Philosophy begins where everyday smooth functioning breaks down.

Evidence

Heidegger’s Being and Time initially conjures up a seamless world of happy hammerers, communing with their fellows in their shared Mitsein while having a vague proto-understanding of Being which they never pause to think about in detail. If that were all there was to Heidegger, he probably would have inspired less passion — and if that were all there was to human life, we would hardly be interested in philosophy at all. Who would need philosophers in such a zipless world? Fortunately for the profession, zips get stuck; things break. And Heidegger analyses what happens next. — Sarah Bakewell, At the Existentialist Café, 232

Categorization

• DEFINE: Introduces Mitsein and the proto-understanding of Being as the field from which breakdown arises.
• XREF: connects to: Small everyday failures can collapse into existential unease, and that unease births philosophy; The question of life’s purpose arises only when routine unexpectedly breaks down — Sarah Bakewell, At the Existentialist Café: Freedom,…, 485; Philosophies are inhabited and lived in rather than merely followed as rules — Sarah Bakewell, At the Existentialist Café: Freedom,…, 104

Broader Connections

• The question of life’s purpose arises only when routine unexpectedly breaks down #corroborates (0.88) — Sarah Bakewell, At the Existentialist Café, 485
• Small everyday failures can collapse into existential unease, and that unease births philosophy #expands (0.85)
• Philosophies are inhabited and lived in rather than merely followed as rules #expands (0.72) — Sarah Bakewell, At the Existentialist Café, 104