School of Historical and Philosophical Studies - Theses
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ItemDelineating finitude : Heidegger on the essence of truth( 2003)In this thesis I argue that, fundamentally, Heidegger's method of inquiry into the essence of truth is the same as that which he attributes to Plato and Aristotle, and this despite a surface critique of Plato's exoteric rhetoric. My argument focuses on two Heideggerian texts on truth: Being and Time section 44, entitled "Dasein Disclosedness and Truth" and "On the Essence of Truth". For both texts I show Heidegger engaging in a 'deconstructive retrieval' of the distinction between praxis [action] and poiesis [production], along with how this relates to the essence of truth. My argument draws on the considerable secondary literature concerning the Aristotelean roots of Heidegger's Being and Time (authors include, Kisiel T., Tamineaux J., Sheehan T., McNiell W., Bernasconi R.,). It seeks to extend this field by showing how Plato's dialogues play a fundamental role in establishing the key concepts of his reading of Aristotle. In his 1925 lectures on Plato's Sophist, Heidegger justifies his use of Aristotle's Nichomachean Ethics as an introduction to Plato's Sophist and Theatetus with a basic tenet of hermeneutics: "from the clear to the obscure", i.e. from Aristotle to Plato. My hypothesis is that he continues to think the relation between Aristotle and Plato in that way, at least during the late twenties and thirties. So, where most current literature holds Heidegger to be opposed to Plato, especially on the question of truth, I seek to show that there is substantial underlying agreement. In particular, I argue that in the essay "On the Essence of Truth" Heidegger implicitly imitates features of the cave allegory from Plato's Republic, including a technique he finds in Plato, which he calls "the saying of a turning."