Richard Polt

Analytic interpretations of philosophical texts typically aim to identify their key claims and analyze logical relations among these claims. This technique seems universally applicable. Filippo Casati follows this technique when he argues, in Heidegger and the Contradiction of Being, that Heidegger is committed to contradictory claims about Being, but that this should not be judged a flaw because paraconsistent logical systems can allow for contradictions. However, Heidegger thinks that propositions and all types of formal logic depend on a non-propositional “disclosedness.” He adopts various strategies to indicate this phenomenon while warning us against taking his thought as a set of propositions. Mainstream analytic thinking is thus intrinsically at odds with Heidegger’s thinking. This conflict may lead us to reflect on the nature of truth and philosophy. (This paper includes an error, "Pleathinking" for "thinking," which was introduced by a Springer copyeditor.)

Heidegger calls the thought that 'being is presence' the 'thunderbolt' that led him to link being and time and inspired his deconstruction of Western metaphysics. However, the scope of the concept of presence varies in his texts; the narrower it is, the more dramatic yet less plausible is his 'thunderbolt.' What is presence? Does Heidegger ultimately reject presence as the meaning of being, or does he accept it if conceived broadly enough? This study surveys the meaning and status of 'presence' in Heidegger. I argue that he maintains a critical perspective, and that his critique can be applied not only to the tradition as interpreted in his 'history of being,' but also to contemporary phenomena such as information technology.

In two sets of notes probably composed in 1947, Heidegger aims to understand Dasein’s ecstatic temporality in terms of aspects of “beyng” (Seyn). He proposes that “the epochal conditions the Temporal, and this conditions the ecstatic.” In addition to the “epochal” withdrawal of beyng, the notes describe the coming of “nearness” (Nähe) and the “bearing-out” (Austrag) that differentiates beings from beingness and calls on us to abide in this difference. These texts give us a valuable glimpse of Heidegger’s later thinking on time and on the link between beyng and Dasein. In this article I offer readings of several notes in which Heidegger begins to think through these issues, I reformulate his line of thought, and I raise some questions about it.

In its early modern form, philosophy gave a decisive impetus to the science and technology that have transformed the planet and brought on the so-called Anthropocene. Can philosophy now help us understand this new age and act within it? The contributors to this volume take a broad historical view as they reflect on the responsibilities and possibilities for philosophy today. The term ‘Anthropocene’ signifies the era of the arrival of human beings as a force that affects global ecosystems in ways that are potentially disastrous for humanity itself, as well as for countless other species. This volume explores whether philosophy has meaningful tasks to fulfill in this unparalleled situation. Do philosophers need to reflect on new topics today? Do they need to think in new ways? Do they need new relationships to their own tradition? And are there concrete actions they should take, over and above philosophical reflection? The contributors to this volume thus take on the question of the relevance and responsibility of philosophy, drawing upon diverse legacies, in the current global situation.

In its early modern form, philosophy gave a decisive impetus to the science and technology that have transformed the planet and brought on the so-called Anthropocene. Can philosophy now help us understand this new age and act within it? The contributors to this volume take a broad historical view as they reflect on the responsibilities and possibilities for philosophy today. The term ‘Anthropocene’ signifies the era of the arrival of human beings as a force that affects global ecosystems in ways that are potentially disastrous for humanity itself, as well as for countless other species. This volume explores whether philosophy has meaningful tasks to fulfill in this unparalleled situation. Do philosophers need to reflect on new topics today? Do they need to think in new ways? Do they need new relationships to their own tradition? And are there concrete actions they should take, over and above philosophical reflection? The contributors to this volume thus take on the question of the relevance and responsibility of philosophy, drawing upon diverse legacies, in the current global situation.

The essay investigates two personae: Socrates as depicted by Plato and Descartes as narrator of the Discourse on Method and Meditations. Socrates is aware of his ignorance and insists on remembering to care for the self; Descartes claims to have overcome ignorance through a method that breaks problems into simple and certain elements, establishing a self-certain yet impersonal subject that comprehends and controls objects. The Cartesian approach has led to the modern process of “liquidation” that reduces beings, property, and truth to resources, wealth, and information – initiating the dangerous and unprecedented epoch known as the Anthropocene. The Socratic approach offers some promise of reintegration and resistance to liquidation by urging us to care for wholeness and recognizing that being exceeds what we comprehend.

Heidegger’s 1936 notes titled “Running Notes on Being and Time” (“Laufende Anmerkungen zu Sein und Zeit”) are impatient, even irritable reactions that characterize both major and minor moments in Being and Time as “superficial” (GA82 60), “inadequate” (GA82 36), “ridiculous” (GA82 123), or “wholly off track and erroneous” (GA82 52). Among the many thoughts in the “Running Notes,” one theme emerges as paramount: what was presented in Being and Time as a phenomenology of Dasein—understood as the human way of being—should instead be conceived as projecting a new possibility for humanity, a possibility into which we are invited to “leap” to initiate a new epoch.

This collection offers a generous and thought-provoking sample of recent scholarship on Heidegger. Most of the essays take little for granted, and make the effort to sum up the very heart of Heidegger’s project. This makes them suitable for beginners, but by no means restricts them to such an audience: all are rich in detail and contribute to ongoing interpretive controversies, as is typical of the fine Cambridge Companion series. A good number of the essays cast Heidegger’s thought in terms such as “coping,” “cultural practices,” or “forms of life,” and illustrate these concepts with familiar, commonsense examples. I will refer to this as a “practical” approach. In a practical reading, Heidegger comes to light primarily as an anti-Cartesian who points to the primacy of meaningful agency, in a broad sense, over the epistemological distinction between subject and object: Heidegger’s writings thus reveal that all cognition is made possible by practices, that is, by shared and tacit patterns of dealing with the things that matter to us. It is in this guise that Heideggerian ideas have entered the sphere of traditional Anglo-American philosophy, where they promise to enrich and recast old debates. Those who insist on remaining within Heidegger’s own language may fear that such an approach is reductive; but it is better seen as a genuine attempt to think independently about Heidegger’s topic of thought. The goal of these readings is not solely to explicate Heidegger, but to enhance “our understanding of ourselves and our world,” as Charles B. Guignon puts it in his introduction ; and Heidegger himself would certainly endorse that goal.

This is the second volume to be published in Division III of Heidegger’s collected works, which is devoted to texts never before presented to the public, either in print or as lectures. The first such was volume 65, Beiträge zur Philosophie —a crucial text from 1936–8 which appeared in 1989. Besinnung dates from 1938–9, and is a sequel of sorts to the Contributions, for it is rooted in the fundamental experience described in that text: we stand at a juncture between “the first beginning” of Western thought and “the other beginning.” The first beginning attempts to represent beings as such; the other beginning inquires into “the truth of be-ing [Seyn].” This truth occurs as the event of appropriation in which be-ing both displays itself and withdraws, beckoning us into our role as Dasein, or the creative preservers of meaning.