Abstract

In this paper I deal with the status of science in Heidegger's thought. Particularly, I pose to Heidegger the question whether science can constitute a problem for philosophy, once one has cast doubt on philosophy's rank as first science whose prerogative is to establish the truth-criteria of the particular sciences. To express it with the convenience cliches always afford, this is the question of knowledge in the postmodern epoch. The paper traces the transition from the early "fundamental ontology" to the late notion of a thinking that is to come at the end of philosophy. It will include some reflections on the role of an education for science at the end of modernity. The texts analyzed include Being and Time, "What calls for thinking," and "The end of philosophy and the task of thinking."