The Fundamental Concepts of Metaphysics: World, Finitude, Solitude

Martin Heidegger

Indiana University Press, 1995 - Philosophy - 376 pages

This book, the text of Martin Heidegger's lecture course of 1929/30, is crucial for an understanding of Heidegger's transition from the major work of his early years, Being and Time, to his later preoccupations with language, truth, and history. First published in German in 1983 as volume 29/30 of Heidegger's collected works, The Fundamental Concepts of Metaphysics presents an extended treatment of the history of metaphysics and an elaboration of a philosophy of life and nature. Heidegger's concepts of organism, animal behavior, and environment are uniquely developed and defined with intensity. Of major interest is Heidegger's brilliant phenomenological description of the mood of boredome, which he describes as a "fundamental attunement" of modern times.

Contents

• The Task of the Course and Its Fundamental Orientation Starting: 1
• dealing with: 8
• The truth of philosophy and its ambiguity: 14
• The struggle of philosophizing against the insurmountable ambiguity: 21
• The two meanings of φύσις in Aristotle Questioning concerning: 32
• The inherent incongruities of the traditional concept of metaphysics: 40
• The concept of metaphysics in Thomas Aquinas as historical evi: 46
• Metaphysics as a title for the fundamental problem of metaphysics: 56
• c The beingthere and notbeingthere of attunement on the grounds: 63
• Making sure of our contemporary situation and of the fundamental: 69
• Chapter: 78
• The fundamental attunement of boredom its relation to time: 80
• Chapter Three: 106
• Contrasting the second form of boredom with the first with respect: 113
• The structural unity of the two structural moments of being bored: 126
• the: 127
• No longer permitting any passing the time as understanding: 134
• b Being held in limbo as being impelled toward what originally makes: 140
• The ordinary assessment of boredom and its suppression of profound: 158
• The Question Concerning a Particular Profound Boredom as: 160
• PART: 169
• Chapter: 176
• Taking the Intermediate Thesis That the Animal: 185
• The thesis that the animal is poor in world in relation to the thesis: 192
• attaining: 199
• Having and not having world as the potentiality for granting trans: 209
• b The questionable character of the mechanistic conception of vital move: 216
• The concrete connection between capability and the organ which: 222
• The intrinsically regulative character of that which is capable: 228
• The organism as endowed with capability articulating itself into: 234
• captivation as the animals: 246
• b Animal behaviour as encircled by a disinhibiting ring: 253
• c The incompleteness of our present interpretation of the essence of: 264
• Unfolding the Guiding Thesis That the Animal Is Poor in World: 268
• Chapter: 274
• world as: 282
• b The orientation of metaphysics toward the λόγος and toward logic: 288
• The task of returning to the originary dimension of the as taking: 301
• Return to the ground of the possibility of the structure of assertion: 333
• c Being free prelogical being open for beings as such and holding oneself: 339
• Worldformation as the fundamental occurrence in Dasein The: 349
• The as a whole as the world and the enigmatic distinction between: 352
• Projection as the primordial structure of the tripartite fundamental: 360
• For Eugen Fink on His Sixtieth Birthday: 367
• Postscript to the Second Edition: 374

About the author

William McNeill is Associate Professor of Philosophy at DePaul University. He is co-translator (with Julia Davis) of Hölderlin's Hymn "The Ister" by Martin Heidegger. Nicholas Walker is Research Fellow in philosophy and literature at Magdalene College, Cambridge.

Bibliographic information

• Title: The Fundamental Concepts of Metaphysics: World, Finitude, Solitude; Studies in Continental Thought
• Author: Martin Heidegger
• Publisher: Indiana University Press, 1995
• ISBN: 0253214297, 9780253214294
• Length: 376 pages
• Subjects: Philosophy / Metaphysics