Kant and the limit of perfection -- From Königsberg to Marburg -- Natorp's theories of knowledge and history -- Natorp's Plato -- From Natorp to Heidegger -- The Friends of Form : the Archaist reception of Plato -- Heidegger's Plato.

The dissertation treats of Paul Natorp's and Martin Heidegger's interpretations of Plato. My goal is twofold: sympathetically to expound each of these interpretations in its own right, and to contrast them against each other as emblematic of the conflict between neo-Kantianism and Phenomenology . The philosophical controversy centers on the relation of thinking and being, a controversy which in this specific context may ultimately be traced back to Kant. Natorp and Heidegger both, for different reasons, return to the Platonic "theory (...) of forms" in order to ground their respective conceptions of thinking and being. Accordingly, I discuss in Chapter One the role of the Platonic forms in Kant's own philosophy. In Chapter Two, I examine the central doctrine of neo-Kantianism and its roots in post-Kantian German philosophy. In Chapter Three, I show how this doctrine is embodied in Natorp's analysis of several of Plato's dialogues. In Chapter Four, I lay out the principal points of Phenomenology's dispute with neo-Kantianism, as well as Heidegger's understanding of that dispute. Finally, in Chapter Five, I show how Heidegger's fundamental ontology is expressed in his interpretations of several key passages of Plato. (shrink)

(2005). Frameworks & foundations. Angelaki: Vol. 10, continental philosophy and the sciences the german traditionissue editor: damian veal, pp. 201-218.

In _Brill's Companion to the German Platonism_, an international team of scholars traces the interpretation and appropriation of Plato among German thinkers and writers from Nicholas of Cusa to Peter Sloterdijk, with special emphasis on nineteenth- and twentieth-century reception.