Heidegger's concept of freedom, 1927–1930

Abstract

The concept of freedom plays an important role in Being and Time and takes on an increasingly important place in Heidegger's essays and lectures of the post- Being and Time. Heidegger's distinctive and unusual conception of human freedom is to contrast it with the dominant conception of free will or free choice in mainstream philosophy. According to Heidegger's reading of De Anima, Aristotle defines a human being as a moving being who can make connections through logos. Towards the end of Being and Time, Heidegger begins to use the word finite that presages the emphasis on finitude in his 1929 Kant book, Kant and the Problem of Metaphysics. On Heidegger's interpretation of Kant, the conclusion to draw is that the essence of a person is the self-responsibility to bind oneself to oneself, to be in the mode of self-responsibility, to answer only to the essence of one's self.