Basic Questions of Philosophy

Martin Heidegger

Description

Probes the essence of truth

First published in German in 1984 as volume 45 of Martin Heidegger's collected works, this book is the first English translation of a lecture course he presented at the University of Freiburg in 1937–1938. Heidegger's task here is to reassert the question of the essence of truth, not as a "problem" or as a matter of "logic," but precisely as a genuine philosophical question, in fact the one basic question of philosophy. Thus, this course is about the essence of truth and the essence of philosophy. On both sides Heidegger draws extensively upon the ancient Greeks, on their understanding of truth as aletheia and their determination of the beginning of philosophy as the disposition of wonder. In addition, these lectures were presented at the time that Heidegger was composing his second magnum opus, Beiträge zur Philosophie, and provide the single best introduction to that complex and crucial text.

Translators' Foreword

Preparatory Part: The Essence of Philosophy and the Question of Truth
Chapter One: Preliminary Interpretation of the Essence of Philosophy
Chapter Two: The Question of Truth as a Basic Question

Main Part: Foundational Issues in the Question of Truth
Chapter One: The Basic Question of the Essence of Truth as a Historical Reflection
Chapter Two: The Question of the Truth (Essentiality) of the Essence
Chapter Three: The Laying of the Ground as the Foundation for Grasping an Essence
Chapter Four: The Necessity of the Question of the Essence of Truth, on the Basis of the Beginning of the History of Truth
Chapter Five: The Need and the Necessity of the First Beginning and the Need and the Necessity of an Other Way to Question and to Begin

Appendices
The Question of Truth
From the First Draft
Editor's Afterword

Sujets

• Philosophie
• Épistémologie
• Philosophie de l'esprit
• Movements
• PHILOSOPHY
• Philosophie et théologie
• Phenomenology
• Continental

Informations

• Publié par: Indiana University Press
• Date de parution: 22 juin 1994
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9780253004383
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 2 Mo

Extrait

BASIC QUESTIONS OF PHILOSOPHY
Studies in Continental Thought
GENERAL EDITOR
JOHN SALLIS
CONSULTING EDITORS
Robert Bernasconi
Rudolf Bernet
John D. Caputo
David Carr
Edward S. Casey
Hubert L. Dreyfus
Don Ihde
David Farrell Krell
Lenore Langsdorf
Alphonso Lingis
William L. McBride
J. N. Mohanty
Mary Rawlinson
Tom Rockmore
Calvin O. Schrag
Reiner Sch rmann
Charles E. Scott
Thomas Sheehan
Robert Sokolowski
Bruce W. Wilshire
David Wood
Martin Heidegger
BASIC QUESTIONS OF PHILOSOPHY
Selected Problems of Logic
TRANSLATED BY
Richard Rojcewicz
AND
Andr Schuwer
INDIANA UNIVERSITY PRESS
Bloomington Indianapolis
Published in German as Grundfragen der Philosophie: Ausgew hlte Probleme der Logik 1984 by Vittorio Klostermann, Frankfurt am Main. Second edition 1992.
1994 by Indiana University Press
All rights reserved
No part of this book may be reproduced or utilized in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying and recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher. The Association of American University Presses Resolution on Permissions constitutes the only exception to this prohibition.
The paper used in this publication meets the minimum requirements of American National Standard for Information Sciences-Permanence of Paper for Printed Library Materials, ANSI Z39.48-1984.

Manufactured in the United States of America
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Heidegger, Martin, 1889-1976.
[Grundfragen der Philosophie. English]
Basic questions of philosophy : selected problems of logic / Martin Heidegger : translated by Richard Rojcewicz and Andr Schuwer.
p. cm. - (Studies in Continental thought)
ISBN 0-253-32685-0
1. Truth. I. Title. II. Series.
B3279.H48G7713 1994
111 .8-dc20
93-30513
1 2 3 4 5 99 98 97 96 95 94
Contents
TRANSLATORS FOREWORD
PREPARATORY PART
The Essence of Philosophy and the Question of Truth
Chapter One Preliminary Interpretation of the Essence of Philosophy
1. Futural philosophy; restraint as the basic disposition of the relation to Being [ Seyn ]
2. Philosophy as the immediately useless, though sovereign, knowledge of the essence of beings
3. Questioning the truth of Being, as sovereign knowledge
Chapter Two The Question of Truth as a Basic Question
4. Truth as a problem of logic (correctness of an assertion) distorts every view of the essence of truth
5. Discussion of truth by asking the basic question of philosophy, including a historical confrontation with Western philosophy. The need and the necessity of an original questioning
RECAPITULATION
1) The question of truth as the most necessary philosophical question in an age that is totally unquestioning
2) What is worthy of questioning in the determination of truth hitherto (truth as the correctness of an assertion) as compelling us toward the question of truth
6. The traditional determination of truth as correctness
7. The controversy between idealism and realism on the common soil of a conception of truth as the correctness of a representation
8. The space of the fourfold-unitary openness. First directive toward what is worthy of questioning in the traditional determination of truth as correctness
9. The conception of truth and of the essence of man. The basic question of truth
a) The determination of the essence of truth as connected to the determination of the essence of man
b) The question of the ground of the possibility of all correctness as the basic question of truth
RECAPITULATION
1) The relation between question and answer in the domain of philosophy
2) The customary determination of truth as correctness of representation, and the fourfold-unitary openness as the question-worthy ground of the possibility of the correctness of representation
c) The question of truth as the most questionable of our previous history and the most worthy of questioning of our future history
MAIN PART
Foundational Issues in the Question of Truth
Chapter One The Basic Question of the Essence of Truth as a Historical Reflection
10. The ambiguity of the question of truth: the search for what is true-reflection on the essence of truth
11. The question of truth as a question of the essence of the true: not an inquiry into the universal concept of the true
12. The question of the legitimacy of the ordinary determination of truth, as point of departure for a return to the ground of the possibility of correctness
13. The foundation of the traditional conception of truth in the return to its origin
a) The historiographical consideration of the past
b) Historical reflection on the future, the future as the beginning of all happenings
RECAPITULATION
1) The ambiguity of the question of truth. The essence is not what is indifferently universal but what is most essential
2) The problematic character of the obviousness of the traditional conception of truth, and the question of its legitimacy
3) Toward the foundation of the customary conception of truth through a historical reflection on its origin. The distinction between a historiographical consideration and a historical reflection
c) The acquisition of the beginning in the experience of its law. The historical as the extension from the future into the past and from the past into the future
14. Return to the Aristotelian doctrine of the truth of the assertion as a historical reflection
15. The Aristotelian foundation of the correctness of an assertion as the essence of truth
16. The turning of the question of the essence of truth into the question of the truth (essentiality) of the essence. The question of the Aristotelian conception of the essentiality of the essence
RECAPITULATION
1) Rejection of three misinterpretations of the distinction between historiographical consideration and historical reflection. Science and historical reflection
2) The path from the question of the essence of truth to the question of the truth (essentiality) of the essence
Chapter Two The Question of the Truth (Essentiality) of the Essence
17. Historical reflection on the Aristotelian-Platonic determination of the essentiality of the essence
a) The four characteristics of the essentiality of the essence in Aristotle
b) The essence as the whatness of a being. Whatness as : the constantly present, what is in view in advance, the look ( )
RECAPITULATION
1) Four characterizations of the essentiality of the essence in Aristotle. The whatness in Plato: the as what is sighted in advance, the look
2) How to understand the essence sighted in advance
18. The Greek determination of the essence (whatness) in the horizon of an understanding of Being as constant presence
a) The determination of the essence (whatness) as the beingness ( ) of beings. The understanding of Being as constant presence is the ground for the interpretation of beingness ( ) as
b) The Greek understanding of the
19. The absence of a foundation for Aristotle s essential determination of truth as the correctness of an assertion. The question of the meaning of foundation
RECAPITULATION
1) The conception of the Being of beings as constant presence: the ground for the determination of the essence ( ) as whatness
2) The absence of a foundation for the positing and for the characterization of the essence of truth as the correctness of an assertion. The meaning of foundation
Chapter Three The Laying of the Ground as the Foundation for Grasping an Essence
20. The absurdity of attempting to found an essential statement about truth as correctness by having recourse to a factual statement
21. Grasping the essence as bringing it forth. First directive
22. The search for the ground of the positing of the essence. Ordinariness of an acquaintance with the essence-enigma of a genuine knowledge of the essence (grasping of the essence) and its foundation
23. The bringing of the essence into view in advance (the grasping of the essence) as the bringing forth of the essence out of concealment into the light. The productive seeing of the essence
24. The productive seeing of the essence as the laying of the ground . as of the
RECAPITULATION
1) Renewed reflection on our procedure as a whole: the necessity of a historical relation to the history of the essence of truth
2) The succession of the steps made up to now from truth as the correctness of an assertion to the positing of the essence as a productive seeing and a laying of the ground
25. The unconcealedness of the whatness of beings as the truth pertaining to the grasping of the essence. The groundedness of the correctness of an assertion in unconcealedness ( )
26. Unconcealedness and the openness of beings. The process of the submergence of the original Greek essence of truth in the sense of the unconcealedness of beings
RECAPITULATION
1) The productive seeing of the unconcealedness of beings as the ground of the essence of truth as correctness
2) The Greek as openness. The transformation of the concept of truth from unconcealedness to correctness
Chapter Four The Necessity of the Question of the Essence of Truth, on the Basis of the Beginning of the History of Truth
27. The turning of the critical question of truth toward the beginning of the history of truth as a leaping ahead into the future. A as experienced by the Greeks though not interrogated by them
28. Truth as correctness and its domination over its own ground as an essential consequence of the absence of a fathoming of the ground. The question of openness as the question of itself
29. The Greeks experience of unconcealedness as the basic character of beings as such and their lack of inquiry into
RECAPITULATION
1) The ground of the necessity of the question of the essence of truth
2) as primordial for the Greeks yet unquestioned by them
30. Their fidelity to the destiny meted out to the