Jussi Backman
Tampere University, Faculty of Social Sciences/Philosophy, Faculty Member
From its Presocratic beginnings, Western philosophy concerned itself with a quest for unity both in terms of the systematization of knowledge and as a metaphysical search for a unity of being—two trends that can be regarded as converging... more
From its Presocratic beginnings, Western philosophy concerned itself with a quest for unity both in terms of the systematization of knowledge and as a metaphysical search for a unity of being—two trends that can be regarded as converging and culminating in Hegel’s system of absolute idealism. Since Hegel, however, the philosophical quest for unity has become increasingly problematic. Jussi Backman returns to that question in this book, examining the place of the unity of being in the work of Heidegger. Backman sketches a consistent picture of Heidegger as a thinker of unity who throughout his career in different ways attempted to come to terms with both Parmenides’s and Aristotle’s fundamental questions concerning the singularity or multiplicity of being—attempting to do so, however, in a “postmetaphysical” manner rooted in rather than above and beyond particular, situated beings. Through his analysis, Backman offers a new way of understanding the basic continuity of Heidegger’s philosophical project and the interconnectedness of such key Heideggerian concepts as ecstatic temporality, the ontological difference, the turn (Kehre), the event (Ereignis), the fourfold (Geviert), and the analysis of modern technology.
Review by Michael Bowler at Notre Dame Philosophical Reviews:
http://ndpr.nd.edu/news/complicated-presence-heidegger-and-the-postmetaphysical-unity-of-being/
Review by Pascal Massie in Gatherings: The Heidegger Circle Annual:
https://heidegger-circle.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/11/Gatherings2019-09Backmanreview.pdf
Review by Michael Bowler at Notre Dame Philosophical Reviews:
http://ndpr.nd.edu/news/complicated-presence-heidegger-and-the-postmetaphysical-unity-of-being/
Review by Pascal Massie in Gatherings: The Heidegger Circle Annual:
https://heidegger-circle.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/11/Gatherings2019-09Backmanreview.pdf
Research Interests: Metaphysics, Ontology, Hermeneutics, Phenomenology, Continental Philosophy, and 18 moreMartin Heidegger, Early Heidegger, Heidegger, Heidegger's later thought, Heidegger and Technology, Heidegger's Being and Time, Temporality, Dasein, Unity, Heidegger and art, Fundamental ontology, Heidegger's Concept of "The Fourfold", Postmetaphysics, Multiplicity In Identity, Philosophy of Martin Heidegger, Later Heidegger, History of Being, and Metaphysics of the Unity(Martin Heidegger, Early Heidegger, Heidegger, Heidegger's later thought, Heidegger and Technology, Heidegger's Being and Time, Temporality, Dasein, Unity, Heidegger and art, Fundamental ontology, Heidegger's Concept of "The Fourfold", Postmetaphysics, Multiplicity In Identity, Philosophy of Martin Heidegger, Later Heidegger, History of Being, and Metaphysics of the Unity)
(Martin Heidegger, Early Heidegger, Heidegger, Heidegger's later thought, Heidegger and Technology, Heidegger's Being and Time, Temporality, Dasein, Unity, Heidegger and art, Fundamental ontology, Heidegger's Concept of "The Fourfold", Postmetaphysics, Multiplicity In Identity, Philosophy of Martin Heidegger, Later Heidegger, History of Being, and Metaphysics of the Unity)
The attempt to refer meaningful reality as a whole back to a unifying ultimate principle—the quest for the unity of Being—was one of the basic tendencies of Western philosophy from its beginnings in ancient Greece up to Hegel’s absolute... more
The attempt to refer meaningful reality as a whole back to a unifying ultimate principle—the quest for the unity of Being—was one of the basic tendencies of Western philosophy from its beginnings in ancient Greece up to Hegel’s absolute idealism. However, the different trends of contemporary philosophy tend to regard such a speculative metaphysical quest for unity as obsolete.
This study addresses this contemporary situation on the basis of the work of Martin Heidegger (1889–1976). Its methodological framework is Heidegger’s phenomenological and hermeneutical approach to the history of philosophy. It seeks to understand, in terms of the metaphysical quest for unity, Heidegger’s contrast between the first (Greek) beginning or “onset” (Anfang) of philosophy and another onset of thinking. This other onset is a possibility inherent in the contemporary situation in which, according to Heidegger, the metaphysical tradition has developed to its utmost limits and thereby come to an end.
Part I is a detailed interpretation of the surviving fragments of the Poem of Parmenides of Elea (fl. c. 500 BC), an outstanding representative of the first philosophical beginning in Heidegger’s sense. It is argued that the Poem is not a simple denial of apparent plurality and difference (the “mortal acceptances,” doxai) in favor of an extreme monism. Parmenides’ point is rather to show in what sense the different instances of Being can be reduced to an absolute level of truth or evidence (aletheia), which is the unity of Being as such (to eon). What in prephilosophical human experience is accepted as being is referred to the source of its acceptability: intelligibility as such, the simple and undifferentiated presence to thinking that ultimately excludes unpresence and otherness.
Part II interprets selected key texts from different stages in Heidegger’s thinking in terms of the unity of Being. It argues that one aspect of Heidegger’s sustained and gradually deepening philosophical quest was to think the unity of Being as singularity, as the instantaneous, context-specific, and differential unity of a temporally meaningful situation. In Being and Time (1927) Heidegger articulates the temporal situatedness of the human awareness of meaningful presence. His later work moves on to study the situational correlation between presence and the human awareness as such. Heidegger’s “postmetaphysical” articulation seeks to show how presence becomes meaningful precisely as situated, in an event of differentiation from a multidimensional context of unpresence. In resigning itself to this irreducibly complicated and singular character of meaningful presence, philosophy also faces its own historically situated finitude. This resignation is an essential feature of Heidegger’s “other onset” of thinking.
This study addresses this contemporary situation on the basis of the work of Martin Heidegger (1889–1976). Its methodological framework is Heidegger’s phenomenological and hermeneutical approach to the history of philosophy. It seeks to understand, in terms of the metaphysical quest for unity, Heidegger’s contrast between the first (Greek) beginning or “onset” (Anfang) of philosophy and another onset of thinking. This other onset is a possibility inherent in the contemporary situation in which, according to Heidegger, the metaphysical tradition has developed to its utmost limits and thereby come to an end.
Part I is a detailed interpretation of the surviving fragments of the Poem of Parmenides of Elea (fl. c. 500 BC), an outstanding representative of the first philosophical beginning in Heidegger’s sense. It is argued that the Poem is not a simple denial of apparent plurality and difference (the “mortal acceptances,” doxai) in favor of an extreme monism. Parmenides’ point is rather to show in what sense the different instances of Being can be reduced to an absolute level of truth or evidence (aletheia), which is the unity of Being as such (to eon). What in prephilosophical human experience is accepted as being is referred to the source of its acceptability: intelligibility as such, the simple and undifferentiated presence to thinking that ultimately excludes unpresence and otherness.
Part II interprets selected key texts from different stages in Heidegger’s thinking in terms of the unity of Being. It argues that one aspect of Heidegger’s sustained and gradually deepening philosophical quest was to think the unity of Being as singularity, as the instantaneous, context-specific, and differential unity of a temporally meaningful situation. In Being and Time (1927) Heidegger articulates the temporal situatedness of the human awareness of meaningful presence. His later work moves on to study the situational correlation between presence and the human awareness as such. Heidegger’s “postmetaphysical” articulation seeks to show how presence becomes meaningful precisely as situated, in an event of differentiation from a multidimensional context of unpresence. In resigning itself to this irreducibly complicated and singular character of meaningful presence, philosophy also faces its own historically situated finitude. This resignation is an essential feature of Heidegger’s “other onset” of thinking.
Research Interests:
Mitä oleva on? Omaisuus ja elämä pureutuu tähän filosofian peruskysymykseen seuraten kahta länsimaisen filosofian jättiläistä, Aristotelestä ja Heideggeria. Siinä missä Aristoteles kysyy olevaa substantiivina ja tilana, etsii Heidegger... more
Mitä oleva on? Omaisuus ja elämä pureutuu tähän filosofian peruskysymykseen seuraten kahta länsimaisen filosofian jättiläistä, Aristotelestä ja Heideggeria. Siinä missä Aristoteles kysyy olevaa substantiivina ja tilana, etsii Heidegger olemisen mieltä verbinä ja tapahtumana. Nämä kaksi merkitystä löytyvät myös suomen olla-verbistä: "omistaa jotakin" ja "olla olemassa, elossa". Omaisuus ja elämä antavat peruslähtökohdat olevan tulkitsemiselle. Kirja vie lukijansa filosofian kreikkalaisille juurille ja sen uusimpiin, Heideggerin avaamiin mahdollisuuksiin.