Religion, Theology, and Philosophy on the Way to Being and Time ...

Research 

in 

Phenomenology 

Research in Phenomenology 39 (2009) 99–131 www.brill.nl/rp 

<strong>Religion</strong>, Th eology, <strong>and</strong> <strong>Philosophy</strong> on the Way to 

Being <strong>and</strong> Time: Heidegger, the Hermeneutical, the 

Factical, <strong>and</strong> the Historical with Respect to 

Dilthey <strong>and</strong> Early Christianity 

István M. Fehér 

ELTE University Budapest 

Abstract 

My aim in the present paper is to show the signifi cance of Heidegger’s phenomenology of religion 

as an important step on his way to his magnum opus. First, I wish to exhibit traits characteristic 

of Heidegger’s path of thinking in terms of his confrontation with phenomenology, 

historicism, hermeneutics, <strong>and</strong> Lebensphilosophie. I will then argue, in a second step, that it was 

with an eye to, <strong>and</strong> drawing upon, his previous underst<strong>and</strong>ing of religion <strong>and</strong> religious life, as 

well as of the relation between faith <strong>and</strong> theology, that Heidegger was to conceive of philosophy 

<strong>and</strong> its relation to human existence in Being <strong>and</strong> Time. Both theology <strong>and</strong> philosophy off er a 

conceptual elaboration of something previously enacted or lived (a sort of having-been) <strong>and</strong>, in 

doing so, are at the same time meant to refer back to <strong>and</strong> reinforce what they grow out of—faith 

or factical life. 

Keywords 

hermeneutics, phenomenology, factical life, faith, theology 

Introduction 

Martin Heidegger’s thinking has had a durable <strong>and</strong> powerful infl uence not 

only upon the philosophy of the twentieth century but upon a number of 

disciplines within the humanities as well. One of the disciplines that Heidegger 

infl uenced most was undoubtedly theology—both Catholic <strong>and</strong> Protestant. 

Indeed, we have reason to say that this was the discipline that Heidegger’s 

thinking aff ected most. 1 

1) “Surely, theology was the discipline,” wrote Otto Pöggeler in the eighties, “in which the 

© Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, 2009 DOI: 10.1163/156916408X389659

100 I. M. Fehér / Research in Phenomenology 39 (2009) 99–131 

Th e relevance of Heidegger’s thought for theology is shown by the fact that 

both Catholic <strong>and</strong> Protestant thinkers have been able to fi nd dimensions 

of his thought fi tting to their world-view <strong>and</strong> to be adopted or drawn upon 

in several important respects. Th ose dimensions have of course been diff erent, 

according to confessional concerns <strong>and</strong> interests as these have taken shape <strong>and</strong> 

come to be traditionally developed during the past centuries. While Protestant 

theologians have tended to draw upon the early Heidegger’s analysis of human 

existence <strong>and</strong>, in turning to the later Heidegger, were fascinated by the philosopher 

of the language-event, Catholic theologians or theologically interested 

Catholic philosophers have primarily been attracted by Heidegger’s 

coupling of the ontological approach with the transcendental-philosophical 

method <strong>and</strong> his incessant pursual of the Being question. 2 

It is important to realize however that there is a reciprocal infl uence operating 

here: the question of how Heidegger’s thought—<strong>and</strong> from time to time 

exactly which dimension(s) of it—infl uenced theology should be integrated 

by the reverse issue concerning the decisive import of theology for Heidegger’s 

philosophical beginnings <strong>and</strong> his whole path of thinking. Th e latter point was 

openly acknowledged by Heidegger himself later in the fi fties in a dialogue 

of Unterwegs zur Sprache. In a retrospect remark he stated here quite clearly 

that without his theological origins he would never have come onto the path of 

thought, that is, philosophy, 3 a remark which we see cropping up already in the 

impulses coming from Heidegger proved to have the most decisive eff ects” (Otto Pöggeler, 

Heidegger und die hermeneutische Philosophie [Freiburg: Alber, 1983], 414). 

2) See Richard Schaeffl er, Frömmigkeit des Denkens? Martin Heidegger und die katholische Th eologie 

(Darmstadt: Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft, 1978), X; Alfred Jäger, Gott. Nochmals 

Martin Heidegger (Tübingen: Mohr, 1978), 84. See also John D. Caputo, Heidegger <strong>and</strong> Aquinas. 

An Essay on Overcoming Metaphysics (New York: Fordham University Press, 1982), 95: “Rahner, 

Lotz, <strong>and</strong> Coreth have all attempted to develop a transcendental Th omism which goes back not 

only to Kant but specifi cally to Being <strong>and</strong> Time. . . . Th ey have tried to root St. Th omas’ notion of 

esse in an inherent dynamism of the intellect.” Caputo called to mind that “[i]n a brief but quite 

illuminating study of Heidegger’s ‘existential philosophy’, written in 1940, Karl Rahner argues, 

in keeping with Heidegger, for the importance of taking up the question of Being from a transcendental 

st<strong>and</strong>point,” the reason being that “an access to Being through the human subject 

must fi rst be established.” See further Caputo, “Heidegger <strong>and</strong> Th eology,” in Th e Cambridge 

Companion to Heidegger, ed. Charles Guignon (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1993), 

274, 279f., 284. 

3) Unterwegs zur Sprache, 7th ed. (Pfullingen: Neske, 1982), 96; hereafter cited as US. (Heidegger’s 

works will be cited with abbreviations. Th e Gesamtausgabe volumes will be cited as GA followed 

by volume <strong>and</strong> page numbers; titles of GA volumes are appended. Other works will be cited with 

full bibliographical data at their fi rst occurrence, then with abbreviations. If there are references 

to both the original German text <strong>and</strong> the corresponding English translation, the German pagina-

I. M. Fehér / Research in Phenomenology 39 (2009) 99–131 101 

second part of the thirties in a recently published autobiographical passage 

(GA 66: 415). But even earlier, in a letter to Karl Löwith on August 19, 1921, 

Heidegger made reference to his “intellectual <strong>and</strong> wholly factic origin” in 

terms of being a “Christian theologian.” 4 His theological origins might then be, 

on a fi rst approach, the reason for (<strong>and</strong> the cause of) Heidegger’s subsequent 

impact on theology. 

In the above-mentioned dialogue, Heidegger made a further point that is 

equally important for the purposes of the present paper. He mentioned that 

it was also in the course of his early theological studies that he fi rst came 

across <strong>and</strong> grew familiar with the term “hermeneutics”—a term he found 

somewhat later in Dilthey too, who, in like manner as he himself did, derived 

it from his own theological studies, especially out of his concern with the work 

of Schleiermacher. 5 

Heidegger’s theological origins are then relevant not only for his becoming 

a philosopher in general but also, more especially, for the specifi c kind of hermeneutical 

attitude he was to adopt in philosophy <strong>and</strong> to develop in detail. 

Seen in the perspective suggested by the confessionally specifi ed Christian 

theological infl uences, the provisional end point of his youthful itinerary, Being 

<strong>and</strong> Time, might even be claimed to attempt to bring together the Catholic <strong>and</strong> 

the Protestant traditions—the former suggesting the ontological perspective 

characteristic of neo-Scholasticism <strong>and</strong> dating back to Heidegger’s early reading 

of Brentano’s dissertation Von der mannigfachen Bedeutung des Seienden 

nach Aristoteles as well as of Carl Braig’s Vom Sein: Abriß der Ontologie, while 

the latter, extremely critical of Scholasticism, shifts the focus from an ontological 

perspective upon the divine order <strong>and</strong> harmony of the world to the 

individual believer’s living or enacting his/her faith, thereby drawing heavily on 

Luther’s critique of Aristotle <strong>and</strong> taking up motives in St. Paul, Augustine, 

Pascal, Schleiermacher, Kierkegaard, <strong>and</strong> Dilthey. Indeed, the explicit program 

of Being <strong>and</strong> Time, the elaboration of a fundamental ontology in terms of an 

tion <strong>and</strong> the English pagination are separated by a slash, the number before the slash indicating 

the German edition, the one after the slash the English edition. Other abbreviations: WS = 

Wintersemester; SS = Sommersemester.) 

4) See “Drei Briefe Martin Heideggers an Karl Löwith,” ed. Hartmut Tietjen, in Im Gespräch der 

Zeit, vol. 2 of Zur philosophischen Aktualität Heideggers, ed. Dietrich Papenfuss <strong>and</strong> Otto Pöggeler 

(Frankfurt/Main: Klostermann 1990), 29. 

5) As it turns out, Heidegger was registered as participant of a course of Gottfried Hoberg on 

“Hermeneutik mit Geschichte der Exegese” during the summer semester 1910; see Heidegger- 

Jahrbuch, vol. 1, Heidegger und die Anfänge seines Denkens, ed. Alfred Denker, Hans-Helmuth 

G<strong>and</strong>er, Holger Zaborowski (Freiburg: Alber, 2004), 14.


existential analytic of the human being in an eff ort to retrieve <strong>and</strong> work out 

the Being question may even be construed as making an attempt to unite <strong>and</strong> 

forge both traditions. Roughly, fundamental ontology as the discipline destined 

to elaborate the Being-question may be seen to be of Catholic origin, 

whereas the existential analytic, as a continuation <strong>and</strong> radicalization of the 

early hermeneutics of facticity, may be traced back to (<strong>and</strong> seen to take up <strong>and</strong> 

radicalize in a specifi cally formalized <strong>and</strong> de-theologized manner) the Luther- 

Kierkegaardian sort of Protestant tradition centering around subjectivity <strong>and</strong> 

the believer’s existential enactment of faith. 

My aim, in the present paper, is to show the signifi cance of Heidegger’s 

phenomenology of religion as an important step on his way to his magnum 

opus. In particular, I wish to exhibit traits characteristic of, <strong>and</strong> that prove 

decisive for, Heidegger’s path of thinking in terms of his confrontation with 

the leading philosophical tendencies of the age, thereby centering discussion 

around the reciprocal connections of phenomenology, historicism, hermeneutics, 

<strong>and</strong> Lebensphilosophie. Specifi cally, I will argue that it was with an eye to, 

<strong>and</strong> drawing upon, his previous underst<strong>and</strong>ing of religion <strong>and</strong> religious life, as 

well as of the relation between faith <strong>and</strong> theology, that Heidegger was to conceive 

of philosophy <strong>and</strong> its relation to human existence in Being <strong>and</strong> Time. 

I will elaborate my argument in two steps. First, I will sketch an outline of 

Heidegger’s development in the postwar years; second, against the background 

of this sketch I will focus more specifi cally on his 1920/21 course on the Phenomenology 

of <strong>Religion</strong> by selecting <strong>and</strong> highlighting some of the features I 

think are salient for Heidegger’s thinking no less than for the Sache selbst. 

I. Heidegger’s Philosophical Development After World War I 

It was due to a radical reorientation—a veritable turn, as it were—going on in 

Heidegger’s thinking right after World War I that he was to fi nd his own voice 

<strong>and</strong> start the gradual move toward Being <strong>and</strong> Time. Educated <strong>and</strong> brought up 

in the Scholastic tradition but extremely responsive to new logical-epistemological 

ways of philosophizing, Heidegger started out as a talented young student 

committed in his academic writings fi rst <strong>and</strong> foremost to mainstream 

anti-psychologism characteristic of contemporary philosophy as represented 

by neo-Kantianism <strong>and</strong> phenomenology. Th e philosophical perspective of 

anti-psychologism rested mainly on purely logical grounds; it was however, 

although perhaps indirectly, in full harmony with the Scholastic defense of 

the objectivity of truth <strong>and</strong> thereby with the apologetic tendency of anti-


modernist Catholic thinking. Heidegger’s critique of psychologism <strong>and</strong> his 

unconditional early adherence to anti-psychologism in general can, in this 

perspective, be seen to convey a sense of apologetic interest <strong>and</strong> eff ort. 6 

Although it is plausible to speak about quite a few proto-hermeneutic motifs 

in Heidegger’s early academic writings as well as about various anticipatory 

signs of what was to come (e.g., Heidegger’s appreciation of Duns Scotus’ 

concept of haecceitas as conveying a sense of “proximity to real life” <strong>and</strong> being 

a “primal determination of living reality” in his habilitation work 7 clearly 

suggests a growing sense for individuality, leading all the way, through the 

thematization of factical life <strong>and</strong>, together with it, of the phenomenon called 

Selbstwelt in the postwar years, up to Dasein’s Jemeinigkeit in Being <strong>and</strong> Time), 

the prevailing atmosphere that permeates those writings remains nonetheless 

a Platonizing-wissenschaftstheoretisch one. 

Th is outlook fades away soon after the war <strong>and</strong> gives way to a radical 

reorientation. Rather than continue working comfortably in the fl ow of some 

of the contemporary philosophical tendencies as a devoted follower—relying 

with confi dence on its presuppositions <strong>and</strong> striving, at best, to contribute 

to its further advancement—Heidegger embarks upon a radical undertaking 

of reexamining the roots of those tendencies. Th ereby he sets out on, <strong>and</strong> soon 

becomes indeed lifelong engaged in, an overall confrontation with the whole 

Western philosophical tradition. Th is move marks the point of his becoming 

an autonomous thinker: Heidegger ceases to be dependent on the prior (<strong>and</strong>, 

by necessity, naive) acceptance of any philosophical position whatsoever. 

Instead, his eff orts are directed to inquire into as well as to reappropriate the 

fundamental presuppositions underlying the most varied <strong>and</strong> even contrasting 

philosophical positions. Th is operation is given the name of destruction; it 

means “a critical process in which the traditional concepts, which at fi rst must 

necessarily be employed, are deconstructed down to the sources from which 

6) See Holger Zaborowski, “ ‘Herkunft aber bleibt stets Zukunft.’ Anmerkungen zur religiösen 

und theologischen Dimension des Denkweges Martin Heideggers bis 1919,” in Heidegger- 

Jahrbuch, vol. 1, 149. 

7) GA 1: 203, 253. Dilthey was to exercise a long-lasting infl unce on Heidegger’s thinking. His 

turn to “life” can be understood as a turn to “facticity” <strong>and</strong> to individuality; for an interesting 

occurrence of the term haecceitas, used pretty much in the later Heideggerian sense of facticity 

<strong>and</strong> Dasein, see Wilhelm Dilthey, Grundlegung der Wissenschaften vom Menschen, der Gesellschaft 

und der Geschichte, vol. 19 of Gesammelte Schriften, ed. Hans Johach, Frithjof Rodi (Göttingen: 

V<strong>and</strong>enhoeck & Ruprecht, 1982), 348: “In der Struktur des Lebens äußert sich eine individuelle 

Tatsächlichkeit, eine haecceitas, welche vom Verst<strong>and</strong>e nicht als notwendig aufgezeigt werden 

kann.”


they were drawn.” It is “a de-constructing of traditional concepts carried out 

in a historical recursion to the tradition . . . not a negation of the tradition or 

a condemnation of it as worthless; quite the contrary, it signifi es precisely a 

positive appropriation of tradition.” 8 

It was with the help of the strategy of destruction that Heidegger turned 

to reexamine, <strong>and</strong> did indeed re-appropriate, the philosophical trend he felt 

most close <strong>and</strong> committed to from the very beginning, that is, Husserlian 

phenomenology. In a sense it might be said that the strategy of destruction 

itself derived from, <strong>and</strong> was a radicalization of, phenomenology’s innermost 

claim: Back to the things themselves!—a weapon, as it were, grown out of, <strong>and</strong> 

immediately turned against, its producer. It turned out to be a tool with which 

Heidegger turned phenomenology against itself—by showing, for example, 

characters in it that proved to be “unphenomenological”—<strong>and</strong> eventually performed 

its hermeneutical transformation. Given the importance of this point, 

it will be of use to develop it in some detail. 

Th e Hermeneutical Transformation of Phenomenology: A Reciprocal 

Radicalization of Phenomenology <strong>and</strong> Life-<strong>Philosophy</strong> 

Heidegger’s appropriation of Husserl’s phenomenology was far from being a 

neutral assimilation; rather, it showed from the very beginning a highly critical 

attitude prompted by the simultaneous assimilation of some leading motifs 

of life-philosophy. Appropriation <strong>and</strong> transformation were apparently going 

on h<strong>and</strong> in h<strong>and</strong>—which is a good example of Heidegger’s own theory of 

the forestructure of underst<strong>and</strong>ing in Being <strong>and</strong> Time. Seeking to confront 

the leading philosophical movements, Heidegger’s strategy strived to uncover 

what he perceived to be the common defi ciencies inherent in the philosophical 

positions of the day—positions that often stood in sharpest opposition to 

each other. Epistemologically oriented scientifi c philosophy is criticized for 

not being scientifi c enough; life-philosophy is accused of failing to grasp life 

itself; existential philosophy is charged with not seizing upon existence; historicism 

is called to account for losing sight of history; <strong>and</strong> last but not least, 

phenomenology is accused of not being phenomenological enough—indeed, 

of being “unphenomenological.” Heidegger’s devastating critique of contemporary 

trends of philosophizing employed thereby the strategy of taking them 

seriously, taking them at their word, as it were, <strong>and</strong> then uncovering the extent 

to which they can be shown to fail to do justice to their own claims. In the 

discussion that follows, I will focus on phenomenology. 

8) GA 24: 31/23. See also e.g. GA 59: 35, 180ff .; GA 17: 117ff .


While Heidegger’s remarks on phenomenology in his academic writings 

scarcely amount to more than a faithful recapitulation, exposition, or adherence 

to its basic tenets, the postwar observations display a tendency toward 

a comprehensive confrontation of its basic concepts <strong>and</strong> theoretical fundaments. 

WS 1919/20, bearing the title Th e Fundamental Problems of Phenomenology, 

begins with the following characteristic statement: “For phenomenology, 

the fundamental problem of phenomenology—its most acute problem, a problem 

that can never be extinguished, its most original <strong>and</strong> decisive problem—is 

phenomenology itself.” 9 Phenomenology should, for Heidegger, not just occasionally 

be concerned with itself. On the contrary: if it is to be radical enough, 

it should bring to bear its criticism also upon itself—indeed, primarily against 

itself (see GA 58: 6, 145, 237). 

Heideggger heartily welcomed the innermost eff ort of phenomenology, the 

proclamation of returning to “the things themselves” as well as what it implied: 

the suspending of traditional philosophical strategies, the dismissal of the 

authorities, the preference of description over construction, in short: the eff ort 

to bring out the phenomena by going back to the original sources of intuition 

conceived of in terms of the only legitimizing instance for philosophical statements 

<strong>and</strong> theories. Indeed, phenomenology, thus conceived, became for 

Heidegger identical with philosophy. From the earliest postwar period up to 

his latest years he repeatedly maintained that phenomenology was not just a 

philosophical “trend,” one “st<strong>and</strong>point” among many possible others, but was 

equivalent with the innermost possibility of philosophy itself. 10 It is important 

to see that phenomenology, for Heidegger, was a possibility rather than an 

actuality, that he thereby sharply distinguished between phenomenology as a 

way of doing philosophical research <strong>and</strong> phenomenology as this particular 

research became concretized in the form Husserl gave it in his work. Th is is 

one of the reasons why he claimed in Being <strong>and</strong> Time: “Higher than actuality 

st<strong>and</strong>s possibility. We can underst<strong>and</strong> phenomenology only by seizing upon it as 

a possibility.” 11 

9) GA 58: 1. See also GA 9: 36. 

10) See GA 56/57: 110; GA 61: 187; GA 63: 72; “Phänomenologische Interpretationen zu Aristoteles 

(Anzeige der hermeneutischen Situation),” ed. H.-U. Lessing, in vol. 6 of Dilthey Jahrbuch 

für Philosophie und Geschichte der Geisteswissenschaften, ed. F. Rodi (Göttingen: V<strong>and</strong>enhoeck & 

Ruprecht, 1989), 247 (hereafter: PIA); GA 20: 184; GA 21: 32, 279f.; SZ 38; GA 24: 3; 

GA 29/30: 534; US 95; Zur Sache des Denkens, 2nd ed. (Tübingen: Max Niemeyer, 1976; hereafter: 

SD) 90. 

11) Sein und Zeit, 15th ed. (Tübingen: Niemeyer, 1979), 38, hereafter SZ. Italics in original. See 

already in the early lecture courses, e.g., GA 63: 107; GA 17: 263.


It was precisely this character of open possibility, characteristic of <strong>and</strong> 

indeed indispensable for any kind of serious <strong>and</strong> autonomous philosophical 

inquiry, that Heidegger found fascinating in adhering to Husserl’s phenomenology 

after the war. By contrast, from the very beginning he had serious 

doubts <strong>and</strong> made critical remarks about the transcendental concretization 

of it carried out by Husserl. KNS (= Kriegsnotsemester) 1919 shows already 

some important reservations about Husserl’s actual phenomenology (<strong>and</strong> 

together with it the outlines of another possible phenomenology). Th ese 

remarks are woven into Heidegger’s criticism of epistemologically oriented 

neo-Kantian philosophy as such <strong>and</strong> appear in the form of an attack against 

the primacy of the theoretical (this attack is motivated by Dilthey, lifephilosophy, 

<strong>and</strong> historicism <strong>and</strong> is brought to bear upon the whole metaphysical-ontological 

tradition going back to Aristotle). Heidegger observes 

that the distortive representations of life <strong>and</strong> the environing world are due not 

simply to the prevalence of naturalism, as Husserl thinks they are, but to 

the domination of the theoretical in general. 12 Heidegger here interprets Husserl’s 

“principle of all principles” to the eff ect that it is not of a theoretical 

character but expresses the most original attitude (Urhaltung) of life itself, that 

of remaining close to its own experiencing. 13 It expresses indeed a fundamental 

attitude (Grundhaltung) rather than a (scientifi c) method. To claim phenomenology 

was a st<strong>and</strong>point would be a “mortal sin,” because it would 

restrict its possibilities. But, Heidegger immediately asks, is it not already a 

deviation, of the character of a hidden theory, to turn the sphere of living 

experience into something given? 14 Th is doubt is one of the very fi rst signs 

of Heidegger’s fundamental dissatisfaction with Husserlian phenomenology, 

which will lead up to the gr<strong>and</strong>iose critique of 1925 in which Husserl will 

be charged with dogmatism (an unphenomenological attitude) regarding nothing 

less than the delimitation of the ownmost research fi eld of phenomenology 

12) GA 56/57: 87. 

13) GA 56/57: 109 f. On several occasions, Heidegger will later return to interpret Husserl’s 

“principle of all principles.” In retrospect, he will say in the sixties that he wanted to rethink 

exactly this principle <strong>and</strong>, together with it, the specifi c “matter” of phenomenology itself (cf. 

SD 69ff .). See especially the following hints: “die Phänomenologie bewußt und entschieden in 

die Überlieferung der neuzeitlichen Philosophie einschwenkte.” “Die Phänomenologie behielt 

die ‘Bewußtseinserlebnisse’ als ihren thematischen Bereich bei” (ibid., 84). 

14) GA 56/57: 111. (“zu einem Gegebenen zu stempeln” = give it a stamp of something given, to 

seal it, to reify it, as something given). See also GA 58: 221.


itself, i.e., transcendental consciousness. 15 Th e world of lived experience knows 

of no such duality as that between object <strong>and</strong> knowledge. 

If we leap forward to Heidegger’s most detailed critique of Husserl’s phenomenology 

as provided in the 1925 lecture course, we see that its central 

theme is, once again, the delimitation of the specifi c research fi eld of phenomenology 

itself, in other words, the self-concretization of phenomenological 

philosophy out of its own initial principle or maxim. Th e basic issue is related 

to whether <strong>and</strong> how phenomenology gets access to (comes to delimit) its own 

research fi eld, whether the procedure thereby employed is phenomenologically 

coherent or not. Over against the charges of dogmatism, as formulated 

by Rickert, Heidegger comes to the conclusion, after detailed analyses, that it 

is not intentionality as such that might legitimately be claimed to be dogmatic 

but rather that to which intentionality gets tacitly linked, or bound, or tied, 

that which is built under this structure—in other words, that of which it is 

claimed to be the specifi c structure. In fact, intentionality is held to be the 

specifi c structure of the psyche, reason, consciousness, etc. (rather than, say, 

nature), all of which are ontological regions that are naively, i.e., traditionally 

<strong>and</strong> therefore dogmatically, assumed rather than phenomenologically discussed 

<strong>and</strong> delimited. Rather than an ultimate explanation of psychic reality, 

Heidegger observes signifi cantly, intentionality is a way to overcome such traditional 

ontological realities as psyche, consciousness, reason. 16 

Th e question is whether access to that of which intentionality is declared to 

be the structure is attained in a phenomenological way. Th e issue concerns the 

delimitation of the “thing itself” in a phenomenological way, the question 

of whether the linking of intentionality to pure consciousness, or to the transcendental 

ego, is carried out phenomenologically <strong>and</strong> not simply by taking 

over the leading idea of modern Cartesian-Kantian philosophy—a doubt that 

proves to be well-founded. 17 Although Husserl claims to suspend, put into 

brackets, “assertions concerning being” <strong>and</strong> thereby leaves the being of intentionality 

obscure, he nevertheless tacitly links it to an ontological region called 

transcendental consciousness. Moreover, he makes distinctions of Being like 

the one between Being as consciousness <strong>and</strong> transcendent being—which he 

15) See GA 20: 159, 178. For the same point in historical perspective going back to Descartes, see 

GA 17, esp. 105. 

16) GA 20: 62ff . “It is a question of underst<strong>and</strong>ing the subject on the basis of intentionality, 

rather than underst<strong>and</strong>ing intentionality on the basis of preconceived ideas about the subject” 

(Rudolf Bernet, “Husserl <strong>and</strong> Heidegger on Intentionality <strong>and</strong> Being,” Journal of the British Society 

for Phenomenology 21 [May 1990]: 143). 

17) See GA 20: 147.


called himself, symptomatically, “the most radical of all distinctions of being.” 18 

Remarkably enough, while prohibiting making assertions concerning being, 

phenomenology tacitly commits itself to certain ontological positions—i.e., 

without thematizing the access to those positions phenomenologically. 19 Th at 

phenomenology may be shown to be intrinsically incoherent or inconsistent, 

i.e., “unphenomenological,” 20 aff ected with metaphysical bias, is signifi cant 

enough. Insofar as the principle of phenomenology (“To the things themselves!”) 

requires suspension of every unwarranted construction <strong>and</strong> subjecting the 

unquestioned domination of philosophical theories to critical examination, as 

well as the return to the original sources of intuition, Heidegger’s objection 

strikes home—it turns out to be eminently phenomenological. 

Th e access to the transcendental region of pure consciousness, as erecting 

itself upon <strong>and</strong> replacing the experience of empirical reality, is characterized by 

Husserl in terms of a change in attitude. In the natural attitude, the world 

is present as a spatio-temporal sequence of events, including the psychic processes 

going on in the minds of empirically existing people. As opposed to the 

new realm, i.e., the pure region of consciousness that we are about to enter, 

humans appear here merely as living beings, zoological objects among others. 

However, Heidegger objects, we may legitimately ask: does one really experience 

oneself in the manner described here in this alleged “natural attitude”? In 

other words, is this attitude indeed so natural? Is it not rather artifi cial or, in 

any case, theoretical? Do I really experience myself “naturally” as a living being, 

a zoological object, out there, present-at-h<strong>and</strong> as any other? 21 

18) See GA 20: 155, 157f., 178. See also GA 17: 264. For Husserl’s distinction see his Ideen zu 

einer reinen Phänomenologie und phänomenologischen Philosophie. I. Buch: Allgemeine Einführung 

in die reine Phänomenologie, §76; Husserliana, III/1, ed. by K. Schuhmann (Th e Hague: Nijhoff , 

1976), 159. 

19) See GA 20: 140, 157ff ., 178. Husserl’s claim concerning Voraussetzungslosigkeit should not be 

misinterpreted, Herbert Spiegelberg writes, “in the sense of a total rejection of any beliefs whatsoever, 

<strong>and</strong> of a program to start the philosophic enterprise from absolute zero.” It “st<strong>and</strong>s for an 

attempt to eliminate merely presuppositions that have not been thoroughly examined, or, at least 

in principle, been presented for such examination. It is thus not freedom from all presuppositions, 

but merely freedom from phenomenologically unclarifi ed, unverifi ed, <strong>and</strong> unverifi able presuppositions 

that is involved” (Herbert Spiegelberg, Th e Phenomenological Movement: A Historical 

Introduction, 3rd ed. [Th e Hague: Nijhoff , 1984], 77). It is important to see that Heidegger’s 

above criticism does apply to Husserl even <strong>and</strong> precisely in the sense in which Spiegelberg 

reconstructs Husserl’s claim concerning Voraussetzungslosigkeit. 

20) GA 20: 159, 178. Th e term “unphänomenologisch” crops up already in 1923 in a remark stating 

that it is unphenomenological to hold mathematics to be an ideal of scientifi city (GA 63: 72). 

21) See GA 20: 131f., 155f., 162, 172; SZ 120. “Husserl tended to see man in the natural atti-


Th e fl ow of Heidegger’s critical considerations is, as can be seen, wholly 

phenomenological. It is completely in line with Husserl’s “principle of all principles” 

22 which suggests that what it comes down to is to proceed in an unprejudiced 

way, without any prior bias, <strong>and</strong> to simply accept whatever is off ered 

us in intuition. It would indeed be hard to deny that it is not as zoological 

objects that we primarily do experience ourselves in the world of natural 

attitude—that in order to experience ourselves in that way we must previously 

have shifted over into an attitude of a particular theory. 

Th e (phenomenological) implications of this most phenomenological criticism 

of phenomenology for a radicalization or transformation of it are simple 

enough: an attempt should be made to experience the intentional being more 

originally, in a more unprejudiced way, in its “natural” setting, thereby no longer 

taking the traditional defi nition of man as “animal rationale” for granted. 

What is required is to experience the natural attitude more naturally, thereby 

making the distinctions empirical-transcendental, ideal-real, etc., not only 

superfl uous but indeed unphenomenological <strong>and</strong> empty. And, when we look 

at the matter more closely, this is precisely what Being <strong>and</strong> Time will do with 

the title of existential analytic. 

Heidegger’s criticism of Husserlian phenomenology, his transformation <strong>and</strong> 

radicalization of it, thus rests on eminently phenomenological grounds; it is, 

it seems, as immanent a criticism as one may ever be claimed to be. Nevertheless, 

as I contend, it could never have been carried out had Heidegger previously 

not assimilated some basic motives of life-philosophy. Th ese were indeed 

very much in play in his confronting Husserlian transcendental phenomenology 

<strong>and</strong> contributed decisively to its hermeneutical transformation. 

tude, e.g. the empirical ego, simply in connection with psycho-physical <strong>and</strong> neurological processes, 

hence as a thing-entity of nature. In that regard, Heidegger considered the ‘natural attitude’ 

in Husserl not to be natural enough” (Th omas Sheehan. “Heidegger’s <strong>Philosophy</strong> of Mind,” 

in <strong>Philosophy</strong> of Mind, vol. 4 of Contemporary <strong>Philosophy</strong>: A New Survey, ed. G. Fløistad, [Th e 

Hague: Nijhoff , 1983], 294). 

22) See Ideas I, § 24: “No conceivable theory can make us err with respect to the principle of all 

principles: that every originary presentive intuition is a legitimizing source of cognition, that everything 

originally (so to speak, in its ‘personal’ actuality) off ered to us in ‘intuition’ is to be accepted 

simply as what it is presented as being, but also only within the limits in which it is presented there” 

[Husserl, Ideen zu einer reinen Phänomenologie § 24, Husserliana, III/1, 51: “Am Prinzip aller 

Prinzipien, daß jeder originär gebende Anschauung eine Rechtsquelle der Erkenntnis sei, daß alles, 

was sich uns in der ‘Intutition’ originär (sozusagen in seiner leibhaften Wirklichkeit) darbietet, 

einfach hinzunehmen sei, als was es sich gibt, aber auch nur in den Schranken, in denen es sich da 

gibt, kann uns keine erdenkliche Th eorie irre machen.”]


Heidegger’s postwar turn may comprehensively be characterized as an overall 

attempt at appropriation <strong>and</strong> reappropriation, i.e., as an eff ort to come to 

terms with the signifi cant tendencies of contemporary philosophy—inclusive 

of the philosophical tradition in general—<strong>and</strong>, more importantly, with what 

philosophy really is, inclusive of its subject matter, i.e., life. Whatever the 

underlying motivation may be that catalyzed this turn, his postwar password 

sounds: back to life in its originality! Th is was the way Heidegger came to 

underst<strong>and</strong> Husserl’s password <strong>and</strong> translated it into his own conceptuality. 

He specifi cally did so in the lecture course 1919/20 on Th e Fundamental 

Problems of Phenomenology, which started with the above-cited urge for phenomenology’s 

self-renewal <strong>and</strong> self-criticism. Th e thing to which philosophy 

had to fi nd its way back <strong>and</strong> which was the origin of all meaning, was, for 

Heidegger, not transcendental consciousness but life in its originality. In the 

course of this lecture, he kept designating life as the “primal phenomenon” 

(Urphänomen) 23 for phenomenology in general. Phenomenology thus conceived, 

centering around life as being both the origin <strong>and</strong> the subject matter 

of philosophy, was repeatedly called pre-theoretical “primal science” or 

“science of the origins” (Urwissenschaft, Ursprungswissenschaft). 

In a sense, the tendency to gain a new access to life was widespread at the 

time <strong>and</strong> refl ected the eff orts of the age, 24 so Heidegger may be seen to have 

just taken seriously <strong>and</strong> to have radicalized this urge coming from thinkers 

such as Natorp, Dilthey, Bergson, Simmel, Jaspers, Scheler, James. 25 In the 

midst of various devastating criticisms, more often than not Heidegger takes 

great pains to note that there is a positive, an original impulse inherent in lifephilosophy—that 

he indeed does appreciate the impulse, while what he rejects 

is just its insuffi cient (because parasitic) realization. When Heidegger, for all 

his criticism, emphasizes the positive tendencies of life-philosophy, the philosopher 

he most frequently has in mind is Dilthey. 26 And we can hardly conceive 

of Heidegger’s historicist opposition to Husserl’s transcendental ego, the 

23) GA 59: 15, 18, 23, 39, 40, 176. 

24) Th is historical background is referred to by Heidegger several times in his early lectures. See 

GA 58: 1ff .: 25ff ., GA 59: 12f., 15 (“Die Problematik der gegenwärtigen Philosophie ist um das 

‘Leben’ als das ‘Urphänomen’ zentriert”) 97; GA 9: 14f. (“So ist denn die Problematik der gegenwärtigen 

Philosophie vorwiegend um das ‘Leben’ als das ‘Urphänomen’ zentriert”). 

25) See GA 58: 3,162; GA 61: 117, 174, 189; GA 63: 64, 69; GA 9: 14f. 

26) See, for example, GA 63: 42: “Die eigentliche Tendenz Dilthey ist nicht die, als die sie hier 

[sc., by Spranger] angegeben ist”), see further GA 9: 13 f. (“Die Lebensphilosophie, vor allem 

eine solche von der Höhenstufe Diltheys . . . muß auf ihre positiven Tendenzen befragt werden, 

daraufhin, ob in ihr nicht doch . . . eine radikale Tendenz des Philosophierens vorwagt. Im Abse-


stress upon “das Historische” without Dilthey’s infl uence. 27 Heidegger suggests 

that the basic eff ort of life-philosophy is correct, he seems even to share the 

view of contemporary philosophy that the object primarily to be approached 

<strong>and</strong> investigated is “life.” 28 What he objects to <strong>and</strong> disapproves of is that rather 

than developing conceptual means adequate to its ownmost object, i.e., “life,” 

life-philosophy relies upon the tools of the adversary for its own concepts. 29 

Th at is also the reason why, having realized that the tools are not equal to the 

task, life-philosophers tend to come inevitably to the conclusion that life, history, 

<strong>and</strong> existence are irrational. 30 Th e point Heidegger makes could be put as 

hen darauf bewegt ich diese Kritik” [italics in original]); GA 61: 7; GA 17: 301, 320; GA 64: 7ff .; 

SZ 46f. See also Heidegger’s retrospective remark GA 66: 412. 

27) For Heidegger’s stress on the historical see GA 9: 31, 32f., 36, 38; GA 56/57: 85, 88f., 117, 

206; GA 61: 1, 76, 111, 159, 163; GA 63: 83, 107; GA 60: 31ff . <strong>and</strong> passim. Heidegger frequently 

spoke of Dilthey’s appreciation of Husserl (see, for example, GA 56/57: 165; GA 20: 30); 

this may have led him to think that what he was called to do was to unite the impulses of both 

thinkers. 

28) See GA 17: 112 <strong>and</strong> the references in note 24 above. Th at philosophy has life as its subject 

matter appears clearly in a passage of SZ also, where Heidegger suggests that the expression 

“philosophy of life” amounts to nothing more than “botany of plants”—really a pleonasm—<strong>and</strong> 

that in a genuine “philosophy of life” “there lies an unexpressed tendency towards an underst<strong>and</strong>ing 

of Dasein,” that is, existential analytic (SZ 46/BT 72 [=Being <strong>and</strong> Time, trans. John Macquarrie 

<strong>and</strong> Edward Robinson (New York: Harper & Row, 1962)]; see also GA 64: 40). For an 

anticipation of this see GA 9: 14f. 

29) See Heidegger’s use of the term “Begriff ssurrogat” (GA 9: 10). 

30) See GA 61: 82 (“kommt es nicht zur aneignenden Aufhebung der positiven Tendenzen der 

modernen Lebensphilosophie” [italics in origina]); 117 (“Damit ist eine innerhalb der Lebensphilosophie 

unausdrücklich lebendige Tendenz ergriff en”); GA 9: 4, 13f. (“Die Lebensphilosophie, 

vor allem eine solche von der Höhenstufe Diltheys . . . muß auf ihre positiven Tendenzen 

befragt werden, daraufhin, ob in ihr nicht doch, wenn auch ihr selbst verdeckt und mit traditionell 

aufgeraff ten, statt ursprünglich geschöpften Ausdrucksmitteln, eine radikale Tendenz des 

Philosophierens vorwagt. Im Absehen darauf bewegt ich diese Kritik” [italics in original]); 

GA 58: 3 (“Was heißt: ‘Leben in Begriff e fassen’ . . . ‘in Worte bringen’, wo doch die Worte als 

volle Ausdrücke zugeschnitten sein sollen auf unsere Umwelt, auf den Raum”); 231f. (“Es ist ein 

in der gegenwärtigen Philosophie viel vertretener St<strong>and</strong>punkt, daß das faktische Leben dem 

Begriff gänzlich unzugänglich sei. Aber das ist nur die Kehrseite des Rationalismus dieser Philosophie”); 

GA 59: 154 (“Die Lebensphilosophie ist für uns eine notwendige Station auf dem 

Wege der Philosophie, im Gegensatz zur leer formalen Transzendentalphilosophie”); GA 60: 50 

(“Der Begriff des Lebens ist ein vieldeutiger und von diesem ganz allgemeinen, formalen 

Gesichtspunkt aus hätte eine Kritik der heutigen Lebensphilosophie einen Sinn. Nur wenn es 

gelingt, diesen Begriff ursprünglich positiv zu fassen, ist eine Kritik berechtigt, in einem <strong>and</strong>eren 

Sinn aber nicht, sonst verkennt sie die eigentlichen Motive der Lebensphilosophie”); GA 63: 69 

(“Die Tendenz der Lebensphilosophie muß aber doch im positiven Sinne genommen werden als 

Durchbruch einer radikaleren Tendenz des Philosophierens, obgleich die Grundlage ungenügend


follows: irrationalist philosophy is really too rational. In claiming its objects to 

be irrational, it uncritically borrows the measure or concept of rationality from 

the adversary rather than elaborating a rationality or conceptuality of its own, 

one that conforms to its object. 31 

Th e traditional concept of rationality stems from a theoretical attitude, based 

in its turn on a conception of humans as rational beings—one more reason 

why Heidegger strives to disengage himself from the traditional view of man 

as a rational animal <strong>and</strong>, together with it, from the rational-irrational distinction, 

so as to explore dimensions of man’s being underlying theoretical comportment. 

Phenomenologically seen, theoretical comportment has indeed gained 

mastery over the entire Western philosophical tradition. Th e domination of 

it has been undisputed even where it has been bitterly opposed. One of 

Heidegger’s earliest passwords sounds therefore: “Th is hegemony of the theoretical 

must be broken.” 32 

It is in the course of his destructive eff orts to penetrate behind theoretical 

comportment <strong>and</strong> conceptuality in an attempt to gain a new <strong>and</strong> fresh (so to 

ist”); 108 (“Die Polemik gegen die Lebensphilosophie . . . verfehlt alles, sieht den Gegenst<strong>and</strong> 

Lebens überhaupt nicht ursprünglich . . . Deshalb ist die Polemik gegen Begriff slosigkeit rein 

negativ” [Heidegger has Rickert in mind]). 

31) See, for example, GA 63: 45: “Was heißt irrational? Das bestimmt sich doch nur an einer 

Idee von Rationalität. Woraus erwächst deren Bestimmung?” Th is view of Heidegger’s was to be 

held through four decades up to the sixties (see SD 79). For a fuller discussion of Heidegger’s 

treatment of rationalism <strong>and</strong> irrationalism, see my paper “Heidegger und Lukács. Eine Hundertjahresbilanz,” 

in Wege und Irrwege des neueren Umganges mit Heideggers Werk, ed. István M. Fehér 

(Berlin: Duncker & Humblot, 1991), 43–70. 

32) GA 56/57: 59 (“Diese Vorrherrschaft des Th eoretischen muß gebrochen werden”). See also 

ibid., 87, 89, 97. See also GA 59: 142 (“Beherrschtheit [des heutigen Lebens] durch das Th eoretische”). 

By centering his destructive strategy around an overall confrontation with the theoretical, 

Heidegger takes up once again, <strong>and</strong> gives a thorough elaboration to, another basic 

impulse of contemporary philosophy, as represented primarily by Emil Lask. What Lask called 

the “intellectualistic prejudice” gives preference to “thinking” in gaining access to the non-sensible; 

“faith” is understood in a negative sense mainly owing to the intellectualistic distinction 

between “knowledge” <strong>and</strong> “faith.” Th e “theoretization of a-theoretical comportment” also further 

aff ects all those distinctions we usually make between, for example, “theoretical <strong>and</strong> practical,” 

“logical <strong>and</strong> intuitive,” “theoretical <strong>and</strong> aesthetic,” <strong>and</strong> “scientifi c <strong>and</strong> religious” knowledge 

(see Emil Lask, Gesammelte Schriften, 3 vols., ed. E. Herrigel [Tübingen: Mohr, 1923], 2:204f., 

208; 3:235. Heidegger did not fail to acknowledge that Lask was “one of the most powerful 

[stärksten] philosophical personalities of the time,” adding how much he owed to him (see 

GA 56/57: 180). See more details in my paper “Lask, Lukács, Heidegger: Th e Problem of Irrationality 

<strong>and</strong> the Th eory of Categories,” in Martin Heidegger. Critical Assessments, ed. Christopher 

Macann (London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1992), 2:373–405.


speak, “unprejudiced”) access to life that the hermeneutic problematic emerges 

in Heidegger’s post war lecture courses. As early as in the immediate postwar 

years, Heidegger off ers, as alternative to rational concepts <strong>and</strong> theoretical knowing, 

what he calls “hermeneutical concepts,” 33 or—over against pure or theoretical 

intuition—“hermeneutical intuition.” 34 “Hermeneutics,” “hermeneutical,” 

emerge as rival concepts to “theory,” “theoretical,” understood in terms of 

“theoretically neutral.” 35 Th e description of life, or “facticity,” becomes hermeneutical, 

obtains an overall hermeneutic character, precisely in virtue of the 

realization that interpretation cannot be regarded as something added, as a 

kind of extension or annex, as it were, to some theoretically neutral (<strong>and</strong>, as 

such, allegedly “objective”) description of a state of aff airs: rather, preliminary 

“interpretedness” is inherent in all kinds of description, in all kinds of seeing, 

saying, <strong>and</strong> experiencing. 36 If there is no “pure” theory (for “theory” is a derivative 

mode of being or comportment of one particular being called human), 

there is no pure description either. What this insight implies for an adequate 

description of life or facticity is that theoretical concepts, as well as the language 

that theory speaks, should be abondoned in favor of a language growing 

out of everyday life <strong>and</strong> able to let things be seen in their interpretedness, that 

is, exactly the way we encounter <strong>and</strong> have to do with them (a hammer, for 

example, is primarily encountered as a tool for hitting nails into the wall rather 

than as a neutral thing out there having the property of weight). Th eoretically 

(<strong>and</strong> ahistorically) neutral knowledge is opposed to, <strong>and</strong> gives way to, existentially 

(<strong>and</strong> historically) involved underst<strong>and</strong>ing (or pre-underst<strong>and</strong>ing) <strong>and</strong> 

interpreting—whereby knowledge becomes at best a subdivision of underst<strong>and</strong>ing. 

37 All these eff orts are in the service of seizing upon “life.” Th e main character 

of the latter is claimed to be concern (Sorge) rather than knowledge. 38 

Th e science that is destined to provide access to life in its originality is, 

as should be clear from what has been reconstructed, intrinsically interpretive, 

i.e., hermeneutical—an insight that explicitly crops up in a note of the 

1919/20 lecture course saying: “the science of the origins is ultimately the 

33) GA 9: 32. 

34) GA 56/57: 117. 

35) “Kategorie ist interpretierend und ist nur interpretierend, und zwar das faktische Leben, angeeignet 

in existenzieller Bekümmerung” (GA 61: 86f.). 

36) See explicitly, for example, GA 17: 294 (“Wir sehen die Welt immer in einem als”); further 

PIA 241, 264. Later GA 20: 75, 190, 416; SZ 169, 383. 

37) See, for example, GA 64: 32: “Das primäre Erkennen . . . ist Auslegung.” Ibid., 36: “Auslegen 

ist das primäre Erkennen.” See then SZ 147. 

38) See GA 61: 89ff .; PIA 240.


hermeneutical science.” 39 And in Oskar Becker’s lecture note of the course 

SS 1919 we can read: “phenomenology, the primal science of philosophy, is 

an underst<strong>and</strong>ing science.” 40 

To sum up: the radicalization of phenomenology leads Heidegger to the 

thematization of factical life (to a kind of life phenomenology,) 41 whereas the 

description of the latter, in its turn, requires a conceptuality of its own, a hermeneutic 

perspective, a disposition to remain as close to life in its originality 

as possible (since theoretical comportment means having distanced oneself 

from genuine life, having displaced oneself into a derivative attitude). Th is 

proximity to genuine life, as well as the willingness to accompany it, to come 

along with it all the way (Mitgehen), to be achieved by hermeneutic attitude 

<strong>and</strong> conceptuality, is a disposition Heidegger symptomatically <strong>and</strong> semireligiously 

calls humilitas animi. 42 

39) GA 58: 55: “Ursprungswissenschaft letztlich die hermeneutische ist.” 

40) GA 56/57: 216. 

41) Heidegger was known <strong>and</strong> reported by contemporaries to have developed a “phenomenology 

of life” in his post war lecture courses; H. Tanabe, presumably the fi rst to write on Heidegger 

abroad, reported about his German experiences in Japan in 1924 with the title: “A New Turn 

in Phenomenology: Heidegger’s Phenomenology of Life” (see Otto Pöggeler, “Neue Wege mit 

Heidegger?” Philosophische Rundschau 29, nos. 1/2 [1982]: 57; see also his “Zeit und Sein bei 

Heidegger,” in Zeit und Zeitlichkeit bei Husserl und Heidegger, vol. 14 of Phänomenologische 

Forschungen, ed. Ernst W. Orth [Freiburg: Alber, 1983], 155). 

42) GA 58: 23. For Mitgehen, see GA 58: 23, 158, 162, 185, 255, 262; for later, see GA 29/30: 

296ff . Th e proximity to life (Lebensnähe) was also an urge of the age which Heidegger has taken 

up <strong>and</strong> reacted upon; see GA 63: 64. It may be of some importance to note that the semireligious 

tone that occasionally permeates this lecture course may be partly due to the fact that 

precisely in that semester (WS 1919/20), Heidegger had also announced, <strong>and</strong> been preparing to 

deliver, a course on the Philosophical Foundations of Mediaeval Mysticism. Although he had been 

working hard on it, due to lack of time he could not get ready with the preparation, therefore in 

a letter to the Faculty dated August 30, 1919, he asked for permission to cancel it <strong>and</strong> to transform 

instead the other course on Selected Problems of Pure Phenomenology from a weekly onehour 

into a two-hour course (see GA 60: 348; GA 58: 265). It is plausible to assume that at least 

part of the material Heidegger worked through <strong>and</strong> destined for the Mysticism course, infi ltrated, 

as to atmosphere <strong>and</strong> tone, into the phenomenology course. Indeed, the occasional semireligious 

characters that this course displays are not just vaguely religious but have a defi nite 

tendency towards mysticism, as Heidegger understood it at the time in terms of immediate 

religious enactment <strong>and</strong> opposition to the rigid cenceptual schemes of Scholasticism. Th e tone 

of this religiosity is submission, humble devotion (for humilitas, see also GA 60: 309; for Hingabe, 

ibid., 322), <strong>and</strong> as such it is fairly diff erent from the tone of distress <strong>and</strong> fi ght that permeates the 

phenomenology of religion course one year later. For a characteristic occurence of Mitgehen at 

the Phenomenology of <strong>Religion</strong> course, see GA 60: 72: “die Explikation geht immer mit der 

religiösen Erfahrung mit und treibt sie.”


A common feature of Heidegger’s criticism of both phenomenology <strong>and</strong> 

life-philosophy is the following: both are accused of proceeding not suffi - 

ciently unprejudiced. As to phenomenology: when viewed more closely, the 

thing itself that it has to return to as well as to center around is not consciousness, 

but life. As to life-philosophy: the fi eld of research is all right, but the 

approach to it is not without bias. Life is approached not as it is being lived 

<strong>and</strong> enacted, in a lively manner, as it were, but by measures <strong>and</strong> conceptual 

tools alien to it which falsify or in any case do not do justice to the way it does 

really come to pass. 

II. Religious Life As a Paradigm of Facticity 

We are now put in a position to assess the signifi cance of Heidegger’s religion 

courses for his philosophical development. Th is signifi cance may be spelled out 

in a concise way by summing up his path of thinking from the postwar years 

up to the early twenties as follows. Under the infl uence of life-philosophy Heidegger 

radicalizes Husserlian transcendental phenomenology <strong>and</strong> transforms it 

into a (hermeneutic) phenomenology of life. Th e phenomenology of life however, 

which Heidegger comes to elaborate, underst<strong>and</strong>s itself <strong>and</strong> reveals itself, 

when looked at more closely, as a phenomenology of religious life. 43 

In this formulation two points must be stressed. First, religion is for Heidegger, 

in accordance with his distancing himself from the Scholastic tradition 

<strong>and</strong> embracing the Protestant problematic, primarily life, that is, praxis, not 

theory, doctrine, or speculation. To put it bluntly: religion is religious life, or 

it is not religion. <strong>Religion</strong> can meaningfully be conceived of only in terms of 

religious life. 44 Th erefore it was entirely appropriate that Heidegger collected 

his papers <strong>and</strong> notes pertaining to this problematic under the designation 

Phenomenology of Religious Life, <strong>and</strong> it was equally a happy decision that the 

43) With an eye to Heidegger’s appropriation <strong>and</strong> tranformation of Husserl’s phenomenology, his 

coming to concentrate on religion may schematically be put as proceeeding along the following 

itinerary: 

phenomenology of transcendental consciousness phenomenology of life phenomenology of religious life. 

44) Th is was, again, a widespread tendency of the time. “Glaube ist nicht Lehre, sondern Leben, 

die erlebte Tatsache [sc. Sache der Tat], der ‘Geburt Gottes’ in der Seele,” Natorp wrote during 

the war (see Paul Natorp, Deutscher Weltberuf. Geschichtsphilosophische Richtlinien. I. Buch. 

Die Weltalter des Geistes [Jena: E. Diederichs 1918], 87; see more on this point in my paper 

“Heideggers Kritik der Ontotheologie,” in Gottes- und <strong>Religion</strong>sbegriff in der neuzeitlichen Philosophie, 

ed. Albert Franz, Wilhelm G. Jacobs [Paderborn: Schöningh, 2000], 200–223).


editor chose this title for GA 60. It is also characteristic <strong>and</strong> of importance that 

on another envelope Heidegger’s original title was called “Phenomenology of 

Religious Conciousness” <strong>and</strong> that Heidegger later cancelled the last word from 

this title <strong>and</strong> substituted for it “Life.” 45 Th e substitution of this single word 

alone characteristically exhibits Heidegger’s appropriation of, <strong>and</strong> attitude to, 

Husserl’s phenomenology: rather than consciousness, it is life that should be 

the matter for philosophy. 

Second, it must be noted that in the formulation, life is for Heidegger primarily 

religious life, the two phenomena, life <strong>and</strong> religious life, are not to be 

sharply distinguished. Nor are the two disciplines, phenomenology of life <strong>and</strong> 

phenomenology of religious life. With regard to Heidegger’s repeated rejection 

of conceiving either of life or of consciousness in regional terms—as object 

fi elds cut off from the whole of being—it would be misleading to think of a 

phenomenology of religious life as a kind of subdivision or specifi cation of 

some allegedly comprehensive, all-embracing phenomenology of life. To say 

that for Heidegger life is primarily religious life amounts rather to saying that 

religious life displays for him in a concentrated way the characteristics of 

life—that it serves as a sort of paradigm for life. Th ereby Heidegger underst<strong>and</strong>s 

life, inclusive of religious life, in wholly this-worldly terms. Something 

such as eternal life or the immortality of the soul remain out of the question. 

Life is always already factical life, or facticity. Th at is one of the reasons why he 

focuses his investigations upon Paul’s letters, that is, the factical life of the 

earliest Christian communities <strong>and</strong> the inner dynamics inherent in the (thisworldly) 

life of the believers belonging to them. Th e dialectics thereby in play 

is a kind of inverse movement or—to borrow Gadamer’s term—a fusion of 

horizons. Religious life does become a paradigm of life for Heidegger, on the 

one h<strong>and</strong>; but it is approached <strong>and</strong> viewed with an eye to factical life, as a 

concentration of it <strong>and</strong> wholly exempt from all other-worldly characters, 

on the other. It is the this-worldly living <strong>and</strong> enacting of faith, the way one 

becomes a Christian <strong>and</strong> lives it all the way through, that Heidegger is interested 

in <strong>and</strong> concentrates upon. 

<strong>Religion</strong> is, in this perspective, an “object” of study for phenomenological 

philosophy much like death becomes one in his main work. <strong>Philosophy</strong> centering 

around facticity (<strong>and</strong> its hermeneutics) must, as long as it is to remain 

philosophy, prohibit detaching itself from <strong>and</strong> leaving behind the dimensions 

of what shows itself in intuition. In this respect Heidegger remained for ever 

committed to Husserl’s “principle of all principles”—more specifi cally, to the 

45) See GA 60: 345.


prohibitive character inherent in it: everything “off ered to us in ‘intuition’ is 

to be accepted . . ., but . . . only within the limits in which it is presented there.” 

Th e term ‘description’ has, in phenomenology, Heidegger argues in Being <strong>and</strong> 

Time, “a sense of a prohibition—the avoidance of characterizing anything 

without . . . demonstration.” 46 In full accordance with this principle, he claims 

further in the work that his “analysis of death remains purely ‘this-worldly’ ” 

<strong>and</strong> that accordingly it decides nothing (either positive or negative) about the 

‘other-worldly.’ Moreover, it even remains undecided whether any question 

concerning what comes after death can, as a “theoretical” (that is, as a phenomenologically 

meaningful philosophical) question, ever be formulated at all. 47 

It is worth quoting Heidegger in more detail: “our analysis of death remains 

purely ‘this-worldly’ in so far as it interprets that phenomenon merely in the 

way in which it enters into any particular Dasein as a possibility of its being.” 48 

(“Being” should be read here, in terms of his conceptuality of the early twenties, 

as “factical Being,” “facticity.”) Now we should realize that his approach 

to religion in the early twenties is quite analogous; his concern is with (the 

phenomenological description of) how faith is factically being lived, with 

one’s becoming (having become) <strong>and</strong> remaining (becoming again <strong>and</strong> again) a 

believer; in short, how one in fact lives one’s faith (whereby faith is a possibility 

of one’s factical being). Th e way one does this coincides with the way one 

lives. Living the faith is in no ways separable from living life. By acknowledging 

this we are brought back to the fi rst point, namely, that religion is, fi rst <strong>and</strong> 

foremost, a matter of praxis, living enactment, rather than theory or doctrine. 

Indeed faith as practical enactment remains forever the fundament of theology 

49 (more on this later). 

But to justify the claim that religion is primarily religious life is not to justify 

the claim that it is a paradigm of life. So it is still not clear why, in precisely 

what sense, religious life is a paradigm of life—why, in other words, religious 

life (characteristic of, <strong>and</strong> as experienced in, primal Christianity) provides us 

with the key—or, more terminologically put, with a phenomenological access— 

to factical life, or factical life experience; why, as Heideggger states, Christian 

religiosity not only lies (is rooted or grounded or to be found) in factical life 

46) SZ 35 (“Fernhaltung alles nicht ausweisenden Bestimmens”) / BT 59. 

47) SZ 248 / BT 292. 

48) SZ 248 / BT 292. Also something such as a “ ‘metaphysics of death’ lies outside the domain 

of an existential analysis of death” (ibid.). 

49) See, for example, GA 60: 95, 145, 310; GA 9: 55, 59, 61; SZ 10.


experience but is declared to coincide with it. For Heidegger’s more radical claim 

comes down to this: Christian religiosity is factical life experience. 50 

Th e recognition that religion is primarily praxis, life, is clearly not suffi cient 

to make the case plausible, for obviously there may be sorts of practices other 

than the religious. An explicit answer or consideration is, as far as I can see, 

nowhere provided by Heidegger, although this is, admittedly, one of the most 

central theses of the whole Phenomenology of <strong>Religion</strong> course. In view of his 

elucidations of Paul’s letters as well as his previous fusion of phenomenology 

<strong>and</strong> life-philosophy, I propose to suggest the following explanation. 

In transforming phenomenology by shifting its focus from transcendental 

consciousness to life, Heidegger repeteadly confronts the problem of appropriate 

access to the new subject matter. Life is however a phenomenon that is 

not at all easy to have access to. Precisely in virtue of its all-embracing character, 

it seems to exclude all appropriate access to it—such that will not reduce 

it to a regional object. Th is much is clearly seen by Heidegger. Indeed, one way 

to underst<strong>and</strong> his repeated claim that life is characterized by self-suffi ciency 51 

is that it does do without philosophy. Heidegger even remarks that life is selfsuffi 

cient for itself to the extent to which it is incapable of even seeing that 

very self-suffi ciency. 52 After this preliminary remark we should call to mind 

some of the basic features by which Heidegger characterizes Christian life 

experience, fi rst of all, the character of having-become. 

What is characteristic of Christian life is indeed its having-become one. 53 

Christian life experience is such that it owes its being to its having become, 

i.e., to its having superseded its previous (sinful, a-theistic) 54 state <strong>and</strong> been 

born to new life. Th e (so to speak) transcendental past of always already having 

become, in other words, the rebirth, 55 a complete shift in one’s being, 56 is 

50) See GA 60: 82: “Urchristliche Religiosität ist in der faktischen Lebenserfahrung. Nachsatz: 

Sie ist eigentlich solche selbst.” Th e same point is made in an even more accentuated manner, 

ibid., 131: “christliche Religiosität ist in der faktischen Lebenserfahrung, ist sie eigentlich selbst.” 

(Italics in original.) 

51) See GA 58: 29, 30f., 35, 41, 63. 

52) GA 58: 41. Ibid 61: Heidegger makes the point that Christianity is a historical paradigm for 

centering life for the fi rst time around the self-world. Th is accent on individuality, i.e., the individually 

centered character of life, will lead up to Dasein’s Jemeinigkeit in Being <strong>and</strong> Time, while 

the term Selbstwelt disappears. 

53) See GA 60: 93ff . 

54) See GA 9: 53 (“Gottvergessenheit”). 

55) See GA 9: 53 (Glaube = Wiedergeburt”). See also ibid., 63. 

56) GA 60: 95: “absolute Umwendung,” “Hinwendung zu Gott und eine Wegwendung von den 

Götzenbildern.”


entirely constitutive for Christian experience of life. It is a shift in being, which 

at the very moment of becoming aware of itself, gains awareness of itself in 

terms of a being that has become what it actually is. It is solely because it has 

become what it is that it is what it is—<strong>and</strong> it does also have a specifi c awareness 

of it. Indeed, Christian experience of life is not only characterized by 

the fact that it has become what it is but also, <strong>and</strong> with equal primordiality, 

by the fact that the event of having become is accompanied by some kind of 

a consciousness of having become, no less than of the fact that this havingbecome 

has not been initiated <strong>and</strong> performed by itself. 57 By all means, its 

having-become belongs in an indispensable <strong>and</strong> irrevocable way to its present 

being. 58 

Now it is my claim that it is because it is not possible to be a Christian 

without having this specifi c kind of “knowledge” (indeed, a hermeneutic preunderst<strong>and</strong>ing) 

of being one—namely, of having become or been reborn by 

divine grace to be one, of st<strong>and</strong>ing presently before God <strong>and</strong> reaching eschatologically 

forward toward the imminent future, running ahead against it— 

that Christian life experience may reasonably be claimed to experience life in 

its facticity, to be factical life experience. Christian religiosity, or Christian life 

experience, in terms of an experience of having become, opens up (a perspective 

or the perspective upon) factical life for the fi rst time, therefore it is factical 

life experience. Factical life thereby gets disclosed <strong>and</strong> becomes accessible for 

the fi rst time as such—that is, as factical life, a specifi cally <strong>and</strong> defi nitely thisworldly 

life. It is due to this having become (<strong>and</strong>, inseparably from it, the 

awareness which accompanies it) that factical life is opened up. Indeed, Christian 

life experience does experience the whole of life—past, present, <strong>and</strong> 

future—<strong>and</strong> thus lives temporality. It is not only in time but it is time. 59 It 

focuses on <strong>and</strong> centers around its having become. 60 Th e state it has overcome 

57) See GA 60: 121f. 

58) See esp. GA 60: 94: “Das Wissen über das eigene Gewordensein stellt der Explikation eine 

ganz besondere Aufgabe. Hieraus wird sich der Sinn einer Faktizität bestimmen, die von einem 

bestimmten Wissen begleitet ist. Wir reißen die Faktizität und das Wissen ausein<strong>and</strong>er, aber sie 

ist ganz urspünglich miterfahren. . . . Das Gewordensein ist nun nicht ein beliebiges Vorkommnis 

im Leben, sondern es wird ständig miterfahren und zwar so, daß ihr jetziges Sein Gewordensein 

ist. Ihr Gewordensein ist ihr jetziges Sein.” See also ibid., 145: “Faktizität, zu der ja das 

‘Wissen’ gehört.” Further, ibid., 93: “Wissen von ihrem Gewordensein”; 103, 123, etc. 

59) See GA 60: 80, 82, 104, 116. 

60) See GA 60: 120: “Das christliche Leben ist nicht geradelinig, sondern ist gebrochen: Alle umweltlichen 

Bezüge müssen hindurchgehen durch den Vollzugszusammenhang des Gewordenseins.”


remains, although fundamentally changed, forever included in it. 61 Th ose who 

fi nd themselves in a pre-Christian state are not “awake,” have no awareness of 

themselves, do not possess life experience because they simply do not experience 

life in its factical totality. Only the rebirth, as it were, opens up access to 

the fi rst birth. Th e case is similar to what it will be with respect to the authenticinauthentic 

distinction in Being <strong>and</strong> Time (which may be seen to be a specifi c 

subsequent elaboration on this state of aff airs): inauthentic being always 

already precedes authentic being, which in its turn erects itself upon, <strong>and</strong> has 

as its fundament, the inauthentic. It is only after having performed the passage 

from the inauthentic to the authentic that inauthentic being as such—<strong>and</strong> 

together with it, the very distinction itself—becomes fi rst disclosed <strong>and</strong> accessible. 

For to be inauthentic means having no awareness of being inauthentic 

(just like the self-suffi ciency of life works against its own becoming aware 

of it). And vice versa: to be authentic means gaining awareness of <strong>and</strong> assuming 

consciously one’s inauthenticity as a past that has always already preceded 

it <strong>and</strong> that therefore—in its specifi c quality as a past always already surpassed 

<strong>and</strong> overcome—belongs intrinsically <strong>and</strong> inextricably forever to authenticity. 

Facticity, Historicity, Christianity 

A point that is worth special attention in this context is Heidegger’s repeated 

claim that factical life or life experience is intrinsically historical. As has been 

noted, one of the contemporary tendencies with which Heidegger engaged in 

in-depth confrontation from the very beginning was historicism. Th e idea that 

life <strong>and</strong> history belong intimately together—that life should primarily be 

seen as historical life—was central to Dilthey <strong>and</strong> life-philosophy in general. 

Heidegger appreciated very much indeed 62 Dilthey’s attempt to approach historical 

life but criticized him for reasons analogous to those he formulated 

about his approach to life—that is, the inadaquate conceptuality rooted in 

a one-sided theoretical comportment. Although Dilthey did tend to grasp 

historical life, his endeavor came under the infl uence of neo-Kantianism <strong>and</strong> 

the erkenntnistheoretisch atmosphere of the age, so that he ultimately misunderstood 

his own undertaking: the attempt at a new <strong>and</strong> fresh access to historical 

life was reduced to, <strong>and</strong> replaced by, the attempt to attain possibly 

objective historical knowledge <strong>and</strong> thus to elevate history to the rank of 

61) See GA 9: 63: “in der gläubigen Existenz das überwundene vorchristliche Dasein existenzialontologisch 

mitbeschlossen bleibt.” 

62) See the references in note 27 above.


science. 63 History—or rather, the historical world—became for Dilthey an 

object of science, something that in its embarrassing richness of types <strong>and</strong> 

fi gures one takes pleasure in contemplating. What mattered was no more historical 

being but historical knowledge together with its claim to objective 

validity, whereby the subject of that knowledge was a de-situated timeless 

observer rather than historically rooted <strong>and</strong> existentially involved fi nite existence. 

In summary, Heidegger works out his all important concept of “das 

Historische” in his early lecture courses in sheer opposition to historicism, the 

main critical suggestion being that historicism strives for an “objective” knowledge 

of history (an impossible aim), rather than for an authentic historical 

“being” of humans—<strong>and</strong> that the fi rst not so much promotes the second but 

instead suppresses it. 64 

Against the background of this criticism Heidegger endeavors to reappropriate 

the ontological dimension of historicism <strong>and</strong> to gain access to history in 

terms of historical being. Th ereby he does not fail to acknowledge his indebtedness 

to Dilthey <strong>and</strong> to claim, eventually, that his conception of history grew 

out of an appropriation of Dilthey’work. 65 In his postwar lecture courses, he 

notes frequently that by stressing the importance of history, he has in mind 

history primarily not as a matter of scholarship. To put it bluntly: our knowing 

relation to history is only a derivative one, the primary relation is one of 

being—we are history. Th e way we live history, or are history, is dependent 

upon how we live temporality. History is primarily historicity, that is, Geschehen, 

of a specifi c being called Dasein—it is the movement of its erstrecktes 

Sicherstrecken, its stretching along between birth <strong>and</strong> death. 66 Th e way history 

becomes object for scientifi c investigation is decided from time to time by 

the primordial historicity of Dasein. Th is position is clearly anticipated in 

the early lecture courses. History, Heidegger says, for example in 1919/20, is 

not critique of the sources but, rather, living along with life (mitlebendes 

63) See, for example, GA 17: 301 (Dilthey fell victim to the traditional question, how is history 

of science as science possible?). See also, ibid., 302. 

64) Th e term “das Historische” will be replaced in Being <strong>and</strong> Time by “das Geschichtliche,” or 

“Geschichtlichkeit.” For later, see the distinction between “geschichtliche und historische Wahrheit” 

in GA 39: 144ff , viz., that between “historische Betrachtung” <strong>and</strong> “geschichtliche Besinnung” in 

GA 45: 34ff ., 49ff ., 88ff . Further, see also GA 45: 11ff ., 40, 201; GA 65: 32f., 151f. 153 (“Die 

Historie . . . ist ein ständiges Ausweichen vor der Geschichte”), 359, 421f., 493f. 

65) See SZ 397. 

66) See SZ 19f., 375, 374f. / BT 40f., 427, 425f. “[T]he locus of the problem of history . . . is not 

to be sought in historiology as the science of history” (SZ 375 / BT 427).


Leben), life’s familiarity with itself, 67 or—as he puts it in the Phenomenology 

of <strong>Religion</strong> course in 1920/21—“immediate liveliness” (unmittelbare Lebendigkeit). 

68 Also, he keeps warning against the widespread habit of having access to 

the phenomenon of history as it is delivered over to us by historical science. 69 

But—what is particularly important for us—he tends to identify the factical 

with the historical. Th e historical, he says, is inherent in <strong>and</strong> intrinsic to the 

meaning of the factical. 70 Th e sense of the factical points to <strong>and</strong> leads up to 

the historical. 

Since, as has been seen, religious life off ers a paradigm of facticity, it is 

no wonder that the historical is thus ultimately brought back to religious life 

experience as well. “Th e entire task of a phenomenology of religion . . . is permeated 

by the problem of the historical,” Heidegger claims explicitly. 71 To 

underst<strong>and</strong> this point, we should bear in mind that it is not because Dasein is 

historical that it is temporal, but the other way round. Dasein’s temporality is 

the fundament of its historicity. 72 Although formulated in explicit terms in 

Being <strong>and</strong> Time, this thesis is however present at the religion courses. 73 Th e fact 

that, by virtue of its having become, Christian life experience becomes uniquely 

temporal, that is, it lives time, it is time, accounts for, <strong>and</strong> is the fundament of, 

its entering into <strong>and</strong> partaking most intimately of the innermost event that 

constitutes Christianity. 

Heidegger’s gradual disengaging <strong>and</strong> distancing himself from neo-Scholastic 

thinking during the war <strong>and</strong> his concurrent turn to the Protestant tradition 

had obviously, to a large extent, predisposed him favorably toward the theme 

of history in terms of a domain which—over against its dismissal by neo- 

Scholasticism—was very much pertinent to religion <strong>and</strong> religiosity. In fact, as 

he put it in his letter to Engelbert Krebs written on January 9, 1919, it was 

“epistemological insights, extending as far as the theory of historical knowledge,” 

that “have made the system of Catholicism problematic <strong>and</strong> unaccept- 

67) GA 58: 159f. 

68) GA 60: 33. 

69) See, for example, GA 60: 32, 47, 51f. 

70) GA 61: 76 (“Die Faktizität des Lebens . . . ist in sich selbst historisch . . .” “. . . das Historische 

im Sinn der Faktizität liegt”), 159 (“Faktizität: das Geschichtliche, das Historische”). 

71) GA 60: 34. See ibid., 323. 

72) See SZ 376. 

73) See GA 60: 65: “Was ist in der faktischen Lebenserfahrung ursprünglich die Zeitlichkeit?” 

“. . . unser Weg geht vom faktischen Leben aus, von dem aus der Sinn von Zeit gewonnen wird. 

Damit ist das Problem des Historischen gekennzeichnet.” See also, ibid., 80: “Die faktische 

Lebenserfahrung ist historisch. Die christliche Religiosität lebt die Zeitlichkeit als solche.”


able” to him. 74 Th ereby the system he had in mind was most plausibly the 

offi cial doctrine of neo-Th omistic Scholasticism, exempt <strong>and</strong> immune from 

all historicity. Th is is confi rmed by the fact that, much in this vein, the system 

is referred to in a highly negative tone in the lecture course on the Phenomenology 

of <strong>Religion</strong>, namely, in terms of a kind of “pseudo-philosophy,” whereby 

Heidegger mentions parenthetically “Catholicism” as an example; what is 

characteristic of the system is that access to its living sense must be attained by 

working one’s way through a complicated, inorganic, wholly unclear <strong>and</strong> dogmatic 

complex of theses <strong>and</strong> proofs, sanctioned by policy constraint of the 

church <strong>and</strong> oppressing the subject. 75 Th e “theory of historical knowledge,” on 

the other h<strong>and</strong>, obviously points to Dilthey’s eff orts to elaborate what he called 

a critique of historical reason. 76 In precisely what sense (or the extent to which) 

the “theory of historical knowledge”—<strong>and</strong> the orientation towards the historical 

in general—though in sharp contrast to ahistorical Scholasticism, was 

nevertheless able to preserve <strong>and</strong> even embrace <strong>and</strong> reinforce Heidegger’s religious 

impulse is shown by the following notes from Dilthey’s diary: “it is my 

vocation to grasp the inner essence of religious life in history”; “Christianity 

74) “. . . but not Christianity <strong>and</strong> metaphysics (the latter, to be sure, in a new sense),” he fi nishes his 

sentence, <strong>and</strong> this complement is surely not insignifi cant, for it shows Heidegger’s continuing to be 

in the proximity, although “in a new sense,” to Christianity <strong>and</strong> metaphysics. Th e letter was fi rst 

published by Bernhard Casper, “Martin Heidegger und die Th eologische Fakultät Freiburg 1909– 

1923,” in Kirche am Oberrhein. Festschrift für Wolfgang Müller, ed. R. Bäumer, K. Suso Frank, Hugo 

Ott (Freiburg i. Br.: Herder, 1980), 541; see now Heidegger-Jahrbuch, vol. 1: Heidegger und 

die Anfänge seines Denkens, ed. Alfred Denker, Hans-Helmuth G<strong>and</strong>er, Holger Zaborowski 

(Freiburg: Alber, 2004), 67f. I have adopted John D. Caputo’s translation in his Heidegger <strong>and</strong> 

Aquinas, 56f. To say that the “system of Catholicism” has become “problematic <strong>and</strong> unacceptable” 

is to say that the theological-philosophical foundation that underlies faith—the fundament, the 

groundwork, upon which faith rests—has become obsolete <strong>and</strong> hollow, requiring, as it does, being 

renewed <strong>and</strong> refreshed. To fulfi l this task is in no way contrary to Christian faith. For more detailed 

interpretation of this letter, see my paper “Heidegger’s Underst<strong>and</strong>ing of the Atheism of <strong>Philosophy</strong>: 

<strong>Philosophy</strong>, Th eology, <strong>and</strong> <strong>Religion</strong> in his Early Lecture Courses up to Being <strong>and</strong> Time,” American 

Catholic Philosophical Quarterly, 69, 2 (Spring 1995): 189–228. 

75) GA 60: 313: “liegt es a priori in der Struktur des Systems, das selbst nicht einer organischen 

Kulturtat entwachsen ist, daß der zu erlebende Wertgehalt der <strong>Religion</strong> als solcher, ihre inhaltliche 

Sinnsphäre erst durch ein verwickeltes unorganisches, theoretisch völlig ungeklärtes, dogmatisches 

Gehege von Sätzen und Beweisgängen hindurch muß, um schließlich als kirchenrechtliche 

Satzung mit Polizeigewalt das Subjekt zu überwältigen und dunkel zu belasten und zu erdrücken.” 

76) See Wilhelm Dilthey, Der Ausbau der geschichtlichen Welt in den Geisteswissenschaften, vol. 7 

of Gesammelte Schriften, ed. Bernhard Groethuysen, 7th ed. (Göttingen: V<strong>and</strong>enhoeck & Ruprecht, 

1979), 191ff .


is not a system, but a life-view.” 77 And in Schleiermacher, to whom Dilthey 

dedicated no small portion of his life work <strong>and</strong> who also attracted Heidegger’s 

attention during the war, 78 we can read the following remark: “History, understood 

in the most appropriate sense, is the highest object of religion; it is with 

history that religion begins <strong>and</strong> it ends up with it as well.” 79 

It is certainly no mere incident, but plausibly a sign of approval, that 

Heidegger literally excerpted this passage in his notes on Schleiermacher. 80 

And somewhat later he noted: “Th e historical is one of the most signifi cant 

founding elements in religious experience.” 81 If we add to these remarks 

Heidegger’s central claim concerning the mutual identifi cation of historicity 

<strong>and</strong> facticity—one of the most characteristic formulations is this: “[h]istory 

77) Der junge Dilthey. Ein Lebensbild in Briefen und Tagebüchern 1852–1870, ed. Clara Misch 

(Leipzig: Teubner, 1933), 140: “mein Beruf ist, das Innerste des religiösen Lebens in der Historie 

zu erfassen” (italics in original); 144: “das Christenthum kein System, sondern eine Lebensanschauung 

ist.” See the same claim in Dilthey’s main work: Wilhelm Dilthey, Einleitung in die 

Geisteswissenschaften. Versuch einer Grundlegung für das Studium der Gesellschaft und der Geschichte, 

in Gesammelte Schriften, vol. 1, ed. Bernhard Groethuysen, 9th ed. (Göttingen: V<strong>and</strong>enhoeck & 

Ruprecht, 1990), 138f, 253f. (“das religiöse Leben . . . Untergrund des geschichtlichen Lebens”; 

“die Philosophie des Christentums . . . trug eine machvolle geschichtliche Realität in sich”). For 

the term Faktizität in Dilthey, see ibid., 141. Th e term Lebensanschauung (life-view) in the above 

quotation is clearly of Schleiermacherian origin. 

78) In early August of 1917 Heidegger gave privately an impressive talk on Schleiermacher’s 

Reden über die <strong>Religion</strong>. He stressed especially Schleiermacher’s rejection of the philosophical 

theology from Aristotle to Hegel. On this point, see Otto Pöggeler, Neue Wege mit Heidegger 

(Freiburg: Alber, 1992), 21f. 

79) Friedrich Daniel Ernst Schleiermacher, Über die <strong>Religion</strong>. Reden an die Gebildeten unter ihren 

Verächtern, ed. Rudolf Otto, 4th revised ed. (Göttingen: V<strong>and</strong>enhoeck & Ruprecht, 1920), 63. For 

Schleiermacher’s rejection of the philosophical theology, see ibid., 26ff ., 31, 47, 73, 76, 79, 112, etc. 

In one important document of Schelling’s, the written draft related to his lecture course of 1831/32 

in Munich, we can read that “the essence of Christianity is the historical [das Geschichtliche],” <strong>and</strong> 

that it is not correct always to speak about “Christ’s doctrine” [Lehre], rather the other way round: 

“this doctrine is Christ himself” (Friedrich Wilhelm Joseph Schelling, Urfassung der Philosophie der 

Off enbarung, ed. W. E. Ehrhardt, 2 vols. [Hamburg: Meiner, 1992], Teilb<strong>and</strong> 1, 17). 

80) See GA 60: 322. Th e only change is that Heidegger italicizes “history”, <strong>and</strong> this, of course, 

gives to the identifi cation of history <strong>and</strong> religion more prominence. It will be of use to quote the 

full sentence of Schleiermacher: “Geschichte im eigentlichsten Sinn ist der höchste Gegenst<strong>and</strong> 

der <strong>Religion</strong>, mit ihr hebt sie an und endigt mit ihr—denn Weissagung ist in ihren Augen auch 

Geschichte und beides gar nicht vonein<strong>and</strong>er zu unterscheiden—und alle wahre Geschichte hat 

überall zuerst einen religiösen Zweck gehabt und ist von religiösen Ideen aus gegangen” (Über die 

<strong>Religion</strong>, 63). 

81) GA 60: 323.


applies to/aff ects us, <strong>and</strong> we are history itself” 82 —then we arrive ultimately 

at a threefold identifi cation. From this perspective, facticity, history, <strong>and</strong> 

religion—in other words, to be factical, to be historical, <strong>and</strong> to be religious— 

become mutually dependent upon <strong>and</strong> grow intimately fused with each other. 

Th ereby the historical, as it were, unites in itself the religious <strong>and</strong> the Lebensphilosophische—a 

tribute paid to the memory of Dilthey. 

Conclusion: <strong>Philosophy</strong>, Facticity of Hermeneutics, <strong>Religion</strong>, Faith, 

Th eology 

Shortly after Heidegger had accepted the call to Marburg, Gadamer recalls a 

remark Heidegger made during an evening discussion: “in order to come back 

to itself, it is the true task of theology to look for the word capable of calling 

one to faith <strong>and</strong> of preserving one in it.” Th is formulation sounded, for 

Gadamer, like a real assignment for theology. Gadamer thinks that the real 

questions that were stirring in Heidegger from the very beginning were theological 

questions. 83 

Th e analogous view is expressed by Gadamer’s choice of the very title of his 

accompanying essay to the publication of Heidegger’s so called Natorp Report 

(or Aristotle Introduction), discovered at the end of the 1980s, “Heidegger’s 

Early ‘Th eological’ Writing.” Th is title, together with his explanatory remark 

that it (no less than Hermann Nohl’s title for what he called Hegel’s Early 

Th eological Writings) is both appropriate <strong>and</strong> inappropriate, 84 might well characterize, 

in addition to this particular manuscript, no small portion of the 

young Heidegger’s work. As a matter of fact, the underst<strong>and</strong>ing of philosophy 

Heidegger is working out right after the war is interwoven with theological 

motives, while (parallel with it) he embarks on an overall reexamination of 

theology too, including its task, function, <strong>and</strong> relation to religion. Th e selfinterpretation 

<strong>and</strong> self-identifi cation as a philosopher, which he comes to adopt, 

is conditional upon an underst<strong>and</strong>ing of philosophy that is permeated by theological 

motives or may even be said to emerge owing to the radicalization of 

82) GA 60: 173: “Die Geschichte triff t uns, und wir sind sie selbst . . .” 

83) Hans-Georg Gadamer, “Die Marburger Th eologie,” in Gadamer, Neuere Philosophie. I. Hegel, 

Husserl, Heidegger, vol. 3 of Gesammelte Werke (Tübingen: Mohr, 1987), 197, 199; see also Philosophische 

Lehrjahre (Frankfurt/Main: Klostermann, 1977), 37. 

84) Hans-Georg Gadamer, “Heideggers ‘theologische’ Jugendschrift,” in Martin Heidegger, Phänomenologische 

Interpretationen zu Aristoteles. Ausarbeitung für die Marburger und die Göttinger 

Philosophische Fakultät (1922), ed. Günter Neumann (Stuttgart: Reclam, 2002), 76.


theological or religious motives. Th e other side of this process is that Heidegger 

puts into question the traditional self-underst<strong>and</strong>ing of theology too, inclusive of 

its relation to philosophy. Th e extent to which Heidegger views philosophy <strong>and</strong> 

theology in proximity to, <strong>and</strong> as mutually permeating, one another is characteristically 

shown by his urge, in his course on the Phenomenology of <strong>Religion</strong>, to 

submit both of them to his central operation of destruction; in connection with 

the interpretaton of Paul’s letters, he speaks about elaborating the st<strong>and</strong>ards for 

“the destruction of Christian theology <strong>and</strong> Western philosophy.” 85 

In his above cited letter to Karl Löwith on August 19, 1921, Heidegger 

claimed to be, rather than a philosopher, a “Christian theologian.” It is precisely 

Gadamer’s story that may provide us with a key to underst<strong>and</strong>ing the 

peculiar italicization. In fact, it should be taken to mean someone searching for 

the proper logos, that is, word, of the Christian message. I think that Gadamer’s 

recollection concerning Heidegger’s underst<strong>and</strong>ing of the “task of theology” in 

terms of “looking for the word capable of calling one to faith <strong>and</strong> of preserving 

one in it” is highly credible <strong>and</strong> is, indeed, a fairly precise formulation. As a 

fi nal consideration I propose to show this by a short interpretive reconstruction 

of how Heidegger came to view the relation of religion, faith, <strong>and</strong> theology 

<strong>and</strong> of how these are related to philosophy <strong>and</strong> hermeneutics. 

Against the background of his distancing himself from neo-Scholasticism 

<strong>and</strong> of his assimilation of decisive motives of life-philosophy <strong>and</strong> historicism, 

inclusive of his overall attack against the theoretical, 86 Heidegger comes to 

view theology no more in terms of an objective theoretical science destined to 

provide a conceptual elaboration for religion by occasionally borrowing its 

conceptuality from philosophy. Th eology is not a scientifi cally neutral <strong>and</strong> 

ahistorical theory of Christianity; what has been developed <strong>and</strong> come to be 

known as theology during the centuries is a reifi ed mixture of dead formulae 

of the most heterogeneous origin, alienated from what it once belonged to <strong>and</strong> 

incapable of containing in itself <strong>and</strong> conveying living religiosity. Th e comportment 

it originates from is theoretical rather than religious. Th eoretical comportment, 

in its turn, goes back to the Greeks. Primal Christianity was thus 

fused with, <strong>and</strong> indeed distorted by, the conceptuality of Greek philosophy, 87 

<strong>and</strong> that is how what we know in terms of theology today came into being. 

Th ereby Heidegger seems to subscribe to <strong>and</strong> join in with the then widespread 

thesis concerning the fateful hellenization of Christianity, suggested, for 

85) GA 60: 135: “Destruktion der christlichen Th eologie und der abendländischen Philosophie.” 

86) See GA 56/57: 59 <strong>and</strong> note 32 above. 

87) See GA 59: 91.


example, by Adolf von Harnack <strong>and</strong> maintained decisively by Franz Overbeck. 

88 What is needed is a theology liberated from the conceptual schemes of 

Greek philosophy. 89 Th erefore, Heidegger urges in his course on the Phenomenology 

of <strong>Religion</strong> “to sharply distinguish the problem of theology from that 

of religion.” 90 What it comes down to is—much along the lines of Dilthey’s 

linking of Erleben <strong>and</strong> Ausdruck—to fi nd a proper logos, a conceptuality adequate 

to <strong>and</strong> conforming to the “object,” that is, genuine religious experience 

<strong>and</strong> faith as a living enactment. 

We fi nd an important follow-up observation in Being <strong>and</strong> Time. Th eology, 

Heidegger claims, “is slowly beginning to underst<strong>and</strong> once more Luther’s 

insight, that the ‘foundation’ on which its system of dogma rests has not arisen 

from an inquiry in which faith is primary, <strong>and</strong> that conceptually this ‘foundation’ 

not only is inadequate for the problematic of theology, but conceals <strong>and</strong> 

distorts it” (SZ 10/ BT 30; see GA 20: 6/4.) In his lecture “Phenomenology 

<strong>and</strong> Th eology,” held in the same year of the publication of Being <strong>and</strong> 

Time, Heidegger interprets theology, much in the same vein, as the “science 

88) See Adolf von Harnack, Lehrbuch der Dogmengeschichte, 3 vols., 4th ed. (1909/10; Reprogh. 

Nachdruck. Darmstadt: Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft, 1983), vol 1, 20: “Das Dogma ist 

in seiner Conception und in seinem Ausbau ein Werk des griechischen Geistes auf dem Boden 

des Evangeliums.” Heidegger refers to Harnack in GA 60: 72, claiming it is precisely the seemingly 

secondary problem of “expression,” of “religious explication” to be of decisive importance, 

for the “explication” goes h<strong>and</strong> in h<strong>and</strong> with the religious experience. Th is is much in line with 

Gadamer’s interpretation that theology has, for Heidegger, primarily to do with fi nding the 

adequate “word,” i.e., conceptuality, to express faith. Heidegger’s own subsequent formulation of 

what dogma is shows Harnack’s obvious infl uence. See GA 60: 112: “Das Dogma als abgelöster 

Lehrgehalt in objektiv-erkenntnismäßiger Abhebung kann niemals leitend für die christliche 

Religiosität gewesen sein, sondern umgekehrt, die Genesis des Dogmas ist nur verständlich aus 

dem Vollzug der christlichen Lebenserfahrung.” See also Dilthey, Einleitung in die Geisteswissenschaften, 

258 (“So war die Entwicklung dieses Gehaltes im Dogma zugleich seine Veräußerlichung”), 

274 (“hat sich die Entwicklung der Formeln, welche die religiöse Erfahrung in einer 

Verknüpfung von Vorstellungen abgrenzen und gegen <strong>and</strong>ere Formeln innerhalb derselben <strong>Religion</strong> 

wie gegen <strong>and</strong>ere <strong>Religion</strong>en rechtfertigen sollten, nicht folgerecht aus der im Christentum 

gegebenen Selbstgewißheit innerer Erfahrung vollzogen”). Th e thesis of the unhappy connection 

of Christianity with Greek philosophy was far from being unknown to the previous generation 

of liberal theology, e.g., to Ritschl; on this point, see Wolfhart Pannenberg, Problemgeschichte der 

neueren evangelischen Th eologie in Deutschl<strong>and</strong>. Von Schleiermacher bis zu Barth und Tillich (Göttingen: 

V<strong>and</strong>enhoeck & Ruprecht, 1997), 123. As to Overbeck, Heidegger refers to him in the 

Preface to his Phenomenology <strong>and</strong> Th eology. 

89) See GA 59: 91. 

90) GA 60: 310: “Scharf zu trennen: das Problem der Th eologie und das der Religiosität.” And 

he adds signifi cantly:“Die Th eologie hat bis jetzt keine originäre theoretische Grundhaltung der 

Ursprünglichkeit des Gegenst<strong>and</strong>es entsprechend gefunden.”


of faith,” 91 where faith is conceived of in terms of a specifi c way of being 

of Dasein (GA 9: 52) encompassing, as it were, the whole domain or horizon 

within which alone the specifi c “objects” of faith, for example, God, can 

appear. Faith is thus prior to God, <strong>and</strong> it would be a serious mistake or a vulgarization 

to defi ne theology naively as the “science of God” or the “speculative 

knowledge of God” (GA 9: 59)—wherein God would be an object of the 

respective science in the same way as the animals are the objects of zoology 

(ibid.). Th eology originates from faith (GA 9: 55), has its roots in faith, <strong>and</strong> in 

general makes sense only for faith (GA 9: 61), i.e, the believer. In this sense, 

faith anticipates <strong>and</strong> founds theology (GA 9: 60f.). Th e suffi cient motives of 

theology as well as its justifi caton may lie only in faith itself (GA 9: 54, 55), 

<strong>and</strong> they lie in faith’s attempt at a conceptual interpretation of itself (“begriffl 

iche Auslegung” [GA 9: 54], “begriffl iche Selbstinterpretation der gläubigen 

Existenz” [GA 9: 56]). Th e believing comportment (Gläubigkeit) can never 

originate from theology, but only through faith itself (GA 9: 56). Now, the 

task of theology is to fi nd a conceptuality adequate to faith (GA 9: 60), the 

believing comportment <strong>and</strong> existence, <strong>and</strong> to contribute to developing <strong>and</strong> 

strengthening this attitude (GA 9: 55, 61)—a formulation which confi rms 

<strong>and</strong> justifi es to a great extent Gadamer’s interpetive recollection of Heidegger’s 

contribution to the discussion on theology in the postwar years. 92 

Th e relation between faith <strong>and</strong> theology, within the encompassing phenomenon 

of religion, bears conspicuous similarities to, <strong>and</strong> may be seen as a 

development or a radicalization of, Dilthey’s linking Erlebnis with Ausdruck 93 

or with Heidegger’s subsequent characterization of the relation between underst<strong>and</strong>ing 

<strong>and</strong> interpretation in Being <strong>and</strong> Time (§32). Th is may be summed up 

as follows: only what is understood can be interpreted; underst<strong>and</strong>ing constitutes 

the fundament <strong>and</strong> the starting point of every interpretation. In this 

sense, faith is the fundament of theology, <strong>and</strong> the latter is but a conceptual 

91) GA 9: 55. Th e following numbers in parentheses in the body of the text refer to this edition 

(GA 9: 45–77). For a detailed reconstruction of this lecture, see Joseph J. Kockelmans, “Heidegger 

on Th eology,” in Th inking About Being: Aspects of Heidegger’s Th ought, ed. R. W. Shahan <strong>and</strong> 

J. N. Mohanty (Norman, Oklahoma: University of Oklahoma Press, 1984), 85–108. 

92) See also Annemarie Gethmann-Siefert, Das Verhältnis von Philosophie und Th eologie im Denken 

Martin Heideggers (Freiburg: Alber, 1974), 36: “religion requires a way of treatment adequate 

to its logos.” 

93) See, for example, Dilthey, Der Ausbau der geschichtlichen Welt in den Geisteswissenschaften, 

132, 206. Dilthey employs here even the characteristic expression Erlebnisausdruck. His addition 

of Verstehen to this structure is for us here irrelevant.


articulation of the former, erecting itself upon <strong>and</strong> remaining forever grounded 

in it. Th eological knowledge must arise from faith <strong>and</strong> return to it. 

Th e way theology relates itself to faith exhibits structural analogies to the 

way philosophy relates itself to facticity. Both theology <strong>and</strong> philosophy off er 

a conceptual elaboration of something previously enacted or lived (a sort of 

having-been) <strong>and</strong>, in doing so, are at the same time meant to refer back to <strong>and</strong> 

reinforce what they grow out of—faith or factical life. Given this strict correlation, 

it is no wonder that we fi nd in Heidegger’s texts similarities between 

his characterization of theology <strong>and</strong> philosophy. Th e well-known defi nition 

of philosophy in Being <strong>and</strong> Time goes like this: “Philosophie ist universale 

phänomenologische Ontologie, ausgehend von der Hermeneutik des Daseins, 

die . . . das Ende des Leitfadens dort festgemacht hat, woraus es entspringt und 

wohin es zurückschlägt” (SZ 38); while Phenomenology <strong>and</strong> Th eology characterizes 

theology as follows: “Alle theologische Erkenntnis ist . . . auf den Glauben 

selbst gegründet, sie entspringt aus ihm und springt in ihn zurück” (GA 9: 61). 

“[W]oraus es entspringt und wohin es zurückschlägt” <strong>and</strong> “. . . entspringt aus ihm 

und springt in ihn zurück” show obvious parallels both conceptually <strong>and</strong> with 

regard to the matter itself. Both are Dasein’s ways of being, <strong>and</strong> both move 

in a hermeneutic circle. Th ey are a re-enacting accompaniment of what they 

grow out of—factical life or rebirth by faith—, helping to interpretively illuminate, 

that is, appropriate <strong>and</strong> re-appropriate, that from which they originate. 

And the bond that links philosophy’s <strong>and</strong> theology’s self-interpretation 

together is a hermeneutical one: an always already having understood of what 

one has become as a starting point for a subsequent interpretation. 94 

It may be of interest to note that in the Phenomenology of <strong>Religion</strong> course we 

fi nd an important anticipation of this defi nition: “Bisher waren die Philosophen 

bemüht, gerade die faktische Lebenserfahrung als selbstverständliche Nebensächlichkeit 

abzutun, obwohl doch aus ihr gerade das Philosophieren entspringt, 

und in einer . . . Umkehr wieder in sie zurückspringt.” 95 Th is is an important early 

anticipation of what Heidegger will come to develop in 1927, which I take to be 

a further illustration of my thesis that Heidegger’s underst<strong>and</strong>ing of philosophy 

is permeated by, <strong>and</strong> emerges as a radicalization of, theological motives (whereby 

theology becomes re-interpreted too). <strong>Philosophy</strong>’s self-interpretation that 

Heidegger provides may be regarded as relying for its emergence on the selfinterpretation 

of theological comportment as a model. Heidegger, as it were, 

94) See GA 60: 336: “Die Analyse, d.h. die Hermeneutik, arbeitet im historischen Ich.” “[I]n 

allem ist die spezifi sche Sinnbestimmtheit herauszuhören.” 

95) GA 60: 15 (italics added); see ibid., 8, 124.


transposes the self-interpretation of the theological comportment onto the level 

of philosophy in a specifi cally modifi ed <strong>and</strong> formalized form. 96 

References 

Texts of Heidegger’s Gesamtausgabe (Frankfurt a.M.: Vittorio Klostermann) 

are referenced in the above essay according to the volume number. Listed 

below are the respective titles, editors, <strong>and</strong> dates of publication for each referenced 

volume number. 

GA 1 Frühe Schriften. Edited by F.-W. von Herrmann. 1978. 

GA 9 Wegmarken. Edited by F.-W. von Herrmann. 2004. 

GA 17 Einführung in die phänomenologische Forschung. Edited by F.-W. 

von Herrmann. 2006. 

GA 20 Prolegomena zur Geschichte des Zeitbegriff s. Edited by Petra Jaeger. 

1994. 

GA 21 Logik. Die Frage nach der Wahrheit. Edited by Walter Biemel. 1995. 

GA 24 Die Grundprobleme der Phänomenologie. Edited by F.-W. von 

Herrmann. 1997. 

GA 29/30 Die Grundbegriff e der Metaphysik. Welt—Endlichkeit—Einsamkeit. 

Edited by F.-W. von Herrmann. 2004. 

GA 32 Hegels Phänomenologie des Geistes. Edited by Ingtraud Görl<strong>and</strong>. 

1997. 

GA 39 Hölderlins Hymnen ‘Germanien’ und ‘Der Rhein.’ Edited by Susanne 

Ziegler. 1999. 

GA 45 Grundfragen der Philosophie. Ausgewählte ‘Probleme’ der ‘Logik.’ 

Edited by F.-W. von Herrmann. 1992. 

GA 56/57 Zur Bestimmung der Philosophie. Edited by Bernd Heimbüchel. 

1999. 

GA 58 Grundprobleme der Phänomenologie. Edited by Hans-Helmuth 

G<strong>and</strong>er. 1992. 

96) Revelation is, Heidegger says, not just a matter of delivering or collecting positive knowledge 

about real occurrences, past or future, but it is a matter of participation, that is, taking part, in the 

content of what the revelation is about. In this participation, that is, faith, Dasein gets placed in 

front of God, <strong>and</strong> his existence, aff ected by the revelation, becomes aware of itself, reveals itself to 

itself, in a state of forgottenness of God (“Gottvergessenheit” [GA 9: 53]). In precisely the same 

manner Dasein, eff ecting the passage from the inauthentic to the authentic, gains awareness of 

itself for the fi rst time <strong>and</strong> it does so in terms of existing always already in an inauthentic way.


GA 59 Phänomenologie der Anschauung und des Ausdrucks. Th eorie der philosophischen 

Begriff sbildung. Edited by Claudius Strube. 2007. 

GA 60 Phänomenologie des religiösen Lebens. Edited by Matthias Jung, 

Th omas Regehly, <strong>and</strong> Claudius Strube. 1995. 

GA 61 Phänomenologische Interpretationen zu Aristoteles. Einführung in 

die phänomenologische Forschung. Edited by Walter Bröcker <strong>and</strong> 

Käte Bröcker-Oltmanns. 1994. 

GA 63 Ontologie. Hermeneutik der Faktizität. Edited by Käte Bröcker- 

Oltmanns. 1995. 

GA 64 Der Begriff der Zeit. Edited by F.-W. von Herrmann. 2004. 

GA 65 Beiträge zur Philosophie (Vom Ereignis). Edited by F.-W. von 

Herrmann. 2003. 

GA 66 Besinnung. Edited by F.-W. von Herrmann. 1997.

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