Heidegger's Platonism

Everyone in philosophy is aware of the gulf dividing contemporary analytic and twentieth-century continental philosophy. In many cases, unfortunately, this gulf is the product of mutual misunderstanding and suspicion, and it has prevented us from developing points of intersection between these schools of thought, which for too long have resembled warring camps or feuding families more than like-minded disciplines with a shared desire for the truth. Fortunately, however, this is beginning to change. More and more, philosophers are following the lead of Hubert Dreyfus and Richard Rorty by building bridges between thinkers and ideas in these traditions. This is good news for the profession of philosophy, but it is only the beginning. 

There is an equally unnecessary and unfruitful divide separating continental philosophy from mainstream ancient Greek philosophy and vice versa. Very broadly speaking, Heidegger’s Platonism is an attempt to build a bridge across this gulf. I rethink the Heidegger-Plato relationship in light of what we have gained from new developments in Plato scholarship, and I advance these developments in Plato scholarship in light of Heidegger’s revolutionary but still underappreciated interpretation of Plato in the 1930s and early 1940s. Wherever possible, I avoid the alienating neologisms and terms of art that are so common in continental philosophy, and I push back against the unphilosophical dismissals of Heidegger’s treatment of the Greeks that are so common among mainstream ancient Greek philosophers.