Phenomenological Interpretations of Aristotle

Martin Heidegger, Richard Rojcewicz

Description

An early articulation of Heidegger's philosophical method

Phenomenological Interpretations of Aristotle is the text of a lecture course presented at the University of Freiburg in the winter of 1921–1922, and first published in 1985 as volume 61 of Heidegger's collected works. Preceding Being and Time, the work shows the young Heidegger introducing novel vocabulary as he searches for his genuine philosophical voice. In this course, Heidegger first takes up the role of the definition of philosophy and then elaborates a unique analysis of "factical life," or human life as it is lived concretely in relation to the world, a relation he calls "caring." Heidegger's descriptions of the movement of life are original and striking. As he works out a phenomenology of factical life, Heidegger lays the groundwork for a phenomenological interpretation of Aristotle, whose influence on Heidegger's philosophy was pivotal.

Sujets

• Philosophie
• Épistémologie
• Philosophie de l'esprit
• Movements
• PHILOSOPHY
• Philosophie et théologie
• Phenomenology
• Continental
• Classics

Informations

• Publié par: Indiana University Press
• Date de parution: 17 décembre 2008
• Nombre de lectures: 1
• EAN13: 9780253004482
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 1 Mo

Extrait

Phenomenological Interpretations of Aristotle
Studies in Continental Thought
GENERAL 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 Sch rmann
Don Ihde
Charles E. Scott
David Farrell Krell
Thomas Sheehan
Lenore Langsdorf
Robert Sokolowski
Alphonso Lingis
Bruce W. Wilshire
David Wood
Martin Heidegger
Phenomenological Interpretations of Aristotle
Initiation into Phenomenological Research
Translated by
Richard Rojcewicz
Indiana University Press
Bloomington Indianapolis
This book is a publication of
Indiana University Press
601 North Morton Street
Bloomington, IN 47404-3797 USA
http://iupress.indiana.edu
Telephone orders 800-842-6796
Fax orders 812-855-7931
Orders by e-mail [e-mail]
Published in German as Martin Heidegger, Gesamtausgabe , volume 61:
Ph nomenologische Interpretationen zu Aristoteles:
Einf hrung in die ph nomenologische Forschung ,
edited by Walter Br cker and K te Br cker-Oltmanns
1985 by Vittorio Klostermann, Frankfurt am Main
2001 by Indiana University Press
All rights reserved
No part of this book may be reproduced or utilized in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying and recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher. The Association of American University Presses Resolution on Permissions constitutes the only exception to this prohibition.
The paper used in this publication meets the minimum requirements of American National Standard for Information Sciences-Permanence of Paper for Printed Library Materials, ANSI Z39.48-1984.
Manufactured in the United States of America
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Heidegger, Martin, 1889-1976.
[Ph anomenologische Interpretationen zu Aristoteles. English]
Phenomenological interpretations of Aristotle : initiation into
phenomenological research / Martin Heidegger ;
translated by Richard Rojcewicz.
p. cm. - (Studies in Continental thought)
Translation of lectures presented at the
University of Freiburg, winter 1921-1922.
ISBN 0-253-33993-6 (alk. paper)
1. Philosophy. 2. Phenomenology. 3. Aristotle.
I. Title. II. Series.
B3279.H48P4913 2001
193-dc21 2001002090
1 2 3 4 5 06 05 04 03 02 01
CONTENTS
Translator s Foreword
I NTRODUCTION
P ART I
Aristotle and the Reception of His Philosophy
A. What Are Studies in the History of Philosophy?
A region within the history of the spirit as Objective, factual research? (3)-The historiological can be grasped only in philosophizing; both originally one (3)-Not a presupposition, but instead a pre-possession of the factical in questionability; not Objective (4)-The history of philosophy in these pages: Greeks and the Christian West (4)
B. The Reception of Aristotle s Philosophy
a) Middle Ages and modernity
High esteem in the Middle Ages; for Neo-Kantians: uncritical metaphysics (5)-Then again: Aristotle a realist (6)
b) Antecedent Greekanizing of the Christian life-consciousness
The Middle Ages and Protestant theology lay the ground for German idealism (7)
c) Philological-historiological research
Critical edition of Aristotle s collected works (7)-Influence on the emergence of phenomenology (8)
P ART II
What is philosophy?
Aim and Method of the Following Investigation (11)
CHAPTER ONE
The Task of Definition
Its underestimation and overestimation (12)-The twofold underestimation: the task brushed aside: 1. following the example of the other sciences (12)-2. because philosophy can only be lived (13)-The twofold overestimation: tendency toward 1. a universal definition, 2. a rigorous definition (13)-Genuine intention in both errors; in the overestimation (13)-in the underestimation (14)
A. The Twofold Error in the Overestimation
a) The uncritical idea of definition
From traditional logic (14)-The definition of phenomenology (15)- Possessing the object is a claim, a pre-possession (15)-The formal sense of definition (16)-Formal indication (17)-Decisive: how the object becomes accessible (17)-Task: the radical problematic of logic (17)
b) The mistaking of the sense of principle
The principle the universal? (18)-The definition at the level of principle points toward that for which the object of the definition is a principle (18)-Basic mistake: philosophy taken, in the preconception, as a matter of fact (21)
B. The Underestimation of the Task of Definition
a) The decision in favor of concrete work
According to the ideal of the concrete sciences (22)-Even the concrete sciences have once made a decision of principle (23)-The concrete must be encountered in the definition of principle (24)-The definition is indicative, provides a directedness toward the sense (25)-The formal indication: direction of approach, not determinations of the object (26)-The formal (27)-Evidence and questionability (27)-The evidence-situation (28)
b) Philosophy as lived experience
Fanatical spirit (28)-Situation of the primal decision not a fixed ground, but a leap (29)-Misunderstandings (30)
c) Concept of philosophy
CHAPTER TWO
The Appropriation of the Situation in Which Understanding Is Rooted
A. Preconception from a Turn of Speech
The turn of speech actualizes a situation in which understanding is rooted (33)
a) Philosophy is philosophizing
Philosophy is worldview? (34)-Note concerning the only possible use of the expression scientific philosophy in these considerations (35)-Sciences originating out of philosophy (36)-Philosophy and art (37)
b) Plato on philosophizing
Philosophy a mode of self-comportment (38)-An independent comportment: its object determines the comportment, and the comportment, in its actualization, determines its object (39)
B. Comportment
Sense of relation, sense of actualization, sense of maturation, sense of holdings in comportment (40)
a) Philosophizing, according to its sense of relation, is cognitive comportment .
The definition interprets the sense of cognition (41)-The definition delimits for the sciences their region (42)
b) The definition of philosophy at the level of principle
Philosophy has no region as do the sciences (43)-Its object is the universal, the highest, the principle (43)-The principle of beings: the sense of Being (44)-Object of the definition-object of philosophy (44)-Object of the definition (content) decisive for the possession of the object (actualization) (45)-The formally indicative definition of philosophy at the level of principle (46)
C. The Situation of Access: the University
The access to the understanding is a moment of the definition (47)-Our situation: the university (48)-The difficulty is our historiological consciousness (49)-Objections against taking the university as the situation of access (49)
a) First objection: is philosophy university-philosophy?
There is no such thing as philosophy in general but only in the concrete, in its own place (50)
b) Second objection: can the accidental situation of the university be normative for philosophy?
Reform of the university? (52)-Guidelines for philosophizing (53)-Do they contradict the relevance of the situation? (54)- Situation not there without further ado (54)-The method of an Objective evaluation of the situation of the university (55)
c) The tradition
Historiological consciousness (55)-Spengler: expression of the spirit of the times (56)-The claim of the tradition to normativity (56)-Question of the tradition rooted in the question of factical life (57)-Recapitulation. The Objective method to an evaluation of the university resolves itself on its own (58)
P ART III
Factical Life
The basic phenomenological categories (61)-Modern life-philosophy. Rickert (62)- Life ambiguous, vague (62)
CHAPTER ONE
The Basic Categories of Life
Life as: 1. extension, 2. possibilities, 3. fate (64)-Prevailing sense: living = being (64)
A. Life and World
World the content-sense of life (65)- Category (phenomenologically) interpretive, alive in life itself (66)-Universal validity. Haziness, circuitousness. Repetition (67)
B. Relational Sense of Life: Caring
a) Character of the world in caring: meaningfulness
Encounter, experience, reality, value (68)-The ordinary theories reverse the nexus of grounding, rooted in Greek philosophy (69)-Movedness of factical life: unrest (Pascal) (70)
b) Directions of caring
Surrounding world, shared world, one s own world (71)-One s own world does not = Ego (71)-Not explicit, not standing out in relief (71)-Not self-reflection, psychology (71)-Not epistemology (73)-Categories alive in facticity (74)-Extrinsic criticism senseless (75)
C. The Categories of the Relationality of Life
a) Inclination
Proclivity impels life into its world (76)- Metaphysics ? Dispersion; self-satisfaction (76)
b) Distance (and abolition of distance)
The before oneself (77)-Life mistakes itself, mis-measures (77)-Distance transported into dispersion, hyperbolically (78)
c) Sequestration
The before transferred into the world, eluding itself (79)-Larvance, disguising (79)- Infinity of life : interminability of possible mistakes. The elliptical (80)
d) The easy (Aristotle)
Making things easy, looking away from oneself, decline, guilt, haziness, carefreeness (81)-Structures of caring (82)
D. Retrospect and Prospect
Relation between historiological and systematic philosophy a pseudoproblem (82)-Philosophizing a radical actualization of the historiological (82)-The same problems in the introduction as in the interpretation of Aristotle (82)-Difficulty from philosophy being taken as an Object (83)-Main components of philosophy: access and appropriation; formal indication of that (84)-Characters of movedness of facticity (85)-Further course of the consideration: situation of livi