“Ultimate origins are only to be conceived from themselves and in themselves. One has to relentlessly keep in mind the circle set in the idea of the primal science itself” (16, 95). The aim of the first of these 1919 lectures is to make the case for phenomenology as a pre-theoretical primal science, capable of disclosing the sphere of experience, without ignoring that circle. Making this case requires a response to Paul Natorp’s objections to phenomenology and to his re-constructive method of determining what is immediate in experience (76). “Where then do I get the criterion for the re-construction from?” Heidegger asks, adding that Natorp’s “basic pan-logistic orientation keeps him from any free access to the sphere of experience” (107f). By contrast, phenomenology presents the possibility of experiencing and expressing the experience pre-theoretically and pre-objectively, “the hermeneutical intuition” of it in its worldly meaning (117).
The summer semester lectures contain “a phenomenological critique of the transcendental philosophy of value,” where “truth is considered a value and theoretical knowing a practical comportment standing under a norm” (127, 155). Heidegger takes aim mainly at the Neo-Kantian or, better, the “Neo-Fichtean” critical philosophy of culture and history, developed by Wilhelm Windelband and his student (Heidegger’s teacher) Heinrich Rickert (142–7). After sketching Windelband’s philosophy, Heidegger notes phenomenology’s influence on Rickert as a prelude to a resounding critique of his philosophy. Noteworthy, given Heidegger’s mature views of negation, are his critical discussions of the Neo-Kantians’ treatment of it (155–8, 200–3).