The Beginning of Western Philosophy: Interpretation of Anaximander and Parmenides

by Martin Heidegger, Richard Rojcewicz (Translator)

Volume 35 of Heidegger's Complete Works comprises a lecture course given at the University of Freiburg in 1932, five years after the publication of Being and Time. During this period, Heidegger was at the height of his creative powers, which are on full display in this clear and imaginative text. In it, Heidegger leads his students in a close reading of two of the earliest philosophical source documents, fragments by Greek thinkers Anaximander and Parmenides. Heidegger develops their common theme of Being and non-being and shows that the question of Being is indeed the origin of Western philosophy. His engagement with these Greek texts is as much of a return to beginnings as it is a potential reawakening of philosophical wonder and inquiry in the present.

Genres: Philosophy, History

223 pages, Kindle Edition

First published January 15, 2015

About the author

Martin Heidegger (1889-1976) was a German philosopher whose work is perhaps most readily associated with phenomenology and existentialism, although his thinking should be identified as part of such philosophical movements only with extreme care and qualification. His ideas have exerted a seminal influence on the development of contemporary European philosophy. They have also had an impact far beyond philosophy, for example in architectural theory (see e.g., Sharr 2007), literary criticism (see e.g., Ziarek 1989), theology (see e.g., Caputo 1993), psychotherapy (see e.g., Binswanger 1943/1964, Guignon 1993) and cognitive science (see e.g., Dreyfus 1992, 2008; Wheeler 2005; Kiverstein and Wheeler forthcoming).

Reviews

[Dan · Rating 5 out of 5]

Starting with “Contributions to Philosophy (Of the Event)”, Heidegger organized everything around the “first beginning” and “other beginning”; or the two Events who in fact are the Same. This book is about the “first beginning” or “the beginning of Western philosophy”.
Two short and incomplete statements attributed to Anaximander and the didactic poem attributed to Parmenides were grossly misinterpreted by the philosophical and metaphysical tradition. Heidegger wants to recover the original truth of Being as it started with Anaximander and Parmenides. Being essentially occurred and its truth was lost. We completely forgot about Being and only beings “are” to us. All this can be recovered by a fundamental questioning understood as a seeking out of Being; as the answers are somehow irrelevant. In questioning Being, we esteem and seek Being. We need to do all this because the essence of existence (and we humans are in fact existence) is synonymous with the understanding of Being, and because transcendence itself consists in such an understanding of Being.
I found it interesting that Anaximander, in those few words left to us, mentioned time as the horizon of Being. Parmenides' poem is about an encounter with the goddess Aletheia, three proposed methods/paths in finding the truth, and it centers around the axiom that “Being and understanding are the Same”. Heidegger's interpretation of Parmenides poem stands under Holderlin's words: “for present things are dear to humans”.

[ExtraGravy · Rating 1 out of 5]

There is a tiny minority of Anaximander content and a huge majority of Heidegger. At first, I thought it would be productive but I was quickly reminded that its Heidegger speaking and he always comes back to the same circles no matter where he may start.

"Thus let us ask it without circumlocution or sideward glances".. yes please, but never, this was just rhetorical flourish and nearly all the content seems sideways.

"There are other - rare - scholars who with a single question simplify the matter to its essentials and thereby bring about an essential advance." Heidegger is the opposite of the scholar descried. He describes just before this line. "there are scholars and scholarly trends and schools whose sole activity consists in propagating semblant questions and thereby complicating things to the point of unrecognizability and assuring the continuation of groundlessness of their scholarship."... LOL.

***avoid***

[Alexander · Rating 3 out of 5]

After the publication of his seminal and career-defining work Being and Time, Heidegger started to feel he did not properly define Being in the context a re-launching of Western Philosophy needed, and bashfully never properly finished the work with a second volume.

Being and Time is about Dasein’s being, but not properly Being as such. The Being of being. Starting with his lectures in the 1930s, Heidegger began to treat this subject. In this text, Heidegger goes back to the beginning, to the pre-Socratics, to discover the beginning of Metaphysics. He analyzes fragments from two of them, Anaximander and Parmenides, to both justify his ontological re-evaluation of Being and to hopefully launch a philosophical renaissance in Germany (you can see his hölderlin readings here).

The text is, of course, highly interesting, but, as it is essentially a compilation of notes from his lectures compiled long after his death, sort of rough. Ancient Greek was also a course in the curriculum, so the entire text presents ancient Greek words during Heidegger’s constant etymological discussions without any translation. The appendix contains more draft notes, that I can’t see being interesting to anyone except exclusively Heideggerian scholars, although its inclusion makes sense.

Worth reading for anyone interested in delving further into Heideggerian metaphysics, but far from his most engaging or contributory work. I really think you’d have to have a solid foundation of Greek to ‘stay in the loop’.

[Roberto · Rating 5 out of 5]

Leggere Heidegger è in sé un'esperienza. È un'arte creatrice che plasma il pensiero usando i frammenti di Anassimandro e Parmenide come materia. Il risultato finale è un'opera di Heidegger in ogni sua parte, capace di illuminare il pensiero del lettore coraggioso che saprà – come Parmenide – avviarsi lungo l'erto sentiero, all'interno di una lettura senza dubbio complessa.

In queste lezioni Heidegger non si limita perciò a commentare i due filosofi per renderli perspicui (guardate altrove se state cercando un sapere distillato), ma li farà tralucere attraverso di sé.

È una lettura che mi ha personalmente richiesto un'estrema concentrazione, ma che in cambio mi ha donato una nuova prospettiva sul mondo.

[Fabrizio Valenza · Rating 4 out of 5]

Assolutamente esemplare quanto a chiarezza espositiva, mi lascia qualche perplessità sull’interpretazione di Parmenide, che mi sembra molto “heideggeriana”, malgrado la sua precisazione nella quale sostiene il contrario.

[Aaron Schuschu · Rating 3 out of 5]

Basically, being is impermanent, but I’m not sure how much Heidegger really wanted to say it explicitly in these lectures on Parmenides and Anaximander.

[Lauren Henry]

seen on table in 02.04