The essence of human freedom : an introduction to philosophy / Martin Heidegger ; translated by Ted Sadler.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Heidegger, Martin, 1889-1976.

Contributor:

Sadler, Ted, 1952-

Standardized Title:

Vom Wesen der menschlichen Freiheit. English

Language:

English

German

Subjects (All):

Free will and determinism.

Physical Description:

xiv, 216 pages : illustrations ; 24 cm

Place of Publication:

London ; New York : Continuum, [2002]

Language Note:

Translated from the German.

Summary:

The Essence of Human Freedom, in its first complete translation into English, derives from a course of lectures delivered at Freiburg in 1930. It presents Heidegger's most accessible and unified discussion of Greek metaphysics, and the succeeding traditions, together with a profound and searching analysis of the Kantian concepts of Freedom and Causality. Heidegger conceived of this course as a pedagogic strategy for introducing philosophy

Contents:

1. The Apparent Contradiction between the 'Particular' Question Concerning the Essence of Human Freedom and the 'General' Task of an Introduction to Philosophy 1

a) The 'Particularity' of the Topic and the 'Generality' of an Introduction to Philosophy 2

b) Broadening the Question Concerning the Essence of Human Freedom towards the Totality of Beings (World and God) in the Preliminary Discussion of 'Negative' Freedom. Specific Character of Philosophical as Distinct from Scientific Questioning 4

c) Deeper Interpretation of 'Negative Freedom' as Freedom-from ... in Terms of the Essence of Its Relational Character. Beings in the Whole Necessarily Included in the Question Concerning Human Freedom 7

d) Philosophy as Revealing the Whole by Means of Properly Conceived Particular Problems 9

Part 1 Positive Definition of Philosophy from the Content of the Problem of Freedom. The Problem of Human Freedom and the Fundamental Question of Philosophy

Chapter 1 First Breakthrough to the Proper Dimension of the Problem of Freedom in Kant. The Connection of the Problem of Freedom with the Fundamental Problems of Metaphysics 13

2. Philosophy as Inquiring into the Whole. Going-after-the-Whole as Going-to-the-Roots 13

3. Formal-Indicative Discussion of 'Positive Freedom' by Reconsideration of 'Transcendental' and 'Practical' Freedom in Kant 15

4. Broadening of the Problem of Freedom within the Perspective of the Cosmological Problem as Indicated in the Grounding Character of 'Transcendental Freedom': Freedom

Causality

Movement

Beings as Such 19

5. The Questionable Challenging Character of the Broadened Problem of Freedom and the Traditional Form of the Leading Question of Philosophy. Necessity of a Renewed Interrogation of the Leading Question 23

Chapter 2 The Leading Question of Philosophy and Its Questionability. Discussion of the Leading Question from Its Own Possibilities and Presuppositions 28

6. Leading Question of Philosophy ([characters not reproducible]) as the Question Concerning the Being of Beings 28

7. Preconceptual Understanding of Being and Greek Philosophy's Basic Word for Being: [characters not reproducible] 29

a) The Character of Preconceptual Understanding of Being and the Forgottenness of Being 29

b) The Ambiguity of [characters not reproducible] as Sign of the Richness and Urgency of the Unmastered Problems in the Awakening of the Understanding of Being 32

c) Everyday Speech and the Fundamental Meaning of [characters not reproducible]: Presence 36

d) The Self-concealed Understanding of Being ([characters not reproducible]) as Constant Presence. [characters not reproducible] as What Is Sought and Pre-understood in the Leading Question of Philosophy 37

8. Demonstration of the Hidden Fundamental Meaning of [characters not reproducible] (Constant Presence) in the Greek Interpretation of Movement, What-Being, and Being-Actual (Being-Present) 39

a) Being and Movement: [characters not reproducible] as [characters not reproducible] of the [characters not reproducible] 39

b) Being and What-Being. [characters not reproducible] as the [characters not reproducible] of the [characters not reproducible] 43

c) Being and Substance. The Further Development of the Problem of Being as the Problem of Substance. Substantiality and Constant Presence 45

d) Being and Actuality (Being-Present). The Inner Structural Connection of [characters not reproducible] as [characters not reproducible] with [characters not reproducible] and Actualitas 46

9. Being, Truth, Presence. The Greek Interpretation of Being as Being-True in the Horizon of Being as Constant Presence. The [characters not reproducible] as [characters not reproducible] (Aristotle, Metaphysics [Theta] 10) 51

a) Where the Inquiry Stands. The Previously Discussed Meanings of Being and the Exemplary Status of Being-True 51

b) Four Meanings of Being in Aristotle. The Exclusion of the [characters not reproducible] in Metaphysics E 4 54

c) Thematic Discussion of the [characters not reproducible] as the [characters not reproducible] in Metaphysics [Theta] 10 and the Question of Whether This Chapter Belongs to Book [Theta]. Connection Between the Textual Question and the Substantive Question of the Relation Between Being Qua Being-True and Being Qua Being-Actual ([characters not reproducible]) 56

[alpha]) The rejection of [Theta] 10's placement in [Theta] and the traditional interpretation of being-true as a problem of logic and epistemology (Schwegler, Jaeger, Ross). The erroneous interpretation of [characters not reproducible] resulting from this interpretation 58

[beta]) Demonstration of Chapter 10's proper placement in Book [Theta]. The ambiguity in the Greek concept of truth: truth of things and truth of sentences (propositional truth). The thematic discussion of the being-true of (proper) beings ([characters not reproducible], not of knowledge, in Chapter [Theta] 10 61

d) The Greek Understanding of Truth ([characters not reproducible]) as Deconcealment. The Being Which Is True ([characters not reproducible]) as the Most Proper Being ([characters not reproducible]). The Most Proper Being as the Simple and Constantly Present 65

[alpha]) The correspondence between being and being-true (deconcealment). Two fundamental types of being and their corresponding modes of being-true 65

[beta]) Truth, simplicity (unity) and constant presence. The simple ([characters not reproducible]) as the proper being and its deconcealment as the highest mode of being-true 70

[gamma]) Deconcealment of the simple as pure and absolute self-presence 73

e) The Question of the Being-True of Proper Beings as the Highest and Deepest Question of Aristotle's Interpretation of Being. [Theta] 10 as Keystone to Book [Theta] and to Aristotelian Metaphysics in General 75

10. The Actuality of Spirit in Hegel as Absolute Presence 76

Chapter 3 Working the Leading Question of Metaphysics through to the Fundamental Question of Philosophy 79

11. The Fundamental Question of Philosophy as the Question Concerning the Primordial Connection between Being and Time 80

12. Man as the Site of the Fundamental Question. Understanding of Being as the Ground of the Possibility of the Essence of Man 83

13. The Challenging Character of the Question of Being (Fundamental Question) and the Problem of Freedom. The Comprehensive Scope of Being (Going-after-the-Whole) and the Challenging Individualization (Going-to-the-Roots) of Time as the Horizon of the Understanding of Being 89

14. Switching the Perspective of the Question: the Leading Question of Metaphysics as Grounded in the Question of the Essence of Freedom 92

Part 2 Causality and Freedom Transcendental and Practical Freedom in Kant

Chapter 1 Causality and Freedom as Cosmological Problem. The First Way to Freedom in the Kantian System: the Question of the Possibility of Experience as the Question of the Possibility of Genuine Metaphysics 99

15. Preliminary Remark on the Problem of Causality in the Sciences 99

a) Causality as Expression of the Questionworthiness of Animate and Inanimate Nature in the Sciences 99

b) Causality in Modern Physics. Probability (Statistics) and Causality 102

16. First Attempt at Characterizing the Kantian Conception of Causality and Its Fundamental Contexture: Causality and Temporal Succession 105

17. General Characterization of the Analogies of Experience 107

a) The Analogies of Experience as Rules of Universal Temporal Determination of the Being-Present of That Which Is Present in the Context of the Inner Enablement of Experience 108

b) The Three Modes of Time (Permanence, Succession and Simultaneity) as Modes of the Intra-Temporality of That Which Is Present 112

c) The Distinction between Dynamical and Mathematical Principles 113

d) The Analogies of Experience as Rules of the Basic Relations of the Possible Being-in-Time of That Which Is Present 114

18. Discussion of the Mode of Proof of the Analogies of Experience and Their Foundation from the Example of the First Analogy.

The Fundamental Meaning of the First Analogy 115

a) The First Analogy: Permanence and Time 115

b) The Questionworthy Foundation of the Analogies: the Unclarified Association of Time and 'I Think' (Understanding) in an Uncritical Approach to the Essence of Man as Finite Subject 118

c) The Analogies of Experience and the Transcendental Deduction of the Pure Concepts of the Understanding. The Logical Structure of the Analogies of Experience and the Question of Their Character as Analogies 119

d) The Fundamental Meaning of the First Analogy. Permanence (Substantiality) and Causality 121

19. The Second Analogy. Occurrence, Temporal Succession and Causality 123

a) Event (Occurrence) and Temporal Succession. Analysis of the Essence of Event and of the Possibility of Its Perception 123

b) Excursus: on Essential Analysis and Analytic 125

c) Causality as Temporal Relation. Causality in the Sense of Causation Is Running Ahead in Time as Determining Letting-Follow 128

20. Two Kinds of Causality: Natural Causality and the Causality of Freedom. The General Ontological Horizon of the Problem of Freedom in the Definition of Freedom as a Kind of Causality. The Connection between Causality in General and Being-Present as a Mode of Being 132

a) The Orientation of Causality in General to the Causality of Nature. Toward the Problematic of Freedom as a Kind of Causality 133

b) First Examination of Causality's Orientation to the Mode of Being of Being-Present-in-Succession as the Distinctive Temporal Mode of Causality and Illustrated by the Simultaneity of Cause and Effect 134

c) Second Examination of Causality's Orientation to the Mode of Being of Being-Present in Terms of the Concept of Action. Action as the Succession-Concept in the Connection between Cause and Effect 136

21. The Systematic Site of Freedom according to Kant 139

a) The Systematic Site as Substantive Contexture Defining the Direction and Scope of Questioning 139

b) Kant's Two Ways to Freedom and the Traditional Problematic of Metaphysics. The Site of the Question of Freedom in the Problem of the Possibility of Experience as the Question Concerning the Possibility of Genuine Metaphysics 141

22. Causality through Freedom. Freedom as Cosmological Idea 144

a) The Problem of Freedom as Originating from the Problem of World. Freedom as a Distinctive Mode of Natural Causality 144

b) The Idea of Freedom as 'Transcendental Concept of Nature': Absolute Natural Causality 146

23. The Two Kinds of Causality and the Antithetic of Pure Reason in the Third Antinomy 148

a) The Thesis of the Third Antinomy. The Possibility of Causality through Freedom (Transcendental Freedom) Alongside the Causality of Nature in the Explanation of the Appearances of the World as Universal Ontological Problem 150

b) The Antithesis of the Third Antinomy. The Exclusion of Freedom from the Causality of the World-Process 153

c) The Special Character of the Cosmological Ideas in the Question of the Possibility of Genuine Metaphysics. Reason's Interest in Resolving the Antinomy 154

24. Preparatory (Negative) Determinations Towards Resolution of the Third Antinomy 157

a) The Delusion of Common Reason in the Handling of Its Principle 157

b) The Distinction Between Appearance (Finite Knowledge) and Thing-in-Itself (Infinite Knowledge) as the Key to Resolving the Problem of the Antinomies 160

25. The Positive Resolution of the Third Antinomy. Freedom as the Causality of Reason: Transcendental Idea of an Unconditioned Causality. Character and Limits of the Problem of Freedom within the Problem of the Antinomies 162

a) The Resolution of the Problem of the Antinomies as Going Beyond the Problem of Finite Knowledge to the Problem of Human Finitude as Such 162

b) The Displacement of the Problem of the Resolution of the Antinomies. The Question Concerning a Causation for Appearances Outside the Appearances and Conditions of Time. The Resolution of the Third Antinomy in Looking Towards Man as Ethically Acting Person 165

c) Empirical and Intelligible Character. The Intelligible Character as the Mode of Causation of Causality from Freedom. The Double Character of Appearance and the Possibility of Two Fundamentally Different Causalities in Relation to the Appearance as Effect 169

d) The Causality of Reason. Freedom as Intelligible Causality: Transcendental Idea of an Unconditioned Causality. The Application of the Universal Ontological (Cosmological) Problematic to Man as World-Entity 172

Chapter 2 The Second Way to Freedom in the Kantian System. Practical Freedom as Specific to Man as a Rational Being 178

26. The Essence of Man as a Being of Sense and Reason. The Distinction Between Transcendental and Practical Freedom 179

a) The Essence of Man (Humanity) as Person (Personality). Personality and Self-Responsibility 179

b) The Two Ways to Freedom and the Distinction between Transcendental and Practical Freedom. Possibility and Actuality of Freedom 180

27. The Actuality of Human (Practical) Freedom 182

a) Freedom as Fact. The Factuality (Actuality) of Practical Freedom in Ethical Praxis and the Problem of Its 'Experience'. The Practical Reality of Freedom 182

b) The Essence of Pure Reason as Practical. Pure Practical Reason as Pure Will 186

c) The Actuality of Pure Practical Reason in the Moral Law 190

d) The Categorical Imperative. On the Question of Its Actuality and 'Universal Validity' 192

28. The Consciousness of Human Freedom and Its Actuality 195

a) Pure Will and Actuality. The Specific Character of Will-governed Actuality as Fact 195

b) The Fact of the Ethical Law and the Consciousness of the Freedom of the Will 198

Conclusion: The Proper Ontological Dimension of Freedom. The Rootedness of the Question of Being in the Question Concerning the Essence of Human Freedom. Freedom as the Ground of Causality

29. The Limits of the Kantian Discussion of Freedom. Kant's Binding of the Problem of Freedom to the Problem of Causality 203

30. Freedom as the Condition of the Possibility of the Manifestness of the Being of Beings, i.e. of the Understanding of Being 205.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references.

ISBN:

0826459218

0826459242

OCLC:

49403121