Philosophical Topics

Volume 43, Issue 1/2, Spring/Fall 2015

The Evolution of Modern Metaphysics

Phenomenology and Metaphysics
On Moore’s Heidegger

Moore claims, refreshingly, that Heidegger’s Being and Time is a metaphysical work. Moore also claims, strikingly, that Heidegger, indeed phenomenology more generally, would be better off dropping its metaphysical pretensions. Moore objects that phenomenology can have genuine metaphysical import only by incurring commitment to an untenable idealism. I defend Heidegger against this objection. Heideggerian phenomenology is metaphysical—it raises the question of, and makes commitments about, what it is for things to be—without any untenable idealism.