Being and Truth, Being and Time

Martin Heidegger. Logik: Die Frage nacb der Wabrbeit. Martin Heidegger Gesamtausgabe, Band 21. Vittorio Klostermann, Frankfurt a.M., 1976. 418 pages.

On its way into print the title of the book changed several times. Heid- egger's course at Marburg during the winter semester of 1925-26 bore the unadorned title, Logik. In the two prospectuses issued by the Klostermann firm in 1974-75 and in the plan attached to the first published volume of the Gesamtausgabe the title appeared as Logik (Aristoteles), perhaps to distinguish it from volume 26, Logik (Leibniz), and volume 56, Logik (He- raklits Lehre vom Logos). In the volume now at hand the name "Aristotle" . has been replaced by the phrase "The Question Concerning Truth," pre- sumably by the editor, Professor Walter Biemel, though this is nowhere in- dicated. The change reflects structural difficulties in the transcript of Heid- egger's lecture course, difficulties so severe that no single title could suit the contents of the volume as a whole. The title Logik fits the first half of the volume, §§1-14 (pp. 1-195), consisting of an introduction, a preliminary observation on "the present condition of philosophical logic" and on "psychologism and the question of truth," and the first of the book's two major divisions, "The problem of truth in the decisive beginnings of philosophizing logic, and the roots of traditional logic." The subtitle first proposed (Aristotle) is also expressive of the first half of the volume, not so much in terms of its contents, since Husserl too occupies a central position there, but certainly in terms of the fundamental direction of the inquiry. The second half of the book, §§15- 37 (pp. 197-415), is devoted principally to an account of Kant's view of temporality in The Critique of Pure Reason. Neither "Aristotle" nor "Logic" are appropriate titles here. In fact, it has to come as a shock to his hearers - and now his readers - when late in the latter half of the semester Heid- egger reminds them (p. 360) that it is a course on logic and not on Kant's understanding of Time. Apart from one brief reference to the themes of logic and proposition (p. 315), listeners and readers must wait until the last two sections of the work (pp. 400 ff.) for the themes announced at 151 the outset of the course to recur. Although Biemel selects as the title of this second major division a phrase from Heidegger's original plan (§5, p. 26), "The question radicalized: what is truth? ", this title has essentially nothing to do with the actual contents of §§15-37. For this reason Bie- mel must append to Heidegger's title a phrase gleaned from the opening pages of the second division (cf. p. 207), "Repetition of the analysis of falsehood with regard to its Temporality." (After §12 all the titles derive not from Heidegger but from the editor - cf. Biemel's remark on p. 418). But even this editorial pastiche does not save the appearances: the second half of the volume really has little to do with a repetition of the analysis of falsehood in the first half. With regard to the volume as a whole the most significant remark made by the editor (p. 26 n. 1, repeated on p. 417) is that "the plan of the lecture course was altered in the course of its elabora- tion." From the more detailed appearance of the first half of the plan, and from the fact that it conforms relatively well to what actually transpires in §§1-14, we may surmise that this earlier part of the course was much more carefully worked out with a view to its guiding question; from the much more general formulations of the second half of the plan, and from the fact that §§15-37 do not resemble the plan at all, we may suspect that the latter half of the course, whatever its intrinsic value, lost sight of that question. This is in fact what happens. The second major division of the outline is not simply abgedndert (Biemel), it is dropped, and the im- mediate problem this volume poses is why the "radicalized question of truth" does not materialize. In his five introductory paragraphs Heidegger distinguishes between tra- ditional academic logic and what he calls a "philosophizing logic. " E7rLu7-?g7? ÀO'YtKrlis the "science of ?oyos -AE7ECV, the science of speech." Along with "physics" and "ethics" it constitutes philosophy as taught in the later Academy and in the Stoa. From there it passes into the mainstream of the Latin and Scholastic traditions. It becomes a staple in the philosophic diet of the Occident, one which, as even Kant insists, neither requires nor is capable of substantial improvement. Heidegger's complaint is eloquent:

But is there any other kind of logic than philosophical logic, since logic is by definition a discipline of philosophy? Indeed there is! For the kind of logic commonly taught at the univer- sity today, as in former times, is one that has abandoned all philosophy, which is to say, has left all inquiry and investiga- tion behind. Our so-called "academic logic" is neither philo- sophy nor a particular science; it is a creature comfort preserved by custom and by unofficial arrangements and desires. And it is a fraud.

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