Being and Truth

257 Pages·2010·4.34 MB·English

PhilosoPhy
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GReGoRy FRIed is Professor and Lectures given at the rise Martin Heidegger being and truth
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Chair of the Philosophy depart-
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ment at Suffolk University. He is of National Socialism n
translated by
author of Heidegger’s Polemos: g Gregory Fried and Richard Polt
From Being to Politics and editor being
and
(with Richard Polt) of A Compan- a In these lectures, delivered
“Fried and Polt’s translation of Martin n
ion to Heidegger’s Introduction to in 1933–1934 while he
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Metaphysics. truth was Rector of the University of
Heidegger’s Being and Truth is a well-
t Freiburg and an active supporter
RICHaRd PolT is Professor and r of the national Socialist regime,
crafted and careful rendering of an
Chair of the Philosophy depart- u Martin Heidegger addresses the
ment at Xavier University. He is t history of metaphysics and the
important and demanding volume of the translated by Gregory Fried and Richard Polt
author of The Emergency of Be- h notion of truth from Heraclitus to
ing: On Heidegger’s Contributions Hegel. First published in German
Complete Works.”
to Philosophy and Heidegger: An in 2001, these two lecture courses
Introduction. —andReW MITCHell, eMoRy UnIveRSITy offer a sustained encounter with
M Heidegger’s thinking during a
StudieS in Continental period when he attempted to give
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John Sallis, editor t
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lectures are strongly nationalistic
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and celebrate the revolutionary
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theories of racial supremacy in an
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what it means to be a people. This
careful translation offers valuable
insight into Heidegger’s views on
language, truth, animality, and life,
INDIANA
as well as his political thought and
activity.
University Press
Bloomington & Indianapolis
Jacket illustration: www.iupress.indiana.edu
Martin Heidegger, 1933. 1-800-842-6796 INDIANA
Being and Truth Jkt. MECH.indd 1 6/25/10 11:07 AM
Being and Truth
Studies in Continental Thought
EDITOR
JOHN SALLIS
CONSULTING EDITORS
Robert Bernasconi William L. McBride
Rudolf Bernet J. N. Mohanty
John D. Caputo Mary Rawlinson
David Carr Tom Rockmore
Edward S. Casey Calvin O. Schrag
Hubert L. Dreyfus †Reiner Schürmann
Don Ihde Charles E. Scott
David Farrell Krell Thomas Sheehan
Lenore Langsdorf Robert Sokolowski
Alphonso Lingis Bruce W. Wilshire
David Wood
Martin Heidegger
Being and Truth
Translated by
Gregory Fried and Richard Polt
Indiana University Press
Bloomington and Indianapolis
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Published in German as Martin Heidegger, Sein und Wahrheit
© 2001 German edition by Vittorio Klostermann, Frankfurt am Main
© 2010 English edition by Indiana University Press
All rights reserved
No part of this book may be reproduced or utilized in any form or by any means,
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Manufactured in the United States of America
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Heidegger, Martin, 1889–1976.
[Sein und Wahrheit. English]
Being and truth / Martin Heidegger ; translated by Gregory Fried and Richard Polt.
p. cm. — (Studies in continental thought)
ISBN 978–0–253–35511–9 (cloth : alk. paper) 1. Ontology. 2. Truth. I. Title.
B3279.H48S3713 2010
193—dc22
2010005841
1 2 3 4 5 15 14 13 12 11 10
BEING AND TRUTH
CONTENTS
Translators’ Foreword xv
THE FUNDAMENTAL QUESTION OF PHILOSOPHY
Summer Semester 1933
Introduction
The Fundamental Question of Philosophy and the
Fundamental Happening of Our History 3
§1. The spiritual-political mission as a decision for the
fundamental question 3
§2. The Greek questioning in poetry and thought and
the inception of philosophy. Philosophy as the
incessant, historical, questioning struggle
over the essence and Being of beings 5
§3. What philosophy is not. Rejection of inadequate attempts
to define it 7
§4. The fundamental question of philosophy and the
confrontation with the history of the Western spirit
in its highest position: Hegel 10
MAIN PArT
The Fundamental Question and Metaphysics:
Preparation for a Confrontation with Hegel
Chapter One
The Development, Transformation, and Christianization
of Traditional Metaphysics 15
§5. Considerations for the confrontation with Hegel 15
§6. The concept of metaphysics and its transformation up to
the time of classical modern metaphysics 17
a) The origin of the concept of metaphysics as a
bibliographical title for particular Aristotelian writings
(μετὰ τὰ φυσικά) 17
b) From the bibliographical title to the substantive concept.
The Christian transformation of the concept of metaphysics:
knowledge of the supersensible (trans physicam) 18
§7. Kant’s critical question regarding the possibility of
metaphysical cognition and the classical division
of metaphysics 20
a) On the influence of the Christianization of the concept of
metaphysics 20
b) The three rational disciplines of modern metaphysics and
Kant’s question regarding the inner possibility and limits of
metaphysical cognition as cognition on the basis of pure reason 21
v
vi Contents
Chapter Two
The System of Modern Metaphysics and the First of Its
Primary Determining Grounds: The Mathematical 23
§8. Preliminary remarks on the concept and meaning of the
mathematical in metaphysics 23
a) The task: a historical return to the turning points in the
concept of metaphysics 23
b) The Greek concept of the teachable and learnable
(τὰ μαθήματα) and the inner connection between the
“mathematical” and the “methodological” 25
§9. The precedence of the mathematical and its advance decision
regarding the content of modern philosophy:
the possible idea of knowability and truth 29
§10. Modern metaphysics in its illusory new inception with
Descartes and its errors 30
a) The usual picture of Descartes: the rigorous new
grounding of philosophy on the basis of radical doubt 30
b) The illusion of radicalism and the new grounding in
Descartes under the predominance of the
mathematical conception of method 31
α) Methodical doubt as the way to what is ultimately
indubitable. The simplest and most perspicuous
as fundamentum 32
β) The process of doubt as an illusion. The substantive
advance ruling in favor of something indubitable
that has the character of the present-at-hand 33
γ) The fundamentum as the I 33
δ) The I as self. Self-reflection as a delusion 33
ε) The essence of the I (self) as consciousness 34
ζ) The self as I and the I as “subject.” The transformation
of the concept of the subject 34
c) The substantive consequence of the predominance of the
mathematical conception of method: the failure to reach
the authentic self of man and the failure of the fundamental
question of philosophy. The advance decision of
mathematical certainty regarding truth and Being 35
§11. The predominance of the mathematical conception of method
in the formation of metaphysical systems in the
eighteenth century 37
§12. Introductory concepts from Wolff’s Ontology. The point
of departure: the philosophical principles of all
human cognition 38
Chapter Three
Determination by Christianity and the Concept of
Mathematical-Methodological Grounding in the
Metaphysical Systems of Modernity 41
§13. The two main tasks that frame modern metaphysics: the
grounding of the essence of Being in general and the proof of
the essence and existence of God 41
Contents vii
§14. The mathematical character of the system at the basis of
Baumgarten’s metaphysics 42
a) The concept of veritas metaphysica: the agreement of
what is with the most universal principles 42
b) Preliminary considerations on the principial character of
the principle by which the ens in communi is supposed
to be determined 43
§15. Baumgarten’s starting point as the possibile (what can be) and
the logical principle of contradiction as the absolutely
first principle of metaphysics 44
§16. Remarks on the grounding of the principium primum.
The principle of contradiction and human Dasein:
the preservation of the selfsameness of the selfsame 45
§17. The mathematical-logical determination of the starting point,
goal, and deductive method in Baumgarten’s
metaphysical system 48
a) The summum ens as perfectissimum. The belonging of the
perfectum to the concept of Being and its suitability as
leading to the highest being 49
b) The main steps in the construction of the
metaphysical system 50
α) Beginning with what is thinkable in thought as judgment
(assertion) and the principle of sufficient reason 50
β) The logical delimitation of the ens. Possibilitas as essentia
(what-Being): compatibility of the internal and simple
determinations 51
γ) The relatio ad unum of essentia as perfectum.
The mathematical sense of the concord of the perfectum 52
δ) The suitability of the perfectum as leading to the
summum ens: the mathematically-logically necessary
capacity of the perfectum to be increased to the
perfectissimum 53
ε) The summum ens as perfectissimum and the inherent
determinations of its Being 53
Chapter Four
Hegel: The Completion of Metaphysics as Theo-logic 55
§18. Transition to Hegel 55
§19. The fundamental character of Hegelian metaphysics.
Metaphysics as theo-logic 56
a) Hegel’s metaphysics as logic 57
α) The science of logic as authentic metaphysics 57
β) Metaphysics as logic in its higher form.
The logic of the logos as logic of the pure essentialities 57
γ) The higher logic as logic of reason 59
αα) The essence of reason as self-conscious knowing 59
ββ) The truth (the self-knowledge) of reason as
absolute spirit 59
b) Logic as the system of the absolute self-consciousness
of God: theo-logic 60
viii Contents
§20. The completion of Western philosophy in metaphysics
as theo-logic and the questionworthiness of this “completion” 61
Conclusion 62
§21. Confrontation and engagement 62
ON THE ESSENCE OF TrUTH
Winter Semester 1933–1934
Introduction
The Question of Essence as Insidious and Unavoidable 67
§1. The question of the essence of truth and the willing of
what is true in our Dasein 67
§2. The question of the essence of essence.
Presuppositions and beginning 69
a) Dasein’s becoming essential in authentic care for its ability
to be and the putting to work of the essence of things.
The how of essence 69
b) The question of the what of essence. Harkening back
to the Greek inception 71
§3. The saying of Heraclitus. Struggle as the essence of beings 72
a) The first part of the saying. Struggle as the power of
generation and preservation: innermost necessity of beings 72
b) The second part of the saying. The sway of the double
power of struggle and the decisive domains of power 74
§4. On the truth of the Heraclitean saying 76
a) Two traditional meanings of truth. Truth as
un-concealment (ἀ-λήθεια) and as correctness 76
b) The indeterminate prior knowing of truth and the
superior power of Being 79
§5. On truth and language 80
a) The human bond to the superior power of Being
and the necessity of language 80
b) The logical-grammatical conception of language 81
c) The characterization of language as sign and expression 83
d) Toward a positive delimitation of the essence of language 83
e) The ability to keep silent as the origin and ground
of language 84
f) Language as the gathered openedness for the
overpowering surge of beings 89
g) Language as lawgiving gathering and revelation of the
structure of beings 90
h) Language as λόγος and as μῦθος 91
§6. The double sway of the struggle (ἔδειξε—ἐποίησε) as
indication of the connection between Being and truth 92
§7. The historical transformation of the essence of truth
and Dasein 93
Contents ix
§8. The disappearance of truth as un-concealment in the
traditional transmission of the concept of truth 94
a) The long-accustomed conception of truth as correctness.
The agreement between proposition and thing 94
b) The last struggle between the earlier (inceptive) and later
concept of truth in the philosophy of Plato 96
§9. The start of the investigation with the myth of the
“allegory of the cave” as the center of Platonic philosophy 97
PArT ONE
Truth and Freedom: An Interpretation of the
Allegory of the Cave in Plato’s Republic
Chapter One
The Four Stages of the Happening of Truth 101
§10. Interpretive procedure and the structure of the
allegory of the cave 101
A. The first stage (514a–515c) 103
§11. The situation of the human being in the subterranean cave 103
§12. What is unconcealed in the cave 104
B. The second stage (515c–515e5) 106
§13. A “liberation” of the human being within the cave 106
§14. Expanded conception of unconcealment in the failure of
the first attempt at liberation 108
C. The third stage (515e5–516e2) 110
§15. The authentic liberation of the human being to the
originary light 110
§16. Liberation and unconcealment. Four questions about
their connection 113
§17. On the concept of the idea 115
a) Preliminary remark on the significance of the doctrine
of the ideas in the history of spirit 115
b) The fundamental orientation of knowledge toward
“seeing” and what is seen 116
§18. Idea and light 118
a) On the idea in the context of Platonic thought.
The priority of seeing and its broader concept 118
b) The seeing of what-Being. Idea and Being:
presencing—self-presence in the view 119
c) The essence of light and brightness: transparency
that is perceived and seen in advance 120
§19. Light and freedom 122
a) On the determination of man on the basis of
seeing, hearing, and speaking 122
b) Freedom as binding oneself to the illuminating 124