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Throughout almost all of the 1920s Heidegger believed that philosophy could be a science, indeed the strictest science, and this characterization of philosophy, which he found in both Aristotle and Husserl, certainly played an important role in his critique of Plato’s dialectic...
The history of Heidegger’s account of the relationship between philosophy and science is complex and has yet to be written in the detail it deserves. Here I can only sketch the main developments.
In the Phänomenologie des Religiösen Lebens course of WS 1920/21, Heidegger asserts: “There exists a fundamental distinction between science and philosophy.”51 He specifies that philosophical concepts are by their very nature “wavering, vague, manifold, fluid” (schwankend, vag, mannigfaltig, fließend, 3), with the result that philosophy, unlike science, “must always spin around in preliminary questions”
(5). However, in this same course Heidegger characterizes the sciences as having their origin in philosophy. Thus we have both immediately before and after the religion course the suggestion that philosophy is to be distinguished from the sciences, not because it is in no sense itself a science, but because it is a science in a more original and stricter sense. Thus the 1919 Kriegesnotsemester course (GA56/57) is an attempt to characterize philosophy as an Urwissenschaft, and the 1921/22 course (Phänomenologische Interpretationen zu Aristoteles. Einführung in die
phänomenologische Forschung) characterizes the phrase “scientific philosophy”
(wissenschaftliche Philosophie) as “ein Pleonasmus” and argues that the reason why we must avoid understanding philosophy according to the model of the positive sciences is precisely in order to see more originally “the scientific character of philosophy” (die Wissenschaftlichkeit der Philosophie).52
Therefore, by the time we get to the SS 1926 course, Die Grundbegriffe der antiken Philosophie, we find Heidegger, after asserting that philosophy is the ground of all the sciences, characterizing it as “nothing but the most original and genuine science” (die ursprünglichste und eigentliche Wissenschaft schlechthin, GA22, 4); and he
does not hesitate to speak of “the science of being” (Wissenschaft vom Sein, 7). This
characterization of philosophy as a science of Being then dominates the Basic
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51 Gesamtausgabe 60 (Frankfurt am Main: Vittorio Klostermann, 1995), 3; hereafter GA60.
52 Gesamtausgabe 61 (Frankfurt am Main: Vittorio Klostermann, 1994, 2nd ed.), 47; hereafter
GA61.
=========================================
Problems course of the summer of 1927 (GA24).53 In Phänomenologie und Theologie, written during the same year, philosophy is characterized as “the science of being, the ontological science” (die Wissensschaft vom Sein, die ontologische Wissenschaft).54
With this increasing emphasis on the scientific character of philosophy goes the increasing emphasis on “seeing clearly” and the attendant frustration with the ambiguity of language that we have seen to lie behind Heidegger’s dismissal of Plato’s dialectic. During this period, philosophy is for Heidegger a Wissenschaft because it is a seeing of what shows itself in the thing itself (see WS 1923/24
[GA17, 12]), i.e., because it is phenomenology.
What is apparently the first significant break with this characterization of philosophy occurs in the WS 1928/29 course Einleitung in die Philosophie.55 Here Heidegger asserts that philosophy is not a science (GA27, 14), a claim that, as we have seen, is not new and is compatible with the characterization of philosophy as a science in the strictest, most radical, and original sense. Yet in response to the
question of whether this thesis is denying and disowning the attempt of phenomenology to establish philosophy as a “strict science” (strenge Wissenschaft), Heidegger now answers: “Yes and no.” No, because Heidegger still sees philosophy as the root of all science and thus still considers the phrase “scientific philosophy” (wissenschaftliche Philosophie) not a contradiction, but a pleonasm (16-7; see also 219-22). Yes, however, because Heidegger now rejects the inference that therefore philosophy is itself a science in the strictest and most original sense. Heidegger recognizes that the inference is tempting:
Yet because philosophy is science in a way that the sciences never can be and because
philosophy is more original than the sciences and the sciences have their origin in it, one
could be led to characterize the origin of the sciences, namely philosophy, as itself a science,
indeed even as the primordial science (Ur-Wissenschaft) and absolute science, and to
define it as such. (17)
Yet now he dismisses this conclusion as one of the “most fatal errors” (verhängnisvollsten Irrtümer, 18):
For philosophy is precisely not science, not even the purest and strictest; but it is also not
something like the strictest science plus more besides and beyond. We can only say: What
the sciences are for their part lies in an original sense in philosophy. Philosophy is indeed
the origin of science, but precisely for that reason not itself science-not even primordial
science. (18)
As we have seen, Heidegger was himself guilty of this “fatal error,” and thus of supporting the attempt of phenomenology to establish philosophy as a “strenge Wissenschaft,” as early as 1919 and as late as 1927.
The break is definitive. In the Vom Wesen der Wahrheit course of WS 1931/32, the denial that philosophy is a science is at least as emphatic (philosophy is “not even first or fundamental science [Grund-Wissenschaft]” [GA34, 82]), and even the claim that the sciences have their origin in philosophy is qualified: “The sciences can arise from the practice of philosophy [aus dem Philosophieren], but that is
================================
53 See the observations of Kisiel, GH, 457-8.
54 Wegmarken, 2nd ed. (Frankfurt am Main: Vittorio Klostermann, 1978), 48.
55 It is therefore probably no coincidence that we find in this course a very positive assessment of muthos that refuses to rank it beneath science (160-67, 357-66, 370, 382-90).
================================
not necessary. The sciences can serve philosophy, but philosophy does not necessarily need this service” (83). It might seem that the identification of philosophy with science reappears in the Rektoratsrede of May 27, 1933. There Heidegger asserts that “All science (Wissenschaft) is philosophy, whether it wishes to know this or not.”56 While clearly not saying that all philosophy is a science, this does suggest that philosophy is the essence of science. Furthermore, Heidegger’s strong exhortation
to science throughout the speech suggests that science is the aim of philosophy. Yet two new elements are introduced here vis-à-vis the courses of the 1920s: the emphasis on willing, as opposed to possessing, science, and the characterization of science itself, not as the objectification of beings, but rather as a questioning stance in the midst of the uncertainty of beings (GA16, 111). A recently
published lecture from 1934, “Die Gegenwärtige Lage und die Künftige Aufgabe der Deutschen Philosophie,” makes explicit the characterization of philosophy implied here: insisting, through an appeal to the etymology of the word, that philosophy is “not wisdom itself, but the love of wisdom,” Heidegger then interprets love (Liebe) as will (Wille) and resoluteness (Entschlossenheit) and claims that what is willed is essential questioning (GA16, 316). Heidegger will of course eventually abandon this identification of philosophy with willing, emphasizing instead the extent to which it is a not-willing. At that point, the break between philosophy and science will be complete.57
===========================
56 “Die Selbstbehauptung der deutschen Universität,” in Reden und andere Zeugnisse eines Lebensweges
1910-1976, Gesamtausgabe 16 (Frankfurt am Main: Vittorio Klostermann, 2000; hereafter GA16), 109.
57 In the Beiträge of 1936-38 (Beiträge zur Philosophie [Vom Ereignis], Gesamtausgabe 65 (Frankfurt
am Main: Vittorio Klostermann, 1994, 2nd ed.), Heidegger describes the shift in his thinking from
the reflection on a primordial science to the critique of science as a modern phenomenon (144),
though he claims that the latter is simply the flip-side (Kehrseite) of the former. In an only recently
published Zusatz to the lecture delivered in 1938 and later published in Holzwege as “Die Zeit des
Weltbildes,” Heidegger makes a similar attempt to reconcile that lecture’s critique of Wissenschaft with
his much more positive assessment in the Rektoratsrede (GA16, 349). But the evidence suggests that
there was a real change in Heidegger’s thought and not simply a shift of perspectives.
muthos that refuses to rank it beneath science (160-67, 357-66, 370, 382-90).
The history of Heidegger’s account of the relationship between philosophy and science is complex and has yet to be written in the detail it deserves. Here I can only sketch the main developments.
In the Phänomenologie des Religiösen Lebens course of WS 1920/21, Heidegger asserts: “There exists a fundamental distinction between science and philosophy.”51 He specifies that philosophical concepts are by their very nature “wavering, vague, manifold, fluid” (schwankend, vag, mannigfaltig, fließend, 3), with the result that philosophy, unlike science, “must always spin around in preliminary questions”
(5). However, in this same course Heidegger characterizes the sciences as having their origin in philosophy. Thus we have both immediately before and after the religion course the suggestion that philosophy is to be distinguished from the sciences, not because it is in no sense itself a science, but because it is a science in a more original and stricter sense. Thus the 1919 Kriegesnotsemester course (GA56/57) is an attempt to characterize philosophy as an Urwissenschaft, and the 1921/22 course (Phänomenologische Interpretationen zu Aristoteles. Einführung in die
phänomenologische Forschung) characterizes the phrase “scientific philosophy”
(wissenschaftliche Philosophie) as “ein Pleonasmus” and argues that the reason why we must avoid understanding philosophy according to the model of the positive sciences is precisely in order to see more originally “the scientific character of philosophy” (die Wissenschaftlichkeit der Philosophie).52
Therefore, by the time we get to the SS 1926 course, Die Grundbegriffe der antiken Philosophie, we find Heidegger, after asserting that philosophy is the ground of all the sciences, characterizing it as “nothing but the most original and genuine science” (die ursprünglichste und eigentliche Wissenschaft schlechthin, GA22, 4); and he
does not hesitate to speak of “the science of being” (Wissenschaft vom Sein, 7). This
characterization of philosophy as a science of Being then dominates the Basic
============================
51 Gesamtausgabe 60 (Frankfurt am Main: Vittorio Klostermann, 1995), 3; hereafter GA60.
52 Gesamtausgabe 61 (Frankfurt am Main: Vittorio Klostermann, 1994, 2nd ed.), 47; hereafter
GA61.
=========================================
Problems course of the summer of 1927 (GA24).53 In Phänomenologie und Theologie, written during the same year, philosophy is characterized as “the science of being, the ontological science” (die Wissensschaft vom Sein, die ontologische Wissenschaft).54
With this increasing emphasis on the scientific character of philosophy goes the increasing emphasis on “seeing clearly” and the attendant frustration with the ambiguity of language that we have seen to lie behind Heidegger’s dismissal of Plato’s dialectic. During this period, philosophy is for Heidegger a Wissenschaft because it is a seeing of what shows itself in the thing itself (see WS 1923/24
[GA17, 12]), i.e., because it is phenomenology.
What is apparently the first significant break with this characterization of philosophy occurs in the WS 1928/29 course Einleitung in die Philosophie.55 Here Heidegger asserts that philosophy is not a science (GA27, 14), a claim that, as we have seen, is not new and is compatible with the characterization of philosophy as a science in the strictest, most radical, and original sense. Yet in response to the
question of whether this thesis is denying and disowning the attempt of phenomenology to establish philosophy as a “strict science” (strenge Wissenschaft), Heidegger now answers: “Yes and no.” No, because Heidegger still sees philosophy as the root of all science and thus still considers the phrase “scientific philosophy” (wissenschaftliche Philosophie) not a contradiction, but a pleonasm (16-7; see also 219-22). Yes, however, because Heidegger now rejects the inference that therefore philosophy is itself a science in the strictest and most original sense. Heidegger recognizes that the inference is tempting:
Yet because philosophy is science in a way that the sciences never can be and because
philosophy is more original than the sciences and the sciences have their origin in it, one
could be led to characterize the origin of the sciences, namely philosophy, as itself a science,
indeed even as the primordial science (Ur-Wissenschaft) and absolute science, and to
define it as such. (17)
Yet now he dismisses this conclusion as one of the “most fatal errors” (verhängnisvollsten Irrtümer, 18):
For philosophy is precisely not science, not even the purest and strictest; but it is also not
something like the strictest science plus more besides and beyond. We can only say: What
the sciences are for their part lies in an original sense in philosophy. Philosophy is indeed
the origin of science, but precisely for that reason not itself science-not even primordial
science. (18)
As we have seen, Heidegger was himself guilty of this “fatal error,” and thus of supporting the attempt of phenomenology to establish philosophy as a “strenge Wissenschaft,” as early as 1919 and as late as 1927.
The break is definitive. In the Vom Wesen der Wahrheit course of WS 1931/32, the denial that philosophy is a science is at least as emphatic (philosophy is “not even first or fundamental science [Grund-Wissenschaft]” [GA34, 82]), and even the claim that the sciences have their origin in philosophy is qualified: “The sciences can arise from the practice of philosophy [aus dem Philosophieren], but that is
================================
53 See the observations of Kisiel, GH, 457-8.
54 Wegmarken, 2nd ed. (Frankfurt am Main: Vittorio Klostermann, 1978), 48.
55 It is therefore probably no coincidence that we find in this course a very positive assessment of muthos that refuses to rank it beneath science (160-67, 357-66, 370, 382-90).
================================
not necessary. The sciences can serve philosophy, but philosophy does not necessarily need this service” (83). It might seem that the identification of philosophy with science reappears in the Rektoratsrede of May 27, 1933. There Heidegger asserts that “All science (Wissenschaft) is philosophy, whether it wishes to know this or not.”56 While clearly not saying that all philosophy is a science, this does suggest that philosophy is the essence of science. Furthermore, Heidegger’s strong exhortation
to science throughout the speech suggests that science is the aim of philosophy. Yet two new elements are introduced here vis-à-vis the courses of the 1920s: the emphasis on willing, as opposed to possessing, science, and the characterization of science itself, not as the objectification of beings, but rather as a questioning stance in the midst of the uncertainty of beings (GA16, 111). A recently
published lecture from 1934, “Die Gegenwärtige Lage und die Künftige Aufgabe der Deutschen Philosophie,” makes explicit the characterization of philosophy implied here: insisting, through an appeal to the etymology of the word, that philosophy is “not wisdom itself, but the love of wisdom,” Heidegger then interprets love (Liebe) as will (Wille) and resoluteness (Entschlossenheit) and claims that what is willed is essential questioning (GA16, 316). Heidegger will of course eventually abandon this identification of philosophy with willing, emphasizing instead the extent to which it is a not-willing. At that point, the break between philosophy and science will be complete.57
===========================
56 “Die Selbstbehauptung der deutschen Universität,” in Reden und andere Zeugnisse eines Lebensweges
1910-1976, Gesamtausgabe 16 (Frankfurt am Main: Vittorio Klostermann, 2000; hereafter GA16), 109.
57 In the Beiträge of 1936-38 (Beiträge zur Philosophie [Vom Ereignis], Gesamtausgabe 65 (Frankfurt
am Main: Vittorio Klostermann, 1994, 2nd ed.), Heidegger describes the shift in his thinking from
the reflection on a primordial science to the critique of science as a modern phenomenon (144),
though he claims that the latter is simply the flip-side (Kehrseite) of the former. In an only recently
published Zusatz to the lecture delivered in 1938 and later published in Holzwege as “Die Zeit des
Weltbildes,” Heidegger makes a similar attempt to reconcile that lecture’s critique of Wissenschaft with
his much more positive assessment in the Rektoratsrede (GA16, 349). But the evidence suggests that
there was a real change in Heidegger’s thought and not simply a shift of perspectives.
muthos that refuses to rank it beneath science (160-67, 357-66, 370, 382-90).