Abstract

The work of Reiner Schürmann’s which has received the most intense reception has been his monumental book on Heidegger. Both Emmanuel Levinas and Hans-Georg Gadamer have praised it warmly, and it is regarded as an astonishing work, combining both a thorough knowledge of Heidegger’s thought and an original and intriguing philosophical claim. In the following, I shall concentrate primarily on this philosophical claim and not on the question whether Reiner Schürmann’s reconstruction of Heidegger is sufficiently philologically accurate. I do not harbor any doubt in this latter respect, but this lack of doubt on my part does not prove anything, for my knowledge of Heidegger is infinitely less deep than his. My concern will go to the philosophical ideas which he tries to defend, not to determining whether they are genuinely Heideggerian or more representative of Schürmann’s own position. In section one, I shall expose what seems to be essential to me in these ideas. In section two, I shall criticize and try to confute them. If not cogent reasons, personal and social causes must have led, as I see it, Schürmann’s quest in a wrong direction. In section three, I shall analyze these causes, since I believe that they are symptomatic of the best minds of our time. Finally, in section four, it will become possible to evaluate those ideas in more positive terms. In fact, it is always more difficult to see the greatness of an enterprise rather than its errors, and even with regard to the latter one should recognize that certain errors are indispensable and much more important than plain truisms. It is with great grief that I criticize a dead friend with whom I would prefer incomparably more to have this discussion openly. But, besides being an exellent philosopher, Reiner was an extremely noble and fine human being and he would accept the two maxims I have decided to follow in this lecture: Amica veritas, ergo legendus Reinerius; and Omnium hominum amicorum magis amica veritas ipsa.