September 26, 1889 – May 26, 1976

MARTIN HEIDEGGER

A German philosopherOne of the most significant and influential philosophers of the 20th century

Remains controversial due to his involvement in Nazism and statement in support of Adolf Hitler

Central Thematic of His workThe attempt to reorient the Western Tradition away from metaphysical and epistemological concerns toward ontological questions.

Ontology or the study of being was his main interest.

Ontology is a major branch of philosophy and a central part of metaphysics that studies questions of being or existence. The questions include a wide range of issues concerning being or existence such as: the meaning of being or what it means "to be" for each of such beings as physical entities, souls, God, values, numbers, time, space, imaginary objects, and others; what is real existence; why something exits rather than nothing.

(Source: New World Encyclopedia)

In his fundamental treatise, Being and Time, he attempted to access being (Sein) by means of phenomenological analysis of human existence (Dasein) in respect to its temporal and historical character. After the change of his thinking (“the turn”), Heidegger placed an emphasis on language as the vehicle through which the question of being can be unfolded. He turned to the exegesis of historical texts, especially of the Presocratics, but also of Kant, Hegel, Nietzsche and Hölderlin. He addressed various subjects, such as poetry, architecture and technology.

Instead of looking for a full clarification of the meaning of being, he tried to pursue a kind of thinking which was no longer “metaphysical.” He criticized the tradition of Western philosophy, which he regarded as nihilistic, for, as he claimed, the question of being as such was obliterated in it. He also stressed the nihilism of modern technological culture. By going to the Presocratic beginning of Western thought, he wanted to repeat the early Greek experience of being, so that the West could turn away from the dead end of nihilism and begin anew. His writings are notoriously difficult. Being and Time remains still his most influential work.

Heidegger attempted to re-open the question of being, one that he claimed had been forgotten and concealed.

In order to undergo this task, Heidegger used the phenomenological method that he inherited and developed from his teacher Edmund Husserl.

In order to understand Heidegger’s philosophy before “the turn”, let us first briefly consider his indebtedness to Edmund Husserl. As it has been mentioned, Heidegger was interested in Husserl from his early student years at the University of Freiburg when he read Logical Investigations. Later, when Husserl accepted a chair at Freiburg, Heidegger became his assistant. His debt to Husserl cannot be overlooked. Not only is Being and Time dedicated to Husserl, but also Heidegger acknowledges in it that without Husserl’s phenomenology his own investigation would not have been possible. How then is Heidegger’s philosophy related to the Husserlian program of phenomenology?

By “phenomenology” Husserl himself had always meant the science of consciousness and its objects; this core of sense pervades the development of this concept as eidetic, transcendental or constructive throughout his works. Following the Cartesian tradition, he saw the ground and the absolute starting point of philosophy in the subject. The procedure of bracketing is essential to Husserl’s “phenomenological reduction”—the methodological procedure by which we are led from “the natural attitude,” in which we are involved in the actual world and its affairs, to “the phenomenological attitude,” in which the analysis and detached description of the content of consciousness is possible.

The phenomenological reduction helps us to free ourselves from prejudices and secure the purity of our detachment as observers, so that we can encounter “things as they are in themselves” independently of any presuppositions. The goal of phenomenology for Husserl is then a descriptive, detached analysis of consciousness, in which objects, as its correlates, are constituted.

Heidegger claimed that Western Philosophy has, since Plato, misunderstood what it means for something “to be”, tending to approach this question in terms of a being, rather than asking about being itself.

All that we understand, from the way we speak to our notions of “common sense”, is susceptible to error, to fundamental mistakes about the nature of being.

Heidegger’s work has strongly influenced philosophy, theology and humanities.

Within philosophy it played a crucial role in the development of existentialism, hermeneutics, deconstruction, postmodernism, and continental philosophy.

HEIDEGGER, MARTINHIS BIOGRAPHICAL INFO…

Heidegger…Born on September 26, 1889In…Messkirch in Boden, a rural Catholic

region of Germany.Raised a Roman CatholicFriedrich Heidegger, his father, a sexton

of the village (a church or synagogue officer charged with the maintenance of the church buildings and/or the surrounding graveyard; and ringing of the church bells)

Johanna, the name of his mother

Heidegger…In his early youth, he was being prepared for

the priesthood.In 1903, he went to the high school in

Konstanz, where the church supported him with a scholarship, and then in 1906, he moved to Freiburg.

His interest in philosophy first arose during his high school studies in Freiburg when, at the age of seventeen, he read Franz Brentano’s book entitled On the Manifold Meaning of Being according to Aristotle. By his account, it was this work that inspired his life-long quest for the meaning of being.

Heidegger…In 1909, after completing the high school, he

became a Jesuit novice, but was discharged within a month for reasons of health.

He then entered Freiburg University, where he studied theology. However, because of health problems and perhaps because of a lack of a strong spiritual vocation, Heidegger left the seminary in 1911 and broke off his training for the priesthood. He took up studies in philosophy, mathematics, and natural sciences.

It was also at that time that he first became influenced by Edmund Husserl. He studied Husserl’s Logical Investigations.

Heidegger…In 1913 he completed a doctorate in

philosophy with a dissertation on The Doctrine of Judgement in Psychologism under the direction of the neo-Kantian philosopher Heinrich Rickert.

The outbreak of the First World War interrupted Heidegger’s academic career only briefly. He was conscripted into the army, but was discharged after two months because of health reasons.

Heidegger…Hoping to take over the chair of

Catholic philosophy at Freiburg, Heidegger now began to work on a habilitation thesis, the required qualification for teaching at the university. His thesis, Duns Scotus’s Doctrine of Categories and Meaning, was completed in 1915, and in the same year he was appointed a Privatdozent, or lecturer.

Heidegger…From 1916 to 1917, he was an unsalaried

Privatdozent before serving as weatherman on the Ardennes front during the last three months of the World War I; served as soldier also during the final year of World War I, working behind a desk and never leave Germany.

1919-1923 – after the war, he served as a salaried senior assistant to Edmund Husserl at the University of Freiburg.

At Marburg…In 1923, Heidegger was elected to an

extraordinary Professorship in Philosophy at the University of Marburg.His colleagues there included Rudolf Bultmann,

Nicolai Hartmann, and Paul Natorp.His students included Hans-Georg Gadamer,

Hannah Arendt, Karl Lowith, Gerhard Kruger, Leo Strauss, Jacob Klein, Gunther (Stern) Andres, and Hans Jonas.

Through a confrontation with Aristotle he began to develop in his lectures the main theme of his philosophy: the question of the sense of being.

At Freiburg…In 1927, Heidegger published his main

work Sein und Zeit (Being and Time).When Husserl retired as Professor of

Philosophy in 1928, he accepted Freiburg’s election to be his successor, in spite of a counter-offer by Marburg.

Heidegger remained in Freiburg im Breisgau for the rest of his life, declining a number of later offers including one from Humboldt University of Berlin.

Being and Time (Sein undt Zeit)Published in 1927It is Heidegger’s first Academic

bookThis has been under pressure to

publish in order to qualify for Husserl’s chair at University of Freiburg and the success of his work ensured his appointment to the post.

Being and Time (Sein undt Zeit)It investigates the question of being

by asking about the being for whom being is a question.

It was Heidegger’s original intention to write a second half of the book, consisting of a “Destruktion” of the history of philosophy – that is, the transformation of philosophy by re-tracing its history – but he never completed this project.

Being and Time (Sein undt Zeit)It is an exploration of the meaning of being as

defined by temporality, and is analysis of time as a horizon for the understanding of being.

In his view of philosophy as phenomenological ontology, beginning with the hermeneutics of Da-sein (there-being).

Da-sein is the term used by Heidegger to refer to being which understands its own being. Da-sein is a conscious being, and is the kind of consciousness which belongs to human beings.

On April 21, 1933, Heidegger was elected rector of the University, and joined the National Socialist German Workers’ (Nazi) Party on May 1.

On May 27, in his inaugural address as rector, and in political speeches and articles from the same year, he expressed his support for the Nazi cause and its leader, Adolf Hitler.

April 1934, he resigned the rectorate, but remained a member of the Nazi party until 1945.

Post-War…In late 1946, as Épuration légale, the French

military authorities determined that Heidegger should be forbidden from teaching or participating in any university activities because of his association with Nazi Party.

The denazification procedure against him continued until March 1949, when he was finally pronounced a Mitlaufer of National Socialism, and no punitive measure against him were proposed.

Post-War…When he was finally pronounces

Mitfauler, this opened the way for his readmission to teaching at Freiburg University in the winter semester of 1950-51.

He was granted emeritus status and then taught regularly from 1951 until 1958, and by invitation until 1967.

Personal LifeMarch 21, 1917 – Heidegger married

to Elfreide Petri, in a Catholic ceremony officiated by his friend Engelbert Krebs, and a week later in a Protestant ceremony in the presence of his parents.

1919 – they both converted to Protestantism. This year also their son Jorg was born.

Personal LifeMartin Heidegger had extramarital

affairs with…Hannah Arendt and Elisabeth Blochmann, both his students.

Arendt was Jewish, and Blochmann had one Jewish parent, making them subject to Nazi persecution by the Nazi authorities. He helped Bolchmann emigrate from Germany prior to World War II, and resume contact with them after the war.

Personal LifeMartin spent much time at his vacation home at Todtnauberg, on the edge of Black Forest. He considered the seclusion provided by the forest to be the best environment in which to engage in philosophical thought.

Personal LifeMartin spent much time at his vacation home at

Todtnauberg, on the edge of Black Forest. He considered the seclusion provided by the forest to be the best environment in which to engage in philosophical thought.

He died on May 26, 1976, and was buried in the Messkirch cemetery.

He remained intellectually active up until the very end, working on a number of projects, including the massive Gesamtausgabe, the complete edition of his works.