Being and Time, For the Time Being

An overview of Martin Heidegger’s 1927 Being and Time in light of present circumstances in the 21^st Century.  Heidegger argued that philosophers and psychologists have historically devoted too much attention studying human beings (where beings is a noun), rather than humans being (where being is a verb), resulting in a conception of humanity as disembodied, detached, acultural, ahistorical, solitary thinking entities in a mathematically precise universe devoid of meaning or purpose.  This stunted and distorted vision of humanity has, in modernity, resulted in people riddled with existential anxieties prone to excessive preoccupation with trivial distractions, devotion to fascist/populist leaders, and reliance on technology that underlies the impending environmental apocalypse.

Sheldon Solomon is Professor of Psychology at Skidmore College.  His studies of the effects of the uniquely human awareness of death on behavior are supported by the National Science Foundation and Ernest Becker Foundation, and featured in the documentary film Flight from Death: The Quest for Immortality.  He is co-author of In the Wake of 9/11: The Psychology of Terror and The Worm at the Core: On the Role of Death in Life.  Sheldon is an American Psychological Society Fellow, a recipient of an American Psychological Association Presidential Citation, and a Lifetime Career Award by the International Society for Self and Identity.