Later Heidegger Routledge Philosophy Guidebook

245 Pages·2000·0.709 MB·English

by  George Pattison

Routledge Philosophy GuideBook to
The Later Heidegger
‘A highly instructive and engaging guide through Heidegger’s later
writings, written in a lucid and accessible manner.’
Keith Ansell Pearson, University of Warwick
‘... a lively, clear and engaging overview of the key ideas in Heidegger’s
later writings.’
Charles Guignon, University of Vermont
This Routledge Philosophy GuideBook guides the reader through the
complexities of Heidegger’s later works. The book offers a clear introduction
to the main themes that preoccupied Heidegger in the second part of his career:
technology, art, the history of philosophy and the exploration of a new post-
technological way of thinking.
George Pattison explores many aspects of the later Heidegger, including
the massive controversy surrounding his Nazism, as well as his readings of
Nietzsche, the Presocratics and Hölderlin. Pattison also carefully investigates
the difficult question of the nature of Heidegger’s thought, together with its
significance for philosophy today.
The Later Heidegger is essential reading for all students coming to
Heidegger’s later works for the first time.
George Pattison is Dean of King’s College, Cambridge.
Routledge
Philosophy
GuideBooks
Edited by Tim Crane and Jonathan Wolff
University College London
The Later Heidegger
George Pattison
Hegel on History
Joseph McCarney
Hume on Morality
James Baillie
Kant and the Critique of Pure Reason
Sebastian Gardner
Mill on Liberty
Jonathan Riley
Mill on Utilitarianism
Roger Crisp
Wittgenstein and the Philosophical Investigations
Marie McGinn
Plato and the Republic
Nickolas Pappas
Locke on Government
D.A. Lloyd Thomas
Locke on Human Understanding
E.J. Lowe
Spinoza and the Ethics
Genevieve Lloyd
LONDON AND NEW YORK
R
Routledge Philosophy GuideBook to
O
The Later
Heidegger U
T
L
E
D
G
E
(cid:1)(cid:2)George Pattison
First published 2000
by Routledge
11 New Fetter Lane, London EC4P 4EE
Simultaneously published in the USA and Canada
by Routledge
29 West 35th Street, New York, NY 10001
Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group
This edition published in the Taylor & Francis e-Library, 2001.
© 2000 George Pattison
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or
by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including
photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission
in writing from the publishers.
British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data
Pattison, George, 1950–
Routledge Philosophy GuideBook to The Later Heidegger / George Pattison.
(Routledge Philosophy GuideBooks)
1. Heidegger, Martin, 1889–1976. I.Title: Later Heidegger. II.Title. III. Series.
B3279.H49 P39 2000
193–dc21 00-020572
ISBN 0–415–20196–9 (hbk)
ISBN 0–415–20197–7 (pbk)
ISBN 0-203-13127-4 Master e-book ISBN
ISBN 0-203-17964-1 (Glassbook Format)
Who laud and magnify with made, mutable and beg-
garly elements the unmade immutable beginnings and
precessions of fair-height, with halting sequences and
unresolved rhythms, searchingly, with what’s to hand,
under the inconstant lights that hover world-flats, that
bright by fit and start the tangle of world-wood, rift-
ing the dark drifts for the wanderers that wind the
world-meander, who seek hidden grammar to give
back anathema its first benignity.
Gathering all things in, twining each bruised stem
to the swaying trellis of the dance, the dance about
the sawn lode-stake on the hill where the hidden still-
ness is at the core of struggle ...
(From David Jones, The Sleeping Lord and Other
Fragments)

C
Contents
o
n
t
Foreword ix
Acknowledgments xi e
Abbreviations xiii
1 Is there a later Heidegger? 1
n
2 1933 and after 25
3 Technology 47
t
4 Seeing things 75
s
5 Nietzsche 105
6 The first and second beginnings
of philosophy 129
7 Hölderlin 159
8 What kind of thinker? 187
Notes 217
Bibliography 223
Index 227
vii

Foreword
The text that follows explains itself, I hope. However, there is one point I
should comment on. Different English renderings of Heidegger adopt different
strategies with regard to capitalising the English ‘Being’ as a translation of
Heidegger’s German ‘Sein’. The advantage of giving the lower-case ‘being’ is
that it brings out the verbal aspect of the term and avoids misreading it as a
hypostatised metaphysical concept. On the other hand, this could on occasion
lead to it being read simply as a present participle and not as a distinctive
philosophical term. In any case, the German word is a nominalisation of the
infinitive, not the present participle ‘seiend’ (the nominal form of which,
‘Seiendes’, is usually translated ‘beings’ or ‘entities’). Where I have quoted
English translations that follow a different practice, I have, of course, kept to
their usage.
Some measure of interpretation is unavoidable here, both on my part and
on that of the reader. Perhaps, in the light of Heidegger’s own comments on
philosophy and translation, the best we can do is to remember to hear the
German ‘Sein’ in the English ‘Being’.
ix