Heidegger's Ecological Turn: Community and Practice for Future Generations 9781032048369, 9781032049090, 9781003195139

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Frank Schalow’s study on the ‘unthought’ implications of Heidegger’s thinking for reopening the question of the political is an essential reference for any philosophical reflection on a future ethos for humanity. – Ivo De Gennaro, Free University of Bozen-Bolzano, Italy

Heidegger’s Ecological Turn

This book makes explicit the ecological implications of Martin Heidegger. It examines how the trajectory of Heidegger’s thinking harbors an “ecological turn,” which comes to the forefront in his attempt to anticipate the impending environmental crisis precipitated by modern technology. Schalow’s emphasis on such key motifs as stewardship, dwelling, and “letting-be” (Gelassenheit) serves to coalesce the problem of freedom in a new and innovative way, in order to expand the interpretive or hermeneutic horizon for re-examining Heidegger’s philosophy. By prioritizing a response to today’s environmental crisis and the possible impact upon future generations, the author traverses a divide within Heidegger scholarship by developing a deeper, critical outlook on his philosophy—without either reiterating standard interpretations or rejecting them wholesale. He develops a trans-human approach to ethics, which, by prioritizing the welfare of the earth, nature, and animals, counters the anthropocentric bias and destructive premise of modern technology. Heidegger’s Ecological Turn will be of interest to Heidegger scholars and researchers working in phenomenology, hermeneutics, continental philosophy, and environmental philosophy. Frank Schalow is Professor of Philosophy and University Research Professor at the University of New Orleans, USA. He is the co-editor of Heidegger Studies and the author of numerous books, including the Historical Dictionary of Heidegger’s Philosophy, 3rd edition (2020), Toward a Phenomenology of Addiction: Embodiment, Technology, Transcendence (2017), and Departures: At the Crossroads between Heidegger and Kant (2013).

Routledge Studies in Twentieth-Century Philosophy

Literary and Cultural Alternatives to Modernism Unsettling Presences Edited by Kostas Boyiopoulos, Anthony Patterson, and Mark Sandy Heidegger’s Concept of Philosophical Method Innovating Philosophy in the Age of Global Warming Vincent Blok Wittgenstein and the Limits of Language Edited by Hanne Appelqvist C. D. Broad’s Philosophy of Time L. Nathan Oaklander Wittgenstein’s Liberatory Philosophy Thinking through the Philosophical Investigations Rupert Read Walter Benjamin’s First Philosophy Experience, Ephemerality and Truth Nathan Ross The Legacy of Nietzsche’s Philosophy of Laughter Bataille, Deleuze, and Rosset Lydia Amir Heidegger’s Ecological Turn Community and Practice for Future Generations Frank Schalow For more information about this series, please visit: https://www. routledge.com/Routledge-Studies-in-Twentieth-Century-Philosophy/ book-series/SE0438

Heidegger’s Ecological Turn Community and Practice for Future Generations Frank Schalow

First published 2022 by Routledge 605 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10158 and by Routledge 2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon, OX14 4RN Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business © 2022 Frank Schalow The right of Frank Schalow to be identified as author of this work has been asserted by him in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers. Trademark notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks or registered trademarks, and are used only for identification and explanation without intent to infringe. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Names: Schalow, Frank, 1956- author. Title: Heidegger’s ecological turn : community and practice for future generations / Frank Schalow. Description: New York, NY : Routledge, 2022. | Series: Routledge studies in twentieth-century philosophy | Includes bibliographical references and index. Identifiers: LCCN 2021018310 (print) | LCCN 2021018311 (ebook) | ISBN 9781032048369 (hbk) | ISBN 9781032049090 (pbk) | ISBN 9781003195139 (ebk) Subjects: LCSH: Heidegger, Martin, 1889-1976. | Heidegger, Martin, 1889-1976--Influence. | Ethics. | Human ecology. Classification: LCC B3279.H49 S33574 2022 (print) | LCC B3279.H49 (ebook) | DDC 193--dc23 LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2021018310 LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2021018311 ISBN: 978-1-032-04836-9 (hbk) ISBN: 978-1-032-04909-0 (pbk) ISBN: 978-1-003-19513-9 (ebk) DOI: 10.4324/9781003195139 Typeset in Sabon SPi Technologies India Pvt Ltd (Straive)

Contents

Preface Acknowledgments Introduction

ix xvi 1

I Reopening the Question of the Political  1 II A Contrarian Approach: The Meaning of a “Text”  6 III Outline of Chapters  9 1 Seeking New Guidelines for Interpretation

12

I Temporality and the Origin of Praxis: Reinterpreting Kant  14 II From World to Earth  19 III The Question of Human Freedom  27 IV Conclusion 36 2 A New Leaping-Off Place for Ethical Inquiry

40

I The Development of a Trans-Human Origin  42 II The Development of an Original Ethics  45 III From Ethics to Politics  47 IV Toward a Being-Historical Perspective  54 V Conclusion 63 3 The Global Stage of Politics and the Return to the Earth I Marxism and the Counter-Turning of the Political  68 II From Economics to the “Eco” of Dwelling  74 III Conclusion 82

67

viii Contents 4 Temporality, Freedom, and Place

85

I The Hermeneutic Situation for Addressing the Political  88 II Three Corollaries of the Political: Beyond the Greek Paradigm  100 III Conclusion 129 5 The Turn Toward Stewardship: Is a Socio-Biotic Community Possible?

133

I Language, Law, and Normativity  135 II Responsibility Toward Animals and the Earth  151 III The Echo of Justice: Future Generations and “Homecoming”  157 IV Conclusion 177 References Index

185 197

Preface

Resituating Heidegger’s philosophy The differing viewpoints concerning Martin Heidegger’s politics, which have been galvanized with the publication of his Black Notebooks, have also led to a divergence in how his texts are to be read, thereby creating a “hermeneutic divide” within today’s scholarship. If we have entered a new era in interpreting Heidegger’s writings, then we must be able to elicit new pathways of thinking that begin to reappear from the shadows of the most poignant criticisms. Such an innovative approach, however, cannot be arbitrary, but must instead heed the most rigorous directives, which I call “hermeneutic guidelines.” A self-critical stance toward Heidegger’s philosophy need not lead to our wholesale rejection of it, provided that the concerns for its negativity can prompt a deeper retrieval of his thinking, which reopens its inquiry within the horizon of the (environmental) crises facing us today. Rather than viewing his texts as built upon sediments from the past, the opportunity arises for us to re-examine his writings as harboring untapped possibilities for future interpretation. Today’s ecological crisis creates a faultline that thrusts us into the uncertainty of a future, which, however, may also yield an “invisible ground” from which a re-inception of the political becomes possible.1 When viewed transitionally, the political can point ahead to a possibility of our belonging to and dwelling in concert with nature (rather than simply the administration of human interests for the purpose of dominations and exploitation). By intimating a “trans-human” or “non-anthropocentric measure (Maβ),” Heidegger’s invocation “to save the earth”2 provides an entryway into the political at the crossroads between freedom and technological dominance, stewardship and the exploitation of nature, measured responses and authoritarian will. By developing the ecological question, which is implicit in Heidegger’s confrontation with technicity, I will establish a new platform on which to re-open an inquiry into the political outside its confinement to technocratic rule. The impasses concerning his relation to the political are not to be viewed as only negative, but also as Holzwege that mark the closing off and re-opening of new

x Preface pathways of inquiry. Insofar as the “turning” (die Kehre) in his thought marks the beginning of an “ecological turn” (in today’s sense), we can identify a new signpost”3 to transpose his own controversial—at times insightful, often ominous—vision of the political into a wider historical orbit of conversation. Given this “contrarian” approach, my book would be especially timely, insofar as most of the scholarly terrain is overgrown with numerous books, which proceed from the same premise of condemnation and foreclose other attempts to re-open what remains “unthought.” As such, this book addresses neither Heidegger’s politics per se nor the extent of his involvement in National Socialism. To be sure, these various discussions may be relevant (particularly in light of the debate spawned by the recent publication of the Black Notebooks).4 Yet, for the most part, such debates proceed unaware of the hermeneutic guidelines shaping Heidegger’s questioning in general, as well, in particular, as the complex tapestry of concerns that pre-direct (situate in advance) how the political can become question-worthy in its own right or emerge as an explicit phenomenon of investigation. The hermeneutic guidelines both originate from, and direct us back to, what remains unthought, thereby prompting an interpretive inquiry that cultivates new distinctions and heeds the differentiating power of the word.5 In so doing, I will recast the question concerning the political by asking how it can appear phenomenologically, that is, in terms of the crisis spawned by our precarious place as inhabitants of the earth, and thereby invite reinterpretation in a way that extends the frontiers of Heidegger’s thinking. Provisionally, we must establish our own leaping-off point (Ab-sprung) for entering into this new inquiry (and formulating its distinctive questions) by asking: How can we create a space for the political (and its distinctive mode of lawfulness) outside the dominant paradigm of technocratic rule (and its opposing ideologies)? As defined in and through “being” (in Heidegger’s sense), the political remains for the most part concealed phenomenologically. Only as concealed in this way can the negative character of the political provide the occasion to seek a new possibility for governance via an ethical appeal (Zuspruch) to dwell on the earth (over against the exploitative and destructive forces of technicity). By the “political” I mean the open-ended question of the origin of law, to its enactment as a measure rooted in the ethos (of dwelling), and the re-inscribing of a language to address the elements of the polis according to formally indicative concepts which underscore our capacity to be free (e.g., by “letting-be”), albeit as finite human beings. Put another way, we must formulate a nascent question that Heidegger implies but does explicitly address, in proposing an “original ethics” in his famous “Letter on ‘Humanism.’” That is, how can we rethink normativity outside the framework of traditional ethics as a “prescriptive” (i.e., normative) endeavor? In following this avenue of inquiry, I build upon the investigations of G. Agamben, S. Crowell, P. Birmingham,6 and G. Vattimo. The

Preface  xi latter considers the law through its analogue in begetting the possibility of the polis, i.e., mirroring justice in its ongoing and alternating dialogue among mortals who sculpture out their “place” in the epochal unfolding of what it “means” to be.7 Conversely, the question of the “who” must also undergo transformation in direct conjunction with our understanding of law, an interface to which Heidegger points in emphasizing the need to “save the earth” (but for the most part leaves “unthought”). In terms of its singular dynamic or mode of temporalizing, the political ceases to be merely an organization to regulate human affairs, and instead emphasizes how our capacity to dwell can revolve around a new axis where our freedom is summoned to meet the highest law of all, the exercise of stewardship capable of safeguarding the earth (e.g., nature and its diverse habitats). The citizenry of the polis, of the body politic, then, has as its precondition membership within a more broadly composed socio-biotic community. Thus, it is as inhabitants or tenants of the earth that human beings can administer the social practices, which are most in keeping with its freedom and which exercise stewardship beyond those interests exclusively reserved for the benefit, i.e., the “good,” of us alone. The stewardship by which we inhabit the earth calls into question the priorities of any world-citizenship, such that the development of a community must be forged at the juncture between the human and the non-human (Fuge des Seins). Still remaining in play—despite Heidegger’s own omissions and perhaps even his best efforts—is the grammar by which we can discern the good through a counter constraint imposed upon unfettered human interests, thereby giving voice to what is beneficial (albeit not exclusively for us). What Heidegger seems to refer only vaguely as the law (Gesetz) in retrospect becomes necessarily so, given that the grammar of its scope and application can no longer be properly inscribed in conventional norms and values which are skewed by anthropocentric premises. Thus, the challenge posed to us is how the example of stewardship that we bring to the current environmental crisis can invite a proportional response of freedom, of the initiative to “let be.” Through this example of stewardship, we can seek a “measure” to counter human impulsiveness, and practice instead safeguarding the earth. According to this grammar, the (lawful) mandate of “belonging to,” through which membership in a socio-biotic community becomes possible, denotes a wider constituency than that comprised of humanity alone. Thus, why Heidegger? More than any other philosopher, Heidegger demonstrated that futurity grants to the “to be,” to be-ing, its weightedness, and meaning (Sinn), as it were—in such way that it is when directed toward future generations that the provision to save the earth has its profoundest moral implications. If only in the most esoteric terms, he recognized the “temporality of being.” He saw that the claim (Anspruch) of what is still to come or arrive may command greater potency than

xii Preface that which is simply ‘present’ or ‘now.’ The greatest thinkers are those that propel us into the future. Heidegger developed a philosophy whose aim was to project open future horizons, challenging us to address the most “thought-provoking” questions of our age as well as its most urgent concerns. The measure of our capacity to dwell on the earth is itself in question. Ecological concerns such as the devastation left by wildfires in Australia (January, 2020) and in the western United States (September, 2020) prompt us to reconsider the stewardship by which we can address a measure.8 Traditional norms pertaining to justice and the good must be reinscribed within a conversation about the fate of the earth and our destiny as its tenants rather than its exploiters. Such a conversation must develop from, and contribute to, a “transformed saying” of being, which heeds the grammar of “letting-be” (rather than a subject-object model of expression and a substance-metaphysics of “sovereignty,” as G. Agamben criticizes).9 In this way, the polity of the future can forge a socio-biotic community beyond that of adjudicating the “rights” of competing segments of society. A new language that is etymologically enlightened by the Greek sense of the “eco,” as the residence,10 abode, or place of dwelling,11 outstrips the modern reduction of politics to economics. Heidegger’s forward-looking thinking (Vordenken) sees ahead to the importance of this etymological distinction, while limited in his vision as to what history reveals as only the beginning of a ‘world’ or global economy ensnared in the conflict between scarcity and abundance. On the one hand, his understanding of the political remains limited (even beyond the 1930s), and, on the other, he developed an eco-logically laden language of “dwelling,” of nature (physis), and the earth capable of addressing an imminent environmental crisis beyond today’s ideological divisions. Put simply, in the overturning and subversion of anthropocentricism, we see the beginnings of what we today would call an “ecological turn” (although Heidegger did not address specifically “climate change,” the “greenhouse effect,” “global warming,”12 and the ruptures in the ecosystem from which the virus (or other pathogens) of pandemics may arise.13 In order to rediscover the relevance of Heidegger’s thinking, we must be able to elicit from what is unthought (das Ungedachte) the “formally indicative” motifs that are uniquely relevant for addressing the challenges posed under the rubric of the ‘political’ situation we encounter today. We allow what falls under the limitations of his own historical vision, including the vestiges of such indeterminate concepts as justice and lawfulness, to suggest alternative strategies to counter the one-sidedness of today’s conflation of politics with economics. In this way, we engage in “contrarian thinking,” which returns to Heidegger’s philosophy once again in order to outline the preparatory steps for re-opening the question of the politics. In this way, we amplify a side of his thinking that comes to fruition only gradually through various twists and turns, impasses and

Preface  xiii Holzwege (but recedes in any linear chronology, including his abrupt entrée into politics in 1933). How, then, does the law or lawfulness appear, once we begin to rediscover in Heidegger’s thinking a critical counterpoint to the technological drive to reduce politics to economics and mask our potential to dwell on the earth with an anthropocentric portrait of the good, i.e., as a foil for the mediation of human interests alone? How can we re-open the question of the political once new horizons have appeared to re-establish the axis around which the polis can revolve (and the parameters of the law are re-set)? In raising these questions, we will show how today’s environmental crisis serves as a springboard to address the key motifs whose rediscovery (in a way otherwise obscured to Heidegger) points to a new nexus of political engagement: of the intersection of governance and action, lawfulness and freedom, equality and heterogeneity. In this way, the fissure of Heidegger’s thinking (of being) opens the “other” side of praxis, as an alternative avenue to rethink normativity in conjunction with freedom as “letting-be.” In this way, we can allow Heidegger’s thinking to spearhead a new dialogue concerning the political, which can be guided by the transforming power of his own language, e.g., the grammar of the “subjunctive,”14 rather than the imposition of conceptual formulas and ideological disputes.

Methodological Considerations The attempt to revamp Heidegger’s methodology also requires making certain concessions. A self-delimitation of the parameters of his inquiry, as it bears on the attempt to re-think the political, is necessary in an analogous way that Immanuel Kant highlighted the tendency of philosophy to fall prey to error by exposing its internal “dialectic.” In Heidegger’s terms, we must access the political through “formal indicators” (rather than ideological claims), in order that we can cultivate the broader relevance of his key motifs and allow them to speak across the historical chasm of our encounter with technicity. In this way, we would discover in his “forward-looking thinking” a bridge to address today’s environmental crisis. Conversely, by developing this “ecological turn,” we allow what is unthought in Heidegger’s philosophy to provide a springboard to appropriate his insights in terms of their relevance for generations to come. Heidegger revolutionized the understanding of time in the twentieth century, but, in light of confronting a today’s environmental crisis, his (hermeneutic) breakthrough has to be taken a step further to distinguish a new trajectory of temporality in which ethics and politics can be reintegrated in a future “decision” about the fate of the earth (and our dwelling upon it). I will formulate three preliminary questions that remain unasked in most discussions of this topic, but we must address in order to re-open an inquiry into the political. First, how does today’s (ecological) crisis direct

xiv Preface us back to the preconception of Heidegger’s thinking, thereby giving rise to a dormant path of inquiry (Denkweg) by which we can re-open the question of the political? If this is the case, then, second, how do we arrive at the entry point to uncover these preconceptions and thereby engage his thinking within a broader historical arena in order that the political can become question-worthy once again? Third, how does the turning (die Kehre) of Heidegger’s own investigation change the trajectory of this re-entry, in such a way as to cultivate what is unthought as a springboard to the reinception of the political,15 that is, as a historical catalyst prompting the ecological turn (as a turning toward stewardship) we experience today. While there are numerous books that address the problematic character of Heidegger’s politics, and others that point to him as a proto-ecologist, there are few attempts to interweave these two avenues of inquiry into an integrated whole,16 and, moreover, discover in the environmental question the clues to relocate the “place” of the political in Heidegger’s thinking (and vice versa, e.g., the “political” as a place (Ort) for us to dwell on the earth).

Notes 1 See Heidegger, Beiträge zur Philosophie (Vom Ereignis), GA 65 (Frankfurt am Main: Vittorio Klostermann, 1989): 396; Contributions to Philosophy (From Enowning), trans. Parvis Emad and Kenneth Maly (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1999): 278. 2 Heidegger, “Bauen Wohnen Denken,” in Vorträge und Aufsätze, GA 7 (Frankfurt am Main: Vittorio Klostermann, 2000): 152. “Building Dwelling Thinking,” in Poetry, Language, Thought, trans. Albert Hofstadter (New York: Harper & Row, 1971): 148. 3 Heidegger, Was heiβt Denken? GA 8 (Frankfurt am Main: Vittorio Klostermann, 2002): 14; What Is Called Thinking?, trans. J. Glenn Gray and Fred Wieck (New York: Harper & Row, 1968): 11. Heidegger appeals to a line from Friedrich Hölderlin, “We are a sign that is not read.” 4 See Friedrich-Wilhelm von Herrmann and Francesco Alfieri, Martin Heidegger: Die Wahrheit über die Schwarzen Hefte (Berlin: Duncker & Humblot, 2017): 17–25. (“Einleitung”). Also see George Kovacs, “Returning to the Texts Themselves,” Existentia, 28/3–4 (2018): 297–311. 5 Frank Schalow, “The Turning and the Question of the Political: The Need for Hermeneutic Guidelines,” Heidegger Studies, 32 (2016): 15–32 (esp. 17–18). 6 See G. Agamben, Potentialities, ed. and trans. Daniel Heller-Roazen (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1999): 7–15; Steven Crowell, Normativity and Phenomenology in Husserl and Heidegger (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2013): 8–14; Peg Birmingham, Hannah Arendt and Human Rights (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2006): 132–142. Birmingham provides a superb account of the “right to have rights.” 7 See Gianni Vattimo, Beyond Interpretation: The Meaning of Hermeneutics (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1997): 7–15. 8 See Ruth Irwin, Heidegger, Politics, and Climate Change: Risking It All (London: Bloomsbury, 2007): 180–183. 9 G. Agamben, The Coming Community, trans. Michael Hardt (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1993): 90–96.

Preface  xv 10 John van Buren, John, “Critical Environmental Hermeneutics,” Environmental Ethics, 17/3 (1995): 259–275. Van Buren points to the hermeneutical and etymological link in Heidegger’s concept of dwelling. 11 For further discussion, see Jeff Malpas, Heidegger and the Thinking of Place: Explorations in the Topology of Being (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2012): 7–18. 12 Vincent Blok, Heidegger’s Concept of Philosophical Method: Innovating Philosophy in the Age of Global Warming (London: Routledge, 2019): 22–23. 13 See Frank Schalow, The Incarnality of Being: The Earth, Animals, and the Body in Heideger’s Thought (Albany: SUNY Press, 2006): 157. I point out that pandemics have been a persistent danger associated with possible ruptures in the ecosystem. 14 Polt refers to a “future-subjunctive tonality,” or a “‘what if,’” to describe the attunement corresponding to the attempt to thinking “Ereignis.” Richard Polt, The Emergency of Being: On Heidegger’s Contributions to Philosophy (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2006): 6–7. 15 For further discussion, see Schalow, “The Turning and the Question of the Political”: 15–32. 16 Irwin, Heidegger and the Politics of Climate Change: 8–14.

Acknowledgments

I wish to express my gratitude to Ivo De Gennaro for his detailed comments and suggestions on an earlier draft of this book, along with the counsel, friendship, and insight that Parvis Emad, George Kovacs, Bernhard Radloff, and Michael E. Zimmerman have given me over the years. I would like to thank Dr. Cristian Ciocan for granting me permission to use portions of the following article: “Animal Welfare, the Earth, and Embodiment: Transforming the Task of Hermeneutic Phenomenology,” Studia Phaenomenologica, 17 (2017): 83–100. Finally, I want to express my appreciation to Andrew Weckenmann and Alexandra Simmons of Routledge for their help and guidance in overseeing the publication of my book.

Introduction

I Reopening the Question of the Political In his seminal lecture course from the Summer Semester of 1935, Introduction to Metaphysics (Part I), Martin Heidegger once asked: “How does it stand with being?”1 Today, in the vitriolic climate in which the study of his thinking moves, we must address the flipside: “How do we stand toward Heidegger’s thinking?” Despite the fact (and the renewed trend) that we can condemn Heidegger for his involvement with National Socialism, an unasked question remains lurking in the background: what does “praxis” mean as an impetus toward or as spearheading (political) action and what are its possible origins in his thinking? This antecedent or preliminary question not only overarches Heidegger’s tie to National Socialism, but also has philosophical importance beyond the factual debate equating his thought with the political ideology of that movement. This question arises at a juncture where the omissions surrounding Heidegger’s philosophy may be the most glaring and where we may leverage its weaknesses into advantages in the effort to recast his thinking into a wider orbit. Within this wider orbit, we can reconsider the political as a permutation of the larger problematic of praxis as enacted in the age of global technicity. The political, insofar as the conflicts defining it occur on a global stage, takes the form of “techno-capitalism.” In this context, capitalism is not simply opposed to communism as one ideology among others, but, on the contrary, reflects the assimilation of the political to technological ends within a globalized setting of machination.2 The re-establishment of praxis on a new ground, which outstrips the tendency to usurp all interests for the benefit of humanity, provides a clue to how there can be a new governing, the delineation of a norm beyond the instrumental drive of technicity. Rather than referencing only a humanly defined realm of existence, a new norm would arise which could include a trans-human dimension overlayered, as it were, on the former. Such a norm would have a dual reference, transposing the protection of human concerns within a wider, trans-human orbit encompassing the diversity of nature and its animal life. This dual reference would DOI: 10.4324/9781003195139-1

2 Introduction make explicit what is implicit in Heidegger’s suggestion that our capacity to dwell (on the earth) provides the cornerstone for “practice” in our technological age. Our inquiry, then, transforms the preliminary question formulated above into the query: Is it possible to create a space for the polis, which through our capacity to dwell (on the earth) engenders openness outside the dominant paradigm of technocratic rule? In his vast writings, Heidegger provides the ontological axis to support referencing a norm, if only indirectly through a measure set by the proprietorship of human dwelling (and the strife between world and earth). But he does not follow up on a corollary presupposition (at the root of our dwelling), namely, that the freedom exercised in offsetting the monopoly of human interests, e.g., by “letting-be,” can provide an example to denote a “good” in a positive sense. In order to have any “practical implications,” the norm must encapsulate a new context for the creation of laws, the dynamic for their formulation and enactment that has historically gone under the heading of “justice.” In addressing today’s environmental crisis, we experience the transition from the establishment of ready-made laws to the source of their origination, the threshold of this shift, of which Heidegger was aware when he alluded to a “measure.” Unlike Heidegger, we can more directly trace the correlation between distinguishing a measure and the breakthrough of a new context of justice. We have the advantage (and also the disadvantage of living through the crisis) of discovering the concrete implementation of a measure, which is illustrated by the balancing and counterbalancing of human and non-human interests through an array of practices aimed at safeguarding the earth, its habitats, and nature. Such environmental practices stand forth not only as concrete actions, but as signposts (e.g., the most primitive gestures) to the formation of a socio-biotic community and governance by laws designed to confront the global forces of technicity. In this way, it becomes possible to make the transition from the ethos of dwelling to the precedent that our stewardship sets (by safeguarding the earth), e.g., the normative implications of the ensuing practices. Norms can re-emerge as inscriptions within language itself which, according to Heidegger’s lexicon, transmit the “call of being” and thereby commission us, as Da-sein, in its service. Thus, the freedom of letting-be unfolds as the counter check to the anthropocentric impulse of technicity. The activity of stewardship is not simply a blind pursuit, but serves the dual role of gesturing, that is, as pointing out or indicating the historical-cultural backdrop for formulating norms. Heidegger suggests as much when he asks, echoing Friedrich Hölderlin, “Is there a measure on the earth?” Throughout this study, we will consider the deeper implications of this question, as well as what is at stake in its unique formulation. We can take Heidegger’s question one step further to ask how laws themselves can arise—the origin of their genesis—as “transcriptions” of the basic gestures of our freedom (including the “proprietorship” of our dwelling). Through this proprietorship we arrive at the possibility of the political,

Introduction  3 that is, as the attempt to dwell within a community, albeit whose members undertake the task of dwelling in response to the greater challenge of “belonging to” being. Our “citizenship,” then, is built upon the residence (e.g., our residing within) of the community to which we belong. The question as to “How do we stand toward Heidegger’s thinking?” cuts both ways, singling out a faultline in his thinking.3 In terms of pursuing this schism (Unterschied), this “schismatic cut,” we must ask how does this inquiry concerning the political rebound in such a way as to illuminate an aporia in his own problematic, including the rupture in the transition or turning from the Dasein’s temporality to the temporality of being. In Introduction to Metaphysics, Heidegger shows that being is a “time-word” (Zeitwort), emphasizing the priority of the verbal form “to be” in both its manner of disclosure and expression.4 In this way, he combats the tendency to nominalize the term and allow the distortions of its dynamic “meaning” to sediment due to the neglect of the philosophical tradition. At the end of metaphysics, the increasing neglect for the question of being corresponds to the rise of technicity. If the recollection of being requires that it be temporalized with respect to both its disclosure and articulation, then the countering of technicity’s drive toward expediency requires an activity, a form of praxis, to complement thinking and thereby to enact the lengthy forbearance and incubation-period (Incubationszeit) distinctive of its manner of temporalizing. We cannot simply define the political according to a new set of abstract determinations, but, on the contrary, its language must be “performative” or emblematic of any activity that re-shapes what its “meant” by the polis and proceeds from its preservation as a possibility of the future. The trans-human axis of the political, or the pole around which it revolves, can shift the concern for the development of a community, of safeguarding who is “other” and, equally, what is “othermost,” in the direction of “future generations.” The political must be housed in the eco-logical, that is, in the “eco” or residence of dwelling. We discover, as Michael Marder emphasizes,5 the common relevancy of the ecological and the political, such that the concern for the former guides the inquiry into the latter. A new “egalitarianism” must emerge, as a way to address the common fate of mortals who are “equally” predisposed to die.6 By the same token, mortals can share a reciprocal concern to be stewards of the earth, to cultivate a responsible form of dwelling thereon, by emphasizing their transience as tenants of the earth (rather than as its masters). The would-be polis that shares this common and equal fate develops and enacts policies that seek to cultivate a socio-biotic community of responsible citizens. And how “do matters stand with Heidegger’s thinking?” Reciprocally, the pendulum must swing in the opposite direction to ask whether Heidegger envisioned the “ones to come” too narrowly, underestimating the practical side of the common dimension of “egalitarianism.” This egalitarianism defines the challenge of safeguarding the earth for future generations, who can usher in a socio-biotic community.

4 Introduction How, then, do we pick up the thread of the Heideggerian text, in which we can observe the confluence of these key issues, including the concern for the origin of freedom, its connection to re-formulating the question of ethics (outside its dependence on such metaphysical dichotomies as subject–object, mind–body, spirit–nature), the development of responsibility as a form of stewardship? The juncture or crossroads that we are seeking may very well, upon first glance, harbor as much an impasse as present an opportunity. We must reconsider, both thematically as well as methodologically, how to situate this hermeneutic tapestry of issues that highlight the tension between the ethical and political and seek in the questioning of the former the point of departure or “leaping-off” place to address the latter. Ethics no longer pertains to what we may understand from a conventional perspective or what may be restricted to a discipline. Rather, for Heidegger ethics is itself in transition, which we must reformulate according to a theme prompted by a historical crisis. His inquiry into the historical manifestation of being entails that the concerns surrounding ethics must coalesce around a topic, which likewise must appear within a parallel temporal trajectory. If we are to link being and time together in their reciprocal question-worthiness, then the topography of ethics must be reconfigured in a commensurate way. How, then, can we carve out a new origin for ethics, insofar as this topic or theme springs from a historical crisis? If the possibility of ethics hangs in the balance, then there must be two factors contributing to this: first, the prompting of a de-cision (and hence a reciprocal questioning into the origin of freedom), and, secondly, a necessity pertaining to that decision, which in its (global) implications can rise to the level of fate (Schicksal) or destiny. In retrospect, we discover that controversy pertaining to the welfare of the earth and our capacity to dwell upon it, meeting these two conditions given the historical dimension, however, of a corresponding stewardship that mortals can undertake in confronting the danger of technicity. The earth is not a static entity that we can define ontically in scientific terms. The fact that there is an ecological concern about the need for the earth’s protection only entails that a historical controversy, if not a crisis has arisen. Against the backdrop of the global dominance of technicity, the earth is cast forth as the source of this new battlefield—both figuratively and literally. Rather than defining only a geographical (or even geological) concept, the earth conveys a historical message, reflexively eliciting the importance of its own self-interpretation. In a remarkable passage that Heidegger wrote as early as 1936–38, he offers a novel understanding of the earth as refracted through the lens of modern technicity: Why does the earth keep silent in this destruction? Because earth is not allowed the strife with a world, because earth is not allowed the truth of be-ing (Seyn). Must nature be surrendered and abandoned to machination?7

Introduction  5 Yet, when we re-ask Heidegger’s query in light of today’s ecological crisis, we may conclude that, if only indirectly, the earth may indeed speak in its own ominous tone through the array of natural disasters that reveal the unchecked forces of machination across the globe. Pollution, deforestation (e.g., in Brazil), wildfires in Australia (January 2020), poor agricultural practices, the mistreatment of domestic animals, and the shrinkage of natural habitats all converge as factors that spark the beginnings of pandemics and other environmental catastrophes.8 If we can speak metaphorically of “nature’s revenge,” we can do so only by interpreting the traces of hermeneutic messages, which reverberate from the darkest depths of the earth. The earth, then, waivers between its historical disclosure (or non-disclosure), and hence its meaning or import must be historically constellated through a corresponding (ethical) de-cision. Such a de-cision addresses the earth’s future, and yields the primary theme of ethics, e.g., as the concern for the ethos of our dwelling. We can focus this de-cision in Heidegger’s terminology, which also resonates with the language of day: “Are we to continue using and exploiting the earth only as a resource, or are we to safeguard the earth as a place of dwelling?” Here we have posed an either–or de-cision, which forms the heart of an ethical dilemma. Ethics can thereby re-emerge at this crucial juncture where: 1) the fate of the earth is jeopardized the most through (the onslaught) of technicity; and 2) the temporal trajectory of this decision in projecting forth the future reshapes the landscape of ethics, and, as we will see, re-establishes the political on a new footing. Conversely, this new thematic of ethics requires its own methodological transformation. We must reinterpret the “meaning” of the earth within the trajectory of historical de-cision and destiny, in a way that interweaves the diverse avenues of Heidegger’s inquiry, not into a system like that of G. W. F. Hegel, but into a hermeneutic mosaic. To navigate this historical juncture, and view it as a possible crossing, we must begin to formulate interpretive directives or hermeneutic guidelines, which allow a new topography of inquiry to emerge from an otherwise disjointed set of issues. These hermeneutic guidelines follow from, and bear the fruits of, the three preliminary questions that I formulated at the close of my Preface. We can distinguish three such directives: 1) the transformation of ethics in the concern for the ethos of dwelling,9 as the preliminary entryway into the political or the (hermeneutic) “fore-having”; 2) the unfolding of history as the clearing for a future de-cision about our place (Ort) within the global setting of technicity for the “fore-sight;” and 3) our stewardship of dwelling in fulfilling the practical mandate to save the earth or the “fore-concept.” We would be mistaken to compartmentalize these three “moments,” however, insofar as their interplay comprises a single inquiry in the endeavor to re-open the question of the political. For in together they map out the hermeneutic situation or interpretive landscape within which

6 Introduction we can reopen the question of the political, in that takes shape primarily in the middle three chapters of this work (2, 3, 4). Accordingly, I will develop my study in five chapters. (1) Our point of departure will gravitate around a familiar figure the critical encounter with whom launches Heidegger’s destructive retrieval of the philosophical tradition, namely, Immanuel Kant. The retrieval of a deeper ground for praxis (than Kant was able to achieve), on the one hand, and, on the other, the dismantling of a metaphysics biased toward anthropocentricism, will enable us to reinterpret the key motifs of Heidegger’s inquiry in Being and Time that are most prone to distortion through the lens of a National Socialist ideology. In the process (2), we will discover that the development of this new platform for re-asking the ethical question goes hand in hand with tracing the transformation of ethics into the ethos (or proprietorship) of dwelling, e.g., an “original ethics,” as a new baseline to incorporate a “trans-human” perspective. By unfolding this deeper problematic, (3) we will then be able to reopen the question concerning the political, which seeks a measure to counterbalance the human-centered interests of technological rule. In this way (4), the political can be addressed in a new (hermeneutic) context, which allows us to re-envision its capacity to mirror the ethos of human dwelling (on the earth). The faultline traversing Heidegger’s thinking, which, on one level, places his thinking on the cusp ready to plunge into the turmoil of National Socialism, and, on another level, points to a hidden reciprocity between freedom and law, yields a trans-human axis around which the “polis” can revolve. Thus (5), the path is cleared for considering the policies and recommendations, which would promote the creation of a socio-biotic community and the example of stewardship culminating in “environmental practice.”

II A Contrarian Approach: The Meaning of a “Text” In terms of our hermeneutic methodology, we must revisit the meaning of a “text,” in the aforementioned way with respect to the tapestry of Heidegger’s writings and the temporal-historical backdrop for their ongoing interpretation. When seen in this light, textuality entails its own fluidity, rather than the composition of a structure or edifice of words (which, in turn, can be “deconstructed” to expose hidden fissures and dislocations). In broaching this issue, we must proceed from a basic presupposition in the primordial, hermeneutic sense that Heidegger argues philosophy also depends upon such.10 If we are from today’s vantage point to apply external criteria to arrive at a consensus for condemning (i.e., negatively evaluating) Heidegger as a thinker, we must also allow for the alternative, if not “contrarian” approach. That is, we cannot preclude the possibility of appropriating Heidegger’s texts in a positive way, in order to elicit insights that withdraw within the subterranean recesses

Introduction  7 of what is “unsaid” and “unthought.” In this regard, we must seek in what shows itself a convergence between thinking and acting, between freedom as “letting-be” and the practices dedicated to safeguarding the earth. To pursue this Denkweg, we must peal back a pre-textual backdrop from the intricate composition of Heidegger’s writings. Because I am proposing an unconventional way to “read” Heidegger, I will call upon a unique set of precepts or hermeneutic guidelines to direct my interpretation along its proper way. The attempt to extend Heidegger’s questioning to make explicit the “pre-text”11 of the political will have the reciprocal effect of transposing the horizon in which to understand, interpret, and appropriate Heidegger’s thought in new and unconventional ways. (In this way, we approach his philosophical texts through the force of their own aftershock, through the fissure [die Zerklüftung] traversing them, and not as separate claims set in cement presenting a completed doctrine.)12 From this vantage point, the possibility of the political can be developed through the formally indicative motifs (and concepts) of Heidegger’s thinking, insofar as they are mediated through the historical horizon of his hermeneutics (rather than as defined by an extant vision of contemporary politics). This horizon extends from the frontier of a crossing, exacting a further level of differentiation in which to reinscribe these motifs through the pulse of the temporalizing (transporting us “ahead” in order to meet a new challenge of thinking). Conversely, being-historical thinking takes its clue from a returnership (Rückkehrerschaft) by which our inquiry heeds this un-thought dimension, and thereby cultivates a self-critical perspective (that learns from the controversies of the past as well as the present). The self-doubling of the question of the political, or its emergence into the crucible of a current environmental crisis, seeks its directive from a new “pre-textual” orientation or hermeneutic horizon. In this way, we can inquire into the political as comprising a phenomenon in its own right, which comes to fruition in the technological age of modernity. By employing a specific mode of self-reference (and the historical horizon implied therein), we can reinterpret the unthought dimension of Heidegger’s inquiry into the political. In this way, hermeneutic phenomenology undergoes transformation, that is, as intertwined with the question of the political, its doubling, and the self-critical/self-referential context of its re-interpretation. We “reverse engineer” Heidegger’s approach to politics, seeking in the example of stewardship a new axis around which to re-open the question of political. Such an inquiry would hinge on the development of a new grammar, namely, the language of being-historical thinking, which elicits the meaning of the political through an ongoing conversation concerning the imminent danger of technicity, on the one hand, and, on the other, the counterpoint provided by the proprietorship of dwelling (on the earth).

8 Introduction If this study is to reap tangible results, and if the “subjunctive,” counterfactual approach of our methodology is not to become merely an “academic” exercise, then we must be able to distinguish the precepts for defining the political, which can support the form of environmental practice devoted to safeguarding the earth. These precepts are not constitutive principles, but instead are only signposts that mark the birth of the political on the cusp of an ongoing conversation about the future possibility of our dwelling in concert with nature. The example of stewardship as a mode of environmental practice suggests three corollaries that form the cornerstone of the political. While not endemic to Heidegger’s thinking, these corollaries belong to the metontological landscape (the space of the concern for human praxis) that he only begins to outline in coordination with his destructive-retrieval of Kant’s transcendental philosophy. I refer to them as “corollaries” because they follow from a radical shift to a trans-human vision of freedom as the openness of “letting-be,” and the implications for grounding the polis anew on elements that Heidegger left “unthought” in his philosophy. We can call these corollaries the three pillars of the polis, insofar as they would be essential for its construction around the axis of human dwelling. The first corollary begins from the reciprocity between self and other. This reciprocity: 1) binds each together in their participation in freedom; and 2) delimits the interest of each individual by acknowledging a mutual opportunity to speak, that is, in concert with Heidegger’s dictum that human beings are granted the power of language only through their compliance to safeguard this gift. The second corollary speaks to a rupture within modernity, which arises by retrieving the etymology of the Greek term polis within a “post-metaphysical” context: namely, the reorganization of the political around a new (non-anthropocentric) axis, in order to provide a platform on which to develop a socio-biotic community. Such a community would answer the call of stewardship, in order to implement policies that counterbalance the interests of the earth, nature, and animals with those of humanity. As a third corollary, the origin of the polis, its commission and charter, must be mediated through the epochal character of our historical sojourn on the earth and a de-cision about the dwelling of future generations. This corollary denotes the pre-text, which transcribes the meaningful gestures of freedom over against the contingencies of their enactment in the factical (and flawed) realm of human existence.13 To clarify further, the “pre-text” arises from the hermeneutic transferal of the political as a place of dwelling, the composition of which can be “read back” or interpreted only from the key gestures of freedom (rather than correlated with the construction of a regime according to ideological principles). This pre-text unfolds on the cusp of what is unthought in Heidegger’s thinking, in the attempt to rediscover its relevance in speaking to today’s environmental crisis.

Introduction  9

III Outline of Chapters In Chapter 1 I will outline Heidegger’s inquiry into freedom as a way of traversing the metaphysical dichotomies between thought and action, spirit and nature, intellection and feeling. Since the transition from the modern age to post-modernity will yield the context by which we can reopen the question of the political, Heidegger’s legendary exchange with Kant provides us with such an inroad in a twofold way: 1) methodologically, by eliciting the need for hermeneutic guidelines to govern our interpretation of what is unthought (in a text); and 2) thematically, by making explicit freedom (Freiheit) as the cornerstone of the political, as originating from a “trans-human” origin (in connection with the disclosure of being), and practice as implying the possibility of a “world-citizenship.” We will discover that within the broader purview of Heidegger’s dialogues with the Western tradition a concern for the political arises, if only indirectly, in such a way as to spark a question as to the possibility of its site. Such a site receives its historical grounding in the world’s strife with the earth, and points to an unexplored tension in thinking the political between the Kantian motif of the human being as a “citizen of the world” and the capacity of mortals to dwell as “tenants” of the earth. In Chapter 2, I argue that Heidegger held back a formal ethical inquiry, in the wake of a transformation of ethics that could meet a new crisis and extend moral concerns beyond an “anthropocentric” focus. Heidegger’s “original ethics” brings stewardship to the forefront as a new directive of human action, thereby providing an entry point into the political. In Chapter 3, I will establish how the political can appear as a phenomenon within the gestalt of modern technicity, and, specifically, how this appearance comes to light when we anticipate an impending environmental crisis. By following the trajectory of this forward-looking thinking, I will show how the modern conflation of politics with economics conceals the endemic trait of the political (e.g., as a “place” of dwelling). The manner in which Heidegger’s inquiry pivots around the technocratic focus of modernity catapults his thinking into a new orbit, implying a counter-turning (Widerkehre)14 that overturns many of the conventions as to what the political can mean (e.g., in the age of “techno-politics”).15 In Chapter 4, I translate Heidegger’s concept of freedom (as “letting be”) into three (otherwise unthought) corollaries, in order to show how it is possible for the political to be grounded outside the paradigm of technocratic rule, on the one hand, and, on the other, without naively invoking the precepts of the Greek polis. Freedom involves: 1) a reciprocal relationship with being; which 2) yields the space for our interaction with others (including the “other” to be as “other” in an open dialogue of exchange; and 3) the exercise of stewardship, which seeks a “measure” to counterbalance human interests with the non-human realm of nature and animal life.

10 Introduction In Chapter 5, I show how today’s environmental crisis calls for an “ecological turn,” which can be understood as transitional to the postmodern beginning that Heidegger envisioned. As an ethical and political challenge, the prospect of safeguarding the earth implies the development of a new platform to understand the origin and scope of lawfulness (e.g., normativity). Laws re-emerge as interpretive fields of meaning (rather than as only fixed standards of ‘right’ and ‘wrong”), which delineate our concrete place in history and speak to our capacity to safeguard the earth for future generations. The reassignment of our role as “tenants” of the earth points ahead to an inception of the political, which takes as its cornerstone of the task of creating a socio-biotic community. Such a community exhibits the dynamics of what Heidegger poetically characterizes as a “homecoming,” that is, insofar as mortals first face the absence of such a home (Heimat) in the strife between world and earth.

Notes 1 Heidegger, Einführung in die Metaphysik, GA 40 (Frankfurt am Main: Vittorio Klostermann, 1983): 37–47. 2 See Thomas Brockelman, Žižek and Heidegger: The Question Concerning Techno-Capitalism (London: Continuum, 2008): 43. Also see Javier CardozaKon, Heidegger’s Politics of Enframing: Technology and Responsibility (London: Bloomsbury, 2018): 7–12. 3 See George Kovacs, “Returning to the Texts Themselves”: 297–311. 4 GA 40; 60–65. Also see Heidegger, Die Grundbegriffe der Metaphysik: Welt – Endlickheit – Einsamkeit, GA 29/30 (Frankfurt am Main: Vittorio Klostermann, 1982): 465. The Fundamental Concepts of Metaphysics: World, Finitude, Solitude, trans. William McNeill and Nicholas Walker (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1995): 321. 5 See Michael Marder, Heidegger: Phenomenology, Ecology, Politics (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2018): 8–15. 6 See Walter Brogan,“The Community of Those Who Are Going to Die,” in Heidegger and Practical Philosophy, ed. D. Pettigrew and F. Raffoul (Albany: SUNY Press, 2002): 237–248. The possibility of death underscores each person’s potential for uniqueness and individuality. Also see Werner Marx, Towards a Phenomenological Ethics: Ethos and the Life-World (Albany, SUNY Press: 1992): 7–12. 7 GA 65: 277–278; tr. 195. 8 In a recent interview in MIT’s Technology Review (February 16, 2021), Bill Gates has proposed the transition to “synthetic beef” by wealthier nations as a way of reducing pressures on the ecosystems due to the indifference of the “factory farm,” as well as a way of diminishing methods of animal cruelty. Bill Gates, How to Avoid a Climate Disaster: The Solutions We Have and the Breakthroughs We Need (New York: Knopf Publishing, 2021): 7–14. 9 See Reiner Schürmann, Heidegger on Being and Acting: From Principles to Anarchy, trans. Christine Marie Gros (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1987): 9–17, 90–93. Without emphasizing the ecological dimension, Schürmann makes a significant advance among scholars by addressing the “practical a priori.” 10 Heidegger, Schelling: Vom Wesen der menschlichen Freiheit, GA 42 (Frankfurt am Main: Vittorio Klostermann, 1988): 18.

Introduction  11 11 For Emad’s use of this term, in connection to intralingual translation, see Parvis Emad, Translation and Interpretation: Learning from Beiträge, edited with an “Introduction” by Frank Schalow (Bucharest: Zeta Books, 2012): 62. 12 Hans-Georg Gadamer emphasizes that how things were understood in the 1930s is remarkably different than how events may be perceived in the period in which we now live. See Kovacs, “Returning to the Texts Themselves”: 311. 13 This third corollary leads to the “paradox of the political,” specifically, that the creation of the polis is predicated on the risk of its potential undoing, i.e., the prospective undermining of its own measures of freedom. 14 See GA 65: 254; tr. 178–180. 15 See Bernhard Radloff’s discussion of the “technopolis,” in Heidegger and the Question of National Socialism: Disclosure and Gestalt (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2007): 425. Also see Polt, The Emergency of Being: 6–18.

1 Seeking New Guidelines for Interpretation

Throughout the course of the philosophical tradition, the matter of thinking, the phenomenon, the “thing itself,” or, in Heidegger’s terms, “being” (Sein) simultaneously reveals and conceals itself. Unlike in the case of his mentor, Edmund Husserl, Heidegger’s phenomenology is inherently historical, that is, is explicitly predicated upon a critical encounter (Auseinandersetzung) with the tradition or refracted through the lens of his conversation with its greatest thinkers, from Aristotle to Kant, Plato to Nietzsche. Whatever path we choose to initiate philosophical inquiry, the measure of originality for any point of departure stands in relationship to: 1) the historical manifestation of being; and 2) the potential to return to and reconnect with the origin(s) of the tradition, despite the withdrawal thereof. Mindful of the elusive character of these origins, and thus the need to outline a circular (rather than a linear) path to address them, Heidegger unites phenomenology with hermeneutics in order to reformulate the question of being (die Seinsfrage) in an explicitly historical manner. A hermeneutic phenomenology proceeds from the premise that the phenomena to be investigated may themselves not appear, and our access to them through their appearance within a historical setting of philosophical investigation may instead be blocked. In mirroring what is first and foremost in question, or being, the paths of inquiry may also recede or be covered over, potentially to be reopened and forged anew—if only to be widened and carved out in an alternative direction. These various pathways double back and recede toward a common origin, which, however, is never simply given, but instead is masked in the starts and stops, the twists and turns of the enactment of thinking. While there is no linear path, the need for philosophical inquiry to double back and return to its origins betrays junctures and crossroads, which determine how thinking can advance and be determined by its matter (Sache). In Heidegger’s case, it is possible to highlight specific crossroads that emerge in the course of pioneering his method to re-ask the question of being. In developing hermeneutic phenomenology immediately after the publication of his magnum opus, Being and Time, Heidegger appeals to one thinker in particular to outline the historical trajectory of DOI: 10.4324/9781003195139-2

Seeking New Guidelines for Interpretation  13 the question of being, namely, Immanuel Kant. Heidegger’s dialogue with Kant will set the precedent for all subsequent encounters with the greatest thinkers of the philosophical tradition. Heidegger’s dialogue with Kant extends over several decades and exhibits twists and turns that parallel the overall development and transformation of hermeneutic phenomenology. These twists and turns comprise Holzwege in their own right, not merely in a metaphorical sense, but rather as endemic to and as indicative of the matter of thinking. With a retrospective glance in his “Seminar in Le Thor 1969,” Heidegger invokes his description of “Holzwege” to describe his thinking of the ontological difference “from 1927 to 1936” as a “necessary impasse” (emphasis on “necessary’).1 In this regard, the closing of and re-opening of pathways means that Heidegger’s exchange with Kant must unfold on multiple fronts, rather than in a linear and uniform way. Yet, the diverse pathways of Heidegger’s dialogue with Kant are not simply “about” or reducible to a single theme, but instead revolve within an orbit of questioning that predirects the entire philosophical tradition and from which all other questions derive their significance. One such instance, which marks an important juncture in Heidegger’s dialogue with Kant, arises in the former’s lecture course from the Summer Semester, 1928. In that lecture course, Heidegger embarks upon a pathway that opens up briefly, only to be covered over in the years prior to his assuming the position of rector of the University of Freiburg in the 1930s. Here Heidegger makes one of the few allusions to the possibility of developing ethics by unraveling the presuppositions of his inquiry into being—i.e., fundamental ontology. Metontology arises from and initiates the “overturning” (Umschlag) of fundamental ontology,2 in order to address our potential for freedom (and our power to act or human praxis) on an ontological footing). To be sure, metontology may not lead to developing ethics as a normative discipline. On the contrary, the suspension of ethics per se, in favor of an inquiry into its possibility, has the counter effect of expanding the scope of the initial hermeneutic situation and uncovering its presuppositions (as we will discover in the next chapter). We can trace the curvature of metontology by identifying a specific instance in Heidegger’s undertaking a second stage of his dismantling the philosophical tradition, namely, by transposing the focus of Heidegger’s dialogue with Kant. Rather than downplaying the importance of practical reason in his destructive-retrieval of transcendental philosophy, as he did in the Kant-book (1929), Heidegger instead appeals to what appears through the lens of practicality, or the problematic of freedom, to develop a deeper ground on which to recast the question of being. In this chapter, I will show how a new topography of inquiry takes shape by outlining a nexus of motifs implicit in metontology. Conversely, by prioritizing this practical side of the question of being, we arrive at a new springboard to bring the political itself into question, that is, as endemic to a phenomenon that initially withdraws from thought or does not show itself.

14  Seeking New Guidelines for Interpretation In this way, the concern for the political doubles as a problem that marks a fault line traversing Heidegger’s entire thinking. Keeping this in mind, we must approach his thinking self-critically, although this does not mean according to a “monological reductionism”3 that falsely equates his philosophy with Nazi ideology. To proceed critically, we must develop hermeneutic guidelines in order to map out this de-constructive trajectory of his thinking, drawing upon its own impetus and momentum for transformation, rather than arbitrarily reducing his philosophy to a univocal rendering of specific key concepts, e.g., resoluteness, the “people” to a fascist ideology. I will divide this chapter into three sections. I will begin (I) by exploring the frequently overlooked, methodological side of Heidegger’s destructive-retrieval of transcendental philosophy.4 I will then show (II) how Heidegger’s inquiry into the phenomenon of world, as an unthought dimension of Kant’s Critical enterprise, suggests a new orbit of philosophical inquiry: in which the wider birth of our capacity to act, or the potential for “world-citizenship,” contains the problem of human praxis. Having traced this inroad into Kant’s practical philosophy, I will then uncover the hermeneutic thread unifying Kant’s three Critiques. At the close of this section, we will discover that the intersection of the concerns of praxis with poiesis (art is in the broadest and most original sense) yields a new space of investigation to address our capacity to dwell on the earth. For Heidegger, this inquiry will provide the counter pole to the Enlightenment notion of the self as a “citizen of the world”). In the final section of this chapter, I will then trace (III) the doubling back of a pathway, which expands Heidegger’s initial hermeneutic situation to include the problem of freedom. In this way, a new axis of philosophical inquiry arises, which revolves around being’s disclosure to Da-sein and establishes a more radical point of departure to examine the “practical” side of being-in-the-world.

I Temporality and the Origin of Praxis: Reinterpreting Kant At the end of the 1920s, Heidegger’s Kant-book stood out not only as an epic philosophical achievement, but also as harboring important methodological implications for the advancement and radicalization of his overall project. The prospect of unifying Kant’s critical enterprise around a new center of human finitude, or imagination, would mirror Heidegger’s own attempt to extend the ellipsis of hermeneutic inquiry. Insofar as Heidegger sets the precedent for his exchange with predecessors through his destructive-retrieval of transcendental philosophy, then it is equally the case that the hermeneutic direction of his study remains veiled. This methodological gap has inhibited attempts to understand Heidegger’s pivotal work, Kant and the Problem of Metaphysics (1929),5 as first seen in Ernst Cassirer’s review (1931).6 Heidegger recognized this difficulty

Seeking New Guidelines for Interpretation  15 when he appealed to what is “unsaid” in the Critique of Pure Reason, while defending the “violence” of his interpretation.7 First, in order to give precedence to what is “unsaid,” Heidegger employs his own hermeneutic method to reinterpret Kant’s seminal text, the Critique of Pure Reason, that is, by recasting its key, epistemic motifs in ontological terms. In this reinterpretation, Heidegger employs a hermeneutic guideline to transpose the priorities of Kant’s enterprise by developing a new context in which the latent concern for “being” can be brought to the forefront, and, conversely, the key terms of the Critical philosophy can be “translated” into a vocabulary conversant with the language of fundamental ontology.8 Decades later, in his seminar on Heraclitus (Summer Semester of 1943), Heidegger summarizes this hermeneutic strategy in saying that it is first necessary to “translate the Critique of Pure Reason,” in order to appropriate its key insights.9 Secondly, having transposed Kant’s epistemic task into an ontological problematic, Heidegger then “reads off” the former’s insights a new strategy for re-asking the question of being, that is, by outlining a wider preview or horizon in which being can be understood, rendered “meaningful,” and even expressed through the grammar of a new lexicon, e.g., through the “idiom” of temporality. In this way, Heidegger’s reinterpretation of transcendental philosophy proceeds on dual fronts to break the shackles of a conventional (e.g., Neo-Kantian), epistemologically oriented viewpoint and to “read back” his design of his own project to elicit temporality as the key to addressing (the meaning of) being. Heidegger’s Auseinandersetzung with Kant thereby proves to be hermeneutical in a double sense: as providing a new and innovative “interpretation” of the latter’s major text, and as broadening the initial hermeneutic situation (as sketched in Being and Time) for “interpreting” the meaning of being or facilitating its disclosure through of temporality (the grammar of the verbal form “to be”).10 Four considerations guide the subsequent transformation of Heidegger’s project and the corollary expanding of its hermeneutic situation of inquiry. First, Heidegger’s dethroning of reason in favor of the disclosive power of imagination points to a deeper rooting of human finitude in temporality, thereby overcoming the dependence upon philosophical models of presence in favor of the appearance or manifestation of being against a historical backdrop. Secondly, the inherently historical character of philosophy comes to light in the way that its perennial theme, or the question of being, must be reformulated and transmitted anew through the development of tradition. Thirdly, philosophical insight, in order to bear the fruit of our understanding of being, must be continually dismantled, appropriated anew, and otherwise wrenched from forgottenness (Vergessenheit). In terms of the wider hermeneutic ellipsis, the philosophical and thematic understanding of being (Seinsverständnis) necessarily arises from, and returns to, the presupposition of what is

16  Seeking New Guidelines for Interpretation already understood (pre-thematically) in the course of our everyday inhabitation of a world (and its phenomenological explication). Hence, Heidegger’s phenomenological inquiry both reaffirms and re-enacts the circular implication between Da-sein’s capacity for self-understanding and the possibility of understanding being as such, i.e., the continual unfolding of the “hermeneutical circle.” Fourthly, the philosophical enterprise comes to fruition through the historical exchange between thinkers, the reciprocal rejoinder (Erwiderung) which serves to spawn a deeper, more differentiated language to “translate” the meaning of being into words and thereby facilitate its disclosure. Such an intralingual translation of the key or grounding words (Grundworte) is at the heart of both the birth and the development of the philosophical tradition. As Emad emphasizes, in appealing to a key passage from Heidegger’s writings, “‘…the tradition of philosophy necessarily becomes translation’” (“wird die Überlieferung der Philosophie notwendigerweise Übersetzung”).11 What are the implications of this crucial statement, which Heidegger made subsequent to the seminar he offered in 1955, “Was ist das—die Philosophie?” The philosophical tradition emerges neither in a vacuum nor as a chronology of the greatest thinkers comprising the history of philosophy. On the contrary, the tradition is not preset or ready-made, but, through the historicaltemporal dynamic of “handing-down,” arises instead from the possibility of its future arrival, i.e., a destructive-retrieval. In this respect, the tradition “lives on” through Heidegger’s engagement with his predecessors, the living-breathing spirit of conversation (Zwiesprache) and critical exchange (Auseinandersetzung). In this regard, the translating of the key philosophical terms both opens the space of the dialogue between thinkers, and, conversely, by drawing upon the silent depths of what remains “unsaid,” further animates and amplifies the “meaning” of the grounding words, i.e., by which the thinking of and by being, and its breakthrough into the light of unconcealment, first occurs. Accordingly, Heidegger’s conversation with his predecessors necessarily diverges from the “history of philosophy,” if only because the directive of the former (Auseinandersetzung) lies in a prior attunement (Stimmung) and awakening to the “unsaid,” as the spark or catalyst to the “transformed language as ‘saying.’”12 A philosophical approach that first considers our potential to understand being (and bring to light its “meaning”), or, conversely, which acknowledges that any such thematic attempt must revolve within an elliptical (or temporally shaped) orbit of understanding, is already a hermeneutic venture. According to this hermeneutic premise, ancient philosophy has already understood being, or held forth a preliminary projection thereof of its meaning against the backdrop of time. By the same token, the ancients did not explicitly question this fundamental presupposition, and thereby succumbed to a forgottenness (Vergessenheit), whereby

Seeking New Guidelines for Interpretation  17 the relation of being to time gets inverted: the former is misconstrued through such static designations as “permanent presence” and the latter is misunderstood by privileging the temporal modality of the ‘present.’ In light of these preliminary observations, and of the overall “hermeneutic situation,” or tapestry of presuppositions governing ancient philosophy, Heidegger can uncover his original strategy for re-asking the question of being, the “Fragestellung” for his phenomenological investigation. Through his destructive-retrieval of Kant’s transcendental philosophy, Heidegger uncovers the hermeneutic design of his own project, the intimate unity between theme and method. But if this is the case, can we also glean in the process his recovery of the Greek sense of the “Hermes?” Even for Heidegger, the narrow pathway leading back and forth between the modern period and the ancients, as becomes visible in his initial (and uncompleted) task of a destructive-retrieval of the tradition, becomes only partially visible. Yet we can gain a glimmer by revisiting the strategy by which Heidegger unifies his interpretation of Kant’s philosophy as a whole by granting a central role to imagination. In the retroactive movement doubling back from modern to ancient philosophy, imagination appears through the figure of an intermediary, or Hermes, in such a way that, in the hermeneutical terms of his own inquiry, the transmission of the “meaning” of being occurs through the medium of interpretation (the analogue to Kant’s Einbildungskraft). The centrality of imagination, which Kant first described as “a blind but indispensable function of the soul,” comes to the forefront.13 When, in Part IV of the Kant-book, Heidegger appeals to “the finitude of Dasein in [man],” he draws upon this analogy of the openness hidden in the power of imagination.14 The imagination is the generative power (Kraft) that transposes the self into the openness, marking the intersection between presence and absence. The distinctions that the imagination forges are pre-linguistic, insofar as they call forth the capacity within language to conjoin, to gather together, and thereby convey novelty by synthesizing that which is different, i.e., a relation to an object (Gegenstand). When Kant addresses the “synthetic” capacity of imagination, he refers to more than simply a function performed in the service of human knowledge. For the synthetic unity he envisions, and which comes to fruition through imaginative schema, harks back to the Greek sense of the logos as gathering together. The human capacity to symbolize, to extend new horizons of meaning beyond what is simply given, stems from a gift granted to us that recedes into the depths of the abground (Abgrund). When Kant describes the schematic power of imagination as an “art concealed in the human soul,” he points to the groundless ground from which we first acquire the freedom to be.15 In outlining the “hermeneutic situation” of Being and Time, Heidegger first described the radical breakthrough of his inquiry as a “leap” into the circle. By subverting the metaphysical priority of reason in the Kant-book,

18  Seeking New Guidelines for Interpretation his appeal to imagination becomes a “leap,” which analogously propels thinking into a circular orbit. Within this hermeneutic circle, thinking forsakes the pretense of making “being” directly present, and thereby opposes the metaphysical tendency to impose its own rationalistic structures to compartmentalize our understanding of what it means “to be.” In play in the Kant-book, then, are further repercussions of this leap into the hermeneutical circle, as far as unraveling the presuppositions on which the metaphysical tradition rests. These presuppositions, beginning with the static conception of being as permanent presence, lay the sediments of tradition, which erects rigid metaphysical dichotomies: including the divisions between subject and object, freedom and nature, mind and body. Through his radical reinterpretation of transcendental imagination, Heidegger sets in motion the first of the phases of his destructiveretrieval of the metaphysical tradition. Within the modern setting, the aforementioned dualisms obstruct the landscape by which Kant, in each of his Critiques, seeks to bring the concern for imagination into the forefront of his inquiry. Presumably, Heidegger could foresee in his Auseinandersetzung with the whole of Critical philosophy the mirroring of the attempt to undo each of these metaphysical dualisms, beginning with the premise of subject versus object in Kant’s account of the possibility of synthetic a prior knowledge in the first Critique. At least implicitly, then, Heidegger’s attempt to base the totality of human knowledge on finite transcendence, and to locate the origin of Da-sein’s disclosedness in the temporal enactment of imagination, paves the way for subverting the dualisms of freedom and nature, mind and body, as well as subject and object. In this regard, Kant’s Copernican revolution is not merely an epistemic shift to seek a new axis around which to reconstruct the possibility of human knowledge. Rather, that axis must be transposed into a completely new, circular orbit of inquiry, in order that human finitude can become explicit in marking the horizon of all human activities, i.e., as exercised through the care (Sorge) of each of us inhabiting a world. Within this wider orbit, temporality not only provides a concrete grounding of the relation between knower and known (within finite transcendence), but also harbors the ellipsis of deeper origination in the ecstatic trajectory of historicality (Geschichtlichkeit). I belong to time, and as temporality it both transcends me and propels or yields the trajectory of my self-surpassing (i.e., transcendence).16 Within this wider ellipsis, Kant’s Copernican turn must seek new coordinates, no longer constrained by the limits of the subject–object dichotomy, but unfolding within an altogether new landscape as ecstatically projected (in finite transcendence), namely, the world itself, or in relation to a new nomenclature of the self (in lieu) of the subject, “being-in-theworld.”17 Once Kant’s key innovation has been removed from its cognitive shackles, the opportunity arises to retrieve the key insights pertaining to moral action (praxis) and aesthetic appreciation (art), as outlined in

Seeking New Guidelines for Interpretation  19 the successive stages of Critical philosophy: The Critique of Practical Reason and the Critique of Judgment, respectively. In “reading back” Kant’s insights hermeneutically, we wish to consider the significance of further evoking what remains “unsaid,” that is, as providing new “signposts” to excavate the narrow or even hidden pathways which recede into the origin of the preliminary (ancient) concern for ethics. How can we distinguish a new path of questioning, which can interject into the place (in modern philosophy) vacated by the displacement of the unity of Kant’s enterprise the wider orbit for the philosophical inquiry into being? In addressing this question, we will discover that metontology arises as a possible bridge, intermediary step, or transition between the overarching attempt of fundamental ontology to re-ask the question of being and the emergence of a deeper grounding of that project in the problem of human freedom, beginning with Heidegger’s lecture course from the Summer Semester of 1930.

II From World to Earth A. The Play-Space of Transcendence If hermeneutic guidelines open up the pathway of Heidegger’s dialogue with Kant, then might they not also be instructive in helping us to address facets of Kant’s philosophy that Heidegger examined only briefly? Obviously, the thrust of Heidegger’s destructive-retrieval of transcendental philosophy centers on the Critique of Pure Reason. If in his study of Kant’s Critique of Practical Reason the concern for the imagination seems to remain in the background, we could also say the same of the third Critique if even to a greater degree. As he recounts in a key passage from the Kant-book, “We cannot consider here consider the sense in which the pure power of imagination recurs in the Critique of Judgment…”18 Rather than divert us, such remarks only provide further impetus to uncover the deeper source (e.g., the Abgrund) for the unification of Kant’s task. The unfolding of three Critiques harbors its own brand of circularity, if not explicitly embodying the curvature of the hermeneutic circle as such. The innermost architectonic of the Critical philosophy can be seen an as a mimetic art, an imitative style in which the completion of that task, e.g., the grounding of the self-reflexivity of the subject in the third Critique, recoils upon the beginning, or reason’s circumscribing its own boundaries in the first Critique. The root of human reason unfolds from an even deeper source in the affective response of the self’s capacity to experience pleasure, along with the potential for its communication, e.g., the sensus communis. The thrownness (Geworfenheit) of human subjectivity comes into view. Hence the attempt to uncover in this factical dimension the basis not only of our power of cognition, but also of our capacity for action, constitutes a further development of Kant’s Copernican

20  Seeking New Guidelines for Interpretation revolution. Could this development in which Critical philosophy returns to a deeper, unquestioned origin, mimic the movement of metontology as the overturning of fundamental ontology? Metontology proceeds from Da-sein’s situatedness within beings, in bringing into question the whole of their interconnectedness, in order to make explicit the existential ground for the philosophical predisposition to inquire into being. One again, Heidegger draws a parallel with Kant’s attempt to address the possibility of metaphysics as a fundamental predisposition of human reason. While drawing upon this parallel, Heidegger also departs from it by: 1) emphasizing the singularity of the inquirer who is disposed to question; and 2) addressing the factors that comprise the inquirer’s immersion within beings, e.g., as factically instantiated in a specific set of circumstances, as embodied, as ex-posed to the manifestation of beings, including others and nature. Given the basic thrust of metontology, a further opportunity arises to execute the “Destruktion” vis-à-vis the premise of modern philosophy, that is, as the attempt to supplant the anthropologically based (leading) query for Kant “What is man?” by recoiling of the question “who is Da-sein” upon a deeper inquiry into being. The guiding question “What is man?”, which pre-sketches the threefold inquiry, e.g., by asking “What can I know?,” “What should I do?,” “What may I hope?,” for each division of the Critical philosophy, is pre-empted, transformed, and radicalized on an entirely new ground to re-enact the Fragestellung. In reformulating the question on this new ground, the “generic” character of the “what” recedes in far of the singular concern for the “who,” albeit recast within the wider arc of the hermeneutic circle and through its selfinterrogative capacity as a being (ein Seiendes) capable of addressing the meaning of being (Sein). Here the occasion arises to explore the hidden significance of metontology. Specifically, as we revisit its importance, while considering its role in helping to extend the radius of the hermeneutical circle, we discover that metontology arises against the backdrop of Heidegger’s “destruction” of the tradition and opens another pathway to that task. Put simply, metontology receives its name by extending the use of metaphysical concepts to elicit latent concerns of fundamental ontology in a “non-metaphysical” way. For example, the metaphysical notion of “wholeness” can be employed to address the interconnectedness of beings in the whole, to which Da-sein also belongs. Given this broader perspective, the importance of the other side of Da-sein’s temporal openness, or its spatiality, can re-emerge as intrinsic to the ex-posure of being-there to the diverse manifestness of beings as such, including nature. The use of metaphysical concepts in this non-metaphysical way offsets any implicit bias in favor of the human subject, thereby allowing the interplay of chthonic dimensions of embodiment, materiality, and nature within the Spiel-Raum of Da-sein’s ecstatic openness.

Seeking New Guidelines for Interpretation  21 By turning metaphysics against itself, Heidegger deploys his “destruction” of Kant to unravel the key dichotomies of modern philosophy: 1) the split between subject and object, but also 2) the opposition between freedom and nature, and 3) the polarity between intellect and feeling. Strategically, the unraveling of these primary dichotomies indicates the more specific ways in which hermeneutic guidelines can be employed to navigate each of Kant’s three Critiques, and thus, through those interpretations, seek the unifying thread for undertaking the destructive-retrieval of his transcendental philosophy. As epitomized through its pivotal encounter with the first Critique, the Kant-book initiates a “critique of the subjectivity of the subject,” that is, takes as its primary point of departure the challenge of undercutting the subject– object dichotomy. In this lecture course from the Summer Semester of 1930, Heidegger grapples with Kant’s attempt to resolve the dichotomy between freedom and nature as the cornerstone for re-opening the domain of practical reason in the second Critique. Finally, if not as explicitly, Heidegger leaves important clues for how to address the affectivity of the self in its aesthetic experience, e.g., as outlined in the third Critique, in order to undermine the rift between mind and body, and thereby to recover the phenomenon of embodiment as a clue to our connection to the earth. If our “working hypothesis” proves to be successful, we will not only be able to bring to light distinctive phenomena as topics for ontological investigation, but, conversely, we will also be able to unravel the unifying thread of Kant’s task via the use of hermeneutic guidelines. We can the witness the re-birth of his thought within the onefold of phenomenology (in and through its singular logos or language). To anticipate the direction of my discussion, then, I will point to the phenomenon of world (Welt) and its corollary role in indicating the factical, finite origin of freedom in the second Critique, and to the countermovement of the appearing (or merely “announcing itself”’) of the concern for embodiment, materiality, and, ultimately, the earth (Erde) in the third Critique. In pre-orienting our discussion, let us summarize the interpretive trajectory for the overarching concern for each of the three critiques, that is, in deposing the question of “What is man?” in favor of “Who is Da-sein?” and by un-doing the respective metaphysical dichotomies. The polarities between subject and object in regard to knowledge (first Critique), freedom, and nature with respect to moral action (second Critique), and, finally, the sensible and supersensible (third Critique), all define three basic dichotomies that pervade modern metaphysics. Recalling Heidegger’s remark that Kant “took over quite dogmatically” Descartes’s view of the cogito, and that his neglect for the “sum” conceals the problematic of world, we underscore the importance that addressing the phenomenon of world has in furthering the plan for a destructiveretrieval of the tradition.19 Through the temporal transcendence by which

22  Seeking New Guidelines for Interpretation Dasein first discloses the world, we experience not only the trajectory of our finitude (e.g., in projecting the limitation of death), but also the manifestation of beings as the “wherein” for encountering others, the diversity of nature, along with individuality of the self. Overarching Heidegger’s destructive-retrieval of Kant is what in advance grounds Da-sein’s understanding of being and yields its potential both to be thematized and articulated in fundamental ontology—which, alas, never comes explicitly to light through the first two divisions of Being and Time. That central problematic, which enters the forefront in the Kant-book, is the ontological difference. Through the act of transcendence, world makes explicit the expanse of unconcealment, e.g., the “play-space” (Spiel-Raum), in which Da-sein participates and on which, as a being, it depends. As the “wherein” of the locale of the manifestness of beings, world (or its “worlding”) pre-orients or shapes all of the Dasein’s comportment toward beings, including itself and others. But how does the world appear phenomenologically, or, by the same token, withdraw as a phenomenon in its own right, in the first Critique where the temporal-disclosure of imagination establishes the tension of the cognitive relation between knower and object (Gegenstand)? In his lecture course from the Winter Semester of 1935/36, Heidegger quotes Kant’s “highest principle of synthetic judgments”: “[T]he conditions of the possibility of experience are likewise the conditions of the possibility of the objects of experience…”20 Upon citing Kant’s principle, Heidegger adds: “Whoever understands this statement understands Kant’s Critique of Pure Reason…”21 Through this principle, Kant points to the opening of a circular dynamic within experience that grounds the tension of the cognitive relation between knower and knower and transposes their interaction into the area of the “between” (Zwischen). In the area of the “between,” Heidegger seeks a deeper grounding for the cognitive relation between knower and known, which in the Kant-book he first characterized as the play-space of finite transcendence. In the surpassing beyond of transcendence, the knower both “lets be encountered” (the op-posing object) and is redirected back to the circular happening or dynamic of human experience as an open region (Offenheit) of manifestation. In this account, Heidegger emphasizes the counter pull of the “thing” (das Ding), whose manner of appearing both exemplifies and presupposes the “otherness” of manifestation. This area of the “between” thereby enacts the differentiation (the contrast between being and beings), simultaneously projecting-forth the world as the “wherein” of manifestation in its tension with whatever can become manifest, e.g., the thing. In Contributions to Philosophy, Heidegger calls this intermediary zone of differentiation, through which human beings participate in the openness, the “betweenspace” (Zwischenraum).22 By establishing this deeper grounding for knowledge in the first Critique, Heidegger also recognizes the primary limitation of the theoretical sphere such that in the giving-refusal the thing is precluded from manifestation

Seeking New Guidelines for Interpretation  23 in its singularity and appears, as it were, only derivatively through its “thingness.” Nevertheless, in light of the “between,” Heidegger provides a new nomenclature for the twofold (der Zwiespalt), the doubling of the differentiation in terms of both being and beings along with world and thing. B. Facticity and Practical Reason Briefly, we must also consider how the twofold arises in Heidegger’s destructive- retrieval of the practical realm (of the second Critique, that is, to bisect and thereby undercut the metaphysical dichotomy between freedom and nature). The attempt to retrieve practical or moral reason and re-establish it on a new, “existential” footing poses a special challenge for Heidegger; on the one hand, Kant sought to base practical reason in the infinite, atemporal realm of the noumena, and, on the other, he did so by maintaining the metaphysical dichotomy between freedom and nature. As relocated in its uniqueness within the play-space of imagination, the practical self chooses on behalf of the limitations that its own adherence to moral requirements exemplify. Where Kant had relegated freedom to the noumenal realm, we also recognized that it could only be actualized through its factuality, or its givenness as a “fact” which is evidenced through the self’s imposing of a moral requirement. The self’s adherence to such a mandate, and the legislation implied thereby attests to or confirms the actuality of moral freedom as such, not in the abstract, but through the concrete, factical example of the individual’s way of acting. The factical grounding of practical freedom in this sense means that our compliance to the moral law or categorical imperative 1) exemplifies our finitude and 2) occurs in the play-space of possibilities, e.g., alternatively rendered as the self’s “free-space” of discovering its power to choose (e.g., Entschlossenheit as “choosing to choose”), the self, as answerable (Antwortlichkeit), arises in and through its being-with and the possibility of being-obligated toward others. In the destruction of Kant’s practical philosophy, moral reason reemerges within the concrete domain of human praxis, that is, within the “wherein” of the world as providing space for our interaction with and obligation to other individuals. In his lectures from the Summer Semester of 1930, Heidegger undertakes the second stage of his destructiveretrieval of transcendental philosophy when he states: “[T]he problem of freedom arises from and as the problem of world.”23 The specific exercise of choice in moral praxis becomes an image for the world-making, inhabiting power by which Da-sein first occupies the “there” in its beingwith others. To amplify this imagistic play, we can say that moral action analogously reflects the free enactment of assembling and discharging a horizon of possibilities. In the elevation of the self to a moral higher ground, e.g., in its transcending toward and surpassing to a world, the

24  Seeking New Guidelines for Interpretation individual exemplifies a “cosmopolitan” spirit, i.e., human being as “citizen of the world” (Weltbürgers).24 Quoting a passage from the Critique of Pure Reason (B 868n), Heidegger states the concept of world is “’that concept which concerns what is necessarily of interest to everyone.’”25 In following the thread of Heidegger’s guideline, we seek direction from a further act of translation. The translation brings to light what is already preunderstood, albeit withdrawn in Kant’s account of practical reason, namely, the possibility of recovering the “ethos” as the root of ethics, and its intralingual rendering as the attempt at situated dwelling. Against the backdrop of this historical translation, the basic ethical concepts are transformed and thereby translated anew, such that, for example, an awakening to and reciprocal response to the openness of “being-there,” to its silent calling redefines our capacity “to be responsible.” Heidegger’s destructive-retrieval of practical reason anticipates the inception of an “original ethics” in place of its traditional, normative counterpart, as I will outline in subsequent chapters.26 In his lecture course from the Summer Semester of 1930, Heidegger draws out the implications of translating the “responsiveness” of responsibility as an “answering” to a call or (Anspruch) by rendering anew Kant’s supreme principle of morality: “Practical freedom as autonomy is self-responsibility…”27 In this way, Heidegger deploys hermeneutic guidelines to expand his dialogue with Kant. The destructive-retrieval of practical reason (the second Critique) thereby becomes a springboard for re-enacting the question of being on a deeper level, as projected upon the historical backdrop of Heidegger’s Auseinandersetzung with the Western tradition. How does he arrive as this hermeneutic breakthrough? Rather than relegating the power to choose to human subjectivity and its faculty of the will, Heidegger relocates the origin of freedom in Dasein’s way of belonging to and reciprocal responsiveness to being. Freedom re-emerges through the gifting whereby “there is being” and “there is time.” In what we might call the “second act” of this daring venture of translation, Heidegger relocates his destructive-retrieval of Kant more broadly within the compass of history (Geschichte). Through its moral interactions, the self belongs to and inhabits a world that includes the development of a social dimension. Neither this social dimension nor its linguistic form of “communication,” however, as self-grounding; for in their unity these “practices” depend upon the schismatic cut of a prior differentiation, of the “between,” into which is interposed a prior entry point into a world, e.g., as thrown into and as inhabiting language. As the dichotomies between subject and object, freedom and nature, fall by the wayside, so must another division, namely, between the sensible (i.e., of the sensing and appreciating of whatever can appear as beautiful) and the supersensible (i.e., a higher, spiritual yearning and aspiration). To dissolve this polarity, we must undertake an “another chapter” in Heidegger’s destructive-retrieval of Kant, which seeks a deeper level for restoring the world in its intersection with the earth.

Seeking New Guidelines for Interpretation  25 C. Affectivity and Nature The third act of (intra-lingual) translation reaches further into the silence of the unsaid than perhaps becomes evident in Heidegger’s writings. In this case, we venture into the unfamiliar terrain of the Critique of Judgment. A new axis for the creativity of world-making arises through the example of art, or, more specially, the work of art. Kant’s interest in art revolves around neither aesthetic experience proper nor the representation of an object thereof. Instead, he addresses the interplay of the cognitive faculties enabling us to respond to beauty and thus be moved by a corresponding pleasurable sensation. The singularity of such a response is simultaneously an appeal to language, a harmonizing of our cognitive powers (i.e., of understanding and imagination) that opens a new landscape within which to situate our “subjectivity.” In perhaps an even more subtle way, the concern for “What is man?” reverts into the “who,” that is, no longer as a sovereign subject as either knower or (moral) agent, but rather as a situated response to how we can be affected” by the appearance of what is “singular” and provocative. If only in an indirect way, the third Critique ponders how the “ground” can move away or recede from subjectivity as the ab-ground (Ab-grund), and, thus, reciprocally, transpose “who” we are into openness. Through this transposition, or the interposing of the “between,” we are relegated to a new role or service: that is, a placeholder for a refusal in which concealment interplays with its opposite and the creativity of worldmaking (e.g., as enacted through the work of art) is set off against the counter movement of the earth. The “free play” of imagination in an aesthetic judgment becomes a signpost to a primordial act of freedom as “letting-be.” The imaginative play intensifies and releases the tension of the fourfold—earth, sky, mortals, and gods—the enduring and forbearing in which the tension between each of the four quadrants occurs also one to the other to participate and mirror each other in this new form of play (Zuspiel). We must be cautious, however, not to equate Kant’s emphasis on the free play of imagination with the play of the fourfold in Heidegger’s sense. On the contrary, the former points to the impinging of the natural upon the human, the overthrow of the purely supersensible by the sensible, of rationality by affect, and, thus, ultimately, how the path of our morality doubles back to include our origination from, inhabitation of, and belonging to the earth. The further unfolding of this path points to praxis and poiesis as the concerns that broaden the scope of imagination (beyond knowledge), and, conversely, how the retrieval of these concerns points to a deeper origin of imagination. This interconnection between praxis and poiesis can become evident only through a triadic relation in which physis forms the cornerstone. We must follow a further pathway of destruction to make this triadic explicit, that is, by subverting a further dichotomy in which modern philosophy is embroiled, namely, the division between freedom and nature.

26  Seeking New Guidelines for Interpretation In this respect, the third Critique testifies to the thrownness of “affect” in which we become beholders of, beholden to, and finally, vessels of the manifestation of beauty in the work of art. Here affect does not simply convey a “mental” or an “emotional” state, but instead conveys the attunement of rapture, the ecstatic openness through which we first experience beauty. By the same token, the body does not occur in opposition to the mind. Rather, the body is the factical forbearing by which we belong to the openness, and thereby participate in and contribute to its unfolding through the allocation of space as well as time. The earth speaks of the claim of materiality, of the need, our way of belonging to nature, and thus our kinship with animals, through common affectivity, gender, sexuality (sexual difference), reproduction, and even the impetus to survive. To employ Hannah Arendt’s term, we are “earthbound creatures.”28 This earth-boundedness first sets into motion the potential by which we can create, inhabit, and occupy a world. In The Life of the Mind, Arendt identifies the confluence of the concerns for the singularity of judgment, the opening of the practical dimension in connection with the ethos as inclusive of the perspective of the other, and the free play of imagination: The “enlargement of the mind” plays a crucial role in the Critique of Judgment. It is accomplished by “comparing our judgment with the possible rather than the actual judgment of others, and by putting ourselves in the place of any other man.” The faculty which makes this possible is called imagination… Critical thinking is possible only where the standpoints of all others are open to inspection… [By] force of imagination it makes the others present and thus moves potentially in a space which is public, open to all sides; in other words, it adopts the position of Kant’s world citizen.29 Through the destructive-retrieval of the third Critique, the pathway of thinking recedes into its remotest origins. The pathway doubles back but does not arrive at its destination. Instead, a receding detour appears. The motifs of materiality, embodiment, affectivity, and nature mark a new landscape of thinking, a shifting topography, in order to subvert the Cartesian dualism of mental and physical, of res cogitans and res extensa. The fundamental orientation within the disclosedness of world, of space in its reciprocity and conjunction with time—withdraws from thought. While spatiality may appear, it does not do so as a phenomenon as such. A richer determination of space as implicating our capacity to dwell, still depends upon recovering a deeper sense of our rootedness in nature, of our belonging a wider expanse of the manifestation of being upon the setting of (its opposition) to earth, draws thinking into a broader orbit of thinking, a new historical orbit. In question, then, is the worauf of the allocation of space, that is, its historical birth and constellation as a “site” or “place” (Ort) for the manifestation of being, and reciprocally, and,

Seeking New Guidelines for Interpretation  27 conversely, how the determination of place yields the coordinates for the “wherein” of our capacity to dwell on the earth. The potential for human beings to dwell on the earth, on the one hand, and, on the other, to do so in response to and in reciprocity with the manifestation of being—rather than as self-positing subjects who seek to exert rule and domination—remains worthy of questioning. Does the third Critique, through an avenue cleared by its destructive-retrieval, point to deeper reciprocity between freedom and nature, which otherwise remains hidden within the Kantian problematic? Indeed, the third Critique asks about a deeper ground of human finitude in the affective space of imagination, for example, in the reflective awareness of beauty. The question of “who” we are must be re-opened with respect to what is revealed about us through our encounter with otherness, the field of nature and our stance within the whole of beings. What, then, is the earth? Is it mixture of land and water, oceans and deserts? The earth is not simply geographical stuff, but the signifying of the “sensuous site” of nature, the repose of the stone, the growth of the tree, and the flight of the eagle.30 As such, the earth belongs to the clearing whole, the bounty of all resources and habitats, which we inherit as part of the legacy of our dwelling.31 In its tension and reciprocity with world, the earth is the site that gathers mortals together in their historical destiny. As such, the earth is an idiom for what which is incalculable (in contrast to the calculative rationality of machination). Heidegger suggests this in an enigmatic passage from Contributions to Philosophy: World is “earthly” (of the earth). Earth is worldly. In one respect earth is more originary than nature, because it is related to history. World is higher than what is merely “created” because world is history-forming and thus closest to enowning.32 By entering this new orbit of hermeneutic inquiry, Heidegger transforms Kant’s innovative insight of the Copernican revolution, gathering its aftershocks in order to prepare thinking to undertake a new “leap.” Could this leap uncover a deeper problematic, in which a presupposition concerning the “practical,” i.e., the possibility of freedom arising in its reciprocity with nature (physis), rather than divorced from it?

III The Question of Human Freedom A. Revisiting Responsibility In terms of a larger cultural climate that Heidegger occupied, and in which he sought to radicalize the inquiry into being, the decade of the 1930s prompts an enormous upheaval. Here we will not proceed in a “historicist” way to reconstruct the confluence of variables, which

28  Seeking New Guidelines for Interpretation may have factored in to shape the course of his philosophical development. We will focus instead on the transformation already underway in Heidegger’s project, as it becomes accessible in the search for a new point of departure. Here the development may not be explicitly thematic in character but may instead include a recursive pathway that is shaped as much by its omissions and dislocations. The concerns designated by the problematic “time and being” becomes relevant here, if only by indirectly determining the impact that what is “unthought” has upon outlining a new topography of thought (as well as governing Heidegger’s appropriation of the philosophical tradition). The following passage from The Metaphysical Foundations of Logic, in which Heidegger outlines the development of metontology, also includes one of his most explicit allusions to the unpublished part of his magnum opus, time and being: Temporalizing is the free oscillation of the whole of primordial temporality; time reaches and contracts itself. (And only because of momentum is there throw[ing], facticity, thrownness, and only because of oscillation is there projection. Cf. the problem of time and being referred to in Being and Time.)33 In retrospect, the political provides one such example of an “un-thematic” (concern), which may appear only tangentially at first but the direct omission of which nevertheless may necessitate incorporating a disparate set of issues into a broader philosophical problematic. If for Heidegger, then, the political is yet to become an open question, a preliminary concern for the place for the “practical” side of philosophy, for praxis, emerges on the cusp of charting a new path of inquiry. Rather than consider “the practical” tangentially, a more radical point of departure would reincorporate it on a level equiprimordial with the question of being. To a certain extent, metontology suggests a transition in this direction, even if the pathway opened up briefly on the cusp of a new decade (of the 1930s) closes off just as quickly. In hermeneutic terms, the presupposition for addressing the practical domain (albeit apart from its restriction to the specific discipline of morality) or human freedom points back to a deeper origin housing the question of being and prompting its more radical reformulation. Rather than only a premise on which to base the ‘practical” in contrast to the “theoretical,” freedom emerges as the presupposition gathering all else that is presupposed into a new point of departure of philosophical inquiry. Friedrich-Wilhelm von Herrmann makes this point though the following observation: Heidegger undertook a “planned revision” of his magnum opus on the basis of his “1930 lecture course… where the subject matter of Being and Time is embedded in ‘Being and Freedom.’”34 In bringing the concern for freedom to the forefront, Heidegger transposes

Seeking New Guidelines for Interpretation  29 his philosophical inquiry, expanding the scope of its hermeneutical situation, in a way that requires making explicit its historical trajectory. He reestablishes our capacity to be free on a hermeneutical platform, thereby circumventing the attempt by German idealists, including Hegel, to link human freedom to the metaphysics of subjectivity and its corresponding method of the dialectic. The hermeneutical plan of separating out what is original in contrast to what is derivative, this vacillation between extremes, takes a new turn. By engaging in a critical dialogue with his predecessors, and appropriating their insights in new ways, Heidegger underscores the originality of his own task. For him, what is “unthought” yields a new front to unfold the curvature of the hermeneutical circle, seeking in this oscillation back and forth the cutting edge to bring the “meaning” of being (i.e., its disclosedness, and potential for determination through language) to light. The economizing of these complex movements, which take shape methodologically, comes to fruition in Heidegger’s lectures from the Summer Semester of 1930 under the title Vom Wesen der menschlichen Freiheit. In this lecture course, Heidegger renews his dialogue with Kant, albeit with emphasis on the practical side of his philosophy. In carrying out his plan for a destructive-retrieval of transcendental philosophy, Heidegger reexamines such key moral concerns and concepts as responsibility, insofar as they point to our corollary capacities “to be” in the world, and thereby provide an impetus to question back their origin in the situatedness of the ethos (from which the discipline of ethics) resides. Such “normative” concepts are not simply convertible into corollary, ontological terms. Rather, the questioning back to what is unthought transposes the axis of inquiry, the supplanting of a narrower context of investigation by a broader, primordial one. In hermeneutic terms, the transposing of one context into another allows normative concepts to “formally indicate” a deeper nexus of meanings, which spring from the relation between being and man (rather than designate properties reserved strictly in our humanity). By drawing upon a deeper repository of meaning, the appeal to what is unthought and unsaid spawns a new context to translate “intralingually” such primordial expressions as “responsiveness” in lieu of their normative correlates, e.g., responsibility. As such, responsiveness implicates the fostering of a reciprocal relationship with what is radically other, as conferred by being, rather than as a power discharged by an exclusively human capability such as the will. Such an intralingual translation implies an encounter or Auseinandersetzung with the philosophical tradition, thereby summoning the compass of history to transmit the deeper ancestry of its terms. Within this wider orbit of inquiry, being’s relation to man enters into play, in order to play out the spectrum of enriched meanings, most notably those highlighting the enactment of freedom, beyond the pale of human subjectivity.

30  Seeking New Guidelines for Interpretation Although it is certainly relevant to address Heidegger’s relation to ethics, initially this enterprise emerges as an offshoot of questioning back to the ethos and its role in unfolding the reciprocity between being and man, on which the possibility of freedom is predicated. Methodologically speaking, we must consider the continual evolving and expanding of the hermeneutic situation. The questioning back is reminiscent of what Heidegger characterizes as a “metontological turn” (Umschlag), which is similar to a further ellipsis within the hermeneutic circle, an “overturning” pivoting around its own center. The tension of “setting into opposition” of philosophical dialogue gathers the impetus for a turning-over, turning-around, and “counter-turning,” in order that the new relation between being and humanity can transpose the axis of philosophical inquiry; and, conversely, freedom emerges as the dynamic midpoint to harbor the tension of this reciprocity (between being and humanity). In his lectures from the winter semester of 1930, Heidegger characterized this “counter-turning” (Widerkehre) as a radical shift in which “freedom ceases to be a property of man,” and human being instead becomes a “possibility of freedom.”35 Freedom appears through the relation to which man stands to being and vice versa. “How do matters stand with being?” That relationship is never one of simple equivalency or presence, but instead includes the opposing of refusing, withdrawing, and remaining absent. Within the ecstatic trajectory of temporality, absencing defines presencing, and thereby the potential for being to rise into unconcealment occurs against the backdrop of its withdrawal into concealment. Correlatively, freedom belongs to and receives its impetus from the interplay of this dynamic. The coincidence between freedom and truth is not so much of one of simple identity, but rather the opening up of an expanse in which human beings and being are mutually granted to each other. In this expanse Da-sein reciprocates for participating in this openness, i.e., by “letting-be,” and thus, in receiving this wealth of possibility, becomes beholden to being. This act of reciprocating, then, defines the first and foremost overture or primarily gesture of freedom, the concession that counterbalances the awarding of being’s gift of unconcealment. As the vessel and ultimately instigator of this act, a demand falls upon Da-sein to safeguard its participation in that openness. A mandate is thereby issued in accord with freedom, in the act of letting-be, which calls man to assume this role of guardianship or stewardship. The stewardship in question both outstrips and makes possible any subsequent declaration of a norm, as inducing a sense of proportionality, the swinging of a midpoint, through which the power of freedom can be dispensed, received, and administered. Rather than confined to the division between theoretical and practical, freedom still exacts the highest claim, including the predisposition to be answerable, to be responsive, in previewing the constraint of any other mandate or requirement through which normal in any

Seeking New Guidelines for Interpretation  31 ethical context can first arise. In recovering freedom in this primordial way, Heidegger does not simply subordinate (the normative claims of) ethics to ontology, but, on the contrary, proceeds in questioning back to its origin in the ethos. An “original ethics” only becomes possible when we redefine freedom apart from the human will, and as modeled upon a metaphysical notion of permanence presence (and the erection of such “eternal” norms). In navigating the impasse of ethics, then, philosophical inquiry makes explicit how to dispense freedom through a responsiveness, the idiom of which provides the key to translate anew terms subsequently conveyed in an exclusively normative context, e.g., the pure presence of “self-determination.” Thus, the manner of self-determination, which Kant defined in ethical terms as “autonomy” (Autonomie), can be rendered anew as a disposition (even as expressed via the feeling of respect) and capacity for ownership distinctive of human beings, namely, “selfresponsibility.” To be responsible is to be answerable, and for Heidegger, what may be enacted on a personal level ultimately depends upon Da-sein’s heeding a prior claim of being. The question of human freedom harbors the concealed pathway, which leads back from Kant’s account of autonomy, as the presupposition of moral action, to the situated dwelling of the ethos. Conversely, the concern for the ethos already prefigures Heidegger’s inquiry into the nexus of relations comprising being-in-the-world, including the dispositional context of Dasein’s being-with-others, e.g., solicitude. Sociality and community no longer convey only the collective whole of the human way “to be” but instead depend upon the (ordaining) of being’s relation to Da-sein and the “proprietorship” holding between the former and the latter. Thus, it is through humanity’s belonging to be-ing (Seyn), and the reciprocal claim whereby the latter answers the former (or freedom), that the bonds which join us in society and community can become possible as a mode of conservatorship, ordination, and, and ownership. The development in which freedom becomes a “possibility” of man transposes the axis of the hermeneutic circle, rather than simply marking another entry point. That is, the attempt to re-inscribe the task of Sein und Zeit in the problematic of freedom, as von Herrmann emphasizes, incorporates, if only in a provisional way, the “turning around” of the question itself in favor of recovering its deeper historical inception. Conversely, Heidegger’s own thinking does not simply emerge ex nihilo, but instead finds its place within the thrown trajectory of the philosophical tradition. Because the need for such a “turning” guides in advance Heidegger’s search for this new point of departure, the shifting of the axis philosophy from “freedom as a property of man” to “man as a possibility of freedom,” suggests a hermeneutic guideline to retrieve the “relevance” of the practical—and the nexus of concerns, e.g., socially, ethically, and perhaps even, politically.

32  Seeking New Guidelines for Interpretation B. The Site of Spatiality The puzzle and omission of the turning around of the question, from to “being and time” to “time and being,” the task of the published third division (Part I) of Heidegger’s magnum opus will ultimately reappear under the heading of the “temporality of being.”36 The designation of the genitive, the “of” (des), holds in place the question of the difference between being and beings or the ontological difference. The acknowledgment of this difference, however, does not immediately allow being to appear, that is, in a way that can become understandable in philosophical (and thematic) terms. Hence the need for the analogical use of metaphysical concepts to help focus the conversation concerning being and introduce further distinctions into the inquiry. On the one hand, what is designated by being cannot simply be determined with reference to beings; on the other, the lesson of metontology is that being can appear, at least announce itself, in the way that unity and diversity converge through the various activities by which Da-sein stands out in the midst of beings. The unity of the manifestations of beings is not just an abstract concept, but instead is taken back into a prism that shines forth the light of being as illuminating the whole vis-à-vis the unique activities by which Da-sein relates to beings on multiple fronts simultaneously, e.g., self, others, and, implicitly, the realm of nature. The temporalizing of being cannot simply be reduced to the presencing of the aggregate of beings, the beingness of beings. Rather, that temporalization comes to light through an example that pre-gathers the dynamic ways in which Da-sein can stand forth in the clearing in its relations to others, amplifying what is most distinctive, or ownmost, of its potentiality to be. As emblematic of this thrown trajectory, the ethos provides such an example; it harbors a linguistically mediated openness, if only on the pre-articulated level of custom and culture. The situated dwelling of human beings, and the basic gestures by which the self becomes answerable, exercises care toward the other, and seeks to foster the bonds of community, mark the emergence of the world as the encompassing horizon within which being first manifests itself (within the sphere of beings). When Kant first referred to the practical self as a “citizen of the world,” he implicitly relocated the realm or domain (Gebiet) of human action within the ethos of situated dwelling, albeit abstractly by prioritizing human reason. But he did not consider how the temporality of finite transcendence, or its world-openness, enables the (“practical”) self to address “who” it is, as well as the welfare of the “other”—vis-à-vis the capacity of choice constitutive of personhood—within a unified whole of reference-relations (without divorcing freedom from nature). When seen in this light, the ethos can formally indicate the contrast between the manifestness of being in its multiple dimensions and the metaphysical conception of beings as beingness. By virtue of this difference,

Seeking New Guidelines for Interpretation  33 being temporalizes as the ecstatic openness in which the disclosedness of the world, including the diversity of beings, first occurs. The “practical” becomes a signpost to the temporality of being. But initially that sign can only be deciphered, or reinterpreted, in negative terms. Once again, Heidegger’s dialogue with Kant proves to be instructive. That dialogue must be enacted on two fronts. First, we must reconstruct the practical dimension of respect, the law, and moral self-awareness, on the existential basis of human finitude. Second, we must deconstruct the underlying metaphysical conceptions of his ethics, that is, the presumption of eternity, or permanence presence, as the noumenal origin of the moral law (in contrast to the phenomenally determined reactions of our inclinations in linear time).37 The attempt to question the possibility of ethics requires overthrowing its metaphysical preconceptions, and thereby showing how the metaphysics of presence is mired in the relentless pursuit to erect eternal moral norms. The corresponding ethical concepts of personhood, rationality, the immortality of the soul, the “highest good,” and intrinsic value all denote the metaphysics of presence. These metaphysical expressions of being as presence, which becomes understood, if uncritically, against a temporal backdrop, spawns a false dichotomy between eternity and linear time on which depends the modern grounding of ethics. The de-construction of ethics can then be considered a stage in the attempt to undo the double errancy of metaphysics, that is, of defining time in terms of the priority of one temporal dimension, of the present, that harks back to mischaracterizing being as permanent presence. The questioning of ethics, then, becomes part of the larger problematic of turning around the question from being and time to time and being, of prioritizing the reciprocity between the two: such that “there is being” insofar as “there is time.” The de-struction of ethics is not a task that Heidegger explicitly undertook, although his attempt to transplant Kantian ethics on the deeper ground of human finitude, and root freedom in facticity, in part proves to be an exception. We must recognize, however, that even this stage does not occur in a vacuum, but rather unfolds in tandem with the larger task of dismantling the philosophical tradition. Returning to our premise of Heidegger’s destructive-retrieval of Kant, the rendering of responsibility as responsiveness requires a further intralingual translation of ethics as the ethos of situated dwelling. The case in point is how Heidegger: 1) explores the factic dimension of life by appealing to elements of the Aristotelian ethos, for example, the role of habit; and 2) seeks to recover the priority of physis as selfemerging presence as the hermeneutic fore-having, the pre-metaphysical backdrop, for the development of the basic concepts of Aristotle’s metaphysics. In this way, the de-struction of ethics, on the one hand, and the dismantling of the metaphysics of permanent presence, on the other, mark complementary paths of questioning that unfold within the larger problematic of “time and being.”

34  Seeking New Guidelines for Interpretation The enactment of time and being together unfold historically. For Heidegger, we provisionally come to experience the inception of history in this primordial way through a critical encounter and appropriation of the philosophical tradition, of which his Auseinandersetung with Kant, and Aristotle as well, comprise key stages (in the initial plan of Destruktion). In its hermeneutic preview, history unfolds on two fronts simultaneously, through the double play of questioning back to the initial source of the forgottenness of being, on the one hand, and, on the other, a corollary act of recollecting what remains unthought. Thus, the attempt to project the meaning of being can only occur as a task, indeed, a venture that is “thrown” within a historical orbit. Under the heading “time and being” we witness a dramatic change in Heidegger’s hermeneutic enterprise. The language that would express the meaning of “being” in temporal idioms must be developed through a historical conversation, that is, between Heidegger and is predecessors. In terms of the phenomenological inquiry, however, such a conversation allows the meaning of being to be disclosed and transmitted historically. Accordingly, the universality (thematic development) of the logos can be reconciled with the singular manifestation or self-showing of what is, thereby transforming phenomenology into hermeneutic venture that unfolds on a historical front. On this newly etched phenomenological plane, an experience of being becomes possible when prepared by, and factically rooted in, a grounding-attunement (Grundstimmung) by which each of us, as inquirers, can be struck by the abrupt emergence of unconcealment from concealment, that is, the unsettling encounter with the twofold dimension of absencing as well as presencing. The thrownness of this experience becomes primary, insofar as Da-sein is thrust into the tension of this difference, of the ontological difference, particularly as taking up a stance in the midst of beings. Here the metontological query takes on a new form in addressing the dual way in which Da-sein undergoes this thrownness, as both carving out a unique niche in the midst of beings (by inhabiting a world) and providing a site for the breakthrough of manifestation to occur. The question emerges: “How can Da-sein assume this position of ‘double-occupancy’?” such that it is by first granting a “place” for being to manifest itself that an abode can also be allocated within which human beings can reside. The designating of place as the open expanse of the “there” implies that space (Raum) has come into question, if only implicitly. Through its transmutation into a place, space is reallocated through its double determination as a site for being to become manifest as well as for us to inhabit. The path opened up through the de-struction of Kant’s transcendental philosophy intersects in Heidegger’s attempt to retrieve the Aristotelian concept of physis as self-emerging presence. Nature itself unfolds through its disclosure, not indeterminately through a generic aggregate of beings, but instead through the singularity by which the manifestation of a being

Seeking New Guidelines for Interpretation  35 occurs. Beings as nature are not held indeterminately within space, or even on the pure form of spatiality on which Newtonian extension is based, but instead pertains to what is unique in sheltering the manifestation of what can become present, exhibiting its innermost energia. For example, a space is reserved for animal life insofar all such creatures of the earth occupy specific habitats, which are essential for this distinctive way “to be.”38 Through his retrieval of physis, Heidegger shows how the “there” must include spatial coordinates in order that being can manifest itself across the full spectrum of its diversity. To address this ontological dimension of space explicitly, we must consider it as endemic to, and shaping the breakthrough of, unconcealment from concealment. Heidegger characterizes this breakthrough as a form of conflict or strife (Streit). But that strife has its own spatial counter pole, thereby exhibiting a distinctive topography, namely, the settingforth of the unconcealment of the world in tension with, or in opposition to, the reclusive concealment of the earth. This strife can only be enacted through the dynamic conjoining of space with time or the play of time-space (Zeit-Spiel-Raum). Space, then, is a modality of belongingness, which is bestowed through a proprietorial relation to being; such a proprietorship determines the abode that human beings inhabit (but not in exclusion of other habitats). Conversely, absencing as well as presencing yields the “name” of being according to its potential to become meaningful and expressible in language. The counter tension of absencing and presencing, which comes to fruition through the strife between earth and world, plays out through the ecstatic play of time-space. As this questioning of the intimacy between time and space is taken back into Heidegger’s dialogue with Kant, an important transformation takes place. As seen within Contributions, the play of time-space emerges as a new name for what Heidegger first described in Kant and the Problem of Metaphysics as the disclosedness of imagination. The movement toward a “crossing” is already underway. The concerns for materiality, embodiment, affectivity, and spatiality, which recede at the periphery of Kant’s third Critique, involves re-thinking time from out of the absencing through which presencing first becomes possible. While not accomplishing this transformation as such, metontology provides the placeholder for development of these motifs insofar as they point to or indicate a new axis for establishing the political at the intersection of earth and world. The hermeneutic mapping of these motifs upon the broader problematic of the temporality of being creates a landscape within which we can seek the political as a place of dwelling, e.g., through a new transcription of its “who” (as tenants), of its “wherein” (on the earth), and its “how” (as belonging to a socio-biotic community). Can the unfolding of this topography prompt a deeper investigation, which directs us back to a new entry point into the hermeneutic circle where, among other things, we arrive at the juncture to render

36  Seeking New Guidelines for Interpretation the political question-worthy again? The start and stops, the forward and backward movement of inquiry, harbor an interlude in Heidegger’s thinking. Within the ellipsis of Heidegger’s hermeneutics, such an interlude becomes a “placeholder” for expanding the dialogical space of the inquiry. That dialogical space includes not only the historical trajectory that draws Heidegger into conversation with his predecessor, but also the cutting edge to forge new distinctions or the “schismatic cut” by which his successors (and critics as well) can interject new distinctions. Ironically, only by safeguarding and reaffirming the possibility of these futural criticisms can the wealth of Heidegger’s own thinking be preserved and subsequently appropriated. Temporality temporalizes by projecting new vistas for the appropriation of Heidegger’s thinking, although in a more self-critical light. As the fulcrum of Heidegger’s destructive-retrieval of Kant’s philosophy that culminates in the 3rd Critique, the power of imagination supplies the creative impetus to outline the graphics for an original topography of thought, that is, by establishing a new axis for philosophical inquiry through the interplay of earth and world. The differentiation also admits the exposure of human beings within the openness of their embodiment, allowing for the development of a reciprocity in which the pathos of the other can appear and reshape the vocabulary for addressing the ethos (of our earthly dwelling).39 The radicalizing of Kant’s (Copernican) revolution turns around in a new way to invite the trans-human perspective of our earthly dwelling, thereby venturing a question as to the new preconditions for membership in or belonging to a community (e.g., the world-transforming power of human praxis). The trans-human perspective denotes the wider compass of human freedom as removed from its split with nature, and thus as including the capacity to “let-be” by which the earth, its habitats, and animal life can become manifest. The challenge posed by Heidegger’s staunchest critics, e.g., Emmanuel Levinas, signals a counter resonance whereby new pathways can be forged (that have otherwise been occluded). Such is the case in this renewed impetus of imagination to explore the landscape of the ethos in which the seeds of the political can be trans-planted and a new axis for reconfiguring the activities of the polis (through the intersection of earth and world). This prioritizing of dwelling (the stewardship of the earth) will call into question the meaning of “world-citizenry.”

IV Conclusion The preceding discussion begins from Heidegger’s destructive-retrieval of transcendental philosophy, following a path of inquiry that brings to the forefront his groundbreaking account of freedom in his 1930 lectures of Kant. One might ask why this aspect of Heidegger’s thinking should take center stage (in an overall investigation into the origin of the political)?

Seeking New Guidelines for Interpretation  37 Taking a clue from von Herrmann, we discover that Kant’s practical philosophy harbors, if only in an inverted way, the enigma of freedom as a new premise for grounding Heidegger’s problematic (as to the interdependence between time and being). This premise or presupposition both prefigures, and comes to fruition in, the “turning relation of being” to Da-sein. As Heidegger states: “The question concerning human freedom is the most basic question of philosophy, in which even the question of being is rooted.”40 What is at stake in the historical transformation of die Seinsfrage, in the unthought problematic of “time and being”? In answering this query, we need to chart a new landscape in which the possibility of history, and its inception in and through the “turning relation” of being to man, can become explicit. We must identify specifically the keys to expanding the hermeneutic situation of Sein and Zeit, in order that the roots of its key concepts can be uncovered and deployed to “formally indicate” the confluence of concerns defining the political. In this way, we will begin to explicate the key hermeneutic guidelines for bringing the political into question, for making it question-worthy as a phenomenon on its own right. In Chapter 2, I will outline the first of these hermeneutic guidelines, namely, the transformation of ethics as a normative discipline into the ethos of dwelling, as the entry way into the question of the political. This hermeneutic guideline will redirect us in the task of re-thinking normativity according to a (trans-human) measure.

Notes 1 Heidegger, Four Seminars, trans. F. Raffoul and A. Mitchell (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2003): 61. 2 Heidegger, Metaphysische Anfangsgründe der Logik im Ausgang von Leibniz, GA 26. (Frankfurt am Main: Vittorio Klostermann, 1978): 199. The Metaphysical Foundations of Logic, trans. Michael Heim (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1984): 157. 3 See Emad, On the Way to Heidegger’s Contributions to Philosophy (Madison: The University of Wisconsin Press, 2007): 8–11. 4 See Frank Schalow, “A Diltheyan Loop? The Methodological Side of Heidegger’s Kant-Interpretation,” Frontiers of Philosophy in China, 11/3 (Sept. 2016): 377–394. 5 Heidegger, Kant und das Problem der Metaphysik, GA 3 (Frankfurt am Main: Vittorio Klostermann, 1992): 1–3. Kant and the Problem of Metaphysics, trans. Richard Taft (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1997): 1–2. 6 Ernst Cassirer, “Kant und das Problem der Metaphysik: Bemerkungen zu Martin Heidegger’s Kant-Interpretation,” Kant-Studien, 36 (1931): 1–26. 7 See GA 3: 202; tr. 141, and “Vorwort zur Zweiten Auflage” (1950): xviii; “Preface to the Second Edition”: xx. 8 See Frank Schalow, “Heidegger and Kant in Conversation: The Search for a Hermeneutic Guideline,” Existentia, 22/3–4 (2012): 338–348. 9 Heidegger, Heraklit, GA 55 (Frankfurt am Main: Vittorio Klostermann, 1979): 63.

38  Seeking New Guidelines for Interpretation 10 For further discussion, see Frank Schalow, “The Unique Role of Logic in the Development of Heidegger’s Dialogue with Kant,” Journal of the History of Philosophy, 32/1 (1994): 103–125. 11 Emad, Translation and Interpretation: Learning from Beiträge: 64 (“This passage is taken from a transcript of a recording of a seminar Heidegger gave on September 1, 1955 in Cérisy-la-Salle…”). 12 See Emad, On the Way of Heidegger’s Contributions to Philosophy: 30–32, 39–40. 13 Kant, Critique of Pure Reason, trans. Norman Kemp Smith (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1965): 112 (A 78/B 103). 14 GA 3: 229; tr. 160. 15 Kant, Critique of Pure Reason: 183 (A 141/B 181). 16 See Donald A. Landes, “Between Sensibility and Understanding: Kant and Merleau-Ponty and the Critique of Reason,” Journal of Speculative Philosophy, 29/3 (2015): 336–345. 17 See Claus Langebohn, “From Kant to Heidegger: On the Path from SelfConsciousness to Self-Understanding,” Journal of the British Society for Phenomenology, 47 (2016): 1–19 [online]. 18 GA 3: 161; tr. 113. 19 Heidegger, Sein und Zeit, GA 2 (Frankfurt am Main: Vittorio Klostermann, 1977): 32; Being and Time, trans. John Macquarrie and Edward Robinson (New York: Harper & Row, Publishers, Inc. 1962): 45. Of course, in the projected outline of his phenomenological destruction of the history of ontology, Heidegger proposed a critique of Cartesian dualism. 20 Kant, Critique of Pure Reason: 194 (A 158/B 197). 21 Heidegger Die Frach nach dem Ding, GA 41 (Frankfurt am Main: Vittorio Klostermann, 1984): 186, 246; What Is a Thing? trans. W. B. Barton and Vera Deutsch (South Bend, IN: Henry Regnery, Inc., 1967): 183, 243–244. 22 GA 65: 475; tr. 335. 23 GA 31: 209. For an English translation, see The Essence of Human Freedom: An Introduction to Philosophy, trans. Ted Sadler (London: Continuum, 2002): 145. 24 Heidegger, Vom Wesen des Grundes, in Wegmarken, GA 9 (Frankfurt am Main: Vittorio Klostermann, 1976): 153; On the Essence of Ground, trans. William McNeill in Pathmarks, ed. William McNeill (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998): 119. See Frank Schalow, The Renewal of the Heidegger–Kant Dialogue: Action, Thought, and Responsibility (Albany: SUNY Press, 1992): 296–297. 25 GA 9: 154; tr. 120. 26 Heidegger, “Brief über den ‘Humanismus,’” in Wegmarken, GA 9: 356–357; “Letter on ‘Humanism,’” trans. F. Capuzzi, in Pathmarks: 269–270. 27 GA 31: 296. 28 Hannah Arendt, Lectures on Kant’s Political Philosophy (Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1982): 9, 27. 29 Hannah Arendt, The Life of the Mind, vol. II (New York: Harcourt, Brace, Jovanovich, 1978): 257. See Schalow, The Renewal of the Heidegger–Kant Dialogue: 258. 30 Andy Amato, The Ethical Imagination in Shakespeare and Heidegger (London: Bloomsbury, 2019): 16. 31 Frank Schalow, “Inheriting the Earth: The Memory of Tradition,” Research in Phenomenology, 29 (1999): 226–232. 32 GA 65: 275; tr. 193. 33 GA 26: 268; tr. 208. See GA 65, p. 305; tr. 432-433.

Seeking New Guidelines for Interpretation  39 34 Friedrich-Wilhelm von Herrmann, “The Role of Martin Heidegger’s Notebooks within the Context of His Oeuvre,” in Reading Heidegger’s Black Notebooks 1931–1941, ed. Ingo Farin and Jeff Malpas (Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press, 2016): 89. See Frank Schalow, “Deconstructing the Ethical, Seeking the Political: A Retrospective Look at the Development of Heidegger’s Thought,” Existentia, 28/3–4 (2018): 179–198. 35 GA 31: 134–135. 36 See Lee Braver, ed., “Introduction,” Division Three: The Unanswered Question of Being and Time (Cambridge: The MIT Press, 2015): 3–9. 37 Die Grundprobleme der Phänomenologie, GA 24 (Frankfurt am Main: Vittorio Klostermann, 1976): 28–32; The Basic Problems of Phenomenology, trans. Albert Hofstadter (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1982): 21–23. 38 See GA 7: 160–161. 39 Frank Schalow, “The Third Critique and a New Nomenclature of Difference,” Epoché 4/1 (1996): 71–95 (esp. 79–85). 40 GA 31: 300.

2 A New Leaping-Off Place for Ethical Inquiry

When viewed within a certain pattern of association, of “associative thinking,” Heidegger’s indifference toward ethics throughout most of his career appears to go hand and hand with his blindness toward the malevolent regime of National Socialism. Conversely, his attempt to reconsider the importance of ethics in his famous “Letter on ‘Humanism’” in 1946 may indicate his awakening to the peril of entering the uncharted waters of politics, much less a political regime as destructive and prejudicial as National Socialism. When reassessed within the trajectory of our contrarian thinking, Heidegger’s suspension of the concern for ethics may reveal something quite different concerning his estimation of the viability of that enterprise, on the one hand, and, on the other, the need for a historical transformation to pave the way for ethical inquiry to become relevant once again. As we will discover in this chapter, Heidegger did not simply “punt” on ethics, as is sometimes suggested. On the contrary, he recognized the “urgent need” for ethics,1 but with the caveat that its metaphysical foundation must be completely dismantled in lieu of a historical transformation to sow the seeds for a new ethical inquiry. Among those who first appropriated his thought, Hans Jonas was among the first to echo this concern despite his disavowal of Heidegger’s allegiance to National Socialism.2 According to Jonas, the “critical vulnerability of nature of humanity’s technological intervention” becomes a focal concern in the transformation of ethics within post-modernity.3 We can consider Heidegger’s apparent ambivalence toward ethics as an interlude, as an incubation period spawning a deeper premise to root the ethos of ethics. Not only must ethics be brought into question in terms of its possibility, but the premise on which that enterprise rests, namely, the declaration of principles governing our interaction with our fellow human beings, will soon be tested for the first time. If we can no longer maintain the premise of anthropocentricism as the basis of traditional ethics, then an entirely new grounding of its task is required in order to shift the purview of the good to include the trans-human dimension of nature, animals, and the earth. DOI: 10.4324/9781003195139-3

A New Leaping-Off Place for Ethical Inquiry  41 Thus, in his “Letter,” Heidegger responds to a query from Jean Beaufret concerning the need for developing an ethic designed to address the challenges posed by modern technicity (not to mention forging a moral outlook to expose the hubris of the last decade of German politics). Specifically, Heidegger proposes an original ethic. Yet, what he envisions as the task of re-opening the question of ethics remains itself open-ended in its possibility. Given the turning of his thought outside the scope of anthropocentricism, and when coupled with his insights into the earth, nature, and animals, the seeds are planted for an ecological, environmentalist awakening at the heart of ethics itself. Even if that transformation begins to unfold slowly, Heidegger’s development of original ethics marks an important crossroads in launching an ethical inquiry into the transhuman sphere of ecology and the search for a “measure” on the earth.4 The attempt to overcome anthropocentricism makes explicit the broader trajectory of the “turning” (die Kehre), and, conversely, we discover in his thinking the vestiges of an ecological turn (if only in retrospect he may be considered a proto-ecologist). Yet, an unanswered question recedes into the background, which indirectly points the way to development of any ecological and to discovering a “measure” on the earth. How can we rethink normativity in the same moment (Augenblick) of overcoming the “prescriptive” (normative) framework of traditional ethics?5 We can ask this question in another way: “Is Heidegger’s original ethics also a transhuman ethic”? The explicit determination of the “who,” as the “subject” of ethics, can no longer be assumed. But in this hermeneutic context, the “subject” reemerges in a dual sense: first as the benefactor of the power (to choose) presupposed in ethics, or freedom, and, secondly, as the harbinger of otherness to which the exercise of the good can be directed and ultimately defined “as good.” If we were to distinguish the latter in terms of a specific grammar, or, hermeneutically speaking, according to the asstructure of determination, then we might say the following: the recipient of the predicates, or the beneficiary of any measure of goodness (for Heidegger, “that for the sake of” [Umwillen]), shifts away from a strictly anthropocentric focus and becomes more inclusive. Conversely, on the side of Da-sein, the care that it exercises must undergo transformation, that is, through what Heidegger calls “stewardship” or “guardianship” (Wächterschaft). Such stewardship arises at the highest level of formality, in order that our response to otherness, our way of entering into a proprietorial relation (as commissioned to promote and safeguard the diversity of manifestation), can yield specific guidelines or directives for action. Our way of dwelling can then ascribe to a “measure,” which can separate out and hold in tension multiple levels of concerns: the earth where we dwell, nature, animals, as well as the welfare of other human beings. For Heidegger, then, the inquiry into ethics precedes the political, not simply out of systematic necessity, but because the origin of the latter—in

42  A New Leaping-Off Place for Ethical Inquiry the face of the destructive forces of machination—can be rediscovered given the shift to a trans-human focus that becomes evident through the ethos (ἦθος) of dwelling (on the earth). While this trans-human focus first emerges in Heidegger’s 1930 lectures of human freedom,6 he successfully provides a deeper grounding for ethics only through its intralingual translation into the ethos as enacted in his “Letter on ‘Humanism.’” I will divide this chapter into four sections. First (I), I will show how (and why) the concern for freedom, and its corollary “practical” dimension, emerges as a pivot point in Heidegger’s thinking in the early 1930s for developing a “trans-human” approach to the ethos. This trans-human approach sets the stage to redefine ethics through the proprietorial relation guiding human beings in their capacity to dwell on the earth. Secondly (II), I will examine the catalyst for transforming ethics in Heidegger’s “Letter on ‘Humanism,’” insofar as we cultivate the ethos through our stewardship of nature and the earth. Thirdly (III), I will establish how the transformation of ethics into the ethos of dwelling yields the hermeneutic guideline for reformulating the question concerning the political (even though he does not explicitly develop this link). Fourthly (IV), I will show how this question emerges only indirectly for Heidegger via the prompting of a historical de-cision (Ent-scheidung) about the fate of the earth and our dwelling upon it. Conversely, only through the clearing of history (Geschichte) in this way can there be an intimation of a possible arrival of the political as a concrete “site,” e.g., through the proprietorship of dwelling.

I The Development of a Trans-Human Origin As we outlined in the previous chapter, a change in the direction of Heidegger’s thinking in the early 1930s can be summarized through this simple transposition of the axis of philosophical inquiry: freedom is no longer to be conceived as a “property of the human,” but instead humanity is be understood as a “possibility of freedom.” Here we get a hint for the first time of a “proprietorial relation” that provides a new grounding for what it means to be human, a relationship permeated by freedom. There are also undercurrents in this transformation, which can easily go unnoticed and ultimately bear on his attempt to think being in the diverse modes of its temporalization. For if freedom can no longer be grounded exclusively on an aspect of the human (e.g., the will), then, conversely, what makes us human, or, in Heidegger’s terms, the “Dasein in us,” must itself be usurped in favoring of a deeper grounding (e.g., in reciprocity with the openness of being). “Da-sein—the being that distinguishes a human in its possibility….Da-sein—what undergirds and simultaneously elevates man. Hence, the talk of Da-sein in humans as the occurrence of that grounding.”7 The corollary of this claim cannot be overlooked. Specifically, being (Sein) encompasses diverse ways

A New Leaping-Off Place for Ethical Inquiry  43 of presencing, including physis as the self-rising into presencing, whose dynamic also pervades the highest capability that defines us, i.e., freedom. In other words, we cannot uncover our deeper origin in freedom without recovering the wider orbit of temporalization in which the self-emerging dynamic of physis is also rooted. Kant’s dichotomy between freedom and nature must fall by the wayside within the larger task of a phenomenological destruction of the history of ontology. In his 1930 lectures on human freedom, then, Heidegger arrives at a key moment in which the Kantian and Aristotelian sides of this destruction intersect. Just as little as ethics can be restricted to a reconstruction of Kant’s moral philosophy, so we cannot simply equate being with physis in Aristotle’s sense. On the contrary, an altogether new questioning of ethics is underway to circumvent the metaphysical gap between the “ought” and the “is.”8 By the same token, nature is to be transposed into the wider orbit of the temporalization of being. When redefined in accord with the broader sense of physis, nature exhibits absencing as well as presencing, and mirrors the temporal finitude whereby Da-sein experiences the no-thing of being by confronting the finality of death. In this way, freedom will cease to conflict with nature, but instead will become a finite locus of temporality by which Da-sein, exercises its capacity to choose by appropriating a greater ontological power, e.g., of “letting-be.” Within this ecstatic, temporalizing field, the concern for ethics is taken back into its origin in the ethos of situated dwelling. The ethos precedes the development of any explicit normative guidelines, including’s Kant’s sense of the categorical imperative. By the same token, the overlaying of the ethos within the manifestation of being through physis entails the development of a specific site or place within which Da-sein can enact its freedom. Not only does the establishment of such a site imply a fulcrum of ethical inquiry, but, correlatively, a broader circumscribing or demarcating of the “to whom,” “wherefore,” or “that for the sake of” in the administration of any norm. Thus, physis as nature is not only endemic to the situatedness of our dwelling, but, as entering into the open expanse of manifestation, can also evoke a proportionate degree of concern for responsiveness, that is, as calling upon the deepest capacity for Da-sein’s stewardship. Thus, there is already a prima facie prefiguring of the possibility of an “environmentalist” concern inscribed within the ethos of situated dwelling. The environmentalist thrust of the ethos and its role in a deeper grounding of ethics becomes clearer as we make the contrast with the rational foundation of the Kantian ethic. Kant did acknowledge the importance of addressing the manner of our comportment toward animals, albeit with an anthropocentric slant. He proceeded from a derivative ontology that assumed a sharp division between persons and things as the cornerstone for developing a categorical imperative, which upheld the absolute worth

44  A New Leaping-Off Place for Ethical Inquiry of persons as “ends-in-themselves.” He argued that human beings do not have a direct duty to protect animals; rather, to honor rational nature as human beings, we must avoid lowering ourselves in a level that would allow mistreating or exploiting animals. Correlatively, the presupposition for human beings applying the categorical imperative, or freedom, occurs in direct opposition to nature (at least understood as a nexus of cause-effect relations sequenced in linear time). For Heidegger, however, the presencing of nature reserves to animals their own potential for flourishing. It is the source of that flourishing, or what is ownmost or endemic to it, which turns the pendulum of his ethical inquiry in an ecological direction, namely, the allocation of a habitat (requisite for the livelihood of any animal). Ontologically speaking, the earth provides the grounding for any such habitats, and, indeed, in connection with our capacity for dwelling. Heidegger’s questioning of ethics is already underway in 1930 when he seeks a new grounding for Kant’s ethics. The latter’s attempt to erect ethics on the atemporal foundation of the noumenon, of freedom in opposition to nature, gives way to a new grounding in the limitations by which the self can experience its capacity to be free. Heidegger describes these limitations as factical, that is, as rooted in the facticity by which each of us projects a limited set of possibilities from out of the circumstances in which we already find ourselves. The facticity of freedom implies not only our inhabitation of a world, but also how, e.g., through the reciprocal locus of our embodiment, we are disclosed along with the continuum of beings. If only by implication, world provides the conduit, the breakthrough of a “place,” in which our way of presencing unfolds in reciprocity with nature. By seeking to ground freedom in facticity, in a manner of presencing that conjoins the human and natural ways “to be,” Heidegger brings being into question in terms of its reciprocity with time. Being and time belong together by virtue of a deeper relation of proprietorship, that is, in which the interplay of presence and absence becomes explicit through Da-sein’s temporalizing. Because temporality originates through Da-sein, being is entrusted to humanity and vice versa in this proprietorial relation. Through the preceding, we discover that the ethos is born by virtue of this relation. By the same token, if the dynamic of the genitive, of the “des,” first mirrors the temporality of being, then the ethos both depends upon and points to the light of the clearing (not just the manifestation of beings, including physis taken alone). That is, the ethos of an original ethics becomes possible by cultivating a proprietorial relation between being and Da-sein, in which the dwelling of mortals prepares a place for unconcealment. Ethics takes center stage in Heidegger’s inquiry, and cannot simply be relegated to a subsidiary concern within his ontology. There are missing elements in the transformation of ethics, however, which do not enter the forefront of Heidegger’s thinking. Or, put

A New Leaping-Off Place for Ethical Inquiry  45 another way, this development remains embryonic or “unthought” in Heidegger’s inquiry, in a parallel way as his untested hypothesis vis-à-vis the problematic of “time and being.” The further distinction that must be made is precisely what invites E. Levinas’ criticism that Heidegger prioritizes ontology over ethics, without conceding the finality of that critique.9 Specifically, a possible response to this criticism lies in developing the intermediary step that for the most part remains only provisional in Heidegger’s transposition of the focus of ethical inquiry, specifically, overcoming traditional anthropocentricism. If what Heidegger proposes under the heading of an “original ethics” is to have a concrete footing, then concerns related to the welfare of the environment, animals, and nature must become central to any ethical pursuit. By implication, that which is most endemic or ownmost to the development of an original ethic, or our capacity for dwelling, would have to be amplified in terms of trans-human, ethical concerns.

II The Development of an Original Ethics In emphasizing the importance of dwelling, Heidegger leaves open the question as to how this possibility could transform the manner in which human beings co-exist, and, indeed, occupy the ethos together. He leaves open the implications that such dwelling may have for eliciting ethical responses toward the earth, nature, and animals, but, by the same token, calls upon us as investigators to make explicit the hermeneutic guideline for such an inquiry, e.g., into formulating an original ethic. For the most part, his depiction of the ethics remains indeterminate. This indeterminancy is perhaps also a central reason why his conception of an original ethics often invites harsh criticism. The fact that Heidegger only provisionally and tentatively opens a topic in one arena does not preclude approaching that same topic within an adjacent realm of inquiry. Hence, it remains question-worthy as to what would entail “to be a community,” and how its parameters can be extended beyond the purview of human companionship. Thus, our dwelling on the earth may still foster the possibility of a socio-biotic community, broadly understood, as prefacing the attempt investigate the political sphere. We can look to ethics and, implicitly, politics as prioritizing concerns that offset or counter the dominant trend of society, particularly as to an extension of humanity’s thrownness into a given historical situation. The question then arises is it possible to re-think the deeper ground or Ab-grund of this thrownness, than that which is revealed through machination? Hence, the motifs of earth and dwelling provide the keys to prioritizing the concern central to ethics, as much as providing a catalyst for its transformation as providing a formula for the dispensation of what is “good.” Even if we propose a trans-human ethic, its possibility rests on the temporalizing that allows the earth to emerge in the counter valence

46  A New Leaping-Off Place for Ethical Inquiry of its concealing; and, conversely, our dwelling arises within the temporal interplay of the arrival and flight of the gods, which seeks an ecstatic standing within beings apart from the technocratic drive to exert control and domination. The exercise of the care can no longer be confined to the concerns of the immediate present. On the contrary, Da-sein’s stewardship reaches toward the furthest vistas of a distant future, in seeking in the prospect of safeguarding the earth a possible response to the threat of its destruction under the forces of machination. The proprietorship between being and man allows us to re-ask the question “who” is Da-sein. The tendency is abruptly to answer this question with the designation of “people,” while equating it with certain generic characteristics of a cultural or national background. But here the inquiry into the ethical, and thus the development of an original ethics, makes an important difference. Heidegger subtly avoids the pretext of chiseling out “another” ethic when he recounts a story of a friend who approached him with the query of “when are you going to write an ethic?”10 His reluctance to do so, however, says more about the changing landscape of ethics within the historical epoch of technicity, than about his evasion of the topic. When we dig deeper, we discover that his apparent reluctance does not simply reflect a deficiency, but in retrospect actually underscores the ethical implications of his thinking. First, from his account of the call of conscience in Being and Time, Heidegger has already launched an inquiry that begins to topple the edifice of modern ethics. Second, his way of interweaving “dwelling” into the fabric of his thought already re-establishes the ethos as the origin of ethics. The intralingual translation of ethos as the capacity to dwell in concert with being—the etymological root of ethics—is already implicit in the development of his thinking. Third, with his statement that “to dwell is to safeguard the earth,” Heidegger provides the placeholder (both figuratively and literally) for a transformation that is necessary to resurrect ethics. Conversely, a future ethics must be sparked by a historical crisis, thereby spearheading a new ethical inquiry that simultaneously leads back to the question of being and forward to renewing that questioning within our technological age. Given this twofold directive, an original ethic marks a new dawn of the question of being; by overcoming its separation from ontology, such ethical inquiry expands its area of concern into that which is most all-encompassing in its reach: the welfare of everything that “is” as centered on the current environmental crisis. Heidegger foresees the development of original ethics by fostering mindfulness of its own investigation. Such mindfulness returns to its origin in being-historical thinking, in order to rekindle the task of ethics as speaking to the predicament of our age. An original ethic attains such mindfulness through activities that exemplify the proprietorial relation of Da-sein’s response to the call of being, including the utmost call to safeguard the earth. Such mindfulness, then, brings the pursuit of dwelling

A New Leaping-Off Place for Ethical Inquiry  47 back into the realm of thinking and vice versa, in such a way as overcome the dichotomy between theory and praxis (as in the case of the other metaphysical dualisms). What, then, are our obligations; does such a way of becoming obligated11 also bind us in service of “future generations.” In lieu of his original ethics, this question takes a dramatic turn, insofar as it is that temporalizing that could bind us in a way futurally that comes into question, thereby intimating a directive (or an impending measure) at the root of any such obligation. The source of obligations originates futurally, that is, as a claim of stewardship arising from, and directing us toward the future. The temporalizing from the future of an exhortation (e.g., as holding a promise), and the renewal of reclaiming the past, provides for “binding” character of any obligation. The good, then, is not merely the delegation of a norm delegated in the present, but implies the futural arrival of what has been incubated in the past. Insofar as our capacity to be bound by obligations arises futurally, the concerns for which may then be obligation cannot be confined to the present. To be sure, none of is “guaranteed” a future. Yet, in the forward-looking trajectory of our temporalizing (e.g., in the movement of anticipatory resoluteness), we can still seek the arrival of the future in a way that would be beneficial to others.

III From Ethics to Politics In his 1923 lectures on the hermeneutics of facticity, Heidegger states that any attempt to reconcile phenomenology with the dialectical method is like “mixing fire and water,” adding that no system of Dasein is possible.12 From the outset, he stands out as an anti-systematic thinker. This strategy becomes even more evident in Contributions to Philosophy, where he remarks: “The time of systems is over. The time of re-building the essential shaping of beings according to the truth of be-ing has not yet arrived.”13 Implicitly, Heidegger recognized that the circular unfolding of hermeneutics breaks the mold of a linear development of a system. A system seeks an absolute unity of presentation, which can construct a whole through the presence of all the parts. Even when we speak simply in terms of how all the parts cohere, this coherence view of truth rests on a premise of pure presence. But in hermeneutics, the experience of truth has a completely different dynamic. The unfolding of the hermeneutic ellipsis un-conceals always by deferring to the opposite possibility of concealment. Contrary to linear progression, hermeneutics replicates the circular, ecstatic trajectory of temporality (on which Da-sein’s capacity to understanding depends). Any advance is always predicated upon a return to the initial point of departure of the inquiry. Philosophical inquiry seeks to “bring back” (wieder-holen) what is implied in the first inception, “in order to transform it into another inception.” 14 The

48  A New Leaping-Off Place for Ethical Inquiry clarifying and unfolding of the presupposition brings into the open what was initially concealed at the outset of the inquiry, the initial backdrop of understanding. For Heidegger, ethics and politics are not separate themes to be explicated in the course of developing a philosophical system, but instead mirror each other in an imagistic reflection. He underscores this difference in the epigraph to the Black Notebooks. Heidegger is clear that these discussions constitute a “venture” (Versuche), rather than compiling assertions to form a system (ein geplantes System).15 By the same token, whether there is a deeper source of identity, which permits demarcating ethics and politics into different realms of human action, does not emerge as a “systematic” concern for him. First, ethics and politics can be construed as comprising sub-disciplines or “regional ontologies.” But it would be a mistake to relegate these endeavors to secondary philosophical importance, simply due to their ontical focus. On the contrary, the disclosure of any such realm of beings can still prompt questioning back to a deeper set of presuppositions, for example, the proprietorship by which human beings manage their relationship to others, nature, that is, exercise their capacity for care in accord with a deeper claim of stewardship. Yet, such questioning back has its negative constraint. The proximity of what appears as obvious and self-evident with regard to such governance must be held into question. The edicts of modern philosophy regarding governance and law necessarily become problematic. The plausibility of their corresponding disciplines must be held in abeyance, enacting a suspension on a par with a “phenomenological reduction.” For Heidegger, there is no system. But this does not discount the fact that that there may be a systemic way of addressing the concerns broached by ethics and politics, insofar as they are mirrored through the prism of a larger compass of questioning, that is, a broader “ontological” problematic. Put another way, insofar as such a system is lacking, an analogous linchpin, a deeper, yet receding source of unity and onefoldedness, can only be given by the phenomenon itself. The phenomenon in question is a designation of being itself, albeit addressed historically in terms of its deepest point of concealment. The expulsion of beings into a one-dimensional form of appearance marks this extreme point of concealment. But the possibilities that mark this completion of metaphysics are also prefigured from the outset. As this curvature of history becomes evident, the final stage of metaphysics appears. This final stage resets the coordinates of Da-sein’s thrownness into history, casting humanity into the cycle of the relentless struggle for the acquisition of power. Heidegger sees the beginning of this development in Nietzsche’s concept of the will to power, understood metaphysically as a way of ordering beings in totality in service of humanity’s “struggle to achieve mastery over the earth.”16 Heidegger points to Nietzsche’s concept of justice as a formula for this ordering, which encompasses humanity, its

A New Leaping-Off Place for Ethical Inquiry  49 relation to nature, and mode of social organization. In Nietzsche’s sense, the search for justice takes shape in the will to power’s drive to subordinate all valuation to a transactional schema, that is, in serving the ends of self-promotion, survival and expediency. As a presumption for achieving the will to truth (as will to power), justice masquerades through the foil of the illusion of “untruth.” As Heidegger states, Nietzsche identifies what is distinctive of as “already historically true at the beginning of the completion of the modern age and which therefore determines all human transactions in this age, explicitly or not, veiled or openly.”17 Heidegger describes this cataclysmic, earth-shaking development in one word, namely, machination. Machination appears as the dominant epoch of modernity, by epitomizing the epochal as the holding back and retreat into concealment, that is, the abandonment of and by being (Seinsverlassenheit). According to Heidegger, the converting of Nietzsche’s will to power into the “will to will” brings to light the modus operandi of machination, that is, as the “stable instability” of the relentless elevation of pure willing over and above its transitory productions.18 Humanity and beings in the whole are expelled into the drive toward instrumentality, domination, and exploitation. The essential sway and dynamic of this “togetherness” lies precisely in its concealment as such, that is, the blurring of the lines between who and what is to be exploited. As a relationship that joins being and Da-sein together, the proprietorship pervading the two remains veiled. The concern for the political, then, as a query concerning the “who,” becomes an open-ended question. This implies that there is a future trajectory to the development of these concerns. In other words, this question prompts a decision, the enactment of which extends in the direction of the future, as it does equally into the past. In the latter case, to recover the past does not simply involve reiterating the so-called predilections and entitlements of a given “people” (e.g., as related to a specific ancestry), but rather the “commemorating” and renewing of any would-be claim on goodness (which cannot go unchecked). In this context, George Kovacs refers to the “hermeneutic difference,” in order to distinguish between a philosophical sense of the people as an impending possibility, e.g., the temporalizing of the “to be,” and a strictly ‘political’ concept of a collective defined exclusively by its ancestry.19 Dwelling makes possible such a notion as “ancestry,” and not the reverse. As Heidegger states in a section of Contributions to Philosophy “What is Ownost to a People and to Da-sein”: From within enowning, wherein this belongingness is historically grounded, first arises the foundation for why “life” and body, procreations and sex, and lineage—said fundamentally: the earth—belong to history and in their own way again take history back into themselves, and in all of that serve only the strife of earth and world…20

50  A New Leaping-Off Place for Ethical Inquiry We cannot ignore the obvious confusion that surrounds Heidegger’s discussion of the political, and that the source of much of this misunderstanding follows from equating the “people” (in his philosophical sense) with the nationalistic and ethnic categories of National Socialism. Indeed, an ambiguity continues to fuel the simple identification of that concept with all the negative connotations pervading the nationalism of the German Volk. To correct this “genetic fallacy,” we must revisit Heidegger’s preliminary conception of Da-sein and his emphasis on distinguishing it from any anthropological, sociological, and, in the derivative sense, ‘political’ notions. Beginning with his critique of Max Scheler’s philosophical anthropology, Heidegger argues for the disjunction between the temporal enactment of Da-sein as ex-isting and its expression in the generic guise of “man” or “humanity.” As Radloff states: Both the modern concept of ‘nation’ and the metaphysical concept of Volk are constructs, although in different ways ([See] GA 54: 204)… Volk [contra ‘nation’] consists in its openness to the presencing of beings as founded by the arrival of tradition, and the vocation it intimates, out of the future.21 As Heidegger remarks in Contributions to Philosophy, “it is only from Da-sein that what is ownmost to a people can be grasped.”22 In this passage, he states in the clearest terms that the notion of the people depends upon the capacity of Da-sein to clear the “there,” open a world, and abide in its “place” of dwelling. “World is… that to which we are subject as long as the paths of birth and death, blessing and curse, keeps us transported into being.”23 Da-sein’s temporalizing-spatializing enactment proceeds and make possible the life of a people, and, conversely, the trajectory of this “to be” yields that which is ownmost and constitutive of a people. Ultimately, it is through its reciprocity with and belonging to being that Da-sein’s existence (its enactment as care) can denote or designate a people as a communal way of existing. The mere occurrence of a group comprised of a common ancestry does not constitute a people— a point lost on many scholars who want to identify Heidegger’s thinking with the politics of National Socialism. For Heidegger, people and state are not equivalent or interchangeable concepts. Rather, the state (Staat) presupposes the “coming to be of a people,” which in turn entails the historical clearing of a place in which a community can be born.24 Community is a historical enactment of Da-sein’s potential to be with others, that is, through the resolute passing down, retrieval, and appropriation of tradition across a span of generations. To counteract this errancy, we must extend Heidegger’s lexicon in order to make explicit the distinctions that demarcate his concept of the people from its anthropological and sociological corollary. Returning to his attempt to radicalize the interpretation of Dasein as ek-sistence, let us

A New Leaping-Off Place for Ethical Inquiry  51 make the schismatic cut by alluding to the “existential-hermeneutic difference.” Dasein is unique because it possesses an understanding of being, and this possibility separates its way “to be” from the extant occurrence of man. The existential-hermeneutic difference underscores the ontological difference, although in a manner that in this case establishes a boundary between an ownmost and original potential of Da-sein, e.g., to occupy a place of dwelling to mark the birth of a people and the cultural ties assembling individuals into a group. Other conditions must be met into for a people to “spring from” Da-sein, as in a “leap,” indeed, most fundamentally, a prior belonging to and reciprocity with being. When we become mindful of the existential-hermeneutic difference, the false and errant tendency to identify the political with a narrow and derivative sense of the Volk begins to turn around. Conversely, in this turning around, the political must be addressed anew through the development of that site—in connection with the unconcealment of being—through which Dasein’s capacity to dwell first becomes apparent, namely, the ethos. By exposing this initial errancy, we begin to glimpse the hermeneutic guideline that first makes the political question-worthy in its own right, that is, as a phenomenon. The ethos of dwelling, which arises from the possibility of disclosing a world, stands in stark contrast to a collectivist viewpoint, which superimposes the dominance of its self-aggrandizing viewpoint upon the “life” of its constituency. The need to maintain the tension between the ethos and the political, which mirrors the ontological difference, cuts through much of the confusion surrounding Heidegger’s concept of the people. But to do so is to allow the possibility of the ethos of dwelling to inform the political, rather than vice versa. Here an important interface between the ethical and the political flashes before us. If the political emerges at the crossroads of what is still to be decided, then any enactment thereof must include a preliminary consideration of the good, that is, as revisited in term of its futural relevance. Thus, the good implies a benevolence that can be futurally instructive as to who we “can be,” as a harbinger in shaping the future, as “binding us” (as members of a community) to a greater promise. The “good” in turn has a temporal dimension, insofar as it corresponds to the “it gives,” that is, is “given” at the crossroads of what is to be decided within a specific historical epoch. Heidegger suggests as much in his pivotal essay, “The Origin of the Work of Art.” In the opening of a world in the work of art, for example, in Greek tragedy, 25 a measure is sought that “puts up for decision what is holy (heilig) and what [is] unholy (unheilig), what is great and what [is] small….” In this context of discussing the work of art, the giving of the “it gives” grants the openness of world, through which the historical ground of human existence become possible but yet to be de-cided. The de-cision is the schismatic cut that challenges humanity to the utmost, the circular implication between

52  A New Leaping-Off Place for Ethical Inquiry the ownmost and the othermost. Because of this historical tension, a decision is “called for.” Because that “calling” arises from “being,” the decision is not arbitrary; it requires a measure. The measure evokes the claim that what is radically other has upon shaping the “ownmost” in us. Temporality revolves within the wider orbit of this tension: that is, as the temporality of being. The “des” of proprietorship appears in this claim, which human beings then heed. Conversely, the measure provides the normative basis for the good, which can in turn prompt a higher of concern on par with stewardship (e.g., all that can be implicated through our dwelling, including the welfare of others, the safeguarding of nature and the earth). How can such a measure be established beyond the reign of calculative, technocratic thinking? As Heidegger states in Der Satz vom Grund: “That is the question. It is the world-question of thought. Answering this question decides what will become of the earth and the existence of human beings upon this earth.”26 In his essay “Language,” Heidegger appeals to Hölderlin to ask a question that complements the previous one: “Is there a measure on the earth?” We have the advantage of calling upon a broader historical backdrop to discover how this question may bear additional philosophical fruit. The measure embodies neither an ancient substitute for nor a static preconception of the good. On the contrary, the measure to which Heidegger alludes implies a dynamism of balancing and counterbalancing the concerns that are historically precipitated in our technological age, insofar as they pose to us the challenge of safeguarding the earth. But the interim (period of incubation) has also made more explicitly how precarious our sojourn on the earth is, and our protection thereof has become a “destiny” handed to us. When viewed from this historical vantage point, we see that Heidegger’s forward-looking thinking points ahead to the dawn of today’s environmental crisis. Correlatively, when viewed through the lens of the destructive forces of technicity, that environmental crisis prompts a historical decision, a schismatic cut that confronts the inertia of undecidability. The enactment of such a decision, insofar as it may have global repercussions, brings the question of the political to the forefront in a unique and singular manner. For Heidegger, the political exhibits two hermeneutic threads. The interweaving of these threads shapes the topography within which the activities of the polis become meaningful and predicates their possibility on what is most endemic to the disclosure of being, e.g., language and its enactment through the reciprocal rejoinder of dialogue. These two hermeneutic threads include: 1). The grounding experience (Grunderfahrung) or encounter with being; and 2) a governance stemming from the proprietorship born from that experience. The challenge, if not difficulty for Heidegger, resides in this scenario: while these two elements are related, they may easily be conflated throughout his writings. As a result, he assumes the hermeneutic backdrop for an inquiry into the

A New Leaping-Off Place for Ethical Inquiry  53 political, leading to the confusion that the ontic side of what is relevant toward the management of any possible “state” becomes conflated with an overarching disclosure of the disclosure of being (in and through the polis). As a result, he emphasizes the ancient experience of being that is enacted in the Greek polis, as if it were exemplary of any possible form of political governance. The Greek polis is not simply a political product of human governing and leadership, but instead arises at a juncture within the larger cosmic battle between the forces of chaos and order. On the other hand, Heidegger recognizes that the motifs which illuminate the grandeur of the Greek polis can be “gathered forth” through a hermeneutic pre-text endemic to any governance: (or rule): that is, the expansion of the dialogical space through which participation by those inhabiting (and, presumably, acquiring citizenship within) the polis becomes possible. Such motifs have to be transposed and reinterpreted within the wider orbit of being-historical thinking, for example, the grounding of dialogue on our inhabitation of language. Can we characterize this pre-text in Heidegger’s terms? The pre-text refers to the hermeneutic, etymological connection between the self-gathering of the logos and how the temporal-linguistic opening up of a common space through which a community gathers together human beings and allows them to commemorate their origins. The polis is predicated on the opening-up of the “there,” which transpose Da-sein (and implicitly those who engage in politics) into the otherness of their relation to being. But an emissary or intermediary must appear so as to transmit this otherness, that is, in order that our relation to it (e.g., as belonging to being) can be transmitted as a claim (Anspruch). Recalling the aforementioned etymological link, language is that medium through which human beings are addressed by and reply to this claim. By entering into this tension of addressing and replying, the differentiation of the twofold, human beings submit to the listening restraint or reservedness (Verhaltenheit) of language, through which they can first engage in dialogue and become participants in those pursuits made possible through it. Human beings can then welcome governance that complies with their freedom, and thereby be bound by corresponding mandates, because they first speak through this sounding board of a larger dialogue. Granted, the hermeneutic pre-text withdraws from Heidegger’s explicit consideration of the polis. Yet it becomes invaluable for making the venturesome leap that Heidegger does in seeking the ontological connection between the disclosure of being and the origin of the polis. The attempt to seek what is unique in the polis, apart from its development as a human (or even as a divinely inspired) construct, sets his vision apart from modern social theory and political theory. Here we discover the analogy between Heidegger’s attempt to ground ethics in the ethos outside the scope of anthropocentricism, and his quest to base the political on an alternative platform than human subjectivity. To appreciate the

54  A New Leaping-Off Place for Ethical Inquiry importance of this analogy, we must consider how the political appears exclusively as a human construct within modernity, that is, as an offshoot of the development of the modern epoch of technicity.

IV Toward a Being-Historical Perspective How, then, does the completion of modern metaphysics in technicity distinguish the phenomenon through we must come to question ethics, and, correlatively, yield a new topography for addressing the political? Three considerations, which will shape the course of this discussion, take priority. First, there is an important, yet understated, preliminary development in placing the question (Fragestellung), namely, the transformation of the question of being into “die Frage nach der Technik.” Second, is how the Janus-character of technicity, through the optics of its concealing and revealing, casts the political in an ambiguous light. Specifically, the place of the political is revealed through its deprivation: that is, as dis-placed into a global struggle for the acquisition of power as understood through a technological claim on the allocation, management, and storing of resources. The attempt at “governance’ and “rule” is diverted, dis-placed, and channeled through increasingly technical applications, such as statedefined bureaucracies and the rise of the “military-industrial complex.” Wars become “business,” an opportunity for money to be made—if not exclusively so. When we reinterpret the negativity of modern politics through the lens of being-historical thinking, the political serves as a contrary indicator (e.g., as a “signpost”) for rediscovering the polis as a “place” in which we can abide. Third, the question then becomes whether such a hermeneutic reading can redirect us to heed the hidden relation of being to man, in which a different proprietorship can emerge. In contrast to the calculating model of technicity, this proprietorship of the belonging together of being and man appears in the opposite direction of what is “incalculable.” For Heidegger, that source of incalculabilty will arise from the earth, and thus, in becoming the harbinger of a mystery, provide a new idiom to redirect human beings in their search for an alternative way to govern, e.g., by reinstating a “measure.” Such a measure can be granted “historically,” a term whose ambiguity we must fully address as illustrating the need to develop hermeneutic guidelines (as a prelude for addressing the political). Following our path of inquiry, we must outline the initial hermeneutic situation through which “history” emerges as an explicit concern, and thereby can appear as a distinctive phenomenon in contrast to a derivative concept to which historians appeal in offering a chronology of past event. The initial forehaving highlighting that phenomenon develops from (is pre-oriented by) a precursory manifestation of being, which is central to Heidegger’s task overall. The question of being is inherently historical, even if the precise meaning of history is given only as a pre-conception still to be explicated.

A New Leaping-Off Place for Ethical Inquiry  55 Here the ellipsis of the hermeneutical circle begins to emerge. Before what is meant by “historical” and “history” can be made apparent, a preliminary understanding of being must be explicated (within its temporal horizon), in order to seek the proper hermeneutic guidance (to offset any derivative conceptions of historiography). Indeed, ‘history’ in the conventional sense presupposes a linear conception of time, which in contrast to the explication of temporality as the horizon (for the manifestation of) being, is derivative of the ecstatic dynamic of Da-sein’s temporalizing. History must first be addressed according to the trajectory of our thrownness into the tradition, in the movement of “returnership” (Rückkehrerschaft) to the origin whereby human beings stand forth as the “there” of being’s manifestation. The sense of origin is itself ambiguous, because it points to what is “first” as a beginning, but also to its withdrawal, incubation, and arrival from the future. In simplest terms, the inauguration of the beginning corresponds to a singular “moment” whereby “there is being” insofar as “there is time.” This fore-concept directs us to the original enactment of history, its origin as both incorporating and providing the factical basis for, the experience of the circular dynamic of temporality. As such, what is conventionally equated with history, or the recounting of the past as “what has been” (Gewesen), assumes a contrary meaning and impetus depending upon the projection of possibilities arising from the future. The past, then, is in a sense “reborn” through the animating movement of temporality, such that the relevance of what is past is restored vis-à-vis the potential for its arrival from the future. Heidegger’s hermeneutic analysis shifts the emphasis from specific human events to whatever relevance can be reclaimed, projected anew, and, ultimately, “handed down” in the creatively forming (and transforming) “tradition.” For Heidegger, tradition defines the grounding-experience (Grunderfahrung) of history, of our immersion and “situatedness” within it. The same pertains to whether we are talking about the historical development of philosophy or an individual’s sense of ancestry and heritage. We thereby refer to “Das Abendland,” or the Western tradition beginning with the Pre-Socratics, and thereafter “handed down” through different philosophical periods or epochs. Ontologically speaking, however, Heidegger takes a step further to address the inception of history, as marking the origin of the Western tradition of what he calls in Contributions to Philosophy the first onset or beginning. Such an origin is not simply a point in time, but rather unfolds on dual fronts through the tension of the withdrawal and manifestation of being, a trajectory of forgottenness and recollection. The thrown character of that inception, of the first onset, appears (however obliquely) in the light of the clearing, in the singular moment (Augenblick) in which “there is being” only insofar as “there is time.” In this reciprocal interplay, the perennial question of philosophy “turns around.” The ecstatic trajectory of temporality makes

56  A New Leaping-Off Place for Ethical Inquiry possible the understanding of being, rather than the inversion whereby derivative ontological concepts such as ousia or “permanence presence” lead to misconceiving time as succession via the exclusive focus on the ‘present.’ In the turning around of the question from being and time to time and being, history comes to light as both the thrown projection of understanding and thereby as the groundless ground (Ab-grund) for “leaping off” into the hermeneutic circle. In this case, the “turning” is not simply a metaphor, but instead brings to a head the temporalizing-spatializing of history, that is, by gathering together, holding in reserve, and preparing for an arrival of its (i.e., history’s) spectrum of possibilities. Through the ecstatic play of time-space prefigured in the turning, being and man turn “unto each other” and thereby are conjoined or drawn together. The turning, then, marks the inception of history as belonging together of man and being and hence as: 1) requiring the projecting-opening od Dasein for being’s diverse manifestations to play out “historically;” and 2) shaping what is open for “de-cision,” and which is “at issue” and more “care-worthy” within the crucible of (human) actions. Accordingly, history is the primordial sense of Geschichte can never be reduced to Historie or to the study thereof or historiography. The vectors of history, then, bend in two directions, such that every “advance” is predicated on a “return.” In this way, its temporalizing exhibits its own pace and dormancy. Thus, the preservation of its origin exceeds any specific event and shapes the possibilities the exercise of which defines our experience of what is “historical.” We see an example of the temporalizing of history through Heidegger’s destructive-retrieval of the philosophical tradition, beginning with his reciprocal rejoinder with Kant. The future arises by appropriating the past, in this case, retrieving the insights of our predecessor, and projecting them forward through their arrival from the future (i.e., as re-opening a pathway of thinking). As Emad repeatedly emphasizes, history (Geschichte) in this primordial sense of retrieval and arrival stands in stark contrast to history (Historie) understood as a written chronology of events along with the accompanying ‘theorizing’ about its causal influences or generative forces. To develop this contrast, Emad interprets a key passage from Chapter Five, Division Two of Being and Time. “Originary time” is the movement of a “future that makes present by having been (gewesend-gegenwärtigende Zukunft).”27 As Emad states, “[t]his movement of historizing, inheres in the turning ‘unto each other of Dasein and being.’”28 Rather than interpreting Gewesen in anthropological-theological terms as the “alreadiness” of a still imminent human or cosmic event, e.g., salvation—as some commentators mistakenly have—Emad succinctly and clearly describes the ontological origin of history as discharging the tension of the reciprocal relation between being and Dasein. The enacting of the reciprocal tension projects the cutting edge and crucible of history by which, as both

A New Leaping-Off Place for Ethical Inquiry  57 participants and exponents of being’s manifestation we which we can take a “historical” stance in and through such diverse activities as “dwelling.” Hermeneutically speaking, the weight granted to the past (as “historical”) must be counterbalanced on a scale of what can be “promised” in the future, the temporality’s bending across these dual vectors infuses (and animates) history with possibility (Möglichkeit). The counterbalancing of the weight of the past through the future means that Gewesen is predicated on its potential appropriation, and, conversely, the originality of the future lies in reclaiming the past (and hence through our “rootedness” in tradition as “handing-down”). History, then, is the crucible of conflict that provides a place for unconcealing beings, for the beings of beings, and, reciprocally, for appropriating Da-sein to participate in this disclosiveness. The “des” of the double genitive is the harbinger of the inception of history, the proprietorship granting and withdrawing the “moment” in which the open expanse of possibility first breaks through. Due to man’s reciprocal participation and engagement in disclosing beings, in letting them be, history always appears in a dual light: as Da-sein’s historicality and the history of being. Rather than trying to speculate on a synergy between them, these dual, historical dimensions can be seen as springing from the twofold (Ziewalt) of the “between,” of being’s differentiation from beings and its reciprocity with man. In terms of the basic experience (thereof), the multidimensionality of history, or its appearance on two fronts, can be formally indicated vis-à-vis the idiom or intralingual translation of tradition or Überlieferung as “handing down.” Thus, we can consider history as unfolding through the ecstatic standing forth of successive generations, on the one hand, and, on the other, the “enowning throw” of different philosophical epochs. In terms of our hermeneutic inquiry, we can distinguish between a transcendental-horizonal perspective on history and a “being-historical” perspective. We can argue back and forth about whether there is a divergence in Heidegger’s thinking; be that as it may, any so-called transition must still occur within the orbit of the “turning.” In any event, man is summoned into the crucible of conflict, because either way history always bears tribute to the finitude of temporality. Man must be able to experience this finitude in order for history to unfold, and only by championing, affirming, and submitting to his/her mortality can Da-sein become the vanguard for all that is historical. Even with respect to each generation, the sheltering, preserving, and transmitting of all that is “owing” to history, e.g., of “coming into its own,” the development of a common thread of ancestry, still hinges on mortals’ welcoming the finality of their own death in favor of others still to be born, e.g., the “ones to come.” When viewed in terms of its inception, history unfolds along an axis that is vertical as well as horizontal. For as thrown into a crucible of conflict, including the strife between world and earth, mortals stand out in

58  A New Leaping-Off Place for Ethical Inquiry the ecstatic trajectory of the clearing by cultivating a unique topography, of the chiasmus their difference from the gods. For the ancients, the greatest transgression is hubris, a self-aggrandizement and exaltation whereby human beings seek to rival the gods. Conversely, to honor the gods is simultaneously to pay homage to one’s origins. In terms of the basic experiences embodied in culture and its unfolding through generations, such homage may be religiously and even ritualistically enacted. In terms of their hermeneutic relevance, these “founding” or gestural acts “formally indicate” the commemorative moment in the inception of history, which occurs when human beings are gathered together in their ecstatic abiding (and dwelling). The temporal-spatial trajectory of this gathering-together marks the birth of a community (rather than simply a social aggregate of individuals). The literal and figurative way in which language as logos exemplifies this “gathering” enables mortals to co-respond with each other in order to participate (as citizens) within a social-political setting. Through language human beings first engage in conservation by which history takes root and the seeds are planted for a polis to arise. In addressing the “temporality of being,” Heidegger arrives at a problematic by which each is granted to the other, and through the dynamic of this intimacy (or “onefold”) resets the parameters of thinking. The proposed “turning” toward the hidden intimacy between “time and being” includes the ecstatic openness whereby what we understand by “man” and what we understand by “being” can no longer be considered separately, but must instead be addressed through an interdependence in which each belongs together in a proprietorial relation. The manner in which being (Sein) and Da-sein become reciprocally joined in this relationship unfolds historically, coming to light in the constellation of different epochs. The distinct character of such an epoch is that, through its disclosure, the opposite trajectory of its concealment also holds sway; hence the fruits of philosophical inquiry hinge on maintaining and returning to what is unthought in a given epoch, whether it be through the figure of Kant or Nietzsche, Hegel or Marx. Modernity becomes crucial as such an epoch, not only by relegating the question of being through the extreme pole of its forgottenness, e.g., in technicity, but also by prompting an historical awareness of its culminating phase within the “history of being.” If each of the aforementioned thinkers affords us a unique window into the modern epoch, it is also the case that each speaks to the coalescence of issues whereby we can experience a specific side of occlusion of being in terms of its historical origin. The emphasis on political may appear secondary at the outset. Yet Marx’s thinking portends a distinctive configuration of humanity’s relation to history. Marx provides a textual narrative of the dialectic of producer and consumer. He outlines the transformation of nature through human labor. Marx also marks the interface between productionist metaphysics and technological advances (industrialization);29 and, finally, he

A New Leaping-Off Place for Ethical Inquiry  59 describes the metaphysical inversion of the priority of the supersensuous over the sensuous (and specifically in the turning around of the Hegelian vision of history in favor of the material struggle for the satisfaction of human need). To ask the obvious, how does Karl Marx’s thinking become prominent as a gauge for addressing the occlusive construal of history as a narrative about humanity, and the imposing of its power in altering the course of the social and cultural direction of civilization itself? As Marx states: “Man makes history,” while history does not make man.”30 In terms of its unthought import, this statement becomes an occasion for hermeneutically “reading off” an alternative center of history beyond the fulcrum a self-made identity of man with himself and with nature (understand derivatively as a resource to be transformed, used, and exploited). In other words, Marx’s unique characterization of history houses a complementary question, in Heidegger’s sense, for determining the source of “identity” through a relation to which man belongs and enters into reciprocity with an alterity or otherness, e.g., being itself. Heidegger, then, seeks to develop an alternative axis for establishing identity through otherness, which in turn will yield a new linchpin for questioning (the dynamic) of humanity’s participation in history. As Joanna Hodge suggests, from the relation to being stems the relationality of all forms of otherness, including the prospect of heeding the voice of the other (and the welfare of “other kinds,” e.g., animal life).31 What is this new axis of identity? In his “Letter on ‘Humanism,’” while claiming that the Marxist view of history “surpasses all others,”32 Heidegger describes this innermost tension for expressing the grammar of the conjunction as “the jointure of being.”33 In contrast, to Marx, however, that “jointure” not only harbors the tension uniting man and being, but also yields differentiation by which beings can appear in their diversity, through or capacity to “let-be” (rather than one-dimensionally reduced to our transformation of nature as a resource to be exploited). The question then becomes how to rediscover the origin of praxis outside the self-contained sphere of human identity—of man as a laboring producing agent—that is, a form of pure (self-)presence. Can we recover the “practical” within a new relation of propriety, in cooperation with thinking, rather than by conflating the two (theory into practice) within an isomorphic identity of man with himself? A further stage of destructive-retrieval is implied in which the concept of agency is dismantled in favor of a relational exercise of freedom as an act of “letting-be.” Conversely, the proprietorial relation between being and man sets limits to this activity, such that the former commissions the latter to prepare a site for unconcealment, for example, as human beings engage in thought. Thinking is thereby an enactment of this power of freedom, of “letting-be,” as a guardian of a “gift” of duly granted. But how does a concern for the practical, for practice,

60  A New Leaping-Off Place for Ethical Inquiry re-emerge? Heidegger explicitly broaches this question in his “Letter.” Specifically, the reciprocation for the gift, by which thinking answers the claim of being, or stewardship, provides an example of practice. Stewardship is the highest level of formality that is emblematic of specific instances for exercising care over beings, i.e., in our comportments in being-in-the world. The proprietorship of history has important repercussions for understanding the political, which Heidegger addresses but does not always explicate in the fullest sense. The temporalizing act in which human beings commemorate their origins brings gathers them together in their dwelling, but also, through the admission of their mortality, by which they cultivate the heritage (for the next generation). As being-in-the world, Da-sein is already in its dwelling “being-with-others.” The fact of being among others does not entail a social structure implying a polis. What is missing is the proprietorship of belonging together, for example, in developing ancestral ties. Such celebratory and commemorative acts of this togetherness can only occur insofar as history sets forth the place, in which the decision as to the “who” of this ancestry can be enacted to allow for the “handing-down” from one generation to the next. The decision as to the “who” is not arbitrary, but instead is made in compliance with the mandate by which human beings answer to their mortality and safeguard via the future what is worthy to be preserved in their heritage. When seen in this light, history emerges as the premier fore-concept by which to address the birth of the polis, that is, its emergence of the temporalizing, proprietorial acts by which human beings assume ownership for their mortality. Because there is a trajectory to this temporality, Heidegger equates history with the development of destiny. We can consider this phenomenon further at a subsequent juncture in our inquiry. At the outset, we must emphasize that the polis cannot be reduced to a common geographical locale, which a collection of human beings occupies. On the contrary, the birth of polis implies the temporalizing, by which spatiality is simultaneously allocated, in order that human beings in can ecstatically stand forth in their dwelling within one another. The “clearing” of time-space reserves for Da-sein its “place” (Ort) within history and grants the widest expanse for each individual’s participation (e.g., or way of “belonging to” as a member of a community). The spatializing vector of thrownness—through the retrieval of the past and the transmission of heritage—yields the “wherein” for our inhabitation of a world, e.g., an abode or domicile for dwelling. The preparedness and steadfastness of work, by which we sustain and transform the heritage of a people, implies building. And, finally, the giving-thanks for the span of transitoriness and the “awhileness” of our sojourn on the earth, involves thinking. Emad’s account of how to conceive of “being in history” proves to be instructive once again.

A New Leaping-Off Place for Ethical Inquiry  61 When I speak of ‘dwelling,’ residing,’ and ‘whiling’ in history, I conceive the preposition ‘in’ in light of the turning…Seen in that light, turning denotes the ‘locale,’ or the ‘place’ of the dwelling, residing, and whiling ‘in being’ and by extension ‘in’ history.34 “‘Wherever you go you will be a polis,’” Pericles states.35 This statement rings true, however, because of its self-reflexive character. The polis implies language, because human beings already brings with them the power to speak or logos. The logos assumes a double meaning, insofar as the self-gathering in language provides the impetus to draw human beings together, in their occupation of a polis, through their exchange with one another or dialogue. With this observation, we see a convergence of various dimensions comprising the phenomenon under scrutiny, or making possible the polity. The logos is already in play in the birth of the polis, because the inception of its site, or history, requires language for the “founding” of its commemorative acts. Even prior to the development of written records, language is at the heart of the proprietorship of history, that is, by providing the grounding-attunement or “sounding board” for the hearing by which conversation of one generation with the next can proceed. Heidegger seeks the economy for these complex interconnections by appealing to a line from Hölderlin’s poetry. “Much has been learnt since we have been a conversation.”36 In this regard, conversation does not consist simply of the exchange of words between participants in a dialogue. Rather, language holds in tension the relation between silence and what is uttered, thereby granting priority to the capacity to listen rather than to the power to speak. As Heidegger states in Contributions to Philosophy: “Language is grounded in silence (Schweigen).”37 Even before the speaking which can occur in the preferred setting of political discourse, or the Greek forum, language springs from the silence which shelters and preserves all which can be said across the outstretch of the farthest eons of the future. In this regard, language gathers together the idioms which permit the trans-literation of the simplest word of all, the “is,” the “to be,” thereby stimulating a conversation among the greatest thinkers. In this primordial act of intralingual translation, the philosophical tradition unfolds within the crucible of history, e.g., as a critical encounter or Auseinandersetzung among philosophers. Through the ontological difference, being discloses beings as belonging within a whole, and, conversely, grants mortals entryway into this wholeness. Heidegger’s overall point, then, is that the polis is not a human construction of rules and regulations (or even based on an divinely ordained set of principles). Rather, the polis arises in the midst of the disclosure of this whole, establishing a “measure” to direct human comportment, a decree to which all activities, pursuits, and dealings with others bears witness. The hermeneutic presupposition of a Heideggerian approach to the

62  A New Leaping-Off Place for Ethical Inquiry political comes to light through this concession that the polis is not self-sustaining, but instead proceeds from the human capacity to dwell in concert with a higher measure and resonate with the destination of being’s calling. Freedom is the openness to this calling, and as a power with which mortals are endowed becomes concrete or factical in historical decisions, e.g., pertaining to our capacity to dwell in the earth. In the 1930s, Carl Schmitt criticizes liberalism for assimilating freedom to the unfettered choice of the individual.38 Heidegger also criticizes liberalism for its uncritical tie to a technocratic worldview, but diverges from Schmitt on a key point. Specifically, Heidegger establishes an ontological ground for freedom (apart from the political), and then argues (as far as the polis goes), the facticity of decision is always enacted from (and located within) a site of unconcealment, implying the differentiation between being and beings and the tension between world and earth. Correlatively, what we might describe in political terms as “governance” does not begin with the written promulgation of rules, but rather assumes a pre-articulated form through the commemorative gestures that found the polis and elicit the measure overarching man’s relation to beings-in-the-whole. The contrast between Heidegger and Schmitt becomes especially important. Even while Heidegger points to the Greek polis as an example of political rule, he seeks its axis (e.g., the circumscribing of its limits) in a deeper origin of difference (rather than assuming a self-standing, e.g., as a substance, an independent regime). The measure, then, is the precursor to all norms, to what is normative in the conventional sense. When thought originally from a being-historical perspective, the nomos can be binding on humanity by establishing for the polis its distinctive arrangement of order, e.g., the diké. The nomos yields those decrees, which are chiseled from and galvanized within the crucible of historical conflict and which ultimately come to expression against the backdrop of the conversation about “who” we are, that is, in the handing down of what has been through its arrival from the future. In this way, governing becomes possible as an ordinance that orders according to a proportion by “letting beings be.”39 Without this unique inflection of history, without the freedom of this conversation in engendering tradition, there can be no polis. If history defines the foremost hermeneutic guideline for thinking the polis, the possibility of its grounding in an epoch otherwise indifferent to being and blind to a “measure” remains worthy of question. Not only is it the case that the modern epoch is chronologically far removed from the Greek conception of the polis. But it is also the case that this indifference, as predicated upon the forgottenness and abandonment of being in and through beings—e.g., via the technological onslaught of their mastery and manipulation—can point to a new topography for grounding the polis. Given the epochal unfolding of being, we need to consider how, whether, and on what footing the polis could be founded anew within the globalized era of technicity.

A New Leaping-Off Place for Ethical Inquiry  63 As a final observation, let me clarify what is meant by the title of this section (“Toward a Being-Historical Perspective”). Such thinking departs from so-called conventional wisdom, in order to interrupt the inertia that attaches our beliefs to what is obvious. As already indicated, being-historical thinking receives its impetus from the “counter-turning,” in the sense of turning-against the preconceptions of a standardized worldview of conventional claims. In this apparent negative “moment,” however, there is also the birth of new distinctions within language, in order to throw open (in thought) a wider arc of inquiry. Being-historical thinking has three distinct elements: 1) it arises from (and speaks of) the turning (die Kehre) in which “Da-sein and be-ing turn unto each other”40 (thereby deposing the anthropocentric focus of the modern subject); 2) a being-historical perspective accentuates the differentiation between being and beings (but is not simply “ontological” or concerned with developing an ontology; and 3) such a perspective carves out a new cluster of distinctions pointing to (out of) the future, which interrupts, disrupts, and perhaps even undercuts a set of basic concepts dominate in the past (in order that we can re-enter the openness of inquiry (even to the point of putting aside what we are told to believe about a given topic or subject-matter).41 Being-historical thinking heeds the grammar of the (future) subjective (“as if”), in such a way as to prepare for an epochal de-cision, e.g., concerning the fate of the earth and those “who” can dwell upon it. The grammar of being-historical thinking plays off the imminent danger of technicity with the plea to save the earth, interweaving these two paths of inquiry into a single conversation. As more fundamental than nature, earth becomes a “being-historical concept,” because it pertains to history and to the enactment of a de-cision within the epoch of machination.42 Conversely, when thought from the truth of be-ing, the coming into its own of enowning, makes possible the residence within a home, a “home-coming,” the “unheimische Heimischsein des Menschen” (rather than the extant ancestry of national origins). In this way, “we have returned from the foreign, underway on our return into the homely.”43 In becoming mindful of these two points, we see why Heidegger, if only in an esoteric way, to the “ones to comes” and to their role in the radicalizing of questioning. As Heidegger states toward the conclusion of Contributions to Philosophy (Section 250, “The Ones to Come”): “Those who go-under are the ones who constantly question.”44 Being-historical thinking, then, traverses the entire sweep of history, and is catapulted in the “free throw” of combatting errancy on all sides and all fronts). “Free-throw never succeeds by mere human impetus…This traversing of the errancy of essential sway, as [the] history [Geschichte] of man, is independent of all history [Historie].45

V Conclusion In seeking the hermeneutic guideline to address the political, the question then becomes: how can we locate the coordinates for establishing the

64  A New Leaping-Off Place for Ethical Inquiry “site” of the polis, which first appears in terms within the technological drive toward globalization? Can the strife between earth and world yield an alternative locus for the political, as a place of ecstatic openness outside the closure of technocratic rule? By developing the ethical question of the earth, and its importance for grounding the ethos, we can uncover the hermeneutic guideline that makes explicit the hidden connection between ethics and politics, and the implications that the former can have for the latter. Put in hermeneutic terms, this question leads back to the “pre-text” for addressing the politics, in order to identify this preliminary demarcation or limitation: that ethical questions must precede political concerns. Thus, the latter itself must defer to the former, precisely because the ethos brings to consideration the import that dwelling has as the key perquisite for the enactment of any governance of the polis (as an alternative to the self-serving motives and ends of power). In the following remark, Heidegger provides a clue to the importance of the ethos in this respect, in emphasizing the need to safeguard the earth from the onslaught of machination: “Die Sterblichen wohnen insofern sie die Erde retten.46 By establishing the ethos of dwelling as the entry point to the political, we arrive at the inevitable and necessary importance of formulating hermeneutic guidelines to direct our inquiry into the coordinates for determining the site of polis. Heidegger indicates this pathway (Denkweg), but he never explicitly traverses it in his emphasis on establishing the interdependence of the question of being and the question concerning technicity. In retrospect, the question about the political can only emerge through the prompting of a historical de-cision (Ent-scheidung) about the fate of the earth and our dwelling upon it. Conversely, only through the clearing of history (Geschichte) in this way can there be an intimation of a possible arrival or breakthrough the political (e.g., as founding the site of the polis). Heidegger’s characterization of history as the clearing for a future de-cision constitutes the second hermeneutic guideline to reopen the question of the political.

Notes 1 GA 9: 359; tr. 268. 2 Hans Jonas, The Ethical Imperative: In Search of an Ethic for the Technological Age. (Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1985): 9–18. 3 Jonas, The Ethical Imperative: 8. 4 See Frank Schalow, “New Frontiers in Heidegger’s Original Ethics: Hermeneutics and the Logos of the Environmentalist Argument.” Heidegger Studies, 34 (2018): 299–314. 5 See Crowell, Normativity and Phenomenology in Husserl and Heidegger: 194–195. 6 See Frank Schalow, “Freedom, Finitude, and the Practical Self: The Other Side of Heidegger’s Appropriation of Kant,” in Heidegger and Practical Philosophy, ed. F. Raffoul and D. Pettigrew (Albany: SUNY Press, 2002): 29–41. Also see, Schalow, “Deconstructing the Ethical, Seeking the Political: A Retrospective Look at the Development of Heidegger’s Thought”: 179–198. 7 GA 65: 300; tr. 212.

A New Leaping-Off Place for Ethical Inquiry  65 8 GA 9: 352–354; tr. 268–269. See Sonia Sikka, Heidegger, Morality and Politics: Questioning the Shepherd of Being (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2018): 1–8. Sikka emphasizes the derivative character of the division between “is” and “ought,” fact and value. 9 For further discussion, see Rozemund Uljée, Thinking Difference with Heidegger and Levinas: Truth and Justice (Albany: SUNY Press, 2020): 8–24. See Sonia Sikka, “Questioning the Sacred: Heidegger and Levinas on the Locus of Divinity,” Modern Theology, 14/3 (July 1998): 299–323. 10 GA 9: 353; tr. 268. 11 See Jonas, The Ethical Imperative: In Search of an Ethic for the Technological Age: 117–122. 12 Heidegger, Ontologie: Hermeneutik die Faktizität, GA 63 (Frankfurt am Main: Vittorio Klostermann, 1988): 42. 13 GA 65: 5; tr. 4. 14 Kovacs, Thinking and Be-ing in Heidegger’s Beiträge zur Philosophie (Vom Ereignis): 91. 15 Heidegger, Überlegungen II–VI (Schwarze Hefte 1931–1938), GA 94 (Frankfurt am Main: Vittorio Klostermann, 2014): 1; Ponderings II–VI: Black Notebooks 1931–1938), trans Richard Rojcewicz (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2016): 1. See Parvis Emad, “History” and “Nothingness” in Heidegger and Nietzsche, Learning from Beiträge. Parts 5–6, The Issue of Anti-Semitism (Budapest: Societas Philosophia Classica, 2015): 41–45. 16 Heidegger, “Nietzsches Wort: ‘Gott Ist Tot,’” in Holzwege, GA 5 (Frankfurt am Main: Vittorio Klostermann, 1977): 247. “Nietzsche’s Word: ‘God Is Dead,” in Off the Beaten Track, trans. Julian Young and Kenneth Haynes (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002): 185. 17 GA 5, p. 247: 185 (translation slightly modified). 18 Heidegger, Nietzsche II (1936–1946), GA 6.2 (Frankfurt am Main: Vittorio Klostermann, 1997): 256–258. 19 See George Kovacs, Thinking and Be-ing in Heidegger’s Beiträge zur Philosophie (Vom Ereignis) (Bucharest: Zeta Books, 2015): 242. For an opposite approach see Richard Polt, Time and Trauma: Thinking Through Heidegger in the Thirties (Lanham, MD: Rowman and Littlefield, 2019): 56. 20 GA 65: 399; tr. 279. 21 Radloff, Heidegger and the Question of National Socialism: 177. 22 GA 65: 319; tr. 224. 23 Heidegger, “Der Ursprung des Kunstwerkes,” in Holzwege, GA 5: 30–31; “The Origin of the Work of Art,” in Off the Beaten Track: 23. 24 See Bernhard Radloff, “The Metaphysics of Cultural Production in the Black Notebooks,” Heidegger Studies, 36 (2020): 57–76 (esp. 57–58). 25 GA 5: 29; tr. 22. 26 Heidegger, The Principle of Reason, trans. Reginald Lilly (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1991): 129. 27 GA 2: 432. 28 Emad, “History” and “Nothingness”: 39. 29 Much of the literature on Heidegger’s encounter with technicity underestimates this critique of productionist metaphysics and the transformation of human beings into the “laboring animal.” And there are few references, if any, to Karl Marx as a key thinker at the end of metaphysics, as an examination of the following shows. See Marder, Heidegger: Phenomenology, Ecology, Politics: 157–159. Storey centers his discussion on Heidegger’s critique of Nietzsche’s metaphysics. See David E. Storey, Naturalizing Heidegger: His Confrontation with Nietzsche, His Contributions to Environmental Philosophy (Albany: SUNY Press, 2015): 128–129.

66  A New Leaping-Off Place for Ethical Inquiry 30 Karl Marx, The German Ideology, in The Marx–Engels Reader, ed. Robert C. Tucker (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1972): 119–120. 31 Hodge, Heidegger and Ethics (London: Routledge, 1995): 2–3. 32 GA 9, p. 353; tr. 268. 33 GA 9, p. 358; tr. 267. 34 Emad, “History” and “Nothingness” in Heidegger and Nietzsche: 39. 35 Quoted by Hannah Arendt, The Human Condition (Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1958): 198. 36 Heidegger, Erläuterungen zu Hölderlins Dichtung, GA 4 (Frankfurt am Main: Vittorio Klostermann, 1981): 38. 37 GA 65: 510; tr. 359. 38 For an excellent discussion, see Radloff, Heidegger and the Question of National Socialism, 256–276. 39 Heidegger, Hölderlins Hymne “Andenken”, GA 52 (Frankfurt am Maine: Vittorio Klostermann, 1992): 101; Hölderlin’s Hymn “Remembrance,” trans. William McNeill and Julia Ireland (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2018): 87. 40 Emad, Translation and Interpretation: 46. 41 See Frank Schalow, “Introduction,” in Heidegger, Translation, and the Task of Thinking: Essays in Honor on Parvis Emad, ed. F. Schalow (Dordrecht: Kluwer Academic Publishers, 2011): 23–29. 42 GA 65: 275; tr. 193. 43 Heidegger, Hölderlins Hymne “Der Ister,” GA 53 (Frankfurt am Main: Vittorio Klostermann, 1984): 190. Hölderlin’s Hymn “The Ister,” trans. William McNeill and Julia Davis (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1996): 152–153. 44 GA 65: 397; tr. 278. 45 GA 65: 455; tr. 320. 46 Heidegger, GA 7: 152; tr. 148.

3 The Global Stage of Politics and the Return to the Earth

To re-examine the political and make its origin question-worthy once again is to enact a questioning that also takes seriously the counter pole in which politics emerges in a global setting within the epoch of machination. In retrospect, we can identify a basic antinomy: namely, that the gestalt of modern politics, in its myopic predilection to acquire and maintain power, is such that it distorts any other language that could call that presumption into question. The seductiveness of modern politics is such that it usurps language as its own self-serving vehicle, and thereby blurs the lines for any alternative ground of self-criticism. We see this in the presidential politics of the United States, in which what is said can be reversed in an instant and the opposite maintained; words become a mere foil for any subjective perspective, the political remarks stand by themselves as if completely detached from the truth. Any proposed “revolution” in politics, whether “conservatively” or “liberally” based, must set aside its presumption of superiority, in order that a “claim” (Anspruch) outside of that fracas can echo and allow a deeper ground of freedom to speak beyond the various political divisions and ideologies. The aim of hermeneutics, then, is to direct us back to a conversation about the possibility of the political, as it emerges from this ground of freedom. This ongoing conversation takes its cue from the hermeneutic guidelines that continually bring Heidegger’s questioning of the political into question, thereby accentuating what remains unthought. In this chapter, we will consider the assimilation of the political to the ends of techno-capitalism, and thereby show to what extent Heidegger foresaw the identification of the political with economics. In the first section (I), I will outline the “counter-turning” by which the origin of the political can emerge in contrast to its diminution as a foil for techno-capitalism. Heidegger’s appeal to the superiority of the Marxist view of history will provide the focus for this discussion, in his attempt to show how productionist metaphysics underlies both capitalist and communist ideologies. Techno-capitalism unleashes the forces of machination on a global state, assimilating all human activities to the cycle of production and consumption, and puts into practice Nietzsche’s metaphysics of the will to will. In DOI: 10.4324/9781003195139-4

68  The Global Stage of Politics and the Return to the Earth the second section (II), I will show how the appeal (Zuspruch) to the ethos of dwelling, otherwise hidden within modernity, can emerge a hermeneutic guideline to redirect an inquiry into the political. The question that he raises on an ethical front as to whether there is “a measure on the earth” originates as a response to the recognition that technicity redefines nature according to what can be calculated for its merit in serving the relentless cycle of production and consumption. We will discover that the transition or crossing to the “other beginning” establishes the gulf between modernity and post-modernity, the divergence between Marx’s vision of a culmination to ‘history’ and Heidegger’s attempt to prompt a de-cision about the fate of the earth and future generations dwelling upon it. In this hermeneutic reinterpretation, the phenomenological maxim “back to the thing itself” reverberates anew as a call to “return to the earth.”1 As Haar2 and Llewelyn emphasize, an eco-phenomenology, or alternatively, a phenomenology that speaks of a “return to the earth,” is a form of attunement, an environmental “listening” to nature and its diverse habitats.

I Marxism and the Counter-Turning of the Political In embarking upon our circuitous path of inquiry, we discover that a “counter-turning” holds sway within the “turning,” which directs the question back to what is otherwise withdrawn and withheld, i.e., as not showing itself. In this regard, an appeal to a measure may instead suggest ambiguity as to “how matters stand toward being?” in the end and completion of metaphysics, of modernity, rather than simply a “constitutive” element of the polis. Conversely, the concern for the polis must follow the momentum of the turning, the turning as counter-turning, in such a way as to deflect its focus thematically to highlight instead the modern preconception of the political and its basis in the errancy of the modern era. That is, the polis emerges as an inverted ‘image’ of the metaphysical preconceptions of modernity, of the forgottenness of being, on the one hand, and, on the other, the dominance of the will to power with the onslaught of machination and an economic premium placed on productivity. Within modernity, it is not a measure that prevails, as Werner Marx observes,3 but the opposite or a model of calculation. A measure reveals our way of belonging to being, to a “clearing whole” in which beings appear, and thereby, to nature (physis) as exemplifying that wholeness. Conversely, modernity exhibits the will to compartmentalize rather than unify, to exploit and dominate nature, rather than to reaffirm its ties with our embodiment and welcome the diversity of its manifestation. Within the counter-turning (Widerkehre), the political appears in an alien form through the divestiture of its preeminent concern for place, inhabitation and dwelling. Perhaps it is not accidental, then, that interest in the reconstitution of the political as a “no-place” or “u-topia” punctuates the writings of modern political philosophers, including Jean-Jacques Rousseau.

The Global Stage of Politics and the Return to the Earth  69 Be that as it may, within modernity, economic concerns drive political ones. As the modern era advances and accelerates into the 20th century, the “state” becomes a center of conflict over different economic ideologies, most notably, capitalism versus communism. In adding National Socialism to this equation (Gestalt), the battle over these ideologies inevitably spills over into global or international clashes. Heidegger’s initial encounter with (the politics of) National Socialism (in the period of 1933–34) while, on the one hand, abrupt and “short-sighted” (i.e., lacking the benefit of the interlude of his preparatory thinking), on the other hand, seeks a philosophical understanding of the importance of confronting the destructive effects of machination (versus an ideological commitment). In one key respect, his avowal of National Socialism is only “transitional,” and yet (despite this politically errancy) is philosophically inadequate and incomplete by not (as of yet) distinguishing between the “Wesen” of technicity and the instrumentality of its effects.4 Particularly in Contributions to Philosophy, Heidegger takes a “step back” from these ideologies; he emphasizes the historical transformation in which economic concerns trump political ones in establishing forms of political governance. Ultimately, the manner of governance becomes more a means to an end, e.g., the accumulation of wealth and prosperity. The “gigantic” (das Riesenhafte) of machination actually trivializes the role that governance has relative to sustaining the enormous growth of global economies.5 The instrumentality of government, the rise of bureaucracies and the “military, industrial complex,” shape a development rooted in machination and its metaphysical origins in the forgottenness of being—a topic in its own right. How do these concerns take shape as metaphysical determinations, and thereby as comprising an epoch in the history of being? To help answer this question, Heidegger revisits a 19th-century thinker whose impact, both philosophically and politically on the course of the first half of the 20th century, is perhaps greater than any intellectual figure, namely, Karl Marx. In this context, the political involves the precepts of “governing” within the epoch of modernity, rather than specific forms of government including their possible disbanding in the “communes” of communism. In his “Letter on ‘Humanism” (1946), after the close of World War II and the collapse of the Nazi regime he initially backed, Heidegger acknowledges the superiority of the Marxist view of history, despite denouncing both capitalism and communism.6 Yet, Heidegger’s claim appears in a new light when we consider its being-historical context, rather than its ideological implications. Specifically, in Marx’s thinking Heidegger uncovers the key development in the modern elevation of man in the position of “subject” and nature as a recourse to be converted into an “object” of human productivity, e.g., water to create electricity, oil to fuel automobiles. The turn toward the subject is not simply cognitive, in Descartes’ sense, but is also practically motivated, that is, according to a new gestalt which redirects the capacity of know and even

70  The Global Stage of Politics and the Return to the Earth redefines the purpose of science, namely, human productivity. For Marx, man as “human sensuous activity” transforms nature through his labor, that is, his practical activity into order to convert natural resources, e.g., trees, into human products, e.g., lumber.7 The objectification of nature in this way is an important example of Marx’s anthropocentricism, and a key development in the modern epoch of productionist metaphysics. The modern era accelerates our “disconnectedness from nature,” and simultaneously reinforces the metaphysical dichotomies beginning with Descartes’ reduction of the natural realm to an inert material substance.8 Why, then, does Marx’s view of history surpass all others particularly given Heidegger’s emphasis on the historical importance of Nietzsche’s account of nihilism, not to mention the depth of Hegel’s account of the history of Absolute Spirit? As we have suggested, the answer lies in the fact that Marx envisioned a transformation in modernity in which work, in its truncated form of labor, would emerge into the forefront as a way of re-defining humanity in its relation to nature. That is, Marx brought into view a dramatic change in humanity’s stance within the beings in the whole, such that the forces of economic productivity would dictate the appearance of beings, including nature’s availability for the purpose of exploitation. Marx foresaw a stage in the history of metaphysics that ushered in the rise of technicity with its belief in scientific progress, and thereby, in a way that even rivals Nietzsche’s concept of the overman, becomes a champion of humanism. But, in the same respect, he did not question technicity as a development from and consummation of metaphysics at the end of modernity, including its root in the Hegelian dialectic of productionist metaphysics. To quote Heidegger: In an early text published from his manuscript remains, Karl Marx explains that “the entire so-called world history is nothing other than the production of humans by human labor, nothing other than the becoming nature of the human.” Many may repudiate this construal of world history. But no one can deny that today technicity, industry, and economy authoritatively determine all actuality of the actual to be the labor of the self-production of the human. That Marx, in opposition to Hegel, does not see the essence of actuality in absolute, self-conceiving spirit, but rather in the human producing itself and its means of living, this indeed brings Marx into the most extreme opposition to Hegel, but by this opposition Marx remains within Hegelian metaphysics, for life and the rein of actuality if above all the labor process of dialectic…9 Heidegger’s appeal to Marx’s philosophy as a key to addressing humanism goes a long way to define the thrust of the former’s critique of the latter’s portrait of man as a cog within the system of productionist metaphysics. When broadly conceived, humanism inserts “man” into the

The Global Stage of Politics and the Return to the Earth  71 center of beings in the whole, seeking in him the basis for their grounding, including the sphere of nature. The human subject becomes supreme by assessing all beings in terms of their value and usefulness, and thereby representing them in terms of their conformity to these standards. For Heidegger, subjectivism entails the objectification of nature as only accessible through mechanisms of usefulness, representing everything that can ‘be’ via this paradigm of uniformity and homogeneity. But productivity, as Marx realized, is only one side of the equation. Mass production also delivers beings over to the arbitrariness and expediency of this consumption, what Marx describes as the “fetish of the commodity.”10 Commodification extends not only to what is bought and sold in the marketplace, but, by extension, to whatever can appear within the cycle of mass production, including labor in its various forms through the “mobilization,” as Ernst Jünger later described, of factory workers and ultimately armies.11 At least within the scope of capitalism, Marx recognized the duplicity by which the laborer is pitted against him/herself, torn asunder through self-alienation or self-estrangement, in which the technical advances of productivity are achieved only at the expense of making the producer expendable as a resource. “This relation [of labor] is the relation of the worker to his own activity as an alien activity not belonging to him; it is an activity of suffering… Here we have self-estrangement…”12 Yet Marx also believed that the anthropocentric and humanistic scheme, which enslaved humanity, could also be transformed to serve his liberation in the new socio-economic organization of communism. Metaphysics still drives the Marxist preconception of humanity, according to Heidegger, insofar as the technical advance of mechanization and productivity concentrates exclusively on beings and thereby monopolizing the appearance of nature strictly as a “resource” to be used and exploited. Metaphysically speaking, this monopolizing of appearance occurs to the exclusion of being (in the diversity of its possible manifestations) and thereby in favor of the predominance of beings themselves. In the Black Notebooks, Heidegger refers to a “historicism,” which is “addicted to mere beings” and “alienated from be-ing (Seyn).”13 Heidegger’s chief insight lies in previewing this development across the entire span of the West, and thereby marking the curvature of history as implied in Marx’s analysis. In Heidegger’s terms, then, the rise of productionist metaphysics parallels what first becomes explicit in modernity as the abandonment of and by being. Because throughout its history metaphysics succumbs to the forgottenness of the difference between being and beings, the corollary abandonment also exhibits the tension of the twofold (Zwiefalt). That is, being’s abandonment in the nihilation of its emptiness also entails “abandoning” beings, e.g., nature, as reducible to mere resources for use, domination, and exploitation. In and through its abandonment, the epoch of modernity admits a privileged form of

72  The Global Stage of Politics and the Return to the Earth disclosure, namely, machination, in which a generic mode of manifestation or “in-differentiation” defines beings as well as the human way of manipulating them.14 Of course, we can point to various ways in which machination shapes the course of the modern era. But Marx provides one of the foremost accounts of this development by making productivity the chief designation to define humanity and nature together or within the same configuration. In making productivity primary, Marx redefines man in terms of his capacity for “praxis,” or practicality, in such a way as to make the individual a proxy for the “collective” in a sweeping program of social and economic reforms, in short, “revolutionary praxis.” Such praxis, however, is potentially “world-shaking” or global in its impact. If only indirectly, Marx provides evidence to how productivity, and its corollary, the revolutionary implications of praxis, are interconnected to form the primary gestalt of machination, i.e., its globalizing power. Within this globalized setting, Marx’s revolutionary agenda of communism, on the other hand, and his critique of capitalism, on the other, outlines a new possibility for “man” at the end of modernity. In his capacity for labor, praxis, and social reform, man becomes a “political animal” in a new gestalt, that is, in which politics goes hand in hand with its “economic” transformation within the global setting of productivity. As the history of metaphysics becomes ensnared in its own closure, the economic order supplants the political. The latter, however, is not in any way vanquished, but re-emerges in the most adversarial way possible as a national and ultimately international “give and take” in the battle over scarce resources. Here we need not address Heidegger’s disenchantment with both the economic forms of capitalism and post-Marxist communism in the 20th century, of which much has been written in the scholarship. Instead, at this juncture we need only to emphasize how Marx’s philosophy makes explicit the new, and still reigning, gestalt, in which politics is waged on a global scale, which in turn defines the economic order of productivity and the preconception of man as “laborer.” Given Marx’s insight into the globalization of productivity and labor, we now can see why Heidegger claimed that the Marxist view of history surpasses all others. The specific gestalt of class warfare between bourgeoisie and proletariat, the focus of Marx’s critique of capitalism, is transposed into the global arena today as the battle between the “rich” and the “poor” nations. The concerns surrounding a global economy both supersede and shape the sphere of political action and leadership. While capitalism seems to have triumphed in the short run, the widening gap between the wealthy and the impoverished, on the one hand, and the instability of financial markets (as globalized), on the other, necessarily subordinates all political decision-making to economic interests. Moreover, the global character of financial markets means that even non-democratic, if not communist or socialist nations per se, also have a “stake” in the struggle for prosperity. Of course, Heidegger did not live

The Global Stage of Politics and the Return to the Earth  73 long enough to see how this globalization would necessitate the development of a computerized, information network to drive exponentially economic interests, and thereby transform capitalism into the global marketplace of buying and selling “commodities,” from oil futures to stock portfolios. Herein lies the emergence of “techno-capitalism.”15 But the question for us is not simply the various permutations, socioeconomic as much as scientific-technical, which drive politics today. Thus, from Heidegger’s perspective, Marx is still a forerunner of Nietzsche’s concept of the will to power as the driving force of mastery and production, the self-elevation to higher and higher levels through the example of the overman. On a metaphysical level, Nietzsche seeks a deeper grounding in nihilism for what Marx envisioned as the extreme self-alienation within the capitalistic economic system. Ivo De Gennaro states the matter this way: The manner in which the earth is set as a condition—or resource— for the unrestricted rule of the empowering of power, implies the complete machinalization of the earth, that is, the circumstance that the latter abides insofar as it is fed into machinal processes (processes of energy extraction, of particle accelerations, etc.). The machinalized earth is the earth that is through and through available and computable as a condition for the increase and conservation of power… As “the first accomplished nihilist of Europe,” Nietzsche already observes, and thus foresees, the development toward a machinal economy of power.16 But Heidegger also sees in Nietzsche’s metaphysics of the eternal recurrence an ambiguity, which reflects the Janus-like character of technicity. Through his critique of nihilism, Nietzsche develops a figurative language that resonates more profoundly with Heidegger’s inquiry into the history of metaphysics as the abandonment of being (Seinsverlassenheit). By embodying the double movement of “going under” and “crossing over,” the overman becomes a transitional figure in humanity’s encounter with the global forces of technicity. 17 Both Marx and Nietzsche stand on the cusp of modernity, each in his own provocative way. To appreciate the relevance of each, we must return to the concern for “how does it stand with being?,” that is, the disclosure occurring in and through machination. In his lecture course on Parmenides from the Winter Semester 1942/43, Heidegger explains how technicity shapes the transformation of Marxism into its 20th-century corollary, or Bolshevism in Russia: The bourgeois world has not seen and in part still does not want to see today that in “Leninism,” as Stalin calls this metaphysics, a metaphysical projection has been performed, on the basis of which in a certain way the metaphysical passion of today’s Russians for

74  The Global Stage of Politics and the Return to the Earth technicity first becomes intelligible, and out of which the technical world is brought into power. That the Russian, e.g., are always building more tractor factories is not primarily what is decisive, but, rather, it is this, that the complete technical organization of the world is already the metaphysical foundation for all plans and operations and that this foundation is experienced unconditionally and radically [as] brought into working completeness.18 While we can describe in increasingly bleaker terms today’s economic struggles, the issue, as Heidegger repeatedly emphasizes, is not that of “pessimism” versus “optimism.” Instead, we must consider whether and how the forces of productivity unleashed in machination may also call forth new limits, and thereby signal another possibility for the demarcation of the political than is otherwise evident. In other words, we must address how the ambiguous, Janus-faced dimension belongs to the “sway of technicity” from which can arise the schismatic cut of a de-cision about the fate of the earth and the possibility of our dwelling upon it. Such a de-cision is guided by the possibility of our releasement (Gelassenheit) to be-ing (Seyn), and from the addictive clinging to beings in service of the instrumental ends of technicity.19 Experienced culturally, technicity draws upon the existential descent into “untruth” as falling (Verfallen), yields different gestalts in which its disadvantages are pitted against its advantages. The Internet provides global and immediate channels of access to social media, thereby creating a platform for disinformation in order to manipulate opinion. Within this framework of machination, human beings not only use the instruments of technicity, but are themselves used within this mock game of “likes” and “dislikes.”

II From Economics to the “Eco” of Dwelling When Heidegger appeals to the “turning,” to the “temporality of being,” he envisions a transformation in and through history, which diverges from a conception of linear progress modeled upon a metaphysical concept of presencing. The “turning in enowning” is the double movement of a “returnership” to an origin arriving from the future.20 Enowning does not exhibit characteristics which can be captured in the linear sense of an “event,” but instead is a transformative development that pervades history and first restores to it the power of destiny, of safeguarding, sheltering, and transmitting what is ownmost to being’s gifting-refusal. The “turning” enacts, makes explicit, and reclaims what is ownmost in this destining, thereby gathering forth and distributing the epochs in the history of metaphysics. This development does not occur linearly, but along the cusp of the other onset. Die Kehre brings to a climax all that has hitherto remained preparatory, and its suddenness cannot be experienced merely as a shift, about-face or reversal.21 For the “turning” pertains

The Global Stage of Politics and the Return to the Earth  75 to a changeover from a one-dimensional way in which beings appear within technicity for the purpose of exploitation and manipulation, to an appearing which highlights their singularity and diversity, for example, in the work of art (and the “thinging” of the thing).22 As Gail Stenstad states: The fact that environmental ethicists, for example, think they must offer a justification and argue on behalf of a notion of the intrinsic value of other kinds of beings or species or ecosystems is itself a tacit admission, that, within the realm of ethical theory, traditional metaphysical and epistemological presuppositions hold sway… What follows from (and accompanies) the thinking of be-ing is a multifaceted shifting in which all relationship to a being is transformed… Those guidewords, however, say and show something of the dynamic of the turnings in enowning, of timing-spacing-thinging.23 The “turning,” as Heidegger explores its dynamics both in Contributions to Philosophy and subsequently in his lecture at Bremen (and essay) under that heading (“Die Kehre”), provides the backdrop for developing the question concerning technicity. The turning brings to light the worldhistorical destiny of technicity, not simply as the culmination of technical advances, but as impacting all the ways in which humanity engages with beings in the whole—ethically, politically, and environmentally. The abandonment of and by being (Seinsverlassenheit) shapes the trajectory of the modern age by unleashing the possibilities hidden within machination. In one of his most problematic and frequently quoted remarks, Heidegger describes how Germany is squeezed between the two giants of America and Russia. Critics cite this remark as evidence of Heidegger’s strong nationalistic sentiment and devotion to his native country. As economic systems, capitalism and communism are mirror images of the gestalt of machination, of a productionist metaphysics that necessarily spawns these opposing possibilities. From the standpoint of technicity, each economic system appears indifferently as merely vehicles to provide a platform for machination. Heidegger did not recognize, however, that in this way technicity also spawns the illusion of a false dilemma, of an “either–or.” At this juncture, the questioning of technicity is still in its infancy and is yet to address whether there can be a proprietorship for the mutual entrusting of being and humanity beyond the scope of machination. In the impetus toward globalization, technicity brings into view what depends most for its sustenance on such a global setting, namely, the political. Politics requires such a global stage, because its mediation of human interests (and thereby “need”) revolves around the struggle to harness scarce natural resources, of which oil, for example is foremost. This “world-wide” struggle also involves, if only indirectly, the

76  The Global Stage of Politics and the Return to the Earth self-asserting and self-elevation of the will in establishing its gestalt for compiling (e.g., placing in ‘standing-reserve”) the entirety of (natural) resources (with the endgame of pillaging of the earth). In this regard, the disclosedness of machination points to the earth, if not through the provision of safeguarding it, then through the opposite, and, in this way, reveals the root of geopolitics through the technological drive of self-mastery. The political reveals itself as the foil for the acquisition of power by endorsing the competitiveness of world markets—as a “byproduct” of machination as such. Despite whether the drive toward productivity is slanted either by the ideology of capitalism or communism, machination “clears” the will’s self-assertion of dominating and exploiting nature, including its addendum, the human “worker,” who also appears as a resource in its own right as labor. The environmental thinker Rae André raises a parallel question concerning the “extreme” politics of capitalism: Ideally, the processes by which governments broker compromise is democratic. Yet, democrats always face the opposition of powerful, competitive actors who… may see collaboration as a foolish, winlose proposition and will work hard to defend their tribe. In the United States today, these actors are likely to be driven by the enduring neoliberal philosophy of the novelist, Ayn Rand, who romanticized extreme individualism, imagined power in the hands of the elite, promoted free market capitalism, and sought a minimal role for government. By her way of thinking, dominance is a matter of survival of the fittest…24 Through the refusal (of being) that shapes it, machination can also reveal the modern disappearance of the world, or its un-worlding, for example, in the devaluation of all things in terms of their instrumentality for a subject. In this regard, technicity reveals something unique to our age, and thereby harbors a “truth” as to how nihilism can overshadow the drive to realize human ends within the framework (Gestell) of geopolitics today. As Heidegger remarks in the Black Notebooks (1938)–1939), the political masks its pretense of self-importance in mediating the extremes between “war and peace,” without reaching any decision in regard to a future place of dwelling.25 In his essay “Overcoming Metaphysics,” he makes the following remark: The struggle between those who are in power and those who want to come to power: On every side there is the struggle for power. Everywhere power itself is what is determinative… This struggle is of necessity planetary and as such undecidable in its being because it has nothing to decide, since it remains excluded from all differentiation, from the difference of being from beings, and thus from truth.

The Global Stage of Politics and the Return to the Earth  77 Through its own force it is driven out into what is without destiny: into the abandonment of being.26 Here Heidegger clearly indicates how the globalization of politics, in the clash of various ideologies to achieve power, stems from the abandonment of being. Marxism misses the crucial target, or crux of history, because the clash between communist and capitalist ideologies that will subsequently unfold yields only what is undecidable within the sphere of power-politics, stopping short of a de-cision which answers the fate of the earth and responds to the call of be-ing. Yet that truth is no longer a product of technicity than geopolitics is merely a struggle between competing ideologies. For the relentless drive of calculation extends into all areas of human endeavor, including education through such vehicles as “online” universities—not to the mention the bloating of federal and state bureaucracies in the name of the political. Outside the superficiality of this instantaneous exchange of information, there arises the inkling of what may inspire a new questionworthiness beyond the un-truth and un-worlding of a globally imposed (Ge-stell) technological rule (or ‘world-order’). For Heidegger, what can ultimately supply such an idiom, and thereby is initially accessible through the redirection of a new grounding-attunement, is the earth itself. In Contributions to Philosophy, Heidegger equates this Grundstimmung with “reservedness” (Verhaltenheit). In seeking this new directive of question-worthiness, the earth takes priority, that is, understood as the self-reclusive withdrawal of concealment, as the precursor to the opening forth of a world. If we consider the hermeneutic direction of questioning, we arrive at an important insight: namely, the earth is itself is the harbinger of a mystery. Through the dynamic of its self-concealment, the earth directs us back to the singularity of what is offered through the gifting of being, directly in proportion to the refusing of our mastery over its abundance. In this way, the earth stands forth not only as an element of “situatedness,” but, also, hermeneutically speaking, as an idiom for conveying a mystery (beyond the purview of calculation).27 As such, the earth emerges in relation to the withdrawal of language into what is unsaid, thereby doubling as an emissary (in hermeneutic terms) of an incalculable mystery. While not a concept of ecology, it is precisely as forerunner of this mystery that our questioning of the earth (through its strife with the world), can have ecological implication. In his essay, “Die Kehre,” Heidegger emphasizes that residing within the danger of technicity is the possibility of a “turning to stewardship” such that in the stewardship itself there is the saving of be-ing (das Rettende des Seyns).28 As Heidegger had pointed out earlier in Contributions, “saving” becomes possible when “the danger has grown to the extreme.”29

78  The Global Stage of Politics and the Return to the Earth As such an emissary and forerunner to what is both unsaid and unthought, the earth holds forth the tension of what is still to be decided in determining the site of the political. In “The Origins of the Work of Art,” Heidegger outlines the confluence of these motifs, that is, a “decision” to enter and endure the strife between world and earth: To the open belongs a world and the earth. But world is not simply the open which corresponds to the clearing, earth is not simply the closed that corresponds to concealment. World, rather is the clearing of the paths of the essential directives with which every decision complies. Every decision, however, is grounded is something that cannot be mastered, something concealed, something disconcerting. Otherwise it would never be a decision. Earth is not simply the closed, but rises up as self-closing. World and earth are essentially in conflict… Only as such do they enter the strife of clearing and concealing.30 Two observations come immediately to mind. First, earth includes a trajectory of thrownness (ab-ground), and thereby allows for a counterdynamic of projection in order to become historical or enter into history. Secondly, decisions seek “directives” or a “measure,” and are not simply examples of blind voluntarism. By developing these key distinctions, we can first embark upon the path of thinking the political. At the threshold of this crossing, what then begins to appear, in contrast to the divestiture of nature, is an alternative proprietorship. Through this proprietorship, Da-sein can disclose its place of dwelling, and allow physis to appear within the unitary whole of its manifestation.31 In question is the counter-dynamic to this clearing whole, to which Da-sein testifies through its inhabitation of a world, namely, the self-concealing of the earth. The counter valence or the sway of the earth sets forth beings into the arena we experience as temporalizing-spatializing. Within the play of time-space, the potential for any “place” (including for animals to thrive) is transposed into the opens expanse of being (to which Da-sein belongs, participates in, depends upon, but in his deepest finitude can never master). Heidegger recognized that space is synonymous with the intimacy or in abiding within a distinctive area to inhabit, including the habitats that animals occupy. Space involves “locations,” which free a living creature to “settle” in the domain where it belongs.32 The flipside of human productivity, then, is a new eco-onomy of dwelling, which intersects with the strife between world and earth (and both precedes and outstrips the development of all fiscally based economies). Here the “eco-” pertains to the original allocating and setting up of the limits for residing, e.g., taking up residence within an abode or “place” (implying a break from modern economic theory). In the modern age, the etymological meaning of the “eco-” of eco-onomy becomes completely

The Global Stage of Politics and the Return to the Earth  79 detached from the use of this term as a concern for the distribution of material and monetary resources. Thus, economics and ecology seem to suggest completely different endeavors with the former epitomizing a secular, amoral side of modern society through the relentless cycle of production and consumption. When we retrieve the etymological origin of these terms, a completely different scenario arises. The “eco-” of economy can be informed by the intralingual rendering of ethics as ethos, thereby allowing a crossing of the terms in which the proprietorial character of human dwelling can redefine the meaning of eco-onomizing. This intralingual translation is not complete, however, without also establishing that to allocate is to sculpture out a place of dwelling, which human beings occupy by “lettingbe.” Given the proprietorial character of human dwelling, the eco-logical and the eco-onomical can mirror each other. That is, the conservation of the earth becomes an eco-onomic (and, implicitly, an ethical) problem, insofar as what is ownmost in how we allocate and set up a corresponding residence originates from the appropriating, en-owning reciprocity with being. The unity of eco-logy and eco-nomics leads to a “conservatorship” that, in the strict sense of an environmental policy, is also a form of “conservation.” To allocate is to safeguard by intimating a measure for all human pursuits and activities, beyond the relentless process of production and consumption (e.g., the will to power as the will to will). Techno-capitalism is a gestalt that brings the will to will to fruition, providing it a concrete footing on which its power-dynamic can (literally) work itself out. In this form of the “free market” system computerized algorithms instantaneously reset the value of assets—perhaps a far cry than the model of exchange that Adam Smith envisioned.33 Despite its assault on nature’s resources, techno-capitalism poses a challenge as how and whether human can belong to be in a way that does not simply commit us to a “world-less” condition. Can a transitional figure like the overman emerge to meet this challenge? Can the overman recapture the Dionysian spirit of creativity within a secularized ‘world-order’? These are questions that illuminate the Janus-character of technicity, and which are integral to understanding the “going-under” of humanity that can build a bridge for crossing-over to the “other onset.” The incalculable character of humanity’s dwelling upon the earth stands in stark contrast (implying a “measure”) to the calculation, accumulation, and redistribution of wealth. As Heidegger remarks: Shepherds live indivisibly and outside of the desert of the desolated earth, which is only supposed to be of use for the guarantee of the dominance of man whose effects are limited to judging whether something is important or unimportant for life. As the will to will, this life demands in advance that all knowledge move in the manner of guaranteeing calculation and evaluation.34

80  The Global Stage of Politics and the Return to the Earth When juxtaposed with his critique of technicity Heidegger’s statement that to dwell is “save the earth” points ahead to de-cision guided by the question of ethics, the restoring of a future ethos. 35 Technicity poses the threat of uprooting humanity due to its global expanse; its exponential growth places all that can “be” at risk, pressing everything that “is” in service of its hegemonic forces, including placing humanity itself in jeopardy as an instrument of consumption, production, and exploitation (not to mention the suspension of its fate via weapons of mass destruction). The global assault on beings in the whole makes stockpiling (‘natural’) resources the greatest priority, thereby approaching the earth as the progenitor of whatever can be converted into “standing reserve” (not the least of which are its diverse life-forms, including the human species). As Heidegger suggests, due to its global impact technicity creates its own ethical quandary. This ethical dilemma brings to a head a potential decision (Ent-scheidung) about the fate of everything, rather than what can be extrapolated from traditional moral theories addressing the transgression of “this” or “that” form of human conduct. As he states in the “Letter on ‘Humanism,’” “the desire for an ethics presses ever more ardently for fulfillment in our technological age.”36 When the question of being is transformed into the question concerning technicity, the seeds are also planted for the transformation of ethics into (the concern for) the ethos of dwelling, including the possibility of safeguarding the earth. Correlatively, the possibility arises to transplant the political on a completely new footing (beyond the technological grip of the acquisition of power). Given this global dominance of technicity, the earth is cast forward as the source of this new battleground—both figuratively and literally. From a being-historical perspective, the earth signals this new crisis, conveying a message as to all that exists within the fabric of nature or its diverse eco-systems.37 Within this hermeneutic context, the earth appears historically as a counter check to the threat that technicity poses in seeking to convert all of nature into standing-reserve. Instead, the earth signifies the offering of that bounty, to which human beings are granted and to which they are entrusted through their inhabitation and dwelling. The earth is the harbinger of the most elemental concerns, including the fact of our embodiment, as well as the source of the raw creativity with which human beings are endowed. As the poet Rilke says most succinctly in Sonnets to Orpheus “The earth bestows” (Die Erde schenkt).38 There is, then, a beckoning and call to return to the earth and safeguard its bounty, in the face of the exploitation of its resources. In this call echoes the challenge of cultivating the ethos by which we can dwell on the earth. The law (Gesetz) of the “reception” of the earth transfixes the ethical quandary posed by our technological age.39 On the cusp of this historical decision, we are the heirs of the earth, its inheritors, not its possessors or masters. What, then, does “inheritance” mean in this context, and what are the ethical implications thereby? First, we “belong to” the earth. Yet we need to differentiate this remark as it

The Global Stage of Politics and the Return to the Earth  81 applies to Heidegger and those who advance the environmental stance. For Heidegger, the manner of belonging harks back to our reciprocity with being, in such a way that in the epoch of modernity the earth signals this reciprocal relationship (e.g., between Da-sein and being). Accordingly, in this sense the earth serves as such a reminder, or harboring the memory of this reciprocity, or of its “recollection” (in the richer sense in which Hölderlin titles his poem “Mnemosyne” in proclaiming “We are a sign that is not read…” Through this way of “belonging,” human beings heed a call to which they are answerable The task of thinking the political emerges before us. We discover the hermeneutical guideline that directs this attempt, locating the place of the political within the strife between world and earth. The withdrawal of the polis within modernity points to the self-concealment of the earth as the new counter pole for addressing the political apart from the mechanistic gestalt of productionist metaphysics. In this “settingapart” over against modernity, the possibility of a crossing arises, the faint glimpse of the “other onset,” the inception of another beginning. In this new attempt to think the political, our inquiry into its possibility turns around (with the momentum of the “turning” (Kehre)). What the political is not becomes equally compelling, that is: a self-constructed product of human culture, which seeks as its ultimate “good” the pursuit of human ends alone. In this turning around, the “eco-” as the residence of the political also begins to appear. We do not want to infer, then, an “eco-politics,” because that would superimpose an ideology, despite how desirable and well intentioned the platform might be. Rather, we have in mind a proprietorship of dwelling in which a hermeneutic tapestry of concerns— our “shared” embodiment as mortals, the connectedness of nature, and the stewardship of the earth—which transposes the political into that which is ownmost in its double occupancy: that is, the political as a place of dwelling and dwelling as a place of unconcealment, of “letting-be.” Over against this anthropocentric focus, does the safeguarding of the earth, and the manner of our dwelling upon it, suggest another form of service and stewardship, through which a sense of good (and even “justice”) can be indicated? Can what we seek as “good” be revealed from the futural arrival of this historical site, insofar as we dwell in proximity to the earth and heed its measure? Does such a site come to fruition via the cultivation of an ethos of “future generations?” In asking these questions we do not have in view what today is called an “intergenerational ethics,”40 but the transformation of ethics through the task of stewardship, i.e., by prioritizing the future within the elliptical dynamic of temporality (rather than in the derivative, linear sense of ‘not yet’). These questions point back to the ‘pre-text’ of the political, which can emerge into the forefront of inquiry only by dismantling the textual narrative of the politics of productionist metaphysics. This de-construction, while first

82  The Global Stage of Politics and the Return to the Earth spearheaded by Heidegger’s encounter with technicity, is not confined to these critical efforts. By unraveling this narrative, we discover that its origin lies in conflating politics with economics (at the end of modernity), rather than in any one ideological expression, e.g., capitalism or communism.

III Conclusion Having exposed the derivative character of modern politics, we can address the hermeneutic preconditions for reformulating the question of the political. The manner in which Karl Marx falls short of his ‘historical’ target reveals a deeper origin of history, which prompts a de-cision about the fate of the earth or the crucial juncture where an entry point can emerge for the future arrival or breakthrough of the polis. Human history cannot be “created” as an extension of our capacity for economic, as Karl Marx envisioned. Yet we can prepare for what is “historical” (geschichtlich) as a destiny that intersects with our capacity to be free, in such a way that Da-sein is both thrown into and projects open the expanse of history. We discover that the riddle of the temporality of being is encapsulated within Heidegger’s ability (and perhaps lack thereof) to establish the counter point between his own being-historical perspective and Karl Marx’s vision of ‘history.’41 Following this further path of inquiry, I will mark the transition from the pre-understanding provided by the ethos of ethics to the domain, e.g., the domicile of the political. In simplest terms, I will outline the ultimate presupposition of the political, namely, the proprietorship of dwelling on the earth. The proprietorship of dwelling constitutes the third hermeneutic guideline, which directs us to reopen the question of the political.

Notes 1 In this hermeneutic reinterpretation, the phenomenological maxim “back to the thing itself” reverberates anew as a call to “return to the earth.” See John Llewelyn, “Prolegomena to Any Future Phenomenological Ecology, in Eco-Phenomenology: Back to the Earth Itself, ed. Charles S. Brown and Ted Toadvine (New York: Albany: SUNY Press): 51–72. 2 Michel Haar, The Song of the Earth, trans. Reginald Lilly (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1993): 43–49. 3 Marx, Is There a Measure on the Earth?: 7–15. 4 See Bernhard Radloff, “The Metaphysics of Cultural Production in the Black Notebooks,” Heidegger Studies, 36 (2020): 57–76. 5 See GA 65: 120–124, 136–139; tr. 84–86, 95–96. 6 GA 9: 340; tr. 259. 7 Marx, “Theses on Feuerbach,” in The Marx–Engels Reader: 107–108. See Michael E. Zimmerman, “Marx and Heidegger on the Technological Dominance of Nature,” Philosophy Today, 23 (Summer 1979): 99–112. 8 Cardoza-Kon, Heidegger’ Politics of Enframing: 136.

The Global Stage of Politics and the Return to the Earth  83 9 Heidegger, Bremer und Freiburger Vorträge GA 79 (Frankfurt am Main: Vittorio Klostermann, 1994): 94–95; Bremen and Freiburg Lectures, trans. Andrew J. Mitchell (Bloomington: Indiana University Press 2012): 90. 10 Marx, Capital, in The Marx–Engels Reader: 216–217. See Michael Harrington, The Twilight of Capitalism (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1967): 171. 11 For further discussion, see Ernst Jünger’s Philosophy of Technology: Heidegger and the Poetics of the Anthropocene (New York: Routledge, 2017): 7–17. 12 Marx “Economic and Philosophic Manuscripts of 1844,” in The Marx– Engels Reader: 60–61. 13 Heidegger, Überlegungen VII–XI (Schwarze Hefte 1938–1939), GA 95 (Frankfurt am Main: Vittorio Klostermann, 2014): 96–97; Ponderings VII– XI: Black Notebooks 1938–1939), trans. Richard Rojcewicz (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2017): 75. 14 Bernhard Radloff, “The Life of the Universal: Heidegger’s Response to Slavoj Žižek,” International Studies in the Philosophy of Žižek, 1/4 (2007): 1–41 [online]. 15 See Brockelman, Žižek and Heidegger: The Question Concerning TechnoCapitalism: 43. 16 Ivo De Gennaro, Principles of Philosophy: A Phenomenological Approach (Freiburg: Karl Alber, 2019): 348–349. 17 For further discussion, see Frank Schalow, “The ‘Leaping-Off’ Point for Projecting-Open the Question Concerning the Political: Investigating Politics Anew,” Heidegger Studies, 31 (2015): 17–40. 18 Heidegger, Parmenides, GA 54 (Frankfurt am Main: Vittorio Klostermann, 1982): 127–128. Parmenides, trans. A. Schuwer and R. Rojcewicz (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1992): 86 (modified). 19 See Frank Schalow, Toward a Phenomenology of Addiction: Embodiment, Technology, Transcendence (Dordrecht: Springer, 2017): 153, 164. 20 GA 65: 407–409; tr. 286–287. 21 By upholding a measure different from the calculative standards of machination, humanity’s ownmost takes root within the transformative moment of “einkehren,” a “re-turn” unto beings from the furthest point of their abandonment by being, that is, through their potential to be illuminated anew within the light of the clearing. See GA 79: 71. 22 GA 79: 71. As Heidegger states: “Im Wesen der Gefahr verbirgt sich darum die Möglichkeit einer Kehre, in der die Vergessenheit des Wesens des Seins sich so wendet, daß mit dieser Kehre die Wahrheit des Wesens des Seyns in das Seiende eigens einkehrt.” For an interpretation of this passage, see Frank Schalow, “The Ownmost Sway of Technicity and Its Hermeneutic Guideline,” Heidegger Studies, 29 (2013): 51–66 (esp. 64–65). 23 Gail Stenstad, Transformations: Thinking after Heidegger (Madison, WI: The University of Wisconsin Press, 2007): 185–186. 24 Rae André, Lead for the Planet: Five Practices for Confronting Climate Change (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2020): 125. 25 GA 95: 188; tr. 147. 26 See Heidegger, “Überwindung der Metaphysik,” in Vorträge und Aufsätze, GA 7: 96–97; “Overcoming Metaphysics,” in The End of Philosophy: 109 (translation modified). 27 See Bruce V. Foltz, Inhabiting the Earth (Atlantic Highlands, NJ: Humanities Press, 1995): 7–16. 28 GA 79: 73–74. 29 GA 65: 101; tr. 69.

84  The Global Stage of Politics and the Return to the Earth 0 GA 5: 42; tr. 31. 3 31 Martin Heidegger (with Eugen Fink), Heraclitus Seminar, trans. Charles Seibert (Evanston, IL: Northwestern University Press, 1993): 29–30. 32 GA 7: 160. 33 See Frank Schalow, “Heidegger and the Question of Economics,” American Catholic Philosophical Quarterly, 74 (Spring 2000): 249–267. 34 GA 7: 96–97; tr. 109 (Section XXVII). 35 See H. W. Jung, and P. Jung, “To Save the Earth,” Philosophy Today, 19/2 (1975): 108–117. 36 GA 9: 359; tr. 268. 37 GA 65: 278–297; tr. 195. 38 Rainer Maria Rilke, Sonnets to Orpheus, trans. M. D. Herter Norton (New York: W.W. Norton & Company, 1970): 245. 39 GA 7: 97; tr. 109. 40 See Pranay Sanklecha, “Our Obligations to Future Generations: The Limits of Intergenerational Justice and the Necessity of the Ethics of Metaphysics,” Canadian Journal of Philosophy, 47/2–3 (2017): 229–246 (Special issue: Ethics and Future Generations). Despite a completely different orientation, Sanklecha points to the need for a deeper ontological grounding of a discourse concerning the ethics of “future generations.” 41 Lawrence Paul Hemming, Heidegger and Marx: A Productive Dialogue Over the Language of Humanism (Evanston: Northwestern University Press, 2013): 279. Bernhard Radloff, “Questions Concerning the Consummation of Metaphysics in Matters of the Political, Justice, and Art,” Heidegger Studies, 35 (2019): 219–244.

4 Temporality, Freedom, and Place

Scholars who address Heidegger’s connection to the political tend to vacillate between alternative perspectives. Either they view his politics through the ‘historicist’ lens of his involvement in National Socialism— particularly in his ‘decision’ to become rector of the University of Freiburg (April 1933)—or they appeal to his writings on the Greek polis, in order to establish its origin in the ancient conflict between being’s unconcealment and its concealment. As compelling as either of these approaches may be, however, both share a common drawback, namely, assuming the transparency of their methodologies. Rather than consider the political directly as a theme of inquiry, I wish to proceed in a different direction by following the interrupted paths or the Holzwege of his thinking. In this regard, the emphasis shifts to thinking the possibility of the political as it appears within the compass of Heidegger’s hermeneutics, rather than seeking to extract from his analysis of certain ontological structures claims (e.g., assertions) about the “nature” of politics (e.g., a “political philosophy”). For Heidegger, the premise for the political rests upon the capacity for governing, rather than the institutions and ideologies that comprise a specific form of government or regime. This premise, however, must be set forth, outlined, and inscribed on a ground which cannot be reduced to its expression in any ideological form: namely, the reciprocity of freedom. Given this “hermeneutic difference” or demarcation, I describe the political as a possibility granted from the future, which comes to fruition through the stewardship we enact by cultivating a “place” of dwelling (e.g., on the prelude of an “ecological turn”). In following this path of inquiry, we place a higher premium on the development of Heidegger’s methodology as an open-ended task. By contrast, Hegel’s dialectic makes a direct transition from the philosophical precepts of ontology (or even logic) to the theme of politics. Through his analysis of Sittlichkeit, Hegel’s dialectic joins a concern for the political within a parallel evolution and development of Absolute Spirit, thereby allowing for a completion within the system.1 To be sure, Heidegger is not “anti-systematic” in the sense that Hegel’s successors—Kierkegaard DOI: 10.4324/9781003195139-5

86  Temporality, Freedom, and Place and Nietzsche—were. Yet Heidegger allows for an ellipsis that can interconnect disparate concerns insofar as they mirror each other on different fronts of the inquiry. He employs the term “jointure” to describe this form of hermeneutical unity or the onefold of phenomenology.2 An intermixing of a triad of philosophical elements comprises the germ of an elusive insight, a kind of philosophical alchemy that never coalesces explicitly for Heidegger. These three elements include: 1) a deconstruction of modern politics as legitimizing the anthropocentric ends of domination, exploitation; 2) the emergence of a trans-human perspective of freedom as a countermeasure to the assimilation of the political to the gestalt of machination; 3) the beginnings of a new ethos through an “ecological turn,” which echoes Heidegger’s exhortation to “save the earth.” To think the political, then, is to return to the hermeneutic pre-understanding (from which guides us in reinterpreting the phenomenon), which is opened up by a new problematic, the temporality of being, and, analogously, the enactment of the temporal “to be” through which the site of the polis first originates—the inception of the political as such. This level of pre-understanding is not self-evident, however, because this new problematic implicitly houses a new hermeneutic situation. Specifically, the inquiry takes as its point of departure the inherently historical character of the question of being, such that Heidegger’s own task gets under way as a thrown project of history. To be sure, scholars can debate to what extent he continues to follow the hermeneutic method in the strict sense. As Heidegger emphasizes in his lecture course on Schelling from the Summer Semester 1936, presuppositions point to the ab-ground (Ab-grund) of philosophical inquiry, and the capacity of the inquirer to abide therein.3 My aim here is to sketch these presuppositions and outline the hermeneutic fore-structure, such that establishing a “place” endemic to the political will point to its emergence within the overall topography of Heidegger’s thinking. Because mapping of specific hermeneutic steps to inquire into the political may not be obvious, there is the need to develop “hermeneutic guidelines.” As we peal back the layers of this hermeneutic fore-structure of understanding, or, in other terms, retrace Heidegger’s presuppositions to their deepest origin, we will arrive at the pre-text for thinking the political, the distinctive region or “precinct” from which the site of the polis can arise and break through into history as a possibility. Rather than abruptly advancing or positing a premise, and arguing on that basis, we must begin from the tenet that is most relevant or germane methodologically, namely, the reconfiguration of the hermeneutic circle. In Sein und Zeit, Heidegger discovered in Da-sein’s capacity to understand being the provisional key for formulating the question of the meaning of being. As that inquiry proceeds, this way of formulating the question begins to turn around. Specifically, the openness through which Da-sein first experiences being takes precedence, insofar as the self’s emergence in the “clearing” that predefines the basis of what makes us (“to be”) human.

Temporality, Freedom, and Place  87 We see Heidegger’s attempt to execute this “turning around” of the question through the transposition in which man becomes a “possibility of freedom,” rather than freedom a property of man. Given this transposition, the hermeneutical circle itself “turns” on a wider axis. Within this wider ellipsis of the hermeneutic circle, the need arises to address an additional concern. If the center of what first makes us human has been displaced or relocated through our relation to being, must a new question also arise concerning what we would otherwise assume about our own capacity to exercise governance for ourselves in our being-with others? What would previously appear as self-evident as a task that would fall under the rubric of politics, may come into question in a more radical way as originating from an unpolitical origin, in an analogous way that the ground of humanity is not based on anything human, i.e., a set of anthropological traits. In an easily overlooked passage from the Black Notebooks, Heidegger makes explicit how a political orientation centered on the ontological difference diverges from a politics based on biased notions of race and biologism: This decision between beings and be-ing (not a logical either–or) is determined by the acuteness of its originariness in relation to what is unique of a unique historical destiny of a people. Only from the spatiotemporal field of this decision does the essential structure of a people arise, and all historiological-biological attempts to investigate and explain the conditions of a people amount to a pursuit of that blindness which makes humans unsuited for the appropriation by be-ing and too small for the greatness of history.4 I will follow Heidegger’s lead in differentiating the “people” from biological and anthropological concepts of “race” (Rasse), the reduction of the former to the latter becomes the source by which many scholars misinterpret his approach to the political. This shifting landscape or new topography of philosophical inquiry harbors its own ambivalence: can philosophy yield new insights to ground the political, or within the broader compass of the hermeneutical circle, does the historical inception of the polis instead provide a place for being to manifest itself (in and through its relation to man)? Let me hasten to add that the resolution of this ambiguity becomes much more significant to us (in retrospect), than it probably was for Heidegger (during the 1930s). By further explicating the above presupposition, the opposite proves to be crucial for our study: that is, philosophy can only point to, but cannot presume to establish, the groundless ground on which the various incarnations of the political, of the body politic, become historically possible. Following the attempt to bring out what is unthought in Heidegger’s inquiry into the political, I will identify three corollaries that comprise the “pillars of the polis,” namely, the elements for its construction on a trans-human axis of dwelling (i.e., its “groundless ground”).

88  Temporality, Freedom, and Place To develop these guidelines, we must revisit, not only the concern for the political as a “place” (Ort), which has been acknowledged throughout the scholarship.5 We must also take a further and more provocative step to inquire into the precise coordinates that determine this place, namely, locating it in the strife between world and earth. The strife between world and earth establishes a new axis for the political in which dwelling can explicitly include our inhabitation of nature (and, reciprocally, the preservation of its habitats. First (I), I will map out the hermeneutic situation for reinterpreting the political according to a threefold design: a forehaving, a fore-sight, and a fore-concept. Heidegger provides the germ for this strategy in the first division (Part I) of Being and Time.6 Second (II) I will transpose Heidegger’s concept of freedom as “letting-be” into an explicitly “practical” context; in this way, I will set the stage for developing “three corollaries,” which excavate the ground for the political on a deeper level as opened up through the tension of world and earth. The “reciprocity of freedom,” as the development of our capacity for stewardship as well as the origin of our social interactions, provides the key for to relocate the place of the political (e.g., along a trans-human axis). The opening up of the conflict between earth and world, as the anchor point for this axis, harbors a historical decision, which recollects the Greek concept of the polis. The Greek concept of the Polemos, however, provides only an example (e.g., a “formal indicator”), that is, through the inception of the “first beginning”); but remains insufficient as a model for addressing today’s crisis (i.e., in transition from the epoch of modernity to the “other beginning”).

I The Hermeneutic Situation for Addressing the Political A. Proprietorship and Dwelling The attempt to characterize the political or the polis as a “place” stands out among the premises, which launch different strategies to map the landscape of Heidegger’s approach to politics. As self-evident and innocuous as this premise may be, it also shapes various scenarios by which scholars have extrapolated essential features of a Heideggerian polis, not the least implies an ideological orientation through such designations as provinciality, ancestry, rootedness, and the “geopolitical” thrust of his thinking. Rather than make this thematic maneuver at the outset, let us instead undertake a preliminary step back (Schritt zurück) and consider what is overlooked methodologically. To take this step back is to interpose the “as” of determination, that is, the interconnectedness between the political and its development as “place” (in and through Da-sein’s disclosedness as being-in-the-world). By making explicit the trajectory of questioning-back to the “hermeneutic-as,” and its contrast to the “as” of assertion and argumentation (or the “apophantic-as”), we develop a

Temporality, Freedom, and Place  89 new path of inquiry. Instead of proceeding assertively in a way aimed at constructing a theory about the political, and, by extension, Heidegger’s characterization thereof, we seek to make the political question-worthy in its own right. In the latter case, we ask how thinking can develop the key distinctions to address the appearance of the political within the shadow of machination at the end of modernity. Rather than theorizing about an actual form of government, we must ask: from what groundingexperience today can human beings exercise the freedom, which makes compliance to any such governing possible at all? In proceeding along this methodological path, we must consider the return to the beginning where Heidegger, in his magnum opus, Being and Time, first outlines the preliminary stages for the act of interpretation, for allowing the cutting edge of the “hermeneutic-as” to elicit the logos (its key distinctions) of phenomenological inquiry. These include the “forehaving,” the “fore-sight,” and the “fore-concept.” Can we find a similar compass to direct our investigation into the political, which can bring its own question-worthiness into play in three such comparable stages? In this way, I will seek a ground for the political. This ground is both informed by the dynamic of Heidegger’s being-historical thinking and by what the “thing itself” or the phenomenon “today” reveals concerning the development of a new topography of the practical (e.g., as borrowing from the grammar of the plural or diversity, and its postmodern declension of gender, ethnicity, race, and even ecology). Even if we proceed from Heidegger’s hermeneutics, that venture must itself be re-enacted within the orbit of his being-historical thinking; for only within that historical expanse can we exact the formal directives to (pre-)understand, interpret, and grasp what is meant by the political as appearing at the end of modernity. In this breath, I will distinguish three such directives or hermeneutic guidelines for addressing the political: first, by distinguishing between Geschichte and Historie; second, by re-locating the enactment of historical situatedness in the strife between earth and world; and third, by transposing the human capacity to dwell within an “abode” already reserved for being (Sein) to manifest itself. Following the threefold schema of the hermeneutic-as, each of the preceding steps can be mapped back upon the preliminary structure of a fore-having, a fore-sight, and a fore-conception. As an initial point of clarification, allow me to define what I mean by a hermeneutic guideline: namely, the way in which our inquiry enlists the power of the unsaid (and unthought) to project-open new and deeper possibilities for interpretation. The hermeneutic guidelines redirect us to a point of departure where we can begin (our interpretation) from what is most questioning-worthy. In this way, we can unfold the key distinctions that give life to Heidegger’s key idioms, thereby acclimating (or attuning) us again to the singularity of the phenomena, to what can manifest itself, and renew its import for today. The hermeneutic guidelines are

90  Temporality, Freedom, and Place dynamic, rather than static. As such, they transform the original point of departure into a “leaping-off point” to address what is still at issue in the matter of thinking (die Sache des Denkens), which Heidegger first uncovered. While still “scholarly,” the task of reinterpreting Heidegger’s texts becomes a creative venture in its own right, a collision with the uncertainty of the Ab-grund of thinking, rather than the “packaging” of what he may have said (or argued) in conventional “models” of scholarship. The hermeneutic guidelines mirror what Heidegger characterizes as the “proper law of thinking.” “This law [Ge-setz] is displacement into the necessity of the thoughtful leap toward the truth of be-ing [Seyn].”7 Along with initially outlining this hermeneutic strategy, as providing the backdrop for our inquiry into political, I will then unfold this threefold structure of interpretation. Following this outline, this section will be divided into four parts. I will begin by returning to the hermeneutic situation that orients Heidegger’s inquiry into the political. As we will discover, history grants this point of departure: first, negatively, by withholding a platform (based on the metaphysical assumptions of modernity) for “theorizing” about the political; and secondly, in a positive sense, by revealing how the political can become question-worthy as an alternative to regimes that impose order by exploiting all facets of the natural realm. In the latter case, geo-politics becomes the example thereof without, however, questioning back to and taking ownership for (the premise) of its dependence on technicity, cannot distinguish between the modern, metaphysical impetus of this regimentation and the regimes that are produced in its name. The political, then, will emerge for questioning in this double, hermeneutic sense, that is, as an avenue for thinking the “counter sway” or antithesis to the technized exploitation of nature as resources to be exploited even at the brute level of human labor and military service (of which geopolitics is the vehicle but not the root). Despite the controversy spurred by the publication of the Black Notebooks, during the past decade scholarship has vacillated in determining the extent to which Heidegger’s thinking and the political converge. Conflicting scenarios are presented as to whether flaws in his philosophical vision led him in this direction, and, conversely, whether his attempt to surmount the naivety of his misadventure as rector of the University of Freiburg reflected an abrupt shift toward a new style of meditative, poetic thinking (in the mid-1930s). The fact that Heidegger’s thinking has been characterized as both inherently political and as indifferent toward politics8—in a way that sets him apart from two of his German predecessors, Kant and Hegel—gives us occasion to pause. Indeed, this ambiguity provides an occasion to address the confluence of issues that Heidegger confronts in developing his thought, which thrusts the political into the forefront of inquiry and calls for a deeper level of questioning. Could it be the case that, apart from its instantiation in an actual regime or presentation in a philosophical system, e.g., Kant’s or Hegel’s, what the

Temporality, Freedom, and Place  91 political could mean is itself masked in an indeterminancy similar to that which Heidegger first attributed to the concept of ‘being’ when he sought to reformulate die Seinsfrage. This is not to say that being and the political are interchangeable, but rather that the concerns that become historically relevant in addressing the depths of the forgottenness of being (Seinsvergessenheit), including the rise of machination and nihilism, brings to light an indeterminancy as to the grounding of the political, which is inherently problematic. Thus, if only indirectly, the political becomes question-worthy, because it is (historically) tied to all that has become increasingly destabilized by way of the “values” and institutions that define what is unique to the West or Occident (Abendland). Correlatively, the political emerges as a stage upon which to view the crisis that befalls the West and thereby marks the entire curvature of a descent (into forgottenness) in which its ending is prefigured in its beginning. Thus, in the guise of the Greek polis, the political provides an occasion for recollecting “how matters stand with being?” at the inception of Western history, in the opening forth of a world in which mortals manage their affairs in direct response to the homage they pay to the gods. Here we begin to see the emergence of Heidegger’s strategy to reorient this investigation: first, by methodologically addressing what is the polis is not (rather than what it is) and, secondly, by re-examining how being interfaces with history and the possibility of a historical “origin,” which is transmitted, preserved, and appropriated through the constellation of diverse epochs. In the latter case, being itself comes into question even more radically through its reciprocity with time (than in his magnum opus), thereby making explicit a new problematic, e.g., the temporality of being (to complement the task of explicating the enactment of Dasein’s temporality). The temporality of being makes explicit a problematic, which addresses the demand of ownership not only from the side of Da-sein, but of being (Sein) as well, albeit through a reciprocity binding each to the other in a relationship (to which either is subordinate). The temporality of being, then, harbors a new form of proprietorship, the enactment of which will pervade a deeper inception and unfolding of history. This proprietorship emerges through the grammar of the double genitive, “des.” The “des” implies a sense of belongingness through which being (Sein) and Da-sein stand in relation to each other, the inception of openness and our participation in it. The temporality of being provides a designation of the “other beginning,” in reference to which we must reopen the question of the “who” of Da-sein. In Contributions to Philosophy, Heidegger re-examines the “to be” of what it means to be human through the “turning relation” by which Da-sein stands to the truth of be-ing, that is, as “seeker,” as “preserver,” and as “guardian.”9 In the “crossing over” (übergehen) to the other beginning, Da-sein’s care (Sorge) takes the more radical form of guardianship or stewardship. “According to the name and

92  Temporality, Freedom, and Place matter itself, Da-sein means something in the history of the first beginning (i.e., in the whole history of metaphysics) that is essentially other in the other beginning.”10 In his essay, “Die Kehre” (1949), Heidegger states that in confronting the danger of technicity there is a “turning to guardianship,” which comes to fruition through the “saving of (and for) be-ing” (das Rettende des Seyns).11 Hidden within this way of belonging to be-ing is the question of how mortals can assemble together in a community and, through the direction of their own activities, mirror the greater challenge of confronting the strife (Streit) of between world and earth. Within ancient culture, emerging alongside and in ambivalence with the ethos is the polis. Through the proprietorship of the “des,” the polis brings to fruition, as a distinctive historical act, the challenge posed to man to fulfill the mandate of belonging to being and thereby build a political realm that is anchored in humanity’s capacity to dwell. Such an “act” already implies the administration of freedom, which human beings can accomplish only by submitting to the power of being’s unconcealment. B. The Question of Community By appealing to the grammar of the genitive “des,” of its proprietorship, we shift the fulcrum of history from addressing the “what” (of events) to the “who.” Presumably, in this shift we can begin to glean the difference between Geschichte and Historie in a preliminary way. Because our task is explicitly hermeneutical, however, we want to understand history in terms of this distinction, rather than simply employing it operationally in our discussion. At least initially, the proprietorship of the “who” pertains to what is most distinctive of us as humans, namely, mortality. But when we inquire further about the “who,” and seek its further differentiation by projecting it back upon what we pre-understand concerning the “historical,” the sense of mortality doubles. That is, we consider not only the self-relatedness to death, but also a further span of temporalizing relative to posterity, or what may still arrive from the future—not the least of which is a reference to the “who” of one’s descendants. If not actually “sacrifice,” which is too strong a word, we can postulate a further enactment of care through the self’s gesture or overture of its capitulation to subsequent or future generations. In the transience of that self-capitulation, in the admission of its ultimate finitude, both in submitting to death and in preparation for those who come thereafter, we discover the clue to the formal meaning of history. We can distinguish history as arising along a temporal arc of “handing down,” that is, the constitution of tradition or Überlieferung. The temporal passing that is acknowledged through the self’s submission to its morality forms the predicate for a deeper exercise of care in the “passing down” of a heritage. As Carodoza-Kon indicates, “‘care’ means to

Temporality, Freedom, and Place  93 cultivate, maintain, or preserve—much like the German term ‘retten’ signifies preservation in Heidegger’s statement ‘only a god can save us.’”12 While not altogether explicit in Heidegger’s account in Being and Time, the “who” includes a broader reference to those coming after, and thereby bring back again, embodying the individual anew (e.g., as Da-sein) through a plurality (even if not fully determined as such). Here the proprietorship of the “who” extends not only to the individual’s capacity for ownedness (authenticity), but also to a future ownership projected upon a wider temporal arc. In this way, the act of handing down requires a reciprocal commitment to reclaim, safeguard, and appropriate. The proprietorship is no longer simply a “property” of an individual or even its capacity for ownedness, but instead pervades the entire span of what comes to fruition as history. The self’s temporalizing in the face of the resolute, self-choosing of death shapes the arc of history. From both vectors, history encompasses the outstretch of the individual’s coming to be and passing away, and thereby spans a tradition as the backdrop against which the possibility of human understanding, including that enacted in philosophical inquiry, first appears. In terms of history, we can distinguish an initial inception or onset: our immersion, embedding, and situatedness through which all that we can understand pertaining to our origin(s) emerges in its relevance as such. And we can distinguish a second inception of history: its granting a stage or amphitheater by which human beings can formulate the question of being, and, conversely, the manifestation of the latter to the former yields its own distinctive epochs. In the first inception, history unfolds through the distinctive periods and eras that are inscribed in the fabric of Da-seins temporality in the second, in the sending of those epochs through the temporality endemic to being itself, in the tension of its gifting-refusing. In the former, the emphasis lies on the grounding of history through the spectrum of human endeavors, the latter, on the hesitation, dormancy (Incubtionszeit) through an ab-ground, as the interplay of these epochal manifestations. In the second inception, history emerges as the trajectory of thrownness in which we are cast, and by virtue of which “who” we “are” is redefined through the proprietorship of our relation to being. This proprietorship defines the permutations of connectedness, to which we can belong, whether to self, to others, by inhabiting a world (including an ethos), and dwelling in an abode. In the temporality of being, Da-sein is redefined through the proprietorship of dwelling, which is enacted in the temporal play-space of the strife between world and earth. History arises at this point of intersection where mortals are called upon to “de-cide,” with respect to their capacity to dwell and to the assignment of a task (and co-responding responsibility, i.e.., as born from freedom), concerning the future safeguarding of the earth. In the conventional sense, historians turn to Historie to discern patterns in chronicling the progression of human events, as if there

94  Temporality, Freedom, and Place were a thread of identity supporting such an account. But with respect to Geschichte, Da-sein becomes Da-sein, or comes in to its own, as a harbinger of otherness (in the refusing as well as the gifting of being), rather than through a reflection centered on the identity of the human with itself. Here a basic divergence of methodologies becomes apparent: between a reflection back upon the lineage of human events and a hermeneutic ellipsis that addresses the past from the opposite vector of its arrival from the future. There is another crucial element that must be noted, which points to the ab-ground of history, namely, that it creates its own idioms of selfexpression. Perhaps Heidegger realized this fact before all else, relying upon “historical” figures to elicit a dialogue concerning the inception and destiny of history: the rise of nihilism and the death of God (Nietzsche), the flight and absconding of the gods (Hölderlin). Heidegger’s dialogue with these key figures shapes his own idiomatic expressions, including the abandonment of being in beings (Seinsverlassenheit) through the onslaught of machination and technicity. The way in which history can achieve self-expression in this way brings to light even more fundamentally the mirroring of the Hermes of hermeneutics, including the birth of the philosophical tradition through the rendering, transferring, and transmitting of its most elemental words, e.g., “being,” “unconcealing” Aletheia in ancient Greek (ἀλήθεια), “presencing.” When we discover that history yields the primitive gestures by which we can “read of” and “interpret” its meaning, and thereby, primordially (or hermeneutically) is a harbinger of its own power to speak), we discover how its role in providing the initial “fore-having” to address the political. The initial fore-having allows us to address the political as a possibility, rather than through its identification with an actual state. But what does this contrast mean in hermeneutic terms? The fore-having directs us to that othermost dimension which allows the political to appear or emerge as a phenomenon, that is, with respect to its affiliation with being. Given this affiliation, we can think the political through different permutations of “belonging together,” which appear through a chain of formal indicators, including the “who” (e.g., the giving up of the individual to his/her descendants), the “wherein” (a world-openness) of human interaction, the “how” of our interdependence with nature (and, as mortals, counterposed with the gods). From the belonging together arises the different possibilities of “connectedness,” suggesting the constellation of an axis around which the totality of human concern can revolve, including the exercise of care expressed in our being-with-others, existing in a community, not to mention abiding in proximity with nature. The initial fore-having, of understanding the “who” in its manner of historically enacted “belonging together,” makes it clear that the polis hinges on the possibility of ecstatic existence and cannot be construed as the imposition of a preset plan of organization or ideology. The ecstatic

Temporality, Freedom, and Place  95 existence implies the entrance of the “who” into the trajectory of being’s historical manifestation, through its temporalizing the proprietorship of belonging is determined, if it is to be so. Implied in this belonging together are the various levels by which our dwelling in a community can be enacted, understand, and, most of all, expressed. Thus, language assumes a priority, not only in shaping the medium of his exchange between humans, our embodied gestures of our kinship with nature, not to mention offering of logos as a place of being’s unconcealment. Through its interface with being, language exhibits a “place” in a twofold way, both as the self-gathering through which human beings belong together in a community and as the gathering of the word from the depths of silence. Pericles’ claim that “everywhere you go you will be a polis” seems true, because human beings already bring with them language, the capacity to speak and enter into to dialogue. Having outlined this fore-having, let us consider the next step, the development of a fore-sight. In question will be the further determination of “setting” of the political or its allocation of a place to inhabit. C. Home and Habitat The fore-having directs us to what is formally indicated through the “who,” as we have seen, although defined anew as a permutation of “belonging together.” The fore-sight will do the same in regard to the “wherein,” although as an embellishment of the “who” (rather than in isolation). Once again, the idioms produced by history, and the leading figures ushering in a new era of thought, will be instructive in mapping the hermeneutic landscape to address the political. In Introduction to Metaphysics, Heidegger asks “How does it stand with being?” We might also ask where do we stand in this standing forth, inducing a completely new change in how comportment toward everything which is, or beings in the whole? Insofar as the history directs back to the inception of the Greek polis, the curvature of its destining also points ahead to fundamental changes in modernity to the avenues still left open to question the “who” in relation to the entire compass of manifestation (with an emphasis on the “whole” [Ganzheit] or totality). As we move across the arc of modernity, the transition, or, if you will, the gaps between its epochal manifestations, will offer a point of departure. But once again, in view of history, Heidegger looks back precisely by looking forward, to anticipating specifically, the constellation of something new, an upheaval that will overturn the axis of reference for the “wherein,” thereby implying a world-historical crisis. The development of a new axis can be characterized by marking the transition between two opposing philosophical approaches, which in their own way anticipate an epochal crisis, including, literally, affecting the “wherein” of our standing or “world” and its situatedness with regard to our finitude. Appealing

96  Temporality, Freedom, and Place to Kant, and his successor, Nietzsche, Heidegger maps out the transition to the end of metaphysics. In mapping this transition, he emphasizes the transformation in the very conception of how being reveals itself, that is, the dynamic of truth as historical development pervading the manifestation of being (and its withdrawal into concealment). Modern philosophy stands on the brink of a crisis in two distinct, historical ways. First, we must identify Kant’s Copernican revolution, whereby the worlds of scientific knowledge and moral action revolve along the axis of human finitude. Second, we must consider Nietzsche’s appeal to a Dionysian prophecy of “unchain[ing] the earth from its sun,” as prompted by the death of God and the confrontation with nihilism.13 Within this upheaval, world (for Heidegger) is no longer simply the human entryway into a field of activities, pursuits, and possibilities, but is also the haven of truth itself or unconcealment as enacted in tension with its opposite or concealment. Thus, in his pivotal essay “The Origin of the Work of Art,” Heidegger addresses world through a new dynamic, that is, via its strife with earth. The earth is the reclusive, withdrawing dimension of concealment.14 In his new inquiry into the work of art, Heidegger takes a more radical step, and shows how human activities no longer develop exclusively along the axis of world, but also arise at the point of its intersection with the earth. As a result, world reappears through its strife with the earth to yield a more primordial site of disclosure, that is, what Heidegger calls a place (Ort) of “dwelling.” Could this “strife” (between world and earth) distinguish the “wherein” of the setting for the political?15 In this “wherein,” the “who” is also explicitly connected with nature. The strife between world and earth holds open the diversity of the manifestation of being, allocating with beings the singularity of a place within which beings themselves can appear, including the human comportment toward them. The possibility of human inhabitation, in cultivating a space for its abiding, cannot be divorced from the meaning of a habitat pertaining to nature, including that distinctive of animal life. In referring to the earth, and its strife with nature, we do not simply suggest a “naturalistic” component to Heidegger’s philosophy. On the contrary, the interdependence between humanity and nature exhibits the permutation of a potential way of “belonging to” by which Da-sein can be appropriated to (zuueignet) being. Hermeneutically speaking, then the belongingness of being and man opens forth the potential of human beings to exist ecstatically in their interdependence with nature (and, reciprocally, cultivating the diversity of its manifestations). Through the setting forth of the world in its counterplay with the earth, the “wherein” explicitly includes the determination of a “place” for the “there,” in concert with the singularity of its disclosure. The disclosure, then, “plays out” the allocation of a space,16 its explicit determination as a place, the identification of the “there” with its “Spielraum.” Thus, the

Temporality, Freedom, and Place  97 strife between world and the earth clears the way for the determination of space as a place for interposing the “hermeneutic as.” Through this hermeneutic dimension, the uniqueness of the abode proper to human dwelling becomes more evident, that is, as way of inhabitation that can includes such proprietorial dimensions as “home,” “intimacy,” “reciprocity” (including with the trans-human element of nature and animals). And the more primordial way in which human beings can abide “together,” and thereby exemplify this proprietorship of “belonging to, also begins to appear. If such abiding (and dwelling together), as a facet of the proprietorship of being, makes possible a community, then we discover a key dimension to the concrete exercise of care (the historical enactment) by which human beings occupy a distinctive “place” in the managing of their interpersonal relationships, e.g., a “polis.” The possibility of the polis is predicated on establishing such a site, however, not merely in an anthropological or a sociological-political sense, but because as a permutation of “belongingness” a place (Ort) is necessary for being’s unconcealment. Thus, we must consider the “site” of the political through a unique set of coordinates, which are geo-physically determined as well as “spiritually” determined. That is, the site is constellated as much from the “below” through our relation to the earth and its various levels of connectedness, as from “above” through the apex of human aspiration (including the opening of world in finite transcendence). The various levels of connectedness that are interwoven into the site, giving it depth, are not arbitrarily given as ontic facets of beings. Instead, these levels are enveloped by, and emerge from a more primordial onefoldness, which Heidegger describes as the “jointure of being.” He defines the “jointure” as the “unity and simplicity of these original relations… that configures everything and determines all that is order.”17 Through this jointure, the “to be” of humans and the otherness of animal life converge, and are also held in tension, extending the boundaries of our inhabitation, of the ethos, in a way that can also our interdependence with nature. Arising as a possibility, then, the polis cultivates the openness to our way of abiding on the earth and a devotion to the task of its preservation. In its barest formality, this abiding through this “belonging to” the earth may very well plant the seeds for the possibility of a trans-human ethic, as outlined for example, by proponents of deep ecology. Plurality is trans-human, rather than “species-centered.” For our purposes, however, we need to observe only how such abiding diverges from the development of the political in the modern era, that is, as the self-assertion of a standing-alone form of dominion, the establishment of a “sovereign.” Moreover, the hermeneutic guideline which effects this contrast, yielding the “fore-sight” to address the political in a multidimensional site of abiding, allow us to envision the inception of polis—the germ of its possibility. Here the designations that enable us to describe the birth of the polis phenomenology necessarily elicit these “earth-bound” connotations.

98  Temporality, Freedom, and Place Having now explicated the original fore-having and fore-sight to address the political, let us proceed to outline the fore-concept that allows us to think the polis as a historical possibility—e.g., the mode of dwelling proper to earth-bound mortals. D. The Residence of Dwelling Along with the “who,” and the “wherein,” the “how” will formally indicate the manner in which the political appears as an abode. But the abode in this sense cannot be described as an exclusively human haven, which is constructed simply to fulfill the ends of society. A hermeneutic foreconcept emerges, which will make possible our attempt to understand the political in terms of its origin, that is, explicitly in contrast to modern theories of the state (regardless of their ideological bent). In terms of this fore-concept, we inquire back to the historical emergence of the political, that is, as originating through a relation of proprietorship, by virtue of which we (as occupants of a polis) can first stand in relationship to being. The abode proper to the polis can no longer be defined one-dimensionally, exclusively from the side of the human, but must also implicitly consider the manner of our belonging to and reciprocity with being. Through this relation of proprietorship, an abode facilitates being’s self-disclosure, providing a “place” for its unconcealment, and, thusly, admitting human occupation as well. The fore-concept brings to light the “double-play” or determination of a “place,” reciprocally apportioned (or allocated) through the tension of Da-sein’s being to be. The place of the polis (and the polis as a place), then, is determined multidimensionally in this hermeneutic sense. The way in which the polis can fulfill this double sense of an abode comes to light through a distinctive and primordial nuance of the “how,” namely, the capacity for dwelling (wohnen). According to Heidegger, the “place” of the Greek polis not only intersects with the circumscribed territory of a social organization, but also with beings in totality—encompassing the pantheon of the gods as well as the surrounding realm of nature—and, ultimately, with the expanse of unconcealment. The fitting together or jointure Configures the relations of the holy (das Heilige) to humans and to gods, and relations of gods and of humans to the holy, the relations of humans and gods to one another, and the relations of this very ‘to one another’ to the holy.18 It is only through multidimensionality of place in this sense that the polis can offer a place of dwelling. And here we can take away further phenomenological evident for the how the “fore-concept” direct us back to the “origin” of the political, that is, to the deeper intimation of dwelling that

Temporality, Freedom, and Place  99 any enactment of care must mirror in order to be “up to the task” of the arrangement of human affairs. Taking a cue from the Pre-Socratics, the exercise of such care must be predisposed toward the search for a greater “arrangement” which can prevail within the order of things. Conversely, dwelling ceases to be merely a passive occurrence, and instead poses the greatest challenge to all human activity, that is, by instilling through its endeavors the higher arrangement, which directs mortals and gods to their proper element (or way “to be”) and thereby brings to light a “measure.” Herein lies the fore-concept for addressing the polis, or making its questioning worthy again, namely, the proprietorship of our dwelling— the third hermeneutic guideline. As this fore-concept, the proprietorship of dwelling constitutes the ultimate presupposition of the political. Presumably, through our adherence or compliance to such a measure, our dwelling would engender those activities designed to restore a sense of “weightedness” to all things. The establishment of a place of dwelling, then, is a foremost source of concern from which we must also develop the potential to manage the polis and transform its governance into an example radiating the light of a higher measure. But that light is nothing other than what can already be illuminated through the clearing of being. Here an ambiguity arises in Heidegger’s appeal to the Greek polis to redefine the origin of the political. Specifically, due to its ontical disposedness and singular locale historically, the Greek polis cannot simply be reduced to a pre-established vision of being or ontological facet thereof. On the contrary, there remains a tension between the ontological and the political, such that they are not simply convertible or equivalent. Rather, the political can become an example of the measure-setting attempt to dwell in accord with the light of being, only because dwelling underlies the activities that shape the life of those belonging to a polis. However laudatory the activities of the polis may be, these pursuits can never be substituted for the deeper vocation of dwelling (including its complementary pursuits of building and thinking). Once again, we hear the echo of the poet’s words: “Full of merit, and yet poetically, dwells man upon the earth.” The hermeneutic precondition for thinking the political, then, must begin by observing this important difference, or, if you will, the buffer that separates the endeavor to think the truth of being from the actual governance of the polis. But the flipside of this precondition must also me acknowledged, if we are to appreciate the full import of developing a hermeneutic guideline for thinking the political. The manner in which Da-sein can belong to being, to its proprietorship, determines the inception of the polis in and from the capacity for dwelling. The measure that appears through our dwelling also yields the directives by which human beings can govern within the setting of a community. What, then, is a measure? Is it intangible? Heidegger does not explicitly define it. A measure mirrors the proprietorship of our dwelling, reflecting the ethos through

100  Temporality, Freedom, and Place which our laws can have the scope (indeed jurisdiction), and the binding character they purport to have. As Heidegger states in Mindfulness, human beings receive bindingness (Verbindlichkeit) “out of the abground of the allotment unto the simple decisions (Entscheidungen). For bindingness (Verbindlichkeit) here is never the same as enchainment to the order of importance of the phases of explanation but means liberating man unto persevering in his other (anders) ownmost, that is, unto Da-sein itself….”19 For Heidegger, the directives depend upon the stewardship, by which mortals safeguard the “place” of being’s manifestation, and, thereby, come to dwell in compliance with its claim. How we exercise such stewardship, for example, in safeguarding the earth, is a further way in which we belong to being. Conversely, the enlistment of comparable environmental practices, would give further specificity to our capacity to dwell in the polis, exemplifying through its governance the “measure” of stewardship. In the “how” of dwelling and the setting of any measure (Maβ-setzung) in advance, we think ahead to a new inception of the political beyond what is overtly visible at the end of modernity. Such thinking becomes historical because: 1) it can distinguish between modernity and the “crossing over” toward a “new beginning”; and 2) it heeds that which, in hermeneutic terms, is foremost to its own commitment toward questioning, namely, the twofold of the differentiation between being and beings. With respect to our attempt to make the political question-worthy in its own right, being-historical thinking is also forward-looking thinking (Vordenken). Its hermeneutic mission is to defer to the transformation that is underway in our “turning relation to being,” in order that we can distinguish the furthest-reaching possibility of the political, apart from what is only apparent within the forces of machination prevalent today. In outlining this hermeneutic situation for addressing the polis, an apparent paradox arises, namely, the more we seek to equate Heidegger’s thinking with the political, the less question-worthy the latter becomes.20 On the contrary, the political can become question-worthy again, only insofar as we traverse the wider circumference of the hermeneutic circle and avoid formulaic disclaimers punctuating the scholarship. This endeavor, far from discounting the importance of “criticizing” Heidegger, casts critical light on the development of his philosophy and its fault line or fissure (Zerklüftung).

II Three Corollaries of the Political: Beyond the Greek Paradigm A. First Corollary—The Reciprocity of Freedom Any attempt to address the political must address the relation between self and other, and, indeed, how such interaction takes on a social and communal form in order to define the “body politic.” The paradox of

Temporality, Freedom, and Place  101 any such body politic is that the need to maintain order is always predicated upon the possibility of promoting change. Protests (as we have seen recently in the “Black Lives Matter” movement in the United States) depend upon specific safeguards allowing dissent. Heidegger comes closest to addressing this phenomenon of dissent in his disparate discussions of freedom, and its enactment in the crisis, crux, and strife precipitating historical de-cisions. The constellating of historical epochs creates seams in our social experiences from which the breaks and ruptures of worldshaking changes can occur. At least on an ontological plane, Heidegger recognized that the catalyst of such changes depends upon how mortals can encounter, address, and incorporate the experience of otherness, and thereby enact the freedom (in thinking, building, and dwelling) that overthrows convention and our bondage to the status quo. The voice of the other can, on occasion, be heard across the chasms of these dislocations. As will become evident in this first corollary, freedom entails a unique economy, which is strengthened through its enactment, distribution, and preservations, in such a way as to maximize the participation of the other, for example, by sanctioning civil disobedience.21 The term “reciprocity” refers both to the mutual participation of the self and other in the exercise of freedom, that is, as the predicate for forming a community; and the safeguarding of the gift of freedom (as granted by be-ing), including its expression in language. Correlatively, the reciprocity that mortals show in safeguarding language entails, as an extension of the exercise of freedom as “letting-be,” inviting the reciprocal rejoinder (Erwiderung) of the “other” or protecting his/her place” within an ongoing dialogue. Not surprisingly, this corollary has profound implications for how we cast Heidegger’s query concerning the status of the “people.” The controversial question of the “who?,” as implying a set of individuals bound by a common ancestry described simply as the “people,” cannot simply be answered by referring to an extant group. On the contrary, to apply such a “reference,” as if providing an objective designation, presupposes how such an act of signifying can occur. Such an (interpretive) act would traverse the gap between what is “ontically closest” as self-evident and what is “ontologically farthest” as questionable. But as is the case in any act of interpretation, what is signified has to be read off the hermeneutic pre-text or backdrop, that is, the intersecting coordinates wherein dwelling becomes possible as enduring the strife between world and earth. The question then inevitably arises as to the “who” designated for possible membership in the community, and, further, whether its directives are set to uphold the proprietorship of human ends alone. Doe the “who” designate a “people,” and if so, does that designation define an actual group of constituents, a specific aggregate or even “collective” of individuals—as is normally suggested—or instead the inception of “another possibility.” In question with regard to the “people” is the “inabiding

102  Temporality, Freedom, and Place of humanity,” rather than an extant group. This inabiding occurs only within the strife between earth and world, and thereby by allowing the relation to the latter to call into question what it means to be human in and through this compass of dwelling. But why precisely this strife of world and earth? Because in en-owning Da-sein is enowned and becomes the inabiding of man, because from the whole of beings man is called to [the] guardianship of be-ing [Wächterschaft des Seyns]. But about that which strifing and in view of which we have to think of man, his “body,” “soul,” and “spirit” be-ing-historically?22 Correlatively, through the relocation of world-openness through its strife with the earth, what it means to be a people also comes into question: It must be shown in which truth a being stands—and how it respectively stands in this truth. It must become clear how here world and earth are in strife and how this strife and thereby earth and world themselves unconceal and conceal… But truth sways in the fullest and richest clearing of the remotest self-sheltering-concealing and only in the manner of sheltering, according to all ways and manners that belong to this sheltering and that historically bear and guide the inabiding sustaining of Da-sein and so make up being-a-people.23 Here we discover another important permutation in Heidegger’s thinking, which becomes explicit as we emphasize the second hermeneutic guideline for addressing the political, that, is, the establishment of the coordinates for its site in the strife between world and earth. But in the relocation of that site a new axis of signification also arises, extending more deeply from the earth across the expanse of our world-openness. As Heidegger makes explicit in his 1936 essay, “The Origin of the Work of Art,” the counterposing of the earth resets the axis of signification for the world, allowing for a deeper intersection at the site of being’s disclosure through beings. To quote Vincent Blok: According to Heidegger, a work of art is indeed brought forth [techne] just like any other type of production, but, contrary to machination and lived experience, the product of this bringing forth cannot be reduced to a present form as produce like in the aesthetic tradition. In fact, in the work of art, the truth of being has to set itself to work—concealing-unconcealing—in a being.24 In this way, not only is a deeper “place” (Ort) established for human dwelling, but the wellspring of language can intimate the deepest concerns for the vibrancy of the earth and the mystery (Geheimnis) reserved

Temporality, Freedom, and Place  103 to it. Accordingly, the strife between world and earth interposes a “pretext,” e.g., as rooted in the disclosive power of poiesis, within which the tapestry of the signifying capacity of language, or its textuality, can emerge. The disclosive power of poeisis, or art in the most original sense, serves as a pretext, in which all that can be signified through the referencerelationships of the world-openness is taken back into the deeper recesses of the logos and the eruption of the word from silence. Art is an example of a disclosive “moment” that can interrupt, suspend, and set apart the claim of technicity, in order to clear an avenue for the manifestation of the singular. Picasso’s famous painting of the peasant shoes allow a world to appear through the venue of the thing, thereby maintaining a tie to the materiality of the earth as backdrop for allow the world “to world.” The reclusive, countermovement of the earth directs us back to the origin of the twofold (Zwiefalt), which is the source from which all distinctions arise and the significations illuminating the world can first coalesce. Through the play of this differentiation, we can rediscover the self-signifying of the power of the singular, i.e., as an example, a formal indication of “measure-setting,” apart from the truncation of everything which “is” to the uniformity of a value-less commodity (for use and exploitation within machination). When Heidegger alludes to a “measure,” then, there is implicitly a retrospective grasp of this “pre-textual” level, from which can appear as a site for the political outside the paradigm of technocratic rule. The connection between poiesis and political, however, does not simply reduce the latter to the aestheticism of art. The formulation of these hermeneutic guidelines prelude extrapolating an answer to the “who” by invoking such abstract concepts as the Volk, Entschlossenheit. Such extrapolation is the foremost example of what Parvis Emad describes as “associative thinking.”25 But how do we address the “who” into which we are inquiring? Is the “who” simply designated by a collection of individuals, or instead does Heidegger’s inquiry admit a further rupture in which the meaning of Da-sein must be situated anew on the precarious footing of the Ab-grund? To this end, we must recast the question of being in conjunction with the question of human freedom. As Heidegger begins to lay out this new hermeneutic situation of inquiry in the late 1920s, he does not distinguish two separate or disparate questions. On the contrary, the onefold of the “thing itself,” or the phenomenon, demands their integration. At the outset, however, the development of the hermeneutic situation appears more complicated, insofar as the inquiry doubles. On the one hand, philosophy seeks to establish a new grounding in terms of human freedom. On the other hand, what is mean by freedom can no longer be conceived on a strictly human basis; rather, its origin must be transposed within a wider orbit whereby its presumed “actor” or humanity is re-examined as standing in relation to, and enacting its powers in reciprocity with, being. Put in simple terms, the inquiry

104  Temporality, Freedom, and Place into being and its new roots in freedom uproots what is traditionally meant by that concept, such that the origin of freedom is transplanted anew on the Ab-grund (rather than based on an ontic power of human subjectivity, e.g., the will). What supports and sustains the political is no longer the concern for the “who” taken in isolation, but rather as depending upon the dispensation of freedom (in and through being) of which “it” (e.g., Dasein) is both the beneficiary and guardian. To navigate this circuitous path, Heidegger once again appeals to a familiar signpost vis-à-vis Kant’s conception of freedom, which becomes dominant in modern philosophy. As such, in the 1930s Heidegger faces a new challenge of dismantling the Kantian notion of freedom, precisely due to its pre-eminence on the one hand, and its dependence on derivative assumptions on the other hand—including the false opposition with “nature” and the corollary problem of dividing the “theoretical” and “practical” realms. Looming ahead on this pathway is the possibility of traversing the crossroads of thinking and doing, and thereby reshaping the topography in which the various concern traditionally annexed to the latter, e.g., in Kant’s case, pertaining to the grounding of ethics, as well as the political, and even the ambivalence of this unity. What appears to Heidegger as more explicitly open to investigation, specifically, the appearance of the ethos of situated dwelling as the origin of ethics, harbors a parallel problematic as to whether human affairs can “call” forth a governance, which cultivates our capacity to dwell. Do the concerns for the ethical and the political, the morality and legality, mirror each other, or do they emerge on two distinct axes of inquiry only to diverge in their emphasis on individual and society, respectively? While Heidegger does not explicitly pose this question, it is shrouded in his effort to retrieve the question of human freedom on a new footing and to continuing to explicate such fundamental notion as world, situatedness, “place,” and self. As is the case for resoluteness, Heidegger’s discussion of such concerns for heritage, ancestry, not to mention a litany of correlative terms including “people” (Volk) and “loyalty” (Treue), arise in his effort to outline the temporalizing of temporality in relation to the past. Many errors and misunderstandings have resulted, however, from attempts to extrapolate political implication from Heidegger’s use of these terms in Being and Time. Moreover, from this attempt at extrapolation and false association, a further abstraction occur sin which scholars then infer the inherently fascist orientation of Being and Time. These assorted misinterpretations ignore the hermeneutic markers and guidelines by which the preceding terms (specifically within the context of Chapter Five of the second division of Being and Time), speak as grounding words. As such, these terms are not inherently political, but, on the contrary, acquire their meanings from the ongoing radicalizing of Heidegger’s inquiry, the broadening of the hermeneutic ellipsis of understanding, and, hence, the “turning” (Kehre) whereby his task receives its own directive.

Temporality, Freedom, and Place  105 Given these preliminary, hermeneutic observations, how, then, do the key terms of Chapter Five, Division Two of Being and Time acquire their meaning as grounding or “being-historical” words? Such being-historical words are properly so called because they originate from and serve to hold open the tension of the differentiation between being and beings. They thereby exude the dynamic of this temporalizing as enacted through the turning. With respect to our inquiry into the political, being-historical words widen the ellipsis of the hermeneutical circle, in order to circumvent the tendency to reify ontologically developed concepts in terms of ontical variants. The attempt to define “ancestry” on the basis of Heidegger’s analysis of resoluteness, misplaces an ontological concern about the sense of rootedness that depends upon the retrieval of the past for an ontical concern concerning a construct of social identity. Thus, such a supposed identity does not pertain to a contemporaneously formed group or collection of individuals, but instead through the temporalizing of the past in the future whereby “longevity” can be granted and extended in the dynamic of inheritance and “handing down” (Ũberliefern). The longevity that is created by “handing down” provides the seeds for developing future generations and thereby the temporal momentum for the possibility of heritage and ancestry. In the temporalizing of this appropriation, the resolute reclaiming and transmitting of the past, each of us can participate and contribute to the historical development of “longevity” or “stretching along” (of generations). But upholding “ancestry” as a foil for the national (and, even worse yet, “ethnic” lineage) completely misses the mark and hence conceals the deeper meaning of the being-historical words. Resoluteness is an enactment of freedom, and thereby is based upon it. As such, resoluteness is not merely a narrow expression of the will in the sense of merely making a choice; rather, resoluteness enacts a power that is distributed through the turning relation of being, and that implies the manifestation of what is other. Thus, resoluteness is choice that always is receptive or responsive to this otherness and the manner of choosing to be bound by this plea of alterity. While Heidegger may not explicitly say our relation to the other depends upon attending to this otherness, he does suggest such a relation (within the openness of letting-be) admits constraints that are binding on us. In this sense, freedom as letting-be allows the other to appear as other, and, reciprocally, as instantiated in a factical act of resolute self-choosing, invites the other to participate, for example, as the counterpart of a reply or a rejoinder. Through resoluteness, freedom is mutually enjoined, that is, in a way that maximizes the participation of the other. This is an important corollary of Heidegger’s account of freedom, although he does not make this argument explicitly, with the possible exception of a remark in his lecture course on Parmenides. As Thomas Kalary emphasizes, various critics of Heidegger fail to recognize the close connection that he makes between Ent-schlossenheit

106  Temporality, Freedom, and Place (disclosedness) and Er-schlossenheit (resoluteness), thereby neglecting the disconnect with any “voluntaristic” overtones of mere “willing.”26 We need to advance this argument in order to elicit a deeper meaning to such controversial and ambiguous terms as heritage and loyalty. Accordingly, heritage arises from the honoring, commemorating, which transpire in the “handing down” throughout the birth of new generations—not merely the development of a common background for a given people. By the same token, the transmission of heritage is not authoritatively based, but the temporalizing of a future possibility that revisits what has been and thereby serves as a catalyst for further transformation in the present. Herein lie the key to another frequently misunderstood concept or loyalty. Such loyalty does not involve devotion to a political movement or party. Instead, loyalty as Treue enacts a resolute holding for true and keeping open of a commitment to reconnect the future with the past and thus restore the relevance of the latter by what reinstates direction through the former in the present. We become loyal, then, by deepening the roots of the past (but not blindly), because the weightedness of the other side or future requires appropriating or making one’s own by carving out novel paths of development. The “to be” of the political, the protecting and safeguarding of its futurity, determines the meaning of loyalty or its dependence upon the forming of bonds across generations. Here the significance of securing a “place” (on the earth) for future generations flashes before us. Because of the emphasis on place, the composition of such generations must be “inclusive” (rather than exclusive), that is, which redefines the “eco” of the residence of our dwelling by honoring the diversity of eco-systems. Heritage, then, springs from the temporalizing of bringing forward (again) by giving back through the commemoration of the present, the temporal trajectory on which the possibility of the political rests. We mistakenly equate heritage with any form of lineage, understood biologically as the basis for ethnic or racial similarity, or even sociologically, for that matter, as a common cultural background. Heritage is not an empirical given, but rather the taking ownership for a handing down as a conservatorship of giving back. Through this temporal dynamic, a spectrum of possibilities arises by which the self can seek the “best” or what is most care-worthy (in its administration, exercise, and safeguarding). The “good” lies ahead as the direct correlate of the abundance or potency of the giving, as a “giving back” in the safeguarding of what is transmitted as heritage. The being-historical dimension of “heritage” makes explicit that what is thereby transmitted is simultaneously sheltered and safeguarded, that is, in the re-inception, preservation, and stretching-along of the ownmost temporalizing (of resoluteness). In this way, the “good” arises through the transmitting, safeguarding, and appropriating which calls us back, soliciting and inviting us, to address what is most careworthy and seek in the restoration of the past, e.g., in heritage, a deeper sense of rootedness for exploring “who” we are.

Temporality, Freedom, and Place  107 As Heidegger states: “If everything ‘good’ is a heritage, and the character of ‘goodness’ lies in making authentic existence possible (der Charakter der ‘Güte’ in der Ermölichund eigenticher Existenz liegt), then the handing down of a heritage constitutes itself in resoluteness.”27 This is one of the few passages where Heidegger addresses the possibility of good or goodness. But what is the good, or whether this is even the proper way of asking, grammatically speaking? If not, how then does the good arise historically through Dasein’s temporalizing? In appearing, as it were, through the withdrawal of the furthest horizon of temporalizing, the good is what stands the test of time. If appearing only indirectly, the good directs us back to the genesis or birth of a people, prompting the need to safeguard the development, appropriation and transmission of its (e.g., a people’s) heritage. In the preceding quote, we must emphasize the grammatical formulation of the subjunctive or “if”: that is, the good is not equal either to the will of the people (Volk) or the preservation of its heritage as such. Instead, goodness arises from the safeguarding of our devotion to what is “ownmost,” of what Heidegger describes as the “steadfastness” of carrying forward the “promise” (as rooted in the past) into a distant future. Such steadfastness implies the engendering, creativity of disclosure, the “promise” of unfolding a new beginning, which can be safeguarded (cared for), and even chiseled out in the “work” of Da-sein (not the “people” understood as a collective). Here we see the basic difference between work as labor and production in Karl Marx’s sense and work in Heidegger’s sense as the creative impetus of building and craftsmanship. The latter cultivates the singular as a site of unconcealment, while the former seeks a formula for manufacturing generic products as is case of the factory. As Heidegger suggests, such creative work may entail “sacrifice.” Such sacrificial acts, however, are not commanded by the self-aggrandizement of a collective will; on the contrary, they epitomize the concern for what is most care-worthy through cherishing, honoring, and commemorating the endeavors of our predecessors. In this way, the good marks the intersection of various generations, of honoring the past, in extolling the sacrifice that keeps alive the “promise” for the future, and then, in commemoration of the present whereby a people come to life through the interplay of its various generations. Implicit in the life and livelihood of a people is the sheltering, protecting, and safeguarding of what is ownmost in the appreciation of its mortality. Indeed, without such appreciation, sacrifice, of “giving oneself up to,” would not be possible. As Heidegger emphasizes, through the thrownness of its mortality, the self becomes capable of “the greatest sacrifice… Da-sein and death.”28 Some scholars have interpreted this emphasis on being-toward-death, and its corresponding resoluteness, as a form of voluntarism, as implying the individual’s willingness to “die” in military service for the benefit of the ‘state.’ This interpretation conflates the difference between the possibility of death and dying, and

108  Temporality, Freedom, and Place thereby ignores the temporalizing by which finitude in the former sense assumes a double meaning: that is, as involving also the succession of inheritance. Through this owned or authentic temporalizing, the future designates the arrival of subsequent generations, of those “to come,” which implies a hidden law of reaping the benefits “today” only through an agreement to “give back” (for the benefit of “those who will follow”). In this vector of the future, the “to be” of the political is temporally enacted. If the good can be distinguished in this way, then it is by virtue of how such acts can speak to us, or, conversely, the manner in which the “greatest sacrifice” can provide an example to indicate, as through a gesture. In epitomizing what is more care-worthy, such sacrifice can mark, indicate, or stand for “goodness,” that is, by eliciting the most primeval gesture of all, namely, “thanks-giving.” Such “thanksgiving,” as when Heidegger emphasizes the attuned response of accepted the invitation (by being) to think, enacts the temporalizing of the past in the creative endeavors of the future, as “commemorated” in the present. For the richness of the heritage with which we are endowed, we reciprocate in the handing down of tradition by the resolve and preparation to “give back.” The preparedness to sacrifice might very well exemplify the greatest resolve and resiliency to “give back” in acknowledgment of generations past for the sake of the promise of future generations. As such, the formal indication of these concepts suggests a sense of lawfulness and benevolence, even if only implicit and not articulated (by Heidegger) in the language of the ethos (rather than an arbitrary capitulation to authority). As we unfold the key motifs of Chapter Five, Division Two of Being and Time, our appeal to the temporal dynamic implicit in the being-historical words have helped to enrich the meaning of such terms as “heritage,” “ancestry,” “loyalty,” and “people.” By heeding the proper precautions and hermeneutic guidelines, we avoid many of the miscues and misunderstandings that otherwise punctuate most discussion of the political that blindly invoke these concepts. Another such motif that we would be remiss not to elucidate is “hero” and “heroism.” Of course, Heidegger raises the question of “choosing one’s hero,” rather than advocating “heroism” in some presumptuous or aggrandizing way. The “choosing” pertains to what is ownmost, and thereby shouldering the greatest challenge of asking how a heritage can be preserved, appropriated, and transmitted. Although it is easy to distort the meaning of such concepts as “heroism,” and “loyalty,” a citation of a remark in Nietzsche’s Thus Spoke Zarathustra provides an important clue: “One repays a teacher badly if one always remains a pupil.”29 Here Nietzsche provides a novel twist on the ordinary understanding of what it means to be loyal, for example, in the way we may speak of “party loyalty” in terms of a democratic setting. To be loyal means to walk in the footsteps (in this instance, of the teacher) by going ahead to forge a new pathway (that thereby honors the past or what has gone before).30 When recast in Heidegger’s terms,

Temporality, Freedom, and Place  109 “paying homage” resides in the gratitude of “giving back” by offering “thanks,” that is, in the endeavor to enhance the “possibilities” for those to come. In this regard, the hero does not designate a specific person, but serves as the “placeholder” for the future emancipation of the power to choose in each and every individual (in Zarathustra’s figure of speech, for “everyone and no one”). Having re-examined the deeper meaning of the key terms that scholars frequently invoke to describe Heidegger’s ‘politics,’ have we advanced far enough along the path of thinking to demarcate the “place” of the political? Foremost in this attempt is the need to wrestle the political from its development through conventions, institutions, norms, and even laws, and through the historical allocation of such a place, recover the dynamic of its breath, life, and spirit. And to do so is to ask how the manner of “belonging” can be passed down from previous generations to subsequent ones, in such a way that history can provide a sounding board to “echo” the voice of a people. This voice can be “heard” with an inflection of what is most alien and other (across the reaches of the farthest shore, to arrive back at what is “ownmost”). Within the curvature of this wider expanse of history, the polis re-emerges at the site of conflict and crossing, as well as reconciliation and transition, where the “conversations” about “who” we are take shape, in the manner that speaks in Hölderlin’s poetry “Seit ein Gespräch wir sind.”31 Here the emphasis on the “past” illustrates: 1) how our capacity to speak, and its role in grounding the conversation of a people, is historically enacted; and 2) how language draws upon the repository of history to develop new idioms for the self-understanding of a people. The possibility of a people springs from our “historical-spiritual Da-sein,” from its “ownmost potentiality” (Wesensmöglickheit), as endowed with the capacity to speak.32 B. Second Corollary—The “People” of Future Generations The attempt to reinterpret such key concepts as “people,” “loyalty,” and “heritage” in “being-historical” terms poses a unique challenge in appropriating Heidegger’s thought. Strategically speaking, we can outline such a development as the continual widening and radicalizing of the initial hermeneutic situation of Being and Time. Such a development is not artificially induced, however, but instead is already informed by die Kehre, by the “turning unto each” of being and Da-sein. In this regard, methodology still takes its clue from the “thing itself,” that is, from forging new paths or “ways” of thinking. In this case, the “thing itself” illuminates the inquiry into the “who” of Dasein, allowing that question to unfold within the wider orbit of being-historical thinking and implicit dismantling of the metaphysical preconceptions of the “self” as both “subject” and “substance.” In this regard, the question of the “who” has to be taken back

110  Temporality, Freedom, and Place into the deeper reinterpretation of the turning relation of being to man and hence of the reciprocity between them that circumvents the metaphysical reification of man as “subject.” Implicit is the political dualism between individual and community, which Heidegger opposes but does not completely clarify how he overcomes this polarity. Included in this reification is the modern portrait of the subject as a political agent, that is, as the subjectivity for the administration of power and the resulting divisions between individual and community, self and society. When re-examined outside of these anthropological and sociological classifications, the self is distinct from a discrete entity, i.e., 1) in terms of its temporalizing and 2) and thereby as acquiring its identity through the tension of “difference,” of the contrast between being and beings (e.g., the ontological difference) and thereby beyond the reified models of political agency. The widening of the arc of hermeneutic inquiry enables us to revisit such ambiguous, if not problematic concepts as loyalty, heritage, and people. The revisiting and “retrograsping” of these concepts, however, is not arbitrary, but instead takes its lead from hermeneutic guidelines. These guidelines redirect us to the “thing itself,” and, in the process, to how the self-showing of the phenomenon illuminates the precise manner of their “letting-be seen” and articulation in words, that is, the corresponding logos. Here the possibility arises as to the self-articulation of the “who,” apart from its determination as a subject, as “subjectivity,” as posited in its stasis as a discrete entity or “substance.” In this regard, Heidegger’s account (in section 64 of Being and Time) of Kant’s critique of the paralogisms of the soul provides an important clue for revisiting the subsequent account of Dasein’s historical selfhood (in Chapter Five, Division II). Sandwiched between two more prominent sections (63 and 65), section 64 opens the search for a new ontological basis of the self in terms of care, or the “being” of Dasein. Heidegger explicitly acknowledges the traditional default position of metaphysics in construing the self upon the model of the present-at-hand, as something static, already present and enduring, i.e., a metaphysics of the subject. In terms of the philosophical tradition, this metaphysical preconception comes to head in Kant’s assessment of the paralogisms of the soul in the Transcendental Dialectic of the Critique of Pure Reason. The corundum of the inability to know the subject due to its indeterminancy as an object (Gegenstand) includes a further enigma on a linguistic level as to the inadequacy of any use of predicates to define the so-called self as an enduring substance, i.e., according to such statements as the “soul is a substance” (e.g., exhibits the characteristic of permanence). The self as soul cannot assume the place or “position” of an object, or can be inadequately “posited” as such, and, correlatively, remains empty, an unknowable “X” in terms of its determination by predicates. For Heidegger, however, the apparently negative outcome of the Kantian critique or “thesis” masks a positive problem.

Temporality, Freedom, and Place  111 Specifically, if the “I” cannot be revealed in some way “atemporally,” and if its disclosure is to be enacted factically as a form of “self-disclosedness,” then this possibility must in some way be temporally prefigured and determined. As a corollary to Heidegger’s critique of the Kantian thesis, we discover instead that the self: 1) is temporally projected as care or being-in-the-world (not isolated); 2) is factically “situated,” embodied, or “incarnated” (not a disembodied soul or res cogitans); and 3) is beingwith-others (not isolated or solipsistic). In Heidegger’s critique of the paralogisms of the soul, the phenomenon and logos are intimately connected. Hence, the dynamic of self-disclosedness must also call for its own articulation, that is, through a vocabulary or lexicon etched upon temporality that can provide the “predicate” to express the self’s potentiality. Thus, the self can only be explicitly grasped, disclosed, and articulated through a concrete act of understanding, insofar as its being (as care) is projected against a temporal backdrop. In yielding this backdrop of meaning, temporality makes possible both the disclosure and articulation of Dasein’s being, including the possibility of its self-understanding, e.g., “who” it “is.” If such a phenomenal “claim” is to be accurate, and more than merely conjecture, then we must be able to trace the emergence of the tendency to mis-speak concerning “who” Dasein is. This existential tendency to mis-speak originates from an already pervasive concealment within everydayness, a relapse into the untruth of falling (Verfallen), which provides the concrete roots for the metaphysical conception of the self as a discrete “I”, subject, and thereby substance. The concrete example of this misspeaking: 1) occurs by privileging the grammar of the first-person pronouncement “I;” and 2) already resides within the fore-structure of Dasein’s everyday understanding. Accordingly, each of us is already familiar with the obstructiveness in which the “I” speaks, that is, through pattern of incessantly reiterating its point of view or opinion, e.g., “I believe,” “I maintain,” etc. This figure of speech epitomizes the self-assertion of the “they,” its mode of assertiveness, e.g., as expressed in the constant refrain “I,” …“I,”…“I.”33 The “I” of this constant refrain prefigures the metaphysical positing of the underlying substratum of the subject, its enduring as present at-hand, i.e., as a substance. The metaphysical positing of the ‘self’ as an underlying subject and thereby as a substance is merely an abstraction from, or theoretical construct based on, this everyday understanding. At issue here, however, are the linguistic gestures, the figures of speech, which are masked in the misbegotten attempt to express the self in its subjectivity, as a discrete substance, according to the grammar of subject and predicate. As Kant recognized, this grammar breaks down in the attempt to extend the power of signification to define the soul as a supersensible object, to ascribe an abstract sense of permanence to it (e.g., as residing “outside” of time). As Kant also acknowledged, the subjectivity of the subject withdraws into indeterminancy. Conversely, by re-examining our

112  Temporality, Freedom, and Place subjectivity in terms of its finitude, a path is also opened for overcoming this metaphysical impasse (as made explicitly through the paralogisms). Through this Denkweg, we refer back to finite temporality in order, first, to accentuate the contrast with a metaphysics of presence, and second, to seek a deeper ground on which Dasein can articulate itself and provide an example to an alternative grammar beyond that of subject and predicate. Heidegger states: It is only from Dasein that the ownmost of a people can be grasped, and that means knowing that the people can never be god and purpose, and such that an opinion is only a “popular” extension of the liberal thought of the “I” and of the economic idea of the preservation of “life.”34 Following Heidegger’s deconstruction of the Kantian paralogisms of the ‘soul,’ we seek the guidance of a hermeneutic marker that points to the errancy of “objectifying” “who” Dasein is,” for example, through such categories as “group,” “peoplehood,” and, perhaps, even “race” or “ethnicity.” These erroneous notions, which echo the refrain “I”…“I”…“I,” are easily assimilated into the Nazi ideology of the National subject, e.g., as a political proxy of the “they” as a collective whole.35 In a crucial passage from Contributions to Philosophy, Heidegger identifies the origin of the misunderstandings surrounding such concepts as the ‘national,’ ‘race,’ and ‘people’ (including their conflation): That wherein the abandonment of being announces itself. 1. the total insensitivity to what is ambiguous in that which is held to be essential; ambiguity brings about asthenia and disinclination for an actual decision. For example, all of what the “people” means: that communal, the racial, the lower, the higher, the national, the lasting; for example, all of what is called “divine.”36 Despite the criticisms directed against racially charged passages in Heidegger’s Black Notebooks, he frequently opposes the misuse of the concept of race by the National Socialists. In Die Geschichte des Seyns, Heidegger states that the concept of race arises from an experience of being “as subjectivity” (als Subjectivität) and is wrongly construed in a ‘political’ way. He states further that the notion of race “is not biological” (ist nicht der Biologismus), but instead derives from the metaphysics of subjectivity.37 As Dennis Schmidt states: …it is not difficult to see how it is that in the era of Machenschaft, the age in which production defines the horizon of appearance, the notion of race will be brought together with the notion of production into the very idea of breeding and eventually eugenics.38

Temporality, Freedom, and Place  113 Later in his discussion, Heidegger reiterates that point by adding that race is a “concept of power” (Machtbegriff), which is linked to a derivative way of thinking in terms of values or representational thought.39 As rooted in subjectivity, the concept of race “objectifies” what it means to be human in terms of extant, anthropological, and biological characteristics. Clearly, Heidegger is opposing (if rather subtly) the attempt by the National Socialists to elevate race to a ‘normative’ concept as determinate of humanity. Moreover, as Radloff points out: Heidegger undoubtedly rejects eugenic proposals… no less than the ideological re-education of the Volk. In these respects, as in respect to the biological interpretation of the Volk, the gulf between Heidegger and the party ideologues he addresses in 1933 is evident and needs no further commentary.40 Heidegger opposes the misuse of the concept of race on ontological grounds, as a way of “stereotyping” employed by the National Socialists. Allow me to make two brief observations. First, it is a mistake to judge Heidegger primarily by the “progressive standards” we hold today, particularly when we recognize that large parts of the United States in the 1930s and 1940s (prior to the Civil Rights Act of 1964) engaged in “segregationist” practices. Second, the deconstruction of the Western tradition on the basis of the concepts of race and gender (e.g., feminism) became possible against the backdrop of Heidegger’s deconstructing philosophical history—albeit through further distinctions forged by such thinkers as Jacques Derrida and Michel Foucault. While expressing his critique of the concept of race in the turbulent period immediately following the rectorate (of 1933–34), Heidegger leaves open many of his reflections on race. To be sure, he does not exhibit an awareness of “racial discrimination” as a socio-moral concept so as to show sympathy toward specific groups that would (and did) become vulnerable to genocide (e.g., those of Jewish ancestry). In terms of what ultimately transpired as the Holocaust, we can certainly identify a cultural fissure within Germany that culminated in the atrocities of the concentration camps. The idea of “racism” as a moral indictment, however, is a problem that we are still struggling with today in various countries, not the least of which is the United States insofar the “slave trade” and a genocide against “native Americans” casts a dark shadow over the founding of its democracy. The acknowledgment of human finitude already implies setting limits. As enacted by the anticipatory return of the self to its utmost potentiality (and limitation), temporality yields the linguistic clearing through which the power to differentiate can first occur. A speaking that is concrete and ontologically appropriate to the thing itself, as it were, must proceed from a new vocabulary, the grammar of which induces a new

114  Temporality, Freedom, and Place spectrum of distinctions and hence, in a hermeneutic guise, constellates a new horizon or context of meaning. Such a development cannot arise from a mere semantic or linguistic change but must instead refer back to a more radical “giving” of the question itself. While still problematic for Heidegger at this point of his inquiry, such a transformation must be reoriented from and anchored within the difference between being and beings. By the same token, the key distinctions that will be integral to this new way of speaking or saying must spring from this primordial dynamic of differentiation, rather than arbitrarily invoked as merely semantic formulations. This self-limiting power of resoluteness “overrules” both the compulsiveness and impulsiveness of willing and welcomes a reciprocal reservedness out of which any possibility of governance can occur. As Radloff remarks, this power of self-limitation precedes the establishment of any regime (or authoritarian rule) and carves out within beings the cut of be-ing’s “differentiation,” that is, as constellating a site, the demarcating of limits from which a “measure,” can emerge, the sway of midpoint (Wesensmitte), to direct all human pursuits and interactions.41 The necessary distinctions must reverberate with the anticipatory return of Dasein’s temporalizing, and implicitly with the curvature of spatiality that is carved out within the disclosedness of its being-in-the-world. New figures of speech, or idioms by which Dasein can address who it is, albeit in a self-referential way, arise in contrast to the simple presence permanence of the cogito, which as both subject and substratum provides the basis for all attempts at objectification and reification. If “presence” and “permanence” are temporal predicates, then the self must be rediscovered in its temporality through a contrary dynamic, that is, in the anticipatory return of its finitude (vs. the longevity of its continuation). And if this contrast is to be phenomenally and concretely enacted, the temporal dimension denoting the continuation of the self, i.e., as invoking the ‘present,’ must also be rediscovered more primordially as an outgrowth of this anticipatory return. But by what figure of speech can we (e.g., as Dasein) denote the elliptical path of this anticipatory return? Such a figure of speech evokes both the ecstatic constitution of the present, both as infusing a unique dynamic, e.g., as the “moment” (Augenblick), and, as a dynamism pervading the entirety of the ellipsis vis-à-vis its “stretching along.” In effecting the contrast, the future and past are set over against their linear counterparts as reciprocally implicating each other, that is, in the receptive appropriation of handing down (across generations). The intra-generational dimension of this appropriative-handing down—through the echo and inflection of its own voice in evoking the “who”—makes possible the birth of a “people” (or Volk) vs. an extant “group” or unit (e.g., as a “substance” in the Kantian sense of a paralogism of the soul or social collective in the Hegelian mode of Spirit). But once again and given the subsequent ‘political’ overtone of this concept, we must highlight further the differentiating element in the “stretching

Temporality, Freedom, and Place  115 along.” That which is conveyed and denoted in such stretching along cuts both ways: first, to distinguish that we cannot attribute a “substance” to the “people” as implying the longevity and endurance that is emblematic of a soul/spirit residing “beyond” or “outside” of time. But, equally as important, we must distinguish the people from what can appear on a par with innerworldly beings as becoming present “in time.” That is, we must avoid the common error of equating the “people” with a notion of society, community, implying an “ancestral” basis that is “substantively” rooted, and thereby can be “given” in the present in a specific geographical or national setting. On the contrary, the “people” is neither an aggregate of individuals joined together “in time,” nor a substantive reality (e.g., a Spirit) originating “outside of time.” By the same token, what can be considered “spiritual” is not the realization of an external “telos,” but rather the so-called “destining” taking shape through the “stretching along” of the present (as the intersection of the appropriative handing down from the future). When seen in this light, the spiritual pertains to what is worthy of safeguarding (of and by the “people”), and thereby capable of being preserved through tradition (Überlieferung], e.g., as “if everything good has a heritage…” In order to diminish these metaphysical (and political) overtones, we need to carry out this contrast in a correlative way via Dasein’s spatiality (as well we have done in term of temporality). Because this contrast is not as explicitly made (by Heidegger), we see how a source of confusion (as well as of accusation) can easily arise. Once again, we must single out a way of speaking that can “figuratively” convey the disjunction with the metaphysical premise that through a geological point of reference. Let us leave aside momentarily how this “proximal,” and, indeed, everyday conception of space inadvertently reappears to color a (political) notion of the “whereabouts” or vicinity of a people. We differential between the ecstatic constitution of space through Da-sein’s being-in-the-world and the geographical view associated with “inter-worldly” beings. From the outset of Being and Time, Heidegger is alert to the danger of conflating these two senses, when he emphasizes that Dasein is not “in” the world in the geographical sense of occupying a container, e.g., as a coin may be said to be ‘in’ a cup. If we cannot predicate space in this overly physical sense, by what figure of speech can we convey its ecstatic character? Phenomenologically speaking, space pertains to the “who” of Dasein, to the how of its comportment (toward itself, others, and inner-worldly beings), and to the “wherein” (e.g., of world) its disclosedness as beingin-the-world. The association of space with physical dimensions, or geographical locales (e.g., the land, etc.), have to be thought anew within a broader hermeneutic inquiry into the strife between world and earth. In the most basic terms, space involves the pre-gathering and distributing of the network of reference-relationships that comprise the “wherein” of the world, and, most importantly, the vectors of farness and nearness that

116  Temporality, Freedom, and Place implicitly pervade (and give expanse to) Dasein’s disclosedness. Thus, space first appears ontologically (as well as ontically) when Heidegger describes the transcendence of Dasein, that is, in marking the “whereto” in forming a horizon of possibilities toward which the self both surpasses and retreats in the act of establishing a foothold in beings in the whole. In this primordial sense, space receives its chief connotation as mirroring the “play-space” or “Spielraum.” More obvious geographical connotations that are subsequently ascribed to Heidegger’s concepts of space, particularly those with a political slant, overlook the phenomenological basis for disclosing space. Thus, at the furthest vistas of Dasein’s surpassing, space appears as the indexing of “nearness” and “farness.” Moreover, these indices cannot be reduced to any physical measurements or locales. In this primordial way, the ecstatic tension of nearness and farness— as revealed in the trajectory of transcendence—define equally the intimacy of our relationship to other individuals as well as the otherness of the manifestation of beings as such. The concluding paragraph to Vom Wesen des Grundes provides the best textual evidence for this phenomenological conception of space in terms of nearness and distance: And so the human being, existing as a transcendence that exceeds in the direction of possibilities, is a creature of distance. Only through originary distances that he forms for himself in his transcendence with respect to all beings does a true nearness to things begin to arise in him. And only being able to listen into the distance awakens Dasein as a self to the response of the other Dasein in whose company [Mitsein] it can surrender its I-ness so as to attain itself as an owned self.42 Spatiality not only governs our comportment toward intra-worldly beings, as in the case of “making close” of something as an item of equipment. But spatiality as a permutation of the “play-space” also makes possible the “closeness” we can experience with others, which obviously is not a numerical, geographical, or physical representation. To define spatiality in ontological terms, we can employ “ex-posedness” as the figure of speech to convey how Dasein already finds itself as thrown into the midst of whatever can manifest itself, be encountered, and even appears in the counter movement of its otherness. Thus, through spatiality or the making-room of the play-space, the self is “exposed” in the mutuality of its being-with others, in the factical dispersion of its embodiment, for example, through its gender differences and sexuality, and, even in in the vulnerability of its suffering (pathos) as a creature of nature.43 This encounter with otherness comes through an attunement, which points back to how the Greeks understood the ground of what it means to be human by heeding the uncanny (as thrust into the “unhomely”). In his 1942 lecture course on Hölderlin, Heidegger states:

Temporality, Freedom, and Place  117 The singular kind of uncanniness pertaining to the human essence must, however, itself come to light in the coral ode, since the latter tell exclusively of human beings—though it also tells of the sea and of the earth, of the animals of the wild and of storms, of infirmity and death, of understanding and of the word, of the gods and of ordinances, for too those things human beings stand a relation, and all these each in their own way hear the pull and the traits of the fearful, powerful, and inhabitual.44 As revealed through such uncanniness (das Unheimliche), the self ceases to be a disembodied soul or spirit that has continuity and permanence as a substance. Conversely, spirit can only exist through the temporal trajectory of its “making-room” as “incarnated” and “embodied.” Heidegger’s hermeneutic exposition of Kant’s critique of the paralogisms simultaneously sets in motion a parallel encounter (Auseinandersetzung) with the Hegelian notion of Spirit and its implications for the historical constitution of a society or community (Sittlichkeit).45 The aforementioned makes explicit that the “people” cannot be substantialized as a contemporaneous aggregate of individuals that forms a community; nor can the “situatedness” of this group (Sittlickheit) be confined to any specific geography or nationality. Here the contrast with Hegel becomes important due to the latter’s attempt to make this connection with a specific phase of world-history essential to the concept of a community. While following through on his critique of Hegel, Heidegger emphasizes that the historical enactment of resoluteness as “handing down” presupposes the “idea of existence” as the initial fore-having to understand the possibility of a community. Resolute handing-down enacts the temporal-spatial dynamic, which grounds the ownedness by which the self can “belong to” (and acquire membership) in a community. However, what can be meant by community cannot be equated with any contemporary example, e.g., an actual Sittlichkeit, since what is ownmost to it must be pre-understood (and thus projected-open) through the generational birth of the spirit (as a vanguard of the future), that is, in accord with Heidegger’s mandate that to dwell is to “save the earth.” Conversely, how self-identity can be forged in conjunction with its being-with others—other than vis-à-vis as a “substance”—must itself be questioned in light of a deeper rooting of self-choosing resoluteness in freedom. Hence, temporality makes possible the birth of generations, rather than a common ancestry (of a ‘people’) determining what is unique to a specific generation. Heidegger’s dismantling of the subject as substance as the basis for the self and thereby of its membership in a community defines the leading insight of the frequently overlooked section 64 of Being and Time, as well as a stage in his overall plan to deconstruct the history of ontology. The conjunction of temporality and spatiality, or the play of time-space, goes to the heart of the constellation of the political as a “place,” and

118  Temporality, Freedom, and Place thereby the “placing” of the polis in history. We discover a hermeneutic precaution in any attempt to “politicize,” or, indeed, “over politicize,” the key notions pertaining to Dasein’s historicality, most notably, the Volk. Conversely, the possibility of the polis cannot be represented by any theoretical construct, whether as a Platonic ideal or even the modern venture to speculate about a utopian society. Indeed, the political cannot be represented in the theoretical ether of a “no-place.” For in whatever way the polis can be, its possibility hinges on the generational coming to birth of the spirit in the ex-posed stretching along of by which Da-sein enters the crucible of history. On the contrary, the grammar of Heidegger’s account in Chapter Five speaks in the subjunctive mood, in other words, if a polis can arise, then we must address it in terms of how it can be historically enacted. Such is the case with the Greek polis, as we will see in the next section. Rather than providing a template, the Greek polis serves as an example of the historical manifestation of the political. Even so, this manifestation becomes relevant, that is, meaningful, only as pertaining to Da-sein’s being, to its concern for others, and to a deeper origin of human freedom. C. Third Corollary—The Epochal Character of a Measure Despite the “case” made against Heidegger, we find in Being and Time formal indicators that point to the origin of the political, rather than an explicit statement concerning the reality of the state (Realpolitik).46 Insofar as a polis comes to be, then it must become possible on the basis of Dasein’s historicality. But this does not mean, conversely, that we can postulate an actual regime, according to such essential components comprising Dasein’s history, such as, i.e., resoluteness, loyalty, heritage, and the people. Withdrawing at the fringes of Being and Time is Heidegger’s interest in the political. In retrospect, and in the abstract, the question arises, however, as to whether the political could or “should” have taken priority (or, indeed, whether the ontological thrust of his inquiry always pushes a concern for the possibility of the polis into the background). Just as Emmanuel Levinas criticized Heidegger for prioritizing ontology, a parallel argument can be made regarding the political. By the same token, we cannot infer that the inquiry into being is irrelevant to addressing the political, or that “thing itself” cannot in some way illuminate the political in terms of its historical possibility in and through a specific “site.” In this regard, the Greeks provide an example of how the search for the political simultaneously enacts the conflict of wrenching being forth into unconcealment from concealment, and thereby instills such a place for unfolding, building upon, and, ultimately, participating in this historical occurrence. Ontologically speaking, then, the Greek polis (πόλις) appears in the ambiguity of the determination of this “place,”

Temporality, Freedom, and Place  119 both as the historical enactment of this crucible of conflict (in the eruption of beings in the whole) and as the concrete domain in which human beings take up residence. In terms of their own founding of the polis, the Greeks addressed this ambiguity through the experience of tragedy. Due to this ontological link or connection to being, the polis both historically grounds a “place” (for the manifestation of beings) and is grounded as this place. Before proceeding further, we must make explicit why the Greek polis can only serve as an example, rather than be paradigmatic, of Heidegger’s understanding of the political. In phenomenological terms, the appearance of the political is connected to its opposite; and hence, because the latter depends upon the historical dislocation of the modern epoch, i.e., through the sway of machination, the “place” of the polis must originate or emerge anew. (Put simply, we only have direct experience of the dislocation of the political, rather than its emergence as a place in the ancient Greek sense.) The thrown historical trajectory of that place also changes dramatically. For the dominance of modern technicity in terms of the drive toward the “mastery” of beings illuminates the sway of an opposing resistance, namely, the self-concealing occlusion of the earth as pre-situating the compass of all human activities, i.e., the (opening-forth of) world. If history (as Geschichte) points to the possibility of a new inception of the political, then it is by holding in tension the way in which technicity emerges as a global force interweaving itself in the management of all human affairs. If this is the case, then we must address how technicity can assume this central role. The “globalization” of politics and the drive toward technological mastery are two sides of the same coin, harboring a danger that jeopardizes both nature and humanity. So-called political leaders channel their attempts at “governance” and “rule” through increasingly technical applications; these include state-defined bureaucracies and the rise of the “military-industrial complex.” As an instrument for the acquisition and distribution of power, geopolitics becomes a contrary indicator (e.g., a “signpost”) to rediscovering the polis as a “place” in which we can abide Thus, for Heidegger, place, or, more specifically in the Greek sense, the “polemos,” sets the precedent for inquiring into the political, albeit, however, within the shadow of the Greek experience of tragedy.47 In classical Greek philosophy, the same applies in which knowledge of justice is achieved through a class with its opposite (or injustice), as enacted through the life and death of Socrates. Because of this tragic dimension, we cannot then infer that the Greek vision of the polis, even under the auspices of its destructive-retrieval, is “essential” or “paradigmatic” for the political. Instead, we must consider a further distinction, which remains for the most part unthought in Heidegger’s approach to the political (particularly when annexed to his alliance to the politics of in the 1930). Specifically, we must question-back in the initial fore-having

120  Temporality, Freedom, and Place of the attempt to understand the political, that is, its “pre-situating” as a “place.” Following through on this hermeneutical line of inquiry, we can distinguish this “pre-placing” as the “precinct” or region of the political. To emphasize this dimension of the precinct, of its appearance as a region both near and far, is to recognize that we can only grasp the political within the widening arc of the hermeneutic ellipsis, that is, in light of being-historical thinking, as “retro-grasped” (züruckgenommen) in terms of the enrichment of its possibility going forward.48 The region of the political denotes the constellation and confluence of issues that comprise the polis, or herald its reinception or “birth,” that is, the historical arrival or “breakthrough” into history. We cannot then presumptuously distinguish the “essence” of the political. Rather, our questioning of this Wesen demands that we can seek only what is “ownmost” or singular to the political through the act of its historical unfolding (Wesung) through the creative endeavors of mortals: building, dwelling, thinking. The political is grasped through its period of incubation (Incubationszeit), rather than through the model or ideal of its “essence.” Thus, the Greek conception of the polis becomes pivotal in offering a clue to the confluence of subsequent issues stretching ahead, e.g., the interconnection between being, the dynamic of unconcealment/concealing and the constellation of a place of dwelling. Lacoue-Labarthe argues that Heidegger mistakenly “modeled” his view of the political, which misled him in the direction of National Socialism, upon the Greek polis. In the process, he succumbed to a “totalizing schema” that predetermined the future by the prospect of retrieving from the past a Greek vision of the polis as paradigmatic.49 This argument provides the cornerstone for subsequent scholarship on the connection between Heidegger’s thinking and the political, particularly as embodied in his involvement in the politics of National Socialism in the 1930s. We must distinguish between appealing to an example of the Greek polis to formally indicate the importance that the allocation of a “place” has for determining the political, and employing a false mimesis or imitation, as Lacoue-Labarthe suggests, which takes the ancient vision as exclusive and paradigmatic.50 The future is not “locked in” to a false preconception of a Greek “world-view,” but, on the contrary, depends upon how the “world” can appear from a different locale of situatedness (withdrawn) from the Greeks, as we will see, vis-àvis of its strife with the earth. Here we bring to light how a hermeneutic guideline yields the fore-having, fore-sight, and ultimately, pre-concept for addressing the political, rather than as a false misconception based upon historicist presuppositions. The attempt to address the confluence of these issues, or, conversely, to expand the inquiry into being in order to include them, necessitates the “turning.” This is not to say, however, that the turning arises from an unfulfilled need to address the political or as an adjustment in Heidegger’s thinking to compensate for the failure of his abruptly embracing the

Temporality, Freedom, and Place  121 National Socialism—although scholars have made this argument. Such arguments are not only narrow-sighted, but they also presume a subjective characterization of die Kehre. The concern or lack thereof for the political should not in any way be construed as motivation or catalyst for the turning. On the contrary, the turning transforms the inquiry of Being and Time, in such a way that the light cast on what becomes manifest can, in the wake of its historical clearing, both illuminate the inquiry into the political and redirect it from deeper premises. Here an important hermeneutic precaution becomes apparent: whatever direction the inquiry into the political takes, it is not self-grounding. Instead, such an inquiry harbors its own presuppositions, if only about the both the need and capacity for human beings to exercise some kind of governance throughout the course of their social interactions. The presupposition in question, however, is not based exclusively on reason, but instead returns in to what is pre-articulated and pre-understood in the historical existence of a people. We can access that presupposition on the basis of our historicality, and, in a larger sense, in light of the history of being. As Radloff states, “Heidegger’s understanding of becoming-a-people cannot be assimilated to the ethnic concept of National Socialism; for the historicity of becoming- a-people is incompatible with the metaphysics of life and identity which its traditional concern of the ethnic implies.”51 Minimally, we discover that the ancients were situated within, and found themselves exposed to the manifestation of beings in the whole, in an altogether different way than is evident in the historical self-understanding that shaped the modern vision of the political. Except perhaps as a point of contrast, the modern viewpoint was not particularly relevant for Heidegger, any more than were the leading political philosophers from Locke to Rousseau. The modern emphasis on human subjectivity, on the intellect, the soul, and the spirit, that is, in its abstraction from nature, allows the “ordering” thrust of the political also to be abstracted as a product of human subjectivity alone. By contrast, the ancient Greeks view the political as an extension of, rather than as an abstraction from, the demarcation and setting of boundaries that allows for beings as a whole to rise into unconcealment. The Greeks could seek in the coalescing of this “arrangement” a parallel ordering in the compass of our situated, being with others, the diké (Δίκη) or source of a measure through which a sense of governance can be instilled or inscribed, e.g., in the formulation of norms and laws. To carry out the contrast further, we can say that for the ancients a “measure,” norms, or laws enact a mode of governance (within the political), which integrates the network of human relationships, activities, and needs back within the wider compass of the manifestation of beings in the whole. In the modern preconception of the political, however, the opposite occurs: rules and regulations are set up to govern society, and in place of the pre-acceptance of a measure that sets boundaries for our situatednesss, restrictions are imposed through the development of rational

122  Temporality, Freedom, and Place constructs, e.g., contractual forms of agreement that binds individual through different hierarchies of authoritarian rule. To be sure, only in the broadest terms does Heidegger provide a hermeneutic footing for making this contrast between the ancient and modern preconceptions of the political, governance, and law. If the modern outlook remains somewhat blurry, he does bring into sharp focus the guiding thread within the ancient way of responding to and becoming exposed to the manifestation of beings in the whole. Specifically, Heidegger holds forth tragedy as key to humanity self-referential grasp, and meaningful portrayal of its situatednesss and thereby the magnitude of the challenge that is transmitted into their sphere of governance (into which the space of the political is also interposed). For Heidegger, the political, even for the Greeks, does not emerge as a “given,” but instead includes the disclosedness within which beings in the whole become manifest and thereby the establishing of a corresponding docile or domain for human inhabitation (and social interaction). The governance distinctive of that domain both presupposes and enhances the disclosing of our situatedness within that domain, and thus develops on the cusp of the conflict between concealment and unconcealment. For the Greeks, the figure of tragedy conveyed the epic character of the humanity’s entrance into this crucible of conflict, which in turn sets forth entire topos (τόπος) of that conflict—including our vulnerability to the forces of nature, the power of fate, and the epiphany of the gods—in order to project open the space of the political. The space of the political is shaped by the wider expanse of this topography, and thereby cannot simply be reduced to the machinations of human beings. On the contrary, the fundamental gestures by which human beings exhibit their homage to the god, and the pre-articulated backdrop of the mythos (in shaping custom and tradition) serve to give depth and rootedness to the polis, as does any explicitly articulated directives of governance. The opening of the space of the political, as an overture and consecration of the grandeur of the manifestation of being, is only one historical possibility. That possibility presupposes maintaining the vigilance requisite to endure the conflict, of which the figure of tragedy gives expression. What happens when that vigilance is lost, or, conversely, when disclosedness embodied in that heroism falls prey to the expediency of an instrumental way of mastering our position in the immediate surroundings of our “being-alongside” things? The modern instrumental pursuit of mastery over beings that are already present circumvents the openness by which Da-sein is exposed to, grapples with, and endures the power of manifestation as such. In turn, human subjectivity takes center stage in dispensing its own power, that is, through the exercise of its capacity for willing. As the axis for the manifestation of beings in the whole shifts to and centers anew upon

Temporality, Freedom, and Place  123 human willing, an alternative plan of ordering arises as the template for the creation of the political, e.g., the state. Heidegger calls that plan the “imperium,” the exertion of a new rule of the domination and submission of human beings within the confines of the political. Such a rule takes the form of issuing “commandments,” i.e., as an authoritative pronouncement demanding conformity. For the modern exercise of rule is distinguished as much by the character of its pronouncement as by its explicit content. The plea originates from an eternal source, as if handed down from on high, and thereby poses as self-legitimizing. The self-legitimizing command administers its own form of what is lawful as righteousness. According to Heidegger, the imperium has its historical precedent in the Roman formulation of the law, that is, in the transition away from the Greek vision of a measure that directs human beings to their situatedness or occupation of a “place” within beings in the whole. The historical epoch of modernity completes this transition by supplying its ontological (and epistemic) underpinnings. Specifically, the Cartesian imposition of the claim of correctness and certainty within the realm of the mathematical knowledge of beings (already manifest or present) provides the ultimate basis to anchor the imperium as a command or plea toward righteousness. To be righteous is to be in the right as a mode of correctness and self-legitimization. The drive or will toward to legitimize places the gestalt for the development of political rule and the administration of “justice” within a political setting. The path is thereby cleared for the development of modern political theory through the evolution of such political legitimacy as righteousness via the formulation of abstract “rights.” In the shift to modernity, the Greek vision of the polis recedes in favor of the Roman imperium, thereby masking the initial fore-having of the ancient conception of the state. As we have seen, the figure of tragedy provides the backdrop (the initial fore-understanding) to translate the Greek experience of justice. Even for Heraclitus, justice involves the harmony of balancing the opposition of strife and conflict, a cosmic play of opposites.52 How are we to re-enact this translation, including the possibility of undertaking an etymology of the Greek word for justice, “diké?” To proceed in the proper direction, we must follow the hermeneutic path of our inquiry into human finitude, whereby temporality emerges as the “meaning” of Dasein’s beings, of care, or the unifying backdrop for its self-disclosedness. The anticipatory return of Dasein’s resolute self-disclosedness must be taken back into the wider orbit of the historical openness of the Greek experience of truth, that is, in its vigilant self-exposure to the conflict between unconcealment and concealment. As rooted in Dasein’s temporal finitude, this vigilance takes form of resoluteness, although in a broader, more primordially grounded way that in found in Being and Time.

124  Temporality, Freedom, and Place In his lecture course on Parmenides from the Winter Semester 1942/43, Heidegger provides a detailed account of resoluteness, which draws upon most explicitly its development from and unfolding of truth as unconcealment or openness. Heidegger states: Resoluteness, as conceived in the modern way, is the willing of what is willed in its own will; this will drive it to will… As understood by the Greeks, however, resoluteness, the self-disclosing opening up toward being, has another origin… namely a different experience of being…53 In this way, resoluteness is explicitly predicated on the experience of truth, and thereby incorporates the fore-having of the Greek understand of tragedy and its implications for grounding the political. In its vigilant self-exposure to truth, resoluteness projects open the space of the political, retrieving its possibility from the broader enactment (Vollug) of freedom as letting-be. In this way, a “place” is thereby cleared in which human beings can be situated in their historicality (if only “momentarily”), and, conversely, the political can be grounded as such a site, e.g., as a domicile in which human beings can reside and dwell. The problem historically, however, lies in balancing both sides of this hermeneutic equation, and, specifically, securing the “as-structure” of interpretation or way of understanding the political, including its key facets such as justice, in connection with the experience of truth as Aletheia (ἀλήθεια). As in the case of any such disclosure, the expanse of openness can begin to close off, and what originally founds the polis can begin to recede. The tragic vision that sustains the Greek polis includes all that is iconic in upholding the spiritual life of a people, the uniqueness of its heritage, and all that speaks to the finitude of its situatedness, including the gods. The gods are not transcendent realities as such but, are rather, the dispensation of the sacred and hence have a mode of appearance or epiphany unique to them. As such, the gods stand apart from the humans, and, as it were, by marking this distance, exhibit that alterity or otherness in contrast to which the mortals appear through their finitude.54 By exhibiting (e.g., bringing into sight), this otherness, the gods point to or signify the “measure” to which every other form of guidance depends, including that distinctive of the polis. Through this measure, the dispensation of the sacred appears as providing a counterpoint and directive for the enactment of care by which the common thread of a community is formed. Correlatively, basic performative acts, gestures, (e.g., through what we might call ritual and gestures) establish the space for the polis, the founding of a domicile in which human beings can reside in the company of each other, i.e., as community, the “gathering unto each other.” For example, through ritualistic activities, that is, in paying homage to the gods, human beings not only rediscover the origins and inception of

Temporality, Freedom, and Place  125 their community, but also exercise the stewardship that upholds a measure apart from the mere capriciousness of the clash of human interests. The political, then, does not depend for its guidance upon anything extantly religious, e.g., a transcendent deity, but rather the gods illuminate the place, the point of inception, where the spiritual life of a people is born and thereby becomes prepared to receive a “commissioning” of its own “charter.” This charter implies that stewardship by and in behalf of a people, so that the care exercised establishes a measure to govern the polis. The requirements and constraints are not merely so-called public policies, but, on the contrary, the stewardship that appears through them is bound even more radically (e.g., as removed from all capriciousness and arbitrariness), by the confrontation and vigilant self-exposure to the strife of truth as unconcealment-concealing. As we saw in enunciating a corollary that remains only implicit for Heidegger, any such stewardship cannot only pertain abstractly to being, but must implicate a mutually enjoined freedom as “letting-be” that safeguards the other within the broader ethos of dwelling. But by the same token, the construction of society to satisfy human interests alone cannot fulfill the task of this dwelling, which requires the counterbalance of a measure to safeguard non-human creatures, nature, and the earth itself. The binding of human beings in a community, who seek to govern in concert with the administration of such service, could be considered a charter, a commission. Such a charter, by which human beings can forms social bonds by which they are “held within” a partnership with being, implies only a pre-articulated setting wherein a future polis could be grounded on the collaborative work of human beings, e.g., of building, dwelling, and thinking. We distinguish chartering in this sense (which Heidegger seems to have something in mind in describing the origin of the Greek polis) in contrast to the writing of a formalized document or constitution in the modern sense. Yet, this chartering (commissioning) transcribes the pre-text of the political (through which a constitution becomes possible). For only by first inhabiting language can human beings become participants in a conversation, in order to engage in a “forum” of (political) exchange. The creation of such a forum provides the cornerstone of any founding of a body politic, whether as memorialized in the original sense of the Greek polis or in the decree of the United States Republic of 1776 (e.g., the great “American experiment”).55 What are the key elements of this transcription, which displace the possibility of the political into its ontological origin, on the one hand, while marking its breakthrough into the factic (ontic) dimension of social governance, on the other hand? This is a question that hovers at Heidegger’s attempt to address the political, and, indeed, recedes into what remains unthought for him. First, the creation of the political still hinges on entering into this ontological conflict of truth as unconcealing and concealing, thereby playing out the tension of the strife between world and earth. But

126  Temporality, Freedom, and Place here an important corollary must be observed, which remains implicit for the most part in Heidegger’s account of the Greek polis. Specifically, the waging of this conflict holds fast over against the inevitable withdrawal of what is original in the polis, such that impetus for its preservation through extant (and perhaps authoritarian) institutions, e.g., the norms of the status quo, gradually erode its breakthrough or birth as a work of freedom. Herein lies the intrinsic paradox of the political: namely, that the maintaining, preserving, and rule of the polis begins to subvert the bestowing of the gift that pervades the polis (through its creation), the giving of the “there is” and its consecration in the act of letting-be. Secondly, the chartering and consecrating of the political de facto expresses the original pre-text, bringing to fruition the political as the dual place for the dwelling of mortals and for unconcealment. Yet we must also identify an important corollary to the birth of the polis in this way; that is, the double imaging of this place in language itself. Specifically, language not only provides the place for unconcealment, but grants to us participation in its disclosive power. This power frees human beings, in Hölderlin’s words, “to become a conversation,” and, as the political bedrock of the political, transposed human beings in their dwelling in a forum of debate and deliberation that safeguards the counter reply of the other. Here we must reaffirm a boundary in the thinking of the political, which not only observes the ontological difference but also Heidegger’s divergence from the liberal tradition of the Enlightenment. To think the political, then, is not merely to impose ontological categories developed from Heidegger’s account of being, but to inquire into the freedom by which the bonds of reciprocal relationship between human beings—the administration of a governance implied therein—first becomes possible. For the Greeks, however, the political is not tied to a god in the sense of a theodicy or the lack thereof in the secularization of modern society. Within the span of modernity, either viewpoint seeks to ground the political by abstracting from beings in the whole—through the “highest” entity or the denigration thereby (e.g., the heralding of the “death of God,” as prophesized). Nietzsche saw the danger of elevating “commandments” of justice to eternal principles, recognizing (in Zarathustra’s words) the need to “shatter the old tablets” as a stage in confronting modern nihilism.56 The connection between truth (as unconcealment) and justice (as appearing through a measure) is thereby sacrificed, in favor of the struggle to secure the ‘rights’ of various groups or collections of similarly interested individuals (as set over against one another). Such ‘rights’ still presuppose the creation of a community, the vectors of stewardship that call for self-limitation in compliance with our finitude (e.g., in service of freedom as “letting-be,” rather than in defiance of it). In his lecture course from the Winter Semester 1942/43, Heidegger makes explicit what is only implicit in Chapter Five of the second division of Being and Time: that Dasein’s historicality provides the entry point for

Temporality, Freedom, and Place  127 addressing the political. The question arises, however, as to how we can address the origin of changes within the political insofar as they unfold, as it were, “trans-historically,” that is, across historical epochs. Indeed, we could argue that within the modern era, the grounding of the political is only deficiently “historical.” For the clearing of a site for the political is reduced back to the exclusively human level of “power-relations,” abstracted from Da-sein’s situatedness within beings in the whole, on the one hand, and removed from the experience of truth as unconcealment, on the other. The need for such a “charter,” then, becomes paramount only in the effort to revive the possibility of the political, that is, in the “going-under” of modernity insofar as politics has become fragmented into competing power relations within the framework (Gestell) of technicity. In this temporalizing, the vector shifts in the direction of the future, in how a forward-looking thinking views the polis as a possibility still to come, rather than through the stagnation of institutions mired in preserving the status quo of the past. Hence, the practice of “free speech” that many of us assume is made possible by democracy hinges on the reciprocity of freedom, which cannot be reduced (ontological speaking) to a state-sponsored government. In making this observation, we are already guided in advance by the continual broadening of Heidegger’s hermeneutic situation of inquiry: specifically, the implicit, if not unspoken transition from the historicality of Dasein to the history of being. Even in its three phases, the destructiveretrieval of Kant’s philosophy provides only a beginning, recoiling upon itself to re-enact the point of departure of Heidegger’s inquiry from the cusp of its historical inception in the “turning around” of forgottenness into recollection. In this “turning,” the search for a hermeneutic guideline proceeds along an even wider ellipsis, which traverses the vectors of the path joining the first and other onset of thinking. Still forthcoming is how “history” unfolds in Contributions to Philosophy, the widest arc in offering what is possible, the revolving orbit of “immeasurable possibilities” by which be-ing and Da-sein are thrust into tension with each other, into a reciprocal responsiveness and belonging together. In the unfolding of history in this primordial sense resides the hermeneutic guideline to direct our inquiry into the political, i.e., as revealed specifically in the era of the end and completion of metaphysics and its consummation in technicity. This observation brings us to a third corollary. As a source for enacting social bonds, mortals must re-enact care on a higher plane, namely, via a disposition to dwell on the earth. Correlatively, the responsiveness that human beings show toward one another must develop in concert with the stewardship human beings exercise, not only as “citizens of the world” (in the Kantian sense), but as tenants of the earth, its transitory custodians. Topographical indices arise to ground the political, which are terrestrially as well as socially rooted.57 These indices map out the coordinates that establish the political as a place, which traverse the expanse of

128  Temporality, Freedom, and Place “near” and “far” so as to lend depth as well as breadth to human dwelling. Because the place of the polis is to be established in human dwelling, which in turn takes root by perduring the strife between world and earth, we derive a political self-identity from our potential to be tenants on the earth and conservators of it. The grammar of the genitive form underscores the “des” of the relation of proprietorship (i.e., of being). Perhaps Heidegger did not go far enough to interpose the grammar of the genitive as the transforming power of his hermeneutic phenomenology. In concrete terms, this drawback means that he did not fully engender the distinctions that were integral to reshaping the social dimension and re-establishing it on a ground beyond human subjectivity. In question is how to set forth the unity and tension between world and earth as played out on a social (and, ultimately, political) plane, that is, in which the citizenship of the world in a Kantian sense is conjoined with, and transformed by, our dwelling as tenants of the earth. As a result, he does not fully recognize how elements that mirror the materiality of the earth and our capacity to dwell upon it could be relevant to forming a people, e.g., such as the facticity of gender and ethnicity. Or, put another way with respect to the overarching question of his ontology, Heidegger does not explicitly map out the intersection between the history of being and Da-sein’s historicality (Geschichtlichkeit), such that our distinctive way of participating in unconcealment translates back into the stewardship of concrete practices for venture to dwell upon the earth. Here we enter into an important crossroads of his thinking where we leverage its weaknesses to explore the unthought possibilities of his philosophy. In retrospect we can pinpoint the source of confusion that percolates forth in such infamous remarks that Heidegger makes in the Black Notebooks concerning the Jewry/Judaism as mired in a “worldless,” “groundless” condition.58 Even if we attribute this remark to a false stereotype, and seek to contextualize it, as von Herrmann and Alfieri do,59 we should not overlook a deeper philosophical underpinning. According to these two scholars, worldlessness pertains to a loss of significance in the encompassing structure of the world (Welt); the sense of diminution and loss of relevance characterizes modernity in the age of nihilism. The source of this diminution is ontological and hence entails the withdrawal of world (Welt) as a structure of significance, rather than is due to a specific agency attributed to one human group or ethnicity over another, e.g., “Jewry.” As in the case of any such “-ism,” Heidegger finds Judaism as problematic due to replacing a worldview (Weltanschauung) with the self’s undertaking of the project of world-creation. Worldlessness (Weltlosigkeit) becomes endemic to modernity (and not only ethnically and culturally defined),60 however, by viewing world as already preestablished, i.e., as etched in cultural values, and without also calling into question the capacity of human beings to inhabit a world.

Temporality, Freedom, and Place  129 As Heidegger proceeds in his inquiry, he redefines the world more explicitly in terms of our potential to dwell within it as a “residence” where we can abide. When understood in this deeper sense of dwelling, we must ask a precursory question as to how the world arises through its interplay with the earth. Conversely, not as a structure standing alone, but only through its tension with the earth, can world, including our way of “being-in” it, yield a space for the political. The opening of this space is a future task reserved to Da-sein, through its potential for “worldforming” (weltbildend). In preparing an abode in which to dwell on the earth, Da-sein (e.g., through “the ones to come”) can create a socio-biotic community. Because of its future entryway or inception, there can be no simple architectonic for designing the political. Yet the three corollaries that I have outlined in this chapter distinguish the “pillars of the polis,” the necessary elements for forming a socio-biotic community. But there is no prototype other than the triad endeavors of building, dwelling, and thinking. In this way, the political is not simply an abstract aggregate of ‘people’ under a common rule, but a pliable, diverse community that seeks a “measure” of justice. In its highest mission, such a community heeds the “call” to safeguard the earth, nature, and our animal counterparts, in such a way as to cultivate the voice of the “other” and allow its unique inflection to resonate. This third corollary seeks a measure to develop a socio-biotic community, as an unthought implication of Heidegger’s subversion of the anthropocentric bias of modern philosophy.

III Conclusion In enduring the strife between earth and world, the founding of the political in our capacity to dwell sets apart a region (Gegnet) for openness outside the closure of technocratic rule, the “regioning” by which the space of the political can emerge. In this way, being is not to be determined via the authoritarian rule of the polis; on the contrary, what it means to be a polis arises through our capacity to dwell in language, and to establish our freedom for discussion as the predicate to manage all human affairs. The governance of the polis becomes an inscription, testament, and decree within the overall temporal-linguistic clearing of our capacity to dwell. To re-establish the polis is to seek its origin in compliance with a new “measure,” which can counterbalance human and animal interests, the claim of future generations and the task of safeguarding the earth. The question concerning technicity undergoes transformation, which in light of such a measure points to alternative ways of manifestation (beyond the one-dimensional paradigm of machination). This does not mean that we can scale back technicity, as much as discover in its danger (Gefahr) the saving grace of exercising our capacity to dwell on the earth. The fractured

130  Temporality, Freedom, and Place and uneven way in which politics unfolds on a global challenges us to ask: “What does ‘world’ mean today without a place of inhabitation?”, “How do social and economic inequities play out the struggle between the abundance and scarcity of resources?”, “How can the earth” reappear out of these breaks and fissures?”

Notes 1 See Robert E. Wood, “Heidegger’s In-der-Welt-Sein and Hegel’s Sittlichkeit,” Existentia, XX/3–4 (2010): 255–274. 2 See Emad, On the Way to Heidegger’s Contributions to Philosophy: 1–3. 3 GA 42: 18. For an English translation, see Schelling’s Treatise on the Essence of Human Freedom, trans. Joan Stambaugh (Athens, OH: Ohio University Press, 1985): 152. 4 GA 95: 118; tr. 91 (translation modified). 5 See Malpas, Heidegger and the Thinking of Place: 123–129. 6 GA 2: 200–206; tr. 191–195. 7 Heidegger, Ereignis, GA 71 (Frankfurt am Main: Vittorio Klostermann, 2009): 280. 8 See Richard Velkley, Heidegger, Strauss, and the Premises of Philosophy (Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 2011): 93–94. 9 GA 65: 294; tr. 208. 10 GA 65: 295; tr 208. 11 Heidegger, “Die Kehre,” in GA 79: 73–74; “The Turn”: 69. 12 Carodoza-Kon, Heidegger’s Politics of Enframing: 136. 13 See the parable of “The Madman,” in Book Three, section 125 of Friedrich Nietzsche, The Gay Science, trans. Walter Kaufmann (New York: Random House, 1974): 181. For a discussion of this passage, see Emad, Translation and Interpretation: Learning from Beiträge: 154–155. Also see Frank Schalow, “Heidegger’s Relation to Political from a Being-historical Perspective,” Existentia, 28/3–4 (2013): 183–196. 14 Unlike Kant previously, Nietzsche’s “Dionysian” revolution exhorts us to “remain faithful to the earth” and renounce otherworldly aspirations. Friedrich Nietzsche, Thus Spoke Zarathustra (Prologue), in The Portable Nietzsche, ed. and trans. Walter Kaufmann (New York: Penguin Group, 1976): 125. 15 GA 65: 510; tr. 359. 16 See, Malpas, Heidegger and Thinking of Place: 1–2, 41. 17 GA 52: 100; tr. 87. 18 GA 52: 100; tr. 87. 19 Heidegger, Besinnung, GA 66 (Frankfurt am Main: Vittorio Klostermann, 2006): 360; Mindfulness, trans. Parvis Emad and Kenneth Maly (London: Continuum, 2007): 320. 20 We see this in much of the scholarship that conflates Heidegger’s thinking with the political. For an alternative approach, see Kovacs, Thinking and Be-ing in Heidegger’s Beiträge zur Philosophie (Vom Ereignis); 245. 21 For further discussion, see Schalow, Language and Deed: Rediscovering Politics through Heidegger’s Encounter with German Idealism (Amsterdam: Editions Rodopi, 1998): 187–191. 22 GA 65: 483; tr. 340. 23 GA 65: 389; tr. 272. For an account of misunderstandings of Heidegger’s concept of the “people,” as set forth in recent scholarship, see Bernhard Radloff, “Historicity and the Notion of Antisemitism,” Heidegger Studies, 37 (2021): 267-285 (esp. 271-274).

Temporality, Freedom, and Place  131 24 Vincent Blok, Heidegger’s Concept of Philosophical Method; Innovating Philosophy in the Age of Global Warming (London: Routledge, 2020): 208. 25 See Emad, On the Way to Heidegger’s Contributions to Philosophy: 4, 22. 26 Thomas Kalary. “Hermeneutic Conditions for Interpreting Heidegger: A Look at Recent Literature (Part One),” Heidegger Studies, 18 (2002): 159–180 (esp. 168–169). 27 GA 2: 507; tr. 435. For an outstanding discussion of the ethical implications of Heidegger’s early thought, see Sikka, Heidegger, Morality, and Politics: 37–45. Also see Frank Schalow, “Questioning the Question of an Omission in Being and Time: Practicality as a Formal Indicator,” Existentia, 27/3–4 (2017): 305–327 (esp. 320–324). 28 Heidegger, “Contributions to Philosophy: The Da-sein and the Be-ing (Enowning),” trans. Parvis Emad, in Emad, Translation and Interpretation: 29. 29 Nietzsche, Thus Spoke Zarathustra: 191. 30 See George Kovacs, “Heidegger in Dialogue with Husserl,” Heidegger Studies, 32 (2016): 245–258. 31 GA 4: 38. 32 Kovacs, Thinking and Be-ing in Heidegger’s Beiträge zur Philosophie: 83. 33 Heidegger asks: “What is the motive for this ‘fugitive’ way of saying ‘I’? It is motivated by Dasein’s falling; for as falling, it flees in the face of itself into the ‘they’.” GA 2: 424–426; tr. 368 (Section 64). 34 GA 65: 318; tr. 224. See Frank Schalow, “Time, Be-ing and Enowning: Re-enacting the Thinking of Beiträge,” Heidegger Studies, 33 (2017): 313–328. 35 Radloff, Heidegger and the Question of National Socialism: 176–177. 36 GA 65: 117; tr. 82. 37 Heidegger, Die Geschichte des Seyns, GA 69 (Frankfurt am Main: Vittorio Klostermann, 1998): 70–71. I am grateful to Professor George Kovacs for providing me with this reference. 38 Dennis J. Schmidt, Lyrical and Ethical Subjects: Essays on the Periphery of the Word, Freedom, and History (Albany: State University of New York Press, 2005): 182. 39 GA 69, p. 225; tr. 188. Heidegger was vehemently opposed to any reliance on “values,” which he saw as an outgrowth of the metaphysics of subjectivity and also faulted National Socialism for invoking. See Frank Schalow, “Ethics without Values: At the Crossroads of Freedom,” in The Companion to Introduction to Metaphysics, ed. Richard Polt and Gregory Fried (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2001): 250–262. 40 Radloff, Heidegger and the Question of National Socialism: 131. 41 Radloff, Heidegger and the Question of National Socialism: 7, 9, 40. 42 GA 9: 175; tr. 135 (modified). 43 See Hodge, Heidegger and Ethics: 2–4. 44 GA 53: 84; tr. 68. 45 With the reference to “spirit” (Geist), we already hear the echo of the initial reverberations of the Hegelian controversy of Sittlichkeit versus Moralität. To a certain extent, this Hegelian problematic, as a key dimension of his account of “world-history,” provides a metaphysical counterpoint to Heidegger’s account of Dasein’s historicality (Geschichtkeit) in Chapter 5 (Division II) of Being and Time. Here we cannot delve deeply into this Hegelian problematic, other than to employ it as a signpost to help outline the nexus of supposedly political charged concepts in that chapter, e.g., the “people.” See Schalow, Language and Deed: 7–11. 46 See GA 41: 214; tr. 212.

132  Temporality, Freedom, and Place 47 See Gregory Fried, Heidegger’s Polemos: From Being to Politics (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2014): 7–15. 48 See Heidegger, Nietzsche: Der Wille zur Macht als Kunst, GA 43 (Frankfurt am Main: Vittorio Klostermann, 1943): 285. 49 See Phillipe Lacoue-Labarthe, “Transcendence Ends in Politics,” in Typography: Mimesis, Philosophy, Politics, ed. Christopher Fynsk (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1989): 267–300. 50 See Alison Ross, “The Kantian Sublime and the Problem of the Political,” Journal of the British Society for Phenomenology, 32/2 (May 2001): 174–187. 51 Bernhard Radloff, “The Life of the Universal: Heidegger’s Response to Slavoj Žižek,” International Studies in the Philosophy of Žižek, 1/4 (2007): 1–41 [online]. 52 Amato, The Ethical Imagination in Shakespeare and Heidegger: 17. 53 GA 54: 111; tr. 76. 54 GA 54: 165–166; tr. 112. 55 See Charles M. Sherover, Time, Freedom, and the Common Good (Albany: SUNY Press, 1989): 8–15. 56 Nietzsche, Thus Spoke Zarathustra: 311–315 (Part III: “On Old and New Tablets”). See Frank Schalow, Between Law and Lawlessness: On the Cusp of Heidegger’s Being-Historical Thinking,” Existentia, 26/3–4 (2016): 388–409 (esp. 397). 57 See Frank Schalow, “Imagination and Embodiment: The Task of Reincarnating the Self from a Heideggerian Perspective,” International Studies in Philosophy, 36/1 (2004): 161–176 (esp. 173–176). 58 See GA 95: 96–97. Also see Francesca Brencio, “Thinking without Bannisters: Heidegger, the Jews and Modernity in the Context of the Black Notebooks (1931–1948),” Heidegger Studies, 33 (2017): 277–302. 59 See von Herrmann and Alfieri, Martin Heidegger: Die Wahrheit über die Schwarzen Hefte: 121–148. There are also negative intonations when Heidegger refers to the onslaught of “world Jewry” (Weltjudentums). See von Herrmann, “The Role of Martin Heidegger’s Notebooks within the Context of His Oeuvre”: 91–92. 60 This is an issue that merits further discussion, and to which scholarship has only begun to address. For an outstanding first step, see Radloff, “The Metaphysics of Cultural Production in the Black Notebooks”: 57–76.

5 The Turn Toward Stewardship Is a Socio-Biotic Community Possible?

Foremost to any proprietorship is how human beings abide within language and thereby foster a sense of belonging distinctive of all their comportments. If there is indeed a unique way in which human beings conduct their affairs within the polis, and in the administration of its concerns exhibit proper care, then the political must be empowered and consecrated by granting them the opportunity “to belong.” Such an opportunity, however, must originate through our relation to being, and thereby through a proprietorship by which we are joined to the earth, nature, and others as well. Otherwise, the political can be reduced back to an organizational principle serving the instrumental ends of technicity. The three corollaries we have previously identified in our Introduction, and outlined in Chapter 4, delimit the pre-text of the political; they are the linchpins that anchor the polis in human dwelling according to directives that Heidegger left unthought. Can we further delimit the political as a form of governance, in which human beings engage and which points the way toward the fulfillment of justice? In addressing this question, we will underscore the need to rethink normativity outside the traditional discipline of (prescriptive) ethics. With these preliminary observations, we follow a directive or hermeneutic guideline, of “how” which human beings take up residence within the polis, and thereby seek in their dwelling all that “prearranges” and lends proportionality to the conduct of human affairs in harmony with the unconcealment of being (in beings). The question then becomes whether, hidden within the relation of being to man, a different proprietorship can emerge, which proceeds in the opposite direction of what cannot be calculated. As we have seen, the source of incalculability arises from the earth, and thus, in becoming the harbinger of a mystery, provides a new idiom to redirect human beings in their search for an alternative way to govern, e.g., a “measure.” Only by rediscovering the locus for this “arrangement” within the strife between world and earth, in a way that parallels but does not derive from the Greek experience of diké, can the polis re-emerge as a concrete place for “dwelling.” If the rule of the DOI: 10.4324/9781003195139-6

134  The Turn Toward Stewardship polis is not to be arbitrary, then its governance must mirror this “proprietorship of being,” thereby bringing to fruition the deeper levels of connectedness through which our dwelling on the earth becomes possible. For Heidegger, then, we must not only look to the human realm for the key to such governance; we must instead seek what is most emblematic within the ecstatic openness of our dwelling, of this “arrangement” in the original Greek sense. As we have seen, Heidegger describes this phenomenon, which marks the intersection of Da-sein’s disclosedness with the diversity of all that can manifest itself in and through beings (including nature), the “jointure of being” (Fuge des Seins). Through this jointure, human beings can first abide within the differentiation of being and beings, and thereby foster the disclosedness of the former by “lettingbe” the uniqueness of the latter. In this way, mortals become stewards of the earth through their dwelling, yielding to a “measure” beyond what is calculable within the sphere of human ends alone. Could such a measure direct us to a deeper inception of the polis, whose limits are set not only by our relation to others but equally by the otherness of nature? A double limitation would occur that stems from our reciprocity with being, granting through its proprietorship a residence to which we can belong within a socio-biotic community. Our “citizenship,” then, is built upon the community in which we reside. The stewardship by which we inhabit the earth calls into question the priorities of any (world-)citizenship, such that the development of a community (das Gemeinwesen) through the grounding of a site must be forged at the juncture between the human and the non-human (the jointure of being). The arrival of the polity would correspond to a kind of “breakthrough,” that is, the entryway granted to mortals in the “eco” or residence of dwelling (on the earth) in which “all being and being-with [Mitsein] is a being fitted into the order of one’s assigned capacity to be.”1 Only on the cusp of the unsettling encounter with “unhomeliness,” however, do mortals become “homely in being” and both see into and stand within its openness.2 Here I agree with Radloff that the Heimat is not merely ‘nostalgia’ for nationalistic roots (through a “collective subjectivity”), but instead “implicates alterity and openness to the guest and stranger.” 3 In this chapter, I will address the possibility of such a community. First (I), I will show how the transformation of care into stewardship provides the presupposition, by which we can ascribe a sense of “lawfulness” to the political in concert with our capacity to dwell on the earth. Then (II) I will point to a specific example of such dwelling, within an ecological context, to illustrate how a “measure” can arise within the development of a socio-biotic community. We will discover how the promotion of animal welfare is intrinsic to the task of stewardship and is a primary example of environmental practice. Finally (III), I will reveal in hermeneutic terms how justice can arise as an idiom to express the interconnectedness in the entirety of all our relationships, which marks our way

The Turn Toward Stewardship  135 of belonging to being and carrying out its stewardship. Because of its appearance within the temporal-linguistic clearing of being, we cannot abstract justice as an ideal, for it can only be intimated through the inflection of an echo reverberating across the amphitheater of history and its ongoing conversation.

I Language, Law, and Normativity A. Hearing and Speaking As we have seen, machination discloses something fundamental about the political, namely, its establishment on a global stage. The globalization of economic markets in particular reveals that, while individual nations compete over scarce resources, borders or boundaries between nations have become more and more permeable. The Janus-faced character of technicity proves to be instructive once again. On the one hand, globalization means displacement, homelessness, and exile. On the other hand, this displacement also leads us to ask whether we can no longer arrive at a sense of belonging; indeed, a “homecoming” in Heidegger’s sense that entails an openness to the alien and “other” (not simply a nostalgia for the familiar). Shepherds live invisibly and outside of the desert of the desolated earth, which is only supposed to be of use for the guarantee of the dominance of humanity whose effects are limited to judging whether something is important or unimportant for life.4 Whether there can be a renewal of “home” no longer hinges on anthropocentric assumptions but must instead sway from the reciprocal relation between being and Dasein. The tension of that reciprocity implies a new demarcation, the circumscribing of a locale of dwelling, inhabitation, in contrast to the conventional designations for defining the political in terms of such concepts as the people, ancestry, and heritage. This locale marks the intersection between ownmost and other, in which the circular movement of appropriation expands its radius to include alterity (the other as other). The reciprocity by which human beings respond to what is most question-worthy, and being invites us to think, prefaces any other possible sense of belonging including that reserved for our capacity to dwell, and, by implication, as also pertaining to the political. For example, in his 1936 lectures on Schelling, Heidegger states that love (Liebe) is a striving toward a unity as the “belonging together” of what is different.5 How is this dynamic to be experienced and exhibit in a double sense? Phenomenologically speaking, this double sense includes the trajectory of our thrownness by which we enter into a relation with being, receive its

136  The Turn Toward Stewardship definitive power or freedom to let-be in order to “belong” appropriately, and also prepare an abode or a place (for unconcealment to occur) as exemplifying our capacity to dwell. For that ahead of which our thrownness has already catapulted us, and which, through our attunement to it, also disposes us to dwell, is language itself. Correlatively, as the “relation of all relations,” language harbors the deepest level of connectedness by which we belong to being, supplying a place or an abode for unconcealment to occur. How our dwelling on the earth includes care for or stewardship of language, on the one hand, and, on the other, the idiom of speech takes shape through the ongoing conversation of mortals, points to how human beings can be both the transcribe of laws to which they must also comply. In both confronting and criticizing Heidegger, G. Vattimo is among the first to distinguish this double dynamic that is the source for the generation of law.6 Before examining any implications for the political, we must first consider the birth of the activity that brings to light its dependence upon a prior relation to being, namely, thinking. As such, the political presupposes our asking the basic question “Who?,” and thereby the engagement of thinking in this most provisional way of question-worthiness. As Heidegger states in a key passage from Contributions, “Philosophy (On the Question: Who Are We?”). That is to say, we cannot pass through the who-question (Wer-frage) untouched by taking up the ‘we’ and the ‘us’ as if they were extant and only lacked the determination of the Who (Wer). Even in this question, the turning (Kehre) reverberates. (emphasis my own)7 Such questioning remains important, even if only taking its cue from a pre-philosophical level. Implied in such questioning is a way of belonging to the openness, which already sets itself apart from the precedent of convention and thereby welcomes the possibility of dissent. Yet, we must differentiate between dissent as it arises from freedom proper and that which is already ‘politically’ slanted or motivated. A key demarcation arises. Freedom first arises in compliance with a claim by which thinking enters a partnership with language, in order to cultivate a “place” for being to reveal itself, and thereby is an example of a practice that precedes other activities that are exercised in a political context. Through its kinship with language, thinking becomes “free” as drawn into and holding forth the expanse of openness. In its freedom, thinking occupies the forefront of the space between silence and speech, the unsaid and the spoken, from which words can spring to formulate what is most question-worthy in its otherness. Our guardianship or stewardship of language protects the freedom to speak the appearance of this otherness, which for thinking constitutes the “matter” or “Sache.” By implication, the thinking that enacts the freedom

The Turn Toward Stewardship  137 to speak also sanctions the opportunity for a counter replay, safeguarding the claim of otherness arising from being (and embodied through the counter response of conversation). Because hearing takes precedence over speaking, and silence prefaces our thrownness into language, our capacity for speech is already delimited by the need to welcome a counter reply by the other. Furthermore, the safeguarding of language in this way or its ultimate freedom as “letting-be,” hinges on an attunement by which we can heed the voice of the other and thereby “co-respond” with or agree (and potentially disagree) with others as well. In the counter reply of hearing, the disclosive capacity of speaking comes to fruition. This power pervades thinking as an act of letting-be and belongs to the safeguarding of language in protecting the counter reply of the other. The fissures revealed in today’s pandemic, which demarcate the margins of our relation to nature and the limits of that destructive potential, mirror the cracks and crevices of our post-industrialized society—the victimizing of those who are most vulnerable and impoverished. In this way, the disclosive power of letting-be enters into speech, allowing a sounding board for otherness to appear on the margins of language. The tension between speaking and hearing, however, does not only span the dialogue undertaken by humans. As Heidegger emphasizes, “language speaks,” and, similar to the enactment of freedom, has an extra-human or a trans-human source. Through its co-respondence to being, the language by which humans speak can also convey the concerns of those unable to speak for themselves, i.e., our animal counterparts. Animals have been characterized as “dumb” because they lack the capacity to speak. Because language is not simply reserved to human beings, and arises out of what is “unsaid,” the reverberation of silence punctuates this “dumbness.” Even though Heidegger reiterates that only human beings speak, the gifting of language to them also exacts a counter claim, e.g., a “call” (Anspruch), to serve as a “proxy” to express the interests of those who cannot speak for themselves. From the standpoint of the ethos, the privilege granted to human beings through their capacity to speak demands that they reciprocate by speaking in behalf of those who cannot.8 Through this reciprocity, mortals exhibit the humility, which predisposes them to inhabit the ethos by cultivating the habitats of their animal counterparts. In the stewardship of their humility, human beings heed a “calling,” an invocation, to speak (and ultimately act) to protect the welfare of their animal counterparts. Humility is the dispositional, attuned way of acting by which mortals answer the call of being, both submitting to and participating in its openness. The stewardship by which we speak on behalf of our animal counterparts, and become proxies for their interests, provides a cornerstone for building a socio-biotic community. The freedom to speak, then, implicates this further social-political dimension as the flipside to the responsiveness, the responsibility, by which mortals become answerable to or heed the voice of being, e.g., by

138  The Turn Toward Stewardship “letting-be.” The reciprocity of letting-be enables the other to become a sounding board for diverse voices, including the counter resonance of the earth, nature, and animal life.9 By letting-be, speech grants to the other the greatest freedom to engage in conversation and promote the openness of that diversity. Language harbors the tension, the essential sway (Wesung) for the balancing and counterbalancing by which a measure can be set, e.g., by which thinking receives the power of language and simultaneously safeguards this gift. In concrete terms, we become stewards of language by enacting as its key practice the opportunity “to speak freely and openly.” The safeguarding of language in this way, including consecrating the practice of free speech at this fundamental level, belongs to the “supreme law” of freedom (and is not merely an arbitrary form of discretion or expediency). This supreme law prefaces the development of the political or forms its ultimate cornerstone, if not presupposition. Freedom and law mirror each other in the proprietorial relation between be-ing and Da-sein. In holding open the site of political engagement, language speaks when we grant priority to our capacity to listen and heed the “other,” that is, by grounding a domain to administer care vis-à-vis our interaction, involvement, and reciprocity with other human beings. As the implication of a measure (in both language and deed), normativity arises from the example of stewardship. Thus, we experience normativity (as the administration of law) on two fronts; first, through the practices exemplified by our stewardship, and, secondly, through their articulation or in the directives of law. When viewed in this hermeneutical context, norms are a claim of stewardship; they re-emerge as inscriptions within language, which, according to Heidegger’s lexicon, transmit the “call of being” and commission us, as Da-sein, in its service. Put in simple terms, laws are inscribed in words and spoken by a community. Through this act of reciprocation in which thinking receives the gift of unconcealment, something like a “measure” first appears. Thinking is “measured” by its devotion and steadfastness to fostering the claim of being, and thereby abides in a “turning” relation as a guardian of the word and thus as enacting the freedom to “let-be.” In thinking, which Heidegger argues is a “deed,” an activity by which Da-sein is measured. In this adherence to a measure, in this measured responsiveness, care as the being of Da-sein is transformed into stewardship. Da-sein exhibits a deeper capability that can be carried forth in its other activities, pursuits, and comportments, including those that arise within a “political” setting. The administration of care in the polis depends upon stewardship in this sense, not simply as defining one activity among others, but rather in pointing back to a measure (a compliance of all acting through freedom). By virtue of this supreme law of freedom, we inhabit language and become capable of another kind of inhabitation through its practice, namely, as occupying a polis. The self-gathering of language is already in play as the prerequisite for reserving a place for human beings to reside

The Turn Toward Stewardship  139 “politically.” Conversely, our dwelling within language serves in a double sense to gather together in practice the diversity of voices by which to sustain the ongoing “conversation” (of a people) at the temporalizingspatializing threshold where a domicile can arise for us to dwell, e.g., a polis. In and through the supreme law of freedom, we point to the self-delimitation or demarcation of the polis, or its inception through the stewardship of human dwelling. As Heidegger states: “Above all the question ‘who are we?’ must remain purely and fully enjoined with the inquiry into the grounding question: How does be-ing hold sway?”10 Does a people make possible the law, or does the law make possible the “to be” of a people? This is an interesting question, with a Kantian twist, which Heidegger does not explicitly formulate. In the following passage from Contributions to Philosophy, he provides one of most concrete statements on this issue: A nation first becomes a people when those who are its most unique ones [Einzigsten] arrive and begin to intimate. Thus a person becomes free for its law, which it must struggle for, as the ultimate necessity of its most noble moment. Philosophy of a people is that which makes a people into a people of a philosophy, which historically founds the people in its Da-sein, and which prevails upon a people to become guardians of the truth of be-ing.11 As George Kovacs remarks in commenting on this passage: Heidegger’s mindfulness of the ‘people principle’… is not theoretical, not ideological, not political; it is concrete, hermeneutic, existential, and (in the last analysis) being-historical. The principle or law governing the life and destiny of a people comes from within; it is obtained and reached through struggle by the people, by the enactment of the genuine ‘people-principle.’ Thus, as Heidegger explains, ‘a people first becomes free for its law’ through (based on) its own potential or inner constitution, not due to external compulsion: a people becomes free for, opens itself to, its ‘law’ (see GA 65, p. 43).12 We see Heidegger making these key distinctions. First, a “people” embodies a possibility that precedes forming a nation (including a sense of nationalism). Second, a people is distinct from ingredients of a common ancestry, which erroneously may be equated with a nation. Third, that which is singular or ownmost to a people is the capacity for stewardship or guardianship. Fourth, the emphasis on a “philosophy of a people” serves as a double genitive, namely, that it is by seeking its origin in what makes philosophy possible (e.g., an attunement to the truth of being) that the gathering together of a people occurs—e.g., through its capacity to dwell. As Heidegger states: “In its origin and

140  The Turn Toward Stewardship destiny this people is singular, corresponding to the singularity of be-ing itself, whose truth this people must ground but once, in a unique site, in a unique moment…”; and then adds that only in the humility before its god “does a people avoid the danger of circling round itself and of idolizing as its unconditioned what are only conditions for its existence.”13 In closing this section, let me briefly address a concern about the relation between philosophy and politics that recedes in the background of our discussion, but which frequently is thrust into the forefront as suggesting a possible pitfall leading to Heidegger’s involvement in National Socialism. Specifically, there is the suggestion that he implicitly reserves the role of leadership for the thinker or philosopher, in characterizing him/her as among the few or the elite. This historicist claim ignores the preceding logic whereby the priority granted to thinking lies precisely in its call to safeguard language and thereby submit to the lawfulness of its freedom. Nevertheless, the preceding criticism makes it all the more necessary to avoid converting the ontological synergy holding between language and thinking into an ontical assertion concerning the suitability of the thinker to speak in the role as a leader of the polis. On the contrary, the logic of our preceding discussion establishes quite the opposite: the need to re-establish within the differentiation between being and beings the tension between the example of thinking and its expression in the “voice” of the people. In a brief lecture delivered in the aftermath of Germany’s defeat in World War II (June 1945), Heidegger provides a tantalizing clue of how such a voice emerges through “conversation,” that is, from “other sources” than those that are “legitimized” by “political” authorities (that he once attributed to Nazi leadership). Wars do not have the capability to historically decide on destinies because wars already rest upon spiritual decisions upon which they solidify themselves. World Wars too are incapable historically to decide on destinies. But for the people, World Wars and their outcomes can become an occasion that gives rise to a mindfulness. But such a mindfulness itself arises from other sources, which must begin to flow out of the ownmost of the people. That is why a self-mindfulness is needed in the alternating dialogue of the people with one another.14 In this passage, Heidegger points to the “ownmost of the people,” which in turn entails a “mindfulness” (Besinnung) of an open dialogue among diverse participants. The safeguarding of language allows for and comes to fruition in a “free exchange” the cornerstone of which is freedom as “letting-be” (rather than the deafness or unresponsiveness of conflicting opinions). In referring to the “alternating dialogue of the people with one

The Turn Toward Stewardship  141 another,” Heidegger points to the historical interpretive context in which the law can be inscribed within language, and reciprocally, its measuresetting precedents can be developed in order to become binding on a constituency (e.g., comprising a “people.”). Laws, then, are not simply codified statutes of right and wrong, but instead are interpretive fields of meaning that are born through the conversations that shape, appropriate, and transform our tradition(s.) This measure-setting process establishes the precedents by which future generations can seek its explicit norms for governance.15 Here we see a disjunction between Kant and Heidegger. Kant pointed to the unalienable rule of law as that before which all human beings are “equal,” in contrast to the exceptions granted under the umbrella of the religious authority of his time.16 For Heidegger, the priority of language as the source for the inscription of law means that its formulation (e.g., grounding) depends upon the openness of an agreement of the people in its ongoing conversation. The law, then, is a bearer or “formal indicator” of history, and thereby belongs to the generational (i.e., temporal) dynamic of the self-discovery, self-understanding, and self-mindfulness (of a people). For Heidegger, law speaks (literally) to the self-questioning of Da-sein in its historical sojourn on the earth, where for Kant lawfulness originates from a self-evident, atemporal basis in reason. The whole point of Heidegger’s destructive-retrieval of transcendental philosophy is not simply to subvert Kantian principles, however, but to show how they (e.g., the categorical imperative) can be reformulated on the finite platform of Da-sein’s temporal openness.17 The one common element that allows this appropriation to occur is the commitment each (Heidegger and Kant) has to the priority of freedom as a cornerstone of thinking and praxis. For the latter, the philosopher’s freedom echoes as a cornerstone of a just and equal society. “Kings or sovereign peoples (i.e., those governing themselves by egalitarians laws) should not, however, force the class of philosophers to disappear or to remain silent, but should allow them to speak publicly.”18 If we understand thinking as a craft, and thereby, as a unique vocation, we must also emphasize the corresponding disposition necessary for its undertaking, whether characterized as humility or as an adherence to what calls thinking forth. In a way that perhaps paradoxically reinforces this humility, the separating and disjoining of philosophy and politics, in showing how the latter presupposes a “measure” which first appears to (but is not reducible to) the former, suggests a transitional step on the way to thinking the political versus developing a “political philosophy.” In this case, we reassert the importance of formal indication (and its ensuing hermeneutic guideline) in how we can distinguish the example of practice from the exercise of thinking, and thereby make questioning worthy the relevance of law as binding in all other human activities. In

142  The Turn Toward Stewardship these practices, human beings enact the temporality by which as mortals (e.g., in resolutely anticipating the finitude of death) they become tenants of the earth. The temporalizing of this stewardship, as exhibited through Da-sein’s concrete historicality, intersects with the epochal manifestations of be-ing (the temporality of the “to be”). In this way, environmental practices provide a concrete, factical locus by which we (as mortals) can experience “the turning in enowning” (Kehre im Ereignis). By emphasizing Da-sein’s way of belonging to being, Heidegger diverges from the Kantian formulation of freedom as autonomy or the self-determination of the law. Yet Heidegger does not simply abandon the Kantian problematic altogether, as much as transpose the problem of normativity, of the interdependence of freedom and law, on a more radical plane. A vestige of what Schürmann called the “practical a priori” remains intact, albeit with a completely novel Kantian twist.19 For the example of stewardship in Heidegger’s sense depends upon the exercise of freedom as “letting-be,” rather than, as Kant maintained, autonomy as self-determination. As Peg Birmingham states: “Rather than the Kantian transcendent[al] law that addresses the sovereign subject, Heidegger gives us the ‘law of the possible’ that addresses a thrown and exposed self that finds itself belonging to and in a common world with others.”20 As Heidegger emphasizes in Contributions to Philosophy, the self’s uniqueness and ownedness (i.e., “authenticity”) hinges on a dynamic in which Da-sein’s way of coming into its own coincides with the trajectory of its ecstatic openness. Owning is both owning-to and owning-over-to. Insofar as Da-sein is owned-to (übereignet) itself as belonging to enowning, it comes to itself, but never in such a manner as if the self were already an extant stock that has just not yet been reached.21 Heidegger adds: But coming-to-itself is also never a prior, detached I-representation. It is rather taking over the belongingness to the truth of being, leaping into the t/there [Da]… Selfhood is more originary than any I and you and we. These are primarily gathered as such in the self, thus each becomes each “itself.”22 Heidegger implies that even the development of the social sphere depends upon the self’s appropriation of its uniqueness and hence, ultimately, upon its capacity to “let-be.” Allow me to make a further observation in order to make explicit the manner of transformation in Heidegger’s inquiry (e.g., through the turning in enowning). Birmingham implies, but does not emphasize, the ecological implications whereby Heidegger conjoins the “law of the

The Turn Toward Stewardship  143 possible” to that of the “unnoticeable law of the earth.”23 Accordingly, for Heidegger we enact our freedom through the stewardship of dwelling. Hence, our capacity to be tenants of the earth shapes the “normativity” by which mortals can administer laws, and thereby become equally capable of discharging the possibility of “world-citizenship’ (in Kant’s sense). B. Freedom and the “Other” Something of a hyper-concern in terms of what is incalculable, and thereby provides the basis for what is most care-worthy, prefigures the appearance of the political as a phenomenon, namely, the ownmost (through enowning or Ereignis) The ownmost is not something that can be encapsulated in a statement, but instead signals the sense of belongingness that shapes the political, and, in its retro-grasping or referring back to, continues to sustain what is most care-worthy (e.g., the management of human affairs by a citizenry). The ownmost provides the singular axis or concentric center for anchoring the exercise of care within the political, around which revolve the various concrete decisions, comportments, and pursuits. For the ownmost is the counter resonance and sway in any endeavor to “belong,” that is, by addressing the “who” in terms of its predisposition to exercise care and ultimately stewardship toward the earth. As Heidegger states in Contributions to Philosophy, “Decision comes about in the stillest stillness and has the longest history… What stands for decision? We ourselves. Who are we? In our belongingness and not belongingness to being.”24 What we refer to as the ownmost is not an abstraction, but points to or indicates the potential for stewardship as enacted historically on the cusp of the other onset at the end of modernity. We thereby return to Heidegger’s emphasis on history as the key hermeneutic guideline for thinking the political insofar as the possibility of its recreation arises in contrast to its concealment within the forces of machination. Once again, machination discloses something fundamental about the political. Within modernity, the political succumbs to the forces of technicity in such a way as to become a contrary indicator for the turning back toward the ownmost as a dimension shaping the relevant capabilities and powers of the political, that is, through the forward-looking return to a technē as rooted in the disclosive play (Spiel-Raum) of poiesis. Art does not simply become a vanguard for the political, as scholars often argue. Nevertheless, the interposing of the possibilities of this play-space, i.e., into our belonging to and dwelling within the world, shifts the axis of all that is care-worthy within the polis apart, if not away from a preoccupation with instrumentality. The question then becomes how key junctures, pauses, and intermissions in Heidegger’s writings can become occasions to formally indicate the political, not as a theoretical construct, but as circumscribing our livelihoods and governance in the inter-play of the strife between world and earth.

144  The Turn Toward Stewardship In Sein und Zeit, Heidegger had already pointed to the ground of nullity or the “ab-ground” (Ab-grund) from which its pursuit of individuality originates.25 Da-sein’s mineness does not exclude its relation to others, but, on the contrary, includes the original manner of appropriation, of making one’s own. As Heidegger states in Mindfulness: Da-sein is neither the condition for the possibility nor the ground for the condition of the possibility ‘man’ as what is now extant. Rather, Da-sein is that belongingness that, holding unto the ab-ground, belongs to the clearing of be-ing. 26 Through this dimension of the ownmost, Da-sein first displays the capacity for “dwelling,” in order to “belong” and be “owned over to” (übereignet) as the predicate for existing in reciprocity with others, e.g., in the community (of a polis) [(πóλις)]. “‘Da-sein is that which is always mine’; the grounding preserving of the ‘t/here’ is ‘owned-over’ to me myself. But self means resoluteness unto the clearing of be-ing [Seyns].”27 Through his appropriating dimension of what is ownmost, we uncover the pre-understanding as the interpretive backdrop for any political site and even the forms of like-participation that human beings engage as the perquisite for a polity. For example, Heidegger did not consider the loosely knit societies in nomadic tribes, much less the life of “natives” who inhabited North and South America before its colonization by the descendants of European states. But he did address the opening forth of a world in order that human beings can first acquire the capacity to interact with each other and develop a sense of belonging in order to live together within the compass of any political setting. The sense of “belonging to” epitomized in the political is a “throw back” to having already been cast into a world, to the capacity to be so situated, and thereby reside or dwell within it. Heidegger speaks of Dasein’s “temporal sojourn in the world.”28 In this sojourn Dasein experiences its capacity to be at home by simultaneously confronting the possibility of its opposite. We can thus suggest that the sense of “being-at-home” in the primordial guise of “dwelling” is ‘universal’ to human beings, however, not as an ingrained “essence,” but as a fundamental capacity “to be” in a world whose possibility is already prefigured (or gathered forth) as situated through its counter play with the earth. The predilection to seek a home or haven, even for those who exist in a so-called “pre-political” setting, belongs to the transcending movement of “world-making,” in which the spectrum of human activities comprising a polis is rooted. In this creative projecting-open of a world, Dasein can first dwell in the sense of seeking a home, or residing, of taking up residence within, and also through its being-with others properly circumscribe and clear this domicile of occupation. And in so clearing this domicile, Dasein is already (in its temporalizing-spatializing) establishing proximities of

The Turn Toward Stewardship  145 “near” and “far,” i.e., drawing boundaries of “home” and “away,” the pre-designations of what we commonly describe in the political terms as the “borders” between domestic and foreign. To quote Dennis Schmidt: “Praxis then is the space for coping with this manifold otherness, a space between nature’s limits and our possibilities.”29 Yet even this provisional awareness of a home and a haven does not have explicit political implications until the formalizing of that meaning through the most definitive of all of Dasein’s capabilities; that is, the power of speech or our way of belonging to language as λóγος. As Radloff observes: Because this site [of the πóλις] is opened up and held open by λóγος, the ‘political’ constitution of a people, and its entire way of dwelling…has to be understood as a question of ‘language.’ The possibility of Heimat, of dwelling on the earth, in a way commensurate with our historicity, becomes a question of our relation to language.30 When seen in this light, the political can be reduced neither to any single facet of care nor to an anthropological structure of social relations.31 As William McNeill emphasizes, the interdependence between freedom (as letting-be) and truth (as openness) yields the temporal-spatial expanse of dwelling, in which human beings can reside in concert with nature (and the diversity of its habitats).32 The manner in which as being-with (Mitsein) we can act as custodians in behalf of others does not comprise a social dimension, which by itself can be constitutive of the polis.33 Instead, the exercise of such solicitude must be explicitly transposed into the openness by which we experience freedom in a finite manner, that is, through the capacity to “let-be.” In this regard, we cannot overlook the dimension of finitude and its importance for distinguishing crucial corollary outlined at the close of Chapter 2. For finitude establishes the limits whereby we are recipients of freedom only within the province of its safeguarding, thereby presupposing the origin of a domain, indeed, a domicile, in which the roots of the political can take hold. Put in simple terms, the political depends upon a prior projecting-opening of this precinct or domain, in which the power to be free can be allocated, as it were, in proportion to its safeguarding. Conversely, this proportionality in turn suggests a “measure” from which our stewardship of being can exact compliance to precisely those directives that mirror our connectedness to beings (including nature). The question then inevitably arises as to the “who” designated for possible membership in the community, and, further, whether its directives are set to uphold the proprietorship of human ends alone. Does the “who” designate a “people,” and, if so, does that designation define an actual group of constituents, a specific aggregate or even “collective” of individuals—as is normally suggested—or instead inception of “another”

146  The Turn Toward Stewardship possibility.” In question with regard to the “people” is the “inabiding of man,” rather than an extant group. As Kovacs emphasizes, “a people becomes (is, lives as) a people,” insofar as Da-sein belongs to be-ing.34 According to Radloff, scholars mistakenly equate the concept of a people with a “collective subjectivity,” failing to recognize that a people becomes such through its inabiding and dwelling in reciprocity with being.35 This inabiding occurs only within the strife between earth and world, and thus by allowing the relation to the latter to call into question what it means to be human in and through this compass of dwelling. But why precisely this strife of world and earth? Because in en-owning Da-sein is enowned and becomes the inabiding of man, because from the whole of beings man is called to [the] guardianship of being. But about that which strifing and in view of which we have to think of man, his ‘body,’ ‘soul,’ and ‘spirit’ be-ing-historically?36 Correlatively, by relocating world-openness through its strife with the earth, what it means to be a people also comes into question: It must be shown in which truth a being stands—and how it respectively stands in this truth. It must become clear how here world and earth are in strife and how this strife and thereby earth and world themselves unconceal and conceal… But truth sways in the fullest and richest clearing of the remotest self-sheltering-concealing and only in the manner of sheltering, according to all ways and manners that belong to this sheltering and that historically bear and guide the inabiding sustaining of Da-sein and so make up being-a-people. Notice the intermediary, hermeneutic determination “being-a”.37 Here we discover another important permutation in Heidegger’s thinking, which becomes explicit as we emphasize the second hermeneutic guideline for addressing the political, that, is, the establishment of the coordinates for its site in the strife between world and earth. In the relocation of that site a new axis of signification also arises, extending more deeply from the earth across the expanse of our world-openness. As Heidegger makes explicit in his 1936 essay, “The Origin of the Work of Art,” the counterposing of the earth resets the axis of signification for the world, allowing for a deeper intersection at the site of being’s disclosure through beings. In this way, not only is a deeper “place” (Ort) established for human dwelling, but the wellspring of language can intimate the deepest concerns for vibrancy of the earth and the mystery (Geheimnis) reserved to it. The disclosive power of poeisis, or art in the broadest and most original sense, serves as a pretext, in which all (e.g., in its totality) that can be signified through the reference-relationships of the world-openness is taken

The Turn Toward Stewardship  147 back into the deeper recesses of the self-gathering of the logos and the emergence of the word from silence. Through this hermeneutic transformation, Heidegger does not claim, however, that the work of art becomes a new vessel for unfolding the roots of the people. Rather, the reclusive, counter movement of the earth directs us back to the origin of a deeper relation of proprietorship, by which we can still uncover as meaningful the self-signifying of the import of the singular. The weightedness of the singular points the way for “measure-setting,” apart from the truncation of everything within beings to the uniform status of a value-less commodity (for use and exploitation within machination). When Heidegger alludes to a “measure,” then, there is implicitly a retrospective grasp of this “pre-textual” level, from which can appear a site for the political alternative to its assimilation to technized models of acquisition, production, and conquest. Even though Heidegger repeatedly called for such a measure, its importance for developing an “alternative” to address the political, e.g., the inception of its site, remains ambiguous for him—if only because such ambiguity pervaded and shaped his thoughtful-questioning. How such lawfulness can unfold in a concrete way, and, as a measure, bear the transcription of social directives and policies by which human beings can manage their activities within the polis, appears murky at first sight. As a case in point, it is worth interjecting Arendt’s criticism that Heidegger did not appreciate how “radical evil” (in the Kantian sense of the will’s defiance of law) could become a germ for totalitarianism. In response, Heidegger argued that the conversion of the will to power into the “will to will” provides as a vehicle for prioritizing the self-craving, self-serving drive of willfulness, which puts its presumption of legitimacy (e.g., façade of lawfulness) ahead of and to the detriment of everything (and everyone) else. Although Heidegger falls short of making the obvious connections to the atrocities of 1930s and 1940s, his thinking may still point to the self-limitation of the political and the question of a deeper grounding of normativity.38 As a case in point, the “rightful” triumph of the Western democracies over totalitarianism, in its Japanese as well as its Germanic forms, does not preclude casting a critical light on the fractured ground of normativity that is otherwise presupposed by techno-capitalism today (even in its variant “democratic” forms). For what goes under the heading of democracy, e.g., since the American Revolution, must be understood anew through its intertwining with the rise of industrialization, on the one hand, and, on the other, its debt to colonialism (e.g. through the beginning of the slave trade in 1617).39 The racial divisions that have come to light in the United States today, including the economic inequities that have emerged through the recent pandemic, only reinforce the fissures that accrue to an institution of slavery predating the birth of a nation in 1776. As Robert Bernasconi observes, as early as 1946 (in

148  The Turn Toward Stewardship a letter to Karl Jaspers), Hannah Arendt had acknowledged such racial divisions in remarking that “America has a ‘racial’ problem…”40 Thus, “Americanism” also appears through the eclipse of modernity as understood, as Schürmann does, as the “slippages” between historical epochs.41 Even if sharply divided against the ideologies of communism (much less National Socialism), the composition of a government “of and by the people” must inevitably confront “who” has been marginalized and excluded from “membership” in the polis (in order to continue evolving in a fruitful way). Conversely (on the positive side), the destabilizing of the polity at key junctures may also reveal the resiliency of any bodypolitic based on sanctifying free speech, protest and peaceful dissent. The self-imposing of limits within the province of the political challenges our freedom, and the finitude on which the former is predicated, to the highest degree. The case in point is the safeguarding of speech, as a vestibule for the exercise of freedom (as letting-be) and its development into a practice (whether or not we characterize it as “free speech”). Free speech does not attach to the political as a requirement (even if at the cultural level it may appear so), but as a possibility for appropriating and allocating freedom. Hence, the importance lies not in speaking per se, but in prioritizing hearing, i.e., in the reciprocal responsiveness of the disclosure that occurs in the counter reply of the other. Freedom in this sense may correlate with, but is not reducible to, a social practice, as critical theorists and other have argued. By the same token, the call of conscience awakens what is most care-worthy in the self, by prioritizing its potential to hearing, and thus by bringing to light, on an ontological level, the key premise that language is grounded in silence, and the deference of hearing (of heeding what, and dare we say “who” is “othermost”), is an intonement and inkling of normativity. As Eric Nelson remarks in emphasizing the linking between hearing and belonging: “Listening to others is a belonging to them.”42 In this way, the self can exhibit a “social conscience,” that is, through an “emancipatory solicitude” aimed at liberating others, in giving way to, e.g., “freeing,” them to pursue their own possibilities.43 In Being and Time, Heidegger describes solicitude as the self’s “leaping ahead” of the other, in order to highlight the other’s potential to cultivate his/her possibilities (rather than “leaping in for” in order to impose guidance).44 Maximizing the other’s potential to be free is the existential precondition by which individuals of diverse backgrounds can be placed on an “equal” footing. The pursuit of equality, on the one hand, and, on the other, alleviating social inequities, becomes an increasingly important issue in today’s political dialogue. The need to “walk in the other’s footsteps” becomes a catalytic moment when the commitment to listen to those who have been previously marginalized becomes paramount. A social-political dialogue first becomes possible by reversing the priority (of the “privilege”) of speaker and listener, and in the cultural shift of the racial divide, for example,

The Turn Toward Stewardship  149 between “white” and “black.” Nothing less than a new configuration of our incarnality, of our embodied being-with others, can spark attitudes of empathy and compassion, in order that we can cross the space of these racial divisions. Despite its drawbacks, we can still seek in the deepest recesses of his thinking, in what is unthought, the germ for developing new distinctions to address the “coming to be” of a future community. The fact that the other is already implicated in the allocation of freedom does not entail sanctifying the practice of speaking, but, on the contrary, that the declaration of such a ‘right’ can only mirror the way that language already speaks in the provision for its safeguarding. In common parlance, we state: “everyone is entitled to his/her opinion.” Yet this entitlement is only granted through a hierarchy of opinion-makers, who dance dangerously on the side of the truncation of truth into empty platitudes and diminish the disclosive power of truth. On a pragmatic level, free speech can be understood as prioritizing a forum for the exchange of ideas, including the creation of public policy, so long as we uphold the premise of the disclosive power of the word (versus its use as a mere conduit of opinions and information). As Kant emphasized in the Critique of Judgment, the universal signification of the “inmost self” conveys the freedom by which human beings can comply with the law (out of necessity rather than the imposition of external authority). Kant realized that in order to become the predicate of society, the prioritizing of the self’s freedom must guide the “reciprocal communication” that is essential to form public policy.45 The emphasis on the self’s freedom, albeit through a different medium of expression, is also at the heart of Heidegger’s concept of conscience. As previewed in the call of conscience, the endeavor to speak through the reverberations of silence does not simply amount to spouting willy-nilly opinions, but is an awakening to the decision, e.g., the choosing to choose in the course of “taking action.” In this more primordial sense, speaking freely or “openly” includes the responsibility by which the self takes ownership of its finitude and challenges “who” it can be within the expanse of its interaction with others. By extension, the ‘right’ to free speech depends upon the higher “law of freedom” by which Da-sein complies to its finitude, that is, by maximizing its participation (and that of others) within the openness. In our inquiry into the political, we are already drawn back into the hermeneutic circle of this finitude and the disposition toward openness. For example, the paradox of democracy is that it is predicated upon a principle of majority rules, even though the democratic state may not have arisen (and perhaps enter the province of the political) without the dissent of the minority (even through such “moments” of social upheaval and civil disobedience as exemplified by the “civil rights movement” in the United States in the 1960s). As a concrete practice (praxis), free speech lives in the temporalizing of the moment (Augenblick) in which dissent first becomes possible, that is, through actions that express what is most

150  The Turn Toward Stewardship “care-worthy.” Such actions exemplify the open resolve of choosing to choose by upholding the “good” as a precedent capable of being “handed down” and thereby suggesting a new ground on which the concerns of the political can be arranged in a way that is mutually beneficial to others (e.g., the constituency of citizens). On a concrete level, the administration of the political presupposes laws and their expression through the language in which we dwell. Our capacity to dwell within language accompanies our potential to dwell on the earth. Our freedom of speech includes the responsiveness by which we heed call of being and reciprocate for the gift of unconcealment by allowing our words to become a sounding board to speak on behalf of the welfare of the earth, nature, and its diverse habitats. By dwelling in language, we care for its potential, not by monopolizing it to serve the instrumental ends of our self-interest, but through the humility of stewardship by which we become tenants of the earth. Laws can then become proclamations by which mortal become answerable to this larger calling (responsibility in this profounder or “larger” sense). By following the signpost of this hermeneutic venture, then, we can approach the boundary of the political, or its province, as springing forth in its possibility in the strife between world and earth. In this way, we recast Heidegger’s attempt to address the political in terms of its relevance for confronting today’s environmental crisis. Conversely, the key motifs that come to the forefront (e.g., the ‘proprietorship of dwelling, stewardship, and safeguarding the earth) provide a new point of departure to re-open the question of the political. If the next chapter on the political is still to be written, does its possibility remain open through the tasks of building, dwelling, and thinking? The formulation of this question catapults us into the province, of addressing the governance proper to the political, not through an abstract formulation of law, but through a formally indicative example of normativity by which a measure can first appear. In counterbalancing human interests with those of animals, a measure arises at the jointure of being, at the intersection of world and earth. In Contributions to Philosophy, Heidegger makes this remarkable observation: “Considering the nobility of the joining and the vigor of the trust in the hint and the unfurling fury of the frightful, let Da-sein be the innermost order, out of which strifing above all obtains its law.”46 What is this “innermost order”? Heidegger does not state explicitly. He leaves it to us to fill out the hermeneutic mosaic. By perduring the strife between world and earth, Da-sein discovers its law through the stewardship of environmental practice. Environmental practice is intrinsic to dwelling, however, not as a value, but rather as an extension of freedom as “letting-be. “The invocation “to save the earth” exhibits its own temporalizing as a message sent from the cusp of post-modernity. Environmental practice is not, then, an absolute value. Instead, we place a premium on ecology, on environmental

The Turn Toward Stewardship  151 practice, as a shining light that appears in the epochal unfolding of technicity and the global challenge posed by the forces of machination. Let us examine the responsibility that belongs to this environmental practice.

II Responsibility Toward Animals and the Earth A. Reasking the Environmental Question Within the past decade, philosophical interest in the life of animals has become a central topic of phenomenology, both in the attempt to explore the problem of embodiment (through such thinkers as Merleau-Ponty and Heidegger) and in the effort to address our responsibility toward nature in the parallel field of environmental ethics.47 The dimension of embodiment brings to light the concern that animals (despite the differences separating them from us) share in common with human beings, to cultivate a “natural” habitat, or, in Heidegger’s terms, a predisposition to “dwell” on the earth (proper to mortals). The interdependence between nature (physis) [φύσις] and the earth yields a prior setting to situate Da-sein’s capacity to occupy a world [Welt], and thereby points to a jointure (Fuge) in the “between” (Zwischen) of the manifestation of being.48 This jointure connects humans and animals within the common ex-posure to their incarnality (even granted that the openness [Offenheit] thereof becomes factical in the course of Da-sein’s worldly sojourn). How do we think this “jointure of being” (die Fuge des Seins)49 within an ontology that initially erects a sharp divide between humans and our animal counterparts? By appealing to the earth (Erde), and our capacity to dwell upon it, can we cast new light on the presupposition for developing an environmental ethic (and a corollary advocacy for the welfare of animals)? Phenomenologically speaking, could it be the case that this jointure, which holds in tension the human and animal ways “to be,” can appear only indirectly and depend upon a methodology that is “hermeneutical” in the broadest sense, i.e., revolving within an ellipsis that advances forward only by proceeding on an opposite front to question back (Rückfrage)? The crossover between Heidegger’s thinking and environmental ethics not only provides an opportunity to re-examine his entrée into the ethical domain via the intralingual translation of the ethos (ἦθος), but, in so doing, also offers a concrete example to unpack his critique of anthropocentricism, in order to establish the contemporary relevance of that criticism. How can a measure (Maβ) prevail, through the stewardship we exercise today, in order to provide phenomenological attestation for the intimations of Heidegger’s Kehre: as described in Contributions to Philosophy as the “turning relation of being” (kehrige Bezug des Seins) to Dasein,50 of the responsiveness by which the latter heeds the claim (Anspruch) of the former, of the reciprocity between the two? In this question we hear the echo of Hölderlin’s proverb: “Giebt es auf Erden ein Mass?”51

152  The Turn Toward Stewardship Following Heidegger’s attempt to reinterpret the most influential sayings of the ancients, Protagoras’ famous remark that “Man is the measure of all things” comes to mind.52 The import of this crucial maxim can be appreciated anew as providing a signpost or a hermeneutic marker, to aid in the endeavor that is already underway in the search for a “trans-human” ethic,53 namely, to strike a balance between the interests of animals and human beings. By heeding the oscillation of this midpoint, swaying, as it were, between the two, we can provide a further reinterpretation or hermeneutic account of the message of Protagoras’ statement. Drawing upon the legacy of the Pre-Socratics, Arendt offers a hermeneutic reminder of humanity’s connectedness to beings—as earthbound creatures—including his/her unique stance within and belonging to nature.54 Through this hermeneutic account, we will uncover the premise for a trans-human ethic, on the one hand, and, on the other, offer a phenomenological, evidentiary footing for understanding the complexities of Heidegger’s being-historical thinking (seinsgeschichtliche Denken). In this way, we will discover how a concern to promote animal welfare belongs to the task of stewardship, which casts Da-sein into the wider orbit of its relation to being. Conversely, the “turning” of this hermeneutic ellipsis, allows being (e.g., the verbal sense of “to be”) to become manifest through a jointure gathering humans and animals into a common place of dwelling. Within a post-Heideggerian, phenomenological context, the appeal to “alterity” would best summarize the foremost prescription that governs ethical inquiry (from a phenomenological perspective)—even beyond Heidegger’s development of an “original ethics” in his famous “Letter on ‘Humanism.’”55 We must reconsider what is meant by “prescriptive” in this context, while assuming a more fundamental significance than the sense ascribed in modern philosophy through the division between value and fact. The formulation of alterity echoes Heidegger’s appeal to the otherness and differentiation of being, even while giving greater specificity within the ethical realm, as exemplified, for instance, through Levinas’ account of the “face of the other” as a formal predisposition for all moral awareness.56 That formality, however, admits a further distinction and different appropriation in the adjacent pursuit within environmental ethics to address the welfare of our animal counterparts, and to advocate for their protection within a greater mandate of honoring the otherness of nature. Here alterity distinguishes a formality, which anchors two distinct foci of ethical inquiry, either of which may assume priority and yet are not mutually exclusive. The question then becomes: How do we map Heidegger’s thinking upon this ethical landscape, even if his original ethics never proposes anything specific concerning the development of a norm or an intimation of the good? Or, put another way, through such specificity, can what is implicated normatively within a concrete context,

The Turn Toward Stewardship  153 e.g., the concern for animal welfare, be turned around or reversed, to “indicate” (formally) the transformative shift in our relation to being that lends credence to these ethical concerns (centered on alterity)? Does environmental ethics, in its advocacy on behalf of animals, assume such a rupture, analogous to what Levinas identified in order to interject an ethical perspective otherwise lacking in Heidegger’s fundamental ontology? Heidegger’s appeal to a “measure” provides us with an important clue to re-think normativity outside the discipline of traditional ethics, and hence how the invocation to “save the earth” can have ethical implications apart from the assignment of any specific value. While we may assume too much in attributing an environmental perspective to Heidegger,57 his thinking still provides a platform on which to address various issues in environmental ethics and deep ecology. Heidegger’s precedent of questioning-back suggests a hermeneutic strategy, which coalesces a nexus of concerns. Specifically, he rediscovers the roots of ethics in the ethos, which in turn receives its coordinates from the earth, whose safeguarding (as an outgrowth of our appropriation by and response to the claim of being) implies a “norm” for environmental ethics. For example, in his critique of machination, Heidegger points to the dangerous rise of the “factory farm.” Indirectly, however, he provides a footing for environmental philosophers today to confront the brutality of technized agriculture,58 thereby opening the way for alternative practices that can be precedent or “measure-setting,” i.e., answer to a higher claim of stewardship. We must emphasize the importance, not simply of a normative standpoint, but of the reciprocal responsiveness that predisposes us toward and attunes us beforehand to our receptivity to any “measure.” An ethics of care or stewardship becomes “normative” in the sense of proceeding from an attunement, which changes our relation to nature as a whole and, in so doing, sets new precedents that mirror our reciprocity with being and its claim of stewardship. When seen in this light, a measure is the precursor to all norms, to what is normative in the conventional sense. Heidegger emphasizes the formality proper to first heeding a “measure,” the reciprocal responsiveness or attunement [Stimmung] (before the determination of what is so by “measured,” e.g., the articulation of a norm through language [logos])—but this does not mean to the exclusion of any content whatsoever. Thus, the stewardship that rescues nature from the destructive forces of machination can be exemplified in specific practices that protect animals from exploitation as mere resources. The transhuman claim of stewardship counterbalances our interest with those of animals, thereby allowing them to flourish in a “clearing in which things come to presence on their own.”59 As Martha Nussbaum emphasizes, how we safeguard, and perhaps even cultivate animal’s potential to flourish, indicates a “good” toward which we can strive as an element within a larger portrait of justice.60 Though there is a need to protect domestic

154  The Turn Toward Stewardship animals, we cannot ignore the endangerment of wildlife—including elephants, lions, and tigers—to the onslaught of “poaching” in the name of “trophy hunting.” We can draw a parallel with Kant’s contention that the practical self’s receptive-spontaneity, as experienced through its feeling of respect (Achtung), allows us to be bound by the very law we also legislate. In Kant’s case, the formality of the moral law, of the categorical imperative, is such that it “can” only apply (i.e., “ought implies can”) when enacted through the freedom of the practical self. By the same token, we must also observe the gulf separating Kant’s account of morality from Heidegger’s original ethics, namely, the latter’s criticism of the rationalistic and anthropocentric premise of the Enlightenment. Yet Heidegger’s early allegiance with Kant, and in defending him against the counterclaims of Max Scheler’s material ethic,61 tells us something important. Through his original ethics, Heidegger seeks a formality at even a “higher level” than Kant, with the caveat, however, that what has been forgotten in modern ethics is its origin in the ethos and hence how our interdependence with nature shapes our capacity to dwell. The otherness stemming from our relation to with nature allows a “measure” to emerge. Such a measure determines (i.e., harbors or gives voice to) a claim [Anspruch]), by which we can (Sorge) exercise care through our reciprocity with being. A care that is both solicited from being, and yet administered by us, involves stewardship. For Heidegger, this dimension of the twofold, of occurring simultaneously on dual fronts, of our relation to being and its relation to us, takes a distinctive form when harboring an ethical connotation: stewardship. Not surprisingly, environmentalists construe such stewardship as an ethical claim, that is, as a rallying cry to protect and safeguard the earth, its habitats, and the animals living upon it. Stewardship emerges at an even higher level of formality by which Heidegger redefines care. But does this appropriation of Heidegger’s thinking by environmentalists constitute a “leap,” that is, “the preliminary guidance and takingoff of [a] projection” [der Absprung des Entwurfs)],”62 and, if so, not in a precipitous, magical way, but as articulable as a new entry point into an ellipsis of interpretation, e.g., the hermeneutic circle? B. The Claim of Embodiment Who is capable of stewardship? For Heidegger, the individualized trajectory of the “who” becomes manifest through this new enactment of care, as self-concern (including the modes of ownedness and unownedness), concern for others (solicitude), and concern toward items of equipment (circumspective concern). When defined more radically to include the capacity for dwelling, through the potential for stewardship, the administration of care is not confined even to these three aspects. For what Heidegger outlines as the compass of world, through which the field of

The Turn Toward Stewardship  155 human concern unfolds, appears anew within a wider expanse of truth, of the tension between concealment and unconcealment. Thus, a further level of differentiation occurs, the setting forth of world in contrast with the earth, such that in the tension of this strife mortals can undertake the task of dwelling in the most original way. Perhaps the “who” is addressed most singularly, not by Heidegger, but by his student Hannah Arendt, with her unique phenomenological expression that “we are earthbound creatures living in a community.”63 While not the only entry point, the question of the “who” provides the initial impetus for the “leap” into the hermeneutical circle. As outlined in Sein und Zeit, the hermeneutical circle first brings to fruition the relation between Da-sein and being, the circular implication between the former’s existence and its capacity for philosophical understanding. Heidegger reopens the path otherwise foreclosed to Kant in addressing human finitude. By reopening this pathway (Denkweg), Heidegger’s inquiry both broadens and deepens to recover Da-sein’s interdependence with the absenting-presencing of nature, its capacity to dwell, and to temporalize through the transience, e.g., the “abiding” and “whiling” of its mortality (in contrast to the gods).64 In this way, Heidegger can also re-discover the physicality highlighting its thrownness into the world,65 the further differentiation of its facticity, the incarnality of its “earth-boundedness.”66 As Heidegger states in the concluding section (#261) of Contributions to Philosophy: “When the gods call the earth and a world resonates in the call and thus the call echoes Da-sein of man, then language is as historical, as history-grounding word.”67 Within this wider trajectory of phenomenological questioning, the “who” admits a more distinctive and singular determination, that is, as embodied, as “incarnated,” and as a participant within a linguistic-temporal clearing. The initial gulf that would separate animals (as “world-poor”) and humans (as “world-openness”) in their “to be” is not eliminated, but instead becomes subordinate to another chiasmus, namely, the strife (Streit) between world and earth. Thus, in the explicit move against anthropocentricism and humanism, what differentiates animals and humans, for example, a sense of mortality, no longer suggests a mere deficiency in the embodied lives of animals, but instead can “formally indicate” a completely new comportment (Verhalten) of humility by human beings. In this formally indicative manner, Da-sein’s world-openness includes its own “poverty” (die Armut), a way of being-poor that transports itself into the openness of an individual’s mutual ex-posure to the vicissitudes of the flesh, as embodied, including the capacity for suffering.68 As Heidegger states in Contributions to Philosophy: “From within enowning [Ereignis], wherein the belongingness is historically grounded, first arises the foundation for the ‘why’ life and body, procreation and sex, and lineage—said fundamentally: the earth.”69 As Vallega-Neu emphasizes, “the earth… is that on which humans found their living…,”

156  The Turn Toward Stewardship yielding the protective shroud for all forms of life.”70 In this context, the further determination of the “as” becomes explicit by formally indicating the humility of a response, which engenders care for those concomitantly granted a “space” (Raum), e.g., a habitat on the earth. As Hans-Georg Gadamer states (in underscoring my attempt to address animal welfare outside the so-called split between “early” and “later” Heidegger): All of us should ever be relearning that when Heidegger spoke in his early writings of ‘formal indication’ [formale Anzeige], he already formulated something that holds for the whole of his thought. At issue here is something decisive for the entire enterprise of his thinking.71 Our stewardship of the earth, then, suggests a way of dwelling in which we serve as “tenants,” thereby also safeguarding the space reserved for the habitat of animals, in which they, too, can flourish in their way “to be” (and we can promote their “well-being”).72 While Heidegger does not directly attribute the capacity to flourish to animals in the Aristotelian sense that some environmentalist do, he does suggest a comparable potential that animals have in his lecture course on Kant from the Winter Semester of 1935/36: “We cannot infer… that the animal has no relation to food, light, air, and other animals. We need only recall how animals play” (an das Spiel der Tiere).73 The question then arises how to characterize the manner in which animals can also be included within the ethos of our situated dwelling, or, conversely, how that ethos, extending outward from the self-concealing, sheltering of the earth, envelops the diversity of animal life. Can we discern an ethical mandate, if not an imperative? Within this hermeneutic context, only a “measure” can arise prior to an explicit norm. The measure does not allow for the elevation of animals on a par with humans, in the specific way that the contemporary ethicist, Peter Singer, suggests (nor address differences between “wild” and “domesticated” and/or “companion” animals).74 Instead, the self-humbling of human beings, as embodied, fosters a concern for the protection and preservation of a common space of inhabitation (that we share with animals on the earth). When human beings speak on behalf of those who cannot, they “let-be” by allowing language itself to speak beyond the scope of anthropocentric interests alone. In this way, a measure exacts from us an attuned responsiveness, in the administration of care, e.g., compassion, which amplifies our common source of incarnality and extends the boundaries of the ethos to include animals. As one scholar observes, Heidegger understands ethos in this primordial sense as “open terrain” (as reminiscent of a relation to the earth), which “is closer to the nomes.”75 But “who” thereby benefits, if not us? The incarnality of our earth-bound existence makes explicit the allocation of a space, a distinctive habitat, on which our animal counterparts depend, if they are to flourish.76 The grammar of the subjunctive

The Turn Toward Stewardship  157 “if” reminds us that we must also emphasize what shows itself, the way in which the “to be” of animals become manifest (within the wider manifestation of being [Sein]). This grammatical shift in language ensures that the recommendations and mandates of environmental ethics are to have any content (and for us to realize as well that an original ethics does not proceed from the sharp divide between “ought” and “is,” “value” and “fact”). As Heidegger states in his “Letter on ‘Humanism,’” only insofar as man “belongs to being,” can being itself yield the “directives” by which human beings can seek governance for their own dwelling.77 Within phenomenology, a hermeneutic footing is thereby provided to develop a moral outlook on behalf of our animal counterparts. A measure inscribes a sense of proportionality in our relation to animals, countering their interests with our own. We walk a fine line between an ethos disposing us to act on behalf of the welfare of animals and a biocentricist position within environmental ethics that we are obligated to protect animals because they possess intrinsic value or even explicit “rights.”78 Heidegger did not advocate biocentricism in the sense of privileging the natural realm as possessing intrinsic worth. In avoiding the simple dichotomy between anthropocentricism and biocentricism, we take the precursory steps to uncover the premise of environmental ethics: specifically, to employ Heidegger’s formally indicative concepts to map out the landscape of that ethos, such that the logos (λóγος) of the former, i.e., of hermeneutic phenomenology, can spawn the distinctions to shape a normative discourse for the latter, i.e., a trans-human ethic. Does Heidegger’s thinking allow for a trans-human perspective on animals, which can foster the development of a socio-biotic community governed by a set of principles, if not laws? What would be the source of this governance, which extends forward to the furthest reaching possibility of the political?

III The Echo of Justice: Future Generations and “Homecoming” A. Compassion and Humility Hermeneutics offers an alternative to the modern attempt to define what is lawful according to a rational paradigm of pure presence. Modern norms of “equality,” “fairness”, and “justice” may not, however, be irrelevant. On the contrary, the hermeneutic method redirects us to the presuppositions for administrating care by which limits are first set to mediate contrary interests between humans and animals within a socio-biotic community— including the self-limitation that our relation to the earth, as the harbinger of all habitats, imposes upon us through our embodiment.79 Correlatively, the political re-emerges as an enactment of this self-limitation,80 for example, through the building, dwelling, and thinking that leads to the creation of a socio-biotic community. How, then, would he define the hallmark of this

158  The Turn Toward Stewardship community, which founds the political through the dwelling that endures the strife of world and earth. Toward the conclusion of Contributions to Philosophy, Heidegger provides us with a clue in one of his rare allusions to love. “World and earth in their strife will raise love and death into their utmost and will bring love and death together in fidelity to god,” that is, through the ex-posure and openness of uniting joy with suffering.81 Love is the receptive attentiveness by which we can become open to, and promoted to, act in accord with the highest calling of our being, e.g., the capacity to let-be (rather than as merely an emotion or subjective agency). In his brief lecture in June 1945, Heidegger employs the idiom “mourning joyfulness” to describe Da-sein’s self-surrender to the empty nullity (“poverty” as surpassing the clinging of “need”), i.e., “letting-be.”82 Perhaps more explicitly than Heidegger, Jacques Derrida (following J. Patočka) points to the interdependence between love and death as the complex tapestry by which the self responds to the other as finite.83 The example of love indicates how a grounding-attunement is a key element in the formulation of laws. Indeed, laws cannot simply be reduced to external prohibitions. Thus, the law by which we “receive” the earth comes to fruition in, and acclimates us to, the grounding-attunement by which we enact care, become stewards, and engage in those compassionate practices that provide the building blocks for a socio-biotic community. In the “jointure of being,” the ethical and the political mirror each other. For the conformity of law through freedom, and the concrete practices that adhere to a “measure” form a balance in the regulation of our interactions with others, nature, and our animal counterparts. Perhaps it is both a strength and weakness of Heidegger’s thought that he never broaches the divide between the ethical and the political, e.g., in a Kantian sense where the enforcement of laws or “legality” fills in the gap vacated by the self’s need (or inability) to become self-legislative or morality. Despite lacking a system, Heidegger’s hermeneutic nevertheless casts a spotlight upon the scope of the jurisdiction of laws (i.e., across the diversity of nature and the “scarcity” of its resources”).84 This trajectory of inquiry points back to the origin of law, as well as our willingness to be governed in concert with the freedom we exercise through our dwelling on the earth. Although Heidegger rarely employs the term “law” (Gesetz), he does so in a key passage from “Overcoming Metaphysics.” The unnoticeable law of the earth preserves the earth in the sufficiency of the emerging and perishing of all things in the allotted sphere of the possible which everything follows, and yet nothing knows… It is one thing just to use the earth, another to receive the blessing of the earth and to become at home in the law of this reception [den Segen der Erde zu empfangen und im Gesetz dieser Empfängnis heimisch zu werden] in order to shepherd the mystery of being and watch over the inviolability of the possible [die Unvertletzlichkeit des Möglichen].85

The Turn Toward Stewardship  159 Through its intimation via a measure, the law already helps human beings to map the landscape of their dwelling, whenever they assemble into a community.86 Yet we must emphasize the coordinates of this community is not simply ‘here’ and ‘now,’ but instead arises in the trajectory of its arrival, development, and creation from the future. The devotion of our stewardship, for example, in preserving nature, spans generations (rather than simply confined to the benefit of our contemporaries). Nor does the community simply absorb the individual, but instead depends upon the creativity and resoluteness of individuals to “‘found’ and ‘build’ the ‘in-between’ of people and gods.”87 As we look forward from the ancients to today, we must still ask how such caring can originate within an ecstatic openness, and thereby be a harbinger of a prior appeal to alterity or otherness. As Heidegger states in his pioneering lecture course from 1929/30 on animals, whatever we indicate by the temporal designation “today” can usher in “the possibility of a completely new philosophical epoch” only when explicitly temporalized as and breaking forth through the “moment of vision” (Augenblick).88 When viewed through the hermeneutic prism of temporality, laws originate from a meaning-engendering process, reflecting Da-sein’s selfquestioning and self-interpreting throughout the course of its historical thrownness. Perhaps when Pericles made the prophetic statement about the polis, he had in view the thrownness of this self-interpretive venture, in which human beings must abide in the strife between earth and world in order that they can heed such an appeal. Otherwise laws are reduced to hierarchies of organization that they sanction, and thereby become indifferent to the original impetus to set limits as we heed the appeal of otherness in which justice diké (Δίκη) has its origin. In his lecture course on Parmenides from the Winter Semester of 1942/43, Heidegger points to the danger when laws are reduced to legal platitudes, to the drive toward self-legitimatization, thereby becoming further assimilated to the modern will to assert control, mastery, certitude, and righteousness. As he emphasizes, the modern legalistic tradition derives from the Roman concept of law and its Latin rendering as a form of “bidding,” “commanding,” and imposing a higher authority. “The command is the essential ground of domination and of iustum, as understood in Latin, the ‘to-be-in the-right’ and to ‘have a right.’”89 If theorizing about the law has its own metaphysical presuppositions, as Heidegger contends, then it may still be relevant to ask “how does it stand with being?,” that is, are we still capable of standing forth in its ecstatic openness. An appeal to otherness can reach human beings, not simply through their volition, but only as appropriated by and for being. The specific “as” of this determination (the hermeneutical-as), the grammar of its declension, comes to fruition through the double genitive “des.” The “des” distinguishes a proprietorship, in which Da-sein becomes answerable to what is other, and thereby summoned into its role of stewardship, that is, as both “owned over” (übereignet) and taking ownership for its capacity to dwell. The

160  The Turn Toward Stewardship reciprocal relation of responsiveness depends on a temporalizing centered on the potential for absencing as well as presencing. Let us call this the “temporality of being.” The temporality of being both summons and allows man (by letting-be) to provide the site or place for unconcealment. In this appropriative movement, in this ecstatic openness, spatiality is simultaneously re-allocated as a counter tension to this “expanse”: that is, as the trajectory (worauf) of Da-sein’s entrance into and rootedness within a “place.” The proprietorship of the “des” enacts the double-determination of space (Raum) as “place.”90 Human beings come to dwell in the place (Ort), which they are simultaneously commissioned to project-open. In this way, the ethos of ethics first becomes possible. The twofold of this summoning/heeding yields a further level of differentiation to being’s appearance, thereby distinguishing the ways of “belonging to” from dual vectors: that is, through being’s relation to us and the enactment of our way “to be” through our relation to others (including our animal counterparts)—by which we can dwell and exercise care accordingly. The “des” of proprietorship, arising from and returning to Da-sein’s “belonging together” (Zusammengehören) with being, co-determines the manner of governance. If the latter is predicated on freedom, then we are so “bound” by the directive (the imposing of a limit) of any measure must always be counterbalanced by the power to “let-be.” In the balancing, counterbalancing, and setting of a measure, the des conveys a double gesture, of and by being. Within the context of dwelling, of the establishment of its abode, our exercise of stewardship simultaneously deposes the supremacy of the human and elevates what is otherwise under its dominance (as “inferior” in rank)—rupturing this false hierarchy of comparison. But the governing consists as much in inducing receptivity thereby, as in commanding and imposing a mandate. The claim of our embodiment and our dwelling on the earth calls forth a grounding-attunement, which prepares the way for our becoming affected and duly responsive.91 Unlike in the case of a rationally set norm, our embodiment brings to light the transitory character of our sojourn on the earth, the demarcation separating us from the gods. Here the reference to the gods is not simply a religious invocation, but an acknowledgment of a historical (geschichtlich) interlude,92 the “destitute time” in which the gods have absconded or taken flight.93 This destitute time interjects the pause in which we can address once again, as the ancients did, the difference between a measure and a set of norms, the temporalizing (prior to any normative proclamations), which we must experience in order that we can be awakened to a new challenge of dwelling on the earth. Perhaps it is unsurprising, then, that Nietzsche’s Zarathustra, while experiencing the rise of nihilism, emphasizes fidelity to the earth. The journey of “going under” creates the momentum to “cross over,” in Heidegger’s case, to the inception of the “other beginning.” As Heidegger states in Contributions to Philosophy:

The Turn Toward Stewardship  161 Our hour is the epoch of going-under. Taken in its essential sense, going-under means going along the path of the reticence preparing for those who are to come, for the site, in all of which the decision of the arrival and staying-away of gods falls…. Those who are going-under in the essential sense are those who are suffused with what is coming (what is futural) and sacrifice themselves to it as its future invisible ground. They are the inabiding ones who ceaseless expose themselves to questioning.94 By hearing the echo of Nietzsche’s proclamation, by heeding its otherness, we rise to the level of showing compassion. This grounding-experience (Grunderfahrung) implies a claim that ex-poses us to the multifarious suffering embodied in our mortality, which we share with others, and through our co-responding interdependence with nature, with our animal counterparts as well. By exercising compassion accordingly, we experience the humility of belonging to being, as transposed into the wider expanse of its openness. In occupying this “between,” in the midpoint of joining mortals and gods, sky and earth, a wider birth of dwelling emerges—the planting of the seeds for a socio-biotic community. If today we cannot identify this community as already present, we can at least formally indicate its relevance in pointing ahead to transforming the self-understanding and mindfulness (Besinnung) of what it means to be human: that is, developing the “who” of care as stewardship. In establishing a new abode of human dwelling, our mortality conveys a double gesture of both an ownership for the possibility of death singular to us and a co-responding responsiveness as interwoven with nature, e.g., as a further claim on and reminder of our transience or “whiling.” In this way, our transience formally indicates both our finitude as mortals and the task assigned to us through our dwelling, that is, as tenants of the earth. By heeding this double-gesture, we can hear the echo (Anklang) of a Greek proverb, of Protagoras’ saying (Sage) in a new way: “Man is the measure of things…” In appealing to the precedent set by Protagoras, Chatzisavvidou observes: …Protagoras follows… in his era [the] association of justice with balance, a norm that extends from nature to human societies. To pursue diké is to pertain to balance. In this sense, diké is situational justice; not justice that is already in place, in the form of laws, contracts and principles, but one that remains open to be defined and re-appropriated.95 Justice cannot be reduced to ‘righteousness,’ and the assignment of ‘rights’ in accord with the modern standard of the Enlightenment. Rather, the hermeneutic appeal to the interconnectedness of nature provides

162  The Turn Toward Stewardship another sounding board to heed justice through our way of inhabiting and belonging to the earth. We may not liken the extinction of species (when natural habitats shrink due to human encroachment)96 to some kind of “injustice,” insofar as we privilege our interests over nature. The interconnectedness of nature reveals that breaking the ties of ecosystem has repercussions, both near and far, on the viability of habitats and the bounty of the earth on which we depend. Thus, the concern for “overpopulation” does not simply involve the statistical rate of human offspring, but the collateral pressures on non-human habitats (including clear air and water). But the eco-nomy of this environmental claim also has repercussions for the benefit of healthier “life-styles” for human beings. The environmental synergies between the human and the non-human reveal greater complexities involved in preserving ecosystems across the earth. The politics of “conspicuous consumption”97 in wealthy nations figures as much into the ‘overpopulation’ debate as do statistics of rising birthrates (in so-called less developed countries). To quote Irwin: The world is dominated by technological change. There is formidable altercation in capitalistic production, patterns of economic exchange the priorities of knowledge… The deterritorialization of global finance and production has decoupled responsibility for care of people, places, species and ecosystems.98 The list of forest fires goes on and on, including the devastation created by draught conditions between Denver and Fort Collins, Colorado (October 2020). Even the 2020 contest for the presidency of the United State reveals a split among the candidates over concerns as to the extent of global warming, the danger of greenhouse gas emissions (e.g., carbon dioxide, methane gases), the possibility of a transition to non-fossil fuels, and controversial activities such as the hydraulic fracking of oil. Most recently, the havoc wrought by unprecedented freezing temperatures in the state of Texas (February 2021)—casting light on the lack of planning and foresight into strategies of energy conservation and distribution— reveals the other side of the extremes of climate change. When divested of his anthropocentric focus, and thereby embracing his/her transience, “man” become the “measure” again.99 That is, Da-sein appropriates what is both more and presumably “less” than human, in such a way that its own dwelling can serves as an example of belonging to nature, that is, as setting forth a new sense of proportionality (i.e., as “measure-setting” [Maβ-setzung]) across the diverse spectrum of beings in the whole. Through this example, Da-sein is simultaneously “measured-by” the proprietorship of “belonging to” and thereby can “set the measure” for any compliance and possible governance. Beyond the metaphysics of subjectivity, Da-sein is the measure-setter only insofar as it is

The Turn Toward Stewardship  163 also “measured” through its capacity for stewardship or its compliance to law by “letting-be.” “Poetic dwelling,” as Heidegger echoes Hölderlin’s words, exceeds even the will to achievement. We dwell poetically when we commune with nature, in such a way as to allow its otherness to appear and mirror our reciprocity with be-ing. Echoing Meister Eckhart, Heidegger describes this meditative moment, in which we submit to a power beyond all willing, “releasement.” Through poetic dwelling, then, we become mindful of our relation to all things, and, in accord with the deepest humility, seek an appropriate measure. Let us proceed further to specify this way of yielding to a measure, the intermediary between activity and passivity (the middle voice) by which both “measuring” and being “measured” by a “norm,” can occur to strike a balance (e.g., a “precedent”) beyond the one-sidedness of imposing authority. Perhaps we can seek such an example in the intonation of a contemporary mantra: “Think globally, act locally.” In this iconic expression, we discover the trace of the confluence of building, dwelling, and thinking, which unfolds at the intersection of the interests of humans and animals. We “act locally,” in protecting the interests of animals, both wild and domestic. From a Heideggerian standpoint, the cornerstone of activism on both fronts lies in securing habitats for those diverse creatures, whether protecting an endangered snow leopard (living in the mountains of central Asia) or a “community cat” (living outside in urban America).100 Indeed, the protecting of such habitats squares with our capacity to dwell on the earth, including the preservation of natural “resources” (e.g., land and water) contrary to their deployment for technocratic purposes alone. As ecosystems, habitats imply a distribution of the earth’s bounty, of what is intangible, such as clean air, as well as what is tangible (land and water), and their confluence in providing shelter and sustenance. We can only suggest, however, that Heidegger’s thinking may inform environmental practices, rather than attribute to his thought a specific ecological stance or position.101 Climatologists warn that “time is running out” to make the changes necessary, in everyday practice as well as policy, to confront the epic effects of global warming—the melting of the polar ice caps, extremes of climate change. As Ruth Irwin states: The devastation caused by the cyclones in Louisiana, especially New Orleans, was not unexpected… The original swampy forest was stripped away long ago and the city sprawls out among the diked canals and lakes. There are seasonal hurricanes that go through the area nearly every year. Climate change is likely to exacerbate the hurricane season because the warmer ocean accentuates the cycle of evaporation and perspirations so that storms are often harsher and more frequent.102

164  The Turn Toward Stewardship But what does “time” mean in this warning? Is it the time in which there may no longer be wild habitats, pure mountain streams, and spacious green lands? In this context, time is a formal indicator of the imminent danger of technology, and the inception of a crisis that spans the past (of the previous centuries of industrialization) and the future of what may be in store for future generations. The thrust of machination is to compress “time” into smaller and smaller intervals of expedient. As the above statement suggests, in in this digital age of mouse clicks and immediate gratification “timeliness” still pervades time, the potential of opening the “moment” of de-cision. Even in these darkest ‘times’ of the environmental crisis, “there is time” insofar as “there is being,” and vice versa. B. Practice and Activism Heidegger re-examines such key moral concerns and concepts like responsibility as indicating corollary capacities “to be” in the world, and thereby provides an impetus to address their origin in the situatedness of the ethos (in which the discipline of ethics resides). Such “normative” concepts are not simply convertible into corollary, ontological terms. Rather, the questioning-back to what is unthought transposes the axis of inquiry, the supplanting of a narrower context of investigation by a broader, more primordial one. In hermeneutic terms, the transposing of one context into another allows normative concepts to “formally indicate” a nexus of meanings, which springs from the relation between being and Da-sein (rather than designate properties reserved strictly in our humanity). By drawing upon a deeper repository of meaning, the appeal to what is unthought and unsaid spawns a new context to translate such primordial expressions as “responsiveness” in lieu of their normative (and metaphysically based) correlates, e.g., responsibility.103 As such, responsiveness fosters a reciprocal relationship with what is radically other, or alterity, as conferred by being, rather than as a power discharged by an exclusively human capability such as the will. Within this wider orbit of inquiry, being’s relation to mortals enters into play, in order to unfold the spectrum of enriched meanings, most notably those highlighting the enactment of freedom, beyond the pale of human subjectivity. Although it is certainly relevant to address Heidegger’s relation to ethics, and, beyond that, a “trans-human” approach to the ethical, initially this task emerges as an offshoot of questioning back to the ethos and its role in unfolding the reciprocity between being and man, on which the possibility of freedom is predicated. Methodologically speaking, we must consider the continual evolving and expanding of the hermeneutic situation. The questioning-back is reminiscent of what Heidegger characterizes as a “metontological turn” (Umschlag), which is similar to a further ellipsis within the hermeneutic circle, an “overturning” pivoting around its own center.104 This transformative moment gathers the impetus for a

The Turn Toward Stewardship  165 turning-over, turning-around, and “counter-turning” (Widerkehre), such that relation between being and Da-sein transposes the axis of philosophy inquiry;105 and, conversely, freedom emerges as the dynamic midpoint to harbor the tension of this reciprocity (between being and man). This act of reciprocating, then, defines the first and foremost overture or “gesture” of freedom, the concession that counterbalances the awarding of being’s gift of unconcealment. As the vessel and instigator of this act, a demand falls upon Da-sein to safeguard its participation in that openness. A mandate is thereby issued in accord with freedom, in the act of letting-be, which calls Da-sein to assume this role of stewardship, e.g., of “letting the earth be as earth.”106 The stewardship in question both outstrips and makes possible any subsequent declaration of a norm, as calling upon a prior proprietorship, the oscillating of a midpoint (Wesensmitte), through which the power of freedom can be dispensed, received, and administered. Rather than confined to the division between theoretical and practical, freedom still exacts the highest claim, including the predisposition to be answerable, to be responsive, in previewing the constraint of any other mandate or requirement through which norms in any ethical context can first arise. In recovering freedom in this primordial way, Heidegger does not simply subordinate (the normative claims of) ethics to ontology, but, on the contrary, proceeds in questioning-back to its origin in the ethos. Only by breaking the shackles of freedom’s deployment as an extension of the human will, and hence as modeled upon a metaphysical notion of permanence presence (and the erection of such “eternal” norms) can a “trans-human ethic” become possible. Within such an ethic, sociality and community no longer convey only the collective whole of the human way “to be,” but instead reveal the appropriation of being to (zugeeignet) Da-sein and the “proprietorship” holding between the former and the latter. Through humanity’s belonging to being, and the reciprocal claim whereby the latter answers the former (or freedom), the bond that gather us into community become possible as a mode of stewardship, ordination, and ownership. The jointure (Fuge) gathering human and animals together is an original and singular manifestation of being, beyond what is narrowly revealed within the scope of anthropocentricism. Conversely, the development of a socio-biotic community is not simply an “ontic” derivative, but instead in an expression of the twofold (Zwiespalt), of the manifestation of being in beings and of Da-sein’s abiding within (inständig) the strife between earth and world. In the search (that is, the seeking, questioning) for a trans-human ethic, the transformation of hermeneutic phenomenology is already underway, becoming question-worthy (frag-würdig) in its own right, and we do so as well in our deepest origins. As Heidegger states in the tumultuous period in which he composed the Black Notebooks, Dasein is re-examined in terms of its greatest question-worthiness (Fragwürdigkeit des Daseins), that is, in regards to its greatest possibility of anxiety (groβen Angst).107

166  The Turn Toward Stewardship The “timeliness” of his thinking still hinges on how it speaks within a global setting,108 which, as dominated by machination (Machenschaft), may still evoke alternative possibilities for being’s unconcealment, and reciprocally, we can stand-forth, through our dwelling, within the singularity of that openness. As such, Heidegger’s original ethics remains an open-ended task, a possibility still to be explored. Its “formality” calls for a renewed phenomenological appreciation of the broader compass of our inhabitation of the earth and the “jointure” offered through it, wherein the interests of animals and humans can converge in the development of a socio-biotic community. This socio-biotic community provides a setting in which human beings can “think globally, act locally” (through their enactment of building, dwelling, thinking). Dwelling implies responsibility, and through the exercise of stewardship culminations in environmental practice. Yet practice is another name for acting. In which the ethical and political can converge in a nexus, which answers a higher call of stewardship with a conversation about how new precedents can arise within the sway of lawfulness. If the intersection of the ethical and the political remains unthought for Heidegger, then so does the way in which environmental practice translates into specific acts of stewardship (e.g., activism for clear air, water, and the protection of natural habitats). Stewardship as the catalyst for political action is still an enactment of freedom as letting-be. This is contrary to the techno-state, which operates according to a relentless will to power, which abolishes all limits and makes affluence into an end in itself. By contrast, the proprietorship of dwelling restores limits, by granting space non-human dimensions of the earth to thrive and flourish. Examples of such stewardship may be found in native and indigenous “peoples,” for whom the sacred permeates all things and animals, serves as divine emissaries (e.g., the sky and heavens above). As Cardoza-Kon remarks: the concern for a native American “relationship-based ontology of care that is rooted in the perspective that the nonhuman world is prior to the human is appropriate to the overall discussion of technology, politics, and responsibility.”109 The arising and returning of our existence into the shelter of the earth, and the assignment of limits, direction, and ends to our freedom, marks the interface between the claim of the past and promise of the future. The temporally enacted and factically defined unfolding of this site first allows our social and political actions to achieve a foothold in sparking change, that is, in seeking to build a socio-biotic community. As Radloff states; …Heidegger does not abolish or deconstruct arche and telos, but rather retrieves both. Arche is understood as the unfolding of motion out of the reserve of sheltering unconcealment. The telos of political action would be being-toward-a-limit, thus directed toward the revelation of the limit which lets each being be. Political action

The Turn Toward Stewardship  167 is legitimated by the act of setting beings into their proper limits. Political action in this sense takes responsibility for the polity and for beings in the face of the in-differentiation and thus functional activation of all beings under the regime of technology.110 C. Future Decisions The question concerning the political inevitably reverts to the question of justice. We would mistakenly formulate this later question, however, by asking what justice is, as if it were something about which we could theorize and possibly explain through a pre-established conceptual framework, e.g., a Platonic eidos. We must proceed instead according to a disjunctive grammar, which by acknowledging the absence of such a concept, enters into the withdrawal or refusal of any such metaphysical presumption of presence. Through the counter resonance of this refusal, another appeal can be made, that is, a “giving” from which echoes a call to justice. Only through the reciprocal relation of our potential to answer such a call can (the concern for) justice itself arise, not as an abstract concept, but in the offering of an invitation by which we can be disposed toward another possibility of governance, the introduction of a “measure.” The giving, then, harbors and transmits the call through the intoning of an attunement, that is, through reverberation of an echo that may only be faintly heard (but which may not be presented directed or immediately). As Heidegger states in Contributions to Philosophy: And yet, in order to necessitate the abandonment of being as distress, we must be mindful of each, so that the utmost distress, the lack of distress in this distress, breaks open and lets the remotes nearness to the flight of the gods echo.111 Like the silent call of conscience, such an appeal requires its distinct grounding-attunement. If not anxiety, then, the disruptive and disorienting experience of distress provides the grounding-attunement (Grundstimmung) within the compass of being-historical thinking. If the counter resonance of its refusal first “gives” justice, then it is by enduring the tension of the profoundest distress that we can first hear its call, that is, in the most distant echo of all. The possibility of justice, then, traverses a historical arc, and cannot be reduced to any ideal, or, for that matter, the prevalence of cultural norms. The breaks and ruptures of history, in the guise of historical epochs, invites (clears the space for) historical de-cisions that upset the status quo. These de-cisions expand the horizon of justice. For example, we discover the site of such a historical de-cision the setting-into-opposition of a constitutional charter advocating universal standards of freedom and equality, and its emergence from a colonialism based on the exploitation of a “slave trade” from Africa.

168  The Turn Toward Stewardship Through our belonging to and residing within language, these epochal decisions inscribe within a pre-text the spirit of formal indicators of such proverbial concepts as freedom, the preliminary understanding through which a text112 coalesces in the proverbial, written words of a governing document, e.g., a constitution. In the case of modern democracies, the de-cision that participates in unconcealment may also be overshadowed by a concealment (of indecision) of a destabilizing ground of the political in which ethnic groups are denied membership in this universal fraternity.113 Within the epoch of machination, the un-decidedness of a possible decision also occurs with regard to the possibility of our dwelling on the earth. The future trajectory of this de-cision yields the play of time-space by which mortals can participate in, enact, and carry out this de-cision in their historical sojourn. While the de-cision in question is epochal, it also requires its factical, concrete enactment through a site that grounds the resoluteness (Entschlossenheit) of specific choices. The choices do not involve “willing,” but instead correspond to the “un-willing” of Gelassenheit in which possibilities are re-leased into the openness (through which Da-sein is a “thrown projection”). “Decision comes about in stillness, not as resolve but as opening-resolutenesss [Entschlossenheit].”114 The tension of the “between” bears out the differentiation of being from beings, which simultaneously grants to the latter (e.g., beings) the singularity of what appears and what comes to stand in its appearance, for example, a community created by our dwelling on the earth. The ambiguity in Heidegger’s concept of releasement, as Blok points out, is that it collapses in on itself in a “logic of identity,” which in its formality (e.g., of the unwilling of the will) remains void of any content.115 The development of the ecological question, however, brings into play the ground of transformation (Ab-grund), through which specific practices (e.g., of stewardship) can exhibit in concrete terms Da-sein’s capacity to “let-be” (by enduring the conflict between world and earth). In this way, mortals can heed a claim of difference as a “call of be-ing’ (Anspruch des Seyns), the catalyst for future transformation—in Heidegger’s terms, the “turning in enowning”—which comes to fruition through our capacity to dwell. A logos (λóγος) of dif-ferentiation116 speaks in what also remains unspoken, that is, through the stewardship of eco-logical awakening. While transformed, Heidegger’s provisional allusion to the ontological difference comes full circle in the historical-temporal de-ciding that grounds the place of dwelling as the site of political. The interval of this temporalization does not coincide with clock time, but instead spans the temporalizing enacted through the creative endeavors by which mortals become tenants of the earth and prepare for its “inheritance.” Only by extending these historical horizons and allowing the greatest distress to reign with the epoch of technicity, can we then both be disposed toward and find ourselves as already governed by the appeal (Zuspruch) of

The Turn Toward Stewardship  169 lawfulness. If the political is to be housed in a new possibility of dwelling, then how we can conduct ourselves in this activity (e.g., of building, dwelling, and thinking) must take its lead from such governance, the lawfulness that arises, however, distantly, by echoing the call of justice. We must avoid a twofold error in understanding the law and its role in governing the political. Initially, then, we must avoid viewing laws abstractly, that is, in terms of modern political theory, which develops theoretical framework to explain different forms of political governance and their reflection of different cultural norms or systems of values. Second, we must avoid viewing laws anachronistically, that is, in terms of pristine notion of the polis attributed to early Greek society and thereby adopted as a prototype for Heidegger’s own conception of the political. While an understanding of the origin of the Greek polis can be helpful, the “associative” jump to its development as providing a ground plan for re-enacting the German politics of the day proves to be overly simplistic. In contrast to these two roadblocks or obstacles, I will seek an alternative pathway which, thirdly, seeks to discover a renewed relevance through an era that is open to the task of being-historical thinking, on the one hand, and, on the other, is mindful of the danger (Gefahr) posed by the onslaught of modern technicity. In proceeding along this third pathway, I will point to an attempt at measure-setting, that is, a determination of limits whereby our reciprocal response to being yields a form of governance by which human beings can inhabit the earth and establish their membership within a socio-biotic community. But what limits do we have in mind, and how can they be delineated? Throughout human history, the limit of any possible governance has primarily been set vertically, through a hierarchical arrangement that prioritizes specific human interests, goods, and needs. But given his own notion of history (Geschichte), this paradigm can no longer hold as a political construct, insofar as the sphere of the human (including its set of interests) must be transposed and relocated within the trajectory of our belongingness to and reciprocity with being. For history in Heidegger’s sense also includes an awakening and projecting-open of the danger of technicity, including the potential destruction of the earth that the relentless self-assertiveness of the will to power poses. Within this historical context, to acknowledge the danger as a danger constitutes a precursory step by which we can respond to being. In confronting the strife between earth and world, we become receptive to new possibilities for building, dwelling, and thinking. Through our awakening to and mindfulness of this distress, we discover a second limitation set by the law that unfolds horizontally (as well as vertically): that is, by introducing a measure to offset or counter the onesidedness of human interests. To be sure, such political locutions as “egalitarianism” may be misleading. Nevertheless, through the second limitation, the foci of lawfulness abruptly shift to accommodate our capacity to dwell

170  The Turn Toward Stewardship upon the earth. The egalitarianism in question stretches terrestrially as well as socially, to the extent that the political attempt to “place” other people on an equal footing necessitates transposing us as mortals into a “posture” of caring for our animal counterparts, including the preservation of their habitats, and the well-being of the earth itself.117 If only indirectly, conservation policies (and other “earth-responsible” practices [e.g., of clean air and water]) may disproportionally help those of a disadvantaged lot— whether in the United States or less affluent countries. We cannot ignore whether curbing urban expansion and population growth—as a factor both in encroaching on (including sustainable resources and habitats) and reducing our carbon footprint”–belongs to the self-limitation of the political. As one environmental thinker states: “Communities must take on the daunting task of predicting and planning for climate change. They have to consider that the greener they are now, the better able they will be to deal with energy transitions latter.”118 Seeking to resolve social inequities throughout the globe—in responding to the other as other—is compatible with promoting egalitarianism across the biosphere. Environmental practice can complement different attempts to implement social reform. Indeed, when the drive toward prosperity becomes unfettered—and the gap between rich and poor increases disproportionately (in both developed and undeveloped countries)—a vacuum arises in which a crisis such as the pandemic of 2020 magnifies demographic inequities. Given the second foci of lawfulness, the priority of securing our interests is overturned by a converse commitment to safeguard the earth, the environment, as well the welfare of our animal counterparts. As a further, precursory observation, as we have seen throughout, how we can ascribe meaning to the political (phenomenologically) depends upon rediscovering its origin within the wider ellipsis of interpretation. As is reflected in my thesis throughout, the deficiencies associated with Heidegger’s political involvement can itself be construed as a “roadblock” and concealment of pathways, e.g., in the sense of “Holzwege,” which through further questioning may be re-opened in more fruitful ways that return us to what still remains “unthought.” Where do we stand in our attempt to employ hermeneutic guidelines to recast the inquiry into the political? The attempt to wed this inquiry with the question concerning technicity is not accidental. For if the political shows itself as requiring a new grounding, then machination provides the basis for disclosure, perhaps more explicitly for us today than even for Heidegger in the pre- and post-war periods. How, then, does the political show itself, and indeed, as has been our premise throughout, becomes question worthy as a phenomenon in its own right? Perhaps a famous quotation from Hölderlin will prove instructive again: namely the “saving power” hidden within an imminent “danger.” In other words, how does machination, in revealing the crisis of modernity, simultaneously conceal the counter movement of a reciprocal response to demarcate (and delimit) the political in a new light?

The Turn Toward Stewardship  171 Such a demarcation and delimitation of the political, however, is not self-evident. Instead, the development of that possibility depends upon the power of thought to project-open this movement of self-withholding manifestation or, put in poetic terms, the danger as danger through which the potential for salvation can first appear. The gifting-refusal, that is, the giving of the “its gives” (es gibt) must first summon and yield (itself) to thinking. As we have seen, thinking can become a recipient of this “gift” only by “coming into its own,” that is, by traversing the widest orbit of the “turning.” Put simply, “there is” disclosedness through machination only given the interplay of the light and darkness of the countermovement of die Kehre. Because there is nothing “technical” about what is ownmost to technicity, to the sway of machination, its sheltering-concealment can only harbor as its opposite possibility an unconcealing, that is, from a void gapping open within beings in the whole through a which the world can arise against the backdrop of the earth. Within the reign of machination, one way we can experience this void is via the “political,” the vacating of a possible ground (i.e., the Ab-grund) in times of crisis, and hence through the displacements and dislocations that prefigure the possibility of disclosing a “site” (from which the political can originate anew). Against this backdrop, the political can show itself through the unfolding of history (Geschichte) as exacting a decision (Ent-scheidung) concerning “How do things stand with being?”, “How does being sway?”, and “How can a place be reserved for the political?” With respect to our opening remark about hermeneutic guidelines, how can another demarcation arise to designate the place of the political, which the threat of machination illuminates in an altogether different way than in previous eras? Technicity has introduced a new gestalt into politics, specifically, the demands of “globalization,” and thereby the worldwide battle over natural resources. But this narrative only in part defines the political, at least when portrayed as a balancing act between war and diplomacy among competing nations. Yet it is not simply the “state” itself that is in question, either nationally or internationally, which is understood as a human construct of “rights” and “liberties” to mediate the conflicting interests of various groups and individuals. Instead, the formal indicator of “residing within,” of establishing and thereby “building” a residence, points ahead to the origin of the political and the development of its “site.” The task of “building” as an offshoot of “dwelling” indicates a completely different approach to the political than its humanistic and anthropocentric construction. The formal indicators, then, distinguish how Western metaphysics closes off the possibilities of the political, and, on the other, remains beholding to an origin, which holds opens the arrival of alternative possibilities from the future. We must first allow for the interposing of a completely new attunement, prompting us to seek the site of the political, the development of a topography in which building can occur in concert with dwelling. What

172  The Turn Toward Stewardship is the distinctive voice that can echo from the depths of distress, and in its silence pierce the endless noise of machination? In Contributions to Philosophy, Heidegger calls attention to such a possibility of such an utterance when he asks: “Can the earth still speak?” In this regard, the inception of history arises through the intimation and “hint” (Wink) of such a way of speaking. Only through this speaking, by first acclimating ourselves to the “ringing stillness” of language, can we discover a new site for the political, that is, through what our dwelling brings to light at jointure between world and earth. At his jointure, new coordinates can arise to direct mortals in the commemorative act of founding the political, that is, according to dual foci that maps the task of our concernful management of human (and worldly) affairs back upon the counter pole of our (earthly dwelling) and inhabitation. In this way, mortals can “build” the site of the political across the multiple fronts of the strife between world and earth, thereby including the play of the “fourfold” within the expanse of this topography. The task of thinking goes hand in hand with enacting a decision to establish the political on an alternative ground (prior to choosing different kinds of government or rule). Through building, the different foci (in the strife between world and earth) subdivides into four quadrants: earth, sky, mortals, and gods of the fourfold. The separation of earth and sky establishes one level of demarcation upon another, setting off or allocating space in a vertical as well as a horizontal direction. The site of the political, or its unique topography, is formed along these intersecting axes (of the vertical and the horizontal). In setting forth its limits in on these dual fronts, the political arises on a ground that endures the tension of the twofold, of the differentiation of being from beings. The fourfold demarcates, allocates, and distributes the space through which unconcealment can occur in and through human activities and pursuits, but ultimately as contributing to and cultivated by our task of dwelling. In concert with dwelling (and thereby thinking), a polis can be built upon the administration of care that arises from and is attuned to the reciprocal responsiveness by which we can safeguard the manifestness of being. In its historical unfolding, manifestness, and coming to pass in different eras, being must grants a “place” (Ort) for the polis, that is, the setting forth of limits for that expanse within which human beings can dwell. In this way, the polis originates from a “commemorative” act that honors the setting forth of such limits by which we first “belong” to the manifestness of being, nature, and therewith to a community of others. In setting limits from their heights and depths, as well as their distance and proximity, human beings can project-open a world against the backdrop of the earth’s revolving movement of self-refusal and concealment. In helping to forge such a site through building, the political (and that means its occupants) undergoes further differentiation and limitation. That is, the governance and deliberation of the polis cannot be

The Turn Toward Stewardship  173 autocratically set by its own pretense of self-preservation and the pursuit of exclusively human-centered ends. For in the reciprocal responsiveness to being the question of “who” can populate the polis, of its “people” must also be projected open again and re-enacted in the “commemoration” of a beginning. In the “giving” is reserved the restorative act of returning to the ownedness, of a coming into its own through which any possible “belonging,” including our being-with-one-another, takes root, i.e., through our inhabitation of the earth (and not just “socially”). Through the play of the fourfold, the intersecting vertical and horizontal axes ground the site of the political and make possible its building. But what about the gods? As the fugitive ones, the gods are those from whose distance is revealed that through which its “closeness” to us otherwise remains hidden, e.g., the “ownmost.” The ownmost pertains to what is singular to each of us, first as bound by the constraints of finitude and thus through its disclosure (e.g., in death), potentially individualized. In light of the fourfold, the inquiry into Da-sein, the questioning into “who” it is, must be recast in terms of the strife between world and earth. That is, the initial way of determining the possibility of death, through the worauf or indices of world, yields to a second hermeneutic determination of mortality as the counter pole to the gods. In the second hermeneutic determination, the possibility of death is disclosed not only as “worldly,” but also as earthly, in other words, as denoting our rootedness on the earth, as thrown into the clutches of mortality (in contrast of the divinity of the gods). As mortals, our finitude reappears in the way that we carry forth, bear out, and appropriate, the hallmark of our finitude in undertaking our earthly sojourn, i.e., as “tenants” of the earth. In this further unfolding and radicalizing the question concerning “who” is Da-sein, additional light is cast on the “wherein” of that dwelling and thereby the germ for its development or “building.” But is not such building also a way of “crafting” the place in which a “people” can reside and thereby exercise which is singular and ownmost in their capacity to dwell. In order to carve or sculpture out the dimensions of this “wherein,” the initial schismatic cuts (of the body politic) must be mapped back upon the dual foci of the strife between world and earth. The distinctive “technē” of building projects forth a landscape, which allows the four quadrants of earth and sky, mortals and gods to interplay and mirror one another. In the creative engendering, disclosing of this site (of the political), the first incision sets or interposes a limitation in our relationship with one another. Simultaneously, in the temporal spatiality of this creative process, or political genesis, a second incision sets or interposes a limitation in our relationship to nature including the animation of life (e.g., animals), and the earth. In this act of building, the double limitation (of the political) establishes our way of belonging to and with others and our way of belonging to and rooted within the manifestation of nature and the earth. What has been traditionally viewed as

174  The Turn Toward Stewardship the “community” (and thereby the “people”) must be understood anew through the radicalizing of the inquiry into the “who” and the creative building for the “wherein” of the polis. The “who” arises through the “how” of the activities of building, dwelling, and thinking (rather than through an extant characteristic of ancestry). Correlatively, the “people” only becomes possible through the creation of a residence (of inhabitation), which through the endeavor of work founds such a “place” in accord with the stewardship of safeguarding the earth. In “Contributions to Philosophy: The Da-sein and the Be-ing (Enowning),” Heidegger provides tantalizing clues to this new grounding of the political in terms of the “turning unto each other” of be-ing and Da-sein. The passage, to be quoted below, comes under heading 4. “The individual (Da-sein)”. Heidegger remarks: “The individual is the founder and the builder of the ‘in-between’ of people and gods—those who give rise to Da-sein.”119 In this brief remark, Heidegger emphasizes the role that the individual has in undertaking the task of building but in such a way, however, as to transpose this activity into the space of “between” (Zwischen) wherein the power of creativity can be channeled, harnessed, and shaped. Conversely, he emphasizes that the individual does not occur in opposition to the community, any more than the latter is a mere aggregate of individuals in the plural: The “community” does not have the individual as its counterpart. This is why the destiny of the individual is not to be totally absorbed by community and to blend with it especially when community means to demean oneself by becoming like those who usually do not know what to do with themselves and with their emptiness. Rather, nothing stands “against” the individual on the same level because being in the “in-between” the individual is this “in-between” itself.120 Given the interpenetration of individual and community, and the former’s role in helping to create the “wherein” of the latter, Heidegger distinguishes the unique dynamic of building as a “work.” “Work builds openness by occupying it and thus giving rise to preservation and so to tradition and so in the whole to beings as history.”121 Work in this sense of building is a creative thrust into the “in-between,” which holds-open, enacts, and endures the tension of the differentiation between being and beings. Through this creative development, the turning unto each other of “be-ing” and “Da-sein” deposes human subjectivity from its perch of superiority. This new trajectory of investigation redefines the individuality of Da-sein as the onefold of belonging together, that is, as enowned by being. Da-sein reciprocates for the gift of being and thereby holds-out, enacts, and endures the twofold in these dual respects: 1) by cultivating an openness to others, for example, in safeguarding the giving of the “gift” through the disposition (and corresponding

The Turn Toward Stewardship  175 grounding-attunement) to “give back” for the sake of those to come; and 2) by “transplanting” the roots to create a socio-biotic community, in order to safeguard what has been entrusted to us in the name of the earth, e.g., nature (and its diversified life-forms). In carrying out, enacting, and enduring the creative “venture” of the work, Da-sein can occupy, and through the directive of a double delimitation, inhabit, i.e., “populate” the polis in a pluralistic, i.e., non-autocratic way. The need to distinguish such a “way,” however, and, thus, an adherence to a corresponding directive (from the in-between) implies a “measure.” While not appearing as if by magic, the measure does appear only through the sway of the reciprocal responsiveness of the turning “each unto the other” of “be-ing and Da-sein.” Thus, we can say a mystery nevertheless accompanies the measure, insofar as it offers a directive only by swaying or swinging from the midpoint of the “between.” As Heidegger states: “Already with the Da there is arrangement! (Earth—World)—the swaying of being!”122 In this way, the measure appears in setting forth the quadrants of the fourfold, thereby “turning” us toward the “ownmost,” that is, in the activities of building, dwelling, and thinking. The measure, however elusive, nevertheless arises as that receding, withdrawing source of “arrangement,” from which arises the creative nexus of the polis, e.g., the pre-situating, in-dwelling creative work, the counterthrust of work forming the “wherein” of our inhabitation. In the engenderment of this work, the possibility of the polis arises, as the site bearing the tension between world and earth, and thus as yielding, sacrificing, delivering itself over to the claim of its ownmost double delimitation. Can we arrive at a more concrete understanding of this measure, and the form of its application to the political, from which originates the governance of law, a primordial sense of lawfulness, and, ultimately, justice? In raising this question, we revisit the “step back” from the anthropocentric focus of modern philosophy, which Heidegger undertakes as a prelude to revisiting the traditional concern for the nomos and its problematic inscription within ethical inquiry. Insofar as Heidegger challenges the subjectivistic platform of metaphysics, he also re-examines the origin of ethics and the prospect of alternative, i.e., anthropocentric grounding. Here too, the trajectory of thinking, and its overall hermeneutic strategy becomes important. The search for this strategy, the widening of the ellipsis of interpretation requires, as Kovacs emphasizes, the interposing of “pauses” and “hesitations.”123 In this case, Heidegger’s questioning of ethics follows the lead of being-historical thinking and its entry into the orbit of the “turning relation of being” to Da-sein In this regard, the concern for the ethical and the political, in modern terms, what implies “goodness,” on the one hand, and, on the other hand, the administration of what is “right” or “legal,” while separable, also intersect in the questioning that “steps back” in the unthought origin of metaphysics.

176  The Turn Toward Stewardship Within modern metaphysics, Hegel sets the precedent for an attempt to mediate dialectically the difference between determining the nomos relative to what is (in terms of “right” or the legality imposed by the state through its institutions) and morality (“Moralität” in the Kantian sense of a rational ideal). While altogether foreign to Heidegger, that problematic rests on the premise of a linear progress of history and a narrative of reason’s capacity to be self-grounding. A complementary concern for the ethical and the political exacts a different methodology such that Heidegger drives a wedge between hermeneutics and Hegel’s (or Marx’s) dialectic.124 Where Hegel sought the grounding of Absolute Spirit, beinghistorical thinking admits the refusal of such a ground, seeking instead the “Ab-grund” for its point of departure. Correlatively, while it might be valuable to propose a Heideggerian rejoinder to Hegel’s problematic, our hermeneutic strategy opts for a discussion based on the concrete example, or formal indication (rather than a thematic reconstruction). For in the turning relation of being to Da-sein, the trajectory of questioning also “turns around.” We proceed from the signpost that what conceals itself within machination indicates concerning our capacity to dwell, the endeavor to “save the earth,” and our co-habitation with our animal counterparts. In this turning, we take our cue from the implications that our freedom as “letting-be” may have on the complementary spheres (of the ethical or the political), that is, through the rejoinder of a reciprocal responsiveness. As rooted in language and the deeper claim of silence, such a rejoinder translates our capacity to dwell into primary gestures, and thereby suggests concrete instances in which we are enowned by freedom, i.e., within the limited scope of the inheritance the earth (as embodied selves). In the mode of these primitive gestures, our embodiment speaks through the exposure of our suffering that we share 1) with the “other” and “equally” (to employ Peter Singer’s ascription) with our animal counterparts. This mutual exposure to our embodied capacity to suffering elicits its opposite, allowing the “mourning joyfulness” to guide us to commune with nature. Inheriting the earth provides the temporal dynamic by which Da-sein can transmit its tradition in new and deeper ways, that is, through a hermeneutic tapestry of dialogue, retrieval, and appropriation. Inheritance implies a conservatorship, not in a passive sense, however, but granted at the forefront of a de-cision still to be enacted. In this transformation lies the possibility of a new birth of the political. In retrospect, Heidegger ran afoul through (what his critics characterize) as an abrupt ‘decision’ in 1933 to assume the position of rector of the University of Freiburg. His being-historical thinking leaves open another kind of de-cision, however, concerning the fate of the earth and the possibility of mortals dwelling upon it. That fate becomes intertwined with ours through the stewardship we exercise in confronting today’s environmental crisis, or, as Heidegger states “origin always comes to meet us from the future.”125

The Turn Toward Stewardship  177

IV Conclusion The re-enactment of Heidegger’s thinking provides a counterexample to the fact that there is no ideal of justice, no theoretical construct, on which to base the political. The tragic legacy of the political throughout the West is that the experience of justice is predicated on an encounter with its opposite.126 Drawing upon Heidegger’s reading of the “Anaximander Fragment,” Arendt made more explicit than her mentor did that the question of belonging or not belonging to a political space harbors the battle over injustice.127 This does not imply a tolerance of the status quo, but, quite the contrary: in setting new precedents, there is an eccentricity to the law in its power to reverse the grips of a previous (and narrowly defined) authority. The transition that occurs through the encounter with injustice, however, is still a temporal interval, and hence is a moment of temporalizing. We might say that the victory of justice always occurs against the backdrop of the clash of overcoming its opposite. Within the context of democratic practice, the primary example lies in the exercise of “civil disobedience.” There may be also an edge of “violence” in this overcoming, even in the case of the social activism that is exhibited through peaceful protests.128 For Heidegger, the freedom embodied in such activities appears through the cracks and crevices, the ruptures and fissures, of the dislocation of (and transition between) historical epochs. Appearing within a temporal-linguistic clearing, the political depends upon an appropriation of freedom in which the proponents of tradition must ultimately bow to its critics. The temporalizing of the political, the thrust of its temporal “to be,” allocates its place within the play of timespace, through which our historical self-understanding is forged in the conflict between forgottenness and recollection. The search for a utopian perfection of society is itself an illusion, which seeks refuge in an eternal presencing removed from the vicissitudes of strife and the forbearance of “having to be” in the long night of being’s refusal and the absence of the gods. But in this temporal interlude there is also an awakening to a crisis, which prompts a de-cision about the fate of the earth, its habitats, and our capacity to dwell upon it. The turning in enowning (Kehre im Ereignis) both clears the way for, and comes to fruition through, an “ecological turn,” which inculcates in us a stewardship to safeguard the earth, nature (φύσις), and our animal counterparts. The absence of the gods, however, may also disclose the importance of our affinity to the earth and the law of its reception as a counterpoint in the search for justice. The current climate of machination points ahead to a decision as to whether the earth can still sustain future generations, that is, as a domicile for cultivating the spiritual renewal of our capacity “to be” as tenants of the earth (rather than its masters). But what does such a spiritual renewal entail? Heidegger does not leave us with any template for the political; if anything, quite the opposite. Yet he does leave us with

178  The Turn Toward Stewardship a language for saying what is historically relevant to the political, the idiom of the singular, which provides the preview for what Agamben calls the “coming community,”129 or, alternatively, the “thee generation” that makes stewardship its primary task. In the temporalizing of time, the future is primary, and, hence, likewise, we can be bound by (and even “obligated” to those still to come), because our potential today interfaces with this futural arrival.130 Heidegger’s thinking is uniquely qualified to address our responsibility to “future generations,” due to the premium placed on the grammar of the “subjunctive,” e.g., pertaining to how “being” discloses itself through this futural trajectory. In a way that several decades in the interpretation and appropriation of Heidegger’s thinking has provided, this idiom has opened up various forms of discourse, in areas of inquiry apart from philosophy, which address a spectrum of socio-political concerns that we still grapple with today. What, or should we say, “who” constitutes a people? A sociobiotic community does not simply consist of an aggregate of individuals who have a common ancestry. Rather, the “who” is redefined by the ecstatic openness of the occupation of a “wherein,” which relocates the axis of the world through its intersection with the earth. Heidegger once said that the “Wesen” of Da-sein lies in its manner of ek-sistence. In this sense, the “to be,” of accenting the differentiation (between being and beings), provides the provisional fore-having to redefine the “who,” not abstractly, but through its impending historical arrival into a place of dwelling. Thus, the “to be” of mortals as “tenants of the earth” deepens the meaning of the “who” of human beings as “world-citizens.” The capacity of mortals to dwell as tenants of the earth comes to fruition through the creation of a socio-biotic community. A new kind of equality becomes possible as mortals protect the habitats of the diverse creatures that “co-habit” the earth with us. Heidegger’s thinking oscillates between ethics and politics. The appeal to compassion for our animal counterparts, much less the “love of the earth,” appears on an ethical front, and yet is relevant to the practice of stewardship by which we crystallize new laws to safeguard nature. In harmony with this stewardship, the self-limitation of the political provides a new ground on which such Enlightenment notions as “equality” and “fairness” can re-emerge within a wider topography of meaning. What can be meant by humanity’s equality with its brethren reappears in light of a new “egalitarianism,” which speaks to founding a socio-biotic community (rather than as an “innate” idea based on an uncritical union of rational and religious precepts). Conversely, egalitarianism does not define a principle within a specific ideology, but instead serves as a formal indicator of how we can characterize practices that prioritize environmental concerns over against the anthropocentric focus of modernity. Despite its apparent self-evidence, we cannot conceive of equality apart from diversity, which in turn speaks through the inflection of gender, embodiment, and our place

The Turn Toward Stewardship  179 within nature. Nor (in a way that outstrips even ‘liberalism’) can we strive for a static ideal of ‘equality,’ which excludes what is ownmost (eignste) to the development of the self as mirroring the singularity of be-ing. Only through the call to individuality, and appropriation of its capacity to “letbe,” can Da-sein exhibit the conscience requisite to appreciate such social ideals as equality, diversity, and the welfare of the other. Da-sein’s way of belonging to be-ing preserves this call, in such a way as to transcend the ‘selfishness’ of its desires and narrow interests. Most of all we need to appropriate the concept of freedom on a deeper ground, taking its lead from the measure-setting precedent of “lettingbe.” The reciprocity of freedom, which includes the development of a trans-human perspective and the proprietorship of dwelling, points to the three pillars of the polis as necessary to establish a socio-biotic community. If the unfolding of a nascent ecological turn establishes a new footing for the political, this possibility can take root historically only when developed upon this triadic platform of freedom. In this way, a concern for the welfare of the earth and nature, humans and animals, can spark a conversation about the future of our historical sojourn and the fate of those generations still to come.

Notes

1 GA 52: 101; tr. 87 (translation modified). 2 GA 53: 113; tr. 91. 3 Radloff, Heidegger and the Question of National Socialism: 241. 4 GA 7: 97; tr. 109. 5 GA 42:.255. See Radloff’s discussion of this passage, Heidegger and the Question of National Socialism: 409. 6 See Gianni Vattimo, Nihilism and Emancipation: Ethics, Politics, and Law, ed. Z. Zabala, trans. W. McCuain (Columbia: Columbia University Press, 2004): 135–139, 160. Also see Vattimo, Beyond Interpretation: 75–86. 7 GA 65: 48–49; tr. 34. 8 See Schalow, The Incarnality of Being: 103–115. 9 Louise Westling, The Logos of the Living World: Merleau-Ponty, Animals, and Language (Bronx, NY: Fordham University Press, 2014): 123–137. Westling emphasizes the incremental development of language across diverse animal species. 10 GA 65: 55; tr. 38. 11 GA 65: 43; tr. 30. 12 Kovacs, Thinking and Be-ing in Heidegger’s Beiträge zur Philosophie (Vom Ereignis): 242. 13 GA 65: 97, 388; tr. 67, 279. 14 Heidegger, “Die Armut,” in Zum Ereignis Denken, GA 73.1 (Frankfurt am Main: Vittorio Klostermann, 2013): 873–881 (esp. 879); “Poverty,” trans. T. Kalary and F. Schalow,” in Heidegger, Translation, and the Task of Thinking: Essays in Honor of Parvis Emad (Dordrecht: Springer, 2013): 5–11 (esp. 9 [emphasis my own]). 15 The comparison between Heidegger’s hermeneutics, and that of his student, Hans-Georg Gadamer is relevant here. In their linguistic origin, and

180  The Turn Toward Stewardship in mediating the relation between humanity and its tradition, laws echo the pre-text of the political, the hermeneutic circularity that unfolds through our historical existence. See James Risser, Hermeneutics and the Voice of the Other: Re-reading Gadamer’s Philosophical Hermeneutics (Albany, SUNY Press, 1997): 74–81. 16 Immanuel Kant, “Perpetual Peace: A Philosophical Sketch,” in Political Writings, trans. H. B. Nisbet (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1991): 93–130 (AA 8: 343–386). 17 See Schalow, The Renewal of the Heidegger-Kant Dialogue: 252–262 and Imagination and Existence: The Retrieval of the Kantian-Ethic (Lanham: University Press of America, 1986): 162–172. 18 Kant, “Perpetual Peace”: 115 (AA 8: 369). 19 Schürmann, Heidegger on Being and Acting: 7–11. 20 Peg Birmingham, “Heidegger and Arendt: The Lawful Space of Worldly Appearance,” in The:Bloomsbury Companion to Heidegger, ed. F. Raffoul and E. Nelson (London: Bloomsbury, 2017): 157–163 (esp. 159). 21 GA 65: 319; tr. 224. 22 GA 65: 320–321; tr. 225. 23 GA 7: 97; tr. 109. 24 GA 65: 100; tr. 69. 25 GA 9: 172–173. 26 GA 66: 321; tr. 286. 27 GA 66: 330; tr. 293. 28 GA 2: 263. 29 Dennis J. Schmidt, “Strangers in the Dark: On the Limitations of the Limits of Praxis in the Early Heidegger,” The Southern Journal of Philosophy 28 (Supplement, 1989): 6. 30 Bernhard Radloff, “The Own and the Other: Heidegger on the Way from Aristotle to Hölderlin,” Heidegger Studies, 23 (2007): 189. 31 For further discussion of the tension between Arendt and Heidegger’s on the topic of the political, see. Birmingham, “Heidegger and Arendt: The Lawful Space of Worldly Appearance”: 157–163. See particularly Birmingham’s discussion of H. Arendt, Origins of Totalitarianism (New York: Harper, Brace, Jovanovich, 1951): 296. Also see Arendt, The Human Condition: 22–55 (Chapter II). While “rights” protect (the citizens of the state) against the power-driven rule of the “sovereign,” they also admit the fragmentation of “special interests” as a will toward “self-righteousness” or a “legitimized” form of the proverbial “might makes right.” See Heidegger’s critique of the rise of the modern claim of “selfrighteousness” in, GA 54 (Frankfurt am Main: Vittorio Klostermann, 1982): 74–80. Quoting Nietzsche, Heidegger states: ‘“What is Just = the Will…”’ (77). 32 William McNeill, “Heimat: Heidegger on the Threshold,” in Heidegger toward the Turn: Essays on the Work of the 1930s, ed. James Risser (Albany: SUNY Press, 1999): 319–349. 33 Although this text is often used to condemn Heidegger for his ties to National Socialism, his lecture-course from 1933–34 also formally indicates the “binding together” dimension, which is constitutive of the polis. See Heidegger, Sein und Wahrheit, GA 36/37 (Frankfurt am Main: Vittorio Klostermann, 2001): 194. For an excellent analysis of this lecture-course, see George Kovacs, “Being, Truth, and the Political (1933–34),” Heidegger Studies, 19 (2001): 31–48. The method of formal indication distinguishes the dynamic of the mutual appearing of myself and others, that is, in the tension of a reciprocal relatedness binding us together, i.e., the swinging midpoint for joining members within a community.

The Turn Toward Stewardship  181 34 Kovacs, Thinking and Be-ing in Heidegger’s Beitrage zur Philosophie (Vom Ereignis): 241. 35 Bernhard Radloff, “Traces of the ‘Facticity of Freedom’ in the Christian Tradition, ‘Nature,’ and the Resoluteness of the Will,” Heidegger Studies, 26 (2010): 185–207 (esp. 193). 36 GA 65: 483; tr. 340. 37 GA 65: 389; tr. 272. 38 Parvis Emad, “A New Access to the Early Stage of Heidegger’s Thought and Questions Concerning His Relationship to Christianity,” Existentia, 20/3–4 (2010): 303–319 (esp. 306). See Frank Schalow, “Why Evil? Heidegger, Schelling, and Tragic Side of Being,” Idealistic Studies, 25/1 (Winter 1995): 151–167. See Heidegger’s discussion of the problem of evil, GA 42: 269; tr. 155. 39 See Frank Schalow, “Heidegger’s Relation to Political from a Being-historical Perspective,” Existentia, XXIII/3–4 (2013): 183–196. 40 Robert Bernasconi, “The Double Face of the Political and Social: Hannah Arendt and America’s Racial Divisions,” Research in Phenomenology, 26 (1996): 3–34 (esp. 3). 41 Schürmann, Heidegger on Being and Acting: 11. 42 Eric S. Nelson, ‘Individuation, Responsiveness, Translation; Heidegger’s Ethics,” in Heidegger, Translation, and the Task of Thinking: 284. 43 Schalow, Language and Deed: 182–188. For a discussion of “emancipatory solicitude,” see Peg Birmingham, “Logos and the Place of the Other,” Research in Phenomenology, 20 (1990): 47–52. 44 GA 2: 163; tr. 158. 45 Kant, AA 5: 356; tr. 229–230. 46 GA 65: 401; tr. 281. 47 For recent examples, see Magdalena Holy-Luczaj. “Heidegger’s Support for Deep Ecology Reexamined Once Again: Ontological Egalitarianism, or Farewell to the Great Chain of Being,” Ethics & the Environment 20/1 (2015): 45–66 and Westling, The Logos of the Living World: Merleau-Ponty, Animals, and Language: 123–137. 48 See Heidegger, “Der Spruch des Anaximander,” in Holzwege, GA 5: 354– 355; Anaximander’s Saying,” in Off the Beaten Track: 267. 49 GA 9: 358. 50 GA 65: 315; tr. 222. 51 GA 53: 205; tr. 167. 52 “‘…man is the measure of all things—alike of the being of things that are and of the not-being of things that are not’” [Plato, Theatetus, 152a, trans. F. M. Cornford]. See Heidegger, “Die Zeit des Weltbildes,” in Holzwege, GA 5: 103–105; “The Age of the World Picture,” in Off the Beaten Track: 78–80. For one of the earliest accounts of this passage from a hermeneutic perspective, see William J. Richardson, S. J., Heidegger: Through Phenomenology to Thought (Bronx, NY: Fordham University Press, 2003): 419–421. 53 John Llewelyn. “Prolegomena to Any Future Phenomenological Ecology,” in Eco-Phenomenology, ed. Charles S. Brown and Ted Toadvine (Albany: SUNY Press, 2003): 65–67. Llewelyn makes an interesting point that for all of the pitfalls associated with Heidegger’s thinking, his phenomenological orientation provides a better point of departure for developing a “trans-human ethic,” which addresses the welfare specifically of nonhuman, sentient beings or our animal counterparts, than does E. Levinas’ phenomenology. 54 See Arendt, Origins of Totalitarianism: 296–297.

182  The Turn Toward Stewardship 55 GA 9: 356–357. 56 E. Levinas, Time & the Other, trans. Richard A. Cohen (Pittsburgh: Duquesne University Press, 1979): 33–36. 57 See Michael E. Zimmerman, “Heidegger’s Phenomenology and Contemporary Environmentalism,” in Eco-Phenomenology: 86–89. The detriment associated with Heidegger’s political involvement can itself be construed as a “roadblock” and concealment of pathways, e.g., in sense of “Holzwege,” which through further questioning may be re-opened in more fruitful ways that return us to what still remains unthought. As a case in point, see Sophia Chatzisavvidou, “An Ethos against Scarcity: Sketching an Ethic of Care and Dike for Late Modernity,” Ethics & the Environment, 20/2 (Fall 2015): 24–47. Despite appearing “paradoxical,” Chatzisavvidou argues in behalf of a “democratic sense of ethos” emerging in Heidegger’s writings (30). 58 See Schalow, The Incarnality of Being: 135–136. 59 Tara Kennedy, “The Ethics of Treating Animals as Resources: A PostHeideggerian Approach,” Frontiers of Philosophy in China, 11/3 (Sept 2016): 463–482 (esp. p. 468). See Schalow, “Deconstructing the Ethical, Seeking the Political”: 188. 60 Martha C. Nussbaum, “Beyond ‘Compassion’ and Humanity’: Justice for Nonhuman Animals,” in Animal Rights: Current Debates and New Directions, ed. Cass R. Sunstein, Cass R. and Martha C. Nussbaum (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2003): 299–320. 61 GA 24: 187–191; tr. 133–135. 62 GA 3: 233; tr. 163. 63 Arendt, Lectures on Kant’s Political Philosophy: 9, 27. 64 For further discussion of temporalizing in this primordial sense, see Emad, “History” and “Nothingness” in Heidegger and Nietzsche: 39. 65 See Vincent Blok, “Being-in-the-World as Being-in-Nature: An Ecological Perspective,” Studia Phaenomenologica, 14 (2014): 215–235. 66 See Schalow, The Incarnality of Being: 6–8. 67 GA 65: 510; tr. 358. 68 See Heidegger’s presentation from June 1945, “Die Armut,” GA 73.1: 874– 877; “Poverty,” tr. 6–8. 69 GA 65: 399; tr. 279. 70 Daniela Vallega-Neu, The Bodily Dimension in Thinking (Albany: SUNY Press, 2005): 92. 71 Hans-Georg Gadamer, “Martin Heidegger’s One Path,” trans. Christopher P. Smith, in Reading Heidegger from the Start: Essays in His Earliest Thought, ed. T. Kisiel and J. van Buren (Albany: SUNY Press, 1992): 33. 72 See Martha C. Nussbaum. “Beyond ‘Compassion’ and Humanity’: Justice for Nonhuman Animals,” in Animal Rights: Current Debates and New Directions, ed. Cass R. Sunstein and Martha C. Nussbaum (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004): 319. 73 GA 41: 223; tr. 221. 74 For further discussion, see Frank Schalow, “Heidegger, the Law of Being, and Animal Protection Laws,” Ethics & the Environment, 20/2 (Fall, 2015): 71–75. 75 Chatzisavvidou, “An Ethos Against Scarcity: Sketching an Ethic of Care and Dike for Late Modernity”: 34. 76 See Schalow, “Heidegger, the Law of Being, and Animal Protection Laws”: 73–75. 77 GA 9: 361.

The Turn Toward Stewardship  183 78 See Zimmerman, “Heidegger’s Phenomenology and Contemporary Environmentalism”: 73–74. 79 For further discussion, see Radloff, Heidegger and the Question of National Socialism: 196–197. 80 See Radloff, “Traces of the ‘Facticity of Freedom’ in the Christian Tradition, ‘Nature,’ and the Resoluteness of the Will”: 193. See also Heidegger, Reden und andere Zeugnisse eines Lebensweges, GA 16 (Frankfurt am Main: Vittorio Klostermann, 2000): 107. 81 GA 65: 400; tr. 280. 82 GA 73.1: 877–978; tr. 8. 83 Jacques Derrida, The Gift of Death, trans. David Wills (Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 2008): 5. 84 See Chatzisavvidou, “An Ethos Against Scarcity: Sketching an Ethic of Care and Dike for Late Modernity”: 40–42. 85 GA 7: 97; tr 109. 86 See Arendt, The Human Condition: 198. Here she refers to Pericles. 87 Heidegger, “Contributions to Philosophy: The Da-sein and Be-ing (Enowning)”: 31. 88 GA 29/30: 224–225; tr. 149–150. 89 GA 54: 59; tr. 40. 90 See GA 7: 156. 91 For further discussion, see C. Ciocan, “The Question of the Living Body in Heidegger’s Analytic of Dasein,” Research in Phenomenology, 38 (2008): 72–89 (esp. p. 80). 92 See Kovacs, Thinking and Be-ing in Heidegger’s Beiträge zur Philosophie (Vom Ereignis): 25. 93 Heidegger, “Wozu Dichter?” in Holzwege, GA 5: 269–274; “Why Poets?” in Off the Beaten Track: 200–203. 94 GA 65: 396–397; tr. 278. 95 Chatzisavvidou, “An Ethos against Scarcity: Sketching an Ethic of Care and Dike for Late Modernity”: 40–42. 96 For an early discussion of this topic, see Paul R. Ehrlich, The Population Bomb (Cutchogue, NY: Buccaneer Books, 1968). 97 See Schalow, Toward a Phenomenology of Addiction: 90–96. 98 Irwin, Heidegger, Politics, and Climate Change: 29. 99 Almost thirty years after Kant and the Problem of Metaphysics, while addressing the danger of modern technicity, Heidegger cites this passage from the Kant-book: “But the abiding (Wesen in the verbal sense) of the human being, the ‘Dasein in man’ (Cf. Kant and the Problem of Metaphysics, Section #43), is nothing human.” Heidegger, Zur Seinsfrage, GA 9: 397. 100 See my discussion of the New Orleans “community cat” (local) ordinance, which was passed in March 2013. Schalow, “Heidegger, the Law of Being, and Animal Protection Laws”: 177–182. A community cat (a legal distinction) is a feral cat that has been either neutered or spayed and ear tipped as a universal designation that such a procedure has been performed. 101 See Schalow, “New Frontiers in Heidegger’s Original Ethics,” Heidegger Studies, 34 (2018): 299–314. 102 Irwin, Heidegger and the Politics of Climate Change: 29. 103 For a discussion of the role of translation, both intralingual and interlingual, see Parvis Emad, Translation and Interpretation: 29–35. As an example, a “moral” concept, as defined by English term “responsibility,” masks the deeper sense of “hearing” and “heeding” (and thereby “responding”), which appears in the German word, Antwortlichkeit (including the sense of

184  The Turn Toward Stewardship “answering to”)—the deeper origin of which can be retrieved through an intralingual translation. 104 GA 26: 199. 105 In Contributions, Heidegger refers to the various “turning trajectories” (Kehrungsbahnen), which shapes the path of thinking. GA 65: 372; tr. 260. 106 Heidegger, Language, Poetry, Thought: 224. 107 GA 94: 149. 108 For further discussion of the impact of this “timeliness,” on the transformation of Heidegger’s task, see Kovacs, Thinking and Be-ing in Heidegger’s Beiträge zur Philosophie (Vom Ereignis): 90. 109 Cardoza-Kon, Heidegger’s Politics of Enframing: 138. 110 Radloff, Heidegger and the Question of National Socialism: 359. 111 GA 65: 79; tr. 113. 112 Texts like the charter of constitutions are not simply static documents but bring what is foundational to a tradition to bear on a new set of possibilities for governance, which give birth to a wide spectrum of public policies (e.g., the cornerstone for shaping laws). See Frank Schalow, “Textuality and Imagination: The Refracted Image of Hegelian Dialectic,” Research in Phenomenology, 26 (1996): 155–170. 113 This should be taken as an example, rather than a definitive claim about the vicissitudes of government in modernity. Schürmann points to the revolutionary dynamic in spawning the possibilities of the polity as manifested in such originative moments as the French revolution. See Schürmann, Heidegger on Being and Acting: 11. 114 GA 65: 101; tr. 69. 115 See Blok, Heidegger’s Concept of Philosophical Method: 172. 116 Cf. Blok’s discussion of the “logic of difference,” Heidegger’s Concept of Philosophical Method: 172–177. 117 Holy-Luczaj, “Heidegger’s Support for Deep Ecology Reexamined Once Again: Ontological Egalitarianism, or Farewell to the Great Chain of Being”: 45–49. 118 André, Lead for the Planet: 110. 119 Heidegger, “Contributions to Philosophy: The Da-sein and the Be-ing (Enowning)”: 30. 120 Heidegger, “Contributions to Philosophy: The Da-sein and the Be-ing (Enowning)”: 31. 121 Heidegger, “Contributions to Philosophy: The Da-sein and the Be-ing (Enowning)”: )”: 31. 122 Heidegger, “Contributions to Philosophy: The Da-sein and the Be-ing (Enowning)”: 37. 123 Kovacs, Thinking and Be-ing in Heidegger’s Beiträge zur Philosophie (Vom Ereignis): 25. 124 See GA 63: 42. 125 GA 12: 91; tr. 10–11. 126 This does not mean that any heinous forms of injustice are thereby historically necessary in the form of a Hegelian telos, in which the sacrifices at one level are absorbed in and overcome in the realization of a higher stage of history. 127 Arendt, The Origins of Totalitarianism: 296. 128 Peyman Vahabzadeh, Violence and Nonviolence: Conceptual Excursions into Phantom Opposites (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2019): 7–15. 129 Agamben, The Coming Community: 7–15. Also see Jonas, The Ethical Imperative: 117–122. 130 Tom Regan, The Thee Generation (Philadelphia:Temple University Press, 1991): 7–11.

References

List of Heidegger’s Works I Gesamtausgabe (GA: Volume) GA 2. Sein und Zeit (1977). Frankfurt am Main: Vittorio Klostermann. GA 3. Kant und das Problem der Metaphysik (1991). Frankfurt am Main: Vittorio Klostermann. GA 4. Erläuterungen zu Hölderlins Dichtung (1991). Frankfurt am Main: Vittorio Klostermann. GA 5. Holzwege (1977). Frankfurt am Main: Vittorio Klostermann. GA 6.1. Nietzsche I (1996). Frankfurt am Main: Vittorio Klostermann. GA 6.2. Nietzsche II (1997). Frankfurt am Main: Vittorio Klostermann. GA 7. Vorträge und Aufsätze (2000). Frankfurt am Main: Vittorio Klostermann. GA 8. Was heißt Denken? (2002). Frankfurt am Main: Vittorio Klostermann. GA 9. Wegmarken (1976). Frankfurt am Main: Vittorio Klostermann. GA 10. Der Satz vom Grund (1997). Frankfurt am Main: Vittorio Klostermann. GA 11. Identität und Differenz (2006). Frankfurt am Main: Vittorio Klostermann. GA 12. Unterwegs zur Sprache (1985. Frankfurt am Main: Vittorio Klostermann. GA 16. Reden und andere Zeugnisse eines Lebensweges (2000). Frankfurt am Main: Vittorio Klostermann. GA 21. Logik: Die Frage nach der Wahrheit (1976). Frankfurt am Main: Vittorio Klostermann. GA 24. Die Grundprobleme der Phänomenologie (1975). Frankfurt am Main: Vittorio Klostermann. GA 25. Phänomenologische Interpretation von Kants reinen Vernunft. Frankfurt am Main: Vittorio Klostermann. GA 26. Metaphysische Anfangsgründe im Ausgang von Leibniz (1978). Frankfurt am Main: Vittorio Klostermann. GA 29/30. Die Grundbegriffe der Metaphysik. Welt–Endlichkeit–Einsamkeit (1983). Frankfurt am Main: Vittorio Klostermann. GA 31. Vom Wesen der menschlichen Freiheit. Einleitung in die Philosophie (1982). Frankfurt am Main: Vittorio Klostermann. GA 32. Hegels Phänomenologie des Geistes (1980). Frankfurt am Main: Vittorio Klostermann. GA 34. Vom Wesen der Wahrheit. Zu Platons Höhlengleichnis und Theätet (1988). Frankfurt am Main: Vittorio Klostermann.

186 References GA 36/37. Sein und Wahrheit (2001). Frankfurt am Main: Vittorio Klostermann. GA 39. Hölderlins Hymnen “Germanien” und “Der Rhein” (1980). Frankfurt am Main: Vittorio Klostermann. GA 40. Einfürhung in die Metaphysik (1983). Frankfurt am Main: Vittorio Klostermann. GA 41. Die Frage nach dem Ding. Zu Kants Lehre von den transzendentalen Grundsätzen (1984). Frankfurt am Main: Vittorio Klostermann. GA 42. Schelling: Vom Wesen der menschlichen Freiheit (1988). Frankfurt am Main: Vittorio Klostermann. GA 43. Nietzsche: Der Wille zur Macht als Kunst (1989). Frankfurt am Main: Vittorio Klostermann GA 48. Nietzsche: Der europäische Nihilismus (1986). Frankfurt am Main: Vittorio Klostermann. GA 51. Grundbegriffe (1981). Frankfurt am Main: Vittorio Klostermann GA 52. Hölderlins Hymne “Andenken” (1984). Frankfurt am Main: Vittorio Klostermann. GA 53. Hölderlins Hymne “Der Ister” (Summer Semester 1942), 1984, 1993. Frankfurt am Main: Vittorio Klostermann. GA 54. Parmenides (1982). Frankfurt am Main: Vittorio Klostermann. GA 55. Heraklit (1979). Frankfurt am Main: Vittorio Klostermann. GA 60. Phänomenologie des religiösen Lebens (1995). Frankfurt am Main: Vittorio Klostermann. GA 63. Ontologie: Hermeneutik der Faktizität (1988). Frankfurt am Main: Vittorio Klostermann. GA 65. Beiträge zur Philosophie (Vom Ereignis) (1989). Frankfurt am Main: Vittorio Klostermann. GA 66. Besinnung (1997). Frankfurt am Main: Vittorio Klostermann. GA 69. Die Geschichte des Seyns (1998). Frankfurt am Main: Vittorio Klostermann. GA 71. Das Ereignis (2009). Frankfurt am Main: Vittorio Klostermann. GA 73.1/73.2. Zum Ereignis-Denken (2013). Frankfurt am Main: Vittorio Klostermann. GA 79. Bremer und Freiburger Vorträge (1994). Frankfurt am Main: Vittorio Klostermann. GA 85. Vom Wesen der Sprache. Die Metaphysik der Sprache und die Wesung des Wortes. Zu Herders Abhandlung “Über den Ursprung der Sprache” (1999). Frankfurt am Main: Vittorio Klostermann. GA 94. Überlegungen II–IV (Schwarze Hefte) (2014). Frankfurt am Main: Vittorio Klostermann. GA 95. Überlegungen VII–XI (Schwarze Hefte 1938/39) (2014). Frankfurt am Main: Vittorio Klostermann. GA 96. Überlegungen XII–XV (Schwarze Hefte 1939–1941) (2014). Frankfurt am Main: Vittorio Klostermann.

II English Translations of Heidegger’s Writings Basic Concepts (1994). Translated by Gary E. Aylesworth. Bloomington: Indiana University Press. The Basic Problems of Phenomenology (1982). Translated by Albert Hofstadter. Bloomington: Indiana University Press.

References  187 Being and Time (1962). Translated by John Macquarrie and Edward Robinson. New York: Harper & Row Contributions to Philosophy (From Enowning) (1999). Translated by Parvis Emad and Kenneth Maly. Bloomington: Indiana University Press. “Contributions to Philosophy: The Da-sein and the Be-ing (Enowning)” (2012). Translated by Parvis Emad. In: Parvis Emad, Translation and Interpretation: Learning from Beiträge. Edited with an “Introduction” by Frank Schalow. Bucharest: Zeta Books. Elucidations of Hölderlin’s Poetry (2000). Atlantic Highlands, NJ: Humanities Press. The End of Philosophy (1973). Translated by Joan Stambaugh. New York: Harper & Row. Four Seminars (2003). Translated by F. Raffoul and A. Mitchell. Bloomington: Indiana University Press. The Fundamental Concepts of Metaphysics (1995). Translated by William McNeill and Nicholas Walker. Bloomington: Indiana University Press. Heraclitus Seminar (with Eugen Fink) (1993). Translated by Charles Seibert. Evanston, IL: Northwestern University Press. Hölderlin’s Hymn “The Ister” (1996). Translated by William McNeill and Julia Davis. Bloomington: Indiana University Press. Hölderlin’s Hymn “Remembrance” (2018). Translated by William McNeill and Julia Ireland. Bloomington: Indiana University Press. Identity and Difference (1969). Translated by Joan Stambaugh. New York: Harper & Row. An Introduction to Metaphysics (1959). Translated by Ralph Manheim. New Haven: Yale University Press. Kant and the Problem of Metaphysics (1997). Translated by Richard Taft. Bloomington: Indiana University Press. Mindfulness (2006). Translated by Parvis Emad and Kenneth Maly. London: Continuum. Off the Beaten Track (2003). Translated by Julian Young and Kenneth Haynes. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. On the Way to Language (1971) Translated by Joan Stambaugh. New York: Harper & Row. Parmenides (1992). Translated by A. Schuwer and R. Rojcewicz. Bloomington: Indiana University Press. Pathmarks (1998). Translated by William McNeill et al. Edited by William McNeill. Cambridge: Cambridge University Pres. Phenomenological Interpretation of Kant’s Critique of Pure Reason (1995). Translated by Parvis Emad and Kenneth Maly. Poetry, Language, Thought (1973). Translated by Albert Hofstadter. New York: Harper & Row. Ponderings II–VI: Black Notebooks 1931–1938. (2016). Translated by Richard Rojcewicz (Bloomington: Indiana University Press. Ponderings VII–XI: Black Notebooks 1938–1939 (2017). Translated by Richard Rojcewicz. Bloomington: Indiana University Press. “Poverty” (2013). Translated by Thomas Kalary and Frank Schalow. In: Heidegger, Translation, and the Task of Thinking: Essays in Honor of Parvis Emad. Edited by Frank Schalow. Dordrecht: Springer International. The Principle of Reason (1991). Translated by Reginald Lilly. Bloomington: Indiana University Press.

188 References The Question Concerning the Thing (2018). Translated by Benjamin Crowe and James D. Reid. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield. Schelling’s Treatise on the Essence of Human Freedom (1985). Translated by Joan Stambaugh. Athens, OH: Ohio University Press. What Is Called Thinking? (1968). Translated by J. Glenn Gray and Fred Wieck. New York: Harper & Row. What Is a Thing? (1967). Translated by W. B. Barton and Vera Deutsch. Chicago: Henry Regnery Company.

Other Works Cited Agamben, Giorgio (1993). The Coming Community. Translated by Michael Hardt. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press. Agamben, Giorgio (1998). Homo Sacer: Sovereign Power and Bare Life. Translated by D. Heller-Roazen. Stanford: Stanford University Press. Agamben, Giorgio (1999). Potentialities. Edited and translated by Daniel HellerRoazen. Stanford: Stanford University Press. Amato, Andy (2019). The Ethical Imagination in Shakespeare and Heidegger. London: Bloomsbury. André, Rae (2020). Lead for the Planet: Five Practices for Confronting Climate Change. Toronto: University of Toronto Press. Arendt, Hannah (1951). Origins of Totalitarianism. New York: Harper, Brace, Jovanovich. Arendt, Hannah (1958). The Human Condition. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press. Arendt, Hannah (1982). Lectures on Kant’s Political Philosophy. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press. Arendt, Hannah (1998). Briefe 1925 bis 1975: Und Andere Zeugnisse—Hannah Arendt, Martin Heidegger. Edited by Ursula Ludz. Frankfurt am Main: Vittorio Klostermann. Bastera, Gabriela (2015a). The Subject of Freedom: Kant, Levinas. New York: Fordham University Press. Bastera, Gabriela (2015b). “Unconditioned Subjectivity: Immanent Synthesis in Kant’s Third Antinomy.” Journal of Speculative Philosophy, 29/3: 314–323. Bernasconi, Robert (1996). “The Double Face of the Political and Social: Hannah Arendt and America’s Racial Divisions.” Research in Phenomenology, 26: 3–24. Birmingham, Peg (1990). “Logos and the Place of the Other.” Research in Phenomenology, 20: 34–54. Birmingham, Peg (2006). Hannah Arendt and Human Rights. Bloomington: Indiana University Press. Birmingham, Peg (2017). “Heidegger and Arendt: The Lawful Space of Worldly Appearance.” In The Bloomsbury Companion to Heidegger. Edited by F. Raffoul and E. Nelson. London: Bloomsbury: 157–163. Blok, Vincent (2014). “Being-in-the-World as Being-in-Nature: An Ecological Perspective.” Studia Phaenomenologica, 14: 215–235. Blok, Vincent (2015). “Heidegger’s Ontology of Work.” Heidegger Studies, 31: 109–121. Blok, Vincent (2017). Ernst Jünger’s Philosophy of Technology: Heidegger and the Poetics of the Anthropocene. New York: Routledge.

References  189 Blok, Vincent (2019). Heidegger’s Concept of Philosophical Method: Innovating Philosophy in the Age of Global Warming. London: Routledge. Braver, Lee (ed.) (2015). Division III of Heidegger’s Being and Time. The Unanswered Question of Being. Cambridge: The MIT Press. Brencio, Francesca (2016). “Martin Heidegger and the Thinking of Evil: From the Original Ethics to the Black Notebooks.” Ivs Fvgit, 19: 87–134. Brencio, Francesca (2017). “Thinking without Bannisters: Heidegger, the Jews and Modernity in the Context of the Black Notebooks (1931–1948).” Heidegger Studies, 33: 277–302. Brockelman, Thomas (2008). Žižek and Heidegger: The Question Concerning Techno-Capitalism. London: Continuum. Brogan, Walter (2002). “The Community of Those Who Are Going to Die.” In: Heidegger and Practical Philosophy. Edited by D. Pettigrew and F. Raffoul. Albany: SUNY Press: 237–248. Buchanan, Brett (2008). Onto-Ethnologies: The Animal Environment of Uexküll, Heidegger, Merleau-Ponty, and Deleuze: New York: State University of New York Press. Cardoza-Kon, Javier (2018). Heidegger’s Politics of Enframing: Technology and Responsibility London: Bloomsbury. Chatzisavvidou, Sophia (2015). “An Ethos Against Scarcity: Sketching an Ethic of Care and Dike for Late Modernity.” Ethics & the Environment, 20/2: 24–47. Ciocan, Cristian (2008). “The Question of the Living Body in Heidegger’s Analytic of Dasein.” Research in Phenomenology, 38: 72–89. Crowell, Steven (2013). Normativity and Phenomenology in Husserl and Heidegger. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. David, Pascal (2015). “A Philosophical Confrontation with the Political.” Heidegger Studies, 11: 191–204. de Beistegui, Miguel (1998). Heidegger and the Political. London: Routledge. Deckha, Maneesha (2021). Animals as Legal Beings: Contesting Anthropocentric Legal Orders. Toronto: The University of Toronto Press. Derrida, Jacques (2008). The Gift of Death. Translated by David Wills. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press. De Gennaro, Ivo (2013). The Weirdness of Being: Heidegger’s Unheard Answer to Die Seinsfrage. London: Routledge. De Gennaro, Ivo (2019). Principles of Philosophy: A Phenomenological Approach. Freiburg: Verlag Karl Alber. Ehrlich, Paul R. (1968). The Population Bomb. Cutchogue, NY: Buccaneer Books. Emad, Parvis (2007). On the Way of Heidegger’s Contributions to Philosophy. Madison: The University of Wisconsin Press. Emad, Parvis (2010). “A New Access to the Early Stage of Heidegger’s Thought and Questions Concerning His Relationship to Christianity.” Existentia, XX/3– 4: 303–319. Emad, Parvis (2012). Translation and Interpretation: Learning from Beiträge. Edited, with an Introduction, by Frank Schalow. Bucharest: Zeta Books. Emad, Parvis (2014). “History” and “Nothingness” in Heidegger and Nietzsche, Learning from Beiträge. Parts 1–4, The Issue of Anti-Semitism. Budapest: Societas Philosophia Classica.

190 References Emad, Parvis (2015). “History” and “Nothingness” in Heidegger and Nietzsche, Learning from Beiträge. Parts 5–6, The Issue of Anti-Semitism. Budapest: Societas Philosophia Classica. Foltz, Bruce V. (1995). Inhabiting the Earth: Heidegger, Environmental Ethics and the Metaphysics of Nature. Atlantic Highlands, NJ: Humanities Press. Fried, Gregory (2014). Heidegger’s Polemos: From Being to Politics. New Haven: Yale University Press. Gadamer, Hans-Georg (1994). Heidegger’s Ways Translated by John Stanley. Albany: SUNY Press. Gates, Bill (2021). How to Avoid a Climate Disaster: The Solutions We Have and the Breakthroughs We Need. New York: Knopf Publishing. Glazebrook, Trish (2018). “Heidegger and Environmental Philosophy.” In: The Bloomsbury Companion to Heidegger. Edited by F. Raffoul and E. Nelson. London: Bloomsbury: 433–440. Gordon, Peter E. (2010). Continental Divide: Heidegger, Cassirer, Davos. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Haar, Michel. (1993). The Song of the Earth: Heidegger and the Grounds of the History of Being. Translated by Reginald Lilly. Bloomington: Indiana University Press. Harrington, Michael (1967). The Twilight of Capitalism. New York: Simon and Schuster. Hatab, Lawrence (1995). A Nietzschean Defense of Democracy: An Experiment in Postmodern Politics. Chicago: Open Court. Hatab, Lawrence (2000). Ethics and Finitude: Heideggerian Contributions to Moral Philosophy. Lanham, MD: Roman & Littlefield. Hegel, G. W. F. (1974). Phenomenology of Spirit. Translated by A. V. Miller. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Hemming, Laurence Paul (2013). Heidegger and Marx: A Productive Dialogue Over the Language of Humanism. Evanston: Northwestern University Press. Herrmann, Friedrich-Wilhelm von (2011). “Dasein and Da-sein in Being and Time and in Contributions to Philosophy (From Enowning).” Translated by Bernhard Radloff. In: Heidegger, Translation, and the Task of Thinking; Essays in Honor of Parvis Emad. Edited by Frank Schalow. Dordrecht: Springer International: 213–224. Herrmann, Friedrich-Wilhelm von (2016). “The Role of Martin Heidegger’s Notebooks within the Context of His Oeuvre.” In Reading Heidegger’s Black Notebooks 1931–1941. Edited by Ingo Farin and Jeff Malpas. Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press: 89–94. Herrmann, Friedrich-Wilhelm von and Francesco Alfieri (2016). Martin Heidegger: Die Wahrheit über die Schwarzen Hefte. Berlin: Duncker & Humblot. Herrmann, Friedrich-Wilhelm von and Francesco Alfieri (2021). Martin Heidegger: The Truth about the Black Notebooks. Translated by Bernhard Radloff. Dordrecht: Springer International (Analecta Husserliana, 124). Hodge, Joanna (1995). Heidegger and Ethics. London: Routledge. Holy-Luczaj, Magdalena (2015). “Heidegger’s Support for Deep Ecology Reexamined Once Again: Ontological Egalitarianism, or Farewell to the Great Chain of Being.” Ethics and the Environment, 20/1: 45–66. Jonas, Hans (1985). The Ethical Imperative: In Search of an Ethic for the Technological Age. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press.

References  191 Jung, H. W. and P. Jung (1975). “To Save the Earth.” Philosophy Today, 19/2: 108–117. Kalary, Thomas (2002). “Hermeneutic Conditions for Interpreting Heidegger: A Look at Recent Literature (Part One).” Heidegger Studies, 18: 159–180. Kant, Immanuel (1902). Akademie Ausgabe (AA). Kants Gesammelte Schriften. Berlin: De Gruyter. Kant, Immanuel (1950). Prolegomena to Any Future Metaphysics. Translated by Paul Carus. Indianapolis: The Bobbs-Merrill Company. Kant, Immanuel (1959). Critique of Practical Reason. Translated by Lewis White Beck. Indianapolis: The Bobbs-Merrill Company. Kant, Immanuel (1965). Critique of Pure Reason. Translated by Norman Kemp Smith. New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1965. Kant, Immanuel (1981). Grounding for the Metaphysics of Morals. Translated by J. Ellington. Indianapolis: The Bobbs-Merrill Company. Kant, Immanuel (1991). “Perpetual Peace: A Philosophical Sketch.” In Political Writings, Translated by H. B. Nisbet. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press: 93–130. Kant, Immanuel (2000). Critique of the Power of Judgment. Translated by Paul Guyer and Eric Matthews. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Kennedy, Tara (2016). “The Ethics of Treating Animals as Resources: A PostHeideggerian Approach.” Frontiers of Philosophy in China, 11/3: 463–482. Kouvelakis, Stathis (2003). Philosophy and Revolution: From Kant to Marx. Translated by G. M. Goshgarian. London: Verso Books. Kovacs, George (2001a). “Being, Truth, and the Political (1933–34).” Heidegger Studies, 19: 31–48. Kovacs, George (2001b). “Heidegger in Dialogue with Herder: Crossing the Language of Metaphysics toward Being-historical Language.” Heidegger Studies, 17: 45–63. Kovacs, George (2007). “The Unthought at the Limits of Heidegger’s Thought.” Existentia, 17/5–6: 337–355. Kovacs, George (2015). Thinking and Being in Heidegger’s Beiträge zur Philosophie (Vom Ereignis). Bucharest: Zeta Books. Kovacs, George (2016). “Heidegger in Dialogue with Husserl.” Heidegger Studies, 32: 245–258. Kovacs, George (2018). “Returning to the Texts Themselves.” Existentia, 28/3–4: 297–311. Lacoue-Labarthe, Phillipe (1990). Heidegger, Art, and Politics. Translated by Chris Turner. Oxford: Basil Blackwell. Landes, Donald A. (2015). “Between Sensibility and Understanding: Kant and Merleau-Ponty and the Critique of Reason.” Journal of Speculative Philosophy, 29/3: 336–345. Langebohn, Claus (2016). “From Kant to Heidegger: On the Path from SelfConsciousness to Self-Understanding.” Journal of the British Society for Phenomenology, 47: 1–19 [online]. Lapidot, Elad (2016). “Heidegger’s Teschuva?” Heidegger Studies, 32: 33–52. Levinas, Emmanuel (1979). Time & the Other. Translated by Richard A. Cohen. Pittsburgh: Duquesne University Press. Levinas, Emmanuel (1987). Collected Philosophical Papers. Translated by Alphonso Lingus. The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff. Lewis, Michael (2005). Heidegger and the Place of Ethics. London: Continuum.

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Index

Page numbers followed by n indicate notes. Abandonment of (and by) being (Seinsverlassenheit) 62, 73, 77, 94, 112, 167 Abground (Abgrund) 17 Ab-­grund 17, 19, 25, 45, 56, 86, 90, 103–104, 144, 168, 171, 176 Absolute Spirit 70, 85, 176 affectivity 21, 25–27, 35 Agamben, Giorgio 10 Aletheia (ἀλήθεια) 94, 124 Alfieri, Francesco 128 André, Rae 76 animal counterparts 129, 137, 151–152, 160, 170; and love of the earth 178 animals 5; domestic 8, 26, 40–41, 43–45, 78, 97, 117; wild 137, 150–157 anthropocentricism xii, 6, 40–41, 45, 53; in Karl Marx’s philosophy 71, 151, 155, 157, 165 anticipatory resoluteness 47 Anxiety (Angst) 165, 167 Arendt, Hannah 26, 147 Aristotle 12, 33–34, 43 art (Kunst) see “work of art” attunement (Stimmung) 14, 16, 26, 68, 116, 136–137, 153, 167, 171 autonomy (Autonomie) as self-­ responsibility 24, 31, 142 Beaufret, Jean 41 beauty 25; in the work of art 26–27 being-­historical thinking 7, 46, 53–54, 63, 89, 100, 109, 120, 152, 167, 169, 175–176 Bernasconi, Robert 146

biocentricism 157 Birmingham, Peg x, 142 Blok, Vincent 168 care (Sorge) 18, 32, 40–41, 46; and reciprocal responsiveness 172; and stewardship 48, 50, 56, 91–92, 94, 97, 100, 106–108, 110–111, 123–125, 127–129, 160–162, 166 Cardoza-­Kon, Javier 166 capitalism 69, 71–73, 75–76, 82, 83n10, 83n15, 147 Cassirer, Ernst 14 categorical imperative 23, 43–44, 141, 154 Chatzisavvidou, Sophia 182n57 citizen of the world 9, 14, 24, 26, 32; in concert with a tenant of the earth 178 civil disobedience 128 Civil Rights Act (of 1964) 113 climate change xii, 168 colonialism 147; and slave trade 167 commune with nature 163, 167 communism 17, 69, 71–72, 75–76, 82, 148 community cat 163, 183n100 conspicuous consumption 162 conversation x, xii, 7–8, 16, 32, 34, 36, 61–63, 67, 109, 125–126, 135–139; in Hölderlin’s poetry 140–141 counter-­turning 9, 30, 63, 67–68, 165 Crowell, Steven x danger: and saving power 129, 170 death 10n6, 22, 43, 50, 92–94, 96, 107, 117, 142, 158, 161, 173

198 Index death of god 94, 96, 126 deep ecology 97, 153 De Gennaro, Ivo 73 Derrida, Jacques 113 Descartes, Rene 21, 69–70 dialogical space 36, 53 dialogue xi, xiii, 9, 14, 16, 24, 29–30, 33, 38n10, 38n24, 38n29, 52–53, 61, 94–95, 101, 137 “Die Kehre” 77, 92 Diké (Δίκη) 62, 121, 123, 133, 159, 161 Dionysian spirit 79 disclosedness 18, 26, 29, 34, 36, 76, 88, 106, 111, 114–116, 122–123, 134, 171 dissent 101, 148 distress 167 Eckhart, Meister 163 ecology 79, 89; see also deep ecology economics xii, xiii, 9, 67, 74–79 egalitarianism 3, 169, 178 Ehrlich, Paul R. 183n96 Emad, Parvis 11n11, 56, 103 embodiment 20–21, 26, 35–36, 44, 68, 80–81, 116, 151, 154, 157, 160, 176, 178 environmental crisis 176 environmental practice 150 equality xiii, 2, 148, 157 ethos (ἦθος) x, 2, 5–6, 24, 26, 29–33, 36–37, 40–46, 51, 53, 64, 68, 79–82, 86, 92–93, 97, 99, 104, 108, 125, 137, 151, 153–154, 156–157, 160, 165 eugenics 112 evil 147 facticity 23–27, 44, 47, 62, 128, 155, 181n35 factory farm 10n8, 153 fairness 157 falling 11, 74, 131n33 fetish of the commodity 71 flourishing (of animals) 44, 153, 156 formal indicators 103, 108, 156, 176, 180n33 forward-­looking thinking xii, xiii, 9, 47, 52, 100, 127, 143 Foucault, Michel 113 fourfold (and the “turning”) 25, 172–173, 175

free speech 127, 138; speaking in behalf of animals 148–149 Gadamer, Hans-­Georg 11, 156 Gates, Bill 10n8 genocide 113 Geschichte 56, 63, 89, 92, 94 god see “gods” gods 25, 46, 58, 91, 94, 98–99, 117, 122, 124–125, 155, 159–161, 167, 172–173 goodness 41, 107 grammar of the subjunctive xi greenhouse effect xii greenhouse gas emissions 162 grounding-­attunement 34, 61, 77, 158, 160, 163, 175 grounding words 29, 104 guardianship of be-­ing (Wächterschaft des Seyns) 102 Haar, Michel 68 Hegel, G.F.W. 5, 58, 70 Heraclitus 15, 123 hermeneutical circle 18–20, 30–31, 35, 56, 86–87, 149, 154, 164 hermeneutic guidelines ix, x, 5, 7, 9, 14, 19, 21–22, 54, 64, 67, 86, 89–90, 103, 108, 110, 170–171 hermeneutic situation 5, 13–14, 17, 30, 37, 54, 86, 88, 90, 100, 103, 109, 127, 164 Herrmann, Friedrich-­Wilhelm von 28, 128 Historie 56, 63, 89, 92–93 history of being 57–58, 69, 121, 127–128 Hodge, Joanna 59 Hölderlin, Friedrich xivn3, 2, 61, 94, 116; and conversation 126, 170 Holocaust 113 holy 51, 98 Holy-­Luczaj, Magdalena 181n47 hope (Kant’s question of) 20 humility 137; before a god 138, 155, 157–162 Hurricane Katrina 168 Husserl, Edmund 12 incarnality 149, 154, 158–159 intergenerational ethics 81 intralingual translation 11n11, 16, 29, 33, 42, 57, 61, 79, 151, 183n103 Irwin, Ruth 163

Index  199 Jaspers, Karl 147 jointure of being xi, 59, 97, 134, 150–151, 158 Jonas, Hans 40 Jünger, Ernst 71 justice xi, xii, 2, 58–59, 84n40, 84n41; Heraclitus’s view 123–124, 126, 129, 133–135, 143; vs. injustice 119 Kalary, Thomas 105 Kant, Immanuel 20–26, 34, 44, 56, 58, 69, 104, 110–117, 126, 142, 149, 154, 156 Kierkegaard, Søren. 85–86 Kovacs, George 49, 139, 146, 175 Lacoue-­Labarthe, Phillipe 120 letting-­be x, xii, xiii, 2, 7–8, 25, 30, 43, 59, 62, 81; and the earth 88, 101, 105, 110, 124–125, 137–138, 140, 142, 145, 148, 150, 158, 160, 163, 165–166; as freedom 176 Levinas, Emmanuel 118 listening 53, 68, 150 Llewelyn, John 68, 181n53 Locke, John 121 logos (λóγος), 17, 21, 34, 53, 58, 61, 89, 95, 103, 110–111, 147, 153, 168 love (Liebe) 136; of the earth 178; and death 158 loyalty 104, 106, 108–110, 118 machination (Machenschaft) 1; and the effects of pollution 5, 37, 44; and eugenics 112, 129, 153, 165–166, 168 Marder, Michael 3 Marx, Klar 58–59; and anthropocentricism 70; and concept of history 82; and the dialectic 176; fetish of the commodity 72–79 Marx, Werner 68 McNeill, William 145 meaning of being 15–17, 20, 29, 34, 86 measure-­setting 99, 103; and letting-­be 179; precedents for future generations 141, 147, 151, 162, 169 Merleau-­Ponty, Maurice 151 mindfulness (Besinnung) 46; and people-­principle 139–141, 161, 169 moment of vision 158

mourning joyfulness 158, 176 mystery 54, 77, 102, 146, 158, 175 National Socialism x, 1, 6, 11n15, 40, 50, 69, 85, 112–113, 120–121, 131n35, 131n39, 131n40, 131n41, 140, 148 Nelson, Eric Sean 148 Nietzsche, Friedrich 48–49, 58, 160–161 Nihilism 70, 73, 76, 91, 94, 96, 126, 128, 160 normativity x; and invocation to save the earth 153; and letting-­be xiii, 10, 37, 41, 133, 135, 140, 143–144, 147–148, 150 Nussbaum, Martha C. 153 ontological difference 13; as an impasse 22, 32, 34, 51, 61, 87, 110, 126, 168 openness 2; and imagination 17, 32, 42, 138, 174; and letting-­be 8 (the) other 26; pathos of 36; voice of 59, 101, 138, 143–149 other beginning 68, 81, 88, 91–92, 160 othermost 52 otherness 22, 27, 41, 53, 59, 94, 97; of animal life 101, 116, 124, 134, 136; of nature 152, 159, 163 other onset 74, 79, 81, 127, 143 overman 70, 73, 79, 95 pandemics xii; danger of xvn13 paralogisms of the soul 110–117 path of thinking (Denkweg) xiv, 7, 64, 112, 155 Patočka, J. 158 people 49; vs. anthropological concept 87, 109–118, 122; vs. a god 174 Pericles 61, 95, 159 person, as ends in themselves 44 philosophical tradition 12–13, 16, 33, 61, 94 physis (φύσις) 12, 26, 28, 33–35, 43–44, 68, 78; and the earth 151 Plato 12 play of time-­space (Zeit-­Spiel-­Raum) 35, 45–46, 78, 117; and decision 168 play-­space (Spielraum) 116 Poaching see trophy hunting poiesis 14, 25, 103, 143

200 Index polis (πόλις) x, xi, xiii; and commemorative acts 100 passim, 134, 144, 172; and dwelling 36; and a measure 62; space for 53 Polt, Richard xvn14 poverty (and letting-­be) 152, 161 precedents see measure-­setting productionist metaphysics 58 Protagoras 152, 161 protests 128 question of being (die Seinsfrage) 91 race (Rasse) 87; and biologism 89, 112–113 Radloff, Bernhard 11n15, 50, 121, 134, 145–146 Rand, Ayn 76 reciprocal rejoinder 16, 52; between Heidegger and Kant 56, 101 Regan, Tom, Thee Generation 178 reservednesss (Verhaltenheit) 53, 77, 114 resolutenesss (Entschlossenheit) 14, 104–107; and clearing of be-­ing 159–160; and self-­limitation 114, 117–118, 123–124, 144 respect (Achtung), (Kant’s view of) 154 returnership 7, 55, 74 rights xii; “rights to have rights” xivn6, 118, 123, 126, 149; civil 157, 161, 171, 180n31 Rilke, Rainer Maria 80 Rousseau, Jean-­Jacques 68, 121 sacred 142, 166 saving the earth ix, xi, 5, 63, 80, 86, 117, 150, 153; and cohabiting with animals 176 saying (Sage) xii, 15–16, 114, 161, 178 Scheler, Max 50 Schelling, Friedrich Wilhelm Joseph von 86; and love 135 schema (of imagination) 17 Schmidt, Dennis J. 145 Schmitt, Carl 62 Schürmann, Reiner 10n9, 142, 148, 163, 184n113 self-­disclosedness 111, 124 selfhood (vs. the “I”) 110, 142

self-­responsibility (autonomy as) 24 silence 25, 61, 95, 103, 136–137, 147–149, 172, 176 Sikka, Sonia 65n8, 131n27 Singer, Peter 156, 176 Smith, Adam 79 snow leopard 163 social media 74 Socrates 119 sojourn on the earth 8, 52; and history 60; and birth of a people 141, 160 solicitude 154 spatiality 20, 26, 35, 62, 110–111; and beitg-­with others 112, 117, 160, 173 Stalin, Joseph 73 Stenstad, Gail 75 Storey, David E. 65n29 strife between earth and world 2, 10, 35, 64, 89, 102, 129, 143, 146, 159, 165, 169 swinging from the midpoint 30, 175 synthetic beef 10n8 technicity (Technik) see machination technopolis 11n15 temporality of being xi, 79, 82, 91, 93, 160 tenants of the earth xi, 3, 9–10, 127–128, 142–143, 150, 161, 173, 177–178 time and being 28, 32–34, 36, 45, 56, 58 topos (τόπος) 122 totalitarianism 147 tradition 9, 15; arrival of 50; and history 174, 176; legalistic 159; thrownness into 55 tragedy 51; and Greek polis 119–124 transcendence, and play-­space 18–19, 21–22, 32, 97, 116 trophy hunting, elephants, lions, tigers 154 truth of being 99, 139 turning around 30; from “being and time” to “time and being” 32, 127, 165 turning in enowning (Kehre im Ereignis) 142, 147 turning relation of being 37, 91, 152 turning trajectories (Kehrungsbahnen) 184n105

Index  201 turning-­unto each other (Dasein and being) 56, 62, 124; and deposing subjectivity 174 unconcealment 16, 22, 30, 34–35, 44, 53, 59, 62, 81, 85, 92, 95–98, 107, 118; and place of dwelling 120– 129, 136-­138, 150, 156, 160, 165–166, 168 unsaid (Ungesagte) 7, 15; and the earth 136–137, 164; in Kant’s thought 16, 19, 25, 29, 77–78, 89 unthought (Ungedachte) 7, 78, 89 Utopia 69, 175

Vallega-­Neu, Daniela 155–156 values xi, 91, 113 Van Buren, John xvn10 Vattimo, Gianni xi, 136 Volk 50–51, 103–104, 113–114, 118 Westling, Lousie 179n9 will to power 48; as the ground for evil in the will to will 147 Work of art 25–16, 51, 75, 78, 96, 102, 146–147 Zarathustra 126, 160 Zimmerman, Michael E. 182n57