Heideggers Critique of Cartesianism Essays -- Philosophy Papers

Heidegger is one of the few western thinkers to have succeeded in going beyond the Western philosophic tradition. Because his radical criticism is believed to have fractured the foundations of modern philosophy, his persuasion is usually at the center of the controversy between the defenders of the tradition and those who wish to break with it and perish afresh. In the heat of this debate, the apparent movement of Heideggers place in relation to that tradition in general and to Cartesianism in particular has been neglected. I wish to address the question by focusing on the major aspects of Heideggers critique of Cartesian philosophy and the modern tradition. I will first show that the strength of his criticism lies in its all-encompassing penetration of the foundations of modern philosophy, running through both the ontological and epistemological channels. Ontologically, Heidegger presents a critique of subjectivism epistemologically, he discredits the correspondence conception of truth and its rudimentary visual metaphor. I will then look at his view of history and the meaning of his concept of overcoming in order to show that his aim is non to destroy the tradition, but to provide a wider basis for it by rescuing forgotten elements imbedded in the tradition itself. Finally, I will show that in this process of overcoming, Heidegger did non really depart from the tradition, but absorbed some of its basic tenets, as his concept of death echoes major elements of Cartesian doubt. 1. The Critique of SubjectivismOne of the major features of Heideggers thinking is his criticism of Cartesian subjectivity. According to Heidegger, in regarding the ego cogito as the guarantor of its own continuing existence and as the basis of all things... ...d Basil Blackwell, 1980) Abbau layabout be find Heideggers staple fibre Problems of Phenomenology (Bloomington Indiana University Press, 1982) Verbindung is discussed mainly in The Principle of Identity, in Identity and Di fference (New York Harper and Row, 1969, pp. 23-41) for Uberwindung see Heideggers Nietzsche.(4) Nietzsche, vol. 4 p. 97. See Aristotles speech communication that which is called a substance most strictly, primarily, and most of all, is that which is neither said of a subject nor in a subject, e.g., the individual man or the individual horse. (Aristotles Categories, 2a 11-13).(5) Heidegger, Basic Problems of Phenomenology p.111.(6) Heidegger M., Discourse on Thinking New York Harper and Row, 1966, p. 7.(7) Nietzsche, vol. 4, p. 106.(8) Heidegger, M. History of the Concept of Time, Bloomington Indiana University Press, 1992, pp. 316-317.