Abstract: For Heidegger, western metaphysics from Plato to Nietzsche is built around an identification of Being and thought. In my talk, I reconstruct this identification thesis as consisting of two elements. The first element is the identification of Being with (some aspect of) the process of accessibility. The second element is the characterisation of accessibility in terms of thought and knowledge. On the standard reading, Heidegger accepts the first element of the identification thesis but takes issue with the second. Against this reading, my talk argues that the core of his argument is directed against the first element of the identification thesis.
First, I outline the standard reading of Heidegger’s critique of the identification thesis. On this reading, the problem with the thesis is that it operates with an impoverished conception of un-concealment. I compare different versions of this view (Dreyfus (1991), Young (2002), Sheehan (2015), Pippin (2024)). While from one version to the next, the conception of accessibility becomes more nuanced and complete, they all share a link between Being and accessibility.
Second, I argue that this standard reading misses the core of Heidegger’s critique of the identification thesis. For Heidegger, any attempt to understand Being in terms of accessibility is wrong-headed. I use Heidegger’s distinction between the Vor-frage (as the question for un-concealment) and the Grundfrage (as the question for Being), to argue that for Heidegger, there remains a conceptual distinction between un-concealment and Being. I then show how this reading fits into Heidegger’s account of metaphysics. On this account, metaphysics is the attempt to interpret Being in terms of any concept different from it. The problem of the identification thesis is not any particular conception of thought, but the metaphysical identification of Being with anything else.
See the DPhil Seminar website for details.
DPhil Seminar Convenor: Asia Sakchatchawan and Dan Gallagher
