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The Place of the Pre-Socratics in "Playing-Forth," The Second Part of Contributions to Philosophy
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The Place of the Pre-Socratics in "Playing-Forth," the Second Part of Contributions to Philosophy So ist der Mensch; wenn da ist das Gut, und es sorget mit Gaben SeIber ein Gatt fur ihn, kennet und sieht er es nicht. Tragen muss er, zuvor; nun aber nennt er sein Liebstes, Nun, nun mussen dafur Worte, wie Blumen, entstehen. Holderlin Heidegger's works on the early Greek thinkers that originate from within his being-historical perspective and that have been published or are scheduled to appear in the Gesamtausgabe begin with his lecture course text of the summer semester 1932, "Der Anfang der abendlandischen Philosophie: Anaximander und Parmenides" (The Beginning of Western Philosophy: Anaximander and Parmenides) and end with the Heraclitus seminar of 1966-67. Thus, in the span of almost four decades, Heidegger produced an incomparably large body of work devoted to the early Greek thinkers. At the risk of oversimplification, it could be said that in this body of work he accomplishes two closely interrelated goals. First, in his published works on Parmenides (1942-43) and Heraclitus (1944), he totally dismantles the assumption that for almost two millennia had predetermined the understanding of Heraclitus and Parmenides: that Heraclitus is the thinker of change, while Parmenides is the thinker of permanence . Jean Beaufret summarily formulates this long-held assumption when he says: "It is customary to oppose Heraclitus and Parmenides, Copyrighted Material 68 The Place ofthe Pre-Socratics in "Playing-Forth" like two gladiators, sword in hand, facing each other in the beginning of thought-a custom which goes back to antiquity, as we find it already well-established in Plato."27 A significant consequence of undoing this assumption is the need for a new reading of Plato, which Heidegger accomplishes in several works devoted to this philosopher. Second, with his works on Parmenides and Heraclitus and on other early Greek thinkers, Heidegger opens up a hitherto concealed and forgotten domain, that of the alethiological beginning of Western philosophy . This opening is of such unparalleled philosophical magnitude that at the end of his life and in retrospect of his entire work, Heidegger can say: "In a certain way aA~eEla is manifest and always already experienced."28 Whereas in those works that he specifically devotes to early Greek thinkers, Heidegger tackles the task of undoing and dismantling this long-held opposition-Heraclitus as the thinker of change and Parmenides as the thinker of permanence-in Contributions to Philosophy (From Enowning) he opens and firmly grounds the domain of the alethiological beginning of Western philosophy. I take seriously the words "firmly grounds," because although Heidegger's works on the early Greeks are grounded in Contributions to Philosophy, he does not have a system of thought ala Hegel that beginning with this work assimilates the whole history of philosophy, including the fragmented writings of the early Greeks. Keeping this proviso in mind as we turn to Contributions to Philosophy , we find ourselves initially confronted with a surprising omission. In section 88 of this work, under the title "The 'Historical' Lectures Belong to the Sphere of This Task" (Contributions, 12}), where Heidegger programmatically mentions his future lecture courses on the history of philosophy, he explicitly mentions Leibniz, Kant, Hegel, Schelling, and Nietzsche but not the early Greek thinkers, the so-called pre-Socratics. How are we to understand this omission? As I shall demonstrate, this omission points to the place of the early Greek thinkers in Contributions to Philosophy. The first step in this direction is to grasp the structure of this major work, for through this structure Heidegger enacts a new thinking of being-so-called beinghistorical thinking-and addresses the alethiological beginning of Western philosophy. This thinking is new because, unlike the transcendental-horizonal thinking of Being and Time, it traverses the path of the nonhistoriographical history of being (Geschichte des Seins), thereby unfolding the thinking of being as the thinking of enowning. Copyrighted Material [18.188.175.182] Project MUSE (2024-04-17 06:48 GMT) The Place ofthe Pre-Socratics in "Playing-Forth" I The plan for writing Contributions to Philosophy was already laid out as early as 1931 and as late as 1932.29 Having already traversed the path of transcendental-horizonal perspective and its fundamental ontology, Heidegger in these years realized the need to abandon this perspective in favor of the being-historical perspective. Strictly speaking, this move was guided by the historicity of being itself. In a letter to Elisabeth Blochmann of September 18, 1932...