Abstract

This panel explores Heidegger’s complicated relationship with phenomenology. One question is whether Heidegger was a phenomenologist at all. For Husserl, phenomenology was the study of essential structures of consciousness, and since Heidegger rejects both the ontological and methodological priority of consciousness, it might seem like he rejects phenomenology as well. On the other hand, the defining motto of phenomenology is ‘to the things themselves,’ and this seems to capture the persistent aim of Heidegger’s thinking, be it the work of art, technology, language, animality, or Dasein itself. Yet even if there is some way that Heidegger is ‘doing phenomenology,’ it’s not at all clear how he is doing it. He abandons Husserl’s reliance on the epoche, self-reflection, eidetic variation, and so on, and yet, while clearly not employing such a method, Heidegger does frequently write about a way of thinking proper to philosophy—can this way be described as phenomenological? In some ways our question is intractable—there are just too many ways to define phenomenology and too many ways to read Heidegger such that no single, broad consensus on both is likely to emerge—and yet, the question seems crucial for the understanding of Heidegger’s philosophy as a whole. Phenomenology, one can argue, holds the double promise that we can still think with Heidegger, instead of thinking about him as historical figure, and that there is something in his thought that is revealed, and not just postulated or construed.

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