Abstract
This article examines Heidegger’s interpretation of Plato’s Sophist, focusing on his attempts to grasp Plato’s original thinking of being and non-being. Some contemporary thinkers and commentators argue that Heidegger’s view of Plato is simply based on his criticism against the traditional metaphysics of Platonism and its language. But a close reading of his lecture on the Sophist reveals that his view of Plato is grounded in Plato’s questioning struggle with the ambiguous nature of human speech or language (logos). For Heidegger, Plato’s way of philosophizing is deeper than the metaphysical understanding of Platonism which sees only fixed ideas of being. In the Sophist, dialectical thinking of Plato constantly confronts the questionable force of the logos which betrays the natural possibility of non-being based on the tension between movement and rest. Thus, from Plato’s original insight Heidegger uncovers the dynamic association (koinōnia) of being and non-being as a natural ground of everyday living with others. However, although Heidegger’s understanding of the Sophist powerfully demonstrates the lively possibility (dunamis) of being beyond the customary perspective of Platonic metaphysics, his interpretation fails to further disclose Plato’s political question of being emerging in the Sophist, which seeks the true associative ground of human beings.
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Notes
This work (Heidegger 2003) is based on the author’s lecture course delivered at the University of Marburg in the winter semester 1924–1925. The course was first published as volume 19 of Heidegger’s Gesamtausgabe: Platon: Sophistes (Frankfurt: Vittorio Klostermann 1992). For the “intrinsic” connection of this work to Being and Time (1927) and other important works of Heidegger, see “Translator’s Foreword”. When citing the text, I will put the abbreviated title (PS) and page number in parenthesis.
In Plato’s Theaetetus (the prequel of the Sophist), the last (third) definition of the knowledge is the “true opinion with logos”. Following this context, the Sophist focuses on the being of “logos” itself.
For a different view, see Zuckert (2000: 84: 47). She mentions that in Heidegger’s view, Plato solved the “problem of logos” which Parmenides could not grasp. But Heidegger maintains that since Plato and Aristotle, “we have in fact not advanced one step forward” to understand their actual confrontation with the problem (PS, 154).
According to Heidegger, Bonitz (1886) sees the Sophist consists of three divisions: (1) an “introduction” (prelude), (2) an “enclosing shell” (the question of the sophist as an immediate issue), and (3) a “kernel” (the question of the being of non-beings) (PS, 160).
Cf. Sophist, 216 b: “The stranger I am bringing here is not a god, though in truth he is divine…” (quoted from Plato 2006); Homer, Odyssey, XVII 485–487: “the theos xenios [the god of the stranger]”.
Heidegger here clearly sees that Plato’s concern with the dominant force of popular speeches and opinions is from the outset “directed to the politika [political beings]”. For him, this is the reason why Plato wrote a dialogue under the title “Politikos [Statesman]” after the Sophist. But it is more important for Heidegger to think why Plato “left unfinished” the dialogue about “the philosopher”; he does not raise further questions about the connection between the Statesman and the Sophist. I will discuss this point in the last section of this essay.
Heidegger thus argues that Plato’s empowerment of philosophizing is not grounded in any “systemic” presumption, religious “aspiration,” or “cultural” motivation; rather, the Platonic attitude toward philosophy is generated from the “seriousness” of the human situation where the possibility of “life and death” is at issue (PS, 178). Particularly, Heidegger emphasizes that only the open possibility of thinking can overcome a modern absorption into historicism which reduces the lively ground of being into a mere contingent happening. The genuine meaning of history implies an open path toward the true possibilities of human existence (PS, 177).
For Heidegger, language or speech is not the primary ground of being; philosophical questioning tries to overcome the limit of logos. Derrida offers a contrasting view: “Language is already there, in advance…at the moment at which any question can arise about it. In this it exceeds the question” (Derrida 1991: 129).
Cf. the indication for “sumplokē” (weaving of beings) in Plato’s Statesman, 278b ff.
The Stranger tells Theaetetus: “Because we do not know any way out as regards what you are saying here, you yourself must clarify for us what you properly mean when you utter this word on [being]” (PS, 309).
The modern views of pluralism miss Plato’s dynamic insight into the binding power of being within the particular beings themselves. The metaphysical concepts of the “public reason” and “overlapping consensus” cannot fully grasp the questionable ground of being inherent in the “comprehensive doctrines” themselves: see Rawls (1996). For an insightful critique of pluralism, see Blitz (1981: 255–258).
See Plato’s view of the tension between manliness and moderation in Statesman, 309e ff.; Theaetetus, 144b.
Thus, Heidegger maintains that Plato’s insight into the necessary being of sensible power offers the “impetus” for Aristotle’s research: from Plato’s questioning, Aristotle takes a determinate stance “to start with the sense-perceptions, i.e., the bodily beings” in his search for more concrete definitions of being (PS, 335).
Thinking through the possibility of knowing, Plato uncovers the uniting ground of the two preceding philosophical positions, “the stasis of Parmenides and the kinēsis of Heraclitus” (PS, 338).
From this view of the logos, Heidegger criticizes the metaphysical concept of “subjectivity” limited to an individual’s cognitive function. According to him, this modern presumption has never solved the ancient questions of being, betraying the questionability of the metaphysical position itself.
See Sophist, 250c9–12: “whither should the discerning apprehension now turn? [Poi dē chrē tēn dianoian eti trepein;]…No direction is easier…” (PS, 344).
“Hegelian logic, obviously in conjunction with Aristotle, gives the concept of negativity a positive significance, but only insofar as negativity is a transitional stage, because the total orientation of this dialectic is directed toward essentially other structures than is the simply disclosive dialectic of the Greeks” (PS, 388). For more detailed views on Hegel, see Heidegger (1962: 480–486; 1998: 323–336; 2010: 55–62).
Following translations are from Plato (2006).
See The Stranger’s first conversation with young Socrates at the beginning of Statesman (258b): “after the sophist, it’s necessary…for the pair of us to seek for the statesman (the political man). Tell me. Must we set him down too as one of the knowers, or how?”
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Lee, S. The Dynamic Association of Being and Non-Being: Heidegger’s Thoughts on Plato’s Sophist Beyond Platonism. Hum Stud 39, 385–403 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10746-015-9374-0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10746-015-9374-0