1. W. V. O. Quine, “On What There Is,” inFrom a Logical Point of View(New York: Harper & Row, 1961), pp. 1–19.
2. Theodore Kisiel, “Why Students of Heidegger Will Have To Read Emil Lask,” inEmil Lask and the Search for Concreteness, ed. Deborah Chaffin (Evanston: Northwestern University Press, 1992), note #22.
3. Emil Lask,Die Logik der Philosophie und die Kategorienlehre, inGesammelte SchriftenVol. II, ed. Eugen Herrigel (Tübingen: J.C.B. Mohr, 1923), p.210. References to this work, first published in 1911, will henceforth be incorporated into the text, abbreviated “LP.” All translations from previously untranslated works of Lask and Heidegger are my own.
4. The phrase is Quine's, but it is perfectly applicable to Heidegger's early “logicist” treatment of meaning. See W.V.O. Quine, “Two Dogmas of Empiricism,” inFrom a Logical Point of View(New York: Harper & Row, 1961), p. 22.
5. It is not my intention in this paper to trace exhaustively the development of Heidegger's reflections on logic and meaning. To do so would require extended treatment of the shift in Heidegger's position which begins in his early Freiburg period (1919–1923) and is documented in the lecture courses from the time, now published in theGesamtausgabe:Vol. 56/57,Zur Bestimmung der Philosophie, (Frankfurt: Klostermann, 1987); Vol. 61,Phänomenologische Interpretationen zu Aristoteles: Einführung in die phänomenologische Forschung, (Frankfurt: Klostermann, 1985); and Vol. 63,Ontologie (Hermeneutik der Faktizität), (Frankfurt: Klostermann, 1988). Some interesting studies of this material have already appeared. See, for example, the articles in theDilthey-Jarbuch, Vol. 4 (1986–87), especially: Theodore Kisiel, “Das Entstehen des Begriffsfeldes ‘Faktizität’ im Frühwerk Heideggers,” pp.91–120; Carl-Friedrich Gethmann, “Philosophie als Vollzug und als Begriff. Heideggers Identitätsphilosophie des Lebens in der Vorlesung vom Wintersemester 1921/22 und ihr Verhältnis zuSein und Zeit,”pp.27–53; and Friedrich Hogemann, “Heideggers Konzeption der Phänomenologie in den Vorlesungen aus dem Wintersemester 1919/1920 und dem Sommersemester 1920,” pp. 54–71. The present study is limited to identifying certain features of Heidegger's early reception of Lask which remain important throughout his development. I will turn very briefly at the end to some consideration of the presence of these themes inSein und Zeit, but this can hardly replace the necessary (and still outstanding) full treatment of that text and its pre-history in the tradition of transcendental logic.