The Metaphysics of German Idealism

Unlike the course he offered on the same subject five years earlier, Heideggers 1941 lectures on Schellings 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 Kierkegaards 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 Heideggers lecture course from 1941 not only attempts a new interpretation of Schellings essay on the essence of human freedom, extending his 1936 treatment of that same text, but contains a wealth of material on Heideggers 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 Heideggers own philosophical development. William McNeill, DePaul University

Martin Heidegger (18891976) was one of the most influential philosophers of the twentieth century and the author of numerous works including Being and Time.

Translators Introduction INTRODUCTION THE NECESSITY OF A HISTORICAL THINKING 1. Schellings 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. Kierkegaards 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 Kierkegaards 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 Schellings Concept of Existence 13. The Inceptive Impetuses Determining the Essence of Ground and Their Historical Transformation Second Chapter The Root of Schellings 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 Schellings Distinction between Ground and Existence Fourth Chapter The Various Formulations of Schellings 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 ELUCIDATION OF THE DISTINCTION BETWEEN GROUND AND EXISTENCE 18. The Elucidation of the Distinction as the Presentation of Beings as a Whole (God, World, Human) First Chapter The Reflection that Takes God as a Starting Point 19. The Direct Elucidation: The Presentation of the Being of Beings in God. Philosophy as Unconditional Knowledge of the Absolute in Contrast