Heidegger and the Problem of Phenomena

✍ Scribed by Fredrik Westerlund

• Publisher: Bloomsbury Academic
• Year: 2020
• Tongue: English
• Leaves: 289
• Category: Library

✦ Synopsis

This book offers a broad critical study of Heidegger’s lifelong effort to come to terms with the problem of phenomena and the nature of phenomenology: How do we experience beings as meaningful phenomena? What does it mean to phenomenologically describe and explicate our experience of phenomena?
The book is a chronological investigation of how Heidegger’s struggle with the problem of phenomena unfolds during the main stages of his philosophical development: from the early Freiburg lecture courses 1919–1923, over the Marburg-period and the publication of Being and Time in 1927, up to his later thinking stretching from the 1930s to the early 1970s. A central theme of the book is the tension between, on the one hand, Heidegger’s effort to elaborate Husserl’s phenomenological approach by applying it to our pre-theoretical experience of existentially charged phenomena, and, on the other hand, his drive towards a radically historicist form of thinking. Heidegger’s main critical engagements with Husserl are examined and assessed along the way.
Besides offering a new comprehensive interpretation of Heidegger’s philosophical development, the book critically examines the philosophical power and problems of Heidegger’s successive attempts to account for the structure of phenomena and the possibility of phenomenology. In particular, it develops a critique of Heidegger’s radical historicism, arguing that it ultimately makes Heidegger unable to account either for the truth of our understanding or for the ethical-existential significance of other persons. The book also contains a chapter which probes the philosophical commitments that motivate Heidegger’s political engagement in National Socialism.

✦ Table of Contents

Cover
Half Title
Series
Title
Copyright
Contents
Acknowledgments
Abbreviations: Heidegger and Husserl
Heidegger
Husserl
Introduction
Heidegger and the Problem of Phenomena
The Heidegger Discussion
The Phenomenological versus the Hermeneutic-Deconstructive Reading
Objective
Structure
Part One A Phenomenology of Factical Life
Introduction
1 Phenomenology as Primordial Science of Life
Husserl and the Promise of Phenomenology
Phenomenology as Primordial Science
The Dead End of Theoretical Philosophy
Heidegger’s First Critique of Husserl
2 Heidegger’s Phenomenology of Factical Life
Phenomenology or Historicism?
Heidegger’s Nontheoretical Phenomenology
Destruction and Formal Indication
The Primordial Structure of Life
A Transhistorical Phenomenology of Historical Life
3 Life and the Task of Philosophy
The Question of the Existential Task of Philosophy
Fundamental or Dispensable?
An Unsettling Suggestion
Part Two The Historical Structure of Phenomena
Introduction
4 Toward a New Conception of Phenomena
The Confrontation with Aristotle
Heidegger’s Renewed Critique of Husserl
The Categorial Intuition—in Heidegger
5 The Project of Fundamental Ontology
The Question of Being and the Task of Fundamental Ontology
Problems and Possibilities
6 Being-in-the-World
The World
Three Dimensions of Understanding
Interpretation and Language
Reality and Truth
7 Problems of Authenticity
The Challenge of Authenticity
The Lacunae in Heidegger’s Analysis
Dasein’s Self-Choice: Between Collectivism and Subjectivism
The Basic Egoism of Dasein
8 Heidegger’s Method in Being and Time
The Question of Method—the Question of Phenomenology
Heidegger’s Methodological Self-Understanding
Phenomenology in Practice
Part Three The Openness of Being
Introduction
9 The Question of the Openness of Being
The Question of the Turn
The Beginning of the Turn
The Turn of Heidegger’s Question
Heidegger’s Turn Reconsidered
10 The Promise of National Socialism
The Superior Task of Philosophy
The Basic Facts
The Philosophical Roots of Heidegger’s Politics
The Failed Critique
The Black Hole in Heidegger’s Thinking
11 The Event That Opens the World
The Question of the Binding Power of the World
The Task of Thinking and the Task of Poetry
The Superiority of the Task of Opening a World
The Strife between the World and the Earth
The Thing and the Fourfold
12 Heidegger’s Late Historical Thinking
The Question of Phenomenology
Historical Reflection and the Need to Return to the Greek Beginning
The Matter of Thinking
The Way of Thinking
The Fate of Phenomenology
Epilogue: Being Open toward Beings
13 The Sources of Ethical-Existential Normativity
Levinas’s Critique
Desire for Social Affirmation versus Love for Others
Heidegger and the Binding Power of the World
14 The Sources of Truth
Lafont’s Critique
Heidegger’s Arguments
Our Openness to Transhistorical Realities as the Source of Truth
15 Phenomenology and Historical Reflection
The Method of Returning to the Historical Origin
The Method of Deconstruction
The Challenge of Phenomenology
Introduction
Notes
Introduction
Part 1 A Phenomenology of Factical Life
Introduction
1 Phenomenology as Primordial Science of Life
2 Heidegger’s Phenomenology of Factical Life
3 Life and the Task of Philosophy
Part 2 The Historical Structure of Phenomena
Introduction
4 Toward a New Conception of Phenomena
5 The Project of Fundamental Ontology
6 Being-in-the-World
7 Problems of Authenticity
8 Heidegger’s Method in Being and Time
Part 3 The Openness of Being
9 The Question of the Openness of Being
10 The Promise of National Socialism
11 The Event That Opens the World
12 Heidegger’s Late Historical Thinking
Epilogue Being Open Toward Beings
13 The Sources of Ethical-Existential Normativity
14 The Sources of Truth
15 Phenomenology and Historical Reflection
Bibliography
Index