Introduction to Metaphysics (Heidegger book)

Introduction to Metaphysics was originally presented as a lecture course Heidegger gave at the University of Freiburg in the summer of 1935. It was first published in 1953 by Max Niemeyer Verlag, simultaneously with the seventh edition of Being and Time.

In his eight-sentence preface to the 1953 edition of Being and Time, Heidegger wrote that the newly available Introduction to Metaphysics would "elucidate" material contemplated for the planned, but long-abandoned second half of Being and Time. The preface also noted that for the first time, all references within the existing B&T text to the work as a "First Half" had been deleted in the seventh edition.[1] [2]

The book first appeared in English in 1959.[3] A second English translation appeared in 2000, [4][5] prepared by Gregory Fried and Richard Polt, who said the 1959 version was largely responsible for introducing Heidegger to the English-speaking world.[6] It preceded by two years the first English translation of Being and Time.

Volume 40 of the Gesamtausgabe, Heidegger's collected works, edited by Petra Jaeger and published in 1983, included Introduction to Metaphysics. [7]

Introduction to Metaphysics is, according to Thomas Sheehan, typically seen as the first instance in Heidegger's work of his much-discussed Kehre, or turn in thinking, that became evident from the 1930s onward. But Sheehan believes this supposed change is "far less dramatic than usually suggested," and entails a matter of focus and method, rather than a change in fundamental questions or answers. [8] Sheehan contends that throughout his career, Heidegger never sought to fundamentally define "being," but rather tried to define "[that which] brings about being as a givenness of entities." [9] [10]

According to Heidegger in this work, the fundamental question of metaphysics is "why are there beings at all instead of nothing?"[11] From this fundamental question Heidegger extracts a prior question about the relation to Being; or "How does it stand with Being?"[12] Heidegger wrote in the separate "Age of the World Picture" (a 1938 lecture) that this question is not purely an academic endeavor, for metaphysics grounds an age, by giving "that age the basis upon which it is essentially formed."[13] The question thus inherently implicates the totality of human Dasein, and is asked so as to "restore the historical Dasein of human beings ... back to the power of Being that is to be opened up originally".[14]

Heidegger believed that early Greek ideas of being became "constricted" beginning with Plato and Aristotle and continuing with the Romans, according to Charles Guignon. Introduction to Metaphysics seeks to revive pre-Socratic notions of "being" with an emphasis on "understanding the way beings show up in (and as) an unfolding happening or event," Guignon says, adding, "we might call this alternative outlook "event ontology."[15] (This concept of Ereignis, or event, is further developed in the 1938 Contributions to Philosophy.)

Heidegger used his discussion of the pre-Socratic Greek philosophers 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.[16]

Introduction to Metaphysics "was not about early Greek thought, and yet the Presocratics are at the pivotal center of discussion," writes W. Julian Korab-Karpowicz. In his view, "the thinking of Heraclitus and Parmenides, which lies at the origin of philosophy, was falsified and misinterpreted in Platonic and Aristotelian thought and the subsequent tradition."[17]

The 2000 English translation of Introduction to Metaphysics was reviewed by the philosopher Miles Groth, who described "Heidegger's readings of Heraclitus and Parmenides" as "famously idiosyncratic". He considered Heidegger's suggestion that Heraclitus and Parmenides "fundamentally agree" to be "challenging".[18]

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 the work's 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.[6]

Heidegger refers in the work to the "inner truth and greatness" of Nazism, but adds a qualifying statement in parentheses: "namely, the confrontation of planetary technology and modern humanity." The qualification had not been made during the original lecture, although Heidegger falsely claimed otherwise. Moreover, the controversial page of the 1935 manuscript is missing from the Heidegger Archives in Marbach.[19]

In a 1953 review of the work in the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, Heidegger's former student Jurgen Habermas was highly critical of the "inner greatness" statement and wrote that "it's time to think with Heidegger against Heidegger."[20]

Julian Young writes that Introduction to Metaphysics "is widely considered fascist in character by those who believe Heidegger can be criticized for his political engagement." However, Young contends to the contrary, that the work implicitly condemns Nazism for its racism, militarism and attempted destruction of civil society.[21]

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.[22]