This article examines Heidegger’s account of dwelling while placing it in the broad context of a wide array of his lectures and the constellation of his collected writings. The focus on this question is primarily ontological in character, in spite of the spatial significance of the phenomenon of dwelling, and the bearings it has on a variety of disciplines that interrogate its essence, be it in architectural humanities and design or in geography, which probe the various elements of its architectonic (...) and topological underpinnings. The investigation of Heidegger’s reflections on dwelling will be connected in this line of inquiry with his consideration of what he refers to as “the gathering of the fourfold,” namely as “earth, sky, mortals and divinities,” and the manner they are admitted and installed into “things,” all to be set against the background of his meditations on the origins of the work of art, and on the unfolding of the essence of modern technology as en-framing. (shrink)

The philosopher Martin Heidegger argued that the truthful life was at risk of being lost in Western technological culture in the name of increasing control, efficiency, and agility. As the risk is actualised, so the human essence as truth maker is obscured and life itself feels poorer. This thesis draws on Heideggerian philosophy to demonstrate the loss in two dominant styles of contemporary strategic management: the world-picturing and, more recent, agile style. It builds a theory of post-agile strategic practice, which (...) I call adaptive, to address this loss. Consistent with Heideggerian philosophy, I utilise a transformative disclosure methodology and a literary, paradigmatic case reading method to address the questions: Why is agile strategic management so unsatisfying? How do Heideggerian scholars shed light on this dissatisfaction? How do Heideggerians understand the emerging style and what strategic management practices can I propose for the future? After introducing agile strategic management and the impoverishment of life that it fosters, I set out how Heidegger’s philosophy of truth, thinking, and the sacred both sheds light on the problem and suggests a remedy for it. I closely read paradigmatic texts of the world-picturing and agile strategic management styles to demonstrate how business strategy theorisation lines up with extraordinary closeness to Heidegger’s philosophical assessment. I then analyse three Heideggerian prototypes for an adaptive style of strategy practice, concentrating on one paradigmatic text to identify their principal weakness: the omission of the sacred. I illustrate and contrast paradigmatic cases of both the agile and adaptive styles drawn from the beer industry and draw on the adaptive case to construct a theory of adaptive strategy practice, which addresses the problem of the loss of truth, suggesting pedagogical and strategic management practices. I conclude by summarising its findings and contributions, noting some limitations and connections to other studies and suggesting further lines of research. (shrink)

The paper analyzes Quentin Meillassoux’s conception of the fideistic approach to religious faith intrinsic to the “strong correlationism” that he considers pervasive in contemporary thought. Backman presents the basic elements of Meillassoux’s speculative materialism and especially the thesis according to which strong correlationism involves a “fideistic” approach to religiosity. In doing so, Backman critically examines Meillassoux’s notions of post-metaphysical faith, religious absolutes, and contemporary fanaticism, especially against the background of Heidegger’s philosophy. According to Backman, Meillassoux’s logical and conceptual critique of (...) strong correlationism is innovative, and it may remain legitimate if its presuppositions are accepted. And yet, Backman argues that Meillassoux’s allegations of fideism seem to rely on the questionable application of Enlightenment conceptions to the contemporary situation. (shrink)

In this thesis, I use a close reading of the silent films of Charlie Chaplin to examine a question of listening posed by Jean-Luc Nancy, “Is listening something of which philosophy is capable” (Nancy 2007:1)? Drawing on the work of Nancy, Jacques Derrida and Gayatri Spivak, I consider a claim that philosophy has failed to address the topic of listening because a logocentric tradition claims speech as primary. In response to Derrida’s deconstruction of logocentrism, Nancy complicates the problem of listening (...) by distinguishing between l’écoute and l’entente. L’écoute is an attending to and answering the demand of the other and l’entente is an understanding directed inward toward a subject. Nancy could deconstruct an undervalued position of l’écoute, making listening essential to speech. I argue, Nancy rather asks what kind of listening philosophy is capable of. To examine this question, I focus on the peculiarly dialogical figure derived from Chaplin that communicates meaning without using speech. This discussion illustrates how Chaplin, in the role of a silent figure, listens to himself (il s’écoute) as other. Chaplin’s listening is Nancean resonance, a movement in which a subject refers back to itself as another subject, in constant motion of spatial and temporal non-presence. For Nancy, listening is a self’s relationship to itself, but without immediate self-presence. Moving in resonance, Chaplin makes the subject as other as he refers back to himself as other. I argue that Chaplin, through silent dialogue with himself by way of the other, makes his listening listened to. Chaplin refused to make his character speak because he believed speech would change the way in which his work would be listened to. In this way, Chaplin makes people laugh by making himself understood (se fait entendre) as he makes himself listened to (se fait écouter). In answer to Nancy’s question, I conclude philosophy is capable of meeting the demand of listening as both l’entente and l’écoute when it listens as Chaplin listens. (shrink)

Hegel and Heidegger are leading figures of modern philosophy, but their interpretation of being, metaphysics, truth, ontology, epistemology, dialectic, alienation and art, among other central questions of philosophy, are radically different. Taking these aspects into account, my paper tries to dismiss Heidegger’s critiques towards Hegel arguing that, from the point of view of 20th century phenomenology, and although using a dissimilar philosophical vocabulary, Hegel was rather a phenomenologist than a metaphysician. Not only that: in many respects, Heidegger’s Dasein toys with (...) metaphysic to an extent that Hegel’s spirit never did. (shrink)