The classical notion of ecstasis is to be outside oneself, as in the phrase "beside oneself with joy". That's very different from inhabiting an expanded self. Are you saying that Heidegger revised the classical notion? If so, did he do this as part of an extended critique?
Nietzsche was a classicist and Heidegger's whole philosophy (if I remember grad school) was about taking off from classical roots, so it's unlikely they would have changed this concept without saying why. I'd like to know where they say it.
This isn't merely theoretical. My experience has been that Nietzschean self-assertion, at least in its more vulgar forms, leads to unhappiness in the long run - and that taking the focus off self, as suggested by the etymology of "ecstasy", is a more viable strategy. (Then again - not necessarily in adolescence, but later.)
> The classical notion of ecstasis is to be outside oneself, as in the phrase "beside oneself with joy".
Heidegger didn't really believe in a transcendent self, as far as my very amateur reading can tell. Rather, I think he was critiquing all things transcendent (yeah, Plato and Kant), and trying to show how things and experience would feel transcendent, even if they aren't.
I also think he used a lot of irony -- he talks about authenticity, and he sort of means it but he also sort thinks that any personal transcendence is just balderdash; so authenticity is facing both death and the lack of any final answer as to what is authentic. (All that a Dasein "is" is something that wonders what it "is". This self-questioning of being, or "is-ness", of both the world and ourselves, is fundamental to the human condition, and is where the "Being" of "Being in Time" comes from.)
Re ecstasis: He was talking about the phenomenological experience of interacting with the world. And I interpret "ecstasis" to mean "the process of expansion into the world" -- sort of getting outside one's "self", but with a sort of ironic notion of selfhood. Again, there is irony and allusion to the classical notion, but recast in his own phenomenology.
My rather loose interpetation of Nietzsche is that supposedly nietzschean self assertion is not really Nietzschean at all, but rather naive and foolish and immature. Zarathustra counsels against going to the city and indulging in pleasure.
YMMV -- I am just a guy talking in a bar about these things.
I appreciate the reply, but I don't know what most of these words mean.
I guess the advantage of talking in a bar is that you can get an intuitive read of where the other person is coming from, then line up your personal vocabulary to better match theirs. This makes for more satisfying communication. Online discourse seems particularly ill-suited to talking about anything hard to define.
Nietzsche was nuts and Heidegger, like some sort of pre-computer age Perl programmer, had extreme difficulty explaining or even, apparently, _understanding_ what he had previously written. Sound familiar? Today philosophers' continue to argue about what they believe Heidegger was _trying_ to say as well as what he said.
If you absolutely _must_ consider any of this further I could do no better than recommend "Why Heideggerian AI Failed and how Fixing it would Require making it more Heideggerian" by Hubert L. Dreyfus, perhaps after a half-carafe of wine. For true inspiration, LSD would likely be better.
Nietzsche was a classicist and Heidegger's whole philosophy (if I remember grad school) was about taking off from classical roots, so it's unlikely they would have changed this concept without saying why. I'd like to know where they say it.
This isn't merely theoretical. My experience has been that Nietzschean self-assertion, at least in its more vulgar forms, leads to unhappiness in the long run - and that taking the focus off self, as suggested by the etymology of "ecstasy", is a more viable strategy. (Then again - not necessarily in adolescence, but later.)