Abstract

This dissertation critically assesses the degree to which political motifs relating to the will to awakening of the German nation become visible in Martin Heidegger's reading of Immanuel Kant, Kant and the Problem of Metaphysics , published 1929. First, an historical overview of Germany's socio-political situation from 1914 through 1933 is provided. Next, a standard reading of Kant is provided, one that emphasizes the model of perception underlying his transcendental idealism. This is followed by an overview of the specifically philosophical context of Martin Heidegger's thought, with an emphasis on the breakthroughs achieved by the phenomenological school in the early 1920s. On the basis of the preceding, it then becomes possible to indicate that the presuppositions brought to bear on the interpretation of Kant, and the misreading that emerges, can be clarified with reference to the project of replacing Kant's universal functions of reason with an authentic stance of finite Dasein, heroically submitting to the call of history as destiny, as specifically addressed to the German nation