Heidegger on being, sophistry, and the possibility of re-poetization

Abstract

Throughout the course of my dissertation I will be undertaking a rigorous investigation into the philosophy of Martin Heidegger with the aim of outlining two key concepts in his philosophical project. These concepts are firstly, sophistry, and secondly, poetry. During the course of my research, I will be showcasing how sophistry and its prioritizing of seeming over Being is a major, yet unexamined force which has led to the obfuscation of the central question in Heidegger’s oeuvre, namely, the question of Being (Die Seinsfrage). After which, I will be elucidating how, for Heidegger, it is ultimately poetry that can lead us towards a genuine disclosure of the question of Being which has been occluded throughout the philosophical tradition by its inherent-thread of sophistic interpretations. This shall be achieved by undergoing a detailed analysis of the essential texts representing Heidegger’s early, middle, and later works in each of the three respective sections of my research, and by consulting a host of secondary texts and journal articles dedicated to the field of Heideggerian scholarship. As such, during the first chapter of my study, I will be analysing Heidegger’s Being and Time to establish the significance which sophistry holds in Heidegger’s philosophy, particularly due to the role it played in the obfuscation of the question of Being. I will be achieving this primarily by looking at the references to Plato’s Sophist found in the opening pages of Being and Time and by providing a comparative study between Being and Time and Plato’s Sophist to identify both the relationship between these texts, and the characteristics which demark the sophist’s ontology. After which, I will also affirm how sophistry is an essential existential-ontological constitution of Dasein by rooting it within the ontology of Das Man. I will then turn to the second chapter of my study where I will argue that the way which Heidegger seeks to transcend the reductive ontology of Das Man in Being and Time is through the call of conscience, which, I will argue, functions as the poetic logos which reveals Dasein’s authentic way of Being. Afterwards, I will be bringing my discussion on Being and Time to a close as I broach the question of the turn in Heidegger’s philosophy. In this chapter I will be arguing that What is Metaphysics? is the text which best represents Heidegger’s turn to his later philosophy. I will also be outlining Heidegger’s understanding of the Nothing in this text and how he destrukts the Nothing as a way to Being. Lastly, I will move on to the third and final chapter of my study where we witness Heidegger’s explicit engagement with poetry and the essence of technology. Here, I will be arguing that Heidegger show us how it is poetry that can save us from the dangers of the essence of technology, and I will also outline how, in the final period, Heidegger’s response to the question of being is ultimately paved through poetry. As such, I will be arguing that poetry functions as the pharmakon and antiseptic to sophistry throughout the course of this study, as it releases the possibility of re-raising and re-engaging with the question of Being in an originary manner.