Basic Questions of Philosophy: Selected "Problems" of "Logic"

by Martin Heidegger

Overview

First published in German in 1984 as volume 45 of Martin Heidegger's collected works, this book is the first English translation of a lecture course he presented at the University of Freiburg in 1937–1938. Heidegger's task here is to reassert the question of the essence of truth, not as a "problem" or as a matter of "logic," but precisely as a genuine philosophical question, in fact the one basic question of philosophy. Thus, this course is about the essence of truth and the essence of philosophy. On both sides Heidegger draws extensively upon the ancient Greeks, on their understanding of truth as aletheia and their determination of the beginning of philosophy as the disposition of wonder. In addition, these lectures were presented at the time that Heidegger was composing his second magnum opus, Beiträge zur Philosophie, and provide the single best introduction to that complex and crucial text.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780253326850
Publisher:	Indiana University Press
Publication date:	06/22/1994
Series:	Studies in Continental Thought
Pages:	216
Product dimensions:	5.25(w) x 8.50(h) x (d)
Age Range:	18 Years

About the Author

Richard Rojcewicz is Executive Director of the Simon Silverman Phenomenology Center at Duquesne University.

André Schuwer is Professor Emeritus of Philosophy at Duquesne University and cotranslator (with Richard Rojcewicz) of Parmenides by Martin Heidegger and Ideas II by Edmund Husserl.

Table of Contents

Translators' Foreword

Preparatory Part: The Essence of Philosophy and the Question of Truth
Chapter One: Preliminary Interpretation of the Essence of Philosophy
Chapter Two: The Question of Truth as a Basic Question

Main Part: Foundational Issues in the Question of Truth
Chapter One: The Basic Question of the Essence of Truth as a Historical Reflection
Chapter Two: The Question of the Truth (Essentiality) of the Essence
Chapter Three: The Laying of the Ground as the Foundation for Grasping an Essence
Chapter Four: The Necessity of the Question of the Essence of Truth, on the Basis of the Beginning of the History of Truth
Chapter Five: The Need and the Necessity of the First Beginning and the Need and the Necessity of an Other Way to Question and to Begin

Appendices
The Question of Truth
From the First Draft
Editor's Afterword

Editorial Reviews

"A helpful elucidation of the truth as [Heidegger] sees it. . . . This excellent translation will be of great value to students of Heidegger's thought."—Library Journal

"Well suited to the task of beckoning the novice onto the path of Heidegger's most arduous thought. . . . a useful introduction to the thought of one of our most original thinkers."—International Studies in Philosophy

From the Publisher

Well suited to the task of beckoning the novice onto the path of Heidegger's most arduous thought. . . . a useful introduction to the thought of one of our most original thinkers.

International Studies in Philosophy

The concept of truth plays a vital role in Heidegger's thought, and Basic Questions, a lecture course that Heidegger gave in 1937-38, offers a helpful elucidation of truth as he sees it. Frequently, philosophers think of truth as statements that match reality: ``the lights are on in the lecture hall'' is true if the lights are in fact on there. For Heidegger, this seeming commonplace is absurd. Truth in his view is the openness or unconcealment of being, a position that he traces to the pre-Socratics. He deploys his immense learning to trace the eclipse of the pre-Socratic notion throughout the history of philosophy by the doctrine of truth as correspondence. This excellent translation will be of great value to students of Heidegger's thought.-David Gordon, Bowling Green State Univ., Ohio

Library Journal