Abstract

This chapter looks at the lecture course Heidegger delivered on Aristotle's Rhetoric in the summer of 1924, Basic Concepts of Aristotelian Philosophy (G 18). It shows first how Heidegger is interested in the everyday language of the Greeks. He is interpreting Aristotle's Rhetoric because he views the everyday language of the Greeks as essential to the development of his philosophical concepts. It then addresses ontology and what Heidegger says about the there of a being. He claims that ontological research into the meaning of Being must be based on beings and that the meaning of Being protrudes within beings as those beings are there. The there of a being is disclosed in speaking. This chapter develops a sense of authentic speaking, a possibility of Dasein that is not elaborated in Being and Time. It uses this notion of authentic speaking to shed light on other parts of the lecture course, where Heidegger suggests ways of thinking about authentic Being-with-others and even ethical excellence. Authentic Being-with-others will involve a modification of how the "they" live together in average everydayness. It involves attentive listening as well as an insight into the particularity of life, its here and now.

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