Resituating Heidegger’s Topology of Being : Meaning - Truth - Place

Does the link Heidegger draws between meaning, truth and place (as topos) allow us to resituate his thought of being?

If so, to what extent? This volume gathers some of the leading Heidegger scholars on the issue of place to explore Heidegger’s ‘topology of being’, elucidating the significance of what remains an enigmatic aspect of the philosopher’s work. The chapters explore the development of Heidegger’s topological thinking over the decades, identifying and explaining the links, shifts and breaks between the early, middle and late periods of his work. In doing so, they shed light on a link—between meaning, truth and place—that is evoked but not fully explicated by Heidegger himself, asking where the thinking of place is situated and where this topology, in turn, situates Heidegger’s thought of being.

The first three parts of the volume illuminate Heidegger’s trifold framing of his own philosophical trajectory, inquiring into the respective steps and concepts of his thinking and thematising the ‘meaning’ (Sein), ‘truth’ (Wahrheit-aletheia), and ‘place’ (Ort, Ortschaft, topos) of being. Each section concerns itself with a period of Heidegger’s thought, from the hermeneutics of the 1920s to the unequivocal topological focus of his later thought, via the engagement with Hölderlin and transition from ‘meaning’ to ‘truth/unconcealment’. The concluding Part IV examines the ways in which Heidegger’s thinking of place, time and technology not only coincides with but is located at the heart of the most pressing concerns of our age. This will demonstrate how the Heideggerian notion of place or placedness is crucial in engaging with the issues of the post-Covid world, from education and cosmopolitanism to the Anthropocene and AI.