De la reflexión a la repetición. Un análisis histórico-conceptual de la noción de Destruktion en Heidegger (1919-1927)
Loading...
Files
Identifiers
Publication date
2022
Reading date
28-01-2022
Authors
Advisors
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
Metrics
Export
Abstract
The aim of this research is to map the conceptual use of the notion of Destruktion throughout Heidegger's Gesamtausgabe (GA), from his earliest writings to Being and Time. With this analysis I attempt to clarify the meaning of the destruction of the history of philosophy that Heidegger proposes in §6 of his opus magnum.
Three chronologically differentiated uses of the notion of Destruktion are noted in the course of these years: the first one, present in the texts between 1919 and 1921 (GA 56/57, 58, 59, 60, 9.1), which defines Destruktion as a philosophical method opposed to that of reflection and without any historiographical pretension. In opposition to Husserl's, the phenomenological method of the Destruktion allows Heidegger to analyse human existence in its pre-reflexive and therefore pre-theoretical way of being. In a second period of its appearance, between 1921 and 1924 (GA 17, 18, 19, 60, 61, 62, 63), the concept of Destruktion acquires a historiographical character, conceived in the form of a dismantling of the Western tradition. With it Heidegger tries to grasp the origin and meaning of “theory”, finding it in the ontological primacy given to ποίησις by Greek philosophers. From this primacy follows the theoretical attitude [Verhalten] that, from Aristotle to Husserl, avoid an original analysis of human existence. It is only on the basis of this historiographical warning that it is possible to develop an “Analytic of human existence” [Analytik des Daseins]. Finally, a third stage, from 1924 to 1927 (GA 2, 20, 21, 24, 64), in which the deconstructive historiographical enterprise is resemanticised in terms of a repetition of the past. This technical term is discernible only from the new conception of time proposed by Heidegger in those years, through which he attempts to redefine the idea of philosophising. According to this conception, the past is a constitutive part of our existence, being impossible to dissociate ourselves from it. Thus, forgetting or disregarding history are only ways of relating to it; and, in opposition to these, Heidegger coins the term “repetition”. Philosophy, as a possibility of human existence, is essentially linked to its past and, insofar as it claims to be authentic, requires its repetition. Hence the title of the doctoral thesis: From Reflection to Repetition. An historical-conceptual analysis of the notion of Destruktion in Heidegger (1919-1927).
Nevertheless, this historical-conceptual study is not a mere demarcation of differentiated terminological uses of Destruktion through the development of Heidegger’s philosophy. It intends to grasp the argumentative structure underlying the use of this concept in §6 of Sein und Zeit, through which I hope to achieve an accurate comprehension of Heidegger’s historiography and his position in the debate about the relevance and function of history in philosophical thought. As I show, against the two classical positions in this discussion, which claim the independence or dependence of philosophising on its history, Heidegger offers an alternative: human existence is not to be considered something existing [vorhanden] “in” history, and so its relationship with the latter cannot be described in terms of "dependence" or "independence". According to Heidegger's view, the classical question is only a pseudo-problem, because it misunderstands the meaning of philosophy and history by defining these concepts as two heterogeneous and separate elements. This misunderstanding arises from an inadequate conception of the kind of being of human existence [Dasein], of consciousness, which Heidegger tries to correct with a hermeneutic (i. e. a-theoretical) investigation of it.
Among other things, the research emphasizes that the core of "hermeneutics" consists in analyzing the pre-theoretical constitution of human existence. Only because of the essential historicity of the latter, hermeneutic thinking entails the analysis of philosophical texts of the past, i. e. of the history of philosophy. Thus, Heideggerian thought is not "hermeneutic" because of the special attention it pays to the "classical texts" of Western philosophy; on the contrary, the study of the past is necessary because his proposal is "hermeneutic", i.e., it seeks to bring to light [ἐρμηνεύειν] the pre-theoretical constitution of our existence.