Heidegger vs Thomas Aquinas

Martin Heidegger in his Marburg lectures, Introduction to Phenomenological Research, broadly attempts to trace phenomenology through the history of philosophy. Through the course of Heidegger’s search for phenomenology (with an emphasis on ontology) within the philosophical tradition he analyzes Thomas Aquinas’ determination of truth laid forth in De veritate. Heidegger principally examines the first question, articles 1-3 and 9 in attempt to demonstrate that Thomas laid the groundwork for the later Cartesian belief that the primordial grounding of truth is located in the res cogitans. It is the Thomistic understanding of truth which, according to Heidegger, leads the philosophical tradition toward the individualist appropriation of ontology that we find in modernity. Hence, my research consists of Heidegger’s specific argument against Thomas in his commentary on De veritate, as well as the ramifications of such an interpretation among the broader scholarly dialogue that has been developing between Thomas Aquinas and Heidegger. The thesis of this work consists of a critique of the Heideggerian interpretation of Thomas in his commentary on De veritate, question 1, articles 1-3 and 9. Moreover, this work has a twofold aim, namely to draw out the potential Heideggerian misinterpretation of Thomas’ determination of truth within De veritate, as well as situating such an argument within the larger scope of the interpenetrating dialogue of Thomistic and Heideggerian ontology. The audience of such a work are those interested in a potential dialogue between Thomism and Heideggerian ontology, a dialogue that exposes a latent misinterpretation on the part of Heidegger, yet not without the potential to expose possible commonalities.