Heidegger S Platonism

Heidegger's Platonism challenges Heidegger's 1940 interpretation of Plato as the philosopher who initiated the West's ontological decline into contemporary nihilism. Mark A. Ralkowski argues that, in his earlier lecture course, On the Essence of Truth, in which he appropriates Plato in a positive light, Heidegger discovered the two most important concepts of his later thought, namely the difference between the Being of beings and Being as such, and the 'belonging together' of Being and man in what he eventually calls Ereignis, the 'event of appropriation'. Ralkowski shows that, far from being the grand villain of metaphysics, Plato was in fact the gateway to Heidegger's later period. Because Heidegger discovers the seeds of his later thought in his positive appropriation of Plato, this book argues that Heidegger's later thought is a return to and phenomenological transformation of Platonism, which is ironic not least because Heidegger thought of himself as the West's first truly post-Platonic philosopher.

For Martin Heidegger the "fall" of philosophy into metaphysics begins with Plato. Thus, the relationship between the two philosophers is crucial to an understanding of Heidegger--and, perhaps, even to the whole plausibility of postmodern critiques of metaphysics. It is also, as the essays in this volume attest, highly complex, and possibly founded on a questionable understanding of Plato. As editors Catalin Partenie and Tom Rockmore remark, a simple way to describe Heidegger's reading of Plato might be to say that what began as an attempt to appropriate Plato (and through him a large portion of Western philosophy) finally ended in an estrangement from both Plato and Western philosophy. The authors of this volume consider Heidegger's thought in relation to Plato before and after the "Kehre" or turn. In doing so, they take up various central issues in Heidegger's Being and Time (1927) and thereafter, and the questions of hermeneutics, truth, and language. The result is a subtle and multifaceted reinterpretation of Heidegger's position in the tradition of philosophy, and of Plato's role in determining that position.

Heidegger's Platonism challenges Heidegger's 1940 interpretation of Plato as the philosopher who initiated the West's ontological decline into contemporary nihilism. Mark A. Ralkowski argues that, in his earlier lecture course, On the Essence of Truth, in which he appropriates Plato in a positive light, Heidegger discovered the two most important concepts of his later thought, namely the difference between the Being of beings and Being as such, and the 'belonging together' of Being and man in what he eventually calls Ereignis, the 'event of appropriation'. Ralkowski shows that, far from being the grand villain of metaphysics, Plato was in fact the gateway to Heidegger's later period. Because Heidegger discovers the seeds of his later thought in his positive appropriation of Plato, this book argues that Heidegger's later thought is a return to and phenomenological transformation of Platonism, which is ironic not least because Heidegger thought of himself as the West's first truly post-Platonic philosopher.

In a critique of Heidegger that respects his path of thinking, Francisco Gonzalez looks at the ways in which Heidegger engaged with Plato’s thought over the course of his career and concludes that, owing to intrinsic requirements of Heidegger’s own philosophy, he missed an opportunity to conduct a real dialogue with Plato that would have been philosophically fruitful for us all. Examining in detail early texts of Heidegger’s reading of Plato that have only recently come to light, Gonzalez, in parts 1 and 2, shows there to be certain affinities between Heidegger’s and Plato’s thought that were obscured in his 1942 essay “Plato’s Doctrine of Truth,” on which scholars have exclusively relied in interpreting what Heidegger had to say about Plato. This more nuanced reading, in turn, helps Gonzalez provide in part 3 an account of Heidegger’s later writings that highlights the ways in which Heidegger, in repudiating the kind of metaphysics he associated with Plato, took a direction away from dialectic and dialogue that left him unable to pursue those affinities that could have enriched Heidegger’s own philosophy as well as Plato’s. “A genuine dialogue with Plato,” Gonzalez argues, “would have forced [Heidegger] to go in certain directions where he did not want to go and could not go without his own thinking undergoing a radical transformation.”

This volume reconstructs Martin Heidegger's lecture course at the University of Marburg in the winter semester of 1924-25, which was devoted to an interpretation of Plato and Aristotle. Published for the first time in German in 1992 as volume 19 of Heidegger's Collected Works, it is a major text not only because of its intrinsic importance as an interpretation of the Greek thinkers, but also because of its close, complementary relationship to Being and Time, composed in the same period. In Plato's Sophist, Heidegger approaches Plato through Aristotle, devoting the first part of the lectures to an extended commentary on Book VI of the Nichomachean Ethics. In a line-by-line interpretation of Plato's later dialogue, the Sophist, Heidegger then takes up the relation of Being and non-being, the ontological problematic that forms the essential link between Greek philosophy and Heidegger's thought.

img src="https://www.continuumbooks.com/pub/images/impactslogo.gif" align="left" The Essence of Truth must count as one of Heidegger's most important works, for nowhere else does he give a comparably thorough explanation of what is arguably the most fundamental and abiding theme of his entire philosophy, namely the difference between truth as the "unhiddenness of beings" and truth as the "correctness of propositions". For Heidegger, it is by neglecting the former primordial concept of truth in favor of the latter derivative concept that Western philosophy, beginning already with Plato, took off on its "metaphysical" course towards the bankruptcy of the present day. This first ever translation into English consists of a lecture course delivered by Heidegger at the University of Freiburg in 1931-32. Part One of the course provides a detailed analysis of Plato's allegory of the cave in the Republic, while Part Two gives a detailed exegesis and interpretation of a central section of Plato's Theaetetus, and is essential for the full understanding of his later well-known essay Plato's Doctrine of Truth. As always with Heidegger's writings on the Greeks, the point of his interpretative method is to bring to light the original meaning of philosophical concepts, especially to free up these concepts to their intrinsic power.

“Scrupulously prepared and eminently readable,” this volume presents Heidegger’s most important lectures on religion from 1920–21 (Choice). In the early 1920s, Martin Heidegger delivered his famous lecture course, Introduction to the Phenomenology of Religion, at the University of Freiburg. He also prepared notes for a course on The Philosophical Foundations of Medieval Mysticism that was never delivered. Though he never prepared this material for publication, it represents a significant evolution in his philosophical perspective. Heidegger’s engagements with Aristotle, Neoplatonism, St. Paul, Augustine, and Martin Luther give readers a sense of what phenomenology would come to mean in the mature expression of his thought. Heidegger reveals an impressive display of theological knowledge, protecting Christian life experience from Greek philosophy and defending Paul against Nietzsche.

The Essence of Truth is an examination of the most fundamental theme in Heidegger's philosophy: the difference between truth as 'the unhiddenness of beings' and truth as 'the correctness of propositions'. Based on a course of lectures delivered at the University of Freiburg in 1932, the book presents Heidegger's original analysis of Plato's philosophy and represents an important discussion of a fundamental subject of philosophy through the ages.