Table Of ContentTOWARDS THE DEFINITION
OF PHILOSOPHY
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MARTIN HEIDEGGER
TOWARDS THE DEFINITION
OF PHILOSOPHY
1. THE IDEA OF PHILOSOPHY AND THE PROBLEM
OF WORLDVIEW
2. PHENOMENOLOGY AND TRANSCENDENTAL
PHILOSOPHY OF VALUE
With a Transcript of the Lecture-Course 'On the Nature of the
University and Academic Study'
(Freiburg Lecture-Courses 1919)
Translated by Ted Sadler
THE ATHLONE PRESS
LONDON AND NEW BRUNSWICK, NJ
First published in 2000 by
THE ATHLONE PRESS
1 Park Drive, London NW11 7SG
and New Brunswick, New Jersey
© The Athlone Press 2000
Originally published in Germany as Zur Bestimmung der Philosophie
© Vittorio Klostermann GmbH, Frankfurt am Main, 1987
'Die Herausgabe dieses Werkes wurde aus Mitteln von
INTER NATIONES, Bonn gefordert'.
British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available
from the British Library
ISBN 0485 115085HB
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Heidegger, Martin, 1889-1976.
[Zur Bestimmung der Philosophie. English]
Towards the definition of philosophy: with a transcript of the lecture course "On
the nature of the university and academic study" / Martin Heidegger; translated
by Ted Sadler,
p. cm.
"Freiburg lecture courses 1919."
Contents: The idea of philosophy and the problem of worldview—
Phenomenology and transcendental phoilosophy of value.
ISBN 0-485-11508-5 (alk. paper)
1. Philosophy. 2. Phenomenology. 3. Values. I. Title.
B3279.H48 Z77 2000
193—dc21 00-056548
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Printed and bound in Great Britain by
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CONTENTS
Translator's Foreword x
Publisher's Note xii
I THE IDEA OF PHILOSOPHY AND THE PROBLEM
OF WORLDVIEW
War Emergency Semester 1919
PRELIMINARY REMARKS
Science and University Reform 3
INTRODUCTION
§ 1. Philosophy and Worldview 6
a) Worldview as Immanent Task of Philosophy 6
b) Worldview as Limit of the Critical Science of Value 7
c) The Paradox of the Problem of Worldview. Incompati-
bility between Philosophy and Worldview 9
PART ONE
THE IDEA OF PHILOSOPHY AS PRIMORDIAL SCIENCE
Chapter One
The Search for a Methodological Way
§ 2. The Idea of Primordial Science 11
a) Idea as Definite Determination 11
b) The Circularity of the Idea of Primordial Science 12
§ 3. The Way Out through the History of Philosophy 14
§ 4. The Way Out through the Philosopher's Scientific Attitude
of Mind 18
§ 5. The Way Out through Inductive Metaphysics 20
Chapter Two
Critique of Teleological-Critical Method
§ 6. Knowledge and Psychology 24
§ 7. The Axiomatic Fundamental Problem 25
vi Contents
§ 8. Teleological-Critical Method of Finding Norms 28
§ 9. The Methodological Function of Material Pregivenness 32
§ 10. Giving of Ideals as the Core Element of Method. Mis-
understanding of the Problematic Primordial Science 35
§ 11. Investigation of the Claim to Primordial Science by the
Teleological-Critical Method 39
a) Truth and Value 39
b) The Problem of Validity 42
c) The Relation between Material Pregiving and Ideal
Giving. Being and the Ought 44
§ 12. Inclusion of the Pre-Theoretical Sphere. Psychology's
Sphere of Objects 49
PART TWO
PHENOMENOLOGY AS PRE-THEORETICAL
PRIMORDIAL SCIENCE
Chapter One
Analysis of the Structure of Experience
§ 13. The Experience of the Question: 'Is There Something?' 53
a) The Psychic Subject 53
b) The Interrogative Comportment. Various Senses of the
'There is' 55
c) The Role of the Questioner 57
§ 14. The Environmental Experience 59
§ 15. Comparison of Experiential Structures. Process and Event 62
Chapter Two
The Problem of Presuppositions
§ 16. The Epistemological Question of the Reality of the
External World. Standpoints of Critical Realism and Ideal-
ism 65
§ 17. The Primacy of the Theoretical. Thing-Experience
(Objectification) as De-vivification 71
Chapter Three
Primordial Science as Pre-Theoretical Science
§18. The Circularity of Epistemology 80
§ 19. How to Consider Environmental Experience 82
a) The Method of Descriptive Reflection (Paul Natorp) 83
Contents vii
b) Reconstruction as the Characteristic Moment of the
Method. Subjectification and Objectification 87
c) Critique of Natorp's Method 90
§ 20. Phenomenological Disclosure of the Sphere of Lived
Experience 92
a) Objections to Phenomenological Research 93
b) Characterization of the Levels of De-vivification. The
Preworldly Something and the Something of Know-
ability 95
c) Hermeneutical Intuition 98
II PHENOMENOLOGY AND TRANSCENDENTAL
PHILOSOPHY OF VALUE
Summer Semester 1919
INTRODUCTION
Guiding Principles of the Lecture-Course 103
Aim of the Lecture-Course 108
PART ONE
HISTORICAL PRESENTATION OF THE PROBLEM
Chapter One
The Genesis of Philosophy of Value as the Cultural Philosophy
of the Present
§ 1. The Concept of Culture in the Philosophy of the Late
Nineteenth Century 110
a) The Historical Concept of Culture. Enlightenment and
Historical Consciousness 112
b) Culture as Accomplishment and Achievement 115
§ 2. The Onset of the Problem of Value. The Overcoming of
Naturalism by Lotze 116
Chapter Two
Windelband's Grounding of Modern Transcendental
Philosophy of Value
§ 3. Renewal of the Kantian Philosophy. The Character of Truth
as Value 119
a) The Rediscovery of the Transcendental Method by
Cohen 120
b) Practical Reason as the Principle of All Principles 121
c) Philosophy of Value as Critical Philosophy of Culture 124
viii Contents
§ 4. Judgement and Evaluation 125
a) The Grounding of the Distinction between Judgement
and Evaluation by Brentano 125
b) Judgement and Validity (Windelband) 128
c) Windelband's Treatise on Negative Judgement: Scien-
tific Determination of the Forms of Judgement 131
§ 5. Contribution to the Doctrine of Categories 135
§ 6. The Inclusion of the Problem of History in Philosophy of
Value 138
a) Natural Sciences and Human Sciences. Dilthey's Found-
ing of a Descriptive Psychology 139
b) Windelband's Distinction between Sciences of Law
and Sciences of Event. Nomothetic and Idiographic
Thinking 140
Chapter Three
The Further Development of Value-Philosophy by Rickert
§ 7. Historical Formation of Concepts and Scientific Knowledge.
Reality as Heterogeneous Continuum 143
§ 8. The Question Concerning the Possibility of the Science of
History 146
PART TWO
CRITICAL CONSIDERATIONS
§ 9. The Influence of Phenomenology on Rickert 149
§10. Guiding Principles of the Critique 152
§ 11. Rickert's Conception of the Fundamental Epistemological
Problem. The Subjective Way 155
a) Judgement and Value 155
b) Evidence and Validity 157
c) The Transcendence of the Ought 159
§ 12. The Transcendental-Logical (Objective) Way as the Method
of Grounding the Presuppositions of the Subjective Way 161
§ 13. Considerations on Negation 169
APPENDIX I
ON THE NATURE OF THE UNIVERSITY AND ACADEMIC STUDY
Summer Semester 1919
Transcript by Oskar Becker 173
Contents ix
APPENDIX II
THE IDEA OF PHILOSOPHY AND THE PROBLEM OF WORLDVIEW
War Emergency Semester 1919
Excerpt from the Transcript by Franz-Joseph Brecht 183
Editor's Afterwords to the First and Second Editions (1987, 1999) 189
Short Glossary 193
