Sophistes:

Platos Dialogue and Heideggers

Lectures in Marburg (1924-25)

Edited by

Diego De Brasi
and Marko J. Fuchs
Sophistes:
Platos Dialogue and Heideggers Lectures in Marburg (1924-25)

Edited by Diego De Brasi and Marko J. Fuchs

This book first published 2016

Cambridge Scholars Publishing

Lady Stephenson Library, Newcastle upon Tyne, NE6 2PA, UK

British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

Copyright 2016 by Diego De Brasi, Marko J. Fuchs and contributors

All rights for this book reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced,
stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means,
electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without
the prior permission of the copyright owner.

ISBN (10): 1-4438-9489-3

ISBN (13): 978-1-4438-9489-0
 TABLE OF CONTENTS

Acknowledgements ................................................................................... vii

Introduction ................................................................................................. 1
Heideggers Lectures on Platos Sophist and their Importance
for Modern Plato Scholarship
Diego De Brasi and Marko J. Fuchs

Chapter One ............................................................................................... 27

Plato and Heidegger on Sophistry and Philosophy
Jens Kristian Larsen

Chapter Two .............................................................................................. 61

Heidegger: Sophist and Philosopher
Catalin Partenie

Chapter Three ............................................................................................ 75

Negation as Relation: Heideggers Interpretation of Platos Sophist
257b3259d1
Laura Candiotto

Chapter Four .............................................................................................. 95

Is the In-Itself Relational? Heidegger and Contemporary Scholarship
on Platos Sophist 255ce
Nicolas Zaks

Chapter Five ............................................................................................ 113

The Term symplok in Symposium 202b1 and in Sophist 240c1ff,
259d261c: Heideggers Interpretation of the Concept
of Interconnection in Platonic Thought
Argyri G. Karanasiou

Chapter Six .............................................................................................. 131

Tkhn in Platos Sophist (Discussing Heideggers Opinion)
Maia Shukhoshvili
vi Table of Contents

Chapter Seven.......................................................................................... 143

: Heidegger on the Notion of Falsehood
in Platos Sophist
Olga Alieva

Contributors ............................................................................................. 157

 CHAPTER TWO

HEIDEGGER:
SOPHIST AND PHILOSOPHER

CATALIN PARTENIE

I.
Heideggers Lectures on Platos Sophist are a long and complex affair. In
their opening section, entitled Preliminary Considerations, Heidegger
claims that a double preparation is required for an interpretation of
Platos late dialogues: one philosophical-phenomenological, the other
historiographical-hermeneutical.
Platos late dialogues deal with basic concepts, such as: Being and
non-being, truth and semblance, knowledge and opinion, concept and
assertion, value and non-value1 (7). The method that will help us getting
an orientation into these concepts is the phenomenological method. Here,
however, Heidegger gives only a brief account of what he means by
phenomenological method. The account is brief, he says, because an
introduction to phenomenology does not take place by reading
phenomenological literature and noting what is established therein. []
[I]nstead, what counts is to bring oneself into position to see
phenomenologically in the very work of discussing the matter at issue (9-
10); and this he will do constantly over the course of the lectures.2
Then, it is the question of how we are to grasp in the right way the
past which we encounter in Plato, so that we do not interpret into it
arbitrary viewpoints and foist upon it arbitrary considerations (7). For

1
Unless otherwise stated, all quotations from Heidegger are from Heidegger
(1997), the English edition of the Sophist-Lectures, but page numbers refer to GA
19 (whose pagination is indicated in the English edition). I am grateful to Michael
Inwood for his feedback on a first draft of this text.
2
Yet the lectures he delivered in 192223 (GA 17) and in the summer semester of
1925 (GA 20) dealt extensively with the question of phenomenology.
62 Chaptter Two

this, he claaims, we neeed another preparationt

p the historioggraphical-
hermeneuticcal preparationn (8). Usually, scholars ggo from Soccrates and
the Presocraatics to Plato; Heidegger, however, w will go from Aristotle

back to Plaato (11). Whhy? Because what Aristottle said is what w Plato
placed at hiis disposal, onnly it is said more
m radicallyy and develop ped more
scientificallyy (1112). Not
N only that Aristotle undderstood Plato o, but he
better formuulated what Plato
P said, an
nd that is whyy Aristotle iss the best
guiding linne [Leitfaden] for Platos interpretation.
i .3 In doing so
o, we will
follow the old principle of hermen neutics, nameely that interrpretation
should proceeed from the clear
c into the obscure
o (11)).
So, we kknow how to grasp in the right way thee past we enccounter in
Plato: througgh Aristotle. But
B how are we w to grasp inn the right way y the past
we encounteer in Aristotlee? In other words,
w if Aristootle is going to be the
guiding linee for our interrpretation of Plato,
P what wwill be our guiiding line
for the interppretation of Aristotle?
A Whoo said more raadically, and developed
d
more scienttifically, whaat Aristotle placed at ouur disposal? Nobody,
Heidegger cclaims. Aristottle was not followed
f by annyone greaterr, so we
are forced tto leap into his
h own philo osophical worrk in order to o gain an
orientation (12), or guiding line. In n what follow ws I shall arrgue that
Heideggerss actual guidinng line throug ghout the lectuures was not Aristotle,
but his ow wn thinking at a the time, which he bbrought to itts fullest
developmennt in the fundaamental ontolo ogy of Being aand Time.

II..
The theme oof Aristotles philosophy
p is the Being of beings, and altheein
a
is the point of departure: this, says Heeidegger, shouuld be our guiiding line
for the interppretation of Aristotle.
A
1. In the Preliminary Consideration
C s he gives us oonly an overv
view of it.
a) For thhe Greeks, sppeaking is whhat most basiccally constitutees human
Daseein (17), and that is why Aristotle
A definned man as z on lgon
chonn.
b) Aristtotle understoood lgein as altheein (19)).
c) The GGreek word foor truth is altthea, in whichh the initial allpha is an
alphaa-privative. The
T Greeks had a neggative expresssion for
someething we undderstand posittively (10). A Althea mean ns to be
hiddeen no longer,, to be uncov vered, and tthis indicatess that the

3
Heidegger reiterates this claim througho out the Lecturees, see for insttance 189:
There is no scientific underrstanding, i.e. historiographica
h al return to Platto, without
passage throuugh Aristotle.
 Heeidegger: Sophiist and Philosoppher 63

Greekks had somee understandin ng of the fact tthat the uncov veredness
of thhe world mustt be wrested, that it is inittially and for the most
part nnot available. Man lives in i a world thhat is primariily, if not
comppletely, conceealed [verschllossen]; a w world that is disclosed
onlyy in the immeediate circle of o the surroununding world [Umkreis
der UUmwelt], insofar as natural needs requiree. And here, what has
been perhaps orriginally discllosed becomees largely covered up
againn and distortedd by speech (16).
(
d) Thuss, everyday [alltglichee] Dasein m moves in a double
coverredness: initiaally in mere ignorance andd then in a mu uch more
dangerous covereddness, insofar as idle talk [G Gerede] turns what has
been uncovered innto untruth (16).
e) However, out of mans
m naturall orientation inn his world, something
like sscience arisess for him (13). This sciennce must cutt through
idle talk (16) anda capture beings in thheir Being (13). ( For
Aristtotle (and the Greeks)
G this science was phhilosophy.
2. In thhe Introducttory Part, a much longeer section deevoted to
Aristotle,4 H
Heidegger cllaims that ev ven sopha ((the highest mode of
altheein) iis still determ
mined by the ass-structure andd thus by speaaking:
a) Speakking is the baasic mode of access
a to the w
world, and sppeaking is
speakking of sometthing as sometthing (180). Inn lgein, two nomata,
say, table and bblack, are seet in relief annd one is attrributed to
the oother: the tablee as black (18 83). I alreadyy have this on
ne in view
[the black table] at the very outset. But sspeaking abou ut it first
makees what is seeen properly visible to me, the table exp plicitly as
blackk. [] The grrasping, in the sense of thee letting something be
seen by means of , thus has h the structuure of (183).
Now, precisely because
b lgeein is speakiing of someething as
someething, the thiing it is abou ut might gett distorted thrrough the
as and [] decception would arise (182283). Lgoss has the
structture of sntheesis, of as, an nd only wheree the charactter of the
as ooccurs, is therre falsity (1883). Falsity, uunderstood as asserting
someething as whhat it is not, occurs onnly where th here is a
.

4
Its three chaapters deal withh: the modes off altheein in Nicomachean Ethics VI,
26 (epistmm, tkhn, phhrnsis, sopha, nos); thee genesis of sopha in
Metaphysics II, 12; and the highest mode ofo altheein inn Nicomachean Ethics VI,
710, X, 67..
64 Chaptter Two

b) The highest modee of altheeein is sopha, which repreesents the

n, the bos thertiks (diee Existenz
genuuine possibilitty of Dasein
des wwissenschaftlicchen Menscheen, 61). Sophha, however,, just like
epistm and phrnsis, is met lgou (witth ). Only nos,
pure nos, aims att grasping wh hat is adiaretton, but in orrder to do
that iit has to be neu lgou (wwithout ). The objecct of pure
nos is what is utterly
u simplee, , aand can no longer
l be
spokeen of as som mething else (179). Butt this nos is not a
possiibility of the Being
B of man (59). The noos that can bee found in
the hhuman soul is not a , a straighttforward seein ng, but a
, because the human souls mined by . The
is determ
nos of man is nott pure nos, it is a nos sntthetos (179).5
The human bbeing finds itsself in a worldd that is primaarily, if not completely,
concealed, aand it tries too uncover it thhrough speakking, which iss its most
basic determ mination. Speeaking can be b both discloosing and co oncealing,
although aaccording to its original sense and acccording to itss original
well, iss not disclosiv
facticity as w ve at all, but tto speak in an n extreme
way, is preccisely concealiing. is at first mere pprattle, whosee facticity
is not to let things be seen but in nstead to devvelop a pecu uliar self-
satisfaction at adhering to what is idly spokenn of (197). Besides,
speaking, wwhich addressses something g as somethingg [etwas als etwas],
e is
in principle unfit to graspp that which byy its very sensse cannot be addressed
a
as somethinng else but cann only be grassped for itselff. Here, in thiss primary
and predom minating structure, , as it were, fa fails (206). AndA man
cannot go bbeyond lgos: even the hig ghest mode o f disclosing the t world
(sopha, thee genuine possibility of human
h existennce) is still deetermined
6
by it.

5
Cf. also 1779: Because thhe Being of manm is determinned as ,
because man speaks, and discourses aboutt the things hee sees, pure perrceiving is
always a discussing. Pure
is carried out as . The carried
c out
within a beinng that has is a . Heidegger uunderstands noeen, which
he sometimess calls seeing, as a pure perrceiving (reinees Vernehmen) (145). For
an excellent ddiscussion of Heideggers
H notiion of intuitionn see Gonzalez (2009), 8
29.
6
Speaking abbout the coursee that preceded d the Sophist-Leectures (GA 18 8, cf. 109,
26263), Gonnzalez (2009), 8 puts it this way: Heideggger therefore claimsc that
because the GGreeks lived in speech they weere also imprisooned by it, withh the result
that a tremenddous effort wass needed for theem to overcom me their imprison
nment and
thus make sciience possible.
 Heeidegger: Sophiist and Philosoppher 65

3. The Introductorry Part is followed byy a section entitled

Transition, in which Heidegger
H doees finally form
rmulate more radically
what the releevance of all this
t is:
a) Arisstotle strives, precisely witth his idea off , to go o beyond
to a thhat is free of (224).
b) But eeven sopha reemains in lgo , the
os because it ddetermines
basicc determinatiion of ,, as havingg the charracter of
, of what
w is alreaady there in aadvance, of utter
u and
primaary presence [Anwesenheit]
[ ] (224);
c) whaat is already there in advaance is seen iin the light of o :
whatt, in speaking about someth hing, in discusssing some con nnections
in beeings, is there in advance, prior
p to all sppeech and on behalf of
all sppeech. That is, what is spo oken about iss the , ,
, in a formal sense; in other
o words, tthe basic chaaracter of
Beingg, namely presence,
p is drawn from the context of
itselff (224).
Lgos, then,, is Aristotles guiding lin
ne (Leitfadenn, 224) for dettermining
the Being of beings, and a this shou uld be our guiding line for our
7
interpretatioon of Plato.

III.
It would bbe impossiblee to discuss here in all its complex xity what
Heidegger ssays about Pllato in the So ophist-Lecturees, so I shall focus on
only three points that folloow on from his interpretatioon of Aristotlee.
1. The geenuine existennce belongs to o philosopherss, the ungenuiine one to
ho pollo annd the sophistss. Dialectic is a speaking-thr
hrough (Durchssprechen)
that beginss with what people
p first saay about the mmatter, passess through
this, and is directed to and
a finds its end e in a speaaking which genuinely
g
expresses soomething abouut the theme, i.e., in a genuuine assertion n, genuine

7
In this section Heideggger also argues that Plato makes only the t single
distinction, bbetween dialecttics and sophisstry, whereas A Aristotle, by reeason of a
more acute grrasp of the meaaning of the dialectical and of dialectics itselff, proposes
a threefold arrticulation: phillosophy, dialecttics, sophistry. [] In opposition to the
sophist, the ddialectician andd the philosopher are [for Arisstotle] determin ned by the
fact that theyy take that abouut which they sp peak seriously,, they intend thheir speech
to bring aboout an understaanding of the content, whereeas the sophist pays no
attention to thhe substantive content
c of his speech
s but is siimply concerneed with the
speech itself, its apparent reasonableness an nd brilliance ((216).
66 Chapter Two

(196).8 Insofar as speech is the basic mode of access to the world

and of commerce with it, insofar as it is the mode in which the world is
primarily presentand not only the world but also other people and the
respective individual himselfthe emptiness of the speech is equivalent to
an ungenuineness [Unechtheit] and uprootedness [Entwurzelung] of
human existence (231).9 The opposite of this existence, of the one that is
uprooted, and the opposite of the way it expresses itself in communal
spiritual life, resides in genuine existence, i.e., in a concern with
substantive content, in a concern with disclosing beings and in obtaining a
basic understanding of them (231).10
2. Dialectic, as a form of speaking, possesses an intrinsic tendency
toward seeing [Sehen], disclosing [Aufdecken],11 but it still remains in
lgein and does not reach its goal and does not purely and simply disclose
beings (198). Nonetheless, dialectic is not a mere game; it has a
proper function insofar as it cuts through the idle talk, checks the prattle,
and in the speeches lays its finger, as it were, on what is at issue. In this
way, presents the things spoken of in a first intimation and in
their immediate outward look, but it still remains in and cannot
but fail to disclose the things under discussion (197).
3. That which determines beings in their Being is the phenomenon of
time: the present, (which is often shortened to ) (579).
Why? Because in Plato, too, the phenomenon of is [] the kernel
(580). Speaking, as the disclosure of beings in speech, is nothing else
than the making present of what is most properly visible in beings
themselves and thereby the making present of beings in their essence; as

8
This impetus [] to pass from as prattle, from what is said idly and
hastily about all things, through genuine speaking, to a which, as
, actually says something about that of which it speaks is an inner need of
philosophizing itself (196).
9
Speaking is mostly a mere speaking about things carried out in isolation
(emphasis in original) from them. As such, speaking is free-floating
[freischwebend], and in itself, insofar as it is free-floating, has precisely
the property of disseminating presumed knowledge in a repetition that has no
relation to the things spoken of (339).
10
Genuine existence resides in the idea of scientific philosophy, as Socrates first
brought it to life and as Plato and Aristotle then developed it concretely (231).
Later in the course Heidegger claims that Platos attack on writing in Phaedrus
274ff. is in fact an attack on public speaking, which does not relate to the things
spoken of. The opposite of public speaking is the living logos, the dialectical
dialogue which aims at disclosing beings and in which genuine existence resides.
11
Cf. also 197: dialgesthai possesses immanently a tendency toward ,
seeing.
 Heidegger: Sophist and Philosopher 67

presentifying disclosure, appropriates the present (579). The same

thing surfaces when we approach lgein in the sense of , which
is a presentifying of what is addressed ([see the Sophist]
264a4). The being in its essence, in its , is there in ,
(cf. a4). is thus a seeing of something, but not with the sensible
eyes. Insofar as it is characterized as a seeing, that means the seen is
present as itself (609).12
In almost all of Platos dialogues philosophy emerges from a concern
with a particular aspect of human life. Socrates starts from what is
currently said about one subject or another, breaks through what is
currently said and tries to achieve a sound knowledge about the subject
under discussion. Socrates and his fellow citizens may be said to embody
two types of human existence, one genuine and one not. Heideggers
reading of Plato, however, cannot be backed by strong textual evidence.13
In the Symposium, Plato claims that one may grasp the form of beauty by a

12
There are two other important strands, beside that of lgos, which are linked
with Being as presence (and which I shall leave aside here): (i) posis and (ii)
dnamis koinnas. (i) Heidegger (1989)the Natorp Essayargues that the
object of philosophy is factical human life and claims that the same view is to be
found in Aristotle. Relying mainly on book Z of the Nicomachean Ethics and book
A (chapters 1 and 2) of the Metaphysics, Heidegger argues that Aristotles notion
of first philosophy (sopha) originated from human concerns (263) and that the
main Aristotelian ontological concepts (such as ousa, dnamis, enrgeia, etc.)
were drawn from the sphere of production (253, 260, 268). In the Sophist-Lectures
he reiterates this view: the original [Greek] sense of is to be produced
[Hergestelltsein] (270); in other words, the original Greek understanding of being
is derived from the sphere of human production, i.e. from Daseins productive
mode of comportment. This original sense of being, Heidegger claims, is also
brought forward by Plato in the Sophist (cf. 219b and 233d) when he discusses the
fundamental connection between the meaning of and that of (271).
(ii) In the Sophist Plato speaks of ousa as dnamis koinnas, and Heidegger takes
this as implying that Being is determined as presence. There are, says Heidegger,
two concepts of Being in Plato: Being as resistance [Sein als Wiederstndigkeit]
and Being as what shows itself in , i.e., in as pure perceiving (in
other words, Being as what is present in pure perceiving) (485). Being itself,
then, will mean for Plato, if he is to make both these positions intelligible, ,
as the possibility of co-presence with something, in short , or in
a fuller determination, , factual occurrence of the
possibility of being with one another [Vorhandensein der Mglichkeit zum
Miteinandersein] (486). For a discussion of (i) see Rosen (2005), for (ii) see Figal
(2000), 107108 and Gonzalez (2009), 8793.
13
For some of Heideggers claims that can be backed by textual evidence see
Partenie (2005).
68 Chapter Two

sort of sight (katpsis, 210e4; cf. also 211b6; e1) that is beyond words,14
so one can hardly say that for him dialectic remains in speaking. And
forms are not grounded on human factical life, they transcend it (although
it may be argued that they are pure intuitions of sorts). Heidegger claims
that is the ground upon which something like the becomes
visible in the first place (47); in other words, human factical life is the
ground upon which something like forms becomes present. In the Sophist
Plato claims that there are two kinds of creation (posis): the divine
(theon) and the human (anthrpinon) (265b), and for him the human
creation is solely a copy of the divine creation (in the Timaeus the forms
are divine and the divine is what transcends human life). Heidegger,
however, is committed to a reversal of our usual understanding of Plato:
The usual exposition of Plato places the doctrine of the Ideas in the center
and takes it as the guiding line [Leitfaden] for an interpretation of his
whole philosophy. We will see to what extent that is a prejudice and to
what extent it touches the actual state of affairs (46). We must get
unused to applying to Platos philosophy the scholastic horizon, as if for
Plato in one box were sensibility, and in another the supersensible. Plato
saw the world exactly as elementary as we do, but much more originally
(580). Dasein, not the doctrine of ideas, is, according to Heidegger, the
right guiding line for the right interpretation of Plato.15

IV.
The main theme of Aristotles philosophy is the Being of beings, and the
point of departure is altheein. Altheein cannot go beyond speaking
and so Being is determined as presence. Why? Because the sense of Being
is drawn from the context of lgos, and that means Dasein. All this
appears more clearly in Aristotle, and that is why Aristotle should be our
guiding line for the interpretation of the more confused Plato. In short: for
Plato and for Aristotle the phenomenon of time (namely presence)
emerges as the phenomenon which determines beings in their Being
(579). The two main pillars of Plato and Aristotle are thus Being and
Time, and they are grounded on Dasein because Dasein is the point of

14
At some point in his lectures Heidegger himself admits that according to the
Phaedrus a seeing of truth is [after all] carried out in dialectic (319).
15
See also Rosen (2005), 178: Stated as simply as possible, Heidegger reverses
the traditional interpretation of the Platonic Ideas as genuine, unchanging, and
eternal entities that exist independent of the modifications of human cognition. In a
way that shows the unmistakable influence of Nietzsche, Heidegger sees Plato as
the originator of the modern doctrine of subjectivity.
 Heidegger: Sophist and Philosopher 69

departure in determining Being. In fact, Heidegger states that his

interpretation of Aristotle, as well as his entire course on Platos Sophist,
is grounded on a phenomenology of Dasein (62).16 This, I think, is the
real guiding line for his lectures. In Being and Time he extends this claim;
there he argues that the Problematic of Greek ontology, like that of any
other, must take its clues from Dasein itself (25).17
Being and Time has many axes, but three of the most important ones
are these: the ontological constitution of Dasein (which gives Dasein a
specific understanding of Being); the two dimensions of human existence
(authentic and inauthentic); and the existence of a primordial as of
understanding.
1. The ontological constitution of Dasein is determined by what
Heidegger calls existentialia [Existenzialien], such as Being-in-the-
world [In-der-Welt-sein], Being-with-one-another [Mitsein], understanding
[Verstehen], discourse [Rede], and care [Sorge].18 They form a
transcendental framework that gives Dasein a specific understanding of
Being (Seinsverstndnis), which is projected by Dasein onto the world;
this projection determines the mode of being in which external entities
appear to us.
2. Mitsein is what makes a human being exist in a communion with
other human beings; we exist in a communion with other human beings
even when we live alone. We are not Mitsein because we live a communal
life; we live a communal life because we are Mitsein. Dasein is, at first
and for the most part, not an individual self, but a they-self (Being and
Time, 129). Each human being exists, at first and for the most part, in a
public space (the space of das Man), in which speaking becomes idle talk
(Gerede) and understanding becomes curiosity (Neugier). This public
space is Daseins everydayness [Alltglichkeit, Being and Time, 129],
which is also its falling [Verfallen, Being and Time, 175] and
inauthenticity [Uneigentlichkeit, Being and Time, 223]. Dasein exists, at
first and for the most part, in a public sphere, where it lives in
inauthenticity.19

16
Cf. 580: Thus (and thereby man, the sophist, [and] the philosopher, the
highest possibility of existence) is the theme of this apparently scattered
conceptual hair-splitting [of the Sophist].
17
Translations from Heideggers Being and Time are from Heidegger (1962); page
numbers refer to Heidegger (1979).
18
See sections 2534 of Being and Time.
19
For a discussion on Heideggers terms echt-unecht and eigentlich-uneigentlich
see Inwood (1999), 2224.
70 Chapter Two

3. Understanding is a basic mode of Daseins Being (Being and

Time, 143) and has the structure of something as something (Being and
Time, 149). Dasein is never a pure subject that can contemplate pure
objects, because it already understands the things that surround it as what
they are, and its factical life is the ground of this understanding. There is a
primordial as, which Heidegger calls the existential-hermeneutical as
and which should be differentiated from the apophantical as of the
assertion (Being and Time, 158).

V.
These three axes of Being and Time are also to be found (in a less
articulated form) in the Sophist-Lectures: the determination of Being from
the Dasein, the two dimensions of human existence (genuine and
ungenuine), and the as-structure. Second, part of the heavy terminology of
Being and Time is used throughout the Lectures: Dasein, Faktizitt,
Miteinandersein, In-der-Welt-sein, Gerede, alltgliches Dasein,
Befindlichkeit. Finally, the way Heidegger speaks in the Lectures is, quite
a few times, very close to the way he speaks in Being and Time. Here is
just one sample from the end of the Lectures: The is primary [in
Plato]. It is the fundamental phenomenon. [] The , which
harbours the possibility of discourse, is a constitutive determination of
Dasein itself, a determination I am wont to designate as Being-in-the-
world or Being-in (594).
Heidegger gave his Lectures on the Sophist in 192425; Being and
Time was published in 1927, but in 1924 he wrote its first draft, the so-
called Dilthey draft.20 In fact, as various scholars have now established,
the entire period of 191927 was marked by the emergence of the
fundamental ontology of Being and Time.21 Are the Sophist-Lectures to be
20
The first drafts of Being and Time were composed in 1924 (the Dilthey draft),
1925 (the Husserl draft), and 1926 (the Kantian draft), see Kisiel (1996), 33.
Philipse (1998), 79, argues that the earliest draft of Being and Time is a manuscript
from 1922, often referred to as the Natorp Essay and published posthumously as
Phnomenologische Interpretationen zu Aristoteles (Anzeige der hermeutischen
Situation), see Heidegger (1989).
21
See Figal (2000), 95: Philosophy is an articulation of life. Philosophers express
or should express in their thinking what it means to be alive, what it means to be in
the world and to live ones life being there. This is one of Martin Heideggers
crucial convictions in the first period of his philosophical career, developed in his
lectures from 1919 on and, as a philosophical project, named at least since 1922 as
hermeneutic of facticity (Hermeneutik der Faktizitt); see also Kisiel (1993) and
Van Buren (1994).
 Heidegger: Sophist and Philosopher 71

taken as another draft of Being and Time? No, that would be an

exaggeration;22 but they are definitely a Wegmarke of the fascinating
genesis of Being and Time.
In My Way to Phenomenology Heidegger says that it was Aristotle who
led him to develop his phenomenological approach that was fully
articulated in Being and Time.23 He must have thought that Aristotle was
after all followed by someone greater than him, someone who said more
radically, and developed more scientifically, what Aristotle placed at our
disposal, and that someone was himself: Heidegger. Aristotles own
research is nothing else than a more radical apprehension of the same
problems with which Plato and earlier thinkers had grappled. So, it is
only natural to go from the clear back into the obscure, i.e., from the
distinct, or the relatively developed, back to the confused. Confused,
however, must not be taken here as a denigration (190). We are not
talking about Platos intellectual acumen, it is just that the problems
themselves are very difficult. The confused and undeveloped can only be
understood if guiding lines are available to bring out the immanent
intentions [immanente Tendenzen] (190). Plato himself might not have
been aware of what he was trying to say. That is why we need the help of
someone who understood him better than he understood himself. This is
how Heidegger presents his intrusion into Platos philosophy. This
intrusion, however, can hardly be defended. Heideggers interpretation of
Platos Sophist does not bring out the immanent intentions of the Sophist;
it brings out the immanent intentions of Heideggers own thought, the
fundamental ontology he fully articulated in Being and Time. So, we may
say that in his Lectures on the Sophist Heidegger appears to be a sophist:
he makes Plato appear in a way that he is not.
It has been argued that Plato had planned to end the sequence of the
Theaetetus, Sophist, and Statesman with a fourth dialogue, which he
would have probably called the Philosopher. In his lectures Heidegger
says that Plato did not have to do this because in the Sophist he, Plato,
shows indirectly what the philosopher is by displaying what the sophist
is (12). And Plato shows this, Heidegger claims, not by saying what one
would have to do to be a philosopher, [but] by actually philosophizing
(12).
Heideggers reading of Plato does not actually correspond to what
Plato said in his dialogues; but we should not fall under the yoke of
correspondence, because there is something else in his lectures, beyond his

22
Gonzalez (2009), 72, however, claims that the end of the Sophist-Lectures reads
like a first draft of Being and Time.
23
Heidegger (1976), 86.
72 Chapter Two

interpretation of Plato: it is his own philosophizing. A philosopher should

go beyond the authors he interprets; he should confront the big
philosophical questions and cut his own way through them. This is,
perhaps, the most valuable immanent intention of Heideggers lectures on
the Sophist.

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