After eidos: Heidegger, Plato, and the end of the ideas

In Introduction to Heidegger writes: "In the end the word idea, eidos, 'idea,' came to the fore as the decisive and predominant name for being (physis). Since then the interpretation of being as idea has dominated all Western thinking throughout the history of its transformations down to the present day... But what does it mean that being should have been interpreted as idea in Plato?" This dissertation is an examination of Heidegger's contention that Platonic thinking is grounded in a fundamental interpretation of being, as idea, and that this interpretation proves to be a seminal one, which determines the course of all subsequent Western thinking. Although influenced by Heidegger's own interpretations of Plato, I take my primary cue from Heidegger in upholding the ideal of letting the Platonic dialogues "speak for themselves," in order to give an interpretation of why it is that Plato comes precisely to an understanding of being as eidds. I trace the history of Heidegger's own repeated confrontations with Plato in the light of the changing significance that Heidegger assigns to Plato within this "History of Being," and attempt to show both why Heidegger's thinking provides us with an essential clue to reading Plato today---namely in a light other than that of Platonism---and also where Heidegger's own attempts at a critique of Plato fall short insofar as they remain, despite Heidegger's own insight and emphasis on the distinction, critiques of Platonism. My conclusion is sympathetic to Heidegger's call for an overcoming of traditional metaphysics (which is a synonym for Platonism) but I argue that, when rescued from the tradition and read radically for himself---something which Heidegger's own thinking provides the key to doing, even as it prevents Heidegger himself from so doing---it is precisely Plato who can provide us not only with the most serious critique of so-called Platonism, but also who provides one of the fundamental philosophical alternatives facing thinkers today. My title, "After Eidos: Heidegger, Plato, and the End of the Ideas'' is meant to pose the question of reading Plato apart from the governing Western paradigm of Idealism, that is, after the reign of eidos as the unquestioned name for being. I argue that only when the Ideas are shaken loose from the petrified metaphysical tradition can they once more take their rightful place as one of the most urgent matters for philosophical thinking---precisely insofar as they are put into question.