Heidegger, Catholicism and the History of Being

ABSTRACT

This paper aims to rebuild the relationship between the Seinsfrage and Catholicism in Heidegger’s meditation and to shed light on his critique to Christianity (in terms of Christentum) as a philosophical necessity rooted in his broader critique of modernity in the context of the Black Notebooks. In order to reach these purposes, this contribution will be articulated in two parts: in the first one, I will rebuild Heidegger’s relationship to Catholicism and in the second one, I will focus on Black Notebooks as important tools in understanding Heidegger’s critique to Catholicism, a critique that is built on three levels: historical, speculative and political. The essay will show how the Schwarze Hefte illuminate Heidegger’s attempts to answer the question of Being in an incessant tension with the coeval seven major treatises on the Seinsgeschichte, in which Christianity, metaphysics and nihilism are inextricably tied together.

KEYWORDS:

• Seinsfrage
• Catholicism
• metaphysics
• modernity
• nihilism

ORCID

Francesca Brencio http://orcid.org/0000-0003-2421-8226

Notes

1 On this topic see von Herrmann, Weg und Methode; von Herrmann, Wege ins Ereignis; von Herrmann, Nachwort des Herausgebers; von Herrmann, Transzendenz und Ereignis.

The seven major treatises on the history of Being are Beiträgen zur Philosophie (Vom Ereignis) (GA 65, 1936–1938), Besinnung (GA 66, 1938/39), Geschichte des Seyns (GA 69, 1939/40), Über den Anfang (GA 70, 1941); Das Ereignis (GA 71, 1941/42), Die Stege des Anfangs (GA 72, 1944) and Metaphysik und Nihilismus (GA 67, 1948).

2 I refer the reader to Brencio, Thinking without Bannisters; Eadem, The Fugue of Being; Eadem, Martin Heidegger and the thinking of evil; Eadem, Foundation and poetry.

3 Heidegger and Jaspers, Briefwechsel 1920–1963, 157.

4 Heidegger, “The Word of Nietzsche ‘God is Dead’”.

5 Heidegger, On the Way to Language.

6 Heidegger, On the Way to Language, 9–10.

7 Letter quoted in Kisiel, The Genesis of Heidegger’s Being and Time.

8 van Buren, “Martin Heidegger, Martin Luther”.

9 Gadamer, “Die Religiöse Dimension”, 389–90.

10 Heidegger, Ontology. The Hermeneutics of Facticity, 4.

11 Jaspers, Philosophische Autobiographie, 92–3; translated as On Heidegger, Graduate Faculty Philosophy Journal 7 (1978): 108–9.

12 Heidegger, The Phenomenology of Religious Life, 73

13 Heidegger, The Phenomenology of Religious Life, 82.

14 Heidegger, The Basic Problems of Phenomenology, 61–2.

15 Heidegger, The Basic Problems of Phenomenology, 31.

16 Heidegger, Phenomenological Interpretations of Aristotle, 6.

17 Heidegger, Ponderings VII–XI. Black Notebooks 1940–1939, 20.

18 Heidegger, Ponderings II–VI. Black Notebooks 1931–1940, 336.

19 There are two transcripts in the Bultmann Archive in Tübingen of Heidegger’s contributions to Bultmann’s seminar on Paul’s Ethics, in Winter Semester 1923–24 (on February 14 and 21). According to Hans-Georg Gadamer, Heidegger, in a public discussion in Marburg on February 20th 1924, challenged theology to fulfil its real function of speaking credibly about faith and there appealed to Overbeck. This discussion has been published by Gadamer with the title Heidegger and Marburg Theology, 198–212; see Gadamer, Philosophical Hermeneutics.

20 Heidegger, Ponderings VII–XI. Black Notebooks 1940–1939, 50.

21 Heidegger, Ponderings VII–XI. Black Notebooks 1940–1939, 251.

22 Heidegger, Ponderings II–VI. Black Notebooks 1931–1940, 345.

23 See Heidegger, Ponderings XII–XV Black Notebooks 1939–1943, 109.

24 Heidegger, Mindfulness, 138.

25 Heidegger, Ponderings VII–XI. Black Notebooks 1940–1939, 229.

26 Heidegger, Ponderings XII–XV Black Notebooks 1939–1943, 73.

27 Heidegger’s letter to Julius Stenzel, 14 April 1928, quoted in Ott, Martin Heidegger, 158.

28 Letter of Martin Heidegger to Elisabeth Blochmann, dated 8 August 1928, in Heidegger and Blochmann, Briefwechsel 1918–1969, 32.

29 See de Towarnicki, À la rencontre de Heidegger.

30 Heidegger, Anmerkungen I–V, 438.

31 Heidegger, Ponderings II–VI. Black Notebooks 1931–1940, 330.

32 Heidegger, Anmerkungen I–V, 21.

33 Heidegger, Ponderings II–VI. Black Notebooks 1931–1940, 380.

34 Heidegger, Ponderings VII–XI. Black Notebooks 1940–1939, 4.

35 Heidegger, Ponderings VII–XI. Black Notebooks 1940–1939, 111.

36 Heidegger, Ponderings XII–XV Black Notebooks 1939–1943, 10.

37 Heidegger, Ponderings VII–XI. Black Notebooks 1940–1939, 254.

38 See Bernasconi, Another Eisenmerger? 182

39 Heidegger, Ponderings II–VI. Black Notebooks 1931–1940, 88.

40 Heidegger, Ponderings VII–XI. Black Notebooks 1940–1939, 221.

41 Heidegger, Ponderings XII–XV Black Notebooks 1939–1943, 19–20.

42 Letter quoted in van Buren, The young Heidegger, 145–46.

43 See Heidegger, Anmerkungen VI–IX, 105–6.

44 Heidegger, Pathmarks, 43–4.

45 Heidegger, Plato’s Doctine of Truth, 180–81.

46 Strauss, The Rebirth of Classical Political Rationalism, 29.

47 Heidegger, Ponderings VII–XI. Black Notebooks 1940–1939, 318.

48 Heidegger, Contributions to Philosophy, 97.

49 See Vedder, Heidegger’s Philosophy of Religion, 267.

50 Heidegger, Conversation with a Buddhist Monk, 590.