I too have had trouble assessing how adequate Strauss' interpretation of Heidegger is. But to assess the adequacy of a view requires, of course, correctly understanding that view. Your interpretation -- to the degree that it can be presented in this format -- seems subject to a number of difficulties. For now, I just want to address a few thoughts about the lecture "Existentialism."
1. Essence precedes existence. Strauss certainly uses this phrase, but it is not clear that he attributes it to Heidegger. It is part of his polemical attempt to show that certain views that are not obviously connected to or implicated in existentialism -- such as some forms of positivism -- are, on deeper examination, nearly committed to it.
For example, the devotion to science, once questioned, clearly cannot receive a scientific justification. But if the devotion to science is not thus rational, it seems rooted in a groundless choice, based on the abyss of freedom -- so that Strauss can then note: "We are already in the midst of Existentialism." (309)
Similarly one who seeks with a sort of historical anthropology to catalog the available worldviews can only make real progress if all possible such views are grounded in an assessment of the human condition -- "If one takes this indispensable step one is again already at the threshold of Existentialism." (310)
Again, history of philosophy might lead one a kind of relativist reductionism so that, for example, the Stoic natural law doctrine seems to be rooted in the Greek shift from polis to empire. But this means that one's categorial system ("essences") are rooted in their actual social context ("existence"). (310)
Instead of utilizing Sartre to explicate Heidegger, Strauss is using Sartrean phrases polemically to show historians and social scientists (at least) that, far from being alien to existentialism, they may already be committed to it.
2. Modes of life. There is no doubt that in many of his works Strauss views the basic patterns from which individuals can choose as relatively well-known and -defined. But in this lecture he repeatedly notes that we cannot ever really know the limits of human possibility and creativity. Thus even if a certain choice seems demanded and fundamental, Strauss recognizes that this is a seeming truth, not a genuine or necessary one.
Again, he does not seem to attribute to Heidegger any concern with these issues. At most, he sees Heidegger as having emphasized the central role of "thrown project" in forming horizons and making meaning and understanding possible. This seems meant as a reading of the role of geworfene Entwurf as a structural moment in Daseins Sorge.
Strauss does not seem to think that this leads to any specific choices, certainly not among extant or "ready-made" options. At most, there seems here an option for a purely formal existentialism ethic, though Strauss avers that Heidegger never believed in such. (311)
3. Existence is highest. Here, Strauss clearly attributes this view to Heidegger. I am not familiar with the grounds on which to think that Heidegger claims that Being is "agnostic" about high and low. But the relevance of such a remark can only be assessed after addressing what Strauss meant by it.
In context, he states clearly the methodological point that the fundamental question of Being "must be primarily addressed to that being which *is* in the most emphatic or authoritative way." (312) Highest then means something like "methodologically prior."
And indeed, the main theme of Being and Time is an analysis of human existence. After the Introduction, the first sentence reads: "In the question about the meaning of Being, what is primarily interrogated is those entities (Seiendes) that have the character of Dasein." (65) On the previous page, Heidegger seeks to justify this: "We shall proceed towards the concept of Being by way of an interpretation of a certain special entity, Dasein..." (63). He makes it very clear that something special about Dasein gives it methodological priority in the search after the "universal" sense of Being: historicality and historiology.
In short, Strauss' point seems sound, as far as it goes.
However, Strauss is quite aware that Being and Time was never finished, and this because Heidegger came to see this approach as ultimately flawed. After the so-called Kehre or Turn, Heidegger seems to have written off B&T precisely because of this "anthropocentric" approach to the question of Being. Strauss is aware of this change, and notes that, whatever can be called "existentialism" in B&T, Heidegger chose to break from this view.
Among the objections that Strauss sees Heidegger as having leveled against the Existentialism of B&T, Strauss' #3 is an example of the paradox that follows from giving human existence a central place in addressing the meaning of Being (313). In conclusion: "Existence cannot be *the* clue, the clue to the understanding of that by virtue of which all beings are. ... the analytics of existence appears still to partake of modern subjectivism."
Let this suffice for the moment.
Elsewhere, Strauss claims that he stopped paying attention to Heidegger after the latter joined the NSDAP in 1933 -- for some twenty years. Clearly, Strauss came back to reading and thinking about "post-B&T" Heidegger sometime around the publication of Introduction to Metaphysics in 1953. What Strauss made of Heidegger's later work -- and he clearly knew a fair bit of it -- is for another occasion.
It took me some time to settle back into a sufficiently reflective mood, given that in the meanwhile, a work just erupted, but it is no excuse. Allow me to apologise for the delay.
1. You are broadly right, of course, that Strauss' move in the lecture is to try to show the reader how a position such as Weber's - which, it might be noted, itself became a new thing in America following the Jewish refugees, that brought with them their intellectual heritage that was somewhat foreign to the audience - implictly leads to the existentialist discussion, and not specifically to Heidegger. However, while grunting that, I reject the specific reading you allowed here for the utilisation of that specific phrase. I remain convinced that, according to the progression of the lecture itself, it is stated with implicit attribution to Heidegger himself, even though the overall argument is broader in scope. We'll have to look together at the text to settle this, because I simply don't see any other way.
2. Here we partly concur. I would, however, like a reference to the following assertion: "Thus even if a certain choice seems demanded and fundamental, Strauss recognises that this is a seeming truth, not a genuine or necessary one." And again, I suspect you minimise your reading of Strauss' views on Heidegger exclusively to the passages in which he directly attributes views to Heidegger or unavoidably utilises uniquely Heideggerian concepts. This somewhat downplays the illustrative and exemplary role Heidegger plays for Strauss in this and other texts. It is, however, in harmony with an essential critique I've made here of Strauss that at times he deliberately side-steps the issue of interpreting Heidegger by using alternative routes which are inherently ambiguous.
3. Here, I cannot but refer you back to the introduction of "Being and Time", which, to the best of my understanding, contains direct responses to your arguments, and it is unavoidable that Strauss knew it. This introduction deliberately sets the context for the entire work from the purview of the entire text, so its authoritativeness within "Being and Time" is, to my reading, without contest.
You claim that 'the highest' means, essentially, methodologically prior. I do not contest it. I merely add that I think it is also asserted that the highest means means methodologically prior, and this is plainly false (BT, H., 4). It is even more surprising since Heidegger makes it very clear that the existential analytic, for him, is a panultimate examination, meaning that even methodologically it is not yet fundamental, perhaps only merely necessary, as a full destruction of the history of metaphysics, which he carries out in other publications or courses in the same period, would be.
I strongly disagree with the view that "Heidegger came to see" Being and Time as too anthropocentric (let alone flawed), at least in the transcendental subjectivist sense of the term (which can be gleaned from his response to Robinson's book on the subject). If Strauss endorses this view (which I have a suspicion that he does, following some of his correspondence), it doesn't mean a thing about Heidegger, but merely extends the case I put forward here.
This also reflects on the assertion that Heidegger rejected Dasein as "the" clue for a fundamental ontology. It might be correct, and this is a more subtle account of the infamous Kehre, which, however, does not vindicate Strauss's reading as defended in your response, or the contradiction to the "height" of the Gods Strauss attributes to later Heidegger.
As for what Strauss made of Heidegger's later work, it might be repeated that following the correspondence with Kojeve, he thought of it, for whatever reason, as *better* than his earlier work. His reasoning there is astounding (and this correspondence is a very nice piece of "higher gossip", to borrow Berger's term).
Thank you very much for your response. I needed time to reflect carefully on your comment, and I hope what follows is worthy of the level of dialogue we are attempting. I apologize if this comment wanders a bit.
A) and B)
I am completely in agreement with you: Heidegger’s critique is structural and general. It does not target isolated authors but the inner movement of Western metaphysics as such. In his historical narrative, only a few figures are rescued as thinkers of an originary, non-metaphysical force; the pre-Socratics (especially Heraclitus), certain poets such as Hölderlin, and Meister Eckhart.
Yet the very gesture of destruction already contains a tension. Heidegger’s historicism functions as a general schema, but it tends to universalize its own horizon. There is, I believe, a subtle confusion between the general and the universal, between structural diagnosis and destinal narrative. The critique of metaphysics risks transforming itself into a universal history of Being.
This tension becomes more visible when Heidegger turns toward Ereignis. With the later thinking, philosophy becomes increasingly “ereignis-like”; the existential analytic yields to a topology of destining. At this point one can discern what resembles an announced eschatology; which explains the common distinction between the “first” and the “second” Heidegger.
Your critique strikes precisely here. Heidegger risks conflating the general structure of metaphysics with a universal account of Being itself. He does not sufficiently account for the ambitum; the historically situated horizon, from which his own thinking emerges. In this sense, alterity never fully escapes ontological absorption. His schema is extraordinarily powerful; yet its latent universalism renders it insufficient and, potentially, totalizing.
Here my Levinasian inclination becomes explicit. For Levinas, ontology cannot precede ethics. The face of the Other interrupts totality; it is not a moment within Being’s unfolding. Ontology, when made first philosophy, already risks violence.Similarly, Leo Strauss would never accept the primacy of ontology over ethics, nor certainly over politics. For Strauss, the question of the good and the structure of political life cannot be subordinated to a history-of-Being philosophy. The classical problem of justice cannot dissolve into ontological destiny.
The question of onto-theology intensifies this issue. In Heidegger’s reading of Descartes and Hegel, subjectivity and representation consolidate metaphysics into a structure of forgetfulness. The Cartesian subject and res extensa establish alterity as objectified presence, as what stands before a representing consciousness. Yet the attempt to overcome onto-theology does not automatically secure genuine otherness. Ontology may still absorb what it claims to liberate.
C)
I am currently writing my thesis on Heidegger and the so-called “Jewish question” in light of the Black Notebooks, in dialogue with Levinasian alterity. My first thesis was on Kierkegaard and the concept of renunciation, which means that my entry into Heidegger was never purely ontological. I am not simply “Being first,” nor advocating a Being-without-God. My concern has always been existential and ethical before it was ontological.
You are right: Heidegger’s relation to National Socialism is complex. It need neither be exaggerated nor minimized. He formally joined the Nazi Party in 1933 and never publicly recanted. At the same time, his thought cannot be reduced to vulgar ideological Nazism. That reduction explains little.The decisive issue lies elsewhere. The Black Notebooks show that Heidegger integrates reflections on “world Jewry” into his history-of-Being narrative. Judaism appears associated with calculative thinking, uprootedness, and the technological enframing of modernity. Even if this is not crude biological racism, it constitutes a metaphysical antisemitism.
The problem, therefore, is not simply political affiliation. It is that when ontology claims primacy over ethics and politics, alterity can be interpreted as a historical function within Being’s destining. The Other becomes legible within a narrative that precedes responsibility.
Where Heidegger remains absolutely relevant, however, is in his diagnosis of nihilism. Non-ontological thinking; even when God remains conceptually present, can culminate in nihilism. The mere invocation of God does not prevent metaphysical emptiness. In that sense, Heidegger’s critique cannot simply be dismissed; it forces theology and ethics alike to confront their own metaphysical presuppositions.
E)
Hermeneutics is essential to the first unfolding of Dasein; and I do not mean hermeneutics in a merely textualist sense, but in the sense of facticity. Understanding is existential; Dasein interprets itself within an already disclosed world.
It is true that Heidegger is deeply textual in his later work, yet the “text” itself was never the ultimate problem for him. The issue was always disclosure.
Just as Dasein becomes da-sein, da-Seyn, and Da Seyn in the later writings, hermeneutics also undergoes transformation. It mutates into something closer to hermetics; not obscurity, but structural sealing. Hermeneutics opens Dasein; hermetics opens world. The emphasis shifts from existential self-interpretation to the topology of world-configuration.Here Heinrich Rombach becomes decisive (much more than Gadamer, in my opinion). As a student of Heidegger, Rombach develops a structural ontology in which world is no longer a correlate of subjectivity but a dynamic structural field that precedes individual positioning. Structure, not subject, becomes primary. His work allows one to articulate the transition from hermeneutic interpretation to structural world-opening, (which is still hermeneutics).
I thought I'd have time to continue this correspondence, but unfortunately, it seems that מה שהלב חושק הזמן עושק. As it is, I think we've reached the upper limit of what this platform is capable of for structured discussion. I do hope for a continuation of this exchange in the future, under a different theme.
I very much appreciated this open letter, thank you sincerely for sharing it.
I am not especially well-versed in Leo Strauss; I have read what is fundamental in order to grasp his position. His thought can, in some respects, be reflected as Aristotelian; particularly if one seeks within his school a kind of semiotics of being grounded in classical rationalism. However this may also be something of a mirage. I tend to see Strauss less as a metaphysician of Being and more as a thinker of enduring structures; structures that unfold from a worldview that both shapes culture and is shaped by it. As for Martin Heidegger, he argues, most decisively in Being and Time and later in Introduction to Metaphysics, that since Socrates, and especially through Plato and Aristotle, Western metaphysics has forgotten the question of Being. The decisive error, in his view, lies in conflating Being (Sein) with beings (Seiendes), and subsequently reducing truth to correctness, truth as mere correspondence between statement and fact. Against this, Heidegger retrieves the Greek notion of aletheia as unconcealment, reorienting thought toward the event of disclosure rather than toward epistemic validation.
In his later work, this develops into what he calls the “history of Being” (Seinsgeschichte), where epochs of thought are understood as different sendings or unveilings of Being. The technological age appears, in this narrative, as the culmination of metaphysics. One might interpret this trajectory as carrying an eschatological tone, though this reading is not universally accepted. Some interpret it instead as a poetic-ontological meditation rather than a theological or eschatological claim. I personally see a mix of both.
Heidegger’s so-called historicist phase can indeed be read as hermeneutic, influenced in part by Wilhelm Dilthey, before expanding into his broader ontological project. Hermeneutics, for him, is not simply a method but the existential structure of Dasein itself. There is no equivalent eschatological dimension in Strauss. In works such as Natural Right and History and Persecution and the Art of Writing, Strauss is primarily concerned with the recovery of classical political philosophy and the enduring tension between reason and revelation. If one were to approach Strauss from a Heideggerian standpoint, a possible critique might be that Strauss remains within the metaphysical framework Heidegger seeks to overcome, perhaps sustaining the very conflation between Being and beings, or between ontology and the public semantics of truth. From that angle, Strauss’s emphasis on esotericism and political form would remain at the level of structured discourse rather than addressing the ontological difference as such.At bottom, their divergence may rest on what each takes to be the core crisis of modernity: for Strauss, it is fundamentally political and moral, the loss of natural right; for Heidegger, it is ontological, the forgetting of Being itself.
Ok, I had a little time on my hands, and I snatched it to write the comment, sure that Heidegger would disapprove of such reckless reckoning with once temporality.
(1) As for your analysis of Strauss, I tend to think you are right, at least to some extent. It should be noted right away that Strauss is, usually, by no means a metaphysical thinker, at least not since his doctoral dissertation. It is true, however, that he has a specific bent for Grosspolitik. However, if asked, I'd still say that his real interest lies in the hermeneutics of the ancients, although much more sociological-political than the usual semiotically oriented interest. In this sense, whatever some of his students have done (or grand-students) Grosspolitik seems to be removed from the core of his work (=unfolding of enduring structures and worldviews).
(2) Your initial description of Heidegger is exact, although I would add a rather small correction (pan intended) - Heidegger does preserve, throughout his life, a commitment to the truth of the truth of correspondence, albeit as secondary always, etc.
(3) As for the question of eschatology, you are right that it is contested, but I tend to agree with you that there's a mixture here. In my opinion, it largely depends on how his morning was on the day he wrote such stuff.
(4) I'm curious to understand what you mean when you say Heidegger's historicist phase, or historicist in general, in relation to Heidegger. I tend to think of the hermeneutic element in his thought as secondary, indeed as you say, a remnant from Dilthey, but still - what does historicist mean here? For instance, it is very clear to his student, Gadamer, that hermeneutics, or rather interpretation, never entails a method. You are completely correct, however, that in relation to fundamental ontology in Being and Time, hermeneutics does play a significant role in understanding the existential structure of Dasein.
(5) I'm not sure I follow you in understanding how hermeneutics specifically relates to the eschatological element in Heidegger's thought. I can guess, but I wouldn't want to presume.
(6) As for the critique you say will be mounted from a Heideggerian standpoint on Strauss' project, I dare say you are right. But then again, this is the form of Heideggerian critique always and in relation to anyone else (almost). In other words, I wouldn't say this is a specific critique of Strauss, but I dare say he has some response to it insofar as he tries to show the primacy of political philosophy over metaphysics. In the sense of "public semantic of truth", well, here the critique is Heideggerian, but then again, Strauss is not Arendt, and the public sphere (with its limitations in Heidegger's thought) never comes to play as a foundational role for him. Esotericism is all about the play of private and public, which prima facie wouldn't trouble Heidegger. Your analysis of how they define the crisis (metaphysical vs political) is very true, although I'm not sure why modernity itself would become for either of them the focal point that allows for an essential comparison. Why not, say, the general thematic (metaphysical vs political) itself, or the Eternal Questions (Strauss) vs The Question of Being? (for instance)
Thank you for your response. I rarely have exchanges of this great philosophical level; truly, thank you.
A) I fully agree with you. My position regarding Strauss is that he is indeed a thinker of structures. But according to a Heideggerian analytic of his work, that does not make him non-metaphysical; rather, it makes him metaphysical in a precise sense. The grounding in enduring structures does not question the ontology (ontologische Voraussetzungen) from which those structures arise. And for that reason, according to Heidegger, Strauss would still count as a thinker within metaphysics; not because he deals with classical metaphysical themes, but because he does not enact a Destruktion of the ontological ground of his inquiry. From a Heideggerian standpoint, remaining within structural permanence without interrogating the difference between Sein and Seiendes risks remaining within what Heidegger calls Seinsvergessenheit. Strauss operates at the level of enduring political forms and the “eternal questions,” but he does not ask about the Lichtung in which those questions become intelligible in the first place. In that sense, even his anti-modern gesture remains metaphysical.
B) On truth as correspondence, I would very much like to write a short essay, because it is so often misunderstood. I agree with you: Heidegger does not say that truth as correspondence (adaequatio intellectus et rei or Richtigkeit) is false. He says it is derivative (abkünftig). More precisely: truth as correctness presupposes a more originary disclosure (Erschlossenheit) of beings. Only when Being is unconcealed as aletheia (Unverborgenheit) can the mechanism of correspondence make sense. The statement can correspond to the thing only because the thing is already disclosed within a clearing (Lichtung). However, I would slightly refine one formulation: correspondence does not arise from a mere confusion between Being and beings. Rather, the confusion lies in reducing truth to propositional correctness (Aussagenwahrheit) and thereby forgetting the more originary happening of truth (Wahrheitsgeschehen). Without aletheia, correspondence becomes a kind of sign-covering device that promotes (fördert!) the oblivion of Being by confining truth to ontic alignment between subject and object. It functions within the realm of the ontisch, while concealing the ontologische dimension.
C) I do not know how you see it, but in his readings of Hölderlin, Trakl, and Stefan George I see a kind of founding eschatology. Hölderlin becomes for Heidegger not only the poet of the word, but the poet of Geschick; the destining of a people. The poet inaugurates (stiftet) a historical destiny. In that sense, I do see something like an announced eschatology; not Christian-apocalyptic, certainly not teleological in a Hegelian sense, but a destinal temporality (geschichtliches Geschick). The language of das Kommende and even der kommende Gott carries undeniable eschatological resonance. The Rectoral Address intensifies this ambiguity. It is both founding and decadent, at least that is how it appears to me. The invocation of Selbstbehauptung and the historical mission of the German university blends ontological language with the aesthetic-political atmosphere of National Socialism. Whether Heidegger later successfully separates ontological destiny from political nationalism is highly questionable. But the tonal shift is undeniable.
D) I understand your curiosity about my use of the term “historicist.” I use it because he returns again and again to the question of history and historiography. He seeks the end of Historie and the destruction of the history of ontology (Destruktion der Ontologiegeschichte), yet in doing so he intensifies historical reflection itself. Here I see a paradox similar to what Heidegger says about Nietzsche. Nietzsche, in rebelling against Platonism and Hegelian metaphysics, becomes, in Heidegger’s reading, the completion (Vollendung) of metaphysics. In a similar way, Heidegger, in radicalizing historical reflection, risks becoming the culmination of historical thinking itself. Of course, Heidegger would insist on the distinction between Historie (objectifying historiography) and Geschichte or even Seinsgeschichte (the history of Being). Whether this transformation truly escapes historicism, or merely deepens it, remains open.
E) Rather than prematurely defining what I mean by hermeneutic transfiguration, I am curious what you have in mind. But I suspect the hinge lies in this: in Sein und Zeit, hermeneutics is existential "hermeneutische Phänomenologie". Interpretation belongs to Dasein’s being-in-the-world. Later, however, interpretation becomes epochal. Each epoch is a sending (Sendung) of Being. If interpretation is bound to epochal clearing, then transitions between epochs carry a tension that almost resembles an eschatological moment, especially in the language of the “other beginning” (der andere Anfang). It is not apocalypse, but it is not neutral history either.
F) Perhaps here the crucial difference between both thinkers becomes visible. Strauss is a thinker of large structures; for him, the political and the cultural condition the horizon in which meaning appears. It is not that Being founds the polis in a metaphysical sense; that would indeed be the Hegelian schema both reject. But Heidegger would argue that any polis is possible only within a prior clearing of Being. Strauss, on the other hand, could respond, with a certain moment of truth, that every invocation of Being already presupposes a political horizon, a regime of intelligibility, a historically formed structure that grants sense to the very act of saying “Being.” And here the divergence becomes radical: for Heidegger, politics is ontologically derivative. For Strauss, ontology is always already politically mediated (not meant as determinism!).
Thank you for engaging in this complex discussion. It is very rare that I get to have a discussion at this level. I omitted the points I agree with you on without any further ado in a failed attempt to keep this short.
(A) I see two issues here. The first one is that this strategy of Heideggerian critique is valid, but misses the substance, or Being, if you will, of the theme. It is the sort of Heideggerian critique that will be virtually mounted against almost any thinker, not just Strauss in particular. Take a thinker -> find the persistent element -> make the ontological distinction. The second issue is that, to my knowledge, Strauss is not that easy, precisely because he studied Heidegger, even if, in scholarly terms, we may say he is still wanting. And here Strauss does have some interesting moves. What is it precisely that allows Heidegger evade, to a certain extent, the founding of a metaphysical system? Well, the ontological difference. How do we conceive (at least early on) of this difference? Well, we refer to the question of being. Why does the question of being allow access to the difference in a manner that classical metaphysics doesn't? It is because of the temporal structure of questioning. In this respect, we should point out that Strauss does significant work to show that not answers but questions are at the heart of the classical tradition. His enduring structures are, to a certain extent, enduring questions. Now, it could be that he *has* to assume a certain metaphysical background to these questions. But for the most part, this is not what he is doing. As you say, he says that these questions outrank metaphysical questions, and in fact, his account of Socrates says that this is precisely the Socratic move, to understand that now the question about being (for him = nature) could be understood without the question of what is the good life. This is not far enough from Heidegger (which also has a similar move, but perhaps dissimilar in fundamental respects) to simply allow for the conventional method of Heideggerian critique.
(C) You are very right that the themes you point out do point to an eschatological dimension. However, the "mixture" comes from the fact that there are other themes at work in his thought, no less foundational. Let's put aside for a moment the question of national politics, which is a tricky one with him. Personally, I do hold that he is a far more conventional Nazi than is usually assumed, but also that he genuinely "moved away" at some point from placing any hopes in Germany. That being said, his occupation with the Greeks, Hölderlin, Nietzsche, etc has a distinctive anti-eschatological flavour to it at times, not to mention even the more apocalyptic essays such as The Question Concerning Technology. The Greeks, in general, offer him a distinctive counterweight to the eschatological thinking in his thought, the joyfulness of the Greeks, if you will.
(D) I understand what you mean now. Nevertheless, it seems to me that what you mean by historicism can be broadly understood as thought centred around or stemming from a historical conception. This is a rather loose concept. The big advantage Strauss has here is that he offers a more precise understanding of the concept of historicism. I'm just not sure his variation of the concept applies to or can be taken as a legitimate criticism of Heidegger. I'm also less sure, especially as Heidegger delves deeper into the Destruktion throughout his thought, that this aspect of his thought retains any significant relation to historiology (as he calls it) or to historiography, any more than to the natural sciences.
(E) This lies at the heart of my question. No doubt, hermeneutics plays a role for Heidegger in fundamental ontology. I do question, however, whether hermeneutics plays any significant role, if at all, as he moves on to Seinsgeschichte. As his thought progresses, it seems that his understanding of hermeneutics as a philosophical or methodological stance weakens dramatically. Consider even the modes of access to the phenomena he considers later on. It is not simply by naively addressing phenomena, or even by reappropriating traditional philosophical texts, that he secures his themes. It is by considering poets from a standpoint that already has a distinct orientation in itself (Denken) that he approaches phenomena. This is very far from anything in Dilthey, Schleimacher or even Gadamer to the point that I don't fully understand how hermeneutics fits in here anymore.
(F) You hit the nail on its head as far as I can tell. I haven't gone into this question deeply enough (as I repeatedly say), but yes, this is where I did get to. I didn't playout the confrontation any further, although perhaps other people did.
Thank you very much for this thoughtful comment - it makes the whole platform worthwhile. I've read it a few times, and I think I might offer some thoughts of my own. Unfortunately, I don't have time now to give an extensive response. See this comment as a promise to be fulfilled later this week.
I too have had trouble assessing how adequate Strauss' interpretation of Heidegger is. But to assess the adequacy of a view requires, of course, correctly understanding that view. Your interpretation -- to the degree that it can be presented in this format -- seems subject to a number of difficulties. For now, I just want to address a few thoughts about the lecture "Existentialism."
1. Essence precedes existence. Strauss certainly uses this phrase, but it is not clear that he attributes it to Heidegger. It is part of his polemical attempt to show that certain views that are not obviously connected to or implicated in existentialism -- such as some forms of positivism -- are, on deeper examination, nearly committed to it.
For example, the devotion to science, once questioned, clearly cannot receive a scientific justification. But if the devotion to science is not thus rational, it seems rooted in a groundless choice, based on the abyss of freedom -- so that Strauss can then note: "We are already in the midst of Existentialism." (309)
Similarly one who seeks with a sort of historical anthropology to catalog the available worldviews can only make real progress if all possible such views are grounded in an assessment of the human condition -- "If one takes this indispensable step one is again already at the threshold of Existentialism." (310)
Again, history of philosophy might lead one a kind of relativist reductionism so that, for example, the Stoic natural law doctrine seems to be rooted in the Greek shift from polis to empire. But this means that one's categorial system ("essences") are rooted in their actual social context ("existence"). (310)
Instead of utilizing Sartre to explicate Heidegger, Strauss is using Sartrean phrases polemically to show historians and social scientists (at least) that, far from being alien to existentialism, they may already be committed to it.
2. Modes of life. There is no doubt that in many of his works Strauss views the basic patterns from which individuals can choose as relatively well-known and -defined. But in this lecture he repeatedly notes that we cannot ever really know the limits of human possibility and creativity. Thus even if a certain choice seems demanded and fundamental, Strauss recognizes that this is a seeming truth, not a genuine or necessary one.
Again, he does not seem to attribute to Heidegger any concern with these issues. At most, he sees Heidegger as having emphasized the central role of "thrown project" in forming horizons and making meaning and understanding possible. This seems meant as a reading of the role of geworfene Entwurf as a structural moment in Daseins Sorge.
Strauss does not seem to think that this leads to any specific choices, certainly not among extant or "ready-made" options. At most, there seems here an option for a purely formal existentialism ethic, though Strauss avers that Heidegger never believed in such. (311)
3. Existence is highest. Here, Strauss clearly attributes this view to Heidegger. I am not familiar with the grounds on which to think that Heidegger claims that Being is "agnostic" about high and low. But the relevance of such a remark can only be assessed after addressing what Strauss meant by it.
In context, he states clearly the methodological point that the fundamental question of Being "must be primarily addressed to that being which *is* in the most emphatic or authoritative way." (312) Highest then means something like "methodologically prior."
And indeed, the main theme of Being and Time is an analysis of human existence. After the Introduction, the first sentence reads: "In the question about the meaning of Being, what is primarily interrogated is those entities (Seiendes) that have the character of Dasein." (65) On the previous page, Heidegger seeks to justify this: "We shall proceed towards the concept of Being by way of an interpretation of a certain special entity, Dasein..." (63). He makes it very clear that something special about Dasein gives it methodological priority in the search after the "universal" sense of Being: historicality and historiology.
In short, Strauss' point seems sound, as far as it goes.
However, Strauss is quite aware that Being and Time was never finished, and this because Heidegger came to see this approach as ultimately flawed. After the so-called Kehre or Turn, Heidegger seems to have written off B&T precisely because of this "anthropocentric" approach to the question of Being. Strauss is aware of this change, and notes that, whatever can be called "existentialism" in B&T, Heidegger chose to break from this view.
Among the objections that Strauss sees Heidegger as having leveled against the Existentialism of B&T, Strauss' #3 is an example of the paradox that follows from giving human existence a central place in addressing the meaning of Being (313). In conclusion: "Existence cannot be *the* clue, the clue to the understanding of that by virtue of which all beings are. ... the analytics of existence appears still to partake of modern subjectivism."
Let this suffice for the moment.
Elsewhere, Strauss claims that he stopped paying attention to Heidegger after the latter joined the NSDAP in 1933 -- for some twenty years. Clearly, Strauss came back to reading and thinking about "post-B&T" Heidegger sometime around the publication of Introduction to Metaphysics in 1953. What Strauss made of Heidegger's later work -- and he clearly knew a fair bit of it -- is for another occasion.
It took me some time to settle back into a sufficiently reflective mood, given that in the meanwhile, a work just erupted, but it is no excuse. Allow me to apologise for the delay.
1. You are broadly right, of course, that Strauss' move in the lecture is to try to show the reader how a position such as Weber's - which, it might be noted, itself became a new thing in America following the Jewish refugees, that brought with them their intellectual heritage that was somewhat foreign to the audience - implictly leads to the existentialist discussion, and not specifically to Heidegger. However, while grunting that, I reject the specific reading you allowed here for the utilisation of that specific phrase. I remain convinced that, according to the progression of the lecture itself, it is stated with implicit attribution to Heidegger himself, even though the overall argument is broader in scope. We'll have to look together at the text to settle this, because I simply don't see any other way.
2. Here we partly concur. I would, however, like a reference to the following assertion: "Thus even if a certain choice seems demanded and fundamental, Strauss recognises that this is a seeming truth, not a genuine or necessary one." And again, I suspect you minimise your reading of Strauss' views on Heidegger exclusively to the passages in which he directly attributes views to Heidegger or unavoidably utilises uniquely Heideggerian concepts. This somewhat downplays the illustrative and exemplary role Heidegger plays for Strauss in this and other texts. It is, however, in harmony with an essential critique I've made here of Strauss that at times he deliberately side-steps the issue of interpreting Heidegger by using alternative routes which are inherently ambiguous.
3. Here, I cannot but refer you back to the introduction of "Being and Time", which, to the best of my understanding, contains direct responses to your arguments, and it is unavoidable that Strauss knew it. This introduction deliberately sets the context for the entire work from the purview of the entire text, so its authoritativeness within "Being and Time" is, to my reading, without contest.
You claim that 'the highest' means, essentially, methodologically prior. I do not contest it. I merely add that I think it is also asserted that the highest means means methodologically prior, and this is plainly false (BT, H., 4). It is even more surprising since Heidegger makes it very clear that the existential analytic, for him, is a panultimate examination, meaning that even methodologically it is not yet fundamental, perhaps only merely necessary, as a full destruction of the history of metaphysics, which he carries out in other publications or courses in the same period, would be.
I strongly disagree with the view that "Heidegger came to see" Being and Time as too anthropocentric (let alone flawed), at least in the transcendental subjectivist sense of the term (which can be gleaned from his response to Robinson's book on the subject). If Strauss endorses this view (which I have a suspicion that he does, following some of his correspondence), it doesn't mean a thing about Heidegger, but merely extends the case I put forward here.
This also reflects on the assertion that Heidegger rejected Dasein as "the" clue for a fundamental ontology. It might be correct, and this is a more subtle account of the infamous Kehre, which, however, does not vindicate Strauss's reading as defended in your response, or the contradiction to the "height" of the Gods Strauss attributes to later Heidegger.
As for what Strauss made of Heidegger's later work, it might be repeated that following the correspondence with Kojeve, he thought of it, for whatever reason, as *better* than his earlier work. His reasoning there is astounding (and this correspondence is a very nice piece of "higher gossip", to borrow Berger's term).
Thank you very much for your response. I needed time to reflect carefully on your comment, and I hope what follows is worthy of the level of dialogue we are attempting. I apologize if this comment wanders a bit.
A) and B)
I am completely in agreement with you: Heidegger’s critique is structural and general. It does not target isolated authors but the inner movement of Western metaphysics as such. In his historical narrative, only a few figures are rescued as thinkers of an originary, non-metaphysical force; the pre-Socratics (especially Heraclitus), certain poets such as Hölderlin, and Meister Eckhart.
Yet the very gesture of destruction already contains a tension. Heidegger’s historicism functions as a general schema, but it tends to universalize its own horizon. There is, I believe, a subtle confusion between the general and the universal, between structural diagnosis and destinal narrative. The critique of metaphysics risks transforming itself into a universal history of Being.
This tension becomes more visible when Heidegger turns toward Ereignis. With the later thinking, philosophy becomes increasingly “ereignis-like”; the existential analytic yields to a topology of destining. At this point one can discern what resembles an announced eschatology; which explains the common distinction between the “first” and the “second” Heidegger.
Your critique strikes precisely here. Heidegger risks conflating the general structure of metaphysics with a universal account of Being itself. He does not sufficiently account for the ambitum; the historically situated horizon, from which his own thinking emerges. In this sense, alterity never fully escapes ontological absorption. His schema is extraordinarily powerful; yet its latent universalism renders it insufficient and, potentially, totalizing.
Here my Levinasian inclination becomes explicit. For Levinas, ontology cannot precede ethics. The face of the Other interrupts totality; it is not a moment within Being’s unfolding. Ontology, when made first philosophy, already risks violence.Similarly, Leo Strauss would never accept the primacy of ontology over ethics, nor certainly over politics. For Strauss, the question of the good and the structure of political life cannot be subordinated to a history-of-Being philosophy. The classical problem of justice cannot dissolve into ontological destiny.
The question of onto-theology intensifies this issue. In Heidegger’s reading of Descartes and Hegel, subjectivity and representation consolidate metaphysics into a structure of forgetfulness. The Cartesian subject and res extensa establish alterity as objectified presence, as what stands before a representing consciousness. Yet the attempt to overcome onto-theology does not automatically secure genuine otherness. Ontology may still absorb what it claims to liberate.
C)
I am currently writing my thesis on Heidegger and the so-called “Jewish question” in light of the Black Notebooks, in dialogue with Levinasian alterity. My first thesis was on Kierkegaard and the concept of renunciation, which means that my entry into Heidegger was never purely ontological. I am not simply “Being first,” nor advocating a Being-without-God. My concern has always been existential and ethical before it was ontological.
You are right: Heidegger’s relation to National Socialism is complex. It need neither be exaggerated nor minimized. He formally joined the Nazi Party in 1933 and never publicly recanted. At the same time, his thought cannot be reduced to vulgar ideological Nazism. That reduction explains little.The decisive issue lies elsewhere. The Black Notebooks show that Heidegger integrates reflections on “world Jewry” into his history-of-Being narrative. Judaism appears associated with calculative thinking, uprootedness, and the technological enframing of modernity. Even if this is not crude biological racism, it constitutes a metaphysical antisemitism.
The problem, therefore, is not simply political affiliation. It is that when ontology claims primacy over ethics and politics, alterity can be interpreted as a historical function within Being’s destining. The Other becomes legible within a narrative that precedes responsibility.
Where Heidegger remains absolutely relevant, however, is in his diagnosis of nihilism. Non-ontological thinking; even when God remains conceptually present, can culminate in nihilism. The mere invocation of God does not prevent metaphysical emptiness. In that sense, Heidegger’s critique cannot simply be dismissed; it forces theology and ethics alike to confront their own metaphysical presuppositions.
E)
Hermeneutics is essential to the first unfolding of Dasein; and I do not mean hermeneutics in a merely textualist sense, but in the sense of facticity. Understanding is existential; Dasein interprets itself within an already disclosed world.
It is true that Heidegger is deeply textual in his later work, yet the “text” itself was never the ultimate problem for him. The issue was always disclosure.
Just as Dasein becomes da-sein, da-Seyn, and Da Seyn in the later writings, hermeneutics also undergoes transformation. It mutates into something closer to hermetics; not obscurity, but structural sealing. Hermeneutics opens Dasein; hermetics opens world. The emphasis shifts from existential self-interpretation to the topology of world-configuration.Here Heinrich Rombach becomes decisive (much more than Gadamer, in my opinion). As a student of Heidegger, Rombach develops a structural ontology in which world is no longer a correlate of subjectivity but a dynamic structural field that precedes individual positioning. Structure, not subject, becomes primary. His work allows one to articulate the transition from hermeneutic interpretation to structural world-opening, (which is still hermeneutics).
I thought I'd have time to continue this correspondence, but unfortunately, it seems that מה שהלב חושק הזמן עושק. As it is, I think we've reached the upper limit of what this platform is capable of for structured discussion. I do hope for a continuation of this exchange in the future, under a different theme.
לַלֵּב קֶצֶב מִשֶּׁלּוֹ… אַךְ הַזְּמַן, לְצַעֲרֵנוּ, אֵינוֹ נוֹהֵג לְפִי פְּעִימוֹתָיו.
Whenever I write about Identität und Differenz, I’ll let you know. Thank you very much for the exchange.
I very much appreciated this open letter, thank you sincerely for sharing it.
I am not especially well-versed in Leo Strauss; I have read what is fundamental in order to grasp his position. His thought can, in some respects, be reflected as Aristotelian; particularly if one seeks within his school a kind of semiotics of being grounded in classical rationalism. However this may also be something of a mirage. I tend to see Strauss less as a metaphysician of Being and more as a thinker of enduring structures; structures that unfold from a worldview that both shapes culture and is shaped by it. As for Martin Heidegger, he argues, most decisively in Being and Time and later in Introduction to Metaphysics, that since Socrates, and especially through Plato and Aristotle, Western metaphysics has forgotten the question of Being. The decisive error, in his view, lies in conflating Being (Sein) with beings (Seiendes), and subsequently reducing truth to correctness, truth as mere correspondence between statement and fact. Against this, Heidegger retrieves the Greek notion of aletheia as unconcealment, reorienting thought toward the event of disclosure rather than toward epistemic validation.
In his later work, this develops into what he calls the “history of Being” (Seinsgeschichte), where epochs of thought are understood as different sendings or unveilings of Being. The technological age appears, in this narrative, as the culmination of metaphysics. One might interpret this trajectory as carrying an eschatological tone, though this reading is not universally accepted. Some interpret it instead as a poetic-ontological meditation rather than a theological or eschatological claim. I personally see a mix of both.
Heidegger’s so-called historicist phase can indeed be read as hermeneutic, influenced in part by Wilhelm Dilthey, before expanding into his broader ontological project. Hermeneutics, for him, is not simply a method but the existential structure of Dasein itself. There is no equivalent eschatological dimension in Strauss. In works such as Natural Right and History and Persecution and the Art of Writing, Strauss is primarily concerned with the recovery of classical political philosophy and the enduring tension between reason and revelation. If one were to approach Strauss from a Heideggerian standpoint, a possible critique might be that Strauss remains within the metaphysical framework Heidegger seeks to overcome, perhaps sustaining the very conflation between Being and beings, or between ontology and the public semantics of truth. From that angle, Strauss’s emphasis on esotericism and political form would remain at the level of structured discourse rather than addressing the ontological difference as such.At bottom, their divergence may rest on what each takes to be the core crisis of modernity: for Strauss, it is fundamentally political and moral, the loss of natural right; for Heidegger, it is ontological, the forgetting of Being itself.
Ok, I had a little time on my hands, and I snatched it to write the comment, sure that Heidegger would disapprove of such reckless reckoning with once temporality.
(1) As for your analysis of Strauss, I tend to think you are right, at least to some extent. It should be noted right away that Strauss is, usually, by no means a metaphysical thinker, at least not since his doctoral dissertation. It is true, however, that he has a specific bent for Grosspolitik. However, if asked, I'd still say that his real interest lies in the hermeneutics of the ancients, although much more sociological-political than the usual semiotically oriented interest. In this sense, whatever some of his students have done (or grand-students) Grosspolitik seems to be removed from the core of his work (=unfolding of enduring structures and worldviews).
(2) Your initial description of Heidegger is exact, although I would add a rather small correction (pan intended) - Heidegger does preserve, throughout his life, a commitment to the truth of the truth of correspondence, albeit as secondary always, etc.
(3) As for the question of eschatology, you are right that it is contested, but I tend to agree with you that there's a mixture here. In my opinion, it largely depends on how his morning was on the day he wrote such stuff.
(4) I'm curious to understand what you mean when you say Heidegger's historicist phase, or historicist in general, in relation to Heidegger. I tend to think of the hermeneutic element in his thought as secondary, indeed as you say, a remnant from Dilthey, but still - what does historicist mean here? For instance, it is very clear to his student, Gadamer, that hermeneutics, or rather interpretation, never entails a method. You are completely correct, however, that in relation to fundamental ontology in Being and Time, hermeneutics does play a significant role in understanding the existential structure of Dasein.
(5) I'm not sure I follow you in understanding how hermeneutics specifically relates to the eschatological element in Heidegger's thought. I can guess, but I wouldn't want to presume.
(6) As for the critique you say will be mounted from a Heideggerian standpoint on Strauss' project, I dare say you are right. But then again, this is the form of Heideggerian critique always and in relation to anyone else (almost). In other words, I wouldn't say this is a specific critique of Strauss, but I dare say he has some response to it insofar as he tries to show the primacy of political philosophy over metaphysics. In the sense of "public semantic of truth", well, here the critique is Heideggerian, but then again, Strauss is not Arendt, and the public sphere (with its limitations in Heidegger's thought) never comes to play as a foundational role for him. Esotericism is all about the play of private and public, which prima facie wouldn't trouble Heidegger. Your analysis of how they define the crisis (metaphysical vs political) is very true, although I'm not sure why modernity itself would become for either of them the focal point that allows for an essential comparison. Why not, say, the general thematic (metaphysical vs political) itself, or the Eternal Questions (Strauss) vs The Question of Being? (for instance)
Thank you for your response. I rarely have exchanges of this great philosophical level; truly, thank you.
A) I fully agree with you. My position regarding Strauss is that he is indeed a thinker of structures. But according to a Heideggerian analytic of his work, that does not make him non-metaphysical; rather, it makes him metaphysical in a precise sense. The grounding in enduring structures does not question the ontology (ontologische Voraussetzungen) from which those structures arise. And for that reason, according to Heidegger, Strauss would still count as a thinker within metaphysics; not because he deals with classical metaphysical themes, but because he does not enact a Destruktion of the ontological ground of his inquiry. From a Heideggerian standpoint, remaining within structural permanence without interrogating the difference between Sein and Seiendes risks remaining within what Heidegger calls Seinsvergessenheit. Strauss operates at the level of enduring political forms and the “eternal questions,” but he does not ask about the Lichtung in which those questions become intelligible in the first place. In that sense, even his anti-modern gesture remains metaphysical.
B) On truth as correspondence, I would very much like to write a short essay, because it is so often misunderstood. I agree with you: Heidegger does not say that truth as correspondence (adaequatio intellectus et rei or Richtigkeit) is false. He says it is derivative (abkünftig). More precisely: truth as correctness presupposes a more originary disclosure (Erschlossenheit) of beings. Only when Being is unconcealed as aletheia (Unverborgenheit) can the mechanism of correspondence make sense. The statement can correspond to the thing only because the thing is already disclosed within a clearing (Lichtung). However, I would slightly refine one formulation: correspondence does not arise from a mere confusion between Being and beings. Rather, the confusion lies in reducing truth to propositional correctness (Aussagenwahrheit) and thereby forgetting the more originary happening of truth (Wahrheitsgeschehen). Without aletheia, correspondence becomes a kind of sign-covering device that promotes (fördert!) the oblivion of Being by confining truth to ontic alignment between subject and object. It functions within the realm of the ontisch, while concealing the ontologische dimension.
C) I do not know how you see it, but in his readings of Hölderlin, Trakl, and Stefan George I see a kind of founding eschatology. Hölderlin becomes for Heidegger not only the poet of the word, but the poet of Geschick; the destining of a people. The poet inaugurates (stiftet) a historical destiny. In that sense, I do see something like an announced eschatology; not Christian-apocalyptic, certainly not teleological in a Hegelian sense, but a destinal temporality (geschichtliches Geschick). The language of das Kommende and even der kommende Gott carries undeniable eschatological resonance. The Rectoral Address intensifies this ambiguity. It is both founding and decadent, at least that is how it appears to me. The invocation of Selbstbehauptung and the historical mission of the German university blends ontological language with the aesthetic-political atmosphere of National Socialism. Whether Heidegger later successfully separates ontological destiny from political nationalism is highly questionable. But the tonal shift is undeniable.
D) I understand your curiosity about my use of the term “historicist.” I use it because he returns again and again to the question of history and historiography. He seeks the end of Historie and the destruction of the history of ontology (Destruktion der Ontologiegeschichte), yet in doing so he intensifies historical reflection itself. Here I see a paradox similar to what Heidegger says about Nietzsche. Nietzsche, in rebelling against Platonism and Hegelian metaphysics, becomes, in Heidegger’s reading, the completion (Vollendung) of metaphysics. In a similar way, Heidegger, in radicalizing historical reflection, risks becoming the culmination of historical thinking itself. Of course, Heidegger would insist on the distinction between Historie (objectifying historiography) and Geschichte or even Seinsgeschichte (the history of Being). Whether this transformation truly escapes historicism, or merely deepens it, remains open.
E) Rather than prematurely defining what I mean by hermeneutic transfiguration, I am curious what you have in mind. But I suspect the hinge lies in this: in Sein und Zeit, hermeneutics is existential "hermeneutische Phänomenologie". Interpretation belongs to Dasein’s being-in-the-world. Later, however, interpretation becomes epochal. Each epoch is a sending (Sendung) of Being. If interpretation is bound to epochal clearing, then transitions between epochs carry a tension that almost resembles an eschatological moment, especially in the language of the “other beginning” (der andere Anfang). It is not apocalypse, but it is not neutral history either.
F) Perhaps here the crucial difference between both thinkers becomes visible. Strauss is a thinker of large structures; for him, the political and the cultural condition the horizon in which meaning appears. It is not that Being founds the polis in a metaphysical sense; that would indeed be the Hegelian schema both reject. But Heidegger would argue that any polis is possible only within a prior clearing of Being. Strauss, on the other hand, could respond, with a certain moment of truth, that every invocation of Being already presupposes a political horizon, a regime of intelligibility, a historically formed structure that grants sense to the very act of saying “Being.” And here the divergence becomes radical: for Heidegger, politics is ontologically derivative. For Strauss, ontology is always already politically mediated (not meant as determinism!).
Thank you for engaging in this complex discussion. It is very rare that I get to have a discussion at this level. I omitted the points I agree with you on without any further ado in a failed attempt to keep this short.
(A) I see two issues here. The first one is that this strategy of Heideggerian critique is valid, but misses the substance, or Being, if you will, of the theme. It is the sort of Heideggerian critique that will be virtually mounted against almost any thinker, not just Strauss in particular. Take a thinker -> find the persistent element -> make the ontological distinction. The second issue is that, to my knowledge, Strauss is not that easy, precisely because he studied Heidegger, even if, in scholarly terms, we may say he is still wanting. And here Strauss does have some interesting moves. What is it precisely that allows Heidegger evade, to a certain extent, the founding of a metaphysical system? Well, the ontological difference. How do we conceive (at least early on) of this difference? Well, we refer to the question of being. Why does the question of being allow access to the difference in a manner that classical metaphysics doesn't? It is because of the temporal structure of questioning. In this respect, we should point out that Strauss does significant work to show that not answers but questions are at the heart of the classical tradition. His enduring structures are, to a certain extent, enduring questions. Now, it could be that he *has* to assume a certain metaphysical background to these questions. But for the most part, this is not what he is doing. As you say, he says that these questions outrank metaphysical questions, and in fact, his account of Socrates says that this is precisely the Socratic move, to understand that now the question about being (for him = nature) could be understood without the question of what is the good life. This is not far enough from Heidegger (which also has a similar move, but perhaps dissimilar in fundamental respects) to simply allow for the conventional method of Heideggerian critique.
(C) You are very right that the themes you point out do point to an eschatological dimension. However, the "mixture" comes from the fact that there are other themes at work in his thought, no less foundational. Let's put aside for a moment the question of national politics, which is a tricky one with him. Personally, I do hold that he is a far more conventional Nazi than is usually assumed, but also that he genuinely "moved away" at some point from placing any hopes in Germany. That being said, his occupation with the Greeks, Hölderlin, Nietzsche, etc has a distinctive anti-eschatological flavour to it at times, not to mention even the more apocalyptic essays such as The Question Concerning Technology. The Greeks, in general, offer him a distinctive counterweight to the eschatological thinking in his thought, the joyfulness of the Greeks, if you will.
(D) I understand what you mean now. Nevertheless, it seems to me that what you mean by historicism can be broadly understood as thought centred around or stemming from a historical conception. This is a rather loose concept. The big advantage Strauss has here is that he offers a more precise understanding of the concept of historicism. I'm just not sure his variation of the concept applies to or can be taken as a legitimate criticism of Heidegger. I'm also less sure, especially as Heidegger delves deeper into the Destruktion throughout his thought, that this aspect of his thought retains any significant relation to historiology (as he calls it) or to historiography, any more than to the natural sciences.
(E) This lies at the heart of my question. No doubt, hermeneutics plays a role for Heidegger in fundamental ontology. I do question, however, whether hermeneutics plays any significant role, if at all, as he moves on to Seinsgeschichte. As his thought progresses, it seems that his understanding of hermeneutics as a philosophical or methodological stance weakens dramatically. Consider even the modes of access to the phenomena he considers later on. It is not simply by naively addressing phenomena, or even by reappropriating traditional philosophical texts, that he secures his themes. It is by considering poets from a standpoint that already has a distinct orientation in itself (Denken) that he approaches phenomena. This is very far from anything in Dilthey, Schleimacher or even Gadamer to the point that I don't fully understand how hermeneutics fits in here anymore.
(F) You hit the nail on its head as far as I can tell. I haven't gone into this question deeply enough (as I repeatedly say), but yes, this is where I did get to. I didn't playout the confrontation any further, although perhaps other people did.
Thank you very much for this thoughtful comment - it makes the whole platform worthwhile. I've read it a few times, and I think I might offer some thoughts of my own. Unfortunately, I don't have time now to give an extensive response. See this comment as a promise to be fulfilled later this week.