What do you think?
Rate this book
Basic Concepts of Aristotelian Philosophy
Volume 18 of Martin Heidegger's collected works presents his important 1924 Marburg lectures which anticipate much of the revolutionary thinking that he subsequently articulated in Being and Time. Here are the seeds of the ideas that would become Heidegger's unique phenomenology. Heidegger interprets Aristotle's Rhetoric and looks closely at the Greek notion of pathos. These lectures offer special insight into the development of his concepts of care and concern, being-at-hand, being-in-the-world, and attunement, which were later elaborated in Being and Time. Available in English for the first time, they make a significant contribution to ancient philosophy, Aristotle studies, Continental philosophy, and phenomenology.
- GenresPhilosophyHistoryGermany
296 pages, Hardcover
Published July 6, 2009
35 people are currently reading
206 people want to read
About the author
Martin Heidegger
512 books3,191 followersMartin 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).
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews
May 14, 2011
This is the place to go if you want to really understand Heidegger. Everything Heidegger thought was thoroughly rooted in his early project to interpret ancient Greek philosophy in its nativity. You don't see that core relationship between "Being and Time" and Aristotle fleshed out in any greater detail than in these lectures. Not only do you understand Heidegger genuinely in these pages, but you understand the Greeks genuinely as well thanks to Heidegger's prodigious early scholarship. Read before or alongside "Being and Time". Essential.
April 22, 2016
Another excellent work by our friend Martin. He takes many of the themes surrounding Dasein and draws them out of Aristotle's philosophy. When I first tried reading this book I thought "basic" meant "introduction" - and so was baffled. After becoming much more familiar with Aristotle and Heidegger, his project became much clearer: and it is profound. He establishing the 'ground', the 'basis' of Aristotle's philosophy on the notion of everydaness, through arguing that Aristotle himself conceived of a view of man which is very close to the notion of Dasein.In other words, he brings Dasein from out Aristotle's philosophy. It's difficult to explain, but if you have read, or are at least familiar with Being and Time, the intention of this work will become clear very quickly. It will illuminate your view of Heidegger's project in the mid-twenties. It is a very rich lecture course.
Oh yeah, it helped me learn some Greek along the way. The Greek terms are not translated, so keep a Greek alphabet and translator around you at all times (if you are not familiar with Ancient Greek). If you have the money for it, I would suggest getting an ancient Greek dictionary - or get one from your library. Translating the Greek is annoying at first, but in doing so, it kind of forces you to pay attention to the movements and arguments of the text. Moreover, you begin to understand why the translators/Heidegger do not translate the Greek. Try to grasp the word in its original sense. In any case, most of the Greek terms he introduces are very straightforward and can be grasped by anyone who is familiar with Aristotle's main concepts and the Greek alphabet. Aristotle's passages which are cited in Greek can easily be found if you have a copies of Aristotle on hand.
Anyway, a very good text. I would suggest reading it with Being and Time. This book will be impossible without, at the very least, a very general understanding of both Heidegger and Aristotle. Nevertheless, it is worth the effort - like much of Heidegger. Remember, for many thinkers this period is Heidegger's "peak". So it will be just as rich and insightful as BT, BPP, the Kantbuch and Kant-lecture.
Oh yeah, it helped me learn some Greek along the way. The Greek terms are not translated, so keep a Greek alphabet and translator around you at all times (if you are not familiar with Ancient Greek). If you have the money for it, I would suggest getting an ancient Greek dictionary - or get one from your library. Translating the Greek is annoying at first, but in doing so, it kind of forces you to pay attention to the movements and arguments of the text. Moreover, you begin to understand why the translators/Heidegger do not translate the Greek. Try to grasp the word in its original sense. In any case, most of the Greek terms he introduces are very straightforward and can be grasped by anyone who is familiar with Aristotle's main concepts and the Greek alphabet. Aristotle's passages which are cited in Greek can easily be found if you have a copies of Aristotle on hand.
Anyway, a very good text. I would suggest reading it with Being and Time. This book will be impossible without, at the very least, a very general understanding of both Heidegger and Aristotle. Nevertheless, it is worth the effort - like much of Heidegger. Remember, for many thinkers this period is Heidegger's "peak". So it will be just as rich and insightful as BT, BPP, the Kantbuch and Kant-lecture.
April 20, 2022
Here Heidegger reveals, in his desire to be viewed as the modern day equivalent of Aristotle, the never-ceasing convolutions of the Greek technical language, which established the ground of meaning for all future Western philosophical thought. Just as the intestine is endless and without a bottom, so Heidegger's philosophical writings reveal themselves to be multiple and rewarding on so many levels; his texts are delicious on a level only to be compared with the satanic Kierkegaard's "Either", the seducer's diary that serves as the roll-call for the litanies of Hell. There is so much more to Heidegger than the Nazi-inspired storm and stress of his voluminous and pain-inducing Being and Time, that I would wish you could devote some attention to Continental philosophers of his ilk someday when you have retired from teaching.
September 7, 2023
Heidegger's explicit purpose here is to present some basic Aristotelian concepts (life, movement, knowledge, truth, and so on) and to examine conceptuality itself. More fundamentally, Heidegger wants to show the ground out of which these basic concepts have arisen in Aristotle, as well as how they have arisen. In order to do this with Heidegger, “we must come to a better understanding of what Aristotle understands by being-there, the being of humans in the world; of how he experiences being-there, in what sense of being he addresses it, interprets it.”
Conceptuality points toward the being-there of human beings. As such, conceptuality is a concern of a definite being-possibility of the being-there of human beings. Concept formation is not an accidental or an arbitrary affair, but a basic possibility and a decisive event of being-there itself insofar as being-there has made a decision in favor of scientific research, questioning, and a resolve to speak radically about the world. Moreover, conceptuality is not a matter of intellectual acumen and technicalities, but rather shows that whoever has chosen science has accepted responsibility for the concept and directly confronts the subject matter. When preoccupations with definitions, technicalities, logical problems, and so on emerged and became central - as it did with medieval scholasticism, modernity, and the current academic scholar – the Aristotelian project regarding conceptuality was covered up. In other words, the preoccupation with logic and definitions is simply a symptom of decline.
The world in its being-there is not a fact, actuality, or a reality that we “objectively” take notice of. Rather, the world is there for the most part in the mode of the beneficial or the harmful, of that which uplifts or upsets us humans in being-there. The focus is not about modes of apprehending actuality according to definite points of view (including that of “objectivity”); but rather of being-in-the-world. Grasping and apprehending the world presuppose a being-in-the-world. That is, apprehending the world is a definite possibility of being in it; and only by being in the world can we apprehend it. With the subject/object distinction, one does not get at the facts of the matter; in fact the basic phenomenon of being-in-the-world does not come into view at all. To a modern scholar who fundamentally accepts this subject/object dogma, the concept formation is a free-floating activity happening in one's brain in the form of some mental process.
The being-in-the-world of the human being is determined in its ground through speaking/logos/λόγος. For the Greeks and for Aristotle, speaking is the basic function of "a bringing-a-matter-to-self-showing" in speaking about something. In speaking about something, we make it present, we bring it into the there, “as” this or that, in the character of “as”; and this is the primary function of λόγος. Consequently, thinking is not an appeal to a brain process, but the “making-present-to-itself” of the world. In order to understand what constitutes conceptuality according to Heidegger, we need to go back to the λόγος itself: “Insofar as λέγειν is the basic mode of being of human beings in the world, it makes possible something like the world’s being kept graspable, determinable in concepts. In λέγειν, we will come up against a basic phenomenon of being-there itself.“
Conceptuality points toward the being-there of human beings. As such, conceptuality is a concern of a definite being-possibility of the being-there of human beings. Concept formation is not an accidental or an arbitrary affair, but a basic possibility and a decisive event of being-there itself insofar as being-there has made a decision in favor of scientific research, questioning, and a resolve to speak radically about the world. Moreover, conceptuality is not a matter of intellectual acumen and technicalities, but rather shows that whoever has chosen science has accepted responsibility for the concept and directly confronts the subject matter. When preoccupations with definitions, technicalities, logical problems, and so on emerged and became central - as it did with medieval scholasticism, modernity, and the current academic scholar – the Aristotelian project regarding conceptuality was covered up. In other words, the preoccupation with logic and definitions is simply a symptom of decline.
The world in its being-there is not a fact, actuality, or a reality that we “objectively” take notice of. Rather, the world is there for the most part in the mode of the beneficial or the harmful, of that which uplifts or upsets us humans in being-there. The focus is not about modes of apprehending actuality according to definite points of view (including that of “objectivity”); but rather of being-in-the-world. Grasping and apprehending the world presuppose a being-in-the-world. That is, apprehending the world is a definite possibility of being in it; and only by being in the world can we apprehend it. With the subject/object distinction, one does not get at the facts of the matter; in fact the basic phenomenon of being-in-the-world does not come into view at all. To a modern scholar who fundamentally accepts this subject/object dogma, the concept formation is a free-floating activity happening in one's brain in the form of some mental process.
The being-in-the-world of the human being is determined in its ground through speaking/logos/λόγος. For the Greeks and for Aristotle, speaking is the basic function of "a bringing-a-matter-to-self-showing" in speaking about something. In speaking about something, we make it present, we bring it into the there, “as” this or that, in the character of “as”; and this is the primary function of λόγος. Consequently, thinking is not an appeal to a brain process, but the “making-present-to-itself” of the world. In order to understand what constitutes conceptuality according to Heidegger, we need to go back to the λόγος itself: “Insofar as λέγειν is the basic mode of being of human beings in the world, it makes possible something like the world’s being kept graspable, determinable in concepts. In λέγειν, we will come up against a basic phenomenon of being-there itself.“
January 30, 2025
Heidegger reads Aristotle as a proto-phenomenologist...
Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews