The Fundamental Concepts of Metaphysics

Martin Heidegger

Description

Represents a major turning point in Heidegger's thought

Now in paperback!

" . . an important addition to the translations of Heidegger's lecture-courses . . Heidegger's voice can be heard with few of the jolting Germanicisms with which so many translations of Heidegger's texts have been burdened. . . ." —International Philosophical Quarterly

"The translators of these lectures have succeeded splendidly in giving readers an intimation of the tensely insistent tone of the original German. Heidegger's concern with a linguistic preconsciousness and with our entrancement before the enigma of existence remains intensely contemporary." —Choice

"There is much that is new and valuable in this book, and McNeill and Walker's faithful translation makes it very accessible." —Review of Metaphysics

"Whoever thought that Heidegger . . . has no surprises left in him had better read this volume. If its rhetoric is 'hard and heavy' its thought is even harder and essentially more daring than Heideggerians ever imagined Heidegger could be." —David Farrell Krell

First published in German in 1938 as volume 29/30 of Heidegger's collected works, The Fundamental Concepts of Metaphysics includes an extended treatment of the history of metaphysics and an elaboration of a philosophy of life and nature. Heidegger's concepts of organism, animal behavior, and environment are uniquely developed and defined with intensity.

This work, the text of Martin Heidegger's lecture course of 1929/30, is crucial for an understanding of Heidegger's transition from the major work of his early years, Being and Time, to his later preoccupations with language, truth, and history. First published in German in 1983 as volume 29/30 of Heidegger's collected works, The Fundamental Concepts of Metaphysics includes an extended treatment of the history of metaphysics and an elaboration of a philosophy of life and nature. Heidegger's concepts of organism, animal behavior, and environment are uniquely developed and defined with intensity.

Sujets

• Philosophie
• Métaphysique
• PHILOSOPHY
• Philosophie et théologie
• Metaphysics

Informations

• Publié par: Indiana University Press
• Date de parution: 22 janvier 1996
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9780253004406
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 15 Mo

Extrait

The Fundamental Concepts of Metaphysics
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
The Fundamental Concepts of Metaphysics
World, Finitude, Solitude
Translated by
William McNeill
and
Nicholas Walker
Indiana University Press
Bloomington and Indianapolis
This book is a publication of
Indiana University Press
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Published in German as Die Grundbegriffe der Metaphysik. Welt - Endlichkeit-Einsamkeit 1983, 1992 by Vittorio Klostermann, Frankfurt am Main. Publication of this work was supported by funding from Inter Nationes, Bonn.
1995 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.
[Grundbegriffe der Metaphysik. English]
The fundamental concepts of metaphysics : world, finitude, solitude / Martin Heidegger ; translated by William McNeill and Nicholas Walker.
p. cm.-(Studies in Continental thought)
Translation of: Die Grundbegriffe der Metaphysik
Includes bibliographical references.
ISBN 0-253-32749-0 (cloth : alk. paper)
1. Metaphysics. I. Title. II. Series.
B3279.H48G76513 1995
110-dc20 94-43451
ISBN 0-253-21429-7 (pbk. : alk. paper)
2 3 4 5 6 05 04 03 02 01 00
In Memory of Eugen Fink
He listened to this lecture course with thoughtful reticence, and in so doing experienced something unthought of his own that determined his path.
Presumably this is where we must look for the reason why, over the past decades, he repeatedly expressed the wish that this lecture should be published before all others.
Martin Heidegger
26 July 1975
Contents
Translators Foreword
PRELIMINARY APPRAISAL
The Task of the Course and Its Fundamental Orientation, Starting with a General Elucidation of the Title of the Course
Chapter One
The Detours toward Determining the Essence of Philosophy (Metaphysics), and the Unavoidability of Looking Metaphysics in the Face
1. The incomparability of philosophy.
a) Philosophy neither science, nor the proclamation of a worldview.
b) The essence of philosophy not to be determined via the detour of comparing it with art and religion.
c) The escape route of determining the essence of philosophy via a historical orientation as an illusion.
2. Determining philosophy from out of itself, taking our lead from a word of Novalis.
a) The withdrawal of metaphysics (philosophizing) as a human activity into the obscurity of the essence of man.
b) Homesickness as the fundamental attunement of philosophizing, and the questions concerning world, finitude, individuation.
3. Metaphysical thinking as comprehensive thinking: dealing with the whole and gripping existence through and through.
Chapter Two
Ambiguity in the Essence of Philosophy (Metaphysics )
4. The ambiguity in philosophizing in general: the uncertainty as to whether or not philosophy is science or the proclamation of a worldview.
5. The ambiguity in our philosophizing here and now in the comportment of the listener and of the teacher.
6. The truth of philosophy and its ambiguity.
a) Philosophy presents itself as something that concerns everyone and is understood by everyone.
b) Philosophy presents itself as something ultimate and supreme.
) Philosophical truth in its semblance of absolutely certain truth.
) The emptiness and non-binding character of the argument of formal contradiction. The truth of philosophy as rooted in the fate of Dasein.
) The ambiguity of the critical stance in Descartes and in modern philosophy.
7. The struggle of philosophizing against the insurmountable ambiguity of its essence. Philosophizing stands on its own as the fundamental occurrence in Dasein.
Chapter Three
Justifying the Characterization of Comprehensive Questioning Concerning World, Finitude, Individuation as Metaphysics. Origin and History of the Word Metaphysics
8. The word metaphysics . The meaning of .
a) Elucidation of the word . as the self-forming prevailing of beings as a whole.
b) as taking the prevailing of beings as a whole out of concealment.
c) as the saying of what is unconcealed ( ). (truth) as something stolen, something that must be torn from concealment.
d) The two meanings of .
) The ambivalence of the fundamental meaning of : that which prevails in its prevailing. The first meaning of : the (as opposed to the ) as regional concept.
) The second meaning of : prevailing as such as the essence and inner law of the matter.
9. The two meanings of in Aristotle. Questioning concerning beings as a whole and questioning concerning the essentiality (the being) of beings as the dual orientation of questioning in .
10. The formation of the scholastic disciplines of logic, physics, and ethics as the decline of philosophizing proper.
11. The changeover from the technical meaning of in the word metaphysics to a meaning conceived in terms of content.
a) The technical meaning of : after ( post ). Metaphysics as the technical title for an embarrassment in the face of .
b) The meaning of with respect to content: over beyond ( trans ). Metaphysics as a designation and interpretation of with respect to content: science of the suprasensuous. Metaphysics as a scholastic discipline.
12. The inherent incongruities of the traditional concept of metaphysics.
a) The trivialization of the traditional concept of metaphysics: the metaphysical (God, immortal soul) as a being that is at hand, albeit a higher one.
b) The confused state of the traditional concept of metaphysics: the combining of the two separate kinds of lying out beyond ( ) as pertaining to supra sensuous beings and to the un sensuous characteristics of the being of beings.
c) The unproblematic nature of the traditional concept of metaphysics.
13. The concept of metaphysics in Thomas Aquinas as historical evidence for the three features of the traditional concept of metaphysics.
14. The concept of metaphysics in Franz Suarez and the fundamental character of modern metaphysics.
15. Metaphysics as a title for the fundamental problem of metaphysics itself. The result of our preliminary appraisal and the demand to take action in metaphysics on the basis of being gripped by a metaphysical questioning.
PART ONE
Awakening a Fundamental Attunement in Our Philosophizing
Chapter One
The Task of Awakening a Fundamental Attunement and the Indication of a Concealed Fundamental Attunement in Our Contemporary Dasein
16. Coming to a preliminary understanding about the significance of awakening a fundamental attunement.
a) Awakening: not ascertaining something at hand, but letting what is asleep become wakeful.
b) The being-there and not-being-there of attunement cannot be grasped via the distinction between consciousness and unconsciousness.
c) The being-there and not-being-there of attunement on the grounds of man s being as being-there and being-away (being absent).
17. Provisional characterization of the phenomenon of attunement: attunement as a fundamental way of Dasein, as that which gives Dasein its subsistence and possibility. The awakening of attunement as a grasping of Da-sein as Da-sein.
18. Making sure of our contemporary situation and of the fundamental attunement that pervades it as the presupposition for awakening this fundamental attunement.
a) Four interpretations of our contemporary situation: the opposition of life (soul) and spirit in Oswald Spengler, Ludwig Klages, Max Scheler, and Leopold Ziegler.
b) Nietzsche s fundamental opposition between the Dionysian and Apollonian as the source of the four interpretations of our contemporary situation.
c) Profound boredom as the concealed fundamental attunement of the interpretations of our situation provided by the philosophy of culture.
Chapter Two
The First Form of Boredom: Becoming Bored by Something
19. The questionableness of boredom. Awakening this fundamental attunement as letting it be awake, as guarding against it falling asleep.
20. The fundamental attunement of boredom, its relation to time, and the three metaphysical questions concerning world, finitude, individuation.
21. The interpretation of boredom starting from that which is boring. That which is boring as that which holds us in limbo and leaves us empty. The questionableness of the three conventional schemata of interpretation: the cause-effect relation, something psychological, and transference.
22. Methodological directive for the interpretation of becoming bored: avoiding the approach of an analysis of consciousness, and maintaining the immediacy of everyday Dasein: interpretation of boredom in terms of passing the time as our immediate relation to boredom.
23. Becoming bored and passing the time.
a) Passing the time as a driving away of boredom that drives time on.
b) Passing the