Basic Concepts (Studies in Continental Thought) [Paperback]

Martin Heidegger (Author)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 0253212154 | ISBN-13: 978-0253212153 | Publication Date: July 22, 1998

Basic Concepts, one of the first texts to appear in English from the critical later period of Martin Heidegger's thought, strikes out in new directions. First published in German in 1981 as Grundbegriffe (volume 51 of Martin Heidegger's Collected Works), it is the text of a lecture course that Heidegger gave at Freiburg in the winter semester of 1941 during the phase of his thinking known as the "turning." In this translation, Heidegger shifted his attention from the problem of the meaning of being to the question of the truth of being. In this lucid translation by Gary E. Aylesworth, Basic Concepts provides a concise introduction to Heidegger's later thought.

Editorial Reviews

Review

"This translation is an excellent and accessible introduction to the later Heidegger. Published posthumously in 1981 as Grundbegriffe, this 1941 lecture series is an important marker in Heidegger's thinking and gives us access to his respelling out of the question of being and time. Here he sets forth eight guidewords that seem to be irresolvably contradictory assertions about being. The fact that being eludes modern reflection leads Heidegger to return to the beginnings of Western philosophical thought in search of the fateful decision about how being was to be thought—and by extension, how human being was to be defined. He asks, What if all previous answers to the questions of who we are were merely the repeated application of a [fatefully wrong] answer given long ago? While Heidegger spells out more fully his critique of humanist definitions of man in Letter on Humanism (1947), the present text shows us how his view there arises out of the quest for the meaning of being in the face of our modern forgetfulness of the ontological difference. In the second part of this work, Heidegger turns to two fragments from Anaximander, which, taken together in his interpretation, articulate at the very dawn of Western philosophy an initial saying of being and time together as timely emergence. Aylesworth's well—translated edition is essential for undergraduate libraries, recommended also for general readers, graduate students, faculty." —R. E. Palmer, MacMurray, Choice, June 1994

(R. E. Palmer, MacMurray Choice 1994)

"Heidegger's method is unmistakable in these lectures.... This is thinking that is alive, always green." —Review of Metaphysics

(Review of Metaphysics )

"This translation... enlarges our historical view of the probing advances in Heidegger's thought." —International Studies in Philosophy

(International Studies in Philosophy )

Language Notes

Text: English (translation)
Original Language: German --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 128 pages
• Publisher: Indiana University Press (July 22, 1998)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0253212154
• ISBN-13: 978-0253212153
• Product Dimensions: 8.2 x 5.4 x 0.4 inches
• Shipping Weight: 6.1 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #783,705 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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4 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Basic Heidegger, August 19, 2001

By 

eric zazie - See all my reviews

This review is from: Basic Concepts (Studies in Continental Thought) (Paperback)

As far as the later Heidegger goes, Basic Concepts is as good a place to start as any. The book is short, there is not a great deal of discussion of books you might not have read (like in the Parmenides book, which is roughly contemporaneous). Basic Concepts is post-Kehre Heidegger, although the turn seems to me to be an elaboration of what is already present in Being and Time as the silent voice of the inaudible call. There is also a shart primer on the difference between ontology and modern physics--Heidegger always understands that his real opponent is the "dogmatic scepticism" that Hegel identified as the strange modern mixture of mathematics and materialism. Basic Concepts is best read once you have a good grounding in basic Heidegger: perhaps the second half of the Kant book and the Basic Problems of Phenomenology, then Being and Time, although reading the beginning of Husserl's Logical Investigations before tackling Being and Time would be a good idea. After that the Essence of Truth, where the relation of the whole to being and beings is treated, and then Basic Concepts would make sense, and perhaps the treatment of Plato to get a sense for what Heidegger thought had replaced the incipient thinking (the essay on Anaximander is just too difficult). It seems that by this point Heidegger no longer really had any students, that he is speaking for a general audience that is curious but not philosophically-trained. This lecture course, by the way, took place in 1941. Nazi-party member 3,294,586 is not in open opposition to the regime, but he cannot be mistaken for a supporter, either. And when are they going to run out of Heidegger pictures to put on the jacket covers?

1 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A shortcut to Know Heidegger, July 10, 2001

By A Customer

This review is from: Basic Concepts (Studies in Continental Thought) (Paperback)

There is no easy way to read Heidegger because he is such a thinker and philosopher who has mediated the thoughts from the West and the East. To understand him, we should have the background of Phenomenology, Hellenistic philosophy, Christian thought, also Eastern mysterious thought. How can we handle those complicated ideas when reading this remarkable philosopher. Now it is! This book presents a very easy way to catch who he is, and what he thinks mainly. To know his basic concepts, to catch his mind.

3 of 14 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Typical Heideggerian Ontological Mellifluousness, August 14, 2001

By 

Earl Dennis (San Francisco, California United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Basic Concepts (Studies in Continental Thought) (Paperback)

Heidegger is sort of outdated but this short book on the concept of being with reference to the ancient Greek philosopher/astronomer Anaximander is beautifully written and cannot not help but inspire one to think, which is good because it saves Heidegger from the ash heap of his dismal antics against his illustrious peers and mentors who he dumped in favor of the unctious nazis.

Heidegger's unfortunate career choices aside, this book is well structured into 3 sections: an introduction, part I., and part II.

The introduction is an exhortation to the reader to shake off the cobwebs of the Idols of the Theatre and open our minds to simplicity, to Greekness, which pertains to his concluding thesis in part II. of the book, an interpretation of one of Anaximander's fragments which comments on ontology's centerpiece, being itself. Heidegger wants us to abandon ourselves and look inward to a sort of Platonic remembrance of what is most elemental, essential, and primary. In this way he believes we, the reader, might become prepared to find at least a glimpse of the incipient grounds of being itself, as it relates to humanity.

Part I. is essentially an examination of the concept of being, and the outline of this section is further subdivided into 3 divisions.

Part I., division I.: Here Heidegger makes the interesting distinction betweens actual beings and the state of being common to all actual beings. Everything that exists is a being of some kind or another, yet possesses being per se no more or less than one from the other. Therefore beings and being, Heidegger proposes, are distinct in this regard. He also delineates an interesting trope regarding the verb 'is,' in breathtaking Clintonian fashion, by examining it for content and showing us there really is none on the face of the matter. All particular beings may make equal use of the copula 'is,' rendering it no more than a link, an empty universal, the abstractest of all abstractions, and, being a generality, there finds its most efficacious application independent of its object. In this way, with 'is' as a marker for being, the concept of being itself becomes more and more tenuous, almost evaporating.

Part I., divivion II.: Since Part I., division I., has indicated 'is' as the linguistic device used to denote being, as being common to all beings and devoid of content, Heidegger seems to feel here that the apparent vacuousness of this verb conceals a surplus. Perhaps a surplus representing the sum of all beings, in that their commonality, their groundedness together in existence, is being itself. To me it seems an ever shifting tautology as to whether Heidegger's ontology has a specific content or not, the thought occuring perhaps, as more of a vacillation between everything and nothing at one and the same time, rather than some parlor trick contradiction as might appear at first glance. Here Heidegger becomes the metaphysician. Material essence, solidity, belongs to particular beings, not however, to being itself.

Part I., division III.: In this section Heidegger reiterates the anthropocentric necessity of at least some degree of idealism in terms of being's relation to living beings and humans in particular. This revalation may not help in trying to understand an already strained paradox, but it certainly wouldn't do to overlook this obvious caveat.

Part II. is the conclusion of the book, and here we are introduced briefly to the ancient Greek Anaximander and his thetic fragment which states, "...the source from which things come into existence is also the sink to which they return when their existence is finished, necessarily...and each is made right with respect to all others as determined by the unfolding of time..." Heidegger examines this fragment to the effect that since all particular beings constantly come from the source common to which they somehow go in the end, the being that all beings share in this regard is an infinite, permanence. Ergo and again, beings are temporal, being is not.

It all seems much ado about little, but as the title says, 'Basic Concepts' is the focus of attention here, in particular 'being' and what it may mean in reference to itself.