Session 4 Introduction to Philosophy, 28-35 

 Place: Zoom 

Time: 19.00 – 21.00 (CET) 

Participation fee: 90 Euro, Patrons 70 Euro, Students and low-income 50 Euro 

Participant can obtain a certificate of participation. 

For more information and registration: alfred.denker@yahoo.com 

“Heidegger’s incomplete lecture course Introduction to Philosophy—Thinking and Poetizing originates from the 1944 Winter Semester at Freiburg and appears in this volume along with revisions and notes from volume 50 of the Heidegger Gesamtausgabe. The 1944 lecture course Introduction to Philosophy opens with Heidegger clarifying that, despite the title, it is not an introduction (Einleitung) to philosophy. Instead, Heidegger proposes a guide (Anleitung) to philosophy, or more precisely, a guide to thinking, in which we will be guided by the thinker Nietzsche. And it is especially the relationship between Nietzsche’s poetry and philosophy that Heidegger suggests will help guide us. To articulate his method of thinking about Nietzsche’s thinking and its poetic character, Heidegger continually employs a string of German verbs formed from the word denken (to think): Andenken (to think of, to reflect), mit-denken (to think with), zudenken (to-be-thought), and nach-denken (to think about). The verb nachdenken also implies a way to gain access to things and objects in the sense of “contemplation,” and I have translated it as “to contemplate” when the context requires this more robust sense of the word. Whenever Heidegger hyphenates the verb nachdenken as nach-denken, then the parallel hyphenation results in “con-template,” emphasizing the directional pursuit of the task of thinking. 

Literature: 

Martin Heidegger, Introduction to Philosophy—Thinking and Poetizing, Bloomington 2011, pp. 1-50.