Abstract

The dissertation seeks to clarify certain key themes which arise in Heidegger's work in the period from the late 1920's through the middle of the 1940's, especially the relation Heidegger develops between the nothing and being , by means of his interpretation of German Idealism and Hegel. Chapter two outlines the origins of the development of these themes in Heidegger's interpretation of the notion of truth in Aristotle's Metaphysics. This section contrasts Aristotle's doctrine of being in terms of act and potency with Heidegger's development of the notion of the synthesis of disclosure, and shows how Heidegger understands that this synthesis underlay, albeit unthematically, Aristotle's understanding of truth. Chapter three discusses how the problem of the origin of the temporalizing of disclosure is carried forward in the problems of "ground" and the origin of metaphysics in Heidegger's interpretations of Kant and of Hegel, especially his 1931 lecture on Hegel's Phanomenologie des Geistes. The problem of the origin of temporality in the 'nothing' is shown to be understood by Heidegger to bring his own problematic into direct relation to the works of Kant and of German Idealism. Chapter four focuses on Heidegger's 1938-42 lectures on Hegel in order to show how the introduction of the notions of Seyn, Lichtung, and Seinsgeschichte are clarified in the light of the negativity which gives rise to the movement of temporality, and how Heidegger develops these notions both in contrast to and in concert with the treatment of negativity in the works of Hegel and Schelling. Chapter five further develops Heidegger's understanding of Seyn as a self-erasing negativity in light of his interpretations of German Idealism, and contrasts the metaphysical understanding of negativity found there with Heidegger's. The dissertation concludes with a summary presentation of Heidegger's later Seinslehre as articulating several senses of being, all understood in relation to Heidegger's notion of projection, the temporal interpretation of which stems from an original, primary negation or self-differentiation within Sein itself