Introduction to Metaphysics (Heidegger book)

{{Infobox book

| name = Introduction to Metaphysics

| title_orig = Einführung in die Metaphysik

| translators = {{plainlist|

1959: Ralph Manheim
2000: Gregory Fried and Richard Polt}}

| image = Introduction to Metaphysics (German edition).jpg

| caption =

| author = Martin Heidegger

| country = Germany

| language = German

| series =

| subject = Metaphysics

| publisher = {{plainlist|

1959: Yale University Press
2000: Yale University Press
2014: Yale University Press (revised and expanded ed.)}}

| pub_date = 1953

| english_pub_date = {{plainlist|

1959 (Manheim)
2000 (Fried & Polt)
2014 (Fried & Polt, revised and expanded ed.)}}

| pages =

| isbn =

| oclc =

| preceded_by = Kant and the Problem of Metaphysics

| followed_by = Contributions to Philosophy

}}

Introduction to Metaphysics ({{langx|de|Einführung in die Metaphysik}}) is a revised and edited 1935 lecture course by Martin Heidegger first published in 1953. The work is notable for a discussion of the Presocratics and for illustrating Heidegger's supposed "Kehre," or turn in thought beginning in the 1930s—as well as for its mention of the "inner greatness" of Nazism. Heidegger suggested the work relates to the unwritten "second half" of his 1927 magnum opus Being and Time.

Background and publication history

Introduction to Metaphysics, originally a summer lecture course at the University of Freiburg in 1935, was first published eighteen years later by the Max Niemeyer Verlag (Halle, Germany), simultaneously with the Seventh German Edition of Being and Time.{{sfn|Heidegger|2014|page=vii–viii}}

In a one-page preface accompanying this post-war edition of Being and Time, Heidegger wrote that the newly available Introduction to Metaphysics, would "elucidate" material contemplated for the once-promised but long-abandoned "second half" of Being and Time. The preface also noted that the text of this latest (1953) B&T edition had eliminated several references to itself as a "first half."Being and Time, Author's Preface to the Seventh German Edition.See also, Emily J. Hughes' review of "Division III of Heidegger’s Being and Time. The Unanswered question of Being", in Phenomenological Review. Hughes writes that "As some of the essays in this collection note, Heidegger directs us to two quite different texts to help us better understand the (incomplete) project of Being and Time: the Basic Problems of Phenomenology and the Introduction to Metaphysics." https://doi.org/10.19079/pr.2016.5.hug

Among English translations, the second edition (2014) of a version by Gregory Fried and Richard Polt from Yale Press (New Haven) was in print as of 2020.{{cn|date=November 2021}} Ralph Manheim produced a 1959 translation praised by Fried and Polt in their introduction to the second edition as largely responsible for introducing Heidegger to the English-speaking world.{{sfn|Heidegger|2014|page=xxiii–xxiv}} But Manheim worked prior to the 1962 Macquarrie version of Being and Time—which established several conventions for Heidegger's English translators.{{cn|date=November 2021|reason=The second half of this sentence has no direct source.}} The work is included in Volume 40 (1983) of Heidegger's Gesamtausgabe (collected works) edited by Petra Jaeger.{{sfn|Heidegger|2014|page=viii|loc=fn. 1}}

Presocratic Revivalism

Introduction to Metaphysics "was not about early Greek thought, and yet the Presocratics are at the pivotal center of discussion," writes Włodzimierz Julian Korab-Karpowicz. In this view, "the thinking of Heraclitus and Parmenides, which lies at the origin of philosophy, was falsified and misinterpreted" by Plato and Aristotle, thus tainting all of subsequent Western philosophy.Włodzimierz Julian Korab-Karpowicz, The Presocratics in the Thought of Martin Heidegger (Frankfurt am Main: Peter Lang, 2016), page 58.

Heidegger aimed to correct this misunderstanding (Charles Guignon 2014) by reviving Presocratic notions of 'being' with an emphasis on "understanding the way beings show up in (and as) an unfolding happening or event." Guignon adds that "we might call this alternative outlook 'event ontology.'"Guignon "Being as Appearing" in "A companion to Heidegger's Introduction to Metaphysics," page 36. (The concept of Ereignis, or "event," is more fully developed in Contributions to Philosophy 1938.) {{Cite web |last=Ferreira |first=Pete |title=Martin Heidegger in English - Ereignis |url=https://www.beyng.com |access-date=2022-04-19 |website=www.beyng.com |language=en}}

Heidegger used his discussion of Heraclitus' and Parmenides' respective notions of logos in his argument that to avoid nihilism, modern philosophy must "reinvert" the traditional, post-Socratic conception of the relationship between being and thinking, according to Daniel Dahlstrom.Dahlstrom, "The Scattered Logos," in "A Companion to Heidegger's Introduction To Metaphysics", page 92.

Being and the ''Kehre''

In a significant contrast with Being and Time eight years earlier, Heidegger's Introduction to Metaphysics "no longer places the inquiry into the Being of Dasein at the center of his work," Instead, the author "looks to language as the site of a meaning of Being" (Brian Bard, 1993 essay, "Heidegger's Reading of Heraclitus"). The work "clearly shows the shift" in Heidegger's thought, Bard writes.Brian Bard, 1993, essay, see sections one and three https://sites.google.com/site/heideggerheraclitus/ {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210616091635/https://sites.google.com/site/heideggerheraclitus/ |date=2021-06-16 }}

This contrast is typically seen as the first instance of Heidegger's much-discussed Kehre, or turn in thinking, that became evident from the 1930s onward, according to Thomas Sheehan. But the supposed turn is "far less dramatic than usually suggested," according to Sheehan, and merely entailed a shift in focus and method.Thomas Sheehan, "Kehre and Ereignis, a proglenoma to Introduction to Metaphysics" in "A companion to Heidegger's Introduction to Metaphysics", page 15, 2001. Separately, Mark Wrathall argued (2011) that the Kehre itself is a complete misconception on the part of interpreters, while pointing to Heidegger's supposed consistency of purpose throughout his career.Wrathall, Mark: Heidegger and Unconcealment: Truth, Language, and History, Cambridge University Press, 2011.

(Both Sheehan and Wrathall, separately, assert that Heidegger's central focus was never on "Being" as such. Wrathall wrote that Heidegger's elaborate concept of "unconcealment" was his central, life-long focus, while Sheehan proposed that the philosopher's prime focus was on that which "brings about being as a givenness of entities.")see also, Sheehan, "Making sense of Heidegger. A paradigm shift." New Heidegger Research. London (England) 2015.

Politics

Gregory Fried and Richard Polt praised the work for "the range and depth of its thought as well as for its intricate and nuanced style", arguing that it deserved its status as the successor to Being and Time. Regarding its mention of National Socialism, they write that, “Interpreters differ widely, and often acrimoniously, on whether Heidegger’s Nazism was due to a personal character defect” or whether the philosophy itself reflects a fascist outlook.{{sfn|Fried|Polt|2001|pages=viii, xiv, xxiii}}

Heidegger refers in the published text to the "inner truth and greatness of the movement," but adds a qualifying statement in parentheses: "(namely, the confrontation of planetary technology and modern humanity)." The qualification wasn't in the original lecture, although Heidegger falsely claimed otherwise. Moreover, the controversial page of the 1935 manuscript is missing from the Heidegger Archives in Marbach.{{cite journal | last1 = Habermas | first1 = Jürgen | author-link = Jürgen Habermas | year = 1989 | title = Work and Weltanschauung: the Heidegger Controversy from a German Perspective | url = | journal = Critical Inquiry | volume = 15 | issue = 2| pages = 452–54 | doi = 10.1086/448492 | s2cid = 143394757 }} See also J. Habermas, "Martin Heidegger: on the publication of the lectures of 1935", in Richard Wolin, ed., The Heidegger Controversy (MIT Press, 1993). The controversial page of the 1935 manuscript is missing from the Heidegger Archives in Marbach; however, Habermas's scholarship leaves little doubt about the original wording.

Heidegger defended the "inner greatness" comment in a 1966 interview with Der Spiegel (posthumously published 1976), claiming it was intended to mislead Nazi informants who observed his lectures. Heidegger asserted that dedicated students would understand that the comment wasn't a celebration of Nazism.McGrath, S. J., Heidegger: A (Very) Critical Introduction (Grand Rapids: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 2008), [https://books.google.com/books?id=MXwire6vjygC&pg=PA92 p. 92]. Jurgen Habermas, in a 1953 review of the published work in the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung noted the issue and wrote that "it's time to think with Heidegger against Heidegger."Theodore Kisiel "Heidegger's Philosophical Geopolitics" "Companion to IM", page 239.

Although Julian Young claims (1998) that the book is "widely considered fascist in character," this characterization is false according to Young, who writes that the work implicitly condemns Nazism for its racism, militarism and attempted destruction of civil society.{{sfn|Young|1998|pages=109, 117}} The work has also been seen as being critical of Nazism for being insufficiently radical and suffering from the same spiritual impoverishment as the Soviet Union and the United States.{{sfn|Pégny|Martinez|Kellerer|Hoffman|2014}}

References

Bibliography

Books

{{cite book |editor-last1=Fried|editor-first1=Gregory |editor-last2=Polt|editor-first2=Richard |title=A Companion to Heidegger's Introduction to Metaphysics |publisher=Yale University Press |location=New Haven & London |year=2001 |isbn= 978-0-300-08524-2|oclc= |doi= }}
{{cite book |last1=Heidegger|first1=Martin |title=Introduction to Metaphysics, Second Edition |publisher=Yale University Press |location=New Haven & London |year=2014 |isbn=978-0-300-18612-3 |oclc= |doi= }}
{{cite book |last1=Heidegger|first1=Martin |title=The Question Concerning Technology and Other Essays |publisher=Harper & Row |location=New York |year=1977 |isbn=0-06-131969-4 |oclc= |doi= }}
{{cite book |last1=Korab-Karpowicz|first1=W. Julian |title=The Presocratics in the Thought of Martin Heidegger|publisher=Peter Lang |location=Frankfurt am Main & New York |year=2016 |isbn= 978-3631712917 |oclc= |doi= |ref=hary}}
{{cite book |last1=Young|first1=Julian |title=Heidegger, philosophy, Nazism |publisher=Cambridge University Press |location=Cambridge |year=1998 |isbn=0-521-64494-1 |oclc= |doi= }}

Journals

{{cite journal |title=Review: [Untitled] |last1=Groth|first1=Miles |journal=The Review of Metaphysics |volume=55 |issue=1 |year=2001 |doi= }}

Online articles

{{cite web |last1=Pégny|first1=Gaëtan |last2=Martinez|first2=Andrea |last3=Kellerer|first3=Sidonie |last4=Hoffman|first4=Jordan |last5=Duff|first5=Alexander S. |url = https://lareviewofbooks.org/article/response-gregory-frieds-king-dead-heideggers-black-notebooks | title = Response to Gregory Fried's "The King Is Dead: Heidegger's Black Notebooks" |date=November 7, 2014 |work=Los Angeles Review of Books |access-date = 31 December 2016 }}