Title: Deconstructing Dasein: Heidegger's Earliest Interpretations of Aristotle's De Anima
Abstract: [TEXT NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII] is no psychology in the modern sense, but rather deals with the being of the human being (or of living beings in general) in the world.--Heidegger, Introduction to Phenomenological Research (1) Of all beings that are, presumably the most difficult to think about are living creatures, because on the one hand, they are in a certain way most closely akin to us, and on the other they are at the same time separated from our ek-sistent essence by an abyss.--Heidegger, Letter on Humanism (2) I THROUGHOUT THE EARLY FREIBURG AND MARBURG SEMINARS and lectures leading to the composition of Sein und Zeit (1927), Heidegger was consistently preoccupied with the guiding question of Aristotle's Metaphysics, is being? ([TEXT NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII]). (3) This question which determined the path of Heidegger's thinking does not stand alone in the course of his philosophical development. Rather, Heidegger's investigation into the meaning of being was guided by his introduction to phenomenology beginning with Husserl's Logical Investigations. From his earliest interpretations of Aristotle to his later writings, Heidegger's thinking is illuminated by a fundamental phenomenological insight: What occurs for the phenomenology of the acts of consciousness as the self-manifestation of phenomena is thought more originally by Aristotle and in all Greek thinking and existence as ([TEXT NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII]), as the unconcealedness of what is present, its being revealed, its showing itself. That which phenomenological investigations rediscovered as the supporting attitude of thought proves to be the fundamental trait of Greek thinking, if not indeed of philosophy as such. (4) Heidegger was never to stray far from this originary method of seeing. Beginning with a 1921 seminar devoted to De Anima, Heidegger embarks upon his first attempt to interpret Aristotle phenomenologically. (5) While the seminar begins by investigating Aristotle's definition of the soul ([TEXT NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII]) as the principle of life, we are left with an enigma (ein Ratsel) regarding how the soul contributes to Heidegger's account of facticity. Heidegger, the relationship between facticity (facticia) and the soul (anima) is not unique to Aristotle, he first discovered the problem in Augustine's claim that facticia est anima. The human soul is literally or made by God. (6) The soul is an artifice and therefore nonoriginary, unnatural, and separate from the eternity of God. This separation from the absolute fullness or plenitude of being is what opens up the possibility for the soul to strive towards the infinite perfection of God. Augustine, it is also possible to apply this schema to the originary finitude or imperfection of all created things: these lovely things would be nothing at all unless they were from Him. They rise and set: in their rising they begin to be, and they grow towards perfection, and once come to perfection they grow old, and they die: not all grow old but all die. Therefore when they rise and tend toward being, the more haste they make toward fullness of being, the more haste they make towards ceasing to be. That is their law. (7) When accounting for the transience of all those things created by God, Augustine turns to the corporeality of the senses and the destructive impulse of temptation which leads living things toward their fullness of being and their ceasing to be. Heidegger's 1921 lecture course devoted to Book 10 of Augustine's Confessions develops a reading of facticity that is marked by this troublesome burden of existence (molestia) which develops out of this temptation (tenatio) to experience the pleasures (delectatio) of life. This burden leads to the dispersion (Zerstreuung) of the individuated existence of the soul among the many, For 'in multa defluximus' [we are scattered into the many], we are dissolving into the manifold and absorbed in the dispersion. …
Publication Year: 2007
Publication Date: 2007-12-01
Language: en
Type: article
Access and Citation
Cited By Count: 4
AI Researcher Chatbot
Get quick answers to your questions about the article from our AI researcher chatbot