Heidegger and Aquinas: An Essay on Overcoming Metaphysics

323 Pages·1982·1.81 MB·English

by  John D. Caputo

title: Heidegger and Aquinas : An Essay On Overcoming
Metaphysics
author: Caputo, John D.
publisher: Fordham University Press
isbn10 | asin: 0823210987
print isbn13: 9780823210985
ebook isbn13: 9780585125404
language: English
subject Heidegger, Martin,--1889-1976, Thomas,--Aquinas,
Saint,--1225?-1274.
publication date: 1982
lcc: B3279.H49C276 1982eb
ddc: 111
subject: Heidegger, Martin,--1889-1976, Thomas,--Aquinas,
Saint,--1225?-1274.
Heidegger and Aquinas
An Essay On Overcoming Metaphysics
John D. Caputo
New York
FORDHAM UNIVERSITY PRESS
© Copyright 1982 by FORDHAM UNIVERSITY PRESS
All rights reserved
LC 82-71398
ISBN 0-8232-1098-7
First edition 1982
Second printing 1989
Third Printing, 1997
Fourth Printing, 1998
Caputo, John D.
Heidegger and Aquinas:An Essay on Overcoming Metaphysics / John D. Caputo.
ISBN: 0-8232-1098-7
1. Heidegger, Martin, 1889-1976.2. Thomas, Aquinas, Saint,
12257-1274.
I. Title.
B3279.H49 C276
111
Printed in the United States of America
To
My Mother and Father
FLORENCE AGNES
and
PETER JOSEPH CAPUTO
Abbreviations I
Works of Heidegger
References will be indicated by means of the following abbreviations of the German titles of Heidegger's
works, followed by the page number of the German edition and by the cross reference to the English
translation. Thus Weg2 45/3 means that I am quoting p. 45 of the Gesamtausgabe edition of
Wegrnarken, listed in the Bibliography, a translation of which is to be found on p. 3 of the English
version listed immediately after it in the Bibliography. I have tried to make use of existing translations,
and by consulting these translations, the reader will see for himself where I have adapted the translation
or entirely retranslated it.
AED Aus der Erfahrung des Denkens
EM Einführung in die Metaphysik
FS2 Frühe Schriften (Gesamtausgabe)
FW Die Feldweg
G Gelassenheit
GP Grundprobleme der Phänomenologie
(Gesamtausgabe)
Holz.2 Holzwege (Gesamtausgabe)
ID ldentität und Diffrenz
K Die Technik und die Kehre
N I, N Nietzsche
II
SD Zur Sache des Denkens
SG Der Satz yore Grund
SZ Sein und Zeit
US Unterwegs zur Sprache
VA Vorträge und Aufsätze
WD Was heisst Dnken?
WdP Was ist dasdie Philosophie?
Weg2 Wegmarken (Gesamtausgabe)
WG Vom Wesen des Grundes
Page vii
Abbreviations II
Works of Aquinas
Reference to the works of St. Thomas is standardized and does not involve the use of page numbers,
either in Latin or in translation. Full bibliographical information on the Latin editions and English
translations which I have used may be obtained from the Bibliography. As with Heidegger, I have tried
to make use of existing translations.
Comp. theol. Compendium theologiae
De ente De ente et essentia
De pot. Quaestiones disputatae de potentia dei
De spir. creat. Quaestiones disputatae de spiritualibus
creaturis
De ver. Quaestiones disputatae de veritate
Exp. Boet. De Expositio super librum Boethii De Trinitate
Trin.
In Boet. De Expositio in librum Boethii De hebdomadibus
hebd.
In De causis In librum De causis expositio
In Met. In duodecim libros Metaphysicorum Aristotells
expositio
In Phys. In octo libros Physicorum Aristotelis expositio
In I Sent. Scripta super libros Sententiarum, liber I
In I Tim. Super epistolas s. Pauli lectura
Quod. Quaestiones quodlibetales
SCG Summa contra Gentiles
ST Summa theologiae (theologica)
In addition, I have supplied the reader with cross references, where useful, to the following anthology:
ARAn Aquinas Reader. Ed. Mary T. Clark. New York: Fordham
University Press, 1988.
Acknowledgments
I wish to thank Professor John Sallis, Chairman of the Department of Philosophy at Duquesne
University, for the invitation which he and his department extended to me to spend the Fall 1978
semester at Duquesne as a Visiting Professor. During this time I taught a graduate course on Heidegger
and Aquinas, the lectures of which gave shape to the first draft of this book. I am grateful, too, to the
students in that class, in particular to Panes Alexakos and Tony Godzieba, whose contributions to this
course were of considerable help to me.
I owe a debt of gratitude to Professor Albert Hofstadter for making available to me and my students the
early draft of his translation of the crucial §§ 10-12 of The Basic Problems of Phenomenology.
I also wish to thank Professor Thomas Sheehan, of Loyola University in Chicago. I have profited greatly,
not only from his excellent published writings on Heidegger, but also from our private correspondence,
and, in particular, from his careful reading of the present manuscript.
My thanks to Rev. John O'Malley, O.S.A., Dean of the College'. of Arts and Sciences at Villanova
University, Dr. James Cleary, Academic Vice President, and Dr. Bernard Downey, Graduate Dean, for
their support in defraying the cost of typing this manuscript. Nor can I fail to mention the gracious and
efficient work of our departmental secretary, Mrs. Sandy Shupard, who patiently and expeditiously typed
the corrections and final drafts of this work.
I should also like to thank John Sallis, Editor of Research in Phenomenology, for permission to use
parts of my "Language, Logic and Time," which appeared in Research in Phenomenology, 3 (197 3), 147-
55.
It is also a pleasure to acknowledge the help of Mary Beatrice Schulte, Editor at Fordham University
Press, who edited the text of this book with such obvious care and professional expertise.
Finally, and most importantly, I thank my wife, Kathy, not only for her patience with the long hours
which must necessarily be invested in a work such as this, but also for the design of the cover of the
paperback edition.
JOHN D. CAPUTO
VILLANOVA UNIVERSITY
Page ix
Contents
Introduction: The Thought of Being and the Metaphysics of Esse 1
1
Heidegger's Beginnings and the Project of a Dialogue with Scholasticism 15
2
Heidegger's Critique of scholasticism 62
3
Gilson's Critique of Metaphysics: The Oblivion of Being as "Essentialism" 100
4
Esse and the Metaphysics of Participation in Thomas Aquinas 122
5
Heidegger's Dif-ference and the Esse-Ens Distinction in St. Thomas 147
6
Presencing (Anwesen) and the Measning of Esse 185
7
Approaches to Heidegger and Thomas: A Survey of the Literature 211
8
The Mystical Element in St. Thomas' Thought: A Retrieval of Thomistic
Metaphysics 246
Bibliography 289
Indices 305
Heidegger and Aquinas
Page 1
Introduction
The Thought of Being and the Metaphysics of Esse
The purpose of the present study is to undertake a confrontation of the thought of Martin Heidegger and
of Thomas Aquinas on the question of Being and the problem of metaphysics. Now, a "confrontation"
which does no more than draw up a catalogue of common traits and points of difference is no more than
a curiosity, an idle comparison which bears no fruit. What matters in a genuinely philosophical
confrontation is that something be brought forth about the nature of things ( rerum natura), about the
matter to be thought (Sache des Denkens). Husserl's warning not to be concerned with philosophers and
their philosophies tings truer than ever today, when the lines of philosophical communication threaten
to be flooded with monographs and studies of this or that philosopher and of this or that "connection." I
have no interest here in establishing such a connection between Heidegger and Aquinas, between this
German philosopher who still today is popularly thought to be an atheist and this medieval theologian
whose thought has always been held close to the bosom of the Catholic Church. What interests me is the
Sache, the matter which presents itself for thought, which, in the case of these two thinkers, is the
problem of Being and the nature of metaphysical knowledge. I have no interest in developing an
expertise in Heidegger or Aquinas. What interests me is the problem of how Being can be thought.
And that is the point of this confrontation. For however widely separated these authors may be by
historical setting and substantive concerns, Aquinas and Heidegger are philosophers of Being par
excellence. And they each lay claimor in the case of Aquinas his