The Metaphysics of German Idealism

This volume comprises the lecture course that Heidegger gave in 1941 on the metaphysics of German Idealism. The first part of the lecture course contains a preliminary consideration of the distinction between ground and existence. The elucidation of the conceptual history includes a striking confrontation with Kierkegaards and Jaspers concepts of existence, as well as an elucidation of the concept of existence in Being and Time, which Heidegger distinguishes from the former concepts. Heideggers self-interpretation is not an end in itself, however, but rather a way of pointing to Schellings distinction between ground and existence, whose root and inner necessity and whose various versions Heidegger discusses subsequently. The second part of the lecture course is focused on Schellings freedom treatise, which Heidegger regards as the pinnacle of the metaphysics of German Idealism. Heideggers consideration of Schellings distinction between ground and existence finds its guiding thread in the introduction of the realms of being eternal or finite, each being is a joining of the ground of existence and existence itself. In a subsequent overview, Heidegger discusses the relation of the distinction between ground and existence to the essence of human freedom and to the essence of the human. On the basis of this discussion, it becomes possible to grasp the connection between freedom and evil in Schellings system. This important work by Heidegger, published here in English for the first time, will be of great interest to students and scholars of philosophy and to anyone interested in Heideggers work.