Heidegger, Ontology, Metontology, and the Turn

Loyola University Chicago Loyola eCommons Dissertations Theses and Dissertations 1988 Heidegger, Ontology, Metontology, and the Turn Kelly Edward Mink Loyola University Chicago Follow this and additional works at: https://ecommons.luc.edu/luc_diss Part of the Philosophy Commons Recommended Citation Mink, Kelly Edward, "Heidegger, Ontology, Metontology, and the Turn" (1988). Dissertations. 2561. https://ecommons.luc.edu/luc_diss/2561 This Dissertation is brought to you for free and open access by the Theses and Dissertations at Loyola eCommons. It has been accepted for inclusion in Dissertations by an authorized administrator of Loyola eCommons. For more information, please contact [email protected]. This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 License. Copyright © 1988 Kelly Edward Mink All Rights Reserved, Kelly Edward Mink, 1988 HEIDEGGER: ONTOLOGY, METONTOLOGY, AND THE TURN by Kelly Edward Mink A Dissertation Submitted to the Faculty fo the Graduate School of Loyola University of Chicago in Partial Fulfillment of the Requireaents for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy May 1988 ACKNOWLEDGMENTS This dissertation would not have been possible without the intellectual generosity and tolerance toward his students that char acterizes John Sallis as a director; it was these qualities, along with the already publicly recognized virtues of philosophical accomplish ment and leadership in research that led me to Loyola University of Chicago to work with Professor Sallis. I would also like to acknowledge the kindness of Professor Robert Bernasconi in agreeing to serve on my committee even though it meant a long trip from England in April solely to participate in my oral defense; and the helpfulness of Professor Thomas Sheehan in raising questions and proffering criticisms while I was working on the dissertation. The Graduate School of Loyola University awarded me a Schmitt Fellowship for the year 1986-87, without which I could not have finished the dissertation so soon after completing my course work; for this assistance I am deeply grateful. ii VITA The author, Kelly Edward Mink, is the son of C. Kelly Mink and Stella (Manning) Mink Moore. He was born February 29, 1944 in Fostor ia, Ohio. His elementary education was obtained primarily in the public schools of Pineville, Louisiana. His secondary education was completed in 1962 at Tioga High School in Tioga, Louisiana. In June, 1962, Mr. Mink entered Louisiana State University, re ceiving the degree of Bachelor of Science in mathematics in May, 1967. He completed his Master of Arts degree in philosophy in August, 1976, at Louisiana State University. In September, 1981 (teaching high school in the interim) he entered Duquesne University in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. From there he transferred to Loyola University of Chicago in 1984, where he was granted research assistantships contin uously until 1986, when he was awarded the Schmitt Fellowship. The latter enabled him to finish his dissertation, successfully defending it on April 3, 1987. iii TABLE OF CONTENTS Page ACKNOWLEDGMENTS ii VITA iii INTRODUCTION 1 Chapter I. HEIDEGGER'S EARLY CONCEPT OF METAPHYSICS ..... 24 II. LEIBNIZ 1 S DOCTRINE OF JUDGMENT AND ITS ~~~1~~KTtON 57 III. NEUTRALITY AND CONCRETENESS OF DASEIN IN 110: "THE PROBLEM OF TRANSCENDENCE AND THE PROBLEM OF BE ING AND _VME" 96 IV. THE SCIENCE OF BEING AND THE TURN 135 V. "ON THE ESSENCE OF TRUTH" AS A METONTOLOGICAL TREATISE 176 SELECTED BIBLIOGRAPHY: HEIDEGGER 1 S WORKS 209 SELECTED BIBLIOGRAPHY: HEIDEGGER'S WORKS TRANSLATED INTO ENGLISH 212 BOOKS, ARTICLES, AND COLLECTIONS OF ESSAYS 214 iv INTRODUCTION The following dissertation has as its purpose an inquiry into the concrete significance of the "turn" in Heidegger's work. The 1928 lecture course entitled Metaphysische Anfangsgrtinde der Logik im Aus gang von Leibniz yields essential clues to the solution of the problem of the turn, for Heidegger introduces, in this text, a distinction between ontology and metontology [Metontologie] which provides a basis for understanding the transition from the early to the middle period in his work. The usual formulation of the turn as a "turn from Dasein to Being" is inadequate either as a representation of the progression of Heidegger's work or as a characterization of the sense of the turn itself. According to this perspective on Heidegger's work, usually called the "developmental" view, in the initial phase Heidegger focused upon transcendence as foundational of thought and world; in the later phase, he shifts to a "Being-centered problematic"l. David Krell2 speaks of a "developmentalist bog"3 with reference to the image of the turn as an advance from phenomenology to "the other thinking"; presum ably this formulation is meant to characterize Richardson's position in Heidegger: Through Phenomenology to Thought. The worst version of the developmentalist view, according to Krell, is that of Bollnow and L6with; for them, in the later Heidegger "a mystical and mystifying contemplation of pure Being replaces existential analysis"4. Krell correctly insists, against every parody of the turn, that 1 2 Heidegger continues in his later period to emphasize the "antic fundament"5 that supports the thinking of Being. Surely one can ask, however, whether some view of Heidegger's "development" isn't possible which neither runs roughshod over the central concerns of each phase of Heidegger's work, nor which neglects the textual evidence that essen tial changes occur in Heidegger's approach. Krell, in his own discus sion, fails to account for or even recognize the change of approach manifest in Heidegger's middle- and late-period texts. In opposition to the developmentalist view, he says only that "'Heidegger-II' intro duces humanity (der Mensch) into his texts far more liberally than does the 'Heidegger-I' who analyzes Da-Sein"6. Apparently content with merely disputing the claim that Heidegger turns from man to Being in his later work, Krell fails to recognize that it is precisely the prob lem of the "antic fundament" which leads to the crisis in Heidegger's work to which the turn is a response. Even while suggesting that the changes in Heidegger's thought arise from an increasing concern with the problematic of finitude, Krell takes a rationalistic view of the effect of this issue on Hei degger's thought. For he holds that, because Heidegger is aware quite early ("in 1924 or 1925"7) that the project of ontology is threatened by the concept of the finitude of time, "the difficulty is whether the word Kehre in the developmentalist sense can mean anything at all any more"8. Krell seems actually to suggest that if a determinate set of problems can be found which Heidegger addresses in his work, then there is no need to attempt to characterize and account for the manifest changes in his work. Thus in his essay "Heidegger's Ostensible Turn- 3 ing," we find the following remarks: By now the disadvantage of all such developmentalist approaches--whatever semblance of order they provide--ought to have become apparent. Whether we subdivide Heidegger into two or three or even more parts, the problem remains that the moment we begin to think about any element of any part that element itself turns back and forth to all the remaining elements of Heidegger's thought .... Each element of Heidegger's thought turns, showing itself in sundry perspectives. These turnings seem to have had no first beginning in Heidegger's career; they certainly have no final end once we ourselves begin to turn with them.9 That the elements of Heidegger's thought remain, in a certain sense, a constant set, and that Heidegger explores these in different ways at different times, "turning" back and forth among them, is undoubtedly true but of rather minimal significance by itself. What philosopher doesn't reexamine the "elements" of his thought over and over again? Krell's remarks here trivialize the issue. They offer no clue concern- ing a question which demands a response in this context: Given that there are changes in Heidegger's thought--i.e., reformulations, manifest in the texts themselves, of the issues of central concern in Heidegger's problematic--how can they be characterized and accounted for? It is not at all necessary to suppose, as Krell so strangely does, that the problem of the turn can be formulated only in terms of a change of focus from man to Being (or vice versa) and that it can be answered by saying that Heidegger's attention moves from one element to another at different times. The notion of a "turn" has already entered into the tradition of Heidegger scholarship; the usage of this word is legitimate, as long as it is understood that we cannot presume that we already know in what the turn consists, in any concrete sense. Perhaps the characterization of neither the ''developmentalists" nor those who, 4 like Krell, simply oppose them, is correct. The root of the problem, we maintain, lies in the polemical, and quite "unphenomenological" choice offered us: to defend the identity of the "matter itself" throughout Heidegger's career, and thus to be charged with having to find evidence that his "thought" never changes: or to take Heidegger's work as though a series of position-papers were being offered, so that his "philosophy" changes depending upon whether its focus is transcen dence, truth, or time. The question of the turn is, however, first of I!!! a textual issue: Through what changes of focus, transpositions, or reformulations are we conducted as we proceed along the vectors encoun tered in, and even constitutive of, Heidegger's texts? And the ques tion of unity would then no longer ask about the "unchanging content" of Heidegger's work, but about what fundamental inquiry, pursued with ever-deepening insistence, is responsible for precisely those changes.

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