Heidegger's platonism
By: Mark A. Ralkowski.
Publisher: Continuum
Published: 2009
Place of publication: London; New York
Language: eng
Number of pages: 212
ISBN-13: 9781441184894
Subjects: Plato; Heidegger, Martin, -- 1889-1976; Platonists
Description: Heidegger's Platonism challenges Heidegger's 1940 interpretation of Plato as the philosopher who initiated the West's ontological decline into contemporary nihilism. Mark A. Ralkowski argues that, in his earlier lecture course, On the Essence of Truth, in which he appropriates Plato in a positive light, Heidegger discovered the two most important concepts of his later thought, namely the difference between the Being of beings and Being as such, and the 'belonging together' of Being and man in what he eventually calls Ereignis, the 'event of appropriation'. Ralkowski shows that, far from being the grand villain of metaphysics, Plato was in fact the gateway to Heidegger's later period. Because Heidegger discovers the seeds of his later thought in his positive appropriation of Plato, this book argues that Heidegger's later thought is a return to and phenomenological transformation of Platonism, which is ironic not least because Heidegger thought of himself as the West's first truly post-Platonic philosopher
Notes: Includes bibliographical references.
Table of contents: title: Introduction; title: What is platonism?; title: Schleiermacher's pedagogical interpretation of Plato; title: What's wrong with the current debate; title: The romantic rediscovery of Plato's ineffable ontology; title: Conclusions: Ineffability and dialogue form; title: Untying Schleiermacher's gordian knot; title: Metaphysical ineffability : the argument from language and human finitude; title: Spiritual ineffability: the argument from self-transformation; title: Existential ineffability : the argument from life choice; title: Platonism reconsidered; title: The context of Heidegger's interpretation of Plato; title: What it all means and why it matters; title: Stage one: the realm of shadows; title: Stage two: the fire; title: Stage three: the realm of light; title: The good : Heidegger's Plato is the later Heidegger; title: Stage four: the return to the shadows; title: The virtues of heidegger's plato; title: Heidegger's crisis and opportunity; title: Setting the stage; title: Heidegger's crisis; title: Understanding Heidegger's crisis : Nietzsche; title: Heidegger as reformed madman; title: Revolutionary thinker or utopian social engineer; title: The Greeks and university reform; title: Theoria and fundamental ontology; title: A community of similarly striving researchers; title: University reform and nihilism; title: Back from Syracuse : four reasons to rethink Heidegger's politics; title: The ontological problem; title: The epistemological problem; title: The moral problem; title: The political problem; title: What was plato doing in Syracuse; title: Back from Syracuse or Eros Tyrannos; title: How Heidegger should have read Plato; title: Plato anticipate Heidegger's critique of technology; title: Plato's problems with periclean Athens; title: Alcibiades as embodiment of periclean Athens; title: Alcibiades as inverted image of Socrates; title: Conclusions: What Heidegger missed.