The Culmination: Heidegger, German Idealism, and the Fate of Philosophy

A provocative reassessment of Heidegger's critique of German Idealism from one of the tradition's foremost interpreters. Heidegger claimed that Western philosophy ended—failed, even—in the German Idealist tradition. In The Culmination, Robert B. Pippin explores the ramifications of this charge through a masterful survey of Western philosophy, especially Heidegger's critiques of Hegel and Kant. Pippin argues that Heidegger's basic concern was to determine sources of meaning for human life, particularly those that had been obscured by Western philosophy's attention to reason. The Culmination offers a new interpretation of Heidegger, German Idealism, and the fate of Western rationalism.

Table of Contents:
Acknowledgments Sigla Preface Section One: Preliminaries 1. The Issues 2. What Is the Problem of the Meaning of Being? Section Two: Heidegger’s Kant 3. Being as Positing 4. Kant as Metaphysician 5. Finitude in Kant’s Moral Theory 6. The Thing Section Three: Heidegger’s Hegel 7. Hegel, Idealism, and Finitude 8. Hegel: The Culmination Section Four: Post-Culmination 9. Poetic Thinking? Bibliography  

About the Author :
Robert B. Pippin is the Evelyn Stefansson Nef Distinguished Service Professor in the John U. Nef Committee on Social Thought, the Department of Philosophy, and the College at the University of Chicago. He is the author of many books on philosophy, literature, art, and film.

Review :
"The Culmination is rich and complex and . . . fascinating." "In his rich new book, The Culmination, Robert Pippin paints an engrossing and, in my view, convincing picture of Heidegger’s reading of German Idealism—mainly Kant and Hegel, and a bit of Schelling, who is sometimes said to be a precursor to Heidegger (Fichte is mentioned only occasionally)—as the “culmination” of a “rationalist” or “logicist” understanding of metaphysics that started with Plato and Aristotle. In Heidegger’s view, in this understanding of metaphysics the question of Being, central to Heidegger’s own thought, is addressed solely or chiefly in terms of the question of logical or conceptual intelligibility, not in its own right." "Pippin has the rare gift of being able to translate the abstruse language of earlier philosophical eras into a contemporary idiom without oversimplification or trivialization." "An exemplarily researched, thoughtful and thought-provoking text. Pippin has the rare ability to painstakingly lead his readers to the core of a philosophical dispute without ever losing their interest. The Culmination will undoubtedly shape any future research on Heidegger’s take on Kant and the German idealists." "An eminently readable clarification and affirmation of Heidegger’s take on the history of philosophy. That alone makes it a precious volume for anyone trying to get their footing in the current philosophical landscape. Graduate students in particular would benefit from its combination of detail, brevity, and perspicacity, but so would anyone looking for a quick yet intimate canvassing of Heidegger’s approach to German Idealism." “Can thought explain why it cares about what it thinks? Can the mind account for its own minding? Drawing on his decades of reflection on German Idealism, Pippin supports Heidegger’s answer: no. The implications for the history of philosophy and for its future are profound.” “The Culmination is by far the deepest and most thorough study of Heidegger’s reading of Hegel and its centrality to his account of the history of metaphysics. Pippin makes a compelling case that the rationalist equation of thinking and being remains a dogmatic assumption absent a more radical reflection on how meaning is disclosed in nonrational ways. If, as Pippin says, Heidegger understood the idealist tradition better than anyone before him, it would be fair to add that Pippin has appreciated Heidegger’s reading of that tradition more profoundly than anyone yet has." “With typical lucidity, Pippin executes his most extensive engagement with Heidegger to date, focusing on Heidegger’s insistence on the finitude of reason and its inability to do justice to the question of philosophy: the meaning of being. At the same time, The Culmination vividly illustrates how difficult it is to imagine an ‘other’ beginning, where thinking is not modeled as rational knowledge but as attunement to the sources of mattering and meaningfulness. An indispensable resource for anyone concerned about the future of philosophy.”