The Metaphysics of German Idealism

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.

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

Contenu
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
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