Martin Heidegger was one of the most
original and important philosophers of the 20th
century, but also the most controversial. His thinking has
contributed to such diverse fields as phenomenology (Merleau-Ponty),
existentialism (Sartre,
Ortega y Gasset), hermeneutics (Gadamer, Ricoeur),
political theory (Arendt,
Marcuse), psychology (Boss, Binswanger, Rollo May), theology
(Bultmann, Rahner, Tillich), and postmodernism (Derrida). His
main concern was ontology or the study of being. In his
fundamental treatise, Being and Time, he attempted to
access being (Sein) by means of phenomenological analysis of
human existence (Dasein) in respect to its temporal and
historical character. In his later works Heidegger had
stressed the nihilism of modern technological society, and
attempted to win Western philosophical tradition back to the
question of being. He placed an emphasis on language as the
vehicle through which the question of being could be unfolded,
and on the special role of poetry. His writings are
notoriously difficult. Being and Time remains still his
most influential work.
Table of Contents
(Clicking on the links below will take you to those parts of
this article)
1. Life and
Works
Heidegger was born on September 26, 1889 in Messkirch in
south-west Germany to a Catholic family. His father worked as
sexton in the local church. In his early youth Heidegger was
being prepared for the priesthood. In 1903 he went to the high
school in Konstanz, where the church supported him by a
scholarship, and then, in 1906, he moved to Freiburg. His
interest in philosophy first arose during his high school
studies in Freiburg when, being seventeen, he read Franz
Brentano's book entitled On the Manifold Meaning of Being
according to Aristotle. By his own account, it was this
work that inspired his life-long quest for the meaning of
being. In 1909, after completing the high school, he became a
Jesuit novice, but was discharged within a month for reasons
of health. He then entered Freiburg University where he
studied theology. However, a deteriorating health condition
and perhaps a lack of a strong spiritual vocation led
Heidegger in 1911 to leave the seminary and beak off his
training for the priesthood. He took up studies in philosophy,
mathematics, and natural sciences. It was also at that time
that he first became influenced by Edmund Husserl. He studied
Husserl's Logical Investigations. In 1913 he completed
a doctorate in philosophy with a dissertation on The
Doctrine of Judgement in Psychologism under the direction
of the neo-Kantian philosopher Heinrich Rickert.
The outbreak of the First World War in 1914 interrupted
briefly Heidegger's academic career. He was enlisted in the
army, but after two months released because of health reasons.
Hoping to take over the chair of Catholic philosophy at
Freiburg, Heidegger now began to work on his habilitation
thesis on Duns Scotus's Doctrine of Categories and
Meaning, the second qualifying dissertation that would win
him a license to teach at the university. The dissertation was
completed in 1915 and in the same year Heidegger became a
Privatdozent or unsalaried lecturer. He taught mostly courses
in Aristotelian and scholastic philosophy, and regarded
himself as standing in the service of the Catholic world-view.
Nevertheless, his turn from theology to philosophy was soon to
be followed by another turn. In 1916 he came to know
personally Edmund Husserl who joined the Freiburg faculty.
Then, in 1917 he married Thea Elfride Petri, a Protestant
student who had attended his courses since the fall of 1915.
His career was again interrupted in 1918 when he was called up
for active military duty. He served as a weatherman on the
western front during the last three months of the war. When he
returned to Freiburg, within a few weeks, he announced his
break with the "system of Catholicism" (January 9, 1919), got
himself appointed as Husserl's assistant (January 21, 1919),
and began lecturing in a new, insightful way (February 7,
1919). His lectures on phenomenology and his creative
interpretations of Aristotle would earn him now a wide
acclaim. And yet, Heidegger was not Husserl's faithful
follower. He was not captivated by his master's later
developments - by his neo-Kantian turn towards transcendental
subjectivity, and even less by his Cartesian turn - but
preferred his earlier work, Logical Investigations.
Laboring over the question of the things themselves, he soon
began to radically reinterpret Husserl's phenomenology.
In 1923 Heidegger moved to Marburg University where with
the help of Paul Natrop he obtained a position of associate
professor. Between 1923 and 1928 he enjoyed there the most
fruitful years of his entire teaching. His students testified
to the originality of his insight and the intensivity of his
philosophical questioning. Heidegger extended the scope of his
lectures, and taught courses on history of philosophy, time,
logic, phenomenology, Plato, Aristotle, Aquinas, Kant, and
Leibniz. But since 1916 he had published nothing and the lack
of publications stood on the way of his further academic
career. Finally, in February 1927, partly because of an
administrative pressure, his fundamental, but also unfinished
treatise, Being and Time, appeared. Within a few years,
this book was recognized as a truly epoch-making work of the
20th century philosophy. It earned Heidegger, in
the fall of 1927, the full professorship at Marburg, and one
year later, after Husserl's retirement from teaching, the
chair of philosophy at Freiburg University. Although Being
and Time is dedicated to Husserl, upon its publication
Heidegger's departure from Husserl's phenomenology and the
differences between two philosophers became apparent. Next
works, published in 1929, "What is Metaphysics?," "On the
Essence of Ground," and Kant and the Problem of
Metaphysics, had further revealed how far Heidegger moved
from neo-Kantianism and phenomenology of consciousness to his
phenomenological ontology.
Heidegger's life entered in a new, controversial stage with
Hitler's rise to power. In September 1930, Adolf Hitler's
National Socialist German Workers' Party (NSDAP) became
the second largest party in Germany and on January 30, 1933
Hitler was appointed chancellor of the German Republic.
Heidegger, who before was virtually apolitical, in early 1930s
become politically involved. On April 21, 1933 he was elected
rector of Freiburg University by the faculty, and accepted
this politically charged post with the motive, as he later
claimed, to resist the political control of the university. On
May 3, 1933 he joined the NSDAP party. On May 27, 1933 he
delivered his inaugural rector's address on "The
Self-Affirmation of the German University," whose ambiguous
text is frequently interpreted as an expression of his support
of Hitler's regime. There is a little doubt that during his
tenure as rector, Heidegger became instrumental to Nazi
policies and, willingly or not, helped to transform the
university into National-Socialist mold. And yet, one year
later, on April 23, 1934 Heidegger resigned the rectorate and
took no further part in politics. His inaugural rector's
address was found incompatible with the party line and its
text was eventually banned by the Nazis. There was no trace
there of the biologism which sustained nazism, nor of
anti-Semitism. Because he was no longer involved in the
party's activity, Heidegger's membership in the NSDAP became a
mere formality. Various restrictions were put on his freedom
to publish and attend conferences. In his lectures of the late
1930s and the early 1940s, especially those which he gave
during the period in which he was writing Contributions to
Philosophy, he expressed covert criticism of Nazi
ideology. For some time he was under surveillance of Gestapo.
He was finally humiliated in 1944 when he was declared the
most "expendable" member of the faculty and sent to the Rhine
to dig trenches. Because of the ambiguity of Heidegger's
attitude toward nazism, the period of his life under Hitler's
regime and the relationship between his philosophy and
political involvement are still the subject of controversy and
provoke a heated debate. Following Germany's defeat in the
Second World War, Heidegger was in 1945 forbidden to teach and
in 1946 dismissed from his chair of philosophy because of
alleged Nazi sympathies. The ban was lifted in 1949.
The 1930s are not only marked by Heidegger's controversial
involvement in politics, but also by a change in his thinking
which is known as "the turn" (die Kehre). In his
lectures and writings that followed "the turn," he became less
systematic and often more obscure than in his fundamental
work, Being and Time. He turned to the exegesis of
philosophical and literary texts, especially of the
Presocratics, but also of Kant, Hegel, Nietzsche and
Hölderlin, and makes this his way of philosophizing. A
recurring theme of that time was "the essence of truth."
During the decade between 1931 and 1940, Heidegger offered
five courses under this title. His preoccupation with the
question of language and his fascination with poetry were
expressed in lectures on Hörderlin which he gave between 1934
and 1936. Towards the end of 1930s and the beginning of 1940s,
he taught five courses on Nietzsche, in which he submitted to
criticism the tradition of western metaphysics, described by
him as nihilistic, and made allusions to the absurdity of war
and the bestiality of his contemporaries. Finally, his
reflection upon western philosophical tradition and an
endeavor to open a space for philosophizing outside it,
brought him to Presocratic thought. In the course of lectures
entitled "An Introduction to Metaphysics," offered in the
summer semester of 1935, and published in 1953, which can be
seen as a bridge between earlier and later Heidegger, the
Presocratics were no longer a subject of mere passing remarks
as in Heidegger's earlier works. The course was not about
early Greek though; and yet, the Presocratics became there the
pivotal center of discussion. It is clear that with the
evolution of Heidegger's thinking in the 1930s, they gained in
importance in his work. During the 1940s, in addition to
giving courses on Aristotle, Kant and Hegel, Heidegger
lectured extensively on Anaximander, Parmenides, and
Heraclitus.
During the last three decades of his life, from the mid
1940s to the mid 1970s, Heidegger wrote and published much,
but in comparison to earlier decades, there was no significant
change in his philosophy. In his insightful essays and
lectures, such as "What are Poets for?" (1946), "Letter on
Humanism" (1947), "The Question Concerning Technology" (1953),
"The Way to Language" (1959), "Time and Being" (1962), and
"The End of Philosophy and the Task of Thinking" (1964), he
addressed different issues concerning modernity, labored on
his original philosophy of history - the history of being, and
attempted to clarify his way of thinking after the turn. Most
of his time was divided between his home in Freiburg, his
second study in Messkirch, and his mountain hut in the Black
Forest. But he escaped provincialism, by being frequently
visited by his friends, including, among the others, the
political philosopher Hannah Arendt, the physicist Werner
Heisenberg, the theologian Rudolf Bultmann, the psychologist
Ludwig Binswanger, and by traveling more widely than ever
before. He lectured on "What is Philosophy?" at
Cerisy-la-Salle in 1955, and on "Hegel and the Greeks" at
Aix-en-Provence in 1957. He visited Greece in 1962, and again
in 1967. In 1966, Heidegger attempted to justify his political
involvement during the Nazi regime in an interview with Der
Spiegel entitled "Only a God Can Save Us." It was
published only ten years later, after his death. One of his
last teaching assignments was his seminar on Parmenides which
he offered in Zähringen in 1973. Heiddegger died on May 26,
1976 and was buried in the churchyard at Messkirch. To the
very end he worked on various projects, including the
extensive Gesamtausgabe, the complete edition of his
works.
2. Philosophy as Phenomenological Ontology
In order to understand Heidegger's philosophy before "the
turn" let us first briefly consider his indebtedness to Edmund
Husserl. As it has been mentioned, Heidegger was interested in
Husserl from his early student years at the University of
Freiburg when he read Logical Investigations. Later,
when Husserl accepted a chair at Freiburg, he become his
assistant. His debt to Husserl cannot be overlooked. Not only
is Being and Time dedicated to Husserl, but also
Heidegger acknowledges in it that without Husserl's
phenomenology his own investigation would not have been
possible. How is then Heidegger's philosophy related to the
Husserlian program of phenomenology?
By "phenomenology" Husserl himself had always meant the
science of consciousness and its objects; this core of sense
pervades the development of this concept as eidetic,
transcendental or constructive throughout his works. Following
the Cartesian tradition, he saw the ground and the absolute
starting point of philosophy in the subject. The procedure of
bracketing is essential to Husserl's "phenomenological
reduction" - the methodological procedure by which we are led
from "the natural attitude," in which we are involved in the
actual world and its affairs, to "the phenomenological
attitude," in which the analysis and detached description of
the content of consciousness is possible. The phenomenological
reduction helps us to free ourselves from prejudices and
secure the purity of our detachment as observers, so that we
can encounter "things as they are in themselves" independently
of any presuppositions. The goal of phenomenology for Husserl
is then a descriptive, detached analysis of consciousness in
which objects, as its correlates, are constituted.
What right does Husserl have to insist that the original
mode of encounter with beings, in which they appear to us as
they are as things in themselves, is the encounter of
consciousness purified by phenomenological reduction and its
objects? "Whence and how is it determined what must be
experienced as the "things themselves" in accordance with the
principle of phenomenology?" These are pressing questions
which Heidegger either might have or had asked. Perhaps
because of his reverence for Husserl, he does not subject him
to a direct criticism in his fundamental work.
Nevertheless, Being and Time is itself a powerful
critique of the Husserlian phenomenology. Heidegger there
gives attention to many different modes in which we exist and
encounter things. He analyses the structures constitutive of
things not only as they are encountered in the detached,
theoretical attitude of consciousness, but also in daily life
as "utensils" (Zuhandene) or in special moods,
especially in anxiety (Angst). Also, he exhibits there
the structures that are constitutive of the particular kind of
being which is the human being and which he calls "Dasein."
For Heidegger, it is not pure consciousness in which beings
are originally constituted. The starting point of philosophy
for him is not consciousness, but Dasein in its being.
The central problem for Husserl is the problem of
constitution: How is the world as phenomenon constituted in
our consciousness? Heidegger brings the Husserlian problem one
step further. Instead of asking how something must be given in
consciousness in order to be constituted, he asks: "What is
the mode of being of that being in which the world constitutes
itself?" In a letter to Husserl dated October 27, 1927, he
states that the question of Dasein's being cannot be evaded,
as far as the problem of constitution is concerned. Dasein is
that being in which any being is constituted. Further, the
question of Dasein's being directs him to the problem of being
in general. The "universal problem of being," he says in the
same letter, "refers to that which constitutes and to that
which is constituted." Hence far from being dependent upon
Husserl, Heidegger finds in his thought an inspiration leading
him to the theme which continues to draw his attention from
his early years: the question of the meaning of being.
Phenomenology receives thus in Heidegger a new meaning. He
conceives it more broadly, and more etymologically, than
Husserl as "letting what shows itself to be seen from itself,
just as it shows from itself." Husserl applies the term
"phenomenology" to a whole philosophy. Heidegger takes it
rather to designate a method. Since in Being and Time
philosophy is described as "ontology" and has as its theme
being, it cannot adopt its method from any of the actual
sciences. For Heidegger the method of ontology is
phenomenology. "Phenonenology," he says, "is the way of access
to what is to become the theme of ontology." Being is to be
grasped by means of the phenomenological method. However,
being is always the being of a being, and accordingly, it
becomes accessible only indirectly through some existing
entity. Therefore, "phenomenological reduction" is necessary.
One must direct oneself toward an entity, but in such a way
that its being is thereby brought out. It is Dasein which
Heidegger chooses as the particular entity to access being.
Hence, as the basic component of his phenomenology Heidegger
adopts the Husserlian phenomenological reduction, but gives it
a completely different meaning.
To sum up, Heidegger does not base his philosophy on
consciousness as Husserl did. For him the phenomenological or
theoretical attitude of consciousness, which Husserl makes the
core of his doctrine, is only one possible mode of that which
is more fundamental, namely, Dasein's being. Although he
agrees with Husserl that the transcendental constitution of
the world cannot be unveiled by naturalistic or physical
explanations, in his view it is not a descriptive analysis of
consciousness that leads to this end, but the analysis of
Dasein. Phenomenology for him is not a descriptive, detached
analysis of consciousness. It is a method of access to being.
For the Heidegger of Being and Time philosophy is
phenomenological ontology which takes its departure from the
analysis of Dasein.
3. Dasein and Temporality
In everyday German language the word "Dasein" means life or
existence. The noun is used by other German philosophers to
denote the existence of any entity. However, Heidegger breaks
the word down to its components "Da" and "Sein," and gives to
it a special meaning which is related to his answer to the
question of who the human being is. He relates this question
to the question of being. Dasein, that being which we
ourselves are, is distinguished from all other beings by the
fact that it makes issue of its own being. It stands out to
being. As Da-sein, it is the site '"Da" for the disclosure of
being "Sein."
Heidegger's fundamental analysis of Dasein from Being
and Time points to temporality as the primordial meaning
of Dasein's being. Dasein is essentially temporal. Its
temporal character is derived from the tripartite ontological
structure: existence, thrownness, and
fallenness by which Dasein's being is described.
Existence means that Dasein is potentiality-for-being
(Seinkönnen); it projects its being upon various
possibilities. Existence represents thus the phenomenon of the
future. Then, as thrownness, Dasein always finds itself
already-in a certain spiritual and material, historically
conditioned environment; in short, in the world, in which the
space of possibilities is always somehow limited. This
represents the phenomenon of the past as having-been. Finally,
as fallenness, Dasein exists in the midst of beings which are
both Dasein and not Dasein. The encounter with those beings,
'being-alongside' or 'being-with' them, is made possible for
Dasein by the presence of those beings within-the-world. This
represents the primordial phenomenon of the present.
Accordingly, Dasein is not temporal for the mere reason that
it exists "in time," but because its very being is rooted in
temporality: the original unity of the future, the past and
the present. Temporality cannot be identified with ordinary
clock time - with simply being at one point in time, at one
'Now' after another - which for Heidegger is a derivative
phenomenon. Dasein's temporality does not have also a merely
quantitative, homogeneous character of the concept of time
found in natural science. It is the phenomenon of original
time, of the time which "temporalizes" itself in the course of
Dasein's existence. It is a movement through a world as a
space of possibilities. The 'going back' to the possibilities
that have been (the past) in the moment of thrownness, and
their projection in the resolute movement 'coming towards'
(the future) in the moment of existence, which both take place
in 'being with' others (the present) in the moment of
falleness, provide for the original unity of the future, the
past, and the present which constitutes authentic
temporality.
As authentically temporal, Dasein as potentiality-for-being
comes towards itself in its possibilities of being by going
back to what has been; it always comes towards itself from out
of a possibility of itself. Hence, it comports itself towards
the future by always coming back to its past; the past which
is not merely past but still around as having-been. But in
this "going back" to what it has been which is constitutive
together with "coming towards" and "being with" for the unity
of Dasein's temporality, Dasein hands down to itself its own
historical "heritage," namely, the possibilities of being that
have come down to it. As authentically temporal Dasein is thus
authentically historical. The repetition of the possibilities
of existence, of that which has been, is for Heidegger
constitutive for the phenomenon of original history which is
rooted in temporality.
4. The Quest for the Meaning of Being
Throughout his long, stretching over a half of century
academic career as a teacher and scholar, Heidegger was
preoccupied with the question of being. We have mentioned that
the first formulation of this question goes as far as his high
school studies during which he read Franz Brentano's book
On the Manifold Meaning of Being in Aristotle. In 1907
the seventeen year old Heidegger asked: "If what-is is
predicated in manifold meanings, then what is its leading
fundamental meaning? What does being mean?" The question of
being, unanswered by that time, becomes then the leading
question of Being and Time (1927). Looking at the long
history of the meaning attributed to "being," Heidegger
notices that in the philosophical tradition it has generally
been presupposed that being is at once the most universal
concept, the concept indefinable in terms of other concepts,
and the self-evident concept; in short, the concept that is
taken mostly for granted. And yet, although we seem to
understand being, he claims, its meaning is still veiled in
darkness. Therefore, we need to restate the question of the
meaning of being. In accordance with the phenomenological
method of philosophy which he employs, before attempting to
provide an answer to the question of being in general,
Heidegger ventures to answer the question of being of the
particular kind of entity which is the human being - Dasein.
The vivid phenomenological descriptions of Dasein's
being-in-the-world from Being and Time, especially of
Dasein's everydayness and resoluteness toward death, have
attracted many readers from areas related to existential
philosophy, theology and literature. Basic concepts of the
Heideggerian fundamental work, such as temporality,
understanding, historicity, repetition, or authentic and
inauthentic existence, were carried over to and further
explored in his later works. Still, from the point of view of
the quest for the meaning of being, Being and Time was
a failure and remained unfinished. As Heidegger admitted
himself in his later essay "Letter on Humanism" (1946), the
third division of its first part entitled "Time and Being" was
held back "because thinking failed in adequate saying of
the turn and could not succeed with the help of the
language of metaphysics." Its second part was also
unpublished.
The turn is a change in Heidegger's thinking. The
consequence of "the turn" is not the abandoning of the leading
question of Being and Time. In spite of the change,
Heidegger stresses the continuity of his thought. But as
"everything is reversed", even the question concerning the
meaning of being is reformulated in Heidegger's later works as
the question of the openness, i.e. of the truth, of being.
Furthermore, since the openness of being refers to a situation
within history, the most important conception of later
Heidegger becomes the history of being.
For a reader unacquainted with Heidegger's thought both the
"question of the meaning of being" and the expression "history
of being" sound strange. Firstly, he may argue that when
something is said to be, there is nothing expressed which the
world "being" could properly denote. Therefore, the word
"being" is a meaningless term and the Heideggerian quest for
the meaning of being is in general a misunderstanding. Second,
the reader may also think that the being of Heidegger should
no more likely have history than the being of Aristotle; so
that the "history of being" is a misunderstanding as well.
Nevertheless, Heidegger's task is precisely to show that there
is a meaningful concept of being. "We understand the 'is' we
use in speaking," he claims, "although we do not comprehend it
conceptually". Can then being be thought of? - Heidegger
inquires. Beings - that is something: a table, my desk, the
pencil with which I am writing, the school building, a heavy
storm in the mountains ..., but being? If being after the
meaning of which Heidegger looks seems so elusive, almost like
nothing, it is because it is not an entity; it is not what-is;
it is no-thing; it is not a being. "Being is essentially
different from a being, from beings". The "ontological
difference," the distinction between being (das Sein)
and beings (das Seiende), is fundamental for Heidegger.
The forgetfulness of being which, according to him, occurs in
the course of western philosophy amounts to the oblivion of
this distinction.
The conception of the history of being is of central
importance in Heidegger's thought. Already in Being and
Time its idea is foreshadowed as "the destruction of the
history of ontology." In Heidegger's later writings the story
is considerably recast and called the 'history of being'
(Seinsgeschichte). The beginning of this story, as told
by Heidegger especially in the Nietzsche lectures, is the end,
the completion of philosophy by its dissolution into
particular sciences and nihilism - questionlessness of being,
a dead end into which the west has run. Heidegger argues that
the question of being would still provide a stimulus to
researches of Plato and Aristotle, but it was precisely with
them that the original experience of being of the early Greeks
was covered over. The fateful event was followed by the
gradual slipping away of the distinction between being and
beings. Called variously by different philosophers, being was
reduced to a being: to idea in Plato, substantia
and actualitas in Medieval philosophy, objectivity
in modern philosophy, and will to power in Nietzsche and
contemporary thought. The task which the later Heidegger sets
before himself is then to make a way back into the primordial
beginning, so that the "dead end" can be replaced by a new
beginning. And since the primordial beginning of western
thought lies in ancient Greece, those are the Presocratics,
the first western thinkers, to whom Heidegger ultimately turns
for help into solving the problems of contemporary philosophy
and reversing the course of modern history.
5. Overcoming Metaphysics
For the later Heidegger, "western philosophy" in which
there occurs forgetfulness of being is synonymous with
"metaphysics." Metaphysics inquires about beings with respect
to being, but in it the question of being as such is
disregarded and being itself is obliterated. The Heideggerian
"history of being" can thus be seen as the history of
metaphysics which is the history of being's oblivion. Further,
metaphysics is also the way of thinking which looks beyond
beings toward their ground. Each metaphysics aims at the
fundamentum absolutum, the ground of such a metaphysics
which presents itself indubitably. In Descartes, for example,
the fundamentum absolutum is attained with the ego
cogito. The Cartesian metaphysics is characterised by
subjectivity because it has its ground in the self-certain
subject. Nevertheless, metaphysics as understood by the later
Heidegger is not just the philosophy which asks the question
of the being of beings and of their ground. At the end of
philosophy, i.e. in our present age where there occurs the
dissolution of philosophy into particular sciences, the
sciences still speak of the being of what-is as a whole. The
modern sciences and technology, Heidegger claims, may try to
conceal or deny their metaphysical origin, but they cannot
dispense with it. In the wider sense of this term, metaphysics
is thus, for him, any discipline which whether explicitly or
not, provides an answer to the question of the being of
beings. In medieval times such a discipline was scholastic
philosophy which defined beings as entia creatum and
provided them with the ground in ens perfectissimum,
God; today it is modern technology, which Heidegger mentions
so often in his late works, by which the contemporary human
being establishes himself in the word "by working on it in the
manifold modes of making and shaping." In modern technology
there speaks the today's claim of being. It masters and
dominates beings in various ways.
"In distinction from mastering beings, the thinking of
thinkers is the thinking of being." Heidegger argues that
early Greek thinking is not yet metaphysics. Presocratic
thinkers ask the question concerning the being of beings, but
in such a way that being itself is laid open. They experience
the being of beings as the presencing (Anwesen)
of what is present (Anwesende). Being as
presencing means enduring in unconcealment, disclosing.
Throughout his later works Heidegger uses several words in
order rightly to convey this Greek experience. What-is, what
is present, the unconcealed, is "what appears from out of
itself, in appearing shows itself , and in this self-showing
manifests." It is the "emerging arising, the unfolding that
lingers." The early Greeks do not "objectify" beings (they do
not reduce them to an object for the thinking subject), but
they let them be as they are, as self-showing rising into
unconcealment. They experience the phenomenality of
what is present, its radiant self-showing. Further, the
departure of western philosophical tradition from what is
present in presencing, from the unique experience that
astonished the Greeks, has profound theoretical and practical
consequences.
Firstly, according to Heidegger, the experience of what is
present in presencing signifies the true, unmediated
experience of "the things themselves" (die Sache
selbst). We may recall that the call to "the things
themselves" was included in the Husserlian program of
phenomenology. By means of phenomenological description
Husserl attempted to arrive at pure phenomena and to describe
beings just as they were given independently of any
presuppositions. For Heidegger, this attempt has however a
serious draw-back. Like the tradition of modern philosophy
preceding him, Husserl stood at the ground of subjectivity.
The transcendental subjectivity or consciousness was for him
"the sole absolute being." It was the presupposition that had
not been accounted for in his program which aimed to be
presuppositionless. Consequently, in Heidegger's view, the
Husserlian attempt to arrive at pure, unmediated phenomena
fails. Husserl's phenomenology departs from the original
phenomenality of beings and represents them in terms of
thinking subject as their presupposed ground. By contrast, for
the Presocratics, beings are grounded in being as presencing.
Being, however, is not a ground. To the early Greeks, being,
unlimited in its dis-closure, appears as an abyss, the source
of thought and wonder. It calls everything into question,
casts the human being out of any habitual ground, and opens
before him the mystery of existence.
The departure from what is present in presencing, from the
original experience of beings in being which astonished the
early Greeks, results in metaphysics. According to Heidegger,
today's metaphysics, in the form of technology and calculative
thinking related to it, becomes so pervasive that there is no
realm of life that is not subjected to its dominance. It
imposes on man its technological-scientific-industrial
character and makes it the sole criterion of his sojourn on
the earth. Grounded in the Cartesian philosophy of the subject
and the Nietzschean idea of the unconditioned will,
metaphysics provides an answer to the question of the being of
beings for contemporary men and women, but skillfully removes
from their field of view the problem of existence. Moreover,
because of its powerful sway over contemporary human beings,
metaphysics cannot be simply cast aside or rejected. Any
straightforward attempt to do so can only fortify its power
over human life. Metaphysics can neither be rejected, canceled
or denied, but it can be overcome by the way of demonstration
that it is nihilism. In Heidegger's usage the term "nihilism"
has a very specific meaning. What remains unquestioned and
forgotten in metaphysics is being; and hence, it is
nihilistic.
According to Heidegger, western humankind in all its
relations with beings is in every aspect sustained by
metaphysics. Every age, every human epoch, however different
they are - Greece after Plato, Rome, the middle ages,
modernity, the age of technology - is established in some
metaphysics and is placed thereby in a definite relationship
to what-is as a whole. But metaphysics is a nihilism proper
and the metaphysics of Plato is no less nihilistic than that
of Nietzsche. Insofar as metaphysics thinks the being of
beings, it reduces being to a being; it does not think being
as being. Heidegger attempts to demonstrate the nihilism of
metaphysics in the history of being which is the history of
being's oblivion. His attempt to overcome metaphysics is not a
common-sense based positing of some different values or an
alternative world-view, but is related to his conception of
history, whose central theme is the repetition of the
possibilities for existence. It consists in thinking back
being to the primordial beginning of the west - the early
Greek experience of what is present in presencing - and in
repeating this beginning, so that the western world can begin
anew.
6. From the first Beginning to the New
Beginning
Many scholars perceive something unique in the Greek
beginning of philosophy. It is commonly acknowledged that
Thales and his successors asked generalized questions
concerning what is as a whole and proposed general, rational
answers which were no longer based on a theological ground.
However, Heidegger does not associate the unique beginning
with the alleged discovery of rationality and science. In
fact, he claims that both rationality and science are later
developments, so that they cannot apply to Presocratic
thought. In his view, the Presocratics ask: "What are beings
as such as a whole?" and they answer: aletheia -
unconcealment. They experience beings in their phenomenality:
as what is present in presencing. But the later thought which
begins with Plato and Aristotle is unable to keep up with the
beginning. With Plato and Aristotle metaphysics begins and the
history of being's oblivion originates.
The aim which later Heidegger sets before himself is
precisely to return to the original experience of beings in
being that stands at the beginning of Western thought. This
unmediated experience of beings in their phenomenality can be
variously described: what is present in presencing, the
unconcealment of what is present, the original disclosure of
beings. To repeat the primordial beginning more originally in
its originality means to bring us back to the Presocratic
experiences, to dis-close them, and to let them be as they
originally are. But the repetition is not for the sake of the
Presocratics themselves. Heidegger's work is not a mere
antiquarian, scholarly study of early Greek thinking nor an
affirmation of the long lost Greek way of life. It occurs
within the perspective of nihilism and being's forgetfulness,
both unknown to the Greeks, and has as a goal the future
possibilities for existence. It happens as the listening that
opens itself out to the words of the Presocratics from our
contemporary age, from the age of the world picture and
representation, the world which is marked by the domination of
technology and the oblivion of being. In the first beginning,
the task of the Greeks was to ask the question "What are
beings?," and hence to bring beings as such as a whole to the
first recognition and the most simple interpretation. In the
end, the task is to make questionable what at the end of a
long tradition of philosophy-metaphysics has been forgotten.
The new beginning begins thus with the question of being.
From Being and Time (1927) where the question of the
meaning of being is first developed, but still expressed in
the language of metaphysics, to "Time and Being" (1962) where
an attempt to think being without regard to metaphysics is
made, Heidegger goes full circle. Heidegger begins by asking
about the multiple meanings of being and ends up conceding its
multiplicity and acknowledging that there are multiple
determinations or meanings of being in which being discloses
itself in history. Nevertheless, in neither of these meanings
does being give itself fully. "As it discloses itself in
beings, being withdraws." There is an essential withdrawal of
being. Therefore, the truth of being is none of its particular
historical determinations - idea, substantia,
actualitas, objectivity or the will to power. The truth
of being can be defined as the openness, the free region which
always out of sight provides the space of play for the
different determinations of being and human epochs established
in them. It is that which is before actual things and grants
them a possibility of manifestation as what is present, ens
creatum, and objects.
The truth of being, its openness, is for Heidegger not
something which we can merely consider or think of. It is not
our own production. It is where we always come to stand. We
find ourselves thrown in a historically conditioned
environment, in an epoch in which the decision concerning the
prevailing interpretation of the being of being is already
made for us. Yet, by asking the question of being, we can at
least attempt to free ourselves from our historical
conditioning. The Heidegger's program expressed in "The End of
Philosophy and the Task of Thinking" (1964) consists solely in
the character of thinking which does not attempt to dominate,
but engages in disclosing and opening up what shows itself,
emerges, and is manifest. When Heidegger urges us to stand in
being, he does not merely ask us to acknowledge our own place
in being's history, but to be future-oriented and see the
future in a unity with the past as having-been and the
present. It means turning oneself into being in its disclosing
withdrawal.
Heidegger claims that human being as Da-sein can be
understood as the site, "Da" which being requires in
order to disclose itself. The human being is the unique being
whose being has the character of openness toward being. But
men and women can also turn away from being, forget their true
selves, and thus deprive themselves of their humanity. This
is, in Heidegger's view, the situation of contemporary humans
who have replaced authentic questioning concerning their
existence by ready-made answers served by ideologies, mass
media, and overwhelming technology. Consequently, Heidegger
attempts to bring contemporary men and women back to the
question of being. At the beginning of the tradition of
western philosophy the human being was defined as animal
rationale, the animal endowed with reason. Since then
reason has become an absolute value which through education
brings a gradual transformation of all spheres of human life.
It is not more reason, especially in its calculative form,
Heidegger believes, that we today need, but more openness
toward and more reflection upon that which is our nearest -
being.
7. Heidegger's Collected Works
Heidegger's earlier publications and transcripts of his
lectures are being brought out in Gesamtausgabe, the
complete edition of his works. The Gesamtausgabe, which
is not yet complete and projected to fill about one hundred
volumes, is published by Vittorio Klostermann, Frankfurt am
Main. The series consists of four divisions: (I) Published
Writings 1910-1976; (II) Lectures from Marburg and Freiburg,
1919-1944; (III) Private Monographs and Lectures,
1919-1967; (IV) Notes and Fragments. Below there is a list of
the collected works of Martin Heidegger. English translations
and publishers are cited with each work translated into
English.
I. Published Writings, 1910-1976
1. Frühe Schriften (1912-16).
2. Sein und Zeit (1927). Translated as Being and
Time by John Macquarrie and Edward Robinson (Oxford: Basil
Blackwell, 1978).
3. Kant und das Problem der Metaphysik (1929).
Translated as Kant and the Problem of Metaphysics, by
Richard Taft (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1997).
4. Erläuterungen zu Hölderlins Dichtung (1936-68).
Translated as Elucidations of Hölderlin's Poetry, by
Keith Hoeller (Amherst, New York: Humanity Books, 2000).
5. Holzwege (1935-46).
"Der Ursprung der Kunstwerkes." Translated as "The
Origin of the Work of Art," by Albert Hofstadter, in
Poetry, Language, Thought (New York: Harper & Row,
1971), and in Basic Writings (New York: Harper &
Row, 1977, 1993).
"Die Zeit des Weltbildes." Translated as "The Age of
the World Picture" by William Lovitt in The Question
Concerning Technology and Other Essays (NewYork: Harper
& Row, 1977).
"Hegels Begriff der Erfahrung."
"Nietzsches Wort 'Gott ist tot'." Translated as "The
Word of Nietzsche: 'God Is Dead'" by William Lovitt in The
Question Concerning Technology and Other
Essays.
"Wozu Dichter?." Translated as "What Are
Poets For?" by Albert Hofstadter, in Poetry, Language,
Thought.
"Der Spruch der Anaximander." Translated as "The
Anaximander Fragment" by David F. Krell and Frank A. Capuzzi
in Early Greek Thinking (New York: Harper & Row,
1975).
6. Vol. I, Nietzsche I (1936-39). Translated as
Nietzsche I: The Will to Power as Art by David F. Krell
(New York: Harper & Row, 1979); Vol. II, Nietzsche II
(1939-46). Translated as "The Eternal Recurrence of the
Same" by David F. Krell in Nietzsche II: The
Eternal Recurrence of the Same (New York, Harper &
Row, 1984).
7. Vorträge und Aufsätze (1936-53).
"Die Frage nach der Technik." Translated as "The
Question Concerning Technology" by William Lovitt in The
Question Concerning Technology and Other Essays.
"Wissenschaft und Besinnung." Translated as "Science
and Reflection" by William Lovitt in The Question
Concerning Technology and Other Essays.
"Überwindung der Metaphysik." Translated as
"Overcoming Metaphysics" by Joan Stambaugh in
The End of Philosophy (New York: Harper & Row,
1973).
"Wer ist Nietzsches Zarathustra." Translated as "Who
is Nietzsches Zarathustra?" by David F. Krell in Nietzsche
II: The Eternal Recurrence of the Same.
"Bauen Wohnen Denken." Translated as "Building
Dwelling Thinking."
"Das Ding." Translated as "The Thing" by Albert
Hofstadter, in Poetry, Language, Thought.
"...dichterisch wohnet der Mensch..." Translated as
"...Poetically Man Dwells..." by Albert Hofstadter, in
Poetry, Language, Thought.
"Logos." Translated as "Logos (Heraclitus, Fragment
B 50)" by David F. Krell and Frank A. Capuzzi in Early
Greek Thinking.
"Moira." Translated as "Moira (Parmenides VIII,
34-41)" by David F. Krell and Frank A. Capuzzi in Early
Greek Thinking.
"Aletheia." Translated as "Aletheia (Heraclius,
Fragment B 16)" by David F. Krell and Frank A. Capuzzi in
Early Greek Thinking.
8. Was heisst Denken? (1951-52). Translated as
What Is Called Thinking? by Fred D. Wieck and J. Glenn
Gray (New York: Harper & Row, 1968).
9. Wegmarken (1919-58). Translated as
Pathmarks. Edited by William McNeill (Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press, 1998).
Contains: "Comments on Karl Jaspers' Psychology of
Worldviews" (1919/21), "Phenomenology and Theology" (1927),
"From the Last Marburg Lecture Course" (1928), "What is
Metaphysics?" (1929), "On the Essence of Ground" (1929),
"On the Essence of Truth" (1930), "Plato's Doctrine of
Truth" (1931-1932, 1940), "On the Essence and Concept in
Aristotle's Physics B 1" (1939), "Postscript to 'What is
Metaphysics?'" (1943); "Letter on Humanism" (1946),
"Introduction to 'What is Metaphysics?'" (1949), "On the
Question of Being" (1955), "Hegel and the Greeks" (1958),
"Kant's Thesis About Being" (1961).
10. Der Satz vom Grund (1955-56). Translated as
The Principle of Reason by Reginald Lilly (Bloomington:
Indiana University Press, 1991).
11. Identität und Differenz (1955-57). Translated as
Identity and Difference by Joan Stambaugh (New York:
Harper & Row, 1969).
12. Unterwegs zur Sprache (1950-59). Translated as
On the Way to Language by Peter D. Hertz (New York:
Harper & Row, 1971).
13. Aus der Erfahrung des Denkens (1910-76).
14. Zur Sache des Denkens (1962-64). Translated as
On Time and Being by Joan Stambaugh (New York: Harper
& Row, 1972). Contains: "Time and Being," "The End of
Philosophy and the Task of Thinking," and "My Way to
Phenomenology."
15. Seminare (1951-73).
16. Reden und andere Zeugnisse eines Lebensweges
(1910-1976).
II. Lectures from Marburg and Freiburg,
1919-1944
17. Der Beginn der neuzeitlichen Philosophie (winter
semester, 1923-1924).
18. Aristoteles: Rhetorik (summer semester, 1924).
19. Platon: Sophistes (winter semester, 1924-1925).
Translated as Plato's Sophist by Richard Rojcewicz and
Andre Schuwer (Bloomington, Indiana University Press,
1997).
20. Prolegomena zur Geschite des Zeitbegriffs
(summer semester, 1925). Translated as History of the
Concept of Time by Theodore Kisiel (Bloomington:
Indiana University Press, 1985).
21. Logik: Die frage nach der Wahrheit (winter
semester 1925-1926).
22. Grundbegriffe der antiken Philosophie (summer
semester 1926).
23. Geschichte der Philosophie von Thomas v. Aquin bis
Kant (winter semester 1926-1927).
24. Die Grundprobleme der Phänomenologie (summer
semester 1927). Translated as The Basic Problems of
Phenomonology by Albert Hofstadter (Bloomington: Indiana
University Press, 1982).
25. Phänomenologie Interpretation von Kants Kritik der
reinen Vernunft (winter semester 1927-1928). Translated
as Phenomenological Interpretations of Kant's Critique of
Pure Reason by Parvis Emad and Kenneth Maly (Bloomington:
Indiana University Press, 1997).
26. Metaphysische
Anfangsgründe der Logik im Ausgang von Leibniz (summer
semester, 1928). Translated as The Metaphysical Foundations
of Logic by Michael Heim (Bloomington: Indiana University
Press, 1984).
27. Einleitung in die Philosophie (winter semester
1928-1929).
28. Der Deutsche Idealismus (Fichte, Hegel, Schelling)
und die philosophische Problemlage der Gegenwart (summer
semester, 1929).
29/30. Die Grundbegriffe der Metaphysik:
Welt-Endlichkeit-Einsamkeit (winter semester, 1929-1930).
Translated as The Fundamental Concepts of Metaphysics
by William McNeill and Nicholas Walker (Bloomington: Indiana
University Press, 1995).
31. Vom Wesen der menschlichen Freiheit. Einleitung in
die Philosophie (summer semester, 1930).
32. Hegels Phänomenologie des Geistes (winter
semester, 1930-1931). Translated as Hegel's Phenomenology
of Spirit by Parvis Emad and Kenneth Maly (Bloomington:
Indiana University Press, 1988).
33. Aristoteles: Metaphysik IX (summer semester,
1931). Translated as Aristotle's Metaphysics Theta 1-3 On
the Essence and Actuality of Force by Walter Brogan and
Peter Warnek (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1995).
34. Vom Wesen der Wahrheit. Zu Platons Höhlengleichnis
und Theätet (winter semester, 1931-1932).
35. Der Anfang der abendländischen Philosophie
(Anaximander und Parmenides) (summer semester, 1932).
36/37. Sein und Wahrheit (winter semester,
1933-1934).
38. Logik als die Frage nach dem Wesen der Sprache
(summer semester, 1934).
39. Hölderlins Hymnen "Germanien" und "Der Rhein"
(winter semester, 1934-1935).
40. Einführung in die Metaphysik (summer semester,
1935). Translated as An Introduction to Metaphysics by
Gregory Fried and Richard Polt (New Haven, Conn.: Yale
University Press, 2000).
41. Die Frage nach dem Ding. Zu Kants Lehre von den
transzendentalen Grundsätzen. (winter semester,
1935-1936). Translated as What Is a Thing by W. B.
Barton, Jr. and Vera Deutsch, (Chicago: Henry Regnery Company,
1967).
42. Schelling: Vom Wesen der menschlichen Freiheit
(1809) (summer semester, 1936). Translated as
Schelling's Treatise on the Essence of Human Freedom by
Joan Stambaugh, (Athens: Ohio University Press, 1984).
43. Nietzsche: Der Wille zur Macht als Kunst (winter
semester, 1936-1937). Translated as Nietzsche I: The Will
to Power as Art by David F. Krell (New York, Harper &
Row, 1979).
44. Nietzsches Metaphysische Grundstellung im
abendländischen Denken: Die ewige Wiederkehr des Gleichen
(summer semester, 1937). Translated as "The Eternal Recurrence
of the Same" in Nietzsche II: The Eternal Recurrence of the
Same by David F. Krell (New York: Harper & Row,
1984).
45. Grundfragen der Philosophie. Ausgewählte "Probleme"
der "Logik" (winter semester, 1937-1938). Translated as
Basic Questions of Philosophy by Albert Hofstadter
(Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1982).
46. Nietzsches II. Unzeitgemässe Betrachtung (winter
semester, 1938-1939).
47. Nietzsches Lehre vom Willen zur Macht als
Erkenntnis (summer semester, 1939). Translated as "The
Will to Power as Knowledge" in Nietzsche III: The Will to
Power as Knowledge and Metaphysics by Joan Stambaugh (New
York, Harper & Row, 1987).
48. Nietzsche: Der europäische Nihilismus (second
trimester, 1940).
49. Die Metaphysik des deutschen Idealismus. Zur
erneuten auslegung von Schelling: Philosophische
untersuchungen ueber das Wesen der menschlichen Freiheit und
die damit zusammenhaengenden Gegenstaende (1809) (first
trimester, 1941).
50. Nietzsches Metaphysik (1941-2). Einleitung in
die Philosopie - Denken und Dichten (1944-5).
51. Grundbegriffe (summer semester, 1941).
Translated as Basic Concepts by Gary Aylesworth
(Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1993).
52. Hölderlins Hymne "Andenken" (winter semester,
1941-1942).
53. Hölderlins Hymne "Der Ister" (summer semester,
1942). Translated as Hölderlin's Hymn "The Ister" by
William McNeill and Julia Davis (Bloomington: Indiana
University Press, 1996).
54. Parmenides (winter semester, 1942-1943).
Translated as Parmenides by Andre Schuwer and Richard
Rojcewicz (Bloomington, Indiana University Press, 1992).
55. Heraklit. 1. Der Anfang des abendländischen
Denkens (Heraklit). (summer semester, 1943); 2. Logik.
Heraklits Lehre vom Logos (summer semester, 1944).
56/57. Zur Bestimmung der Philosophie (1919).
58. Grundprobleme der Phänomenologie (winter
semester, 1919-1920).
59. Phaenomenologie der Anschauung und des Ausdrucks.
Theorie der philosophischen Begriffsbildung (summer
semester, 1920).
60. Phänomenologie des religiösen Lebens (summer
semester, 1921).
61. Phänomenologische Interpretationen zu Aristoteles:
Einführung in die phänomeno-logische Forschung (winter
semester, 1921-1922).
62. Phänomenologische Interpretationen ausgewählter
Abhandlungen des Aristoteles zur Ontologie und Logik.
(summer semester, 1922).
63. Ontologie: Hermeneutik der Faktizität (summer
semester, 1923). Translated as Ontology: The Hermeneutics
of Facticity by John va Buren (Bloomington: Indiana
University Press, 1999).
III. Private Monographs and Lectures,
1919-1967
64. Der Begriff der Zeit (1924). Translated as
The Concept of Time by William McNeill, (Oxford:
Blackwell, 1992).
65. Beiträge zur Philosophie (Vom Ereignis)
(1936-1938). Translated as Contributions to Philosophy:
(From Enowning) by Parvis Emad and Kenneth Maly
(Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1999).
66. Besinnung.
67.Metaphysik und Nihilismus. Die Überwindung
derMetaphysik. Das Wesen des Nihilismus.
68. Hegel. Die Negativität. Eine Auseinandersetzung mit
Hegel aus dem Ansatz in der Negativität (1938-1939, 1941).
2 Erläuterung der "Einleitung" zu Hegels "Phänomenologie
des Geistes" (1942).
69. Die Geschichte des Seyns (1938-1940).
71. Das Ereignis (1941)
73. Wahrheitsfrage als Vorfrage. Die Aletheia:
Die Erinnerung in den ersten Anfang; Entmachtung der Ousis
(1937).
75. Zu Hölderlin - Griechenlandreisen.
77. Feldweg-Gespräche. (1944-1945)
79. Bremer und Freiburger Vortraege.
80. Vorträge Vom Wesen der Wahrheit Freiburg
lecture (1930). Der Ursprung der Kunstwerkes (1935).
81. Gedachtes.
82. Anmerkungen zu "Vom Wesen des Grundes" (1936).
Eine Auseinandersetzung mit "Sein und Zeit" (1936).
Laufende Anmerkungen zu Sein und Zeit (1936).
83. Marburger Übungen. Auslegungen der Aristotelischen
"physik".
84. Leibniz-Übungen.
IV. Notes and Fragments
85. Vom Wesen der Sprache
87. Übungen SS 1937. Neitzsches metaphysische
Grundstellung. Sein und Schein (1937)
88. Einübung in das Denken. Die metaphysischen
Grundstellungen des abendländischen Denkens. Die Bedrohung der
Wissenschaft.
94. Überlegungen II-VI.
95. Überlegungen VII-XI.
96. Überlegungen XII-XV.
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