en ello por la muerte, el "haber sido", la cotidianidad y los relojes. Lo recomendaría mucho. Es corto, pero se lee con lentitud.
(*Mi revisión es sobre la edición de Trotta, colección Mínima)
Profile Image for Andrea.
110 reviews
November 14, 2023
Un Heidegger quasi comprensibile che filosofa sulla forma corretta con cui si dovrebbe affrontare il problema del tempo. Non più spazializzato e naturale, ma un tempo come esserci in funzione della morte e del non più. Un tempo da non sprecare, cosa che invece avviene nella società del consumo in cui il tempo è solo denaro.
June 13, 2022
Heidegger plantea una mirada al tiempo desde lo fenomenológico, no cósmico u objetivo, a partir de ahí, desarrolla la urgencia de vivir el presente (existencialismo) de forma consciente, donde el tiempo permite la experiencia.
36 reviews
September 26, 2023
Perfetto sommario preparativo dei concetti, pensieri e ragionamenti di Heidegger.
Proprio qui ci sono quei "vocaboli" concernenti l'essere la cui comprensione è fondamentale per la lettura di Essere e Tempo.
Profile Image for Daniel Edgardo.
23 reviews5 followers
October 3, 2019
"The clock shows us the now, but no clock ever shows the future or has ever shown the past." (p. 17)
54 reviews1 follower
Read
April 6, 2020
Loved this book. It completes Heidegger's trio: BaT, BPoP, & CoT.
Heidegger changes his earlier thesis from BaT here in CoT.
Profile Image for Ana Paula Silvan Garcia.
94 reviews1 follower
November 3, 2020
No es el tipo de libro que leo, pero trato de dar la oportunidad a otro tipo de libros de los cual no leo y asi tener un poco mas de repertorio.
Profile Image for ryulollo.
7 reviews1 follower
January 4, 2023
spero di studiarlo a scuola, è un libro per pochi, molto complicato ma bello
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