Metaphysics and Nihilism - 1. The Overcoming of Metaphysics 2. The Essence of Nihilism

The Overcoming of Metaphysics and The Essence of Nihilism, two treatises by Heidegger, explore the concept that nihilism is the essence of metaphysics in relation to the history of being. The overcoming of metaphysics is the decisive historical moment in which metaphysics is experienced as the history of the abandonment by being and overcome at the same time. The Essence of Nihilism is linked to the idea of overcoming and deals with the attempt to elucidate the essence of nihilism through Nietzsches words "God is dead." The killing of God springs from the will to power as the most extreme form of manipulation, and the being of beings is grasped as the positing of values emanating from the will to power. These key works by Heidegger are now available in English for the first time and will be of great interest to students and scholars of philosophy and anyone interested in Heideggers thought.

Format: Hardback
Length: 250 pages
Publication date: 16 December 2022
Publisher: Polity Press

The Overcoming of Metaphysics (1938/39) and The Essence of Nihilism (1946–1948) are two treatises that, while not belonging together temporally or formally, are brought together in this volume due to their common thesis: that nihilism is the essence of metaphysics in relation to the history of being.

For Heidegger, the overcoming of metaphysics represents the decisive historical moment in which metaphysics is experienced as the history of the abandonment by being and overcome at the same time. The abandonment of beings by being manifests itself in the final and most extreme intensification of metaphysics as the "unconditioned predominance of manipulation." Manipulation, in this context, refers to the all-dominating producibility of beings.

The Essence of Nihilism is linked to the idea of overcoming. This text deals with the attempt to elucidate the essence of nihilism through Nietzsche's words, "God is dead." The killing of God springs from the will to power as the most extreme form of manipulation. In this positing of being as value, the being of beings is grasped as the positing of values emanating from the will to power. It becomes clear that being itself remained unthought in metaphysics, thus rendering metaphysics itself nihilistic.

These key works by Heidegger, now available in English for the first time, will be of great interest to students and scholars of philosophy and to anyone interested in Heidegger's thought.

Weight: 500g
Dimension: 234 x 155 x 24 (mm)
ISBN-13: 9781509540044