Elements in the Philosophy of Martin Heidegger – Serie

The work examines the presence and significance of Kierkegaard in Heidegger's work. After setting out the context of Heidegger's reception of the Danish thinker and examining his likely knowledge of his writings, the work first examines key Kierkegaardian concepts that are explicitly present in Being and Time, including existence, 'idle talk' (Gerede), anxiety, the moment of vision, repetition, and the existential significance of death. It is seen that Heidegger regarded Kierkegaard as an essentially religious writer whose work was only indirectly relevant to Heidegger's own project of fundamental ontology. Subsequently, the work considers the place of Kierkegaard in Heidegger's writings from the 1930s onwards, concluding with consideration of the paper Heidegger submitted for the 1963 Paris UNESCO conference marking the 150th anniversary of Kierkegaard's thought.

Throughout his career, Heidegger explored the religious sides of life in ways that had far-reaching impacts on the thought of his contemporaries and successors. This Element examines three important stops along Heidegger's ways of thinking about religion as the risky performance of life in new spaces of possibility. Section 1 examines Heidegger's 1920–1921 lectures on Paul, while Section 2 turns to the darker period of the late 1930s, exploring how Heidegger reconfigures religion in the context of his “new inception” of thought beyond metaphysics. Finally, Section 3 takes up Heidegger's challenging discussions of the divine in several postwar addresses and essays. In each case, Heidegger argues that we must suspend, bracket, or rescind from our tendencies to order, classify, define, and explain things in order to carry out a venture into a situation of indeterminacy and thereby recast religion in a new light.

Throughout his career, Heidegger explored the religious sides of life in ways that had far-reaching impacts on the thought of his contemporaries and successors. This Element examines three important stops along Heidegger's ways of thinking about religion as the risky performance of life in new spaces of possibility. Section 1 examines Heidegger's 1920–1921 lectures on Paul, while Section 2 turns to the darker period of the late 1930s, exploring how Heidegger reconfigures religion in the context of his “new inception” of thought beyond metaphysics. Finally, Section 3 takes up Heidegger's challenging discussions of the divine in several postwar addresses and essays. In each case, Heidegger argues that we must suspend, bracket, or rescind from our tendencies to order, classify, define, and explain things in order to carry out a venture into a situation of indeterminacy and thereby recast religion in a new light.

Heidegger is often understood to have forsaken the very possibility of ethics - we find numerous variations of this view in the secondary literature. And yet, in Letter on Humanism, Heidegger stresses the importance of ethics (thought anew as originary ethics) in the context of the dangers posed by the technological age. In this Element, the author will try to unpack what Heidegger might have meant by this. Ultimately, his account of the essence of the human being will prove to be the key to understanding what he describes as 'originary ethics'.

Heidegger is often understood to have forsaken the very possibility of ethics - we find numerous variations of this view in the secondary literature. And yet, in Letter on Humanism, Heidegger stresses the importance of ethics (thought anew as originary ethics) in the context of the dangers posed by the technological age. In this Element, the author will try to unpack what Heidegger might have meant by this. Ultimately, his account of the essence of the human being will prove to be the key to understanding what he describes as 'originary ethics'.

Every philosophy is a celebration of the fact that being can be thought, that the world around us yields to concepts that join together into arguments which can lead us to new thoughts and new ways of thinking. Heidegger's great talent was to never lose his philosophical wonder at philosophy, to never stop thinking about thinking. Heidegger's early work favors a somewhat pragmatic view of thinking as organized by and around our projects, emphasizing tacit skills over articulate conscious thinking. It also explores stepping back from all projects in dread and wonder. His later thinking is reciprocal rather than autonomous, something we do with and for being instead of something we do to or on beings, which can help overcome contemporary nihilism. After the death of God, we may no longer be able to pray to a divinity, but we can still be the thinkers of being.

Every philosophy is a celebration of the fact that being can be thought, that the world around us yields to concepts that join together into arguments which can lead us to new thoughts and new ways of thinking. Heidegger's great talent was to never lose his philosophical wonder at philosophy, to never stop thinking about thinking. Heidegger's early work favors a somewhat pragmatic view of thinking as organized by and around our projects, emphasizing tacit skills over articulate conscious thinking. It also explores stepping back from all projects in dread and wonder. His later thinking is reciprocal rather than autonomous, something we do with and for being instead of something we do to or on beings, which can help overcome contemporary nihilism. After the death of God, we may no longer be able to pray to a divinity, but we can still be the thinkers of being.

Things get to us. We are moved or affected by 'things' in the ordinary sense=the paraphernalia of our daily lives-and also by ourselves, by others, and by ontological phenomena such as being and time. How can such things get to us? How can things matter to me? Heidegger answers this question with his concepts of finding (Befindlichkeit) and attunement (Stimmung). This Element explores how being finding allows things to matter to us in attunements such as fear and hope by allowing those things to show up as benefits or detriments to our pursuits and so to put those pursuits at stake. It also explores how we can be affected ontologically-that is, affected by being-in special attunements such as angst and boredom, as well as how Heidegger's account of being affected has contributed to our understanding of emotions, moods, and affective disorders.

Things get to us. We are moved or affected by 'things' in the ordinary sense=the paraphernalia of our daily lives-and also by ourselves, by others, and by ontological phenomena such as being and time. How can such things get to us? How can things matter to me? Heidegger answers this question with his concepts of finding (Befindlichkeit) and attunement (Stimmung). This Element explores how being finding allows things to matter to us in attunements such as fear and hope by allowing those things to show up as benefits or detriments to our pursuits and so to put those pursuits at stake. It also explores how we can be affected ontologically-that is, affected by being-in special attunements such as angst and boredom, as well as how Heidegger's account of being affected has contributed to our understanding of emotions, moods, and affective disorders.

Heidegger on Transcendence maps the deep ambivalences that attend Heidegger's lasting commitment to the transcendental tradition, construed here broadly to include not only phenomenological but also modern, medieval, and ancient predecessors. It defends Heidegger's commitment by explicating the essential function of the transcendental within his path of thinking and by contextualizing his later comments on transcending the limits of the subject still inherent in the metaphysical language heretofore available to transcendental thought.

Heidegger on Transcendence maps the deep ambivalences that attend Heidegger's lasting commitment to the transcendental tradition, construed here broadly to include not only phenomenological but also modern, medieval, and ancient predecessors. It defends Heidegger's commitment by explicating the essential function of the transcendental within his path of thinking and by contextualizing his later comments on transcending the limits of the subject still inherent in the metaphysical language heretofore available to transcendental thought.

The work examines the presence and significance of Kierkegaard in Heidegger's work. After setting out the context of Heidegger's reception of the Danish thinker and examining his likely knowledge of his writings, the work first examines key Kierkegaardian concepts that are explicitly present in Being and Time, including existence, 'idle talk' (Gerede), anxiety, the moment of vision, repetition, and the existential significance of death. It is seen that Heidegger regarded Kierkegaard as an essentially religious writer whose work was only indirectly relevant to Heidegger's own project of fundamental ontology. Subsequently, the work considers the place of Kierkegaard in Heidegger's writings from the 1930s onwards, concluding with consideration of the paper Heidegger submitted for the 1963 Paris UNESCO conference marking the 150th anniversary of Kierkegaard's thought.

This Element argues that Heidegger's concept of science has two core features. Heidegger critiques a security-oriented concept of science, which he associates with the dominance of physics in modern science and metaphysics and with a progressive resistance among philosophers and scientists to ontological questioning. Meanwhile, Heidegger advances an access-oriented concept of science, on which science is essentially founded on ontological disclosures but also constantly open to the possibility of new revolutionary disclosures. This Element discusses how these commitments develop in Heidegger's early and later thinking, and argues that they inform his views on the history of Western metaphysics and on the possibilities for human flourishing that modernity, and modern science specifically, affords. The Element also discusses Heidegger's dialogue with Werner Heisenberg about quantum physics; and throughout, it highlights points of contact and divergence between Heidegger and other philosophers of science such as Karl Popper, Thomas Kuhn, Paul Feyerabend, and Helen Longino.

This Element argues that Heidegger's concept of science has two core features. Heidegger critiques a security-oriented concept of science, which he associates with the dominance of physics in modern science and metaphysics and with a progressive resistance among philosophers and scientists to ontological questioning. Meanwhile, Heidegger advances an access-oriented concept of science, on which science is essentially founded on ontological disclosures but also constantly open to the possibility of new revolutionary disclosures. This Element discusses how these commitments develop in Heidegger's early and later thinking, and argues that they inform his views on the history of Western metaphysics and on the possibilities for human flourishing that modernity, and modern science specifically, affords. The Element also discusses Heidegger's dialogue with Werner Heisenberg about quantum physics; and throughout, it highlights points of contact and divergence between Heidegger and other philosophers of science such as Karl Popper, Thomas Kuhn, Paul Feyerabend, and Helen Longino.

This Element elucidates the metamorphoses of Heidegger's comportment toward Eastern/Asian thought from the 1910s to the 1960s. With a view to the many meanings of the East at play in Heidegger's thinking, it considers how his diversified 'dialogues' with the East are embedded in different phases of his Denkweg. Various themes unexplored previously are examined: Heidegger's early treatment of near Eastern traditions and Islamic philosophy, his views on alien cultures, the 'primitive Dasein' and the 'mythical Dasein,' and his meditation on Russianism's deeply rooted spirituality and its recuperative possibilities for the West. Finally, this Element reveals how Heidegger opened the promise of a dialogue with the East and yet stepped back from the threshold, and how his move from the Occidental line of philosophizing toward the Oriental line is integral to his shift from the guiding question of “Being” to the abyssal question of 'Beyng.'

This Element elucidates the metamorphoses of Heidegger's comportment toward Eastern/Asian thought from the 1910s to the 1960s. With a view to the many meanings of the East at play in Heidegger's thinking, it considers how his diversified 'dialogues' with the East are embedded in different phases of his Denkweg. Various themes unexplored previously are examined: Heidegger's early treatment of near Eastern traditions and Islamic philosophy, his views on alien cultures, the 'primitive Dasein' and the 'mythical Dasein,' and his meditation on Russianism's deeply rooted spirituality and its recuperative possibilities for the West. Finally, this Element reveals how Heidegger opened the promise of a dialogue with the East and yet stepped back from the threshold, and how his move from the Occidental line of philosophizing toward the Oriental line is integral to his shift from the guiding question of “Being” to the abyssal question of 'Beyng.'

What does it mean to be in the world with others? To what degree is sociality a dimension of our experience? This Element explores the social aspects of our experience as shared and common, focusing on Heidegger's thought on this theme in the period surrounding the publication of Being and Time. It begins by situating Heidegger's position in contrast to alternative phenomenological conceptions of the relations between self and others. From there, it continues to address a key challenge to Heidegger's approach: the problem of Dasein's individuation. Finally, in response to this challenge, the work reframes Heidegger's conception of sociality through the prism of part-whole relations. As social, Dasein emerges as a dependent part of an unfolding shared whole, yet as part of a complex social context, it retains its relative wholeness.

What does it mean to be in the world with others? To what degree is sociality a dimension of our experience? This Element explores the social aspects of our experience as shared and common, focusing on Heidegger's thought on this theme in the period surrounding the publication of Being and Time. It begins by situating Heidegger's position in contrast to alternative phenomenological conceptions of the relations between self and others. From there, it continues to address a key challenge to Heidegger's approach: the problem of Dasein's individuation. Finally, in response to this challenge, the work reframes Heidegger's conception of sociality through the prism of part-whole relations. As social, Dasein emerges as a dependent part of an unfolding shared whole, yet as part of a complex social context, it retains its relative wholeness.

Heidegger characterizes the history and essence of metaphysics as ontotheological. Ontotheology concentrates on the being of entities and conceives of this being in two interdependent ways. First, as common to all entities, being serves as the ontological ground for their coherence and intelligibility. Second, being is understood theologically, that is, by recourse to a highest entity that both exemplifies what is common to entities and serves as the causal foundation of entities and their being. Heidegger often speaks of an ontological difference, but what interests him is not simply the difference between entities and their being but what enables us to make this distinction in the first place, that is, being itself. Notoriously, Heidegger accuses the philosophical tradition of neglecting this non-ontotheological, enabling condition. This Element reconstructs and critiques Heidegger's conception of metaphysics as ontotheological. It then examines his non-ontotheological understanding of being itself, God, and divinity.

Heidegger characterizes the history and essence of metaphysics as ontotheological. Ontotheology concentrates on the being of entities and conceives of this being in two interdependent ways. First, as common to all entities, being serves as the ontological ground for their coherence and intelligibility. Second, being is understood theologically, that is, by recourse to a highest entity that both exemplifies what is common to entities and serves as the causal foundation of entities and their being. Heidegger often speaks of an ontological difference, but what interests him is not simply the difference between entities and their being but what enables us to make this distinction in the first place, that is, being itself. Notoriously, Heidegger accuses the philosophical tradition of neglecting this non-ontotheological, enabling condition. This Element reconstructs and critiques Heidegger's conception of metaphysics as ontotheological. It then examines his non-ontotheological understanding of being itself, God, and divinity.

Heidegger calls the thought that 'being is presence' the 'thunderbolt' that led him to link being and time and inspired his deconstruction of Western metaphysics. However, the scope of the concept of presence varies in his texts; the narrower it is, the more dramatic yet less plausible is his 'thunderbolt.' What is presence? Does Heidegger ultimately reject presence as the meaning of being, or does he accept it if conceived broadly enough? This study surveys the meaning and status of 'presence' in Heidegger. It argues that Heidegger maintains a critical perspective, and that his critique can be applied not only to the tradition as interpreted in his 'history of being,' but also to contemporary phenomena such as information technology.

Heidegger calls the thought that 'being is presence' the 'thunderbolt' that led him to link being and time and inspired his deconstruction of Western metaphysics. However, the scope of the concept of presence varies in his texts; the narrower it is, the more dramatic yet less plausible is his 'thunderbolt.' What is presence? Does Heidegger ultimately reject presence as the meaning of being, or does he accept it if conceived broadly enough? This study surveys the meaning and status of 'presence' in Heidegger. It argues that Heidegger maintains a critical perspective, and that his critique can be applied not only to the tradition as interpreted in his 'history of being,' but also to contemporary phenomena such as information technology.

One of the striking features of Heidegger's philosophical engagement concerns his privileging of poetry and poetic thinking. In this understanding of language as fundamentally poetic, Heidegger puts forward a different way to do philosophy. In this Element, the author places Heidegger's poetic thinking in conversation with Sophocles and Hölderlin as a way to situate his critique of global technology and instrumental thinking in the postwar years. This Element also offers a critique of Heidegger's efforts to arrogate poetic thinking to his own aim of a destinal form of German national self-assertion through poetry. Overall, the aim here is to show how crucial poetic thinking is to the way Heidegger understands philosophy as a radical engagement with language.

One of the striking features of Heidegger's philosophical engagement concerns his privileging of poetry and poetic thinking. In this understanding of language as fundamentally poetic, Heidegger puts forward a different way to do philosophy. In this Element, the author places Heidegger's poetic thinking in conversation with Sophocles and Hölderlin as a way to situate his critique of global technology and instrumental thinking in the postwar years. This Element also offers a critique of Heidegger's efforts to arrogate poetic thinking to his own aim of a destinal form of German national self-assertion through poetry. Overall, the aim here is to show how crucial poetic thinking is to the way Heidegger understands philosophy as a radical engagement with language.

This Element introduces the arguments of three prominent Platonic critics of Heidegger - Leo Strauss (1899-1973), Hans-Georg Gadamer (1900-2002), and Jan Patočka (1907-1977) - with the aim of evaluating the trenchancy of their criticisms. The author shows that these three thinkers uncover novel ways of reading Plato non-metaphysically (where metaphysics is understood in the Heideggerian sense) and thus of undermining Heidegger's narrative concerning Platonism as metaphysics and metaphysics as Platonism. In their readings of the Platonic dialogues, Plato emerges as a proto-phenomenologist whose attention to the ethical-political facticity of human beings leads to the acknowledgment of human finitude and of the fundamental elusiveness of Being. These Platonic critics of Heidegger thus invite us to see in the dialogues a lucid presentation of philosophic questioning rather than the beginning of distorting doctrinal teachings.

This Element introduces the arguments of three prominent Platonic critics of Heidegger - Leo Strauss (1899-1973), Hans-Georg Gadamer (1900-2002), and Jan Patočka (1907-1977) - with the aim of evaluating the trenchancy of their criticisms. The author shows that these three thinkers uncover novel ways of reading Plato non-metaphysically (where metaphysics is understood in the Heideggerian sense) and thus of undermining Heidegger's narrative concerning Platonism as metaphysics and metaphysics as Platonism. In their readings of the Platonic dialogues, Plato emerges as a proto-phenomenologist whose attention to the ethical-political facticity of human beings leads to the acknowledgment of human finitude and of the fundamental elusiveness of Being. These Platonic critics of Heidegger thus invite us to see in the dialogues a lucid presentation of philosophic questioning rather than the beginning of distorting doctrinal teachings.

Since Heidegger's reading of Aristotle covered three decades and presented itself in many courses, seminars, and essays, some still unpublished, one objective here is to provide a much needed and currently unavailable overview of this material. This Element seeks to determine what Heidegger's reading can tell us not only about Aristotle but also about Heidegger whose own thought was in many ways a 'repetition' of Aristotle. However, the ultimate aim is to identify the philosophical questions raised by 'Heidegger and Aristotle' and show how this can help us grapple with them. These questions include the distinctive way of being that defines life, the nature of time and specifically lived time, the nature of being itself and whether it is to be understood as static presence or as something more active, the nature of human action and its relation to production, and the relation between nature and technology.

Since Heidegger's reading of Aristotle covered three decades and presented itself in many courses, seminars, and essays, some still unpublished, one objective here is to provide a much needed and currently unavailable overview of this material. This Element seeks to determine what Heidegger's reading can tell us not only about Aristotle but also about Heidegger whose own thought was in many ways a 'repetition' of Aristotle. However, the ultimate aim is to identify the philosophical questions raised by 'Heidegger and Aristotle' and show how this can help us grapple with them. These questions include the distinctive way of being that defines life, the nature of time and specifically lived time, the nature of being itself and whether it is to be understood as static presence or as something more active, the nature of human action and its relation to production, and the relation between nature and technology.

This Element is an opinionated introduction to Heidegger's phenomenology in Being and Time and surrounding works, framed in terms of Heidegger's debts to and divergence from Husserl's phenomenology. Section 1 situates Heidegger's and Husserl's phenomenology with respect to the 'identity-crisis of philosophy,' in particular the debate over whether philosophy is a science or a mere cataloguing of worldviews. Section 2 critically evaluates Heidegger's claims that various forms of conscious intentionality central to Husserl's phenomenology are 'derivative' or 'founded.' Section 3 turns to method, exploring whether Heidegger adopts Husserl's reductions, platonism, and method of essential seeing and imaginative variation. Section 4 explores Heidegger's hermeneutical turn in phenomenology and explains the uses to which he puts religious sources, mythology, and ordinary language.