ABSTRACT
The development of Heidegger’s thought in the 1920s is decisively shaped by confrontations with two seminal thinkers in the tradition of western philosophy. Following the conviction expressed in the course of his lectures on religion from 1920/1 to critically confront ancient Greek thought, Heidegger attempts a ‘genealogy’ of the theoretical paradigm through an intensive engagement with Aristotle from 1921 to 1924/5.1 As the so-called ‘Natorp Report’2 from autumn 1922 clearly shows, Heidegger’s emphasis was from the first placed on a radicalizing appropriation of the Aristotelian notion of phronēsis or practical reason. This appropriation had manifest significance for Heidegger’s analysis of the structures of worldly existence in terms of ‘meaningfulness’ (Bedeutsamkeit), ‘relevance’ (Bewandtnis) and ‘for-the-sake-of’ (Worumwillen). The second crucial encounter followed on directly from the appropriation of Aristotle and involved an extensive phenomenological transformation of the thought of Kant from 1925 to 1929. What unites these confrontations is Heidegger’s underlying effort to radically recast Husserl’s idea of phenomenology in such a way that its supposed theoretical prejudice is put out of action and the way cleared for a truly radical phenomenological interpretation of concrete human existence.
