Heidegger and the inevitable dialogue with Eastern thought

Abstract

The reflection on the inevitable dialogue with Eastern thought expressed by Heidegger is intriguing, considering that no other philosopher in the history of Western philosophy has been so distant and yet so close to Eastern thought as he was. His distance is expressed by his repeated and categorical assertions that philosophy is essentially a Western experience. His closeness, which is less explicit, lies in the fact that Heidegger was the first Western thinker who, in the context of philosophy, mentions that openness to the dialogue with the East might provide solutions to issues that Western metaphysics has failed to solve. The idea of openness to the dialogue with the East in Heidegger has its direct reference in the dialogue with the Greek world, the return to the source, which becomes central in his thinking from the late 1930s. Keywords: West, East, thought, Heidegger