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There are few philosophers more influential, more misunderstood, more admired, and more feared than Martin Heidegger. He is simply unavoidable for an understanding of modern thought, modern culture, and the modern world. As Alexander Dugin explores in *Martin The Philosophy of Another Beginning*, Heidegger traces a particular conception of being and truth-begun with the pre-Socratics and cemented with Plato and Aristotle-that has, over millennia, led the West to embrace materialism, egalitarianism, and nihilism. It is Heidegger, argues Dugin, who understood this most deeply; it is thus Heidegger who opens up space for "Another Beginning"-a new grounding for human experience. Drawing on the history of philosophy, political ideologies, and Heidegger's relationship to Germany and Europe-and including a useful bibliography and glossary of terms-Dugin's analysis will be of great interest to scholars as well as those encountering Heidegger for the first time.
389 pages, Hardcover
First published January 30, 2013
5 people are currently reading
352 people want to read
About the author
Alexander Dugin
122 books452 followersAleksandr Gelyevich Dugin (Russian: Александр Гельевич Дугин, born 7 January 1962) is a Russian philosopher and activist. As a founder of the Russian Geopolitical School and the Eurasian Movement, Dugin is considered as one of the most important exponents of modern Russian conservative thought in the line of slavophiles. He earned his PhD in Sociology, in Political sciences, and also in Philosophy. During six years (2008 – 2014), he was the head of the Department of Sociology of International Relations in Sociological Faculty of Moscow State University. His publications include more than sixty books such as Foundations of Geopolitics, Fourth Political Theory, Theory of Multipolar World, Noomakhia (24 volumes), Ethnosociology. The influence of Dugin’s thought on modern day Russia (including political leaders) is recognized by not only his followers but also his philosophical and political opponents. His ideas are sometimes judged controversial or nonconformist but almost all agree that they are inspiring and original.
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July 10, 2019
Heidegger was the most powerful non-analytic philosopher of the 20th century. His language is both poetic and at times indecipherable. It takes a powerful thinker to interpret him and Aleksandr Dugin is such a man. I am not endorsing Dugin’s larger project (though it is obviously superior to Western liberalism). Rather, Dugin more than anyone else understood Heidegger’s own Dasein.
Thesis: Heidegger is the transition point between the last of the old philosophy (Greece to Germany) and the new way of thinking (Dugin 18). Heidegger’s narrative: something was, something began, something ended (31). Europe is the evening land (Abendland): it is time to put “Being” to sleep (37).
What makes Dugin helpful is that he clearly outlines Heidegger’s “code.” The root of his thought is ontological differentiation (41).
Seiende: beings.
Sein: Being
Noema: does not correspond to beings themselves, but to thoughts about beings.
These two form a dyad. The formation of the verb is always related to its inflection, its linkage to something (elastic bending, 42). Sein in its pure form is abstract. It doesn’t “bend” to anything. Man already implicitly assumes that beings (Seiende) are. If we reflect upon this, we ask “What is the being (Sein) of beings (Seiende)? What is common to all beings that makes them beings?
Heidegger reads Heraclitus and Aristotle as saying that Logos = Being = Unity (49). Heidegger wants to challenge the idea that Being is the foundation of beings. The Tradition, which Heidegger will ultimately attack, says “Being” is the common property of “beings.”
Fundamental Ontology
Ousia is a particular way to conceive of Being–share quality of all beings (54). If we say that Being is the essence of beings, we establish two parallel levels: the level of beings and the level of essence (ousia).
Main argument: if we differentiate Being and beings through essence, we overlook the difference between Being and beings (54). Thus, Being is not beings. This logically leads to nihilism.
Ontics
Ontic dimension: that which is present to thought. Thinking about the world. This is the topography of Phusis: the sphere of beings. This is a collected concept.
Ontology
The distance that arises as ontics reflects upon itself. Ontology identifies the Being of beings with the essence (ousia: shared class of) of beings. It attributes Being as an attribute of beings, but also exalts Being to a higher level. This is what Dugin calls the “double topography” (58). Greek thought abstracted Being from beings when it should have leapt into the primordial foundation of beings.
Seyn: the kind of Being that eludes ontology and is not grasped by abstracting it from other beings, but rather penetrating to the Nothingness (59). Argument: in the doubled topography logos was severed from beings (63). When we say we need to explore the nothing, we are not modern nihilists. We are going to beings’ primordial source (63). This is what generates beings but is not beings.
The Beginning and End of Western European Philosophy
The Greek take on Being leads to the oblivion of Being.
Being–beings-as-a-whole–is replaced by the notion (Vorstellung) of it. This notion then becomes more disconnected and mechanical (92)
The Pre-Socratics took the obvious claim that “beings” are, but they then sought to find what was the “Being” of beings, and they interpreted this as phusis (99). This means that Being now is. Now Being (Sein) precedes beings and is different from them.
Plato
Being is now an Idea. It is that which is placed before man (106). That’s Dugin’s language and I don’t think it is the clearest. This is one of those times where German could be clear. Ideas function in a gegenstand relationship with Man. That’s not all, though. Not only does man stand before Ideas, but Ideas stand before things of the world (107).
Maybe we can say it this way: Ideas are always across from man. There is a “gap.” Man is always “before” (across) the ideas. Thus Heidegger’s conclusion: man (being) is no longer in the world, but across from it. Man is pre-sented before the world, which means Ideas have to be re-presented to him. Truth is now correspondence between Idea and Object.
dugin_1_fot_yt-746x280
I’ll skip Heidegger’s section on Christianity. For all of his genius, he is utterly incompetent on this point. If all he had to say was that Thomas Aquinas helped with the oblivion of being, then fine. But he didn’t understand Semitic thought, nor did he want to. Thus when Yahweh says “I am that I am,” Heidegger just thinks it means Being qua Being.
Descartes
Descartes adapted but never left Plato. In Modernity instead of Plato’s Idea we have new “representations: the subject, apperception, energy, reality, the monad, etc.” (114). Descartes starts with the Subject. This subject either is or inside the human mind.
Everything is is re-presented before the Subject. Descartes calls these beings objects (115). A subject must have an object to stand before it. Modernity will then use Scientism to function as the subject. This means that Scientism now controls the objects before it, which could be anything from plants to animals to humans.
IMG_0574
The chart doesn’t make it clear, but the actual topography stops at Marxism. I wrote “break” in the margin. Everything below the break is what pertains to the New Beginning. What I’m interested in is the topography itself. He shows how Western Philosophy took “Being” and made it into Ideas, Will, reason, Power, and finally techne, the reign of machine over man.
Metapolitics,
Heidegger’s true genius is his opening of political space. I don’t think his attack on “Being-Sein” will hold out, although he does make some valid criticisms of Marxism and Liberalism.
Heidegger uses “Planetarism” for what we call “globalism” (161). He identifies this with America, or rather an extreme individualism and consumerism. For Heidegger Planetarism is nihilistic because it expresses only one thing: the triumph of techne, which obliterates Being. Dugin argues that “Liberalism equates the Cartesian subject with the individual and pragmatic calculations in the area of countable tangible and intangible objects” (162).
Communism and Machenschaft
Marx stays true to the metaphysical topography. He has a subject (society, class) and an object (matter, product, thing). Marx correctly noted that Machenschaft created alienation. His solution is to use techne (objects) to overcome the alienation. He overcomes the alienation by means of what brought alienation (166)!
This explains why Heidegger identified with National Socialism. He saw Being at its historical end. Liberalism and Communism were the last manifestation of the history of Being. National Socialism, so he thought, was the only thing resisting these two. Therefore, the New Beginning would come. Except it didn;t.
This next section is difficult, even from a Heideggerian perspective. Heidegger’s argument is that Western metaphysics reached its nihilistic end. I suppose that’s true. A new metaphysics is needed and this one must focus on Seyn-being (good being). The only way to do this is what Heidegger calls “Das Geviert,” the four-fold. The only way to reach Geviert is through the Ereignis (the event) which calls for a radical decision, a leap into the abyss.
That’s the summary, anyway. Let’s unpack it. When we experience Seyn, that is, when we choose to let beings spring up rather than abstracting them into an artificial genus, then we will see everything in a four-fold way: Sky (world), Earth, gods, and men.
Sky: this normally corresponds to Welt or world (totality). It is what cosmos was for the Greeks. It is the principle of harmony. Heidegger strangely says these principles will be at war with each other, which is odd since sky is supposed to represent harmony. I think by war he really means risk, the element of uncertainty. Sky is not an object. It is the world in its openness (200). It is an orientation.
Heidegger insists that world/sky is always connected with a Volk, a people.
Earth: the earth leads to presence. It makes sky real.
Gods: He doesn’t mean what we mean by gods. He means something like the numinous. They can’t be gods like we think because that would put them back into the Platonic metaphysics of being. The “gods” can’t have being. Well, what are they? I’m not sure. I’m not sure that Heidegger is sure, either. The only close parallel I can think of is “sacramental presence,” which of course Heidegger doesn’t accept.
Men: They are neither subjects of being nor objects, but only a dimension of being.
geviert
The four-fold forms a St Andrews Cross. Seyn-being lives in between (Inzwischen). Since Heidegger rejects the old metaphysics, it can’t be located in a place, but only between places (but isn’t this also a place?). Another name for this “in-betweeness” is “Ereignis, the event. This is the single moment where Seyn is manifest. At the risk of sounding like the old metaphysics, let’s take what they call an object but which we will call the Thing (das Ding). It is being in presence. The sky makes it what it is. The earth makes it present. The gods give it the holy. Man speaks it through language (231). Applied to objects in general this is incoherent. Applied to the Lord’s Supper it makes sense.
ereignis
I’m not so sure this works as a whole metaphysics. On the other hand, though, it does function as a cipher to view the current metaphysical chaos, which appears to lead to transhumanism.
Misplacing Geviert
The old metaphysics took the dimension of Sky and place the “Ideas” in it. The Ideas then replaced sky (235). The earth has now been turned to matter. It is hule. Man is now a rational animal. He no longer names things through poetry but rather mass produces them in a factory.
After Descartes man is now a subject who transforms everything else into an object (254). Everything, even God, is now an object. This god “lost the attributes of a subject and became a mental abstraction,” which was soon discarded (255).
Gestell
Gestell is Heidegger’s word for the artificial framing of an object. It is “the essence of the world’s inauthentic concepts” (258). Applied to the Sky-dimension, we no longer have ideas but satellites (261).
Simulacrum
This is an interesting postmodern concept. It is a copy without an original (see the idiocy of a Rorschach test). On one hand it is meaningless and empty. On the other hand it represents an endless will to power (268).
The New Dasein
Dasein is not a what but a how. It is the “shock” you experience when you are awakened to a new idea (293). Heidegger wants Dasein to function as a way to overcome the subject-object duality.
Conclusion and Analysis
It’s easy to see why Amazon banned this book. Dugin is too powerful a thinker for them to deal with. That’s a shame, too, since this is one of the better books on Heidegger. Aside from a few typos, this edition is quite nice. It is well-bound and has a fine finish on the cover.
I question Heidegger’s larger project. He wants a god who can never be. Literally. His god that passes by does absolutely nothing. To his credit I think he realized this. He saw that National Socialism couldn’t bring about Geviert.
Here is the problem with his take on Christianity: We do not say that God is a being among beings. We say that God is beyond being. Hyper-ousia.
Thesis: Heidegger is the transition point between the last of the old philosophy (Greece to Germany) and the new way of thinking (Dugin 18). Heidegger’s narrative: something was, something began, something ended (31). Europe is the evening land (Abendland): it is time to put “Being” to sleep (37).
What makes Dugin helpful is that he clearly outlines Heidegger’s “code.” The root of his thought is ontological differentiation (41).
Seiende: beings.
Sein: Being
Noema: does not correspond to beings themselves, but to thoughts about beings.
These two form a dyad. The formation of the verb is always related to its inflection, its linkage to something (elastic bending, 42). Sein in its pure form is abstract. It doesn’t “bend” to anything. Man already implicitly assumes that beings (Seiende) are. If we reflect upon this, we ask “What is the being (Sein) of beings (Seiende)? What is common to all beings that makes them beings?
Heidegger reads Heraclitus and Aristotle as saying that Logos = Being = Unity (49). Heidegger wants to challenge the idea that Being is the foundation of beings. The Tradition, which Heidegger will ultimately attack, says “Being” is the common property of “beings.”
Fundamental Ontology
Ousia is a particular way to conceive of Being–share quality of all beings (54). If we say that Being is the essence of beings, we establish two parallel levels: the level of beings and the level of essence (ousia).
Main argument: if we differentiate Being and beings through essence, we overlook the difference between Being and beings (54). Thus, Being is not beings. This logically leads to nihilism.
Ontics
Ontic dimension: that which is present to thought. Thinking about the world. This is the topography of Phusis: the sphere of beings. This is a collected concept.
Ontology
The distance that arises as ontics reflects upon itself. Ontology identifies the Being of beings with the essence (ousia: shared class of) of beings. It attributes Being as an attribute of beings, but also exalts Being to a higher level. This is what Dugin calls the “double topography” (58). Greek thought abstracted Being from beings when it should have leapt into the primordial foundation of beings.
Seyn: the kind of Being that eludes ontology and is not grasped by abstracting it from other beings, but rather penetrating to the Nothingness (59). Argument: in the doubled topography logos was severed from beings (63). When we say we need to explore the nothing, we are not modern nihilists. We are going to beings’ primordial source (63). This is what generates beings but is not beings.
The Beginning and End of Western European Philosophy
The Greek take on Being leads to the oblivion of Being.
Being–beings-as-a-whole–is replaced by the notion (Vorstellung) of it. This notion then becomes more disconnected and mechanical (92)
The Pre-Socratics took the obvious claim that “beings” are, but they then sought to find what was the “Being” of beings, and they interpreted this as phusis (99). This means that Being now is. Now Being (Sein) precedes beings and is different from them.
Plato
Being is now an Idea. It is that which is placed before man (106). That’s Dugin’s language and I don’t think it is the clearest. This is one of those times where German could be clear. Ideas function in a gegenstand relationship with Man. That’s not all, though. Not only does man stand before Ideas, but Ideas stand before things of the world (107).
Maybe we can say it this way: Ideas are always across from man. There is a “gap.” Man is always “before” (across) the ideas. Thus Heidegger’s conclusion: man (being) is no longer in the world, but across from it. Man is pre-sented before the world, which means Ideas have to be re-presented to him. Truth is now correspondence between Idea and Object.
dugin_1_fot_yt-746x280
I’ll skip Heidegger’s section on Christianity. For all of his genius, he is utterly incompetent on this point. If all he had to say was that Thomas Aquinas helped with the oblivion of being, then fine. But he didn’t understand Semitic thought, nor did he want to. Thus when Yahweh says “I am that I am,” Heidegger just thinks it means Being qua Being.
Descartes
Descartes adapted but never left Plato. In Modernity instead of Plato’s Idea we have new “representations: the subject, apperception, energy, reality, the monad, etc.” (114). Descartes starts with the Subject. This subject either is or inside the human mind.
Everything is is re-presented before the Subject. Descartes calls these beings objects (115). A subject must have an object to stand before it. Modernity will then use Scientism to function as the subject. This means that Scientism now controls the objects before it, which could be anything from plants to animals to humans.
IMG_0574
The chart doesn’t make it clear, but the actual topography stops at Marxism. I wrote “break” in the margin. Everything below the break is what pertains to the New Beginning. What I’m interested in is the topography itself. He shows how Western Philosophy took “Being” and made it into Ideas, Will, reason, Power, and finally techne, the reign of machine over man.
Metapolitics,
Heidegger’s true genius is his opening of political space. I don’t think his attack on “Being-Sein” will hold out, although he does make some valid criticisms of Marxism and Liberalism.
Heidegger uses “Planetarism” for what we call “globalism” (161). He identifies this with America, or rather an extreme individualism and consumerism. For Heidegger Planetarism is nihilistic because it expresses only one thing: the triumph of techne, which obliterates Being. Dugin argues that “Liberalism equates the Cartesian subject with the individual and pragmatic calculations in the area of countable tangible and intangible objects” (162).
Communism and Machenschaft
Marx stays true to the metaphysical topography. He has a subject (society, class) and an object (matter, product, thing). Marx correctly noted that Machenschaft created alienation. His solution is to use techne (objects) to overcome the alienation. He overcomes the alienation by means of what brought alienation (166)!
This explains why Heidegger identified with National Socialism. He saw Being at its historical end. Liberalism and Communism were the last manifestation of the history of Being. National Socialism, so he thought, was the only thing resisting these two. Therefore, the New Beginning would come. Except it didn;t.
This next section is difficult, even from a Heideggerian perspective. Heidegger’s argument is that Western metaphysics reached its nihilistic end. I suppose that’s true. A new metaphysics is needed and this one must focus on Seyn-being (good being). The only way to do this is what Heidegger calls “Das Geviert,” the four-fold. The only way to reach Geviert is through the Ereignis (the event) which calls for a radical decision, a leap into the abyss.
That’s the summary, anyway. Let’s unpack it. When we experience Seyn, that is, when we choose to let beings spring up rather than abstracting them into an artificial genus, then we will see everything in a four-fold way: Sky (world), Earth, gods, and men.
Sky: this normally corresponds to Welt or world (totality). It is what cosmos was for the Greeks. It is the principle of harmony. Heidegger strangely says these principles will be at war with each other, which is odd since sky is supposed to represent harmony. I think by war he really means risk, the element of uncertainty. Sky is not an object. It is the world in its openness (200). It is an orientation.
Heidegger insists that world/sky is always connected with a Volk, a people.
Earth: the earth leads to presence. It makes sky real.
Gods: He doesn’t mean what we mean by gods. He means something like the numinous. They can’t be gods like we think because that would put them back into the Platonic metaphysics of being. The “gods” can’t have being. Well, what are they? I’m not sure. I’m not sure that Heidegger is sure, either. The only close parallel I can think of is “sacramental presence,” which of course Heidegger doesn’t accept.
Men: They are neither subjects of being nor objects, but only a dimension of being.
geviert
The four-fold forms a St Andrews Cross. Seyn-being lives in between (Inzwischen). Since Heidegger rejects the old metaphysics, it can’t be located in a place, but only between places (but isn’t this also a place?). Another name for this “in-betweeness” is “Ereignis, the event. This is the single moment where Seyn is manifest. At the risk of sounding like the old metaphysics, let’s take what they call an object but which we will call the Thing (das Ding). It is being in presence. The sky makes it what it is. The earth makes it present. The gods give it the holy. Man speaks it through language (231). Applied to objects in general this is incoherent. Applied to the Lord’s Supper it makes sense.
ereignis
I’m not so sure this works as a whole metaphysics. On the other hand, though, it does function as a cipher to view the current metaphysical chaos, which appears to lead to transhumanism.
Misplacing Geviert
The old metaphysics took the dimension of Sky and place the “Ideas” in it. The Ideas then replaced sky (235). The earth has now been turned to matter. It is hule. Man is now a rational animal. He no longer names things through poetry but rather mass produces them in a factory.
After Descartes man is now a subject who transforms everything else into an object (254). Everything, even God, is now an object. This god “lost the attributes of a subject and became a mental abstraction,” which was soon discarded (255).
Gestell
Gestell is Heidegger’s word for the artificial framing of an object. It is “the essence of the world’s inauthentic concepts” (258). Applied to the Sky-dimension, we no longer have ideas but satellites (261).
Simulacrum
This is an interesting postmodern concept. It is a copy without an original (see the idiocy of a Rorschach test). On one hand it is meaningless and empty. On the other hand it represents an endless will to power (268).
The New Dasein
Dasein is not a what but a how. It is the “shock” you experience when you are awakened to a new idea (293). Heidegger wants Dasein to function as a way to overcome the subject-object duality.
Conclusion and Analysis
It’s easy to see why Amazon banned this book. Dugin is too powerful a thinker for them to deal with. That’s a shame, too, since this is one of the better books on Heidegger. Aside from a few typos, this edition is quite nice. It is well-bound and has a fine finish on the cover.
I question Heidegger’s larger project. He wants a god who can never be. Literally. His god that passes by does absolutely nothing. To his credit I think he realized this. He saw that National Socialism couldn’t bring about Geviert.
Here is the problem with his take on Christianity: We do not say that God is a being among beings. We say that God is beyond being. Hyper-ousia.
June 25, 2023
I was shocked to hear this author was being censored in the United States and even more shocked when an attempt upon his life inadvertently caused the death of his daughter in Moscow. What is it that Dugin has to say that so many want silenced? My curiosity over this question, as well as the assertion that Dugin is supposedly highly influential upon Vladimir Putin, led me to seek out Dugin’s writing. However, this particular work of Dugin’s was the only thing available on Amazon, so maybe Dugin is indeed being censored.
As it turns out, the difficulty of this particular book is such that it is almost unreadable, so the censors should have little worry about its impact upon mainstream thinking. Most people attempting to read this book would likely wonder: what was this dude smoking? I’ll endeavor for sufficient clarity such that the same thing isn’t said about me as a result of this review, but it won’t be easy.
I really can’t, in good faith, recommend that anyone embark upon reading this book because of its difficulty and extreme ambiguity. We are dealing with a Russian author attempting to explain a German philosopher in a book that is written in English. The result is a muddle of what is often nearly indecipherable. Nevertheless, I will, in this review, provide an overview of what I think Dugin is trying to say about Heidegger’s work; but I warn any reader that what I have personally taken from this writing may or may not conform with mainstream thinking about Heidegger. Further, I am by no means necessarily embracing Dugin’s opinions.
Dugin’s General Premise
Essentially, the assertion here is that the progress of Western civilization has been wrong since its beginning because it got off on the wrong foot back when the Greeks insisted on deifying human representations for their Gods. Heidegger criticizes Platonic notions of the perfect idea as improper directives for all beings. The implication is this major error of the Greeks preempted a more profound realization of the divine, and this mistake has promoted an inauthentic philosophy over the entire history of western civilization. Heidegger believes this error is leading all of us into nihilism. This coming nihilism is expected to be ultimately realized in technological annihilation.
Unmistakably, Western civilization has indeed developed a propensity for pathological accumulation of material objects, which Dugin recognizes as “soulless, materialistic infrastructure”. And this infrastructure is clearly concentrated in the West. The West has not historically brought others the same sort of progress and development it enjoys within its own geography; rather, it has exploited developing regions, bringing colonialism, slavery, desertification, violence, and economic woes. Nihilism is the fruit of this sort of exploitation, which manifests in war, abject poverty, and devastated lands.
Being vs beings
Heidegger wishes to differentiate between the terms “Being” (recognized in awareness, Logos) and beings (organisms). In trying to describe “Being”, Heidegger defines it as “thoughts based upon words” and as “the place where philosophy originates”. Heidegger suggests that the Greeks should have recognized “Being” as most authentic, but instead they focused on beings. Ultimately, Heidegger seeks to propose a new beginning in philosophy based upon “Being”, as opposed to “beings”.
The excessive focus on beings has resulted in technological displacement of nature, and in an abundance of artificial products developed to service human society. By confusing the logos with beings, the Greeks developed a deformed idea of divinity. Heidegger’s new beginning necessitates a second explosion of the logos, in a different form, essentially in Being instead of beings.
Being, according to Heidegger, is what gives life to beings and is inextricably linked to them; however, when Being is ignored, the abyss between it and man widens, until it eventually departs fully, leaving nothingness. Recent discoveries in modern physics reveal that electrons routinely pop in and out of existence. Heidegger grasps that God “is” and “is not”, is “existence” and nonexistence”, is this dimension and other dimensions, is truly beyond us, ineffable, recognizable only in Being.
Being is sustained when we participate in it and diminishes when we are hardened to it. Heidegger contends that Being “crosses itself out” or eliminates itself when it is misrepresented or ignored, essentially getting out of the way of immature beings that still need time to grow. The parallel here that Jesus tolerated crucifixion, essentially “crossing Himself out” from a sinful world can’t be ignored
Until we recognize Being, all of our conceptualizations are tainted with the falsehood of our own creations, which manifest in elaborate theologies, myths, rituals, doctrines, and ultimately in technological intelligences, like Google, where modern people today pose their questions just like the Greeks consulted the Oracle at Delphi.
Heidegger would disassociate Being and God because of all the preconceptions beings have attached to the term God, but I think this disassociation is confusing. Instead, I would simply suggest that, instead of mythologizing, we contemplate. In contemplation we can know Being and we can discern the following facts about God:
God is there and here.
God can be prayed to.
God communicates through the conscience.
God is widely known by humans throughout the world.
God changes people.
God has endured through the entire history of man.
God humbles man.
God is present, available, at hand, findable.
God is transmissible in empathy and demonstrable in action.
God is ineffable.
These are the easiest truths to arise out of a stark confrontation with Being in a meditative state. There are many others. Heidegger perceives that Western man has constructed very deviate versions of God by incorporating the human form. Heidegger suggests that we part with these proof-less illusions and embark upon a new course.
The Message is Revealed in History
As elaborated by Hegel, Heidegger hints that Being manifests in history, as a message, but most people fail to recognize or decipher this Message. If we could understand the message in the historical process, we could better discern the future. But, as it is, history is contaminated with untruths projected by beings who taint it with elaboration, myth, and radical interpretations.
When dealing with history, we always encounter “interpretation”, and this gives way to two separate things: the actual event and its subsequent translation. Our subsequent perception of history affects the development of beings because it affects our worldview, which in turn influences our decision making. Heidegger sees that history has been unduly interpreted in association with Platonic idealism, as opposed to emanating purely out of Being.
Heidegger informs us that we must “take a leap of faith” to accomplish the sort of historical deciphering that we need to do. This leap involves disregarding much social indoctrination that has come upon us as a result of being raised in the West. Heidegger asserts that, because of erroneous interpretations, what “has been” is not truly known to us and, as a result, we don’t really know ourselves. We have yet to fully recognize ourselves as bearers of divine thought (the Wisdom of God, Sophia) or to intentionally organize ourselves in a way that would characterize the emergence of collective Being.
History, in this sense, is viewed as the relationship between thoughts and Being; and Heidegger contends Western history has exemplified a degradation of thought about Being in favor of mechanical-ism and the human “will to power” (as postulated by Nietzsche). This degradation has persistently widened the abyss between beings and Being. Technological surrogates are leading beings toward self-destruction.
The New History
What Heidegger believes is needed is a totally new jumpstart in history with focus upon Being instead of beings. This new way would involve a population of beings that conceptualize from the standpoint of “Being” instead of themselves. The new way requires beings that recognize “beings as a whole” more than their own individual being. Clearly, this is polarized to the dog-eat-dog world of Western capitalism and actually seems a bit tainted by Dugin’s Marxist viewpoints. Nevertheless, Heidegger is clearly suggesting that beings are erroneously clinging to the Platonic idea or their “will to power”, instead of to Being itself, and therefore devoting themselves to pathological accumulation instead of contemplating how to expend themselves for what is most worthy. Instead of lowering God into a concept of ourselves, could we ever begin to think of fashioning ourselves in the image of God?
This sort of self-examination lends itself to many other questions. What is this Platonic idea that we have subscribed to? Is it truly Jesus or something else? Is it even defined by us individually or has it been pre-defined for us by years of childhood indoctrinations? Are we even capable of conceptualizing outside of this indoctrination? Can we conceive of God beyond the pre-configured human form indoctrinated into us? Do we envision a bearded old man or a sacrificed young man? Can we free ourselves from the sculpted fetish the Greeks had for the human form, which eventually lead them to deify it? Can we envision God as beyond the bodily confines of the human animal - perhaps a consuming fire, unleashed energy, or the writhing process of life itself, anything other than ourselves? Aside from postulating the need for a new beginning, Heidegger never really answers these questions for us, but by posing them he introduces us to Being.
Sin
Plato asserted that the things we see are merely shadowy representations of a more perfect but elusive existence. One consequence of the proliferation of the Platonic idea in Western religion is the concept that everyone is a horrible sinner, inherently bad. This self-defeating philosophy subverts self-examination, which might reveal that one is simply an organism lacking omnipotent awareness, and therefore susceptible to making mistakes. Just as a rabbit might mistakenly run into the paws of a wildcat, so the wages of sin (mistakes) are death, and the more limited the awareness of an organism, the more mistake-prone it is.
Recognizing that one is simply a less than omnipotent organism is the sort of realization that comes through self-examination (confrontation with Being). If one knew in advance that participating in an adulterous relationship would wreck many lives for several generations they might not do it. If one knew for certain that smoking would cause them a cancerous death, they might not do it. We are not omnipotent and so we make mistakes and call them sin. But we can become more consciously aware of these sorts of impacts if we focus with Being. Other actions we label sinful are merely instinctual, animalistic mechanisms that override our connections with Being.
We can learn a lot by meeting with Being in meditative states and analytically contemplating the future repercussions of our actions, instead of depressingly accepting sinfulness as inherent. Dugin refers to this process as: “allowing logos to think through us, thereby giving Being the opportunity to occur and show itself by coming to fruition in us.” Thus, instead of envisioning ourselves as a decrepit shadow of a person, as contrasted to the imagined perfection of a Hercules, Apollo, or some other sort of archetype, we instead recognize ourselves pragmatically for what we are: quite simply, a conduit for Being to manifest in the world.
This is essentially the basis for Heidegger’s tendency to often quote Nietzsche that “Christianity is Platonism for the masses”. Nietzsche opined that when Christianity disappears God will be dead and Dugin suggests that He is already disappearing because science has replaced religion. Certainly, the idea of deicide is at the center of the Christian religion. Today, it is technological science that takes upon itself the function of issuing directives concerning what beings are and what they are not. And this is where most people turn when they are sick, befuddled, or lost. Heidegger sees technological science as the most extreme form of nihilist thought because it introduces the products that bring annihilation.
The Demiurge
The problem with Platonism is that people are not satisfied with the objectification of already existent things, which they recognize as imperfect shadows of a more perfect idea. Hence, they become obsessed with making more refined representations of things. They begin to duplicate natural things through artificial ones, creating man-made objects, striving to replace the creation with artificial products of their own. They strive after enhanced images of themselves and ultimately endeavor to even recreate God, producing technological intelligence and placing their faith in it. In this way they lose their connection with Being.
Humans seem to be transforming everything into something manufactured. Ultimately, we find ourselves thrashing about in the snares of a falsely established topography, like a Metaverse, eventually closing ourselves off entirely from Being. Through technology, man approaches the final barrier, the limits of all that is human, ultimately distancing himself from even himself. By taking this final leap into non-being, man himself eventually becomes a product, something replaced, technical, robotic, an automaton, or something manufactured through genetic or transgender manipulation.
The New Beginning
If any semblance of man should survive this catastrophic period, it is only at that drastic point that man may look back and discern the great error, which will by then be looming clearly in his history. Sensing a desire for simplicity, and seeing that he has ignored the logos all along, man will see the vulgarity of his artificial counterfeiting, bionics, computers, smart phones, genetic engineering, and objectified madness of production - all as descent into nihilism.
However, having exited the Garden of Eden contemptuously, man now looks back and sees that his exit was necessary for him to know the Logos more intimately, as more than just a pet-owner, but rather as a living force encompassing everything. Looking back through history, the Grecian deviation will appear a necessary prerequisite for Being to become manifest in the consciousness of freewill. Such a perspective will reveal the idolatry associated with enviously wanting to be more than a being, of wanting to transcend animality, of lusting after immortality, of attempting to fly up into the heavens and dominate everything. As Heidegger sees it, all of Western History has been a rebellion against the limits of being. The created world has never been good enough for Western man, and he has never been able to settle himself comfortably within it, as he has always been striving after something diabolically elusive and Platonically perfect.
Yes, we pretend to succumb to a higher power while in fact we have fashioned our God only for show and for the purpose of psychologically excusing the guilt of our transgressions with cheap grace, all the while whining that we can do nothing about it because we are helpless, inherent sinners. The New Beginning can only occur when humanity stares directly in the face of annihilation. Only then, when the shock of our true mortality sinks into us, can we begin a new trajectory in history, one that recognizes our true state of being, as mortals, and as short, ephemeral links in a much longer human history. Humanity must decide whether to remain imprisoned by an eschatology that proclaims end-times war and catastrophe or believe in something more optimistic. Man creates that which he believes, including his own disasters.
The masses must come to understand what it means to be sacrificed. That is, to believe in something so strongly that you would martyr yourself before rejecting that belief. Such intensity is necessary for the New Beginning to occur - and such is the only manner that peace may ever come into the world. As the pop band The Monkees implied in their obscure little 1968 song Zor and Zam: “What if they held a war and nobody came?” Envisioning such an occurrence lets us better understand what Heidegger and Hegel meant about how the historical process generates human eschatology. Hegel’s revelation of dialectical synthesis may be seen as dialectic between man and Being, which gives way to the synthesis of a prevailing sacred holy spirit that envelopes the earth, nurturing man to live peacefully, in self-honesty, and in a manner that nurtures flourishing upon the earth. In this sense, everyone is potentially a sacrificial offering.
Humans must find a willingness to become fruit and to give themselves unto others as a gift. We must orient ourselves towards what is sacred. To worship through actions that are consistent with the flourishing of humanity, as opposed to obeisance to icons, statuary, rituals, temples, relics, doctrines, and other humans who have been set above the rest. We must recognize worship in authentic movement, in action, instead of within contrived doctrines, and we must stop hiding behind easy prescriptions to alleviate guilt, such as cheap grace. Our mission is not to be God, but to “choose” God in volitional choice, in freewill, thereby facilitating the rise of God into this dimension, within broad conscious awareness.
We must relinquish the idea that we are gazing up at at a bearded old God and instead become aware of the infinite abyss that separates us and can annihilate us at a whim. The abyss becomes most apparent when we see death, terror, extreme risk, or experience a feeling of abandonment. But, it is looking into the abyss that makes us aware of the sacred dynamic of life and our purpose in sustaining it. We can find an open window in the abyss through which we can see how precious is the sanctity of life, and thus we come to better understand that which we are depriving the opportunity to occur on earth because of our selfishness, ego, and greed. The new beginning is the world finally coming to face itself directly, without a veil of mythology.
-End-
As it turns out, the difficulty of this particular book is such that it is almost unreadable, so the censors should have little worry about its impact upon mainstream thinking. Most people attempting to read this book would likely wonder: what was this dude smoking? I’ll endeavor for sufficient clarity such that the same thing isn’t said about me as a result of this review, but it won’t be easy.
I really can’t, in good faith, recommend that anyone embark upon reading this book because of its difficulty and extreme ambiguity. We are dealing with a Russian author attempting to explain a German philosopher in a book that is written in English. The result is a muddle of what is often nearly indecipherable. Nevertheless, I will, in this review, provide an overview of what I think Dugin is trying to say about Heidegger’s work; but I warn any reader that what I have personally taken from this writing may or may not conform with mainstream thinking about Heidegger. Further, I am by no means necessarily embracing Dugin’s opinions.
Dugin’s General Premise
Essentially, the assertion here is that the progress of Western civilization has been wrong since its beginning because it got off on the wrong foot back when the Greeks insisted on deifying human representations for their Gods. Heidegger criticizes Platonic notions of the perfect idea as improper directives for all beings. The implication is this major error of the Greeks preempted a more profound realization of the divine, and this mistake has promoted an inauthentic philosophy over the entire history of western civilization. Heidegger believes this error is leading all of us into nihilism. This coming nihilism is expected to be ultimately realized in technological annihilation.
Unmistakably, Western civilization has indeed developed a propensity for pathological accumulation of material objects, which Dugin recognizes as “soulless, materialistic infrastructure”. And this infrastructure is clearly concentrated in the West. The West has not historically brought others the same sort of progress and development it enjoys within its own geography; rather, it has exploited developing regions, bringing colonialism, slavery, desertification, violence, and economic woes. Nihilism is the fruit of this sort of exploitation, which manifests in war, abject poverty, and devastated lands.
Being vs beings
Heidegger wishes to differentiate between the terms “Being” (recognized in awareness, Logos) and beings (organisms). In trying to describe “Being”, Heidegger defines it as “thoughts based upon words” and as “the place where philosophy originates”. Heidegger suggests that the Greeks should have recognized “Being” as most authentic, but instead they focused on beings. Ultimately, Heidegger seeks to propose a new beginning in philosophy based upon “Being”, as opposed to “beings”.
The excessive focus on beings has resulted in technological displacement of nature, and in an abundance of artificial products developed to service human society. By confusing the logos with beings, the Greeks developed a deformed idea of divinity. Heidegger’s new beginning necessitates a second explosion of the logos, in a different form, essentially in Being instead of beings.
Being, according to Heidegger, is what gives life to beings and is inextricably linked to them; however, when Being is ignored, the abyss between it and man widens, until it eventually departs fully, leaving nothingness. Recent discoveries in modern physics reveal that electrons routinely pop in and out of existence. Heidegger grasps that God “is” and “is not”, is “existence” and nonexistence”, is this dimension and other dimensions, is truly beyond us, ineffable, recognizable only in Being.
Being is sustained when we participate in it and diminishes when we are hardened to it. Heidegger contends that Being “crosses itself out” or eliminates itself when it is misrepresented or ignored, essentially getting out of the way of immature beings that still need time to grow. The parallel here that Jesus tolerated crucifixion, essentially “crossing Himself out” from a sinful world can’t be ignored
Until we recognize Being, all of our conceptualizations are tainted with the falsehood of our own creations, which manifest in elaborate theologies, myths, rituals, doctrines, and ultimately in technological intelligences, like Google, where modern people today pose their questions just like the Greeks consulted the Oracle at Delphi.
Heidegger would disassociate Being and God because of all the preconceptions beings have attached to the term God, but I think this disassociation is confusing. Instead, I would simply suggest that, instead of mythologizing, we contemplate. In contemplation we can know Being and we can discern the following facts about God:
God is there and here.
God can be prayed to.
God communicates through the conscience.
God is widely known by humans throughout the world.
God changes people.
God has endured through the entire history of man.
God humbles man.
God is present, available, at hand, findable.
God is transmissible in empathy and demonstrable in action.
God is ineffable.
These are the easiest truths to arise out of a stark confrontation with Being in a meditative state. There are many others. Heidegger perceives that Western man has constructed very deviate versions of God by incorporating the human form. Heidegger suggests that we part with these proof-less illusions and embark upon a new course.
The Message is Revealed in History
As elaborated by Hegel, Heidegger hints that Being manifests in history, as a message, but most people fail to recognize or decipher this Message. If we could understand the message in the historical process, we could better discern the future. But, as it is, history is contaminated with untruths projected by beings who taint it with elaboration, myth, and radical interpretations.
When dealing with history, we always encounter “interpretation”, and this gives way to two separate things: the actual event and its subsequent translation. Our subsequent perception of history affects the development of beings because it affects our worldview, which in turn influences our decision making. Heidegger sees that history has been unduly interpreted in association with Platonic idealism, as opposed to emanating purely out of Being.
Heidegger informs us that we must “take a leap of faith” to accomplish the sort of historical deciphering that we need to do. This leap involves disregarding much social indoctrination that has come upon us as a result of being raised in the West. Heidegger asserts that, because of erroneous interpretations, what “has been” is not truly known to us and, as a result, we don’t really know ourselves. We have yet to fully recognize ourselves as bearers of divine thought (the Wisdom of God, Sophia) or to intentionally organize ourselves in a way that would characterize the emergence of collective Being.
History, in this sense, is viewed as the relationship between thoughts and Being; and Heidegger contends Western history has exemplified a degradation of thought about Being in favor of mechanical-ism and the human “will to power” (as postulated by Nietzsche). This degradation has persistently widened the abyss between beings and Being. Technological surrogates are leading beings toward self-destruction.
The New History
What Heidegger believes is needed is a totally new jumpstart in history with focus upon Being instead of beings. This new way would involve a population of beings that conceptualize from the standpoint of “Being” instead of themselves. The new way requires beings that recognize “beings as a whole” more than their own individual being. Clearly, this is polarized to the dog-eat-dog world of Western capitalism and actually seems a bit tainted by Dugin’s Marxist viewpoints. Nevertheless, Heidegger is clearly suggesting that beings are erroneously clinging to the Platonic idea or their “will to power”, instead of to Being itself, and therefore devoting themselves to pathological accumulation instead of contemplating how to expend themselves for what is most worthy. Instead of lowering God into a concept of ourselves, could we ever begin to think of fashioning ourselves in the image of God?
This sort of self-examination lends itself to many other questions. What is this Platonic idea that we have subscribed to? Is it truly Jesus or something else? Is it even defined by us individually or has it been pre-defined for us by years of childhood indoctrinations? Are we even capable of conceptualizing outside of this indoctrination? Can we conceive of God beyond the pre-configured human form indoctrinated into us? Do we envision a bearded old man or a sacrificed young man? Can we free ourselves from the sculpted fetish the Greeks had for the human form, which eventually lead them to deify it? Can we envision God as beyond the bodily confines of the human animal - perhaps a consuming fire, unleashed energy, or the writhing process of life itself, anything other than ourselves? Aside from postulating the need for a new beginning, Heidegger never really answers these questions for us, but by posing them he introduces us to Being.
Sin
Plato asserted that the things we see are merely shadowy representations of a more perfect but elusive existence. One consequence of the proliferation of the Platonic idea in Western religion is the concept that everyone is a horrible sinner, inherently bad. This self-defeating philosophy subverts self-examination, which might reveal that one is simply an organism lacking omnipotent awareness, and therefore susceptible to making mistakes. Just as a rabbit might mistakenly run into the paws of a wildcat, so the wages of sin (mistakes) are death, and the more limited the awareness of an organism, the more mistake-prone it is.
Recognizing that one is simply a less than omnipotent organism is the sort of realization that comes through self-examination (confrontation with Being). If one knew in advance that participating in an adulterous relationship would wreck many lives for several generations they might not do it. If one knew for certain that smoking would cause them a cancerous death, they might not do it. We are not omnipotent and so we make mistakes and call them sin. But we can become more consciously aware of these sorts of impacts if we focus with Being. Other actions we label sinful are merely instinctual, animalistic mechanisms that override our connections with Being.
We can learn a lot by meeting with Being in meditative states and analytically contemplating the future repercussions of our actions, instead of depressingly accepting sinfulness as inherent. Dugin refers to this process as: “allowing logos to think through us, thereby giving Being the opportunity to occur and show itself by coming to fruition in us.” Thus, instead of envisioning ourselves as a decrepit shadow of a person, as contrasted to the imagined perfection of a Hercules, Apollo, or some other sort of archetype, we instead recognize ourselves pragmatically for what we are: quite simply, a conduit for Being to manifest in the world.
This is essentially the basis for Heidegger’s tendency to often quote Nietzsche that “Christianity is Platonism for the masses”. Nietzsche opined that when Christianity disappears God will be dead and Dugin suggests that He is already disappearing because science has replaced religion. Certainly, the idea of deicide is at the center of the Christian religion. Today, it is technological science that takes upon itself the function of issuing directives concerning what beings are and what they are not. And this is where most people turn when they are sick, befuddled, or lost. Heidegger sees technological science as the most extreme form of nihilist thought because it introduces the products that bring annihilation.
The Demiurge
The problem with Platonism is that people are not satisfied with the objectification of already existent things, which they recognize as imperfect shadows of a more perfect idea. Hence, they become obsessed with making more refined representations of things. They begin to duplicate natural things through artificial ones, creating man-made objects, striving to replace the creation with artificial products of their own. They strive after enhanced images of themselves and ultimately endeavor to even recreate God, producing technological intelligence and placing their faith in it. In this way they lose their connection with Being.
Humans seem to be transforming everything into something manufactured. Ultimately, we find ourselves thrashing about in the snares of a falsely established topography, like a Metaverse, eventually closing ourselves off entirely from Being. Through technology, man approaches the final barrier, the limits of all that is human, ultimately distancing himself from even himself. By taking this final leap into non-being, man himself eventually becomes a product, something replaced, technical, robotic, an automaton, or something manufactured through genetic or transgender manipulation.
The New Beginning
If any semblance of man should survive this catastrophic period, it is only at that drastic point that man may look back and discern the great error, which will by then be looming clearly in his history. Sensing a desire for simplicity, and seeing that he has ignored the logos all along, man will see the vulgarity of his artificial counterfeiting, bionics, computers, smart phones, genetic engineering, and objectified madness of production - all as descent into nihilism.
However, having exited the Garden of Eden contemptuously, man now looks back and sees that his exit was necessary for him to know the Logos more intimately, as more than just a pet-owner, but rather as a living force encompassing everything. Looking back through history, the Grecian deviation will appear a necessary prerequisite for Being to become manifest in the consciousness of freewill. Such a perspective will reveal the idolatry associated with enviously wanting to be more than a being, of wanting to transcend animality, of lusting after immortality, of attempting to fly up into the heavens and dominate everything. As Heidegger sees it, all of Western History has been a rebellion against the limits of being. The created world has never been good enough for Western man, and he has never been able to settle himself comfortably within it, as he has always been striving after something diabolically elusive and Platonically perfect.
Yes, we pretend to succumb to a higher power while in fact we have fashioned our God only for show and for the purpose of psychologically excusing the guilt of our transgressions with cheap grace, all the while whining that we can do nothing about it because we are helpless, inherent sinners. The New Beginning can only occur when humanity stares directly in the face of annihilation. Only then, when the shock of our true mortality sinks into us, can we begin a new trajectory in history, one that recognizes our true state of being, as mortals, and as short, ephemeral links in a much longer human history. Humanity must decide whether to remain imprisoned by an eschatology that proclaims end-times war and catastrophe or believe in something more optimistic. Man creates that which he believes, including his own disasters.
The masses must come to understand what it means to be sacrificed. That is, to believe in something so strongly that you would martyr yourself before rejecting that belief. Such intensity is necessary for the New Beginning to occur - and such is the only manner that peace may ever come into the world. As the pop band The Monkees implied in their obscure little 1968 song Zor and Zam: “What if they held a war and nobody came?” Envisioning such an occurrence lets us better understand what Heidegger and Hegel meant about how the historical process generates human eschatology. Hegel’s revelation of dialectical synthesis may be seen as dialectic between man and Being, which gives way to the synthesis of a prevailing sacred holy spirit that envelopes the earth, nurturing man to live peacefully, in self-honesty, and in a manner that nurtures flourishing upon the earth. In this sense, everyone is potentially a sacrificial offering.
Humans must find a willingness to become fruit and to give themselves unto others as a gift. We must orient ourselves towards what is sacred. To worship through actions that are consistent with the flourishing of humanity, as opposed to obeisance to icons, statuary, rituals, temples, relics, doctrines, and other humans who have been set above the rest. We must recognize worship in authentic movement, in action, instead of within contrived doctrines, and we must stop hiding behind easy prescriptions to alleviate guilt, such as cheap grace. Our mission is not to be God, but to “choose” God in volitional choice, in freewill, thereby facilitating the rise of God into this dimension, within broad conscious awareness.
We must relinquish the idea that we are gazing up at at a bearded old God and instead become aware of the infinite abyss that separates us and can annihilate us at a whim. The abyss becomes most apparent when we see death, terror, extreme risk, or experience a feeling of abandonment. But, it is looking into the abyss that makes us aware of the sacred dynamic of life and our purpose in sustaining it. We can find an open window in the abyss through which we can see how precious is the sanctity of life, and thus we come to better understand that which we are depriving the opportunity to occur on earth because of our selfishness, ego, and greed. The new beginning is the world finally coming to face itself directly, without a veil of mythology.
-End-
April 25, 2019
Makes you think,,,
October 13, 2025
Alexander Dugin’s Martin Heidegger: The Philosophy of Another Beginning offers a detailed reading of Heidegger’s later work. Even if you don't agree with Dugin's political standpoints you will find interesting insights into the origins and originality of Heidegger's thinking.
Rather than starting from Dasein (Being and Time) as in most secondary literature, Dugin focuses on the Seynsgeschichte: the history of Being/SEIN (also written by Heidegger as SEYN, and in English often translated as BEYNG).
Dasein itself is discussed only in the final part of the book which I didn't read yet.
Dugin’s perspective is interesting: as a Russian philosopher and a non-native reader of German, he offers an external view on Heidegger’s language and terminology. That is the added value of this book!
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1. The Seynsgeschichte: The History of Being
The book opens with a thorough exposition of Heidegger’s concept of Seynsgeschichte = history of Being
Dugin explains that for Heidegger, Being cannot be understood as an entity or an abstract notion, but rather as a process of disclosure and concealment.
The Wesen des Seins (the essence of Being) is not a completed or static fact, not a What is?, but an Event (Ereignis): Being “west” ( from the artificial verb wesen, linked to essence).
WESEN: past passive participle of the verb SEIN (to be) which is in German also a NOUN 'WESEN' (or ESSENCE)
==> By making it a verb it expresses a process of 'come into ESSENCE', (link with EVENT, Ereignis), (P. 86)
===> As such we make a difference between Seiendheit ('being of beings' or ESSENCE = What is?) and SEYN (= coming into essence)
Wesen is the past participle of the verb sein (to be), which in German is also a noun meaning “essence.” By turning it into a verb, Heidegger expresses a process of “dwelling in the openness of Being”= unfolding of disclosure that continually happens. In this sense, Wesen is an event-concept: it expresses the happening/EVENT through which beings appear.
Heidegger traces this to the original meaning of Greek words.
==> The inclusion of a Greek word list with phonetic transcription at the end of the book which is rare in Heidegger second literature is valuable and clarifies much of the conceptual background.
Dugin’s focus lies on Heidegger’s middle and later period, especially the development of the history of Seyn.
This makes the book useful for understanding the overall structure and impact of Heidegger’s thought.
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2. The History of Metaphysics and the Forgetting of Being
The first part of Dugin’s analysis concerns Heidegger’s reconstruction of Western metaphysics: from its Greek beginnings to the modern age of the subject (with Descartes as the culmination of Seynsvergessenheit).
According to Heidegger, a decisive shift occurred with Plato: a subtle but fundamental deviation.
Originally, idea meant “the visible,” “what is seen” (idea), appearance.
With Plato, however, idea comes to signify essence (ousia) or representation, and the original link between Being and appearance is lost. This marks the beginning of Seynsvergessenheit, the forgetting of Being, and the desertification of thought.
Being becomes a being (a noun, a “What is”), a Seiendheit, i.e. a “fictitious transcendence” (p. 59).
From that moment on, thought no longer lets Being appear, but instead attempts to represent, dominate, or produce it. Thinking becomes reflexive, locked up within the horizon of the human subject.
Daimon
==> The mediating space (Metaxy) between man and the divine openness , what the Greeks called daimonic, or the orginal logos got lost as from Plato and is replaced in Christianity by a transcendent God, and is radicalised with Descartes by the subject which is a radicalisation of this split.
The human being turns inward, enclosing himself within a reflective sphere, replacing openness to Being with the certainty of self-consciousness.
The original metaxy (the “in-between-space” of openness and resonance) gives way to the closed subject–object structure.
Man becomes a spectator of the world — and ultimately of himself.
He can think beings or representations, but not Seyn itself.
The object is vorgesetzt (casted/thrown before us): thought becomes a Vor-stellung (representation).
Heidegger calls this process Vorsetzende Durchsetzung = the premeditated enforcement of the will to produce, represent, and master Being.
Dugin’s treatment of this is among the most precise sections of the book: the first 120 pages are really the highlight.
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3. From Plato to Nietzsche: The Completion of Metaphysics
Dugin shows how Heidegger understands the entire history of Western metaphysics as a movement of increasing Vergessenheit : a progressive loss of contact with Being itself.
With Hegel, a certain rupture occurs, yet thinking remains logical (the concept/Begriff) rather than ontological.
In Nietzsche, this process reaches its completion. With Nietzsche Being is no longer an idea, it is a value + Will to POWER , an abitrary decision on the part of the subject. (p. 124)
Although Nietzsche declares the “death of God” and exposes the structure of Western values, he still remains within the metaphysical horizon. His ideas of eternal recurrence and will to power are attempts to fill in the void left by the disappearance of the highest Being, but they remain instrumental: expressions of the will to Power..
The modern human becomes a producer and consumer of his own worldview : a spectator treating himself as the object of his own technology. The original kinship between man and Being is thus lost.
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4. Ereignis: The Eschatological Event
The turning point in Heidegger’s thought and in Dugin’s reading is the concept of Ereignis.
Dugin describes it as an eschatological event: the decisive happening in which Being and beings mutually “appropriate” one another.
Ereignis literally means “appropriation.” (EN-OWNING could be the literal translation of Er-Eignen, TOEEIGENEN in Dutch)
It is the moment of reciprocal belonging between man and Being.
Man does not “know” Being, rather, Being lets man belong to its openness.
Heidegger’s thinking is therefore anti-humanist.
It is not man who creates and is cneter of the world, but Being that addresses man and lets him participate.
The human being dwells in ... he is not the master of Being but its inhabitant.
The Ereignis could marks the end of Western metaphysics: the possibility of letting Being speak again, without reducing it to subject or object.
---
5. Political Resonance: Liberalism and Communism as Forms of Nihilism
Dugin extends Heidegger’s analysis into the political domain.
Both liberalism and communism are, for him, expressions of the same metaphysical structure.
Each remains within the horizon of Seynsvergessenheit:
- Liberalism represents a passive or “idiotic” form of nihilism: man as consumer.
- Communism represents an “heroic” form: man as producer.
Both, however, remain trapped in categories of production, labour, subject, and object, categories that conceal Being itself.
In this way, they are two sides of the same modernity that has lost its spiritual ground.
---
6. The Geviert: The Fourfold and the “in-Between”
In the second part of the book, Dugin discusses Heidegger’s concept of the Geviert : the Fourfold of Sky, Earth, Gods, and Mortals.
This returns us to the daimonic space of the Greeks: a topology of resonance.
Why four? Because the triad (the Threefold: subject–object–synthesis) belongs to the typical Western metaphysics-thinking
The Geviert instead describes the relational structure of worldhood itself:
- Sky: grants light and openness (Lichtung, Offene).
- Earth: conceals and preserves.
- Gods: bring the holy and the possibility of transcendence: the trembling, Link with the world of DAIMONS (tussenruimte), GENTLE BLOWING, Teh ECHO, NON-UTILITARIAN
- Mortals: (Man are the Guardians) experience finitude (Being- Towards - Death) and speak Being in language and poetry. Lice on the EDG of SEYN, don't have ESSENCE, WESEN, Thrown (CASTED)
At the centre of the Geviert lies Ereignis: the event in which these four directions meet and resonate.
Seyn (sometimes written with a strikethrough, i.e. crossed by the CROSS of the GEVIERT, see page 216) stands at the middle, as the in-between that connects without being a thing itself (p. 217).
The Geviert is not a model but a description of how the world is experienced when man learns again to dwell in Being rather than to master it.
Seyn does not exist = IS NOT = t happens. (GESCHICHTE, Geschieden also in Dutch), NO-THING.
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7. Language and Poetic Thinking
A particularly strong aspect of Dugin’s book is his focus on language.
He shows that for Heidegger, language is not a means of communication but the site where Being speaks.
Man does not possess language: language possesses man.
Therefore, poetry is not aesthetic expression but an event of openness= the moment when Being gathers itself in words.
==> Dugin includes a Greek glossary with phonetic explanations, which provides a rare philological depth often missing in Heidegger commentary and Secondary Literature.
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8. From Geviert to Gestell
In the second PART, Dugin traces the transition from the Geviert (he original fourfold) to Gestell, the technical enframing of the modern world.
The world ceases to appear as a happening of aletheia (unconcealment) and becomes a structure of production and calculation: everything is usable, measurable, replaceable.
On p. 263, Dugin summarises this as follows:
- Top: Nothingness / Absent God / Values, Experiences, Interests — the empty transcendental of modernity.
- Middle: Gestell = the enframing order
- Bottom: the “thing as product,” divided into:
- homo economicus (producer/consumer)
- natural resources (earth, space).
Being becomes entirely instrumentalized: things exist only as products, humans as users, and the earth as raw material.
The gods are gone (you can read it as: the real LOGOS is gone), nothingness remains the only transcendence.
---
9. Transition to the Simulacrum
Dugin then identifies another phase of Western history: the postmodern age.
Heidegger did not witness it, but according to Dugin he would have recognized it as the final metamorphosis of Gestell or the LAST MEN (Nietzsche)
The Simulacrum (after Jean Baudrillard) is the condition in which the world no longer produces but reproduces — where representations detach from all reality.
Thinking is replaced with DATA
Experience is replaced with SIMULATION
The Sky of the Geviert , symbol of openness and transcendence, is replaced by the digital screen. The heaven becomes a marketing interface. with a SCREEN: no FEAR, no ANGST, No DESIRE: but AMUSEMENT, COMFORT, 'we have invented happiness'.
While Gestell framed the world as resource, the Simulacrum renders it as image, copy, interface. Simulacrum= copy of a copy (copywithout a original, Symbols become Reality)
Reality disappears behind screens and data models: man is wandering through " ... simulated winking objects; staring at a screen, ..."
As Dugin writes:
“Instead of the Sky, there gapes a giant advertising billboard.” (p. 264)
"Thing live only for a moment ... the shorter is hte life of a thing-simulacrum, the more intesne it is ... this is the logic of fashion (Gestell)..." (P. 268)
Heidegger had already described the Gestell-man as homo technicus, but Dugin goes further: in the Simulacrum, man even loses his rationality.
“The Last Man is not animal, nor human, but a chimaera of a man-beast.” (p. 265)
The human becomes a hybrid, half biological, half machinic.
Not Dasein, but an interface: a user of data, an avatar within networks, a being without depth, only function.
Dugin calls him an “Ubermensch-technician, clicking and staring at the user-friendly interface.”
Communication becomes interactive behaviour rather than dialogue.
Man moves between screens, “communicating via Skype while staring at countless links.”
The postmodern human is no longer a thinker but the residual byproduct of the technical process itself.
---
10. The Disappearance of Earth and the Emergence of Utopia
On p. 266, Dugin describes how this process also erases Earth as existential domain.
- In the Geviert, Earth was the element of concealment and preservation.
- In the Simulacrum, all locality and distance vanish: The Earth disappears with the ease of communications, all places become the same, and utopia is realized.
Utopia is there where is “no-place.”
The Earth as concrete dwelling gives way to a global network of identical spaces: McDonald’s, the internet, global brands.
Everything becomes flat, transparent, interchangeable.
Distance is no longer spatial but digital.
The Earth no longer moves, it scrolls.
---
11. The Return (and Parody) of God as an IMAGE
At this stage, even God becomes an image among images.
Dugin cites Osama Bin Laden as an example (p. 266–267): a figure both omnipresent and absent , constantly “on television” yet nowhere in reality.
The sacred is not gone but simulated.
For Dugin, this aligns Heidegger with Baudrillard:
in postmodernity, there is no reality behind symbols, the symbols themselves are reality.
“Things are turning into simulacra (as per Jean Baudrillard): "They become derivative of fashions, which, as in its ultimate embodiment, Gestell captures and covers us fully.” (p. 267)
The world thus moves through:
1. Openness of Being (Geviert)
2. Instrumentalization of Being (Gestell)
3. Evaporation of Being (Simulacrum), a "Grinning Nothingness" (p. 270)
Hence Dugin concludes ironically:
“Thank God Heidegger did not live long enough to see this.”
---
12. Philosophical Meaning
The Failure of the 20th-Century Ereignis
Dugin states explicitly that the 20th century "Ereignis did not occur."(P.275)
The “decision” to choose the other beginning was never taken.
The great ideological projects , liberalism, communism, fascism, all remained within Machenschaft, the logic of technical domination and control.
Even the Third Reich, which conceived of itself as an Umkehr (reversal) of modernity, remained, according to Dugin, trapped within Gestell.
Heidegger himself recognized this: National Socialism was unable to make the ontological turn.
It remained a politics operating inside nihilism.
“National Socialism was too infected with Machenschaft… its inability to leave Gestell.”
Thus the Ereignis became a non-event, the transition remained a potentiality without actualization.
Actuality: Heidegger today
Heidegger is not recognized as a great thinker, they did't understand his thought. "His philosophy is pulled apart into fragments, inspired hundreds of philosophers, psychologists, artists, ... But practically no one fully and wholly grasped Heideggers's thought or followed the path leading to another Beginning. "(p.277)
His answer is not utopian but apocalyptic (= which also means the New)
The world of the Simulacrum is not a new stage of freedom but the full completion of Seynsvergessenheit: BEYING is not merely forgotten but replaced by its representation.
The Last Man no longer lives in Nothingness, but in a perfect illusion where even Nothingness cannot be felt.
These final pages of PART 2 form Dugin’s answer to the question: what comes after modernity, after Gestell?
It can help us to understand Dugin's Fourth Political Theory: "Logos will not help us, we must return to Chaos" (cf. Political Platonism, p. 113). Chaos must be understood as a return to Dasein (the Diamonic world in the interstices /spaces where Gods are blowing /whispering and which enables us to leave the logocentric world to make place for a new philosophy of "Truth of Being".
---
13. Evaluation
Dugin’s study stands out for its erudition and clear organization of Heidegger’s complex ideas.
By starting from the Seynsgeschichte rather than Dasein, it provides a coherent framework for understanding Heidegger’s later thought.
The tone remains metaphysical and at times quasi-religious; the discussions of Geviert and Ereignis carry a sacral, poetic character rather than critical distance.
Still, the book effectively contextualizes Heidegger’s project: from Greek physis and logos to modern subjectivity and the loss of man’s relation to Being.
Dugin presents the Seynsgeschichte as a history of forgetting, while Ereignis and Geviert mark the possibility of another beginning: thinking beyond subject and object, where man becomes a dweller rather than a master of Being.
Throughout, Dugin reads Heidegger as a thinker of the end of metaphysics: not in a destructive sense, but as a call for another beginning: a thinking that no longer rules but dwells, that no longer produces but listens.
IT is well written with references to the sources and the inclusion of a Greek word list with phonetic transcription at the end of the book which is rare in Heidegger second literature and clarifies much of the conceptual background.
Dugin’s focus lies on Heidegger’s middle and later period, especially the development of the history of Seyn.
This makes the book useful for understanding the overall structure and impact of Heidegger’s thought.
Rather than starting from Dasein (Being and Time) as in most secondary literature, Dugin focuses on the Seynsgeschichte: the history of Being/SEIN (also written by Heidegger as SEYN, and in English often translated as BEYNG).
Dasein itself is discussed only in the final part of the book which I didn't read yet.
Dugin’s perspective is interesting: as a Russian philosopher and a non-native reader of German, he offers an external view on Heidegger’s language and terminology. That is the added value of this book!
---
1. The Seynsgeschichte: The History of Being
The book opens with a thorough exposition of Heidegger’s concept of Seynsgeschichte = history of Being
Dugin explains that for Heidegger, Being cannot be understood as an entity or an abstract notion, but rather as a process of disclosure and concealment.
The Wesen des Seins (the essence of Being) is not a completed or static fact, not a What is?, but an Event (Ereignis): Being “west” ( from the artificial verb wesen, linked to essence).
WESEN: past passive participle of the verb SEIN (to be) which is in German also a NOUN 'WESEN' (or ESSENCE)
==> By making it a verb it expresses a process of 'come into ESSENCE', (link with EVENT, Ereignis), (P. 86)
===> As such we make a difference between Seiendheit ('being of beings' or ESSENCE = What is?) and SEYN (= coming into essence)
Wesen is the past participle of the verb sein (to be), which in German is also a noun meaning “essence.” By turning it into a verb, Heidegger expresses a process of “dwelling in the openness of Being”= unfolding of disclosure that continually happens. In this sense, Wesen is an event-concept: it expresses the happening/EVENT through which beings appear.
Heidegger traces this to the original meaning of Greek words.
==> The inclusion of a Greek word list with phonetic transcription at the end of the book which is rare in Heidegger second literature is valuable and clarifies much of the conceptual background.
Dugin’s focus lies on Heidegger’s middle and later period, especially the development of the history of Seyn.
This makes the book useful for understanding the overall structure and impact of Heidegger’s thought.
---
2. The History of Metaphysics and the Forgetting of Being
The first part of Dugin’s analysis concerns Heidegger’s reconstruction of Western metaphysics: from its Greek beginnings to the modern age of the subject (with Descartes as the culmination of Seynsvergessenheit).
According to Heidegger, a decisive shift occurred with Plato: a subtle but fundamental deviation.
Originally, idea meant “the visible,” “what is seen” (idea), appearance.
With Plato, however, idea comes to signify essence (ousia) or representation, and the original link between Being and appearance is lost. This marks the beginning of Seynsvergessenheit, the forgetting of Being, and the desertification of thought.
Being becomes a being (a noun, a “What is”), a Seiendheit, i.e. a “fictitious transcendence” (p. 59).
From that moment on, thought no longer lets Being appear, but instead attempts to represent, dominate, or produce it. Thinking becomes reflexive, locked up within the horizon of the human subject.
Daimon
==> The mediating space (Metaxy) between man and the divine openness , what the Greeks called daimonic, or the orginal logos got lost as from Plato and is replaced in Christianity by a transcendent God, and is radicalised with Descartes by the subject which is a radicalisation of this split.
The human being turns inward, enclosing himself within a reflective sphere, replacing openness to Being with the certainty of self-consciousness.
The original metaxy (the “in-between-space” of openness and resonance) gives way to the closed subject–object structure.
Man becomes a spectator of the world — and ultimately of himself.
He can think beings or representations, but not Seyn itself.
The object is vorgesetzt (casted/thrown before us): thought becomes a Vor-stellung (representation).
Heidegger calls this process Vorsetzende Durchsetzung = the premeditated enforcement of the will to produce, represent, and master Being.
Dugin’s treatment of this is among the most precise sections of the book: the first 120 pages are really the highlight.
---
3. From Plato to Nietzsche: The Completion of Metaphysics
Dugin shows how Heidegger understands the entire history of Western metaphysics as a movement of increasing Vergessenheit : a progressive loss of contact with Being itself.
With Hegel, a certain rupture occurs, yet thinking remains logical (the concept/Begriff) rather than ontological.
In Nietzsche, this process reaches its completion. With Nietzsche Being is no longer an idea, it is a value + Will to POWER , an abitrary decision on the part of the subject. (p. 124)
Although Nietzsche declares the “death of God” and exposes the structure of Western values, he still remains within the metaphysical horizon. His ideas of eternal recurrence and will to power are attempts to fill in the void left by the disappearance of the highest Being, but they remain instrumental: expressions of the will to Power..
The modern human becomes a producer and consumer of his own worldview : a spectator treating himself as the object of his own technology. The original kinship between man and Being is thus lost.
---
4. Ereignis: The Eschatological Event
The turning point in Heidegger’s thought and in Dugin’s reading is the concept of Ereignis.
Dugin describes it as an eschatological event: the decisive happening in which Being and beings mutually “appropriate” one another.
Ereignis literally means “appropriation.” (EN-OWNING could be the literal translation of Er-Eignen, TOEEIGENEN in Dutch)
It is the moment of reciprocal belonging between man and Being.
Man does not “know” Being, rather, Being lets man belong to its openness.
Heidegger’s thinking is therefore anti-humanist.
It is not man who creates and is cneter of the world, but Being that addresses man and lets him participate.
The human being dwells in ... he is not the master of Being but its inhabitant.
The Ereignis could marks the end of Western metaphysics: the possibility of letting Being speak again, without reducing it to subject or object.
---
5. Political Resonance: Liberalism and Communism as Forms of Nihilism
Dugin extends Heidegger’s analysis into the political domain.
Both liberalism and communism are, for him, expressions of the same metaphysical structure.
Each remains within the horizon of Seynsvergessenheit:
- Liberalism represents a passive or “idiotic” form of nihilism: man as consumer.
- Communism represents an “heroic” form: man as producer.
Both, however, remain trapped in categories of production, labour, subject, and object, categories that conceal Being itself.
In this way, they are two sides of the same modernity that has lost its spiritual ground.
---
6. The Geviert: The Fourfold and the “in-Between”
In the second part of the book, Dugin discusses Heidegger’s concept of the Geviert : the Fourfold of Sky, Earth, Gods, and Mortals.
This returns us to the daimonic space of the Greeks: a topology of resonance.
Why four? Because the triad (the Threefold: subject–object–synthesis) belongs to the typical Western metaphysics-thinking
The Geviert instead describes the relational structure of worldhood itself:
- Sky: grants light and openness (Lichtung, Offene).
- Earth: conceals and preserves.
- Gods: bring the holy and the possibility of transcendence: the trembling, Link with the world of DAIMONS (tussenruimte), GENTLE BLOWING, Teh ECHO, NON-UTILITARIAN
- Mortals: (Man are the Guardians) experience finitude (Being- Towards - Death) and speak Being in language and poetry. Lice on the EDG of SEYN, don't have ESSENCE, WESEN, Thrown (CASTED)
At the centre of the Geviert lies Ereignis: the event in which these four directions meet and resonate.
Seyn (sometimes written with a strikethrough, i.e. crossed by the CROSS of the GEVIERT, see page 216) stands at the middle, as the in-between that connects without being a thing itself (p. 217).
The Geviert is not a model but a description of how the world is experienced when man learns again to dwell in Being rather than to master it.
Seyn does not exist = IS NOT = t happens. (GESCHICHTE, Geschieden also in Dutch), NO-THING.
---
7. Language and Poetic Thinking
A particularly strong aspect of Dugin’s book is his focus on language.
He shows that for Heidegger, language is not a means of communication but the site where Being speaks.
Man does not possess language: language possesses man.
Therefore, poetry is not aesthetic expression but an event of openness= the moment when Being gathers itself in words.
==> Dugin includes a Greek glossary with phonetic explanations, which provides a rare philological depth often missing in Heidegger commentary and Secondary Literature.
---
8. From Geviert to Gestell
In the second PART, Dugin traces the transition from the Geviert (he original fourfold) to Gestell, the technical enframing of the modern world.
The world ceases to appear as a happening of aletheia (unconcealment) and becomes a structure of production and calculation: everything is usable, measurable, replaceable.
On p. 263, Dugin summarises this as follows:
- Top: Nothingness / Absent God / Values, Experiences, Interests — the empty transcendental of modernity.
- Middle: Gestell = the enframing order
- Bottom: the “thing as product,” divided into:
- homo economicus (producer/consumer)
- natural resources (earth, space).
Being becomes entirely instrumentalized: things exist only as products, humans as users, and the earth as raw material.
The gods are gone (you can read it as: the real LOGOS is gone), nothingness remains the only transcendence.
---
9. Transition to the Simulacrum
Dugin then identifies another phase of Western history: the postmodern age.
Heidegger did not witness it, but according to Dugin he would have recognized it as the final metamorphosis of Gestell or the LAST MEN (Nietzsche)
The Simulacrum (after Jean Baudrillard) is the condition in which the world no longer produces but reproduces — where representations detach from all reality.
Thinking is replaced with DATA
Experience is replaced with SIMULATION
The Sky of the Geviert , symbol of openness and transcendence, is replaced by the digital screen. The heaven becomes a marketing interface. with a SCREEN: no FEAR, no ANGST, No DESIRE: but AMUSEMENT, COMFORT, 'we have invented happiness'.
While Gestell framed the world as resource, the Simulacrum renders it as image, copy, interface. Simulacrum= copy of a copy (copywithout a original, Symbols become Reality)
Reality disappears behind screens and data models: man is wandering through " ... simulated winking objects; staring at a screen, ..."
As Dugin writes:
“Instead of the Sky, there gapes a giant advertising billboard.” (p. 264)
"Thing live only for a moment ... the shorter is hte life of a thing-simulacrum, the more intesne it is ... this is the logic of fashion (Gestell)..." (P. 268)
Heidegger had already described the Gestell-man as homo technicus, but Dugin goes further: in the Simulacrum, man even loses his rationality.
“The Last Man is not animal, nor human, but a chimaera of a man-beast.” (p. 265)
The human becomes a hybrid, half biological, half machinic.
Not Dasein, but an interface: a user of data, an avatar within networks, a being without depth, only function.
Dugin calls him an “Ubermensch-technician, clicking and staring at the user-friendly interface.”
Communication becomes interactive behaviour rather than dialogue.
Man moves between screens, “communicating via Skype while staring at countless links.”
The postmodern human is no longer a thinker but the residual byproduct of the technical process itself.
---
10. The Disappearance of Earth and the Emergence of Utopia
On p. 266, Dugin describes how this process also erases Earth as existential domain.
- In the Geviert, Earth was the element of concealment and preservation.
- In the Simulacrum, all locality and distance vanish: The Earth disappears with the ease of communications, all places become the same, and utopia is realized.
Utopia is there where is “no-place.”
The Earth as concrete dwelling gives way to a global network of identical spaces: McDonald’s, the internet, global brands.
Everything becomes flat, transparent, interchangeable.
Distance is no longer spatial but digital.
The Earth no longer moves, it scrolls.
---
11. The Return (and Parody) of God as an IMAGE
At this stage, even God becomes an image among images.
Dugin cites Osama Bin Laden as an example (p. 266–267): a figure both omnipresent and absent , constantly “on television” yet nowhere in reality.
The sacred is not gone but simulated.
For Dugin, this aligns Heidegger with Baudrillard:
in postmodernity, there is no reality behind symbols, the symbols themselves are reality.
“Things are turning into simulacra (as per Jean Baudrillard): "They become derivative of fashions, which, as in its ultimate embodiment, Gestell captures and covers us fully.” (p. 267)
The world thus moves through:
1. Openness of Being (Geviert)
2. Instrumentalization of Being (Gestell)
3. Evaporation of Being (Simulacrum), a "Grinning Nothingness" (p. 270)
Hence Dugin concludes ironically:
“Thank God Heidegger did not live long enough to see this.”
---
12. Philosophical Meaning
The Failure of the 20th-Century Ereignis
Dugin states explicitly that the 20th century "Ereignis did not occur."(P.275)
The “decision” to choose the other beginning was never taken.
The great ideological projects , liberalism, communism, fascism, all remained within Machenschaft, the logic of technical domination and control.
Even the Third Reich, which conceived of itself as an Umkehr (reversal) of modernity, remained, according to Dugin, trapped within Gestell.
Heidegger himself recognized this: National Socialism was unable to make the ontological turn.
It remained a politics operating inside nihilism.
“National Socialism was too infected with Machenschaft… its inability to leave Gestell.”
Thus the Ereignis became a non-event, the transition remained a potentiality without actualization.
Actuality: Heidegger today
Heidegger is not recognized as a great thinker, they did't understand his thought. "His philosophy is pulled apart into fragments, inspired hundreds of philosophers, psychologists, artists, ... But practically no one fully and wholly grasped Heideggers's thought or followed the path leading to another Beginning. "(p.277)
His answer is not utopian but apocalyptic (= which also means the New)
The world of the Simulacrum is not a new stage of freedom but the full completion of Seynsvergessenheit: BEYING is not merely forgotten but replaced by its representation.
The Last Man no longer lives in Nothingness, but in a perfect illusion where even Nothingness cannot be felt.
These final pages of PART 2 form Dugin’s answer to the question: what comes after modernity, after Gestell?
It can help us to understand Dugin's Fourth Political Theory: "Logos will not help us, we must return to Chaos" (cf. Political Platonism, p. 113). Chaos must be understood as a return to Dasein (the Diamonic world in the interstices /spaces where Gods are blowing /whispering and which enables us to leave the logocentric world to make place for a new philosophy of "Truth of Being".
---
13. Evaluation
Dugin’s study stands out for its erudition and clear organization of Heidegger’s complex ideas.
By starting from the Seynsgeschichte rather than Dasein, it provides a coherent framework for understanding Heidegger’s later thought.
The tone remains metaphysical and at times quasi-religious; the discussions of Geviert and Ereignis carry a sacral, poetic character rather than critical distance.
Still, the book effectively contextualizes Heidegger’s project: from Greek physis and logos to modern subjectivity and the loss of man’s relation to Being.
Dugin presents the Seynsgeschichte as a history of forgetting, while Ereignis and Geviert mark the possibility of another beginning: thinking beyond subject and object, where man becomes a dweller rather than a master of Being.
Throughout, Dugin reads Heidegger as a thinker of the end of metaphysics: not in a destructive sense, but as a call for another beginning: a thinking that no longer rules but dwells, that no longer produces but listens.
IT is well written with references to the sources and the inclusion of a Greek word list with phonetic transcription at the end of the book which is rare in Heidegger second literature and clarifies much of the conceptual background.
Dugin’s focus lies on Heidegger’s middle and later period, especially the development of the history of Seyn.
This makes the book useful for understanding the overall structure and impact of Heidegger’s thought.
December 17, 2024
Alexander Dugin’s Martin Heidegger: The Philosophy of Another Beginning is an ambitious and provocative work that attempts to synthesize the existential and ontological inquiries of Martin Heidegger with Dugin’s own political and philosophical project. Published originally in Russian and subsequently translated into English, the book reflects Dugin’s deep engagement with Heidegger’s thought, particularly the later works, while framing it within a geopolitical and metapolitical context that is characteristic of Dugin’s broader intellectual project.
Dugin’s interpretation of Heidegger hinges on the concept of Ereignis (the “Event”) and what Heidegger calls the “other beginning” (der andere Anfang), an epochal turning in philosophical thought that Heidegger believed was necessary to overcome the metaphysical trajectory initiated by Plato. For Heidegger, the history of Western metaphysics has culminated in a state of technological nihilism—an “enframing” (Gestell) of Being itself. Dugin amplifies and reframes this Heideggerian diagnosis, aligning it with his own critiques of modernity, liberalism, and globalism.
The book is divided into several thematic sections, exploring Heidegger’s understanding of Being, time, and truth, before turning to his reflections on technology and the trajectory of Western history. Dugin situates Heidegger’s philosophy as central to the need for a “civilizational alternative” to what he describes as the homogenizing forces of modern global liberalism. This reading of Heidegger is unapologetically political, and Dugin does not shy away from drawing radical implications from Heidegger’s critique of modernity.
In particular, Dugin emphasizes Heidegger’s notion of the “forgetfulness of Being” (Seinsvergessenheit), arguing that contemporary Western civilization has become entirely estranged from authentic Being. For Dugin, this alienation is not merely a philosophical error but an existential and political crisis that requires a revolutionary “return” to Being. This “return” is envisioned as an alternative, multipolar world order rooted in cultural and ontological pluralism. In doing so, Dugin transforms Heidegger’s ontology into a philosophical underpinning for his controversial Fourth Political Theory, a project that explicitly rejects liberal democracy, Marxism, and fascism as inadequate frameworks for addressing the modern condition.
One of the strengths of Dugin’s work is its careful and, at times, incisive reading of Heidegger’s most challenging concepts. While Heidegger remains an often impenetrable figure, particularly in his later writings, Dugin demonstrates a sophisticated grasp of Heideggerian language and thought, particularly regarding Ereignis and the need for a new “beginning” in philosophical history. Dugin’s fluency in Heidegger’s texts allows him to move deftly between dense philosophical exposition and broader political reflections.
However, this strength is also where Dugin’s work becomes most controversial. The book’s attempt to draw Heidegger’s ideas into the orbit of Dugin’s geopolitical vision risks reducing Heidegger’s thought to a political instrument. Heidegger himself was wary of such appropriations, particularly given his fraught political entanglements during the Nazi era. Dugin’s Heidegger thus walks a fine line between a rigorous philosophical engagement and a politicized interpretation that pushes Heidegger’s ontology in directions that Heidegger himself may not have endorsed.
Critics of Dugin will also take issue with the book’s ideological undertones. Dugin’s anti-liberal and anti-modern rhetoric, combined with his vision for a multipolar world order, has drawn accusations of extremism. While Dugin’s use of Heidegger is intellectually provocative, it raises ethical and interpretive questions about the appropriation of philosophical texts for ideological ends. To what extent does Dugin remain faithful to Heidegger’s philosophical project, and to what extent does he co-opt it to serve his own political agenda?
Moreover, the book occasionally suffers from a lack of clarity regarding its intended audience. While the philosophical sections demand a strong familiarity with Heidegger’s writings, the broader political arguments seem geared toward readers sympathetic to Dugin’s geopolitical outlook. This creates a tension in the text, as it oscillates between technical philosophical analysis and rhetorical pronouncements on the state of the modern world.
In conclusion, Martin Heidegger: The Philosophy of Another Beginning is a significant and provocative contribution to both Heidegger studies and contemporary political thought. Dugin’s interpretation of Heidegger is bold and original, albeit highly contentious. Readers interested in Heidegger’s philosophy will find Dugin’s treatment both challenging and illuminating, though they must also be wary of the ideological motivations that underpin the text. For scholars of philosophy, politics, and intellectual history, Dugin’s work serves as a thought-provoking—if controversial—engagement with one of the 20th century’s most important and enigmatic thinkers. Whether one agrees with Dugin’s conclusions or not, the book undeniably underscores the continuing relevance of Heidegger’s thought in confronting the crises of modernity.
GPT
Dugin’s interpretation of Heidegger hinges on the concept of Ereignis (the “Event”) and what Heidegger calls the “other beginning” (der andere Anfang), an epochal turning in philosophical thought that Heidegger believed was necessary to overcome the metaphysical trajectory initiated by Plato. For Heidegger, the history of Western metaphysics has culminated in a state of technological nihilism—an “enframing” (Gestell) of Being itself. Dugin amplifies and reframes this Heideggerian diagnosis, aligning it with his own critiques of modernity, liberalism, and globalism.
The book is divided into several thematic sections, exploring Heidegger’s understanding of Being, time, and truth, before turning to his reflections on technology and the trajectory of Western history. Dugin situates Heidegger’s philosophy as central to the need for a “civilizational alternative” to what he describes as the homogenizing forces of modern global liberalism. This reading of Heidegger is unapologetically political, and Dugin does not shy away from drawing radical implications from Heidegger’s critique of modernity.
In particular, Dugin emphasizes Heidegger’s notion of the “forgetfulness of Being” (Seinsvergessenheit), arguing that contemporary Western civilization has become entirely estranged from authentic Being. For Dugin, this alienation is not merely a philosophical error but an existential and political crisis that requires a revolutionary “return” to Being. This “return” is envisioned as an alternative, multipolar world order rooted in cultural and ontological pluralism. In doing so, Dugin transforms Heidegger’s ontology into a philosophical underpinning for his controversial Fourth Political Theory, a project that explicitly rejects liberal democracy, Marxism, and fascism as inadequate frameworks for addressing the modern condition.
One of the strengths of Dugin’s work is its careful and, at times, incisive reading of Heidegger’s most challenging concepts. While Heidegger remains an often impenetrable figure, particularly in his later writings, Dugin demonstrates a sophisticated grasp of Heideggerian language and thought, particularly regarding Ereignis and the need for a new “beginning” in philosophical history. Dugin’s fluency in Heidegger’s texts allows him to move deftly between dense philosophical exposition and broader political reflections.
However, this strength is also where Dugin’s work becomes most controversial. The book’s attempt to draw Heidegger’s ideas into the orbit of Dugin’s geopolitical vision risks reducing Heidegger’s thought to a political instrument. Heidegger himself was wary of such appropriations, particularly given his fraught political entanglements during the Nazi era. Dugin’s Heidegger thus walks a fine line between a rigorous philosophical engagement and a politicized interpretation that pushes Heidegger’s ontology in directions that Heidegger himself may not have endorsed.
Critics of Dugin will also take issue with the book’s ideological undertones. Dugin’s anti-liberal and anti-modern rhetoric, combined with his vision for a multipolar world order, has drawn accusations of extremism. While Dugin’s use of Heidegger is intellectually provocative, it raises ethical and interpretive questions about the appropriation of philosophical texts for ideological ends. To what extent does Dugin remain faithful to Heidegger’s philosophical project, and to what extent does he co-opt it to serve his own political agenda?
Moreover, the book occasionally suffers from a lack of clarity regarding its intended audience. While the philosophical sections demand a strong familiarity with Heidegger’s writings, the broader political arguments seem geared toward readers sympathetic to Dugin’s geopolitical outlook. This creates a tension in the text, as it oscillates between technical philosophical analysis and rhetorical pronouncements on the state of the modern world.
In conclusion, Martin Heidegger: The Philosophy of Another Beginning is a significant and provocative contribution to both Heidegger studies and contemporary political thought. Dugin’s interpretation of Heidegger is bold and original, albeit highly contentious. Readers interested in Heidegger’s philosophy will find Dugin’s treatment both challenging and illuminating, though they must also be wary of the ideological motivations that underpin the text. For scholars of philosophy, politics, and intellectual history, Dugin’s work serves as a thought-provoking—if controversial—engagement with one of the 20th century’s most important and enigmatic thinkers. Whether one agrees with Dugin’s conclusions or not, the book undeniably underscores the continuing relevance of Heidegger’s thought in confronting the crises of modernity.
GPT
October 15, 2022
Despite the author's political leanings, this was a very enjoyable and readable work about Heidegger. After reading it, I was inspired to go back and re-read Heidegger's works, including Being and Time. For those who are already familiar with Heidegger, this book is a treat that should not be missed.
May 17, 2022
Грамотное и чрезвычайно художественное (ну а как иначе?) изложение основных интуиций философии Мартина Хайдеггера. Подходит для изучения духа, в котором размышляет Хайдеггер. В глаза бросается нелепая попытка "отмыть" мыслителя от НС идеи.
November 3, 2022
It elucidates the current world context and Dugin's thought so clearly. An incredible book in which you can see the tragic development of history and how much thought itself shapes it.
For me it's a must read.
For me it's a must read.
July 25, 2023
excellent introduction and/or review of Heidegger's work
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