DUNS SCOTUS'S DOCTRINE OF CATEGORIES AND MEANING

DUNS SCOTUS’S DOCTRINE OF CATEGORIES AND MEANING Studies in Continental Thought John Sallis, editor DUNS SCOTUS’S DOCTRINE OF CATEGORIES AND MEANING k MARTIN HEIDEGGER T R A N S L AT E D B Y JOYDEEP BAGCHEE AND JEFFREY D. GOWER Indi a na Univer sit y Pr ess This book is a publication of Indiana University Press Office of Scholarly Publishing Herman B Wells Library 350 1320 East 10th Street Bloomington, Indiana 47405 USA iupress.org © 2022 by Indiana University Press All rights reserved No part of this book may be reproduced or utilized in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying and recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher. The paper used in this publication meets the minimum requirements of the American National Standard for Information Sciences—Permanence of Paper for Printed Library Materials, ANSI Z39.48–1992. Manufactured in the United States of America First printing 2022 Cataloging information is available from the Library of Congress. ISBN 978-0-253-06264-2 (hardback) ISBN 978-0-253-06265-9 (ebook) Heinrich Rickert in grateful veneration CONTENTS Translators’ Preface ix Acknowledgments xv Foreword to the First Edition of Frühe Schriften (1972) xvii Foreword to Duns Scotus’s Doctrine of Categories and Meaning xxi Introduction: The Necessity of Examining Scholasticism from the Perspective of the History of Problems 1 Part I: The Doctrine of Categories: Systematic Foundation of an Understanding of the Doctrine of Meaning 1. The Unum: Mathematical, Natural, and Metaphysical Reality 17 2. The Verum: Logical and Psychic Reality 55 3. Linguistic Form and Linguistic Content: The Domain of Meaning 74 Part II: The Doctrine of Meaning 1. Meaning and Meaning Function: The Principles of the Doctrine of Meaning 87 2. The Doctrine of the Forms of Meanings 114 Conclusion: The Problem of Categories 156 Author’s Notice 167 Bibliographical References 169 Editor’s Afterword 171 English–German Glossary 175 Con ten ts viii German–English Glossary 187 Index of Names 199 Subject Index 201 TRANSL ATORS’ PREFACE Heidegger’s Habilitationsschrift or postdoctor al thesis, titled Die Kategorien- und Bedeutungslehre des Duns Scotus (Duns Scotus’s Doctrine of Categories and Meaning), was submitted to the University of Freiburg im Breisgau in the spring of 1915.1 Completed under Heinrich Rickert, an exponent of the Southwestern or Baden school of neo-Kantianism, the text consists of two parts.2 Part 1, titled “The Doctrine of Categories,” offers a treatment of John Duns Scotus’s doctrine of the categories (primarily referencing Duns Scotus’s Opus Oxoniense and the commentaries on Porphyry’s Isagoge and Aristotle’s Categories and Sophistic Refutations),3 whereas part 2, titled “The Doctrine of Meaning,” is a meticulous exegesis of the Grammatica speculativa (full title, De modis significandi sive grammatica speculativa).4 This work in medieval grammar is now known to 1. Robbins’s 1978 translation (see below) is titled Duns Scotus’ Theory of the Categories and of Meaning. We prefer “doctrine” for Heidegger’s Lehre. 2. For Rickert’s evaluation, see Heinrich Rickert, “Gutachten über die Habilitationsschrift des Herrn Dr. Heidegger, dated July 19, 1915,” in Martin Heidegger–Heinrich Rickert: Briefe 1912–1933 und andere Dokumente, ed. Alfred Denker (Frankfurt a.M.: Vittorio Klostermann, 2002), 95–100. 3. S. J. McGrath, The Early Heidegger and Medieval Philosophy: Phenomenology for the Godforsaken (Washington, DC: Catholic University of America Press, 2006), 90. McGrath discusses the Habilitationsschrift in chapter 4; the conclusion, which Heidegger composed later and which differs in key respects, is the subject of chapter 5. 4. An English translation may be found in G. L. Bursill-Hall, ed. and trans., Grammatica Speculativa of Thomas of Erfurt (London: Longman, 1972). An earlier translation, by Charles Glenn Wallis, On the Modes of Signifying. A Speculative Grammar. The First Translation into English of “De modis significandi, sive grammatica speculativa” (Ann Arbor, MI: Edwards Brothers, 1938), is not widely available. ix x TR A NSL ATOR S’ Pr eface have been authored by the Modist grammarian Thomas of Erfurt.5 Heidegger’s thesis was originally published in 1916 by J. C. B. Mohr with the addition of a conclusion composed specially for the occasion.6 Editions and Translations—The present translation is based on the text of volume 1 of Heidegger’s Gesamtausgabe (complete edition; henceforth GA 1), first published in 1978 (with reprints in 1981, 1987, 2003, and 2018). An earlier edition of the text was published in 1972, also under the title Frühe Schriften, though not as part of the Gesamtausgabe and with a smaller selection of Heidegger’s early writings (for details of the additions made in GA 1, see Friedrich-Wilhelm von Herrmann’s editor’s afterword, also translated in this edition). The present edition includes the translation of Die Kategorien- und Bedeutungslehre des Duns Scotus and the foreword Heidegger composed for the 1972 edition of Frühe Schriften. The index of names and the subject index are both based on von Herrmann’s indexes in GA 1. This translators’ preface and the English–German and German–English glossaries are the only additions. Heidegger’s postdoctoral thesis has been translated into English previously, in whole and in part. A complete translation is available in Harold J. Robbins’s PhD dissertation at DePaul University,7 and three partial translations (of the Bursill-Hall’s translation is based on the Latin text of Mariano Fernández-García, ed., B. Joannis Duns Scoti Doct. Subtilis O.F.M. Grammaticae speculativae nova editio (Quaracchi: College of St. Bonaventure, 1902), which it reprints on facing pages. Heidegger cites the text according to the Paris edition, Joannis Duns Scoti Opera omnia (Paris: L. Vivès, 1891–95). He also consults the earlier Wadding edition, on which the Vivès edition is based: Luke Wadding, ed., Joannis Duns Scoti opera omnia, 12 vols. (Lyons, 1639). See p. 10, n. 11 of our translation. For a description of the editions and their relation, see Robert Mathiesen, review of Grammatica Speculativa by Thomas of Erfurt, by G. L. Bursill-Hall, David Abercrombie, and R. H. Robins, Language 51, no. 3 (1975): 731–36. 5. See Martin Grabmann, “De Thoma Erfordiensi auctore Grammaticae quae Ioanni Duns Scoto adscribitur speculativae,” Archivum Franciscanum Historicum 15 (1922): 273–77. Despite having known Grabmann personally, Heidegger never corrected the ascription. 6. See the bibliographical reference in Martin Heidegger, Gesamtausgabe, I. Abteilung: Veröffentlichte Schriften 1914–1970, vol. 1: Frühe Schriften, ed. FriedrichWilhelm von Herrmann (Frankfurt a.M.: Vittorio Klostermann, 2018), 436. The reference is translated on p. 169 of this volume and includes details of the first publication of both the postdoctoral thesis and the author’s notice. 7. Harold J. Robbins, “Duns Scotus’ Theory of the Categories and of Meaning, by Martin Heidegger, Translated from the German and with Introduction by Harold Robbins” (PhD diss., DePaul University, 1978). TR A NSL ATOR S’ Pr eface xi conclusion) have been published, in Man and World, Supplements, and Becoming Heidegger.8 The last two also translate the Selbstanzeige or “author’s notice” from the postdoctoral thesis. Despite Robbins’s valuable introduction to the text, the translation has several shortcomings, necessitating a retranslation. John van Buren’s and Aaron Bunch’s translations of the conclusion are both based on Roderick Stewart’s, which they variously modify. Finally, we also referred to Hans Seigfried’s translation of Heidegger’s inaugural address to the Heidelberg Academy of Sciences, which Heidegger quotes in extenso in his foreword.9 We gratefully acknowledge these previous efforts at translation: we consulted them and, where appropriate, also drew from them. Glossaries, Indexes, and Apparatus—Although the glossaries provide a guide to our word choices, a few require clarification. Notably, we translate Bedeutung and its compounds such as Bedeutungsmodi, Bedeutungsakt, et cetera consistently with “meaning” (hence, “modes of meaning,” “act of meaning,” et cetera).10 Although this diverges from the standard English translation of Thomas’s Grammatica speculativa (which renders modi significandi as “modes of signifying”), we felt it was more important to maintain consistency with the title and independent usages of Bedeutung. Because Heidegger is concerned with establishing the relationship between the modi essendi (the modes of being) and the modi intelligendi (modes of understanding), which “in turn demands an investigation into the structure of the meanings through which these objects can be meant (modi significandi),”11 “modes of meaning” seemed preferable to varying between “meaning” and “signifying” (or “signification”). “Meaning” also preserves the relationship to intentionality, which is crucial to Heidegger’s project of mediating between phenomenology and medieval thought. 8. Roderick M. Stewart, “Signification and Radical Subjectivity in Heidegger’s Habilitationsschrift,” Man and World 12, no. 3 (1979): 360–86; Roderick M. Stewart and John van Buren, “The Theory of Categories and Meaning in Duns Scotus,” in Supplements: From the Earliest Essays to Being and Time and Beyond, ed. John van Buren (Albany: SUNY Press, 2002), 61–68; Aaron Bunch, “Supplements to The Doctrine of Categories and Meaning in Duns Scotus,” in Becoming Heidegger: On the Trail of His Early Occasional Writings, 1910–1927, ed. Theodore Kisiel and Thomas Sheehan (Evanston, IL: Northwestern University Press, 2007), 73–78. 9. Hans Seigfried, trans., “A Recollective ‘Vita’ 1957,” in Becoming Heidegger: On the Trail of His Early Occasional Writings, 1910–1927, ed. Theodore Kisiel and Thomas Sheehan (Evanston, IL: Northwestern University Press, 2007), 9–10. 10. Heidegger uses Bedeutungsmodi and Bedeutungsweisen interchangeably. We translate both as “modes of meaning.” By contrast, the nearly identical Bedeutungsformen is rendered as “forms of meaning.” 11. Maren Kusch, Language as Calculus vs. Language as Universal Medium: A Study in Husserl, Heidegger, and Gadamer (Dordrecht: Kluwer Academic, 1989), 145. xii TR A NSL ATOR S’ Pr eface Three other challenging terms may be mentioned: Bewandtnis, Inhalt, and Gegenstandsverhalt. 1. Bewandtnis, a seldomly used word, is typically encountered only in expressions such as mit jmdm., etw. hat es seine besondere, seine eigene Bewandtnis. It means something like, “there is a specific background with regard to someone or something, matters stand thus” (Wörterbuch der deutschen Gegenwartssprache, s.v. “Bewandtnis”). Heidegger’s use of Bewandtnis is idiosyncratic, and Theodore Kisiel has rightly called it “the most difficult of the early Heidegger’s words for the translator.”12 We have chosen “relational context” and are aware that no English word really conveys the sense of the German idiom. 2. Although Inhalt is straightforwardly “content,” English lacks a corresponding adjective for the German inhaltlich. The Oxford English Dictionary lists “contentual,” but this word is clearly a new coinage resorted to by translators of German (OED, s.v. “contentual”). We render inhaltlich either with phrases centered on the noun “content” or by “conceptual”/“substantive.” The latter should be taken to imply neither the metaphysical concept of substance nor the grammatical substantive, which Heidegger also discusses. This also applies to our translation of Sachhaltigkeit as “substantiality.” 3. Gegenstandsverhalt occurs four times in the text, in the context of a discussion of the meaning function of the verb.13 Along with Gegenstand, it reproduces Thomas’s distinction between modus entis and modus esse. Whereas “the modus entis is the mode or form of habit and permanence of things; the modus esse is the mode of flux and succession.”14 Bursill-Hall translates modus entis and modus esse as “mode of an entity” and “mode of being,” respectively. Although we could have retained Bursill-Hall’s expressions, because Heidegger uses Gegenstand and Gegenstandsverhalt to gloss this very passage,15 we felt it was more important to 12. Theodore Kisiel, Heidegger’s Way of Thought: Critical and Interpretive Signposts (New York: Continuum, 2002), 120. 13. Gegenstandsverhalt should not be confused with Sachverhalt, “the actual relationships and processes, the state of things, conditions” (WdG, s.v. “Sachverhalt”), which we consistently translate with “state of affairs.” Note, however, that, in one place, just prior to his introduction of the distinction between Gegenstand (modus entis) and Gegenstandsverhalt (modus esse), Heidegger also uses Gegenstands-Sachverhalt, which we translate as “object’s state of affairs” (see also n. 18). 14. Robert G. Godfrey, “The Language Theory of Thomas of Erfurt,” Studies in Philology 57, no. 1 (1960): 26. 15. In Bursill-Hall’s translation, “The mode of an entity is the mode of condition and permanence inherent in the thing from which it has essence. The mode of being is the mode of change and succession inherent in the thing, from which it has becoming.” Grammatica Speculativa of Thomas of Erfurt, 153. TR A NSL ATOR S’ Pr eface xiii maintain fidelity to the semantics and morphology of the German term.16 We have thus chosen to render Gegenstandsverhalt as “(an or the) object’s way of comporting itself.”17 By contrast, Heidegger’s hyphenated compound GegenstandsSachverhalt is simply rendered as “(an or the) object’s state of affairs.”18 As noted earlier, the index of names and the subject index are based on their respective counterparts in GA 1. The subject index retains the terms and the arrangement of the GA 1 index while updating its page references. Translating its entries into English and reorganizing the index around these new terms would have fragmented the unity of the page references that fall under a given concept, besides replacing individual German entries with a potentially unwieldy mass of equivalents. However, because the glossaries list all of the German terms in the subject index, it is relatively easy to cross-reference the text with the latter, either by first locating the term of interest in the English–German glossary and then consulting its German equivalent in the index or, for readers with a knowledge of German, by first looking up a term in the index to identify its occurrences and then consulting the German–English glossary to find the English translation(s) we have adopted. These translations can then be found on the pages listed in the index. Quotations of works in languages other than Latin are from the standard English editions of these works; we note whenever these translations are modified. 16. Verhalt can have any one of three meanings depending on the sense in which the underlying verb sich verhalten is taken, that is, either as “the way in which something holds on to or stops something” (sich verhalten = festhalten, anhalten), as “the way in which a person comports or carries him or herself ” (sich verhalten = das sich verhalten, sich betragen; von Personen), or as “the way in which something relates to another, the relation, or their mutual relationship” (sich verhalten = das verhalten einer sache zur andern, das verhältnis, die wechselbeziehung) (Deutsches Wörterbuch von Jacob Grimm und Wilhelm Grimm, s.v. “Verhalt”). Context suggests that it is the second meaning Heidegger intends. 17. The French translation of this work—Martin Heidegger, Traite des categories et de la signification chez Duns Scot, trans. Florent Gaboriau (Paris: Gallimard, 1970)— renders Gegenstandsverhalt with “le rapport objectif,” that is, “the objective relationship.” But this would be objektiver Sachverhalt or gegenständlicher Sachverhalt, formulations Heidegger never uses. We felt it best to be guided by the meaning of the Latin term. 18. We have chosen to retain the standard English translation of Sachverhalt (OED, s.v. “state of affairs”: “in the philosophy of Ludwig Wittgenstein: a combination of objects”; see also “Sachverhalt”), even though it does not adequately capture the original’s dynamism. Whereas Wittgenstein typically uses Sachverhalt to denote complexes of facts, Heidegger means the actual content that is intended by a judgment. As the correlate of an intentional act, Sachverhalt thus potentially encompasses more than a mere object (Gegenstand) or fact (Tatsache). xiv TR A NSL ATOR S’ Pr eface Where standard editions were unavailable, the translations are our own. Latin quotations are not translated because Heidegger provides a running commentary on them. Where we cite a translation, the first reference is to it, followed by “Heidegger cites” and Heidegger’s original reference. Where an English translation is available, but we do not cite it (either because we could not source it or because we could not identify the passage corresponding to Heidegger’s reference), we cite Heidegger’s source first, followed by the reference to the translation (the latter is placed on a new line and set off by “Tr.:”). In all cases of the latter type, the translation of the quoted text is ours, though it is not marked as such. Where we provide Heidegger’s original German (usually a concept, more rarely a complete phrase), we always do so in square brackets. The German is provided exactly as in the original, reproducing roman or italic type to preserve Heidegger’s emphasis and giving the term or phrase just as it is declined or conjugated in Heidegger’s text. We also use square brackets to enclose clarificatory insertions into the translation. Note, however, that Heidegger also uses square brackets to mark his addition of emphasis or his insertions into passages he is quoting (sometimes with the additional remark “d.V.” [der Verfasser], which we translate as “Heidegger” to avoid ambiguity). Context will always make it clear whether the insertion is ours or Heidegger’s, because our insertions occur only within Heidegger’s own words. Square brackets are also used for the references to Husserliana inserted in GA 1 in the footnotes. Following the conventions established in GA 1, we use numbers for Heidegger’s footnotes (the numbering is identical in GA 1 and the separate edition of Frühe Schriften) and lowercase letters for the handwritten marginalia in Heidegger’s personal copy of the text. Asterisks mark translators’ notes; they are not further marked with “tr.,” “translators’ note,” or the like. When two translators’ notes occur on the same page, a double asterisk indicates the second note. The numbers in braces refer to the pagination in GA 1 and the 1972 edition (the reference is always to the end of the page). The first number is from GA 1; the second is from Frühe Schriften. The Latin text in the notes is based on the text of GA 1; we did not compare Heidegger’s Latin text with any of the Latin editions of Scotus’s or Thomas’s work. There are small differences between the Latin text of the 1972 edition and that of GA 1. Heidegger’s internal references in the notes have been updated to refer to the relevant sections of the present edition. Finally, we scrupulously reproduce Heidegger’s use of roman or italics in our translation, even though this differs from the dictates of style. Although this leads to some inconsistency (in fact, Heidegger’s use of italics or quotation marks to indicate terms is decidedly erratic), we felt it important to preserve Heidegger’s emphasis. This principle also applies to Heidegger’s placement of certain words in quotation marks: even if he doubles italics and quotation marks, we do not omit either in the interest of fidelity to his (potential) meaning. ACKNOWLEDGMENTS It r emains for us to thank the people who made this book possible. We do so individually. Joydeep Bagchee—Words cannot express my love and gratitude to Prof. Dr. Adluri. He not only taught me Heidegger; he also taught me to think as a philosopher. The circumstance that I took up Heidegger’s Habilitationsschrift of all his works (my own preference was for GA 62) is due to him: he insisted I translate it, noting Reiner Schürmann always said the core of Heidegger’s thought was already contained in it. Vishwa also introduced me to Arbogast Schmitt’s Modernity and Plato, without which I would not have appreciated Duns Scotus’s significance for modern philosophy. Prof. Dr. Schmitt recommended me to Vittorio Klostermann, thus securing the translation license. Dee Mortensen at Indiana University Press was instrumental in setting up translation contracts. Her faith in me was unwavering. My thanks to Jeff, my friend, cotranslator, and fellow Heideggerian. Jeffrey Gower—I gratefully acknowledge the friends and colleagues who contributed to this book in various ways. Walter Brogan’s generosity and mentorship over many years proved essential to my involvement with this project. I thank Joydeep Bagchee for the invitation to work on this project and for a convivial collaboration. Thanks to Christopher Noble for setting the collaboration in motion. Wabash College and the John J. Coss Memorial Fund supported travel that made it possible to collaborate in person. A debt of gratitude is due to Dee Mortensen for her patient stewardship of this project and to Ashante Thomas, Gary Dunham, and others at IUP for seeing the project through to its completion. My parents continue to offer love and support. I am xv xvi Ack now l e dgm en ts deeply grateful to Adriel M. Trott, who encourages and inspires me through her vitality and her thoughtful provocations. None of this would have been possible had I not had the great good fortune to become friends with my German language mentor at Whitman College, James Soden. I dedicate my efforts on this volume to his memory.