Heidegger quote on Aristotle
William Large
For those who are interested in bibliographical reference for the Heidegger quote about Aristotle, 'he was born lived and died'. It comes from Grundbegriffe der aristotelischen Philosophie, the lecture course from the summer semester of 1924, Gesamtausgabe Vol. 18, p.5. The full German, is:
"Bei der Persönlichkeit eines Philosophen hat nur das Interesse: Er war dann und dann geboren, er arbeitete und starb."
Herman Philipse also writes that Heidegger said this at the beginning of his Aristotle lecture in May 1924 (in Heidegger's Philosophy of Being, Princeton UP, 1999, p. xiii). He cites Kiesel's book, whose full reference is given below. The editors introduction to the translation of Heidegger's Hegel's Phenomenology of Spirit (Indiana University Press, 1994), also refers to the same remark, but I don't have an exact page reference for this
It must have had some effect on his listeners, because many of his students seemed to have remembered the remark.
Jean Grondin says the following in his Hans-Georg Gadamer: A biography (Yale UP, 2003, p.8):
"Heidegger once remarked, in a lecture of 1 May 1924 on Aristotle which Gadamer attended, by way of biographical introduction: 'The personality of the philosopher is of interest only to this extent: he was born at such and such a time, he worked, and died." The note for this is as follows: 'Martin Heidegger, Grundbegriffe der aristotelischen Philosophie (Basic concepts of Aristotelian philosophy), Marcuse Archive, University of Frankfurt, summer semester 1924, p. 1. Cf T. Kisiel, The Genesis of Heidegger's 'Being and Time' (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1994), p. 287. Kisiel draws attention to the fact that this dictum served as an ideological shibboleth against biography among those influenced by Heidegger.'
Hannah Arendt also referred to the same sentence in 'Martin Heidegger ist 80 jahre alt', which was a radio broadcast which published in the New York Review of Books and was also reprinted in Hannah Arendt Martin Heidegger letters 1925-1975. [no page reference]
There is also evidence that Heidegger expressed the same contempt for bibliography in his lectures on Nietzsche, where he says 'Whoever does not have the courage and perseverance of thought required to become involved in Nietzsche's own writings, need not read anything about him either.' [no page reference]
Also Jacob Klein, the head of St. John's College in Annapolis and a student of Heidegger's before emigrating to the US, writes the following in his The Lectures and Essays of Jacob Klein, eds. Robert Williamson and Elliott Zuckerman (Annapolis, MD: St. John's College Press, 1985):
'Many, many years ago, I attended a series of lectures on Aristotle's philosophy. The lecturer began his exposition has follows: 'As regards Aristotle himself, as regards the circumstances and the course of his life, suffice it to say: Aristotle was born, spent his life in philosophizing, and died.' [no page reference]
Klein gave this lecture in 1962, and was first published in Ancient and Moderns, Essays on the Tradition of Political Philosophy in Honor of Leo Strauss, ed. Joseph Cropsey (New York: Basic Books, 1964). Thorton Lockwood, who found this reference, is pretty sure that the philosopher referred to here is Heidegger.
None of the superb research is mine, so I must thank, in no particular order of merit, Ulrich Haase, Chris Lawn, John Caruna, Joanna Hodge, Sonje Grussendorf, Stuart Elden, Jack Reynolds, Thorton Lockwood, Yurly Lambie, S. Dunne, T. Chappell, Lars Iyer and David Webb.
Thanks
William Large
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