Metaphysics of German Idealism: A New Interpre Tation of Schelling s - Philosophical Investigations Into Essence of Human Freedom Matter

This volume comprises the lecture course that Heidegger gave in 1941 on the metaphysics of German Idealism. The first part of the lecture course contains a preliminary consideration of the distinction between ground and existence. The elucidation of the conceptual history includes a striking confrontation with Kierkegaard's and Jaspers' concepts of existence, as well as an elucidation of the concept of existence in Being and Time, which Heidegger distinguishes from the former concepts. Heidegger's self-interpretation is not an end in itself, however, but rather a way of pointing to Schelling's distinction between ground and existence, whose root and inner necessity and whose various versions Heidegger discusses subsequently.
 
The second part of the lecture course is focused on Schelling's "freedom treatise," which Heidegger regards as the pinnacle of the metaphysics of German Idealism. Heidegger's consideration of Schelling's distinction between ground and existence finds its guiding thread in the introduction of the realms of being - eternal or finite, each being is a joining of the ground of existence and existence itself. In a subsequent overview, Heidegger discusses the relation of the distinction between ground and existence to the essence of human freedom and to the essence of the human. On the basis of this discussion, it becomes possible to grasp the connection between freedom and evil in Schelling's system.
 
This important work by Heidegger, published here in English for the first time, will be of great interest to students and scholars of philosophy and to anyone interested in Heidegger's work.

List of contents

Translators' Introduction
 
INTRODUCTION
 
THE NECESSITY OF A HISTORICAL THINKING
 

1. Schelling's Treatise as the Peak of the Metaphysics of German Idealism
 

2. Historical Thinking, Historiographic Explanation, Systematic Reflection
 

3. Elucidations of the Title of the Treatise
 

4. The Organization of the Treatise
 

5. Brief Excursus on a Further Misgiving (the Historiographic - the Current - That Which Has Been)
 
PART I
 
PRELIMINARY REFLECTION ON THE DISTINCTION BETWEEN GROUND AND EXISTENCE
 

6. The Core Section of the Treatise: The Distinction between Essence Insofar as It Exists and Essence Insofar as it Is Merely Ground of Existence
 

7. The Organization of the Preliminary Reflection
 
First Chapter
 
The Conceptual-Historical Elucidation of Ground and Existence
 

8. Essentia and Existentia
 

9. "Existence" and "Philosophy of Existence" (K. Jaspers)
 

10. Kierkegaard's Concept of Existence
 

11. Kierkegaard, "Philosophy of Existence," and Being and Time (1927)
 
a) What Occasion Is There for Classifying Being and Time as "Philosophy of Existence"?
 
) Analytic of Existence
 
) Existence - As Understood in the Sense of Kierkegaard's Restriction of It
 
) Philosophy of Anxiety, of the Nothing, of Death, of Care . . .
 
) Philosophical Anthropology
 
b) Rejection of the Classification of Being and Time as Philosophy of Existence by Way of an Elucidation of the Concepts of Existence and Da-sein (Elucidations of Being and Time)
 
) Existence and Dasein as Meaning "Actuality in General" (As Understood in Traditional Usage of Language)
 
) Dasein as the Bodily-Psychic-Rational Being-Actual of the Human, and Existence as the Subjectivity of Self-Being (Jaspers)
 
) "Existentiell" and "Existential" Concepts of Existence
 
) "Understanding of Being" as the Decisive Determination of Dasein and Existence in Being and Time
 
) Dasein, Temporality, and Time
 
) Temporality, Da-sein, Existence
 
) Anxiety, Death, Guilt, the Nothing within the Realm of Questioning in Being and Time
 
) The "Essence" of Da-sein
 
) Understanding of Being, and Being
 
) Being and the Human - Anthropomorphism
 

12. Preliminary Interpretation of Schelling's Concept of Existence
 

13. The Inceptive Impetuses Determining the Essence of Ground and Their Historical Transformation
 
Second Chapter
 
The Root of Schelling's Distinction between Ground and Existence
 

14. Elucidation of the Essential Determination of Being as Willing
 
a) The Essential Predicates of Being
 
) Ground-lessness
 
) Eternity
 
) Independence from Time
 
) Self-Affirmation
 
b) Justification of the Predicates of Being
 
c) In What Way Willing Is Sufficient for the Predicates of Being
 
d) Being in Its Highest and Ultimate Jurisdiction
 

15. Being as Willing as the Root of the Distinction between Ground and Existence
 
Third Chapter
 
The Inner Necessity of Schelling's Distinction between Ground and Existence
 
Fourth Chapter
 
The Various Formulations of Schelling's Distinction between Ground and Existence
 

16. The Proper Aim of the Interpretation of the Freedom Treatise: Reaching the Fundamental Position of the Metaphysics of German Idealism. Evil and the System
 

17. Transition from the Preliminary Reflection to the Interpretation of the Core Section of the Treatise and of the Latter Itself
 
PART II
 
AN INTERPRETATION OF THE CORE SECTION, "THE ELUCIDA

About the author

Martin Heidegger (1889-1976) was one of the most influential philosophers of the twentieth century and the author of numerous works including Being and Time.

Summary

This volume comprises the lecture course that Heidegger gave in 1941 on the metaphysics of German Idealism. The first part of the lecture course contains a preliminary consideration of the distinction between ground and existence. The elucidation of the conceptual history includes a striking confrontation with Kierkegaard's and Jaspers' concepts of existence, as well as an elucidation of the concept of existence in Being and Time, which Heidegger distinguishes from the former concepts. Heidegger's self-interpretation is not an end in itself, however, but rather a way of pointing to Schelling's distinction between ground and existence, whose root and inner necessity and whose various versions Heidegger discusses subsequently.

The second part of the lecture course is focused on Schelling's "freedom treatise," which Heidegger regards as the pinnacle of the metaphysics of German Idealism. Heidegger's consideration of Schelling's distinction between ground and existence finds its guiding thread in the introduction of the realms of being - eternal or finite, each being is a joining of the ground of existence and existence itself. In a subsequent overview, Heidegger discusses the relation of the distinction between ground and existence to the essence of human freedom and to the essence of the human. On the basis of this discussion, it becomes possible to grasp the connection between freedom and evil in Schelling's system.

This important work by Heidegger, published here in English for the first time, will be of great interest to students and scholars of philosophy and to anyone interested in Heidegger's work.

Report

"Unlike the course he offered on the same subject five years earlier, Heidegger's 1941 lectures on Schelling's 'freedom treatise' demonstrate his decisive break from 'metaphysics,' including German idealism, and allow us to see more clearly the radical reorientation of his later thought. No less fascinating is the large portion of the present volume devoted to an interpretation of Kierkegaard's concept of existence and its relation to the (so-called) 'existentialism' of Being and Time. This excellent translation is a must-read for students and scholars alike."
Taylor Carman, Barnard College
 
"Heidegger's lecture course from 1941 not only attempts a new interpretation of Schelling's essay on the essence of human freedom, extending his 1936 treatment of that same text, but contains a wealth of material on Heidegger's ongoing reflections on the history of metaphysics and an important series of elucidations of Being and Time. This careful and sensitive translation will not only be of great interest to scholars of German Idealism, but is essential reading for anyone following Heidegger's own philosophical development."
William McNeill, DePaul University

Product details

• Authors: Heidegger, Martin Heidegger, Ian Alexander Moore, Rodrigo Therezo
• Assisted by: Ian Alexander Moore (Translation), Moore Ian Alexander (Translation), Rodrigo Therezo (Translation)
• Publisher: Polity Press
• Languages: English
• Product format: Hardback
• Released: 31.05.2021
• EAN: 9781509540105
• ISBN: 978-1-5095-4010-5
• No. of pages: 180
• Subjects: Humanities, art, music > Philosophy; Non-fiction book > Philosophy, religion > Philosophy: antiquity to present day; Philosophie, Deutscher Idealismus, Philosophy, Continental Philosophy, Kontinentalphilosophie, Allg. Philosophie, Philosophie des 20. Jhd., 20th Century Philosophy