An Ethical and Theological Appropriation of Heidegger’s Critique of Modernity by Zohar Atkins

Author:Zohar Atkins
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9783319969176
Publisher: Springer International Publishing

Responsibility and the History of Being

In his later writings, Heidegger offers two seemingly contradictory accounts of what he calls “the history of Being ” (Seinsgeschichte), that is, the history of how each age understood “what is.” On the one hand, Heidegger says the history of Being can be characterized as a history of “forgetting Being” (Seinsvergessenheit), and on the other hand, he says it can be characterized as a history of “abandonment by Being” (Seinsverlassenheit).15 If we emphasize the first approach, we may come to the conclusion that simply by remembering or un-forgetting Being, we can bear a world that is more open, generous, and just. And this seems to be the driving narrative of Being and Time , which proposes that by dismantling, or more literally “unbuilding” (Abbauen) the philosophical tradition running from Plato and Aristotle up through Descartes and Hegel , one may recover the meaning of Being that they overlooked. But if we emphasize the second approach, we may come to the conclusion that the inherited, structural limits of our world severely hinder our capacity to bring about ontological change either individually or collectively. Furthermore, we may conclude that our very belief that ontological problems can be solved, let alone solved by greater human agency, is itself part of the problem. As Heidegger puts it in “What Are Poets For?” [Human] willing [turns] everything, beforehand and thus subsequently, irresistibly into material for self-assertive production. The earth and its atmosphere become raw material. Man becomes human material, which is disposed of with a view to proposed goals.16

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