Power and Freedom in Heidegger’s First Notebook

ABSTRACT

In the first notebook published in Überlegungen II-VI, which covers the years 1931 and 1932, Martin Heidegger uses a conception of power that is different to that found in his later work. Rather than power being the expression of the will to will and source of ruin for humanity, he says that humanity can only be saved from ruin if it can pave the way for an “empowerment of being” (Ermächtigung des Seins). This article will show that this early understanding of power is related to Heidegger’s conception of freedom as the essence of truth, developing his thinking on this topic from the period of 1927–1930. It will show that the terms “empowerment of being” and “letting be” (Seinlassen) are akin, and that Heidegger uses the former to distance his thinking from potential misinterpretations of the essay “On the Essence of Truth”.

KEYWORDS:

• Martin Heidegger
• freedom
• truth
• power
• Heidegger’s Black Notebooks

ORCID

Matthew J. Barnard http://orcid.org/0000-0001-6325-5025

Notes

1 This is found in Martin Heidegger, Überlegungen II–II: (Schwarze Hefte 1931–1938), Martin Heidegger: Gesamtausgabe Bd. 94 (Frankfurt am Main: Klostermann, 2014). Henceforth, GA94, using marginal pagination, which is also found in the translation: Martin Heidegger, Ponderings Ii-Vi. Trans. Richard Rojcewicz. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2016.

2 Heidegger, Nietzsche I, Martin Heidegger: Gesamtausgabe Bd. 6.1, 38–39. Heidegger, Nietzsche: Volumes One and Two 41–42

3 Davis 147.

4 Heidegger, Vorträge Und Aufsätze, Martin Heidegger: Gesamtausgabe, 89. Martin Heidegger, The End of Philosophy. Trans. Joan Stambaugh Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1973. 102. Henceforth, GA7, with original and then translation page numbers.

5 Babich 37–60, 39.

6 This note was added at a later date.

7 Heidegger, Schellings Abhandlung Über Das Wesen Der Menschlichen Freiheit (1809), 18–19. Heidegger, Schelling’s Treatise on the Essence of Human Freedom, 15–16

8 Heidegger, Vom Wesen Der Menschlichen Freiheit: Einleitung in Die Philosophie, Martin Heidegger: Gesamtausgabe Bd. 31, 125. Martin Heidegger, The Essence of Human Freedom. Trans. Ted Sadler. London: Continuum, 2005. 89. Henceforth, GA31, with original and then translation page numbers.

9 Heidegger, Wegmarken, 65. Martin Heidegger, Pathmarks. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1967. 130. Henceforth, WM with original and then translation page numbers.

10 Scholars have raised concerns on this point. Heidegger transitions here between speaking of freedom as a condition of possibility for the understanding of being to speaking of it as an act that can be performed or neglected. It is beyond the scope of this study to enter this debate. However, the reader will find a thorough consideration of the problem in Han-Pile.

11 Guignon 80.

12 Heidegger, Sein und Zeit, 126–27. Martin Heidegger, Being and Time. Trans. John Maquarrie and Edward Robinson. Oxford: Blackwell, 1967. H. 126–27. Henceforth, SZ followed by the original page numbers, which are found in the margins of the translation.