Heidegger's Vision Of A Mental State

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Heidegger’s vision of a different way for humans to live is not simply living or dwelling in physical space, but being dwellers of a mental state. While humans tend to live in buildings, they do not dwell in them. For example, Heidegger explains in Building Dwelling Thinking “we do not dwell because we have built, but we build and have built because we dwell, that is, because we are dwellers” (350). So while humans reside in buildings, they are created as a result of human beings dwelling in a mental state. Humans as dwellers in a mental state are also dwellers in the fourfold. The fourfold 's definition is the “simple oneness” between the earth, the sky, the mortals, and the divinities. The fourfold is an example of this mental dwelling because …show more content…

To not exist equally in all parts of the fourfold would be to disrupt this unity and dwell not in a mental state. As a result, Heidegger’s way for humans to live would not be unique in regards to other ideas of living. Heidegger also explores the concept of space and locales in which humans mentally occupy. These locales allow space for essences to gather, just as a building allows people to …show more content…

Considering that dwelling is mental, then it is then a form of thinking, such that “building and thinking are, each in its own way, inescapable for dwelling” (362). Thus, as a result of building being a form of dwelling, and dwelling as a form of thinking because it occurs in a mental state, then thinking is essential to Heidegger’s vision. Thinking also ties into the creation of locales, and the relationship between locales and space. For example, “man’s relation to locales, and though locales to spaces, inheres in his dwelling. The relationship between man and space is none other than dwelling, thought essentially” (359). In other words, man thinks about the relationship between locales and space, and thus creates them and dwells in them. Furthermore, because humans live in their mental dwelling, their lack of a physical home may have no impact on their lives. Such that “the proper dwelling plight lies in this, that mortals ever search anew for the essence of dwelling, that they must ever learn to dwell”, and thus to dwell is a learned process, and learning is a form of thinking (363). Learning is a form of thinking, and therefore by dwelling in this mental state “we are trying to learn thinking” (380). As a result, thinking contributes greatly to Heidegger’s vision of a different way for humans to live on

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