Heidegger and Aristotle: The Twofoldness of Being

Preface

preface This book offers a study of the central texts in which Heidegger presents his phenomenological reading of Aristotle’s philosophy. Heidegger’s readings span the corpus of Aristotle’s philosophy, with particular emphasis on the Physics, Metaphysics, Ethics, and Rhetoric. I claim in the book that Heidegger has a sustained thematic focus and insight that govern his overall reading of Aristotle—namely, that Aristotle, while attempting to remain faithful to the Parmenidean dictum regarding the oneness and unity of being, nevertheless thinks being as twofold. It is this philosophical discovery that permits him, within the framework of the Greek understanding of being, to account for the centricity of motion in the meaning of being, what I call Aristotle’s kinetic ontology. On the basis of a detailed reading of sections of the Physics and Metaphysics , I try to defend Heidegger’s controversial claim that metaphysics for Aristotle is as much physics as physics is metaphysics. This is accomplished in chapters two and three, devoted to his reading of Physics B1. These chapters show how Heidegger attempts to draw out the affinity of Aristotle’s treatment of phusis to the original Greek sense of phusis as a word for being in general. Given that Aristotle’s account of nature involves a treatment of motion and change, Heidegger’s reading shows, against many of the traditional accounts of Aristotle, that becoming and therefore privation belong to the very meaning of ousia, Aristotle’s word for being. In chapter four, on Heidegger’s reading of Aristotle’s Metaphysics Θ1– 3, I try to show similarly that dunamis, force, is central to Aristotle’s manifold sense of being. Heidegger’s reading of dunamis and energeia calls into question many of the traditional accounts of Aristotle’s Metaphysics that reduce Aristotle’s sense of being to the categorial sense of substance alone. In chapter five, I turn to a consideration of Heidegger’s controversial readings of Aristotle’s practical philosophy, with special emphasis on ethics and rhetoric. I claim that, in Heidegger’s reading, Aristotle’s treatment of ethics is not primarily focused on normative questions, but is concerned with what one might call an ontology of human being. It becomes clear xii preface • through a study of these early Heidegger courses on Aristotle’s ethics and rhetoric how great an influence Aristotle is on the genesis of Heidegger’s own original analysis of human existence in his major work, Being and Time. Heidegger couches these readings of Aristotle in the context of the overcoming of a certain kind of dualistic Platonism, to which he argues Aristotle is responding. These discussions hearken back to the first chapter of the book, where I try to show that Heidegger not only reads Aristotle as a phenomenological thinker, but also derives his own unique sense of phenomenology from his dialogue with Aristotle. The book oscillates between commentary and thematic focus. One of my primary objectives is to offer a careful and detailed analysis of several of the most important of Heidegger’s works on Aristotle. One of the strategies I employ is to subject Heidegger’s interpretation of specific Aristotelian concepts, as they arise in the context of his translations of Aristotle passages, to a broader test in terms of other passages and texts. For this reason, for example, I frequently cite passages from the Metaphysics in an attempt to assess the validity of Heidegger’s revolutionary reading of the Physics. What becomes evident from this approach is that Heidegger’s readings of sections of Aristotle’s work, such as Physics B1 and Metaphysics Θ1–3, are carefully chosen by Heidegger to implicate Aristotle’s philosophy as a whole. Because one of my primary objectives is to offer an exegesis of Heidegger, I do not frequently point out how radical a challenge his work on Aristotle presents to most traditional accounts. Anyone knowledgeable of the history of Aristotle interpretation will readily recognize this challenge. To some extent, the confrontation occurs at the level of translation, and I had the temptation to provide a standard translation as a contrast to Heidegger’s. This would no doubt have had some value for readers of this text, and I would encourage careful consultation of the Greek as well as available alternative translations. In the end I decided against doing this because it in effect canonizes or castigates the standard translations, and neither of these positions is desirable. One of Heidegger’s great contributions is to return the...