Heidegger, Metaphysics and the Univocity of Being

by Philip Tonner

In Heidegger, Metaphysics and the Univocity of Being, Philip Tonner presents an interpretation of the philosophy of Martin Heidegger in terms of the doctrine of the 'univocity of being'. According to the doctrine of univocity there is a fundamental concept of being that is truly predicable of everything that exists. This book explores Heidegger's engagement with the work of John Duns Scotus, who raised philosophical univocity to its historical apotheosis.
Early in his career, Heidegger wrote a book-length study of what he took to be a philosophical text of Duns Scotus'. Yet, the word 'univocity' rarely features in translations of Heidegger's works. Tonner shows, by way of a comprehensive discussion of Heidegger's philosophy, that a univocal notion of being in fact plays a distinctive and crucial role in his thought. This book thus presents a novel interpretation of Heidegger's work as a whole that builds on a suggested interpretation by Gilles Deleuze in Difference and Repetition and casts a new light on Heidegger's philosophy, clearly illuminating his debt to Duns Scotus.

230 pages, Hardcover

First published January 17, 2010

Reviews

[Daniel · Rating 3 out of 5]

A very curious book to be sure. Philip Tonner argues, in contrast with Thomas Sheehan, that by subordinating Being to time (time is the meaning of Being / the condition for the possibility of Being), Heidegger works within a univocal framework. Instead of viewing this negatively, as Radical Orthodoxy philosophers are inclined to do, Tonner claims, following Deleuze, that we can only avoid onto-theology through a univocal notion of Being.

This being said, in making his argument, Tonner summarizes a large number of Heidegger's works to the point where I was wondering if such summaries were really necessary. Moreover, the book is marked by an almost aggravating clarity. Far too many sections seemed to be lists of propositions that ought to have been edited for better flow.

In the end, I'm not yet sure if I agree with Tonner's interpretation. I certainly don't follow him in maintaining that analogical Being leads to onto-theology. Far from it. In fact, as far as I'm concerned, Aquinas avoids onto-theology precisely because of his reliance on analogical Being. Scotus' univocal philosophy, by contrast, leads to a very problematic form of onto-theology.