Heidegger and the contradiction of Being: a dialetheic interpretation of the late Heidegger

• Published in: British journal for the history of philosophy Vol. 27; no. 5; pp. 1002 - 1024
• Main Author: Casati, Filippo
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Routledge 03.09.2019
• Subjects: Being; contradiction; dialetheism; Heidegger
• ISSN: 0960-8788; 1469-3526
• DOI: 10.1080/09608788.2018.1536030

It is well known that, from the beginning to the end of his philosophical trajectory, Martin Heidegger tries to develop a fundamental ontology which aims at answering the so-called question of Being: what does Being mean? Unfortunately, in trying to answer this question, Heidegger faces a predicament: given his own premises, speaking about Being leads to a contradiction. Moreover, according to the majority, if not all, of the interpreters who admit the existence of such a predicament, Heidegger tries to avoid the contradiction in question. But is this the only way Heidegger tries to solve the predicament? In this paper, I argue that, in some of his late works and, in particular, in the Contributions to Philosophy, Heidegger also takes into serious consideration the possibility of accepting the contradiction he faces in speaking about Being as true. If this is correct, Heidegger endorses what nowadays analytic philosophers call dialetheism, namely the metaphysical position according to which some (but not all) contradictions are true.