Pragmatic,Existentialist and Phenomenological Interpretations of Marxism

In his book, Hermeneutics and Reflection (2013), Friedrich-Wilhelm von Herrmann outlines what he sees as the fundamental differences between Edmund Husserl’s “theoretical” phenomenology and Martin Heidegger’s “a-theoretical” phenomenology, which he frames in terms of the distinction between “reflective observation” and “hermeneutic understanding”. In this paper, I will clarify the sense of these terms in order to elucidate some of the crucial similarities and differences between Husserl and Heidegger. Against von Herrmann’s characterization of the Husserlian project, I argue that we should not consider these differences in terms of “reflection”, since this runs the risk of misconstruing Husserlian phenomenology with the philosophical tradition he was striving against. Taken together, by way of a close reading of von Herrmann, the following discussion will serve as a brief sketch of the early Heidegger’s turn away from Husserlian phenomenology and toward his own hermeneutic phenomenology.     

Further Ado concerning Dasein's “Undifferentiated Mode”: Distinguishing the Indifferent Inauthenticity of Average Everyday Dasein from the Possibility of Genuine Failure

In this paper, I argue against the interpretive view that locates an “undifferentiated mode” – a mode in which Dasein is neither authentic nor inauthentic – in Being and Time. Where Heidegger seems to be claiming that Dasein can exist in an “undifferentiated mode”, he is better understood as discussing a phenomenon I call indifferent inauthenticity. The average everyday “Indifferenz” which is often taken as an indication of an “undifferentiated mode”, that is, is better understood as a failure to distinguish between the possibilities of authentic and inauthentic self-understanding. Dasein's average everyday self-understanding is indifferent to this distinction, and I show that this is precisely what renders it inauthentic. Recognizing this distinction, however, is not enough to render Dasein authentic. Rather, it opens up the possibility of a non-indifferent inauthenticity and what Heidegger calls the possibility of “genuine failure”. To read an “undifferentiated mode” into Being and Time is to misunderstand its methodological progression from Dasein's average everyday, inauthentic self-understanding to its authenticity – “to the thing itself”. A select few passages may at first seem to indicate otherwise. However, Being and Time – like both being in general and Dasein itself – cannot be properly understood “without further ado”.     

“Im Anfang liegt alles beschlossen”: Hannah Arendts politisches Denken im Schatten eines Heideggerschen Problems

The article seeks to understand Hannah Arendt's political thinking by relating it to an issue which is crucial to the thinking of the later Heidegger, i.e., the problem of originality ( Anfänglichkeit) and history. In opposition to Hegel's thesis of the “end of art,” Heidegger envisages in “great art” such as Hölderlin's poetry a new origin of thinking and history. The end of art, which Hegel holds to be necessary, is in Heidegger's view to be overcome precisely because art, for him, entails an origin which is not a “Not yet” of a teleological perfection in Hegel's sense, but a “Not yet” of a future history. However, Heidegger's orientation towards a “pure” origin qua future leads him to poietically escape the realm of the Political and the questions of praxis and practical rationality. Like Heidegger, Arendt is taken with the problem of origin; but in contrast to her former teacher, she tries to regain what Heidegger thought he could leave, viz., the dimension of the genuine Political and of acting. The original sense of acting (for Arendt, the capability of human beings to make a new beginning) can be observed in the Greek polis as well as in the American Revolution in modern times: The revolutionary act of a total new beginning elucidates, according to Arendt, what “acting” means in the full and truly political sense. However, Arendt's notion of an epochal beginning seems one-sided, and her abstract concept of acting seems to foster a mere actionism and anarchy. Therefore, contrary to Arendt's claims, the concept of the Political which she shapes in accordance with the extraordinary experiences of an epochal acting has apolitical consequences. The task of thinking after Heidegger and Arendt thus remains one of determining the political character of action in a convincing manner. In this respect, the paper pleads for a rethinking of Hegel's concept of ethical life ( Sittlichkeit).     

“I am NN”: A Reconstruction of Anscombe's “The First Person”

This paper develops a way of understanding G. E. M. Anscombe's essay “The First Person” at the heart of which are the following two ideas: first, that the point of her essay is to show that it is not possible for anyone to understand what they express with “I” as an Art des Gegebenseins—a way of thinking of an object that constitutes identifying knowledge of which object is being thought of; and second, that the argument through which her essay seeks to show this is itself first personal in character. Understanding Anscombe's essay in this light has the merit of showing much of what it says to be correct. But it sets us the task of saying what it is that we understand ourselves to express with “I” if not an Art des Gegebenseins, and in particular what it is that we understand ourselves to express with sentences with “I” as subject that might seem to express identity judgments, such as “I am NN”, and “I am this body”.     

Love as a Problem of Knowledge in Kierkegaard's Either/Or and Plato's Symposium

At the end of the essay “Silhouettes” in Either/Or, Kierkegaard writes, “only the person who has been bitten by snakes knows what one who has been bitten by snakes must suffer.” I interpret this as an allusion to Alcibiades' speech in Plato's Symposium. Kierkegaard invites the reader to compare Socrates with Don Giovanni, and Alcibiades with the seducer's women. Socrates' philosophical method, in this light, is a deceptive seduction: just as Don Giovanni's seduction leads his conquests to unhappy love—what Kierkegaard terms “reflective sorrow”—so the elenctic method leads Socrates' interlocutors to aporia, not to knowledge. I offer a critique of Socrates' ironic stance as a philosopher, which stance is reflected in the theory of love he presents in the Symposium, and suggest that philosophy should be modeled on the romantic love of persons—a love that can be reciprocated—not the love of an impersonal Form, a one-sided love.     

Making sense of Heidegger’s ‘phenomenology of the inconspicuous’ or inapparent (<Emphasis Type="Italic">Phänomenologie des Unscheinbaren</Emphasis>)

In Heidegger’s last seminar, which was in Zähringen in 1973, he introduces what he called a “phenomenology of the inconspicuous” (Phänomenologie des Unscheinbaren). Despite scholars’ occasional references to this “approach” over the last 40 years, this approach of Heidegger’s has gone largely under investigated in secondary literature. This article introduces three different, although not necessarily conflicting ways in which these sparse references to inconspicuousness can be interpreted: (1) The a priori of appearance can never be brought to manifestation, and the unscheinbar (inconspicuous) is interwoven with the 相似文献   

Heidegger: The Role of Logic in his Thought

Since his inaugural lecture at Freiburg in 1929 in which Heidegger delivered his most celebrated salvo against logic, he has frequently been portrayed as an anti-logician, a classic example of the obscurity resultant upon a rejection of the discipline of logic, a champion of the irrational, and a variety of similar things. Because many of Heidegger's statements on logic are polemical in tone, there has been no little misundersanding of his position in regard to logic, and a great deal of distortion of it. All too frequently the position which is attacked as Heidegger's is a barely recognizable caricature of it. We shall, therefore, attempt to determine precisely what Heidegger understands by logic. When he “attacks” logic, as he did in the inaugural lecture, as well as in many other of his writings, what “logic” is he attacking? The word “logic” is, after all, placed in quotation marks which would seem to indicate some special sense. This paper will argue that if one takes logic as it has traditionally been understood and practiced that one is forced to the conclusion that it is incompatible with Heidegger's “way of thought” (Denkweg). This rejection of logic, however, does not deliver him up to irrationalism or the enthronement of blind instinct in place of reason, as some of his critics have charged. Neither is it a self-indulgent refusal to achieve clarity and precision which ends in a kind of mystical pseudo-poetry. Rather, it will be argued, it represents a quite valid, and indeed rich, approach to Being, though certainly not a “logical” one in the traditional sense.     

Review Essay: Constructivism with a Human Face

Irwin Hoffman's book Ritual and Spontaneity includes, but goes well beyond, his series of seminal papers—written over the past several decades—developing a psychoanalytic, constructivist perspective. A new, existential framework depicts what Hoffman calls the “psychobiological bedrock” at the core of the human process of constructing meaning—the lifelong effort to create a livable, subjective world in face of our ever present sense of loss, suffering, and, ultimately, mortality.

This review describes Hoffman's encompassing, existential perspective and discusses how, within this framework, he uses his dialectical sensibility to frame our understanding of both parenting and analysis as “semisacred” activities. The “dialectic of ritual and spontaneity”—the vital clash between disciplined adherence to the analytic frame and personally expressive deviations from it—represents the creative tension between the “magical” dimension of analytic authority and the healing influence of a genuinely expressive human relationship. Hoffman's perspective on the self-interested, “dark side” of the analytic relationship is compared with Winnicott's views on the vital, therapeutic role of “hate” and the paradoxical process by which the patient comes to “use” the analyst.

Unlike most postmodernist “constructivists,” Hoffman openly reveals his underlying belief in certain “transcultural, transhistorical universals”—his “psychobiological bedrock.” In acknowledging these “essentials” (assumptions about human nature) that in some form are integral, yet often hidden, elements of any system of thought, Hoffman saves his own dialectical constructivism from falling into dichotomous (constructivist vs. essentialist) thinking.     

Heidegger,technology and ecology

Abstract

This article investigates Heidegger’s views on technology, specifically focussing on whether it is possible to fit Heidegger’s ideas into an ecologically minded framework. The author concludes that the question of what we should do in the wake of the technological crisis we face is inappropriate in terms of Heidegger’s philosophy, since he proposes that we should first tackle the question “What should we think?”. The question whether Heidegger’s ideas on technology provide us with new paths of action, specifically in terms of ecological practice, is flawed.     

The coming of history: Heidegger and Nietzsche against the present

Heidegger’s 1938–1939 seminar on Nietzsche’s On the Utility and Liability of History for Life continues Heidegger’s grand interpretation of Nietzsche as a metaphysical thinker of presence. Nietzsche’s conceptions forgetting, memory, and even life itself, according to Heidegger, are all complicit in the privileging of presence. Simultaneous with his seminar, Heidegger is also compiling the notebook, Die Geschichte des Seyns (The History of Beyng), 1938–1940, wherein he sketches his own conception of history. Examining Heidegger’s criticisms of Nietzsche in the light of his contemporaneous notebook allows us to articulate Heidegger’s concern for history and for “what has-been” (das Gewesene) as a thinking of the “coming” of being. For Heidegger, to exist historically is to exist as something sent, something arriving, as something that “comes” to us. This coming of history is an ontological determination of all that is, no longer construed as present-at-hand objects, but as always arriving, relational beings. After presenting Heidegger’s view of the coming of history, I return to Nietzsche’s Utility and Liability of History to draw attention to an aspect of his text that is neglected by Heidegger, that of the political. The concluding sections of Nietzsche’s text confront the politics of the present, in both senses of the genitive, in order to rally against the closure of society. In the conclusion to the paper, I turn to the political dimension of Nietzsche’s thinking of history with an eye to how it might elude Heidegger’s interpretation.     

“Heidegger’s Biological Nietzsche”

Heidegger’s lecture courses on Nietzsche give prominent attention to the question of what he calls “Nietzsche’s Alleged Biologism”. This biologism is what has been labelled the official Nazi reading of Nietzsche. Yet, there is no single Nazi reading of Nietzsche. There were biologistic and non-biologistic Nazi readings of Nietzsche, as well as anti-Nietzschean Nazis such as Ernst Krieck who denied that his philosophy was either socialist, nationalist, or racial. I will show that Heidegger’s reading of Nietzsche is a critique of the so-called official Nazi reading of Nietzsche as biologistic. However, Heidegger is not merely replacing the Nazi biologistic reading with a metaphysical reading, for his metaphysical reading of Nietzsche is biological, in a distinct sense. Although I reject this metaphysical reading, Heidegger aids my project of constructing a non-naturalist, yet physical reading of Nietzsche in at least four ways: 1) he rejects the Nazi biologistic reading of Nietzsche; 2) he sets forth distinct notions of the biological and the physical akin to Nietzsche; 3) he argues against scientific naturalism in favour of an alternative mode of knowing; and 4) he recognises that rather than reducing everything to nature, Nietzsche anticipates him in intertwining more originary, dynamic notions of physis and techne.     

Categories of Life: The Status of the Camp in Derrida and Agamben

This essay is an exploration of the relationship between Agamben's 1995 text, Homo Sacer, and Derrida's 1992 “Force of Law” essay. Agamben attempts to show that the camp, as the topological space of the state of exception, has become the biopolitical paradigm for modernity. He draws this conclusion on the basis of a distinction, which he finds in an essay by Walter Benjamin, between categories of life, with the “pro‐tagonist” of the work being what he calls homo sacer, or bare life—life that is stripped of its humanity and value. Five years earlier, in 1990, Derrida had given a lecture at UCLA (later published in its entirety as “The Force of Law”) in which he had analyzed the very same essay by Benjamin and had highlighted the distinction between “base life” and “just life.” The implications of his analysis show a discomforting prox‐imity between Benjaminian messianism and the Nazi “final solution,” a conclusion that Agamben dismisses entirely. In this paper, however, I demonstrate that the structures of the two works are quite similar in many important ways. I argue that, though the broad scope of Agamben's work is original in many respects, and I would not wish to reduce Agamben's work to Derridean repetitions, he nevertheless utilizes much more of Derrida's analysis, specifically with respect to the categori‐zation of life, than he would like the reader to believe.     

The Child Thought Long Dead Sings through Dylan Thomas in “Poem in October”

Was Dylan Thomas's reunion with the child he had been—the child he had thought long dead who sings through him in “Poem in October”—the catalyst of a former student's recovery from depression? Inspiring this question is this student who had suffered recurring autumnal depression, who shared with Thomas a birthday in October, and who claimed sustained recovery in late November after having studied this poem with his peers in October—a claim supported by his remarkably animated glow, without regressions in subsequent years. In other words, had the student identified with the poem's epiphany—the poet's mysterious reunion with the child he had been and the amazing rebirth of the child's voice from whispering to singing through him—what Jung called the “gift of love”? In response, this study examines the poem's epiphany and its effects upon Thomas's creative vision relative to what Stephen Rojcewicz finds so vital to self-transformation: the created metaphor, translation, transport, and transference that not only evoke the presence of divinity in nature, but also, according to C. G. Jung, participate in a divine creative process. The study concludes with a tentative “yes” to the question, a “yes” resonant with the student's claim in early December, “I have never felt so creative!”     

Beyond the Tools of the Trade: Heidegger and the Intelligibility of Everyday Things

In everyday life, we constantly encounter and deal with useful things without pausing to inquire about the sources of their intelligibility. In Div. I of Being and Time, Heidegger undertakes just such an inquiry. According to a common reading of Heidegger's analysis, the intelligibility of our everyday encounters and dealings with useful things is ultimately constituted by practical self‐understandings (such as being a gardener, shoemaker, teacher, mother, musician, or philosopher). In this paper, I argue that while such practical self‐understandings may be sufficient to constitute the intelligibility of the tools and equipment specific to many practices, these “tools of the trade” are only a small portion of the things we encounter, use, and deal with on a daily basis. Practical self‐understandings cannot similarly account for the intelligibility of the more mundane things—like toothbrushes and sidewalks—used in everyday life. I consider whether an anonymous self‐understanding as “one,” “anyone,” or “no one in particular” —das Man—might play this intelligibility‐constituting role. In examining this possibility, another type of self‐understanding comes to light: cultural identities. I show that the cultural identities into which we are “thrown,” rather than practical identities or das Man, constitute the intelligibility of the abundance of mundane things that fill our everyday lives. Finally, I spell out how this finding bears on our understanding of Heidegger's notion of authenticity.     

Kane,Luck, and the significance of free will

Abstract

This paper raises a pair of objections to the novel libertarian position advanced in Robert Kane's recent book, The Significance of Free Will.The first objection's target is a central element in Kane's intriguing response to what he calls the “Intelligibility” and “Existence” questions about free will. It is argued that this response is undermined by considerations of luck.The second objection is directed at a portion of Kane's answer to what he calls “The Significance Question” about free will: “Why do we, or should we, want to possess a free will that is incompatible with determinism? Is it a kind of freedom ‘worth wanting’... and, if so, why?” A desire for “objective worth” has a featured role in his answer. However, a compatibilist can have that desire.     

Embodied Disbelief: Poststructural Feminist Atheism

“I quite rightly pass for an atheist,” Jacques Derrida announces in Circumfession. Grace Jantzen's suggestion that the poststructuralist critique of modernity can also be trained on atheism helps us make sense of this playfully cryptic statement: although Derrida sympathizes with the “idea” of atheism, he is wary of the modern brand of atheism, with its insistence on rationally arranging—straightening out—religion. In this paper, I will argue that poststructural feminism, with its focus on embodied epistemology, offers a way to re‐explain Derrida's “I rightly pass,” and also to carry it forward. Poststructural feminist atheism leads us through Derrida to an embodied disbelief drawing on three dimensions of poststructural feminism: feminist epistemology and material feminism, relationality, and affect theory.     

Is Heidegger an Orientalist or an Occidentalist European Philosopher? Disclosing the Political Factor behind Heidegger’s Representation of Chinese Thinking

Though Heidegger became a kind of conceptual companion of comparative philosophers, and a methodological example for interpreters of Daoist philosophy claiming that Zhuangzi or Laozi embodied the overcoming of Western “onto-theology,” Heidegger himself not only stressed his disbelief in the notion that Asian thinking could save the West from its “civilizational crisis” but also clearly claimed that Western thinking could emerge only through its distinction from the “mythical East.” However, at the same time, Heidegger criticized the decadence of the West, claimed the necessity of cultural rejuvenation, and then, with the failure of Germany to perform this task, seemed to turn to Chinese sources to find alternative solutions. How to understand Heidegger’s complex relationship with China? Is Heidegger an Orientalist or an Occidentalist European philosopher? Moreover, how to understand the subtle and troubling connections between Heidegger’s complex relationship with China and Heidegger’s highly “problematic” (to say the least) intellectual engagement with Nazi ideology? To what extent are Orientalism and Occidentalism are linked to Heidegger’s belief in the Nationalist-Socialists’ claims about “saving” the “European spirit”?     

Brentano on the individuation of mental acts

This paper aims to present and evaluate Brentano's account of the individuation of mental acts. In his early works, Brentano assimilated mental acts to tropes; however, he encountered difficulties in explaining their individuation, since the usual solutions for the individuation of tropes were not readily applicable to his theory of mental acts. In a later period, Brentano introduced into his psychology what he called the “soul,” and this allowed him to explain the individuation of mental acts. Finally, after his “reistic” turn, he excluded mental acts from his ontology, for he rejected abstracta of any kind, including abstract particulars, and admitted only things, or res (in Latin), that is, concrete particulars; in his late philosophy, there are no “thinkings,” but only “thinkers.” However, he still needed to explain what individuates different thinkers, and this was again the soul. In the conclusion, the paper critically compares the different theoretical options considered by Brentano.     

FORGETTING AND THE TASK OF SEEING: Ordinary Oblivion,Plato, and Ethics

The gaps, fissures, and lapses of attention in a life—what I call “ordinary oblivions”—are fertile fragilities that present a compelling source for ethics. Plato, not Aristotle, is the ancient philosopher specially poised to speak to this feature of human life. Drawing upon poet C. K. Williams's idea that forgetting is a “looking away” that makes possible “beginning again,” I present a Platonic approach to ethics as an alternative to Aristotelian or virtue ethics. Plato's Phaedrus is a key source text for this alternate picture; from it I suggest how we might construe Iris Murdoch's “task of seeing” in terms of the engagement with written form. Poetry is a central locale for such engagement, and thus suggests a kind of ethical praxis that arises from the theoretical emphases of my examination of forgetting, the unmoored self, remade other‐regard, and sacred sources.