A Comparison Between early and later Heidegger on Plato’s Ideas

Plato’s doctrine of ideas can be considered his most important doctrine. Throughout the history of philosophy, each philosopher, according to the problem he faced, has returned to this doctrine. One of the problems that Western philosophers have faced in the contemporary world is the nihilism and meaninglessness of western civilization. Martin Heidegger considers the root of this meaninglessness to be oblivion of Being and oblivion of truth as unhiddenness and disconcealment. Heidegger believes that Plato’s doctrine of ideas is the cause of this oblivion, Plato made ideas the foundation of beings, and this has no meaning other than oblivion of Being. Using phenomenology, Heidegger returns to Plato’s allegory of the cave to elucidate the nature of this oblivion. Heidegger’s interpretation of ideas changes over time, because in his later thinking, Heidegger passes through the phenomenology of Dasein and pays attention to the openness of Being. Later Heidegger explains the idea and the eidos based on the openness of Being and considers the presence of the present dependent on this openness. In this paper, we will try to examine the relationship between early and later Heidegger's view on Plato’s ideas.