University of London PhD Thesis The Phenomenology of Aristotle in Heidegger's Sein u

277 Pages·2017·1.93 MB·English

Miguel Santos Vieira
Heythrop College – University of London
PhD Thesis

The Phenomenology of Aristotle in Heidegger’s Sein und Zeit:
Alhqeu¿ein in the Development of the Concept of
Eigentlichkeit

London, 2010

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I hereby declare that this dissertation is entirely my own work
except where specific acknowledgment is given to the work of
other authors.

__________________________________
Miguel Santos Vieira
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ABSTRACT

In the phenomenology of Martin Heidegger the quest for an existential analysis of
Dasein is motivated by the awareness of Aristotle’s phenomenological nature of thought:
its dependency upon its phenomenological possibilities. This study examines the early
Heidegger’s retrieval of Aristotle’s al¹ hqeu¿ein in his inquiries at Marburg and the
articulation of this notion in the concept of Eigentlichkeit in Sein und Zeit (1927). Turning
to Aristotle’s analysis of faino/menon and lo/goj, Heidegger’s project in Marburg is
taken to be driven by the ambition to retrieve and exhibit al¹ hqeu¿ein as the phenomenon
that articulates the research on factical Dasein in the world. In undertaking this kind of
phenomenological reflection, Heidegger is not trying merely to make his own situation
transparent in relation to Aristotle, but he is also in fact reactivating the Greek
(Aristotelian) sense of phenomenology retrieving Aristotle’s view on philosophical
research. It is shown that the phenomenological description of Dasein to which Heidegger
appeals in Being and Time is not a ‘project’ of his philosophy, but rather it arises as a
possibility on the basis of the possibilities inherent in thinking (and so language) as such.
In Sein und Zeit, the theme of Eigentlichkeit is situated from the beginning within
Aristotle’s teleology and traced back to Aristotle’s understanding of life and prac½ ij, since
it is based upon the phenomenon of al¹ hqeu¿ein as the basic trait of human activity. It is
argued that the point in revealing the practical foundation of Aristotle’s modes of
al¹ hqeu¿ein is essentially to find out what it means for Dasein to be a form of ki/nhsij
that opens up the possibility of authenticity in human being. In this pursuit, it becomes
possible not only to regard authenticity as a form of a©lhqeu¿ein or articulative disclosing
of being-in-the-world, but also as a temporal phenomenon whose origin is to be found in
the Aristotelian ki¿nhsij and nouÍj underlying its core notion: Entschlossenheit. On the
basis of this concept it is argued that authenticity cannot be determined nor exhausted by
being-towards-death but, rather, by the most far-reaching possibility of al¹ hqeu¿ein:
historicity.

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TABLE OF CONTENTS

ABSTRACT………………………………………………………………….3

INTRODUCTION……………………………………………………………10

I. The clarification of a¹lhqeu¿ein as a central philosophical task………....10
II. Aim and Structure of the Present Study…………………………………..14

PART ONE

1. CHAPTER I: DECONSTRUCTING DASEIN: HEIDEGGER’S PROJECT AND ITS
RELATION TO ARISTOTLE……………………………………………….....23

a) The question of lo/goj in the articulation of Dasein in the early
Heidegger……………………………………………………………….....24
b) Dasein as revealing-being (yuxhÜ w¸j a¹lhqeu¿ein) and the determination
of a¹lhqeu¿ein…………………………………………..............................26
c) The limits of lo/goj and the uncovering of
Dasein………….......................................................................................... 44
d) Alhqeu¿ein in the Nicomachean Ethics and Heidegger’s terminology of
existence in Being and Time.........................................................................50

2. CHAPTER II: DISCOVERING DASEIN: ALHQEUEIN AND THE THEME OF
EIGENTLICHKEIT IN SEIN UND ZEIT ………………………………………...73

a) Das Man and the a¹lhqeu¿ein of Inauthenticity………………………….73
b) Inauthentic ways of being ………………………………..……………….90
c) Withdrawing and Individuation………………………………………….111
d) Anxiety as a liberating disclosure………..…………................................115
e) Advancing Resoluteness and the finitude of Dasein……………………..126
f) Conscience and the Call to Authenticity………………………………....148

PART TWO

3. CHAPTER III: PROJECTING DASEIN: ALHQEUEIN AND THE INTERPRETATION
OF EIGENTLICHKEIT……………………………………………………...154

a) Resoluteness: The Choice of Authenticity……………………………..154
b) Resoluteness, Self-determination and Being-a-Self……………………163
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c) The Self and the Other………………………………………………….175
d) The interpretation of Authenticity……………………………………...188
e) Death and Resoluteness: Advancing Resoluteness……………………. 190
f) Advancing Resoluteness, Fro¿nhsij and Gewissen…………………..204

4. CHAPTER IV: APPROPRIATING DASEIN: ALHQEUEIN, HISTORICITY AND THE
AUTHENTIC SELF…………………………………………………………218

a) Historicity and Authenticity…………………………………………….219
b) Authentic Historicizing…………………………………………………221
c) Repetition and authentic temporality...…………..……………………..229
d) The Authentic Self……………………………………………………...239
e) Historicity and the Authentic Self………………………………………240
f) Being-a-Self: Self-Autonomy, Self-Knowledge and Self
Determination…………………………………………………………..246
g) Alhqeu¿ein, Possibility and Authenticity……………………………...252

CONCLUSION………………………………………………………………...........258

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS……………………………………………………………..261

BIBLIOGRAPHY……………………………………………………………............268

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Introductory Notes

1. Unless where otherwise indicated, all renderings in English from other
languages are the author’s.
2. References to Heidegger’s writings are to the Gesamtausgabe (=GA) still under
publication by Vittorio Klostermann. Exception is made to Sein und Zeit (=SZ) that
refers to the original Max Niemeyer edition.
3. Due to space restrictions the original foreign language sources will not be
quoted, but rather a reference is made in the footnotes to the author, work and page
to which the translation refers.
4. When reference is made to a work more than once, it is indicated only with the
title, abbreviated if necessary. Except in the case of Aristotle and Heidegger's
works, all the titles are specified by the name of the author enabling one to trace the
bibliographical details.
5. A full bibliographical reference is provided in the bibliography.

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Abbreviations

Aristotle:

AP Analytica Posteriora
DA De Anima
De Int De Interpretatione
EE Eudemian Ethics
META Metaphysics
NE Nicomachean Ethics
PHY Physics
POL Politics
RT Rhetoric

Heidegger:

SS Summer Semester Course
WS Winter Semester Course
GA Gesamtasugabe
SZ Sein und Zeit
AM Aristoteles: Metaphysik Q 1-3 – Vom Wesen und Wirklichkeit der Kraft
EM Einführung in die Metaphysik
EPF Einführung in die phänomenologische Forschung
GAP Grundbegriffe der aristotelischen Philosophie
GAPH Grundbegriffe der antiken Philosophie
GM Die Grundbegriffe der Metaphysik: Welt, Endlichkeit, Einsamkeit
GP Die Grundprobleme der Phänomenologie
HZ Holzwege
KPM Kant und das Problem der Metaphysik
LFW Logik: Die Frage nach der Wahrheit
PIA Phänomenologische Interpretationen zu Aristoteles
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PGZ Prolegomena zur Geschichte des Zeitbegriffs
PRL Phänomenologie des Religiösen Lebens
PS Platon: Sophistes
WBP Vom Wesen und Begriff der Fu¿sij, Aristoteles Physik B, 1.
US Unterwegs zur Sprache
WHD Was heißt Denken?
WM Wegmarken

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“We have all read in scientific books, and, indeed, in
all romances, the story of the man who has forgotten
his name. This man walks about the streets and can see
and appreciate everything; only he cannot remember
who he is. Well, every man is that man in the story.
Every man has forgotten who he is. One may
understand the cosmos, but never the ego; the self is
more distant than any star. […] We are all under the
same mental calamity; we have all forgotten our
names. We have all forgotten what we really are. All
that we call common sense and rationality and
practicality and positivism only means that for certain
dead levels of our lives we forget that we have
forgotten. All that we call spirit and art and ecstasy
only means that for an awful instant we remember that
we forget.”

G. K. Chesterton, Orthodoxy, 1908.

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INTRODUCTION
I. The clarification of a¹lhqeu¿ein as a central philosophical task

This study explores Heidegger’s early attempt to provide philosophy with a
new beginning by addressing, explicitly, the legacy of Aristotle, regarded as the
philosophical origin, which philosophy cannot avoid confronting without
remaining naive with respect to its own foundation. Heidegger’s project will be
considered here with respect to how it retrieves and exhibits Aristotle’s notion of
a¹lhqeu¿ein (to be disclosing, making-true) in the inquiries on Aristotle’s teleology
at Marburg and how this notion is reflected in the concept of Eigentlichkeit
(authenticity) in Being and Time (1927).
I have chosen to narrow down Heidegger/Aristotle’s research to two key terms
a©lhqeu¿ein and Eigentlichkeit, rather than select Heidegger’s general ontological
problematic, his interpretations of other philosophers, or some of the
anthropological themes in his work, since these two key terms – a©lhqeu¿ein and
Eigentlichkeit – comprise the fundamental philosophical questions, the essential
connection of the presence of Aristotle in Heidegger’s thinking and Heidegger’s
retrieval, interpretation and transformation of Aristotle in Being and Time: the
problematic of oÔn w¸j a¹lhqe¿j (being as true/unconcealed) in the research on
factical being in the world.
There exist concerns today for the problems of truth and authenticity, self-
transformation and autonomy. A close analysis of Heidegger’s reading of Aristotle
in his early 1920s Marburg Courses – namely an examination of the notion of
a©lhqeu¿ein in de Anima, Rhetoric, de Interpretatione and the Nicomachean
Ethics, and in particular the way in which that interpretation was reflected in Being
and Time (1927) – has much to contribute to the philosophical clarification of these
problems and mankind’s concern for authenticity.
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