Kant and the problem of metaphysics

Martin Heidegger

pp. 106-160

in: William Richardson, Heidegger, The Hague, Nijhoff, 1963

Abstract

If the closing section of KM is the best propaedeutic to SZ, the rest of the book is the most authoritative interpretation of the major work. We wish now to examine it as such, and for several reasons. To begin with, since the author sees his own effort as merely a re-trieve of Kant's fundamental problematic, sc. the grounding of metaphysics, we find in KM the basic conception of There-being, which was elaborated phenomenologically in SZ, articulated in the more familiar context of Kant's thought according to a language that is more classical and (for most of us) more intelligible. This permits us not only to understand better what Heidegger is trying to say but also to see how we might incorporate his intuitions into other more traditional forms. We feel that this in itself justifies the length of the r£sum6, which hitherto has not appeared in English.