HEIDEGGER’S WILL TO POWER, Journal of the British Society for Phenomenology, Vol. 38, No. 1 (January 2007): 37-60

I argue that Heidegger deliberately composed the Beiträge zur Philosophie in order to keep it as an unpublished work throughout his life. In 1935, Heidegger was named to the board of directors for the National Socialist edition of Nietzsche’s collected works. This experience brought Heidegger into contact with the editorial forces that control an author’s legacy, even an author of Nietzsche’s formidable stylistic powers. And as is typical enough, the parallel Heidegger drew was a personal one. In response, Heidegger composed what might stand as his own “Nachlaß” material. The Beiträge would then work to limit Heidegger’s vulnerability to editorial manipulation inasmuch as it could be claimed as Heidegger’s authoritative legacy. For if, as we do know, Heidegger himself first composed and arranged and then left the order of his manuscript (and corresponding typescript) unaltered from 1939 until his death in 1976, we have today nothing less substantially significant than a radical reordering of the order or arrangement of the divisions of the Beiträge as it has in the interim been published in both German and English editions. Shifted from its original position as the section following the prelude, Seyn, now makes up the eighth section as the final division of the text