Basic Concepts

by Martin Heidegger

Basic Concepts, one of the first texts to appear in English from the critical later period of Martin Heidegger's thought, strikes out in new directions. First published in German in 1981 as Grundbegriffe (volume 51 of Martin Heidegger's Collected Works), it is the text of a lecture course that Heidegger gave at Freiburg in the winter semester of 1941 during the phase of his thinking known as the "turning." In this translation, Heidegger shifted his attention from the problem of the meaning of being to the question of the truth of being. In this lucid translation by Gary E. Aylesworth, Basic Concepts provides a concise introduction to Heidegger's later thought.

Genres: Philosophy

128 pages, Paperback

First published November 21, 1985

About the author

Martin Heidegger (1889-1976) was a German philosopher whose work is perhaps most readily associated with phenomenology and existentialism, although his thinking should be identified as part of such philosophical movements only with extreme care and qualification. His ideas have exerted a seminal influence on the development of contemporary European philosophy. They have also had an impact far beyond philosophy, for example in architectural theory (see e.g., Sharr 2007), literary criticism (see e.g., Ziarek 1989), theology (see e.g., Caputo 1993), psychotherapy (see e.g., Binswanger 1943/1964, Guignon 1993) and cognitive science (see e.g., Dreyfus 1992, 2008; Wheeler 2005; Kiverstein and Wheeler forthcoming).

Reviews

[Dan · Rating 5 out of 5]

Basic-concepts or ground-concepts involves the readiness to reach the ground and not let it go again. For Heidegger, to grasp the ground means to grasp Being; and this in turn means grasping the original Greek inception. To this purpose, Heidegger presents and elaborates the ontological distinction between Being and beings; probably with more details and at length than in any other of his books. Man is admitted into this differentiation, and thus his nature/essence determined.

There is one consequence of the above that I found very interesting and that pops several times in this book; that is the modern tendency to take physics ineligibility to be “ineligibility per se” and to apply it to everything - including man. Way back, Kant transported the understanding of causality from Newtonian physics into the understanding of human freedom as lack of any such causality. During the time Heidegger delivered this course, quantum physics dismissed the notion of causality completely. Heidegger sensed that among physicists, scientists, and philosophers of his time there was an expectation of moving from quantum physics into a quantum biology, and then again further into a quantum history and finally into a quantum metaphysics. Basically, the definition of unpredictability from quantum physics is extended to encompass everything - including human freedom. The reason for this tendency and expectation is quite simple – since quantum physics' predictions were so accurate and fundamental, then they must also be right about everything else. These days there is a lot of talk about quantum computers; and everyone expects, beside and beyond the boost in computing power, some fantastical ontological revelations about nature and in particular about human nature. More generally and for some time now, physics and physicians claim to build a “theory of everything” are taken by almost everyone to really encompass and explain “everything” - including human nature.

[Purepazaak · Rating 3 out of 5]

For the Anaximandros commentary.

[David Haines · Rating 4 out of 5]

As with most works by Heidegger, this was a dizzying look at the foundational notions surrounding Being and beings. It is an interesting book that is well worth the effort required to read it. It will certainly help to better understand Heidegger's Introduction to Metaphysics, and other works. That being said, sometimes even a copy that is written in your own language (translated from German) is still difficult and some phrases need indepth study and plenty of concentration to fully understand.

[dahyung · Rating 2 out of 5]

Lots of "ontological" definitions and interpretations on what Anaximander says. Does not understand mostly what he is trying to say, but doesn't feel what I'm missing here so much.