Heidegger’s Metaphilosophy: A New Reconstruction

The essay proposes a new reconstruction of Heidegger’s metaphilosophy. Providing a common explanation to a variety of Heidegger’s pronouncements on the nature of his discipline in seminars and public addresses, the essay stresses their ties to the phenomenological doctrine of Being and Time. My presentation spans four major theses: (1) Philosophy is actual in the practice of philosophizing, understood as an activity of intrinsic worth. (2) The essential procedure of philosophizing is clarification of experience. (3) The medium of philosophizing is conceptual knowledge. (4) The goal of philosophizing is non-conceptual: a “fundamental attunement.” Focusing on the apparent tension between (3) and (4), I argue that the structural relations between the conceptual and the non-conceptual elements in Heidegger’s metaphilosophy are best accounted for in terms of the duality of understanding (Verstehen) and being-attuned (Befindlichkeit) in the existential analytic. In conclusion, I suggest that the metaphilosophical vision this analysis yields is faithful to the existential promise of philosophy and provides the conceptual resources to defend its essential status as a mode of human realization.