TY - JOUR T1 - Heidegger’s “Fourfold” as a Critique of Idolatry JF - Monatshefte SP - 489 LP - 510 DO - 10.1353/mon.2012.0115 VL - 104 IS - 4 AU - Markus Weidler Y1 - 2012/12/21 UR - http://mon.uwpress.org/content/104/4/489.abstract N2 - Heidegger’s conception of “the fourfold,” or Geviert, and the meaning of its various aspects (“earth and sky, divinities and mortals”) is notoriously elusive. As a remedy to this situation I propose to read the fourfold as a programmatic blueprint for critiquing idolatry. Heidegger’s central concern, I argue, lies with idolatrous aspirations toward immortality, which are typically generated in certain cultural milieus. To make this case, I will draw on recent commentaries by Julian Young and Mark Johnston as well as on one of Heidegger’s near contemporaries, Georg Simmel. Specifically, Simmel’s milieu-based analyses in Philosophical Culture (1911) provide the much needed illustrations that will allow us to render Heidegger’s own culture-critical insights more concrete, with respect to the fourfold’s dynamic structure and inner tensions. (MW) ER -