Earth and Gods An Introduction to the Philosophy of Martin Heidegger
Earth and Gods is an attempt to introduce the reader to Heidegger's fully developed philosophy. The title Earth and Gods gives an im pression of not being a general study of Heidegger's philosophy. However, this is not true - the earth and the gods are f
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VINCENT VYCIN AS
EAR TH AND GODS AN INTRODUCTION TO THE PHILOSOPHY OF
Martin Heidegger
MARTINUS NIJHOFF I THE HAGUE PHOTOMECHANICAL REPRINT 1969
© 1969 by Martinus Nijhoff. The Hague, Netherlands All rights reserved, including the right to translate or to reproduce this book or parts thereofin any form ISBN-I3: 978-94-010-3361-9 DOl: 10.1007/978-94-010-3359-6
e-ISBN-I3: 978-94-010-3359-6
To Prot. Dr. Bernard
J. Boelen, my mentor
PREFACE
Earth and Gods is an attempt to introduce the reader to Heidegger's fully developed philosophy. The title Earth and Gods gives an impression of not being a general study of Heidegger's philosophy. However, this is not true - the earth and the gods are fundamental ontological symbols of his fully developed philosophy, namely, his third and final phase of thought. This phase repeats the problems of both preceding phases in a fuller and more developed manner; hence, it implies them. The two preceding phases are the phase of Dasein and the phase of Being. These two phases are a natural flow of fundamental problems which reach their final formation and development in the phase of earth and gods. Dasein (the first phase) leads to Being, and Being (the second phase) bursts into fundamental ontological powers of Being (Seinsmiichte) which are earth and sky, gods and mortals (the third phase). Since earth is unthinkable without sky and since gods are gods in the world of mortals - of men, the title Earth and Gods is an abbreviation of these four fundamental powers of Being. Hence, an investigation of earth and gods is an attempt to present Heidegger's philosophy as a whole. Such a presentation provides the reader with the background necessary for a more adequate and efficient understanding of the writings of Heidegger himself. Thus, Earth and Gods may rightly be considered an introduction to Heidegger's philosophy. Earth and Gods is an attempt to elucidate the thought of Heidegger within the philosophy of Heidegger himself, instead of elucidating it within some other philosophical doctrine already established and accepted as true. By virtue of the latter approach, heretofore Heidegger's philosophy has been treated negatively, namely: as nihilism, as irrationalism, as subjectivism, as aestheticism, as atheism, etc. Such treatment can never be adequate: it fails to clarify the thought of Heidegger himself; rather it clarifies the other philosophy within which Heidegger's philosophy is treated.
VIII
PREFACE
Previous treatises on Heidegger are limited mainly to the Heidegger of Sein und Zeit; Earth and Gods is not so limited: it is an investigation of Heidegger in all his works. The translation of quotations or of single terms in Heidegger is not a matter of equating words of various languages, but is a matter of making any language adequate to his thought. Therefore, quotations and terms in this study are often given in English not with philological or linguistic precision, but with a faithful interpretation of their meanings within the framework of Heidegger's thought. Heidegg
