Phenomenological Interpretations of Aristotle

Initiation into Phenomenological Research

Martin Heidegger, Richard Rojcewicz

• Publisher: Indiana University Press
• Year: 2021
• Print ISBN: 9780253221155
• eBook ISBN: 9780253004482
• Topic: Philosophy
• Subtopic: Ancient & Classical Philosophy

In this early lecture series, the author of Being and Time develops his unique approach to understanding humanity's relationship to the world.
This volume presents a collection of Martin Heidegger's lectures delivered at the University of Freiburg in the winter of 1921–1922. Preceding Being and Time, the work shows the young Heidegger introducing novel vocabulary as he searches for his genuine philosophical voice.
In this course, Heidegger first takes up the role of the definition of philosophy and then elaborates a unique analysis of "factical life," or human life as it is lived concretely in relation to the world, a relation he calls "caring." Heidegger's descriptions of the movement of life are original and striking. As he works out a phenomenology of factical life, Heidegger lays the groundwork for a phenomenological interpretation of Aristotle, whose influence on Heidegger's philosophy was pivotal.

PART I

Aristotle and the Reception of His Philosophy

A. What Are Studies in the History of Philosophy?

We call research into a past philosophy—e.g., Aristotle’s—a study in the history of philosophy.

I. The history of philosophy was always seen and investigated in and out of a determinate cultural consciousness. Today what dominates is typifying history of the spirit. {“Types”—formed on what basis?} This history looks upon itself as strict factual research, within a determinate mode of positing and understanding facts. For this “exact” research, everything else counts as empty prattle, even the attempt to bring it itself to clarity in its own conditionality and standpoint. Philosophy is thereby grouped together with science, art, religion, and the like. In that way, philosophy is preconceptually determined, in regard to its content, as part of Objective [objektiv] history, as having Objective and Objectlike relations and properties.

II. The historiological aspect of philosophy is visible only in the very act of philosophizing. It is graspable only as existence and is accessible only out of purely factical life and, accordingly, with and through history (I.) This entails, however, the demands of reaching clarity of principle with regard to: 1. the sense of the actualization of philosophizing, and 2. the nexus of the actualization and of the Being of philosophizing in relation to the historiological and to history.

These questions cannot be skirted, nor can one suppose—which would be counter to their inner problematic—that they can be, as it were, settled in advance by themselves (without historiology and history), i.e., by our rummaging about in some purified content. On the contrary, the taking seriously of the task of the history of philosophy is actualized precisely in philosophizing (without compromises in relation to I.), since the decisive problematic of II., 1. and 2., presents itself as one that is concrete, definite, and radical. Philosophy is historiological cognition of factical life (i.e., it understands in terms of actualized history). We must attain a categorial (existentiell) understanding and articulation (i.e., an actualizing knowledge), wherein what is separable is not interpreted as an ensemble and an origin, on the basis of what is traditionally separated, but is interpreted positively—on the basis of the fundamental comportment toward factical life, life as such.

Now, insofar as ruinance and questionability are experienced and philosophy decides to explicate radically that which is in each case factical about it, philosophy then renounces the possibility of having recourse to revelation, recourse to some sort of certification of its possessions or possessive possibilities. That is not because philosophy is trying to be presuppositionless but because it stands originally within a pre-possession — of the factical. Questionability and questioning sharpen the comportment toward history—the “how” of the historiological.

In principle, everything is posed upon a confrontation, upon an understanding in and out of this confrontation. This existentielly determined way of understanding through confrontation is “one-sided”—namely, from the outside—and it is a misunderstanding to maintain that we would come to an understanding if we do justice to history in (we know not which) calmness and Objectivity. Those are instances of weakness and indolence. The intention to confront has its own radical power of disclosing and illuminating.

As the term is usually employed, the history of philosophy comprises the convoluted succession of philosophical opinions, theories, systems, and maxims in the time frame from the seventh century B.C. to the present moment. That is to say, it concerns specifically the philosophies which have taken form in the life-nexus of the development of the Greek people in the history of the spirit, which development for its part debouched into the history of Christianity. Therefore it includes the further philosophies which in the course of the history of the Christian West (Middle Ages and modernity) have undergone various transformations and, at times, new formations.

It is with this spatial and temporal restriction that we here mean the term “history of philosophy.” And that is indeed not only because for the most part the treatment of other philosophies is a more or less acknowledged dilettantism and an opportunity for all sorts of intellectual mischief, but because this restriction arises out of the very sense of philosophy.

For any epoch, the history of philosophy comes into view as clearly, is understood as deeply, is appropriated as strongly, and on that basis is critiqued as decisively, as philosophy, for which and in which history is present and in which anyone is related to history in a living way, is actually philosophy, and that means: 1. becomes a questioning, and specifically a fundamental questioning, and 2. becomes a concrete seeking after answers: research. That is to say, what is decisive is the radical and clear formation of the hermeneutical situation as the maturation of the philosophical problematic itself.

There are established, in every generation, or in a succession of generations, determinate possibilities of access to history as such, determinate basic conceptions of the totality of history, determinate evaluations of individual epochs, and determinate predilections for individual philosophies.

The comportment of the present age toward Aristotle is well defined in a threefold respect. In addition, however, Aristotle has had a underlying influence on our ways of seeing and, above all, speaking, “articulations”: logic. (Predelineation of the radical and central problematic.)

B. The Reception of Aristotle’s Philosophy

a) Middle Ages and modernity

Aristotle undergoes a definite positive evaluation, founded on the high scholasticism of the Christian Middle Ages, in the view of life and of culture determined by the Catholic confession and its Church.

The renewal of Kant’s philosophy in the 1860s, along with the growing influence of this renewal on the philosophizing of the subsequent decades, led to a position opposed in principle to the positive evaluation just mentioned. Neo-Kantianism was essentially determined, in its opposition to Aristotle, by the type and the mode of its renewal of Kant. The renewal was a specifically “epistemological” one. More precisely, it was such that it itself led to the formation of the philosophical discipline now known as “epistemology” or “theory of knowledge.” For this “epistemological” interpretation of Kant, his Critique was seen essentially as the ground-laying of the mathematical natural sciences, as theory of science. At the same time, Kant was understood as the “shatterer” of the old metaphysics and of empty speculation.

Based on Kant’s philosophy, as so interpreted, namely, as a decidedly “critical” philosophy, the ensuing consideration of the history of philosophy relegated Aristotle to the position of a specifically uncritical philosopher: an exponent of naive metaphysics. This interpretation was mediated by a facile glance at the fact that, according to the general opinion, the old uncritical metaphysics had its perfect archetype in the Middle Ages, and there Aristotle was esteemed as “the philosopher.” In this way, the first great and radically scientific man was relegated to the series of presumed obscurantists.

Kant and Aristotle have this in common, that for both of them the external world exists. For Aristotle, knowledge of that world is not a problem. He treated knowledge quite differently, as a clarification of the surrounding world. He can be called a realist only inasmuch as he never questions the existence of the external world.

For Kant, steeped in Aristotelian conceptuality and settled in Descartes’ basic position, knowledge is a problem in a quite different respect (that of science especially), and the problem is then solved in a particular way. On that basis, however, one cannot brand Aristotle a realist or produce him as a star witness for realism, quite apart from the fact that thereby even Kant is understood awry. The confusion of the most heterogeneous motives, of questions and answers, and of methods in the problem of knowledge reaches its zenith with Nicolai Hartmann. He retains the problematic and the old terms and then still appeals to the idea of metaphysics for help.

For its part, the most superficial opposition to Kantianism was now pressed into an apologetic for Aristotle, an apologetic that had to run in the same direction as Neo-Kantianism. Thus Aristotle, in turn, became an “epistemologist” and at the same time the star witness for the epistemological trend called “realism.”

The polemical position toward Aristotle, introduced by Neo-Kantianism, has entrenched itself in many ways in our modern cultural consciousness. Our present age, even in its position toward Aristotle, belies its own peculiar fickleness that has no roots. Philosophers, who only five years ago turned up their superior noses at the name of Aristotle, now—in order to keep up with the latest—speak like sages about the long-unknown greatness and even the “depth” of the Aristotelian philosophy—and both now and then remain without any serious knowledge of it.

The polemically negative attitude of Neo-Kantianism in relation to Aristotle had fallen victim to the erroneous presupposition that Aristotle has anything at all to do with the Middle Ages or with Kant. In fact, just the opposite is the case. It will have to be said, however, that these effective nexuses, decisive for the history of the spirit and more pressing for the present spiritual situation than is commonly thought, have not yet been grasped in their basic lineaments. And what is lacking for that task is the decisive posing of the problem. Indeed, the work of philological-historiological research is fruitful for exhibiting (doxographic) literary filiations, and this work of necessity bears—and is otherwise impossible—a definite interpretation of the content of the relevant literature.

b) Antecedent Greekanizing of the Christian life-consciousness

The Christian life-consciousness of the early and high scholastic eras, the consciousness in which was carried out the genuine reception of Aristotle and thus a quite definite interpretation of Aristotle, had already passed through a “Greekanizing.” The life-nexuses of the original Christianity had already matured within a surrounding world whose life was co-determined, in regard to its way of expressing itself, through the specifically Greek interpretation of existence and through Greek conceptuality (terminology). Through Paul and in the apostolic epoch, and especially in the patristic age, an incorporation into the Greek life-world was carried out.

Despite the accomplishments—quite unchallengeable as regards their scholarly significance—of the research into the history of dogma, the just-mentioned decisive process in the history of the spirit has not been grasped in its ultimate, highly meaningful interconnections and thus is not yet ripe for a philosophical problematic and discussion. The grounds for this are manifold (the state of theology, the directionality of research into the history of dogma itself, the state of research into Greek philosophy). The main reason lies in the lack of a problematic regarding principles, for it is in this problematic that the processes at issue must be set (existence, factical life—immanent interpretation; cf. the following).

Against the scholasticism which was consolidated through the reception of Aristotle, had passed through further transformations in Scotus and Ockham, and was simultaneously freed up in its vivacity of experience by Tauler’s mysticism, Luther carried out his religious and theological counter-stroke. In the assimilation and development, as well as, in some cases, the dismissal of the new motives of Lutheran theology, Protestant scholasticism came to be formed. It was immediately nourished, through Melanchthon, by Aristotelian motives as interpreted in a certain way. These dogmatics, bearing essentially Aristotelian directions, constitute the root soil of German Idealism.

In that philosophical epoch, the decisive conceptual structures and the leading nexuses with regard to the apprehension and interpretation of existence are, so to speak, laden with the just-characterized history of the spirit. Every serious investigation into German Idealism and, above all, every fundamental grasp of its historical genesis must set out from the theological situation of the time. Fichte, Schelling, and Hegel were theologians, and Kant can be understood only in terms of theology, unless we would make of him the mere rattling skeleton of a so-called epistemologist. For any interpretation, we must remain conscious of the methodological significance of these nexuses, at least as admonitions to prudence. Here, and everywhere in the investigation of our spiritual history, Dilthey possessed a sure instinct, but he had to work with insufficient methodological and conceptual means, and these precisely blocked his path to a radical formulation of the problems. Such nexuses in the history of the spirit must not now seduce us to further considerations. We need to pass on to what is decisive.

c) Philological-historiological research

Alongside the two opposite tendencies of a positive estimation and a rejection of Aristotle, there runs, fortunately very little touched by either, starting in the nineteenth century and continuing today, a fruitful line of philological-historiological research into Aristotle’s writings. This research had its starting point in Schleiermacher’s instigation of a critical edition of Aristotle. It was the Berlin Academy of the Sciences that undertook the task, and Aristotle is now commonly cited according to the Academy edition. This work is the foundation but is far from the final solution of the difficult task of establishing the text of the Aristotelian corpus. Later, the same Academy completed, after several unsuccessful attempts, an edition of the Greek Commentaries on Aristotle (Commentaria in Aristotelem Graeca, 1882–1909, followed by Supplementum Aristotelicum). That created a broad and secure basis for effective philosophical research into Aristotle.

From this philological research, a branch line was struck by Trendelenburg, and one of his students, Brentano, was of decisive significance for contemporary philosophy in its main streams (the Marburg School excepted). This claim will immediately cease to seem an exaggeration if we do not look upon the development of modern philosophy from the outside and do not thereby limit ourselves to external sequences of schools and trends and to their nexuses of provenance (as if their affiliations and articulations were decisive) but if, instead, we attend to the genuinely effective problems, forces, and motives.

Husserl saw in Brentano what is decisive and was thereby able to surpass him in radicality, whereas the others who were influenced by Brentano merely took over single interpretations, which they reflected on but did not bring to the level of genuine understanding, i.e., to a level that promoted advancement in the genuine problems.¹

1. F. Brentano, Psychologie vom empirischen Standpunkt [Psychology from the Empirical Standpoint] (Vienna, 1874). E. Husserl, Logische Untersuchungen [Logical Investigations] (Halle, 1913). W. Windelband, Beiträge zur Lehre vom negativen Urteil [Contributions to the Theory of Negative Judgment] (Freiburg, 1884). H. Rickert, Der Gegenstand der Erkenntnis [The Object of Knowledge] (Freiburg, 1892). W. Dilthey, Ideen zu einer beschreibenden and zergliedernden Psychologie [Ideas toward a Descriptive and Analytic Psychology] (Berlin, 1894). W. James, Principles of Psychology (1890). M. Heidegger, Phänomenologie und transzendentale Wertphilosophie [Phenomenology and Transcendental Philosophy of Values], lecture course, summer semester, 1919.

PART II

What is philosophy?

The following investigations, however, are not aimed at putting in train a philosophical rehabilitation and defense of Aristotle, nor is their goal to renew Aristotle by paving the way for an Aristotelianism interwoven with the results of modern science. Those are not serious aims of philosophical research, whether they relate to Aristotle or Kant or Hegel. Our interpretations of Aristotle’s treatises and lectures spring, rather, from a concrete philosophical problematic, so much so that this investigation into the Aristotelian philosophy does not in any way present a mere accidental surplus, a “supplement” or an elucidation “from the historiological side,” but, instead, itself constitutes a basic part of this problematic. The latter alone gives weight and decisiveness to the approach, the method, and the scope of our investigations.

Those who wish to acquaint themselves for the first time with such a problematic need a preliminary rough indication of the direction the investigation will take, just in order to carry out the first step in a definite, even if unsteady, light.

Moreover, those who have already acquired a certain fixed position—and, a fortiori, those who believe they are secure in their grasp of the task and in their way of dealing with it—must ever again, out of concrete work, und...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title Page
• Copyright
• Introduction
• Contents
• Translator’s Foreword
• Part I: Aristotle and the Reception of His Philosophy
• Part II: What is philosophy?
• Part III: Factical Life
• Appendix I: Presupposition
• Appendix II: Loose pages
• Editors’ Afterword
• English-German Glossary
• German-English Glossary