Basic Concepts: (Studies in Continental Thought)

... an excellent and accessible introduction to the later Heidegger." -Choice Heidegger's method is unmistakable in these lectures.... This is thinking that is alive, always green." -Review of Metaphysics This translation... enlarges our historical view of the probing advances in Heidegger's thought." -International Studies in Philosophy This clear translation of Martin Heidegger's lecture course at the University of Freiburg in the winter semester of 1941, first published in German in 1981 as Grundbegriffe (volume 51 of Heidegger's collected works), offers a concise introduction to the new directions of his later thought. In this transition, Heidegger shifts from the problem of the meaning of being to the question of the truth of being.

Table of Contents:
Translator's Foreword Introduction: The Internal Connection between Ground-Being-Inception 1. Elucidation of the title of the lecture "Basic Concepts" Recapitulation 1. Our understnading of "basic concepts" and our relation to them as an anticipatory knowing 2. The decay of knowing in the present age: The decision in favor of the useful over what we can do without 3. The inception as a decision about what is essential in Western history (in modern times: unconditional will and technology) 4. Practicing the relation to what is "thought-worthy" by considering the ground 5. The essential admittance of historical man into the inception, into the "essence" of ground Part One: Considering the Saying. The Differnce between Beings and Being First Division: Discussion of the "Is", of Beings as a Whole 2. Beings as a whole are actual, possible, necessary 3. Nonconsideration of the essential distinction between being and beings 4. The nondiscoverability of the "is" 5. The unquestioned character of the "is" in its grammatical determination—emptiness and richness of meaning 6. The solution of healthy common sense: Acting and effecting amoung beings instead of empty thinking about being (workers and soldiers) 7. Renouncing being—dealing with beings Recapitulation 1. Consideration of beings as whole presupposes the essential inclusion of man in the difference betwen being and beings 2. Wealth and poverty of meanin in the "is" 3. Equating dealing with the actual with considering begins as a whole 4. The unthought residence of man in the distinction between being and beings Second Division: Guidewords for Reflection upon Being 8. Being is the emptiest and at the same time a surplus 9. Being is the most common and at the same time unique 10. Being is the most intelligible and at the same time concealment 11. Being is the most worn-out and at the smae time the origin 12. Being is the most reliable and at the same time the non-ground 13. Being is the most said and at the same time a keeping silent 14. Being is the most forgotten and at the same time remembrance 15. Being is the most constraining and at the same time liberation 16. Unifying reflection upon being in the sequence of quidewords Recapitulation Guidewords about Being 1. Being is empty as an abstract concept and at the same time a surplus 2. Being is the most common of all and at the same time uniqueness (The sameness of being and nothing) 3. The meaning of the quidewords: Instructions for reflection upon the difference between being and beings Third Division: Being and Man 17. The ambivalence of being and the essence of man: What casts itself toward us and is cast away 18. The historicality of being and the historically esstential abode of man 19. Remembrance into the first inception of Western thinking is reflection upon being, is grasping the ground Recapitulation 1. The discordant essence in the relation of man to being: The casting-toward and casting-away of being 2. Remembrance into the first inception is placement into still presencing being, is grasping it as the ground Part Two: The Incipient Saying of Being in the Fragment of Anaximander 20. The conflicting intentions of philological tradition and philosophical translation 21. Nietzsche's and Diels's renderings of the fragment as the standard for interpretations current today Recapitulation The remembering return into the inception of Western thinking—listening to the fragment of Anaximander 22. Reflection upon the incipient saying of being in the fragment of Anaximander 23. Excursus: Insight into the with the help of another word from Anaximander 24. The second sentence thinks being in correspondence with its essence as presencing, abiding, time 25. The relation of both sentences to one another: The fragment as the incipient saying of being Editor's Epilogue Glossary

About the Author :
Gary E. Aylesworth teaches philosophy at Eastern Illinois University.

Review :
" ... an excellent and accessible introduction to the later Heidegger." - Choice "Heidegger's method is unmistakable in these lectures... This is thinking that is alive, always green." - Review of Metaphysics "This translation ... enlarges our historical view of the probing advances in Heidegger's thought." - International Studies in Philosophy