The Philosopher's Corner

Heidegger's philosophy has long been one of the core references for information systems (IS) researchers, often drawing upon one of two distinct perspectives he employed in his writings. The first of these perspectives is found in Heidegger's work on presence, and the second in his work on relations. We refer to these two as his presence perspective and his relation perspective. The presence perspective builds on ideas developed in early sections of his major work, Being and Time (1927:1996), contrasting the presence of being-in-the-world with that of readiness-at-hand. The relation perspective builds on ideas developed in later sections of Being and Time, elaborating on the concept of being-with [Mitsein]. We discuss the ways these two key perspectives in his philosophy are intertwined and reinforce each other when we consider them together, and how they amplify and extend each other's scope of effect in human situated practice. We argue that Heidegger's philosophical perspective on human existence is a powerful theoretical lens for understanding both the subjective and the objective poles of our experience of being in the world. It provides an integrated framework for research on both poles that is useful across the IS field.