Martin Heidegger

German philosopher (1889-1976). In Merleau-Ponty's Course Notes, Heidegger receives "the most rigorous, detailed, and explicit engagement" found anywhere in Merleau-Ponty's oeuvre (Course 1, Part II.B). Merleau-Ponty traces the passage from Being and Time through On the Essence of Truth to the later writings on language, technology, and the history of Being.

Key Points

  • Merleau-Ponty defends Heidegger against three misreadings: (1) negativism (philosophy as anxiety before death); (2) anthropology (Being reduced to human attribute); (3) metaphysical resumption (the Leibnizian "why is there something rather than nothing?")
  • The Kehre (turn) is not a reversal but a deepening: the later philosophy is farther from Being-in-itself than Being and Time because "negativism always includes an afterthought of pure positivism" (line 639)
  • Being (Sein) is not a supreme being but "that which is not nothing"; "being hides itself as being by taking place as beings" (line 639) — concealment is structural, not theological
  • Language is not instrumental but the "house of Being": "the significations are only divergences (écarts) between significations" (line 702). "The origin of language and the origin of human being are the same thing, and both are violence, myth, secret" (line 734).

Details

The Passage from Dasein to Sein

  1. Being and Time: Dasein has a privileged relation to Being — but described somewhat "subjectively." The wiki now anchors this register on its primary source: see heidegger-1927-sein-und-zeit. The book's threefold priority of Dasein (ontic, ontological, ontic-ontological — § 4), the Sorge-structure as Dasein's Strukturganzes (§ 41), Zeitlichkeit as the Sinn der Sorge (§ 65), and the closing aporia (§ 83: "Führt ein Weg von der ursprünglichen Zeit zum Sinn des Seins? Offenbart sich die Zeit selbst als Horizont des Seins?") together set the program whose deepening through the Kehre gives the trajectory from Dasein to Sein its shape. The unwritten third Abschnitt ("Zeit und Sein") and the unwritten Part II (Destruktion der Geschichte der Ontologie) are the structural gaps the later thought attempts to fill.
  2. On the Essence of Truth: Truth as Offenheit (openness) — "freedom, ek-sistent, disclosive Da-sein, possesses the human being." Dasein becomes a movement of Being
  3. Later writings: Dasein is "the locality of the truth of Being" — Being is Gegend (province), Spielraum (clearing), the field in which everything is deployed

Being and Speech

The impossibility of saying Being as a Sache (object) reveals that Being's relation to speech is constitutive. The word is not a sign for a pre-given referent but a "node" simultaneously in the phonetic and semantic order. Being is "on the side of speech," between created and received language.

Critical Distance

Merleau-Ponty's implied critique: Heidegger's tendency toward "direct ontology" risks leading philosophy into silence. As Lefort notes: Merleau-Ponty "is concerned both to defend him against false interpretations and to be firm in criticizing a direct ontology, whose danger would be to lead the philosopher into silence." Yet Merleau-Ponty concedes: "philosophy is perhaps possible as 'das rechte Schweigen' [the proper silence]" (line 813).

Connections

Earth-Sky vs. Aquatic Ontology

Knight argues that Heidegger's late thought operates within a Hesiodic cosmogonic imaginary — the marriage of Earth and Sky generating the horizon of manifestation. His reading of physis kryptesthai philei as "what emerges has the urge to keep itself closed" remains within revealing-concealing. Knight contends that Merleau-Ponty's aquatic-ontology surpasses this: the primordial waters must recede before any horizon can gather. Aquatic withdrawal is not concealment-within-unconcealment but a more radical disappearance into the absolute past (Ch. 4 §§2, 5).

Inkpin's Critique of Ge-stell as Abstract Mediation (2026)

Inkpin (2026) §4 critiques Heidegger's "top-down" historical-philosophical approach as a paradigmatic case of abstract mediation — postulating an abstract structure (Ge-stell / "enframing") as condition of possibility for empirical phenomena it ought to explain. Two specific Heidegger texts are diagnosed:

  • "The Question Concerning Technology" (Heidegger 1954: 25-27): the claim that modern (post-Galilean) science was "antecedently technical in character — as 'Ge-stell'." Inkpin's diagnosis: "the characteristics of 'enframing' (ontological level) are manifested in the same way by each technological device or process (ontic level); they are to flow downwards, so to speak, rather than being inflected by and approximating to empirical phenomena."
  • "The Age of the World-Picture" (Heidegger 1977: 78): the claim that modern physics is exact because its way of being was antecedently exact. Inkpin reads this as the same inversion-of-explanation move.

Inkpin's critique is that abstract mediation "fail[s] to make intelligible how [it] is to bring about its supposed effects." The implication is that Heidegger's Seinsgeschichte, when generalized to all cultural-historical phenomena, treats them as type-instances of an abstract structure rather than as non-identical concrete artefacts. Inkpin's typology (see non-identity-based-sense) provides the structural ground for the critique — abstract mediation is structurally inappropriate for non-identity-based practices.

A subordinate critique appears in Inkpin fn 37: the Merleau-Pontian view of painting "suggests a more plausible view of the world-founding function of artworks than Heidegger's extrapolation of the Greek temple's 'setting up' (Aufstellen) of a world (Heidegger 1977: 27, 29-31) – a view freed from the implied unity of a 'Volk' and the enigmatic transcendence of 'Being'."

Inkpin's reading is additional to the wiki's prior critiques of Heideggerian "direct ontology" (per MP 2022) and the Knight 2024 aquatic-ontology critique. The three critiques pick out different problems: MP's targets direct access to Being; Knight's targets the Earth-Sky cosmogonic imaginary; Inkpin's targets the abstraction of cultural-historical structures from their empirical instances. All three share the diagnostic that Heidegger's late ontology is structurally over-totalizing, but they articulate the over-totalization at different levels.

Chouraqui's Critique of Heidegger on Nietzsche

Chouraqui 2014 rejects Heidegger's reading of Nietzsche as "the metaphysics of absolute subjectivity" (from the Nietzsche lectures and Holzwege). Heidegger charges Nietzsche with failing to ask the question of Being — treating das Seiende im Ganzen (beings-as-a-whole) under the rubric of will to power without reaching das Sein. Chouraqui counters that Heidegger misreads Nietzsche's refusal as inability:

"For Nietzsche, Being is a challenge; it is not always already here. Our response to Heidegger hence takes an unusual form: yes, Nietzsche refuses to do ontology in the Heideggerian sense, but no, it is not because he overlooks the question of Being but because he considers this question to be irrelevant as long as Being is not achieved. It is inauthentic to view inauthenticity from an authentic point of view." (Transition)

Nietzsche, on Chouraqui's reading, proposes Being as way to be: "Being must be represented as represented because only in representation do Being and its way to be coincide." Nietzsche's ontology is self-falsification — Being as the very movement of the falsification through which the phenomenon of truth appears — and this is not an oversight of the question of Being but a principled rejection of the Heideggerian framing that ontology is always-possible because Being is always-already present. See friedrich-nietzsche and will-to-power for the full argument.

Chouraqui's secondary critique: Heidegger places Nietzsche (wrongly) in the same camp as "absolute subjectivity" while placing MP (wrongly, per Deleuze's pairing) in the same camp as direct ontology. Chouraqui argues MP's "indirect ontology" is closer to Nietzsche than to Heidegger precisely on the point of refusing direct access to Being.

Heidegger's Own Reading of Nietzsche (Primary Source)

Heidegger's *Nietzsche I* lectures (1936-1939) are the wiki's primary-source counterweight to the Chouraqui critique. The 1961 Vorwort frames the publication as making visible "the Denkweg I traveled from 1930 to the Brief über den Humanismus (1947)" — the Nietzsche-confrontation is integral to Heidegger's own Kehre.

Central thesis: Vollendung der Metaphysik. Nietzsche is der letzte Metaphysiker des Abendlandes (the last metaphysician of the West) because his thinking completes (vollendet) the Greek determination of Being-as-presence rather than overcoming it. The Vollendung is the unrestricted unfolding of all the long-held essence-powers of beings to what they demand in the whole; it is what gives the metaphysical age its full stature. Nietzsche's Wille zur Macht and ewige Wiederkehr answer the Leitfrage (basic character of beings + Being of beings as a whole) at maximum extremity, but the Grundfrage (truth of Being itself) remains unasked.

Climactic thesis of Part III: Beständigung des Werdens in die Anwesenheit. The essence of will to power is the willed making-stand-fast of becoming into presence. The "highest" will to power commands becoming to remain — willing becoming into the Anwesenheit-form that is the Greek determination of Being. This is the operative ground of the Vollendung-thesis.

Metaphysical Grundstellung of Nietzsche. The four-fold structure: (a) basic character of beings = will to power; (b) Being of beings as a whole = eternal recurrence; (c) truth-character = *Gerechtigkeit*; (d) ground of human Dasein = the Übermensch. Each component is the most extreme answer along its axis; their conjoint extremity is what makes Nietzsche's Grundstellung the last.

The Vermenschlichung (humanization) thesis. Nietzsche's Vermenschlichung of beings (WP 614: "die Welt 'vermenschlichen'") is the metaphysical completion of Cartesian-modern subjektivität. The Leib (body) becomes the leading thread of world-interpretation; the animal rationale completes itself as the Übermensch — and this completion is the Cartesian subiectum in its most extreme form. This thesis is structurally continuous with Heidegger's later Gestell-analysis (1953-54): the willed Beständigung of becoming = the modern standing-reserve of beings = the Gestell.

The closing horizon: Seinsverlassenheit and the anderer Anfang. The Vollendung is also the Ende of metaphysics — but the Ende opens the Not (need) for the anderer Anfang. The withdrawal of Being (Seinsverlassenheit) experienced as the overshadowing of Sein by Seiendes is itself a movement of Sein, not human oversight: "Die Überschattung des Seins durch das Seiende kommt aus dem Sein selbst, als die Seinsverlassenheit des Seienden im Sinne der Verweigerung der Wahrheit des Seins." The closing Hölderlin verse ("In heiligem Schatten aber, am grünen Abhang wohnet der Hirt und schauet die Gipfel") names this threshold.

Method: Auseinandersetzung. Heidegger's mode of relation to Nietzsche is Auseinandersetzung — "echte Kritik" that follows the wirkende Kraft of a thinker's thought rather than chasing weaknesses. The Sache (matter at issue) is itself constituted in the confrontation. This is not Nietzsche-exegesis but Heidegger's own thinking standing within the Streitfall with Nietzsche.

Targets of polemic. Heidegger explicitly contests Baeumler 1931 (recurrence "ohne Belang"; political reading of will-to-power) and Jaspers 1936 (no conceptual truth in philosophy). Both readings are dismantled in Nietzsche I I.4.

The 1922 Autobiographical Anchor: Brentano + Braig (from Mein Weg in die Phänomenologie)

The 1963 Mein Weg in die Phänomenologie supplies the cardinal autobiographical genealogy of the Seinsfrage. Two pre-1916 sources:

(1) Brentano's Von der mannigfachen Bedeutung des Seienden nach Aristoteles (1862) — encountered by Heidegger in 1907 (last Gymnasial year). Stab und Stecken of Heidegger's first attempts to enter philosophy. The seed-question: "Wenn das Seiende in mannigfacher Bedeutung gesagt wird, welches ist dann die leitende Grundbedeutung? Was heißt Sein?" (GA 14 p. 92). The Husserl-Phänomenologie became important from 1909 as a path toward the Brentano-Aristoteles-induced Was heißt Sein? question — not as the source of that question. Convergent with the 1962 Richardson-Brief (GA 11) and the 1968 Über das Zeitverständnis (in same volume); three-way cross-confirmation.

(2) Carl Braig's Vom Sein. Abriß der Ontologie (1896) — encountered in the last Gymnasial year; Braig was Heidegger's Dogmatik-Lehrer at Freiburg (1909–11). Through Braig, Heidegger first heard of Schellings und Hegels Bedeutung für die spekulative Theologie im Unterschied zum Lehrsystem der Scholastik. The Spannung zwischen Ontologie und spekulativer Theologie als das Baugefüge der Metaphysik entered Heidegger's Gesichtskreis via Braig. This is the non-obvious pre-1916 theological-pedagogical genealogy of the Onto-Theo-Logik-Verfassung der Metaphysik thesis developed in Identität und Differenz (1957) — a thesis usually associated only with the late corpus. (Candidate claim braig-quelle-of-onto-theo-logik deferred pending ingest of Identität und Differenz (1957); see .audit/synthetic-layer-2026-05-21-fourteenth-run.md.)

(3) The 1922 LU-Arbeitsgemeinschaft Aletheia-Insight: working through LU Bd. II Untersuchung VI weekly with older students, Heidegger came to see that "Was sich für die Phänomenologie der Bewußtseinsakte als das sich-selbst-Bekunden der Phänomene vollzieht, wird ursprünglicher noch von Aristoteles und im ganzen griechischen Denken und Dasein als Ἀλήθεια gedacht" (GA 14 p. 97). The bedrängende Frage: Welches ist die Sache der Philosophie? Ist es das Bewußtsein und seine Gegenständlichkeit, oder ist es das Sein des Seienden in seiner Unverborgenheit und Verbergung? This brought Heidegger erneut und anders als zuvor onto den Weg der Seinsfrage. The Aletheia-as-Sache-of-Phänomenologie insight is autobiographically anchored in 1922, prior to SuZ; the 1964 retraction of Aletheia = Wahrheit does not retract this 1922 insight. See aletheia §"The 1922 Autobiographical Anchoring."

(4) SuZ-publication forced by Marburg-Berlin Berufung (1925/26): the Marburg dean's words ("Herr Kollege Heidegger – jetzt müssen Sie etwas veröffentlichen") and the Berlin Ministerium's Unzureichend-verdict on the first fifteen Bogen of SuZ are documented in the 1963 essay. The Fundamentum concussum-character of SuZ (per the 1962 Protokoll) is autobiographically anchored here.

The 1962 Public Ereignis-Position: Zeit und Sein + Todtnauberg Protokoll

*Zeit und Sein* (31 January 1962, Studium Generale Albert-Ludwigs-Universität Freiburg) is the public locus classicus of the late-Heidegger Ereignis-position. The chained derivation Sein als Anwesen → Anwesenlassen → Entbergen → Geben → Schicken → Reichen → Ereignis (with Enteignis as heart and Brauch as Mensch-Bezug) is the public form of the Wesensbau des Ereignisses worked out 1936–38 in the Beiträge zur Philosophie (unpublished till 1989). See heidegger-1962-zeit-und-sein and ereignis for the developed treatment.

The Todtnauberg Protokoll (September 1962, six sessions, Heidegger-reviewed) supplies the structural clarifications: Schritt zurück; Fundamentum concussum; Stationen-vs-Stufung; Geschicklosigkeit / Bewegtheit der Zuwendung im Entzug; the two-point Hegel-Heidegger disanalogy (Sein-Denken-Identität-Gleichsetzung vs. Zusammengehören-im-Ereignis; Aufhebung-der-Endlichkeit vs. Endlichkeit-im-Eigentum-incl.-Endlichkeit-des-Ereignisses); the Ge-stell als Januskopf / Vorerscheinung des Ereignisses; the late-Heidegger Husserl-position (see edmund-husserl §"Late-Heidegger Husserl-Reading"); the Erfahren-Denken nicht in Alternative-position.

The 1973 Beilage zum Vortrag Zeit und Sein retracts the 1962 Parmenides ἔστι γὰρ εἶναι reading: "kein Anhalt bei Parmenides" for the Vermögen / Ermöglichen reading. The retraction also affects the 1947 Humanismusbrief and the 1964 essay. See parmenides §"The 1962 ἔστι γὰρ εἶναι Reading — RETRACTED 1973."

The 1949–1963 GA 11 Cluster: Self-Corrections, the Kehre, and Macht des Stellens

GA 11 (ed. Friedrich-Wilhelm von Herrmann, Klostermann 2006) collects six texts spanning 1949–1963 — "Was ist das – die Philosophie?" (1955), "Der Satz der Identität" (1957), "Die onto-theo-logische Verfassung der Metaphysik" (1956/57), "Die Kehre" (1949), "Grundsätze des Denkens" (1957), the Brief an P. William J. Richardson (1962), and the Brief an Takehiko Kojima (1963) — together with ~250 Randbemerkungen from Heidegger's hand-copies and the Anhang + Beilagen self-corrections appended to "Der Satz der Identität." The volume is the wiki's primary anchor for the Kehre, the onto-theo-logical constitution, and the late-period reformulation of Ge-stell as Vorspiel/Gefahr/Verwindung (see those concept pages for the philosophical substance). Four findings are biographically and philosophically distinctive for the entity-page survey:

(1) The Anhang + Beilagen self-correction (Sprung → Erwachen, Einkehr → Entsagen, Absprung → Entwachen). The Anhang appended to "Der Satz der Identität" and the two Beilage-folders constitute the most sustained single-concept self-revision in the Heidegger corpus on the wiki. The published Identitätsvortrag's central figure — the Sprung (leap) out of representational thinking into the Ereignis — is diagnosed as "eigentlich Unzureichend": "Das Unzureichende der noch metaphysischen Verhaftung im 'Sprung'" (Anhang p. 83); "Schon der Hinblick auf 'Identität' bringt alles ins notwendig Schiefe" (Beilage I Umschlag p. 103); "Nicht Springen — sondern Erwachen in das Ereignis" (Beilage I Blatt 2, p. 106). The most pointed diagnosis comes at Beilage II Blatt 6: "Durch und durch aus übergehendem Schritt zurück und daher zweideutig und eigentlich mißdeutig gesagt" (p. 115). The replacement vocabulary — Erwachen (awakening) for Sprung, Entsagen (renouncing) for Einkehr, Entwachen for Absprung — reframes late-Heidegger method as awakening-within rather than leaping-into: the Sprung-figure implies one stands outside the Ereignis and leaps in; Erwachen recognizes one is always already eingelassen. The self-correction is biographically distinctive — Heidegger annotated his own published Vorträge volume after circulation, and the marginalia are dense enough to constitute an unofficial second edition the published text never received. See schritt-zurueck §"The Beilagen self-corrections: Sprung→Erwachen and the 'mißdeutig' diagnosis" + Phase 8 candidate ga11-sprung-to-erwachen-reframes-late-method (deferred from the 2026-05-21 ingest).

(2) The Ge-Viert (Fourfold) as suppressed correction of the published Mensch-Sein dyad. The published "Der Satz der Identität" speaks of Mensch-Sein Zusammengehören throughout. The Beilagen, however, insist the true frame is the Ge-Viert (Fourfold — heaven, earth, mortals, divinities): "dem Wink der wechselweisen Eignung von Sein und Mensch folgen — aber im Ge-Viert" (Beilage I p. 96). Beilage II Blatt 5 names Mensch's belonging "als ins Ge-Viert gehörend" (p. 114) — not just to Sein, but to the Fourfold. The Anhang reframes the "Entsagen" of Einkehr as the renouncing "in das Entsagen, das die Vierfalt des Ereignisses sagt" (p. 83). The published text's Mensch-Sein dyad is a concession to "das geläufige metaphysische Vorstellen" that the marginalia revoke. The Ge-Viert is the suppressed correction — present in the same volume but only in the marginal layer, where it consolidates the Fourfold-thinking otherwise associated with the Bremen lectures and "Das Ding." See ereignis §"The GA 11 Zusammengehören-path" for the wiki's primary treatment.

(3) The 1949 "Ereignis ist eignende Eräugnis" formulation (Die Kehre p. 121). "Die Kehre" (the fourth Bremen lecture, 1949) contains a vision-inflected predecessor of the 1962 Es-gibt derivation: "Ereignis ist eignende Eräugnis" (p. 121). The Eräugnis etymology (from er-äugen, to catch sight of) foregrounds the seeing/visionary dimension of appropriation; the 1962 *Zeit und Sein* derivation foregrounds the giving dimension (Es gibt Sein, Es gibt Zeit). The 1949 formulation predates the 1947 Humanismusbrief citation that standard periodizations treat as the Ereignis-thinking's watershed by only two years, but it is structurally distinct from the 1962 chain and supplies independent corroboration that the Ereignis is operative in the late 1940s — converging with the Richardson letter's appeal to the 1937/38 GA 45 text. The secondary literature overwhelmingly cites the 1962 derivation; Die Kehre is cited for the Gefahr/Rettende dialectic but rarely for its Ereignis-formulation. See ereignis §"The GA 11 Zusammengehören-path" + Phase 8 candidate ga11-kehre-as-sachverhalt-not-biography.

(4) The Kojima letter's Macht des Stellens reformulation and the Mensch-gebraucht-passage. The 1963 Brief an Takehiko Kojima (GA 11 pp. 165–174) reformulates the Ge-stell for a non-German addressee as the Macht des Stellens (power of positing/framing): "Die Macht des Stellens ist so wenig ein menschliches Gemächte" (p. 169). The cardinal Mensch-Bezug passage at p. 173 inverts the Herr/Knecht framing: "Der Mensch ist der von der Macht des Stellens für dieses Gebrauchte. Seine Eigenheit beruht darin, daß er nicht sich selbst gehört." The human's Eigenheit lies not in self-possession but in being gebraucht (used/needed) by the Macht des Stellens. The same page makes explicit the cross-period continuity of Heidegger's own anti-subjectivist anthropology: "Der Mensch: 'der Platzhalter des Nichts' und der Mensch: 'der Hirt ... des Seins' ... sagen das Selbe" (p. 173) — the 1929 Platzhalter des Nichts and the 1947 Hirt des Seins name the same Sachverhalt. The Schritt zurück acquires a practical-political register absent from the Identitätsvortrag's methodological framing: "heraus aus der Bahn, in der Fortschritt und Rückschritt ... geschehen" (p. 172). See ge-stell §"Key Points" (the Kojima/Macht des Stellens bullet) and schritt-zurueck §"The Kojima letter: the Schritt zurück as 'heraus aus der Bahn'."

The 1964 Self-Correction (Aletheia ≠ Wahrheit)

"Das Ende der Philosophie und die Aufgabe des Denkens" (1964) — Heidegger's contribution to the UNESCO Paris colloquium "Kierkegaard vivant," published in Zur Sache des Denkens (1969) and reprinted in GA 14 (2007) with marginalia from his Handexemplar — is the public stage of Heidegger's most important late self-correction. The footnote at GA 14 p. 87 cites his own Sein und Zeit (1927) p. 219 by direct page reference and characterizes that translation (ἀλήθεια → Wahrheit) as a Wegirren — a temporary straying — from a decisive insight:

"Wie der Versuch, eine Sache zu denken, zeitweise wegirren kann von dem, was ein entscheidender Einblick schon gezeigt hat, wird durch eine Stelle aus »Sein und Zeit« (1927) S. 219 belegt: »Die Übersetzung (des Wortes ἀλήθεια) durch das Wort ›Wahrheit‹ und erst recht die theoretischen Begriffsbestimmungen dieses Ausdrucks (Wahrheit) verdecken den Sinn dessen, was die Griechen als vorphilosophisches Verständnis dem terminologischen Gebrauch von ἀλήθεια ›selbstverständlich‹ zugrunde legten«. [GA Bd. 2, S. 291]"

The retraction has three layers (see aletheia §"The 1964 Self-Correction" for full treatment):

  1. Aletheia is not Wahrheit — Aletheia grants the possibility of Wahrheit. Truth (in any traditional sense — Übereinstimmung, Gewißheit) belongs to the grounded register; Aletheia-as-Lichtung belongs to the grounding register.
  2. The Wesenswandel-der-Wahrheit thesis is "nicht haltbar". Heidegger's earlier doctrine — that there was an essential change in truth from Greek Unverborgenheit to Roman adaequatio — is rejected. Aletheia als solche was never thought as such by philosophy; what it grants (correctness) was experienced sogleich (immediately) and only as ὀρθότης.
  3. Lethe (Verbergung) belongs to A-letheia als das Herz — not as addition or shadow-to-light, but constitutively. The Lichtung is Lichtung der sich verbergenden Anwesenheit, Lichtung des sich verbergenden Bergens (GA 14 p. 88).

The 1964 essay also enacts the title-substitution announced in its introductory paragraph: the SuZ-task is renamed Lichtung und Anwesenheit. Marginal (27) at GA 14 p. 87 reframes the SuZ-Seinsfrage as "der verkürzte Titel für die Frage nach der Herkunft der ontologischen Differenz." See lichtung, task-of-thinking, and ontological-difference for the cross-page implications.

The wider consequence: every wiki page mentioning Heidegger's "doctrine of truth as unconcealment" should now distinguish (a) the SuZ-1927 register and (b) the 1964 retraction. Pages updated in the 2026-05-01 ingest (per unthought, ontological-difference, seinsgeschichte, auseinandersetzung, vollendung-der-metaphysik, machenschaft, plus this entity page) carry the distinction; pages predating the 2026-05-01 ingest may need targeted Phase 8 review.

The 1964 Cybernetic-Vollendung Specification

The same 1964 essay extends the Vollendung-thesis from the Nietzsche I register (Nietzsche-as-letzter-Metaphysiker, 1936-39) to the late-Heidegger present-age diagnostic: philosophy ends not only in Nietzsche's metaphysical Umkehrung but also in the dispersal of philosophy into the independent sciences and in Kybernetik as the new Grundwissenschaft of the *Weltzivilisation*. Machenschaft (NII V/IX, 1939-46) → Ge-stell (Frage nach der Technik, 1953) → Kybernetik (1964) are three names for the same matter at three publication moments. See machenschaft §"The 1964 Cybernetic Specification."

The BS-I Critique of Heidegger on the Animal and on Sovereignty (Derrida 2001–2002, added 2026-05-27)

BS-I mounts two distinct critiques of Heidegger on the human/animal threshold, plus several incidental engagements. The critiques are deferred for full development to BS-II (2002–2003, not yet ingested) but anchored in BS-I as follows.

(1) The Sein und Zeit gap: no place for the dead body or the living animal (BS-I S11 pp. 279–280). The existential-analytic typology Dasein / Zuhandensein / Vorhandensein cannot accommodate either the dead body or the living animal:

  • The dead body is no longer Dasein (no being-toward-death from its side; no Strukturganzes of Sorge) but is not Vorhandensein (not mere occurrent object) nor Zuhandensein (not ready-to-hand equipment).
  • The living animal as such, qua living, is equally unplaceable: not Dasein (the existential structures of das-man, Mitsein, Sein zum Tode are reserved to man); not Zuhandensein; not properly Vorhandensein either (the animal is not mere object).

This is not a minor lacuna but indicates that Heidegger has no ontology of life or of the cadaver. The 1681 elephant-cadaver of BS-I's paradigm dissection scene is precisely the figure of this gap. Derrida flags the gap and defers the full treatment to BS-II.

(2) The aggravated humanism of weltarm / weltbildend / weltlos (BS-I S13 pp. 346–347). The most consequential BS-I critique. The 1929/30 Grundbegriffe der Metaphysik: Welt — Endlichkeit — Einsamkeit lectures distinguish: stone weltlos (worldless), animal weltarm (poor in world), man weltbildend (world-forming). The animal "has a relation to the sun, it feels the warmth of the sun or the light of the sun, but has no relation to the sun as such" (BS-I S13 p. 347).

Derrida's reading: this triad is more humanist than the animal rationale that Heidegger's Letter on Humanism (1946) explicitly deconstructs. "It's because he wants to accentuate, aggravate, sharpen this limit between the animal and human ... that, on the one hand, he criticizes, or deconstructs ... the metaphysical tradition that makes man an animal rationale and that, on the other hand, he aggravates the distinction between the animal and the human" (BS-I S13 p. 346). Heidegger's anti-humanism does not see itself.

This grounds the live claim claims#heideggerian-anti-humanism-conceals-aggravated-humanism.

(3) Eigensinn — "Den Eigensinnigen ist Leben nur Leben" (BS-I S12 pp. 305–308). Heidegger's witticism from Einführung in die Metaphysik (1935): "For the stubborn [Eigensinnigen], life is merely life, death is for them death and nothing else." Heidegger mocks the stubborn reduction. Derrida reads Eigensinn as a definition of bêtise — bêtise as having-only-one-idea-in-one's-head, Eigensinnigkeit. The Heideggerian Eigensinn meets Valéry's Monsieur Teste and Spinozistic conatus in BS-I's *bêtise* = *Eigensinn* = *conatus* synthesis (see betise).

But Derrida turns the witticism against Heidegger himself: "Where I would be tempted to find Heidegger a little eigensinnig, if not a little bête himself on this subject, is where he holds so firmly to the opinion ... that only man or only Dasein has an experiential relation to death, to dying, to sterben as such" (BS-I S12 p. 308). Heidegger's own reduction of Sterben to a uniquely-human structural relation is itself Eigensinn.

(4) Sophocles' Antigone / deinon / Unheimlichste (BS-I S10 pp. 261–267). Heidegger's Einführung in die Metaphysik pp. 108–126 reads Sophocles' Antigone lines 332–375 on to deinotaton — "the most strange / most unheimlich" — as the sovereign-form of human being. Man is the most unheimlich being. Derrida reads this within BS-I's sovereignty analysis: the Unheimlichste of man is structurally the autoposition of the ipse that the seminar deconstructs. The superlative "most strange" is the mark of human sovereignty.

(5) Heidegger's Nazi engagement called a "Dummheit" (BS-I S6 pp. 173 via Ronell). Via Ronell's Stupidity (2002), BS-I notes that Heidegger characterized his 1933–34 Nazi engagement as a Dummheit (a "bêtise," a "faux-pas"). The framing is itself diagnosed as bêtise: Heidegger does not say "I am bête" or "I am always bête in politics"; he says "that day, I did a bêtise" — with the implication that one is not always entirely responsible for a bêtise. The diagnosis is subtle: the Dummheit-framing is the structural form of bêtise itself, the Eigensinn that allows the I to localize its failure.

(6) The animal "cannot work." Der Ruf zum Arbeitsdienst (GA 16 p. 239): "Das Tier und alles bloss Dahinlebende kann nicht arbeiten" — the animal and everything merely living-on cannot work. BS-I S6 p. 167 cites this as evidence of Heidegger's continued assignment of the human/animal distinction to work (alongside language, Mitsein, death). The argument extends the weltarm critique into the Arbeit-register.

(7) Foucault never refers to Heidegger when introducing biopower (BS-I S12 pp. 324, 330–331). Derrida flags this absence as a serious omission given the Letter on Humanism's explicit anti-biologism. See michel-foucault for the contrastive note.

The BS-II Critique of Heidegger: Walten, als-Struktur, Antigone, and the Cross-Decade Animal-Doctrine (Derrida 2002–2003, added 2026-05-27)

BS-II (2002–2003) delivers the full Heidegger reading deferred at BS-I S13 — and substantially exceeds it. The principal discovery (Derrida's own framing, S10 p. 280): the Heideggerian neologism-family Walten (deployed superabundantly across his corpus from 1929-30 through 1957) names a sovereignty so sovereign that it overruns any historical configuration of an onto-theological and therefore also theologico-political type. This is the seminar's late-Derridean discovery — and one of the most original recent readings of late Heidegger. See walten for the wiki's dedicated concept page.

(1) The Walten discovery (BS-II S2, S9, S10). Heidegger translates physis not as Wachstum (growth) but as sich bildendes Walten des Seienden im Ganzen — the self-forming sovereignty of beings in their wholeness. Walten (verb, noun, participle) becomes the structural form of Heidegger's gesture from 1929-30 onward. In Einführung in die Metaphysik (1935) the family deploys "superabundantly": walten, das Walten, durchwalten, Mitwalten, umwalten, verwalten, Verwaltung, Übergewalt, vorwaltend, bewältigen, unbewältigt, Gewalt, Allgewalt, Gewalt-tat, Gewalt-tätigkeit. In Identität und Differenz (1957) the family climaxes as Walten der Differenz — Walten gives (vergibt) the ontological difference between Being and beings. "Im Austrag waltet Lichtung des sich verhüllend Verschließenden." (S9 p. 256.) Derrida's late-life pronouncement: "late in my life of reading Heidegger, I have just discovered a word that seems to oblige me to put everything in a new perspective. And that is what happens and ought to be meditated on endlessly." (S10 p. 280.) The terminal Derridean formula: "Walten would be too sovereign still to be sovereign" — i.e., it exceeds the very onto-theological sovereignty it would otherwise simply name. See claims#walten-exceeds-onto-theological-sovereignty (live).

(2) The cross-decade philological argument: Heidegger's animal-doctrine is a thirty-year stable commitment. A major BS-II finding: the Sterben / Verenden distinction — only Dasein truly dies, the animal merely "perishes" — is not a localized 1929-30 position to be discounted as youthful. It is restated word-for-word in "Das Ding" (1950, twenty years after Grundbegriffe) and continues to operate in Identität und Differenz (1957). The philological argument strengthens the BS-I claims#heideggerian-anti-humanism-conceals-aggravated-humanism live claim into a durable thesis: this is not a youthful slip but a sustained Heideggerian commitment. The 1929-30 Grundbegriffe + 1950 "Das Ding" + 1957 Identität und Differenz form one continuous doctrine (live claim, see claims#heidegger-animal-doctrine-cross-decade-stable). (derrida-2002-bete-souverain-ii S4 pp. 173-77; S5 p. 182; S9 pp. 252-57.)

(3) The Sterben / Verenden "curious non-sequitur" (BS-II S4 §49). Heidegger uses "possibility of dying" as criterion of life: "a stone cannot be dead because it was never alive" (H 265/179). Yet in §49 of the same 1929-30 seminar — and again in "Das Ding" 1950 — Heidegger writes that "the animal cannot die in the sense in which dying is ascribed to humans, but can only come to an end" (H 388/267). The same criterion of life is used to include the animal in life AND to exclude it from death-proper. Derrida names this "this curious non-sequilur" (S4 p. 176). The animal is alive because it can die; but the animal cannot die in the sense reserved for Dasein. The split is load-bearing for the als-Struktur / Walten / human-animal-divide chain.

(4) The als-Struktur (the "as such" structure) as linchpin of Heideggerian humanism. Heidegger holds that the animal in its Benommenheit (captivation) is enclosed in a disinhibiting ring (Umring, Sichumringen); it relates to beings but not to beings as such. The "as such" structure is what Dasein has and the animal lacks. Derrida shows the chain: Walten makes the als-Struktur possible; logos makes Walten manifest; the als-Struktur underwrites the Sterben-vs-Verenden distinction. The chain is the linchpin of Heideggerian humanism. To deconstruct it, Derrida proposes the Kantian Alsobstruktur (the als ob / as-if of regulative idea) as analogous parallel: both humans (Kantian) and Dasein (Heideggerian) relate to a world via als-structure; both forms exclude the animal. The convergence reveals a deeper humanist structure. (derrida-2002-bete-souverain-ii S7 p. 191; S8 pp. 218-30; S9 pp. 245-52; S10 pp. 269-71.)

(5) The Sophocles Antigone / deinon / Gewalt-tätigkeit / staatschaffenden Handelns chain (BS-II S10). Heidegger's Einführung in die Metaphysik reads the Antigone chorus "polla ta deina, kouden anthropou deinoteron pelei" — "many things are deinon but nothing more deinon than man." Heidegger translates deinon as unheimlich. Man is doubly deinon: exposed to the überwältigende Walten (overwhelming prevailing) and exercising Gewalt-tätigkeit (violence-doing). The catalogue of Gewalt-tätigkeit: des dichterischen Sagens / des denkerischen Entwurfs / des bauenden Bildens / des staatschaffenden Handelns (poetic saying / thinking project / building image / state-creating action). The state-creating Gewalt-tätigkeit binds Walten directly to political-historical violence. Derrida's diagnostic: "shock and awe, as Bush would say" (S10 p. 286). The state-founding Gewalt-tätigkeit is Walten's political-historical exercise — and this is the seminar's most direct contemporary-political diagnosis (delivered six days after the Iraq War began).

(6) The avowal-without-avowal of §73b (BS-II S9 pp. 239-42). In section 73b of the 1929-30 Grundbegriffe, Heidegger admits he was "the victim of an illusion" (Täuschung) — specifically about Täuschung, deception, the very capacity Heidegger denies to the animal. The avowal is immediately self-corrected by parenthetical reference to Sein und Zeit pp. 222, 285ff (where the illusion was already corrected). Derrida diagnoses: confession effaces its own trace; the structure of "avowal without avowal" is what Heidegger and Lacan simultaneously deny to the animal while themselves enacting it. This deepens the BS-I treatment of Lacan's reaction/response distinction.

(7) "Robinson Heidegger" / Heidegger as Robinsonian Crusoe (BS-II S2 pp. 33-46). Derrida's most original methodological move: Heidegger's Sein und Zeit opening — start from what is closest, take Dasein, fear the Umweg (detour), go-in-circles around the path-question — is "a hyperbolic Robinsonade." Heidegger "isolates himself from the whole tradition, from all traditions, and asks himself, out of nowhere, the question of the path." Both Heidegger and Defoe's Robinson share path-anxiety, Umweg-fear, the closest-as-already-distant, the going-in-circles. Heidegger philosophizes Robinson-style. See robinson-crusoe for the conjoined-reading method.

(8) Heidegger's coup de force / "Heidegger's Walten" (BS-II S2 p. 61; S3 p. 89). Derrida identifies a meta-level tic in Heidegger's seminar method: apparently inevitable methodological choices that are in fact unjustifiable decisions presented as natural. The choice of the "closest path" (Der nächste Weg) is the first instance. "That would be Heidegger's Walten" — the same Heideggerian Walten-concept applied recursively to Heidegger's own method. Heidegger's gestures are Walten. This is one of the seminar's sharpest reading-moves.

(9) Pascal's "Memorial" vs. Heidegger's causa sui (BS-II S8 pp. 209-14). Heidegger in Identität und Differenz names the God of onto-theology as causa sui — the God to whom one neither prays nor sacrifices nor dances. The "atheistic" thinking that steps back from causa sui is "perhaps closer to the Divine God" than the onto-theological God. Derrida sets this against Pascal's "Memorial" (1654): "FIRE / God of Abraham, God of Isaac, God of Jacob / NOT of philosophers and savants." The God of Pascal's prayer is precisely the God Heidegger says cannot be the causa sui. The Walten-question is: can one pray to Walten? Derrida holds the question open (S8 p. 215).

(10) The seminar's terminal question — never answered. Heidegger in Einführung in die Metaphysik p. 121: "Nur an einem scheitert alle Gewalt-tätigkeit unmittelbar [...] Das ist der Tod" — only one thing immediately breaks all violence: death. Derrida reads this as concession: Walten fails at one and only one place — death. But Heidegger denies the animal access to "death as such." So who can break Walten? Only Dasein? That re-installs the very sovereignty Walten was supposed to exceed. The seminar's closing question (S10 p. 290): "Who is capable of death, and, through death, of imposing failure on the super- or hyper-sovereignty of Walten?" Derrida marks "a definite stage of the seminar, before a long halt" (p. 261) and did not resume; he died Oct 2004. The seminar's incompleteness is destinal.

The BS-II Heidegger reading thus consolidates and exceeds BS-I:

  • BS-I S11 (Sein und Zeit-gap, no place for dead body or living animal) → BS-II S4-S6 develops the gap into the non habeas corpus / non habeas corpse analysis and into the corpse/mourning register (see survivance).
  • BS-I S13 (weltarm aggravated humanism, deferred to BS-II) → BS-II S4 §49 delivers the Sterben/Verenden non-sequitur diagnosis; S5 confirms the doctrine in "Das Ding" 1950; S7 articulates the Armut / privation circularity (the animal "deprived of privation itself").
  • BS-I implicit references to Heidegger's Eigensinn and deinon → BS-II S10 develops these into the Antigone / Gewalt-tätigkeit / staatschaffenden Handelns chain.
  • Walten is BS-II's new contribution, not anticipated at BS-I.

Open Questions

  • How does Merleau-Ponty's reading compare to Derrida's or Levinas's?
  • Would the critique of "direct ontology" apply to Heidegger's later Ereignis?
  • Is Chouraqui's claim that Nietzsche refuses rather than fails to ask the question of Being sustainable — or does it rest on reading MP's sophistication back into Nietzsche?
  • Does the 1964 retraction of Aletheia-as-Wahrheit require revising the wiki's earlier Heidegger pages that predate the 2026-05-01 ingest? Targeted Phase 8 review may be warranted.
  • The relation between Derrida's Sein und Zeit-gap critique (BS-I S11) and Heidegger's own 1929/30 attempted-resolution (weltarm / weltbildend / weltlos). Derrida treats both as failures (one absence, one aggravated humanism) — but Heidegger's followers (Agamben The Open 2002 in particular) might read the 1929/30 lectures as solving what Sein und Zeit could not. Open for BS-II (2002–2003, not yet ingested) and Agamben-comparison.
  • Heidegger's Dummheit self-characterization of his Nazi engagement (Ronell via BS-I S6 p. 173). The framing-as-Dummheit is itself diagnosed by Derrida as a form of bêtise (the Eigensinn of localizing the failure as accident). The implications for Heidegger reception in the post-2014 Black Notebooks discussion (the question of Heidegger's anti-Semitism as structural-philosophical rather than accidental-political) are open and not on the wiki.

Synthetic Claims

The synthetic interpretive layer (wiki/claims.md) articulates thirteen claims for which this page is a Wiki home — three at supported, seven at live, and three candidate. Supported claims may be cited as stable synthetic claims without provisional framing; live and candidate claims are cited with provisional framing per CLAUDE.md §Claims Register Format.

  • supported claim, see claims#mp-heidegger-reception-archivally-thin — MP's reading of Heidegger was archivally thin: the Sein und Zeit underlining is limited to §§1–14 and §§25–27 with no annotations; Identität und Differenz notes are bare paraphrases; the 1959 Heidegger course is "transparent / neutral"; 80% of MP's Heidegger references are concentrated in 1958–61; MP began serious Heidegger work only in summer–autumn 1958, by which time MP's ontology was already mature. Promoted to supported 2026-05-05 under R8 user pre-authorization (Phase 8 ninth run). The claim re-positions MP's Seinsdenken register as stylistic-figural emulation rather than philosophical inheritance; the late MP's positive genealogy runs from Brunschvicg-Biran-Blondel-Schilder-Piaget-Marcel-Bachelard rather than from Heidegger. Coheres with claims#circulus-vitiosus-deus-mp-ontology-of-ontology (supported, 2026-05-04): MP-Nietzsche-via-BGE 56 is coordinate-distinct from Heidegger's reading of BGE 56.
  • live claim, see claims#vie-du-lien-prior-to-being-toward-death — MP's Ineinander ontology refuses the Heideggerian être-pour-la-mort and the angoisse-revealed Dasein. The "principe des principes" formulation explicitly inverts Heideggerian priority: the possibility of rupture (freedom, death, body accidents) does not prove anything about the possibility of Ineinander and connection. MP frames la chair as constituted by the vie du lien, intercorporéité, accouplement, prégnance — figures absent from Heidegger's analytic. Per Saint Aubert 2006 Ch V §3.
  • live claim, see claims#erde-to-copernican-necessary-hypostatization — Chouraqui (Order of the Earth, 2016) holds MP's Erde → Copernican Earth movement as necessary hypostatization — read against Heidegger's Spiegel-interview reaction ("photographs of the earth from the moon" as "uprooting") which treats the cosmological Earth as a rupture. Where Heidegger sees breaking, MP sees the essential movement of being. Counterpressure: the framing risks an MP-vs-Heidegger contrast that the existing supported claims#mp-heidegger-reception-archivally-thin complicates.
  • supported claim, see claims#brentano-as-erste-anstoss-of-seinsfrage — the autobiographical genealogy (Brentano 1862 → Husserl LU → Seinsfrage) is the structural backbone of Heidegger's self-understanding, attested in three independent texts (1963 Mein Weg, 1962 Richardson-Brief, 1968 Über das Zeitverständnis); Brentano's dissertation is primary Anstoß, Husserl's LU secondary.
  • live claim, see claims#braig-quelle-of-onto-theo-logik — the onto-theo-logische Verfassung thesis (1957) has a pre-1916 Braig-Quelle in Carl Braig's Vom Sein. Abriß der Ontologie (1896) and his Schelling-Hegel-speculative-theology teaching. Bears on this page as a second genealogical anchor alongside the Brentano-Anstoß: the Seinsfrage comes from Brentano; the Onto-Theo-Logik-Spannung comes from Braig.
  • supported claim, see claims#ga11-kehre-as-sachverhalt-not-biography — the Kehre is a Sachverhalt of the Seinsfrage, not a biographical event. Bears on this entity page because the "early vs. late Heidegger" biographical periodization — which structures most secondary-literature entries on this page — is directly contested by three convergent self-statements (1937/38–1962).
  • live claim, see claims#vollendung-vs-uberwindung-of-metaphysics — Heidegger reads Nietzsche as Vollender (completer), not Überwinder (overcomer), of metaphysics; Überwindung would mean stepping out of metaphysics, Vollendung means bringing it to full stature within its own frame, so Nietzsche's "destruction" preserves the metaphysical structure (will, Sein-als-Anwesenheit) at the moment of inverting its content. Bears on this page because the distinction is a structural-historical claim about what post-Nietzschean philosophy is — post-Nietzschean readings that take Nietzsche as exit-figure operate within a misreading, the genuine task being the anderer Anfang.
  • live claim, see claims#walten-exceeds-onto-theological-sovereignty — Heidegger's *Walten* names a sovereignty so sovereign that it exceeds and precedes onto-theological sovereignty; Walten is "neither solely political nor solely theological" and gives (vergibt) the ontological difference, so the political-theological sovereignty of the Schmitt / Hobbes / Bodin tradition is itself derivative of it (Derrida BS-II S10 p. 279: "Walten would be too sovereign still to be sovereign"). Bears on this page because it adds a deeper register to the wiki's BS-I deconstruction of sovereignty: sovereignty is derivative of a more violent ground no political-theological category can name.
  • live claim, see claims#heidegger-animal-doctrine-cross-decade-stable — Heidegger's distinction between Sterben (dying proper, reserved for Dasein) and Verenden (mere perishing, the animal's mode), combined with the weltlos / weltarm / weltbildend triad, is not a localized 1929-30 position but a stable thirty-year commitment, restated word-for-word in "Das Ding" (1950) and continued through Identität und Differenz (1957) (Derrida BS-II strengthening of the BS-I candidate). Bears on this page because it converts the "aggravated humanism" critique from a critique of a youthful slip into a critique of a sustained doctrinal commitment Heidegger never revoked.
  • live claim, see claims#heideggerian-anti-humanism-conceals-aggravated-humanism — Heidegger's anti-humanist deconstruction of animal rationale (in the Letter on Humanism, 1946, and Einführung in die Metaphysik, 1935) leaves intact, and indeed aggravates, a residual humanism in the 1929/30 Grundbegriffe der Metaphysik triad (stone weltlos, animal weltarm, man weltbildend); the triad is more humanist than the animal rationale it claims to deconstruct (Derrida BS-I S13 pp. 346–347). Bears on this page because the aggravation is read as a structural feature of Heideggerian anti-humanism, not a remediable lacuna: "Heidegger's anti-humanism does not see itself."
  • candidate, see claims#aletheia-wahrheit-1964-self-correction — Heidegger's 1964 essay "Das Ende der Philosophie und die Aufgabe des Denkens" (GA 14 pp. 67–90) publicly retracts the Sein und Zeit identification of Aletheia with Wahrheit, characterizing it as having "strayed from a decisive insight": Aletheia is the Lichtung that grants both truth and untruth but is not itself "truth." Bears on this page because most Heidegger commentary treats Wahrheit als Unverborgenheit as the Heideggerian doctrine, so every wiki use of "the doctrine of truth as unconcealment" must distinguish the SuZ register from the 1964 retraction.
  • candidate, see claims#linguistique-ontological-pertinence-contra-heidegger — MP's PbP (1953-54) differs from Heidegger by granting linguistique (the empirical science of language) ontological pertinence that Heidegger's later philosophy of language (Unterwegs zur Sprache) forecloses, even though MP holds linguistique studies "une parole ontique" not "la parole de l'être" (Robert postface §2, p. 242: "Merleau-Ponty ne refuse pas à la linguistique la pertinence ontologique que Heidegger lui refuse"). Bears on this page because it is a positioning thesis marking where MP most clearly diverges from Heidegger on whether the human sciences can do ontological work.
  • candidate, see claims#onto-theo-logische-verfassung-as-structural-constitution — Heidegger's Onto-theo-logische Verfassung der Metaphysik (GA 11 §1) names the structural-constitutional shape of Western metaphysics — not a doctrinal-content claim about theology, but a claim about how metaphysics is constituted as one structure conjoining ontology and theology under a single architecture, with ontology and theology as two moments held together by Austrag. Bears on this page because it corrects the standard reading that takes "onto-theo-logy" as a critique of theology within metaphysics: the Verfassung names the unified structure, not a critique of one of its parts.

Sources

  • merleau-ponty-2022-possibility-of-philosophy — Course 1, Part II.B (lines 600-813) is the most extensive engagement in Merleau-Ponty's oeuvre
  • chouraqui-2014-ambiguity-and-absolute — the Transition chapter is the primary site of Chouraqui's critique of Heidegger's reading of Nietzsche. Also discusses Heidegger's (via Deleuze) pairing of Heidegger+MP against Nietzsche+Foucault, which Chouraqui rejects
  • inkpin-2026-painting-sedimentation-cultural-world — Inkpin (2026) §4 critiques Heidegger's Ge-stell (1954: 25-27) and "Age of the World-Picture" (1977: 78) as paradigmatic abstract mediation — postulating an abstract structure as condition of possibility for the empirical phenomena it ought to explain, and "fail[ing] to make intelligible how [it] is to bring about its supposed effects." Fn 37 also critiques the Greek-temple Aufstellen (1977: 27, 29-31). See entity-page §"Inkpin's Critique of Ge-stell" for the relation to other critiques and concrete-mediation for the typological diagnostic.
  • heidegger-1927-sein-und-zeit — primary source. The foundational text. Locus classicus for dasein, sorge, zeitlichkeit, sein-zum-tode, das-man, In-der-Welt-sein (Heideggerian register; cf. being-in-and-toward-the-world for MP's distinct être au monde), the Vorhandenheit / Zuhandenheit distinction, the Existenzial / Kategorial distinction, and the Destruktion-program for the unwritten Part II. The 1927 Lichtung-image (Dasein ist die Lichtung — § 28) is the operative ground that the post-1964 Lichtung-essays re-anchor outside the Dasein-frame. The closing aporia (§ 83) leaves open the question that the Kehre attempts.
  • heidegger-1961-nietzsche-i — primary source. Three lecture courses (1936/37, 1937, 1939) plus 1961 Vorwort. The wiki's most sustained primary-source presence of Heidegger. Central to understanding Heidegger's Vollendung-thesis on Nietzsche, the leitfrage-grundfrage architectonic, the bestandigung-des-werdens reading of will to power, and the Auseinandersetzung-method that structures Heidegger's relation to all major Western thinkers
  • heidegger-1961-nietzsche-ii — primary source. Continuation of NI (1939-46 lectures and treatises). Source of the genealogy ἀλήθεια → ... → Machenschaft (NII IX) and the Lichtungslosigkeit-of-Sein doctrine (NII V).
  • heidegger-1964-end-of-philosophy — primary source. Late short essay (1964) with Heidegger's Handexemplar marginalia. The wiki's locus classicus for lichtung, Aletheia (with the 1964 self-correction), lethe-verbergung, end-of-philosophy, task-of-thinking, and kybernetik-as-grundwissenschaft. Public stage of Heidegger's retraction of the SuZ identification of Aletheia with Wahrheit; locus of the renamed SuZ-task as Lichtung und Anwesenheit (or, per Handexemplar marginal 30: Anwesenheit (ontologische Differenz) und Lichtung).
  • derrida-2001-bete-souverain-i — secondary engagement (Derrida-as-reader-of-Heidegger). Critiques on two principal fronts: (1) S11 — the Sein und Zeit typology (Dasein / Zuhandensein / Vorhandensein) cannot accommodate the dead body or the living animal — structural gap; (2) S13 — the 1929/30 weltarm / weltbildend / weltlos triad aggravates the human/animal humanism that the Letter on Humanism (1946) claims to deconstruct. Also: Eigensinn from Introduction to Metaphysics (S12 pp. 305–308); Sophocles' deinon / Antigone reading (S10 pp. 261–267); Heidegger's Nazi-engagement called a Dummheit (S6 p. 173 via Ronell); the animal "cannot work" from Der Ruf zum Arbeitsdienst (S6 p. 167). Derrida defers full reading to BS-II (2002–2003).