Martin Heidegger
Curriculum Vitae 1915
translated by Thomas Sheehan
I, Martin Heidegger, born on September 26, 1889, in Messkirch (Baden), the son of the
sexton and master cooper Friedrich Heidegger and of his wife Johanna née Kempf,
attended elementary and middle school in Messkirch. Beginning in 1900, I received
private instruction in Latin, so that in 1903 I was able to enter the first-year class
[Untertertia] of the gymnasium in Constance. I am grateful to Dr. Konrad Gröber, at that
time rector of the minor seminary and currently pastor in the city of Constance, for
decisive intellectual influence. After completing the third year of high school
[Untersekunda] I attended the Berthold Gymnasium in Freiburg in Breisgau until
reception of the high-school baccalaureate (summer 1909).
During the fourth year [Obersekunda], when instruction in mathematics moved away
from merely solving problems and more onto the theoretical plane, my preference for this
discipline became a quite focused interest, which extended to physics as well. Incentives
also came from religion classes, which led me to do extensive reading in the theory of
biological evolution.
In the last year of high school it was above all the Plato classes of Gymnasium Professor
Widder, who died several years ago, that introduced me to philosophical problems more
consciously, though not yet with theoretical rigor.
After completing the gymnasium, I entered the University of Freiburg in Breisgau in the
winter semester of 1909, and I remained there without interruption until 1913. At first I
studied theology. The lecture courses in philosophy that were prescribed at the time did
not satisfy me much, so I resorted to studying Scholastic textbooks on my own. They
provided me with some schooling in formal logic, but as regards philosophy they did not
give me what I was looking for and had found in the area of apologetics through the
works of Herman Schell.
Besides the Small Summa of Thomas Aquinas and some of the works of Bonaventure, the
Logische Untersuchungen of Edmund Husserl was decisive for the course of my
scientific development. The earlier work by the same author, Die Philosophie der
Arithmetik, at the same time placed mathematics in a whole new light for me.
After three semesters, my intense engagement with philosophical problems, along with
the tasks of my own professional studies [in theology], resulted in severe exhaustion.
My heart trouble, which had come about earlier from playing too much sports, broke out
so severely that any later employment in the service of the church was taken to be
extremely questionable. Therefore in the winter semester of 1911-1912 I enrolled in the
Department of Natural Sciences and Mathematics.
My philosophical interest was not lessened by the study of mathematics. On the contrary,
since I no longer had to follow the compulsory lecture courses in philosophy, I could
attend a larger number of lecture courses in philosophy and above all could take part in
the seminar exercises conducted by Privy Councillor Rickert. In this new school I learned
first and foremost to understand philosophical problems as problems, and I acquired
insight into the essence of logic, the philosophical discipline that still interests me the
most. At the same time I acquired a correct understanding of recent philosophy from
Kant onward, a matter that I found sparsely and inadequately treated in the Scholastic
literature. My basic philosophical convictions remained those of Aristotelian-Scholastic
philosophy. With time I recognized that the intellectual wealth stored up in it must permit
of -- indeed, demands -- a far more fruitful exploitation and utilization. Therefore, in my
dissertation on Die Lehre vom Urteil im Psychologismus, I took my bearings both from
modern logic and from basic Aristotelian-Scholastic premises and sought to find a basis
there for further investigations of a central problem of logic and epistemology. On the
basis of this work, I was allowed by the Philosophical Faculty of Freiburg University to
take the oral examination for the doctorate, which I passed on July 26, 1913.
As a result of my study of Fichte and Hegel, my intense engagement with Rickert's Die
Grenzen der naturwissenschachaftlichen Begriffsbildung, the investigations of Dilthey,
and not least of all lecture courses and seminar exercises with Privy Councillor Finke, my
aversion to history, which had been nurtured in me by my predilection for mathematics,
was thoroughly destroyed. I recognized that philosophy should not be oriented onesidedly either to mathematics and natural science or to history, but that the latter,
precisely as the history of the human spirit [Geistesgeschichte], can fructify philosophy to
a far greater degree.
My increasing interest in history facilitated for me a more intense engagement with the
philosophy of the Middle Ages, an engagement that I recognized as necessary for a
radical extension of Scholasticism. For me this engagement consists not primarily in a
presentation of the historical relations between individual thinkers, but rather in an
interpretative understanding of the theoretical content of their philosophy with the means
provided by modern philosophy. This resulted in my investigation into Die Kategorienund Bedeutungslehre des Duns Scotus.
This investigation has also engendered in me the plan for a comprehensive presentation
of medieval logic and psychology in the light of modern phenomenology, together with a
consideration of the historical position of individual medieval thinkers. If I am permitted
to assume the duties of scientific research and teaching, my life's work will be dedicated
to the realization of this plan.