The Heidegger dictionary

312 Pages·2013·4.05 MB·English

by  Heidegger

CONTENTS
Foreword
ix
Introduction 1
A–Z dictionary 9
Heidegger’s published writings, lectures, and
posthumous works 241
Notes
293
Glossary
295
Index
301

FOREWORD
Dictionaries, Heidegger observes, contain mere lexical items or
terms ((cid:246)rterW ), not words (orteW ), and the very tradition of
dictionaries goes back to a specific way of thinking whose limita-
tions he labors to expose (38: 17, 21, 23). “For a dictionary
can neither grasp nor contain the word by which terms come to
words” (12: 181). Another judgment is less harsh: “A ‘dictionary’
can give hints for the understanding of words but it is never an
unqualified and binding authority from the outset” (53: 75). He
goes on to say that the appeal to a dictionary always remains
merely an appeal to an interpretation of a language. The following
dictionary aims to provide hints for understanding Heidegger’s
words, not merely his terms, with the sure recognition that it is
anything but a binding interpretation of them. Nonetheless, just as
Heidegger was an avid user of dictionaries (51: 88), students of his
writings hopefully may find this Dictionary a useful introduction
and aid to interpreting his work. The aim of the Dictionary is
to provide an introduction to what Heidegger is saying, given
the central words on which he relies. Since Heidegger’s thinking
emerges from critical encounters with thinkers and poets, this
introduction also discusses the work of several philosophers and
bards significantly involved in those encounters. Given its intro-
ductory aim, the present effort is even more an abridgment of the
language in question than a standard dictionary would be, and, as
such, it will no doubt omit glosses of several key terms and figures.
While every effort has been made to keep such omissions to a
minimum, they are not only inevitable but inherent in an intro-
ductory work, particularly given constraints of page-length and
competence. Following glosses of key terms and figures in the first
part, the Dictionary’s second part contains summaries of the first
sixty-six volumes of Heidegger’s published writings, lectures, and
posthumous works in the Complete Edition. Future researchers
x FOREWORD
will undoubtedly be able to supplement the present work with
treatments of words omitted in the first part and passed-over or
unedited volumes in the second part.
Heidegger’s developing use of terminology presents challenges
of its own. While some terms (e.g. “disposition,” “existenziell,”
“conscience,” “transcendence,” “metontology”) have a limited
shelf-life, others (e.g. “Dasein,” “freedom,” “mood”) remain in
force throughout his career while taking on different meanings.
With no claim to exhaustiveness, the Dictionary attempts to
identify some of the more significant shifts in Heidegger’s termi-
nology. There are other excellent dictionaries of Heidegger’s works
available, one by Michael Inwood, another by Alfred Denker and
Frank Schalow, that I highly recommend. Consultation of these
works can make up for many a term not treated or not treated
adequately in the present volume.
I wish to express my thanks to Rachel Eisenhauer of Bloomsbury
Publishing and Kim Storry at Fakenham Prepress for their expertise
and co-operativeness. I am grateful to Ian Dunkle, Nolan Little,
Mary Catherine McDonald and Josh McDonald for their careful
reading of various drafts and for their many helpful suggestions.
Thanks, too, to Claudius Strube, Robert Scharff, Andrew Mitchell,
Richard Polt, and my colleagues, Walter Hopp and Manfred
Kuehn, and all the members of the Heidegger Circle over the years
for providing a constant source of illumination.
This work would not have been possible without the love,
encouragement, and support I receive from my wife, Eugenie, and
my son, Max.
Method of citation
All numbers followed by a colon and other numbers in paren-
theses refer to the respective volume of the Complete Edition
(Gesamtausgabe ) of Heidegger’s works, followed by the page
numbers after the colon. For example,
‘(5: 177)’
FOREWORD xi
refers to
Martin Heidegger, Holzwege , Gesamtausgabe Band 5, heraus-
gegeben von Friedrich-Wilhelm von Hermann (Frankfurt am
Main: Klostermann, 2003), S. 177.
Within entries, reference to a volume of the Complete Edition is
made by using the standard abbreviation ‘GA,’ followed by the
volume number; e.g. ‘GA 5’ refers to the volume cited above. When
no reference is given immediately following a quoted passage,
the next parenthetical reference in the respective paragraph
contains the reference. Since most English translations include the
respective page numbers of the original German edition, it would
be redundant to cite the pagination of those translations. However,
the most up-to-date English translations of the volumes of the
Complete Edition or texts contained in them (if translated from
a source other than the Complete Edition) are cited with the list
of volumes of the Complete Edition and brief summaries of their
contents in Part Two.
‘SZ,’ followed by numbers, in parentheses refers to the pages of the
most widely used edition of Sein und Zeit ; for example,
‘(SZ 75)’
refers to
Martin Heidegger, Sein und Zeit (Tübingen: Niemeyer, 1972),
S. 75.
No corresponding English pagination needs to be given for SZ
since the page numbers of this edition (issued in multiple years) are
indicated in the margins of both standard English translations of
this work as imeBeing and T . When my translation of a term from
SZ differs from one of these translations, I indicate their translation
by citing an abbreviation for the translation, followed by a colon
and their translation. ‘MR’ refers to the John Macquarrie and
Edward Robinson translation (San Francisco: Harper, 1962), and
‘S’ refers to the Joan Stambaugh translation, with a foreword by
Dennis Schmidt (Albany, NY: SUNY Press, 2011).

Introduction
“Komm! ins Offene, Freund!”
H(cid:214)LDERLIN, DER GANG AUFS LAND
Heidegger is a thinker, and, as far as his personal and public life is
concerned, one is tempted to say no more than he said of Aristotle:
“As for his personality, our only interest is that he was born at a
certain time, that he worked, and that he died” (18: 5). Yet this
dissociation of thinking and life will not do, especially for someone
who so strongly ties how we exist to our self-understanding and,
indeed, in a way that underscores practice no less than theory. Nor
will it do for someone who so fervently tries to retrieve the all-but-
lost nearness of things and who implicates the history of Western
philosophy in present-day nihilism—the mindless and unimpeded
pursuit of power in a world dominated by markets and powers of
production, a rapacious technology, and the calculating, comput-
erized representation of everything. Of course, there are other
good reasons for not pretending to divorce Heidegger’s thought
from his life, notably the traumatic effect of the Great War on his
generation, his infamous embrace of National Socialism in 1933,
and his refusal, after the war, to make any further apologies for
that involvement or its consequences.
Born on September 26, 1889 in the small town of Meßkirch,
in an area long known as “Catholic country,” Martin Heidegger
attends public high schools in Constance and Freiburg from 1903
to 1909. Residing at a seminary in Constance, Heidegger is close
to its rector, Conrad Gröber, who is an active figure in conservative
Catholic politics, and Heidegger’s first publications (1910–12)
bemoan modernity and individualism while championing the