An important shift occurs in Martin Heidegger’s thinking one year after the publication of Being and Time , in the Appendix to the Metaphysical Foundations of Logic . The shift is from his project of fundamental ontology—which provides an existential analysis of human existence on an ontological level—to metontology . Metontology is a neologism that refers to the ontic sphere of human experience and to the regional ontologies that were excluded from Being and Time. It is within metontology, Heidegger states, (...) that “the question of ethics may be raised for the first time.” This paper makes explicit both Heidegger’s argument for metontology , and the relation between metontology and ethics. In examining what he means by “the art of existing,” the paper argues that there is an ethical dimension to Heidegger’s thinking that corresponds to a moderate form of moral particularism. In order to justify this position, a comparative analysis is made between Heidegger, Aristotle, and Bernard Williams. (shrink)

This paper describes Heidegger as a robust scientific realist, explains why his view has received such conflicting treatment, and concludes that the special significance of his position lies in his insistence upon linking the discussion of science to the question of its relation with technology. It shows that Heidegger, rather than accepting the usual forced option between realism and antirealism, advocates a realism in which he embeds the antirealist thesis that the idea of reality independent of human understanding is unintelligible. (...) This reading is defended against Rorty's antirealist interpretation, as well as Dreyfus' depiction of him as a deflationary realist, and his assessment of background realism is contrasted with Fine's. Further, the robustness of Heidegger's realism is laid out across several texts from 1912 to 1976, in order to show that he is neither an instrumental realist nor an internal realist. Finally, the point is made that the development of his view concerning realism gives rise to a critique of objectivity that is now being similarly advocated by numerous thinkers from a variety of disciplines, and that this critique is inevitably ethical and political. (shrink)

How does everyday, inauthentic Dasein dominated by das Man become authentic? The aim of this article is to answer this and other questions about Dasein's authenticity by carrying out an analysis of the 'call of conscience'. This analysis, in turn, provides insights about Dasein's possibility for ethical existence. We will see that even though there are some puzzling issues in Heidegger's explanation of Dasein in its everydayness and its authenticity, the Heideggerian Existential Analytic is not 'anti-ethical' as some have claimed. (...) We will also see that the Existential Analytic's commitment to the ontic raises doubts about Heidegger's claim that the Analytic is prior to any ethics and examine how reading Being and Time as a project of 'metontology' may dissolve these doubts. Finally, the paper offers a suggestion about the importance of 'authentic historicality' in a factical account of the moral life. (shrink)

ABSTRACT There is general agreement that Kant’s thought strongly influenced Heidegger’s. Nevertheless, there is still much work to be done in order to fully appreciate this influence. A central theme to disclose the relation between these authors is the role they give to the transcendental. In this paper I show that Kant’s account of intuition is the focus of Heidegger’s interpretation of Kant in his Die Frage nach dem Ding, since Heidegger interprets Kant’s treatment of intuition as a delimiting of (...) the modern mathematical tendency to determine everything out of pure reason alone. I argue that this interpretation is at the basis of Heidegger’s appropriation of Kant’s synthetic a priori in this work, the aim of which is to take this notion away from the sphere of the objects of mathematical physical science, and place it in the realm of everyday experience. I claim that Heidegger thinks that this move can only be accomplished by removing universality and necessity from Kant’s a priori. Finally, I show that Heidegger’s appropriation of Kant’s synthetic a priori goes together with and illuminates his understanding of transcendence as das Zwischen, ‘the between us and things’. RESUMO É consenso geral que o pensar de Kant influenciou fortemente o pensar de Heidegger. Porém, há ainda muito trabalho a fazer para se conseguir apreciar essa influência plenamente. Um tema crucial para conseguir expor a relação entre esses dois autores é o rol que ambos dão ao transcendental. Neste artigo, vou mostrar que o tratamento que Kant faz da intuição é o foco da interpretação que Heidegger oferece acerca de Kant em sua obra Die Frage nach dem Ding, dado que Heidegger interpreta o jeito como Kant trabalha a intuição como uma delimitação da tendência matemática moderna a determiná- lo tudo pelo só uso da razão pura. Argumento que essa interpretação está na base da apropriação que Heidegger faz do sintético a priori kantiano nesta obra, cujo fim é tirar essa noção fora da esfera dos objetos da ciência físico- matemática e posicioná-la no reino da experiência cotidiana. Sustento que Heidegger pensa que isto só pode ser alcançado ao eliminar a necessidade e a universalidade do a priori kantiano. Finalmente, mostro que a apropriação que Heidegger faz do sintético a priori kantiano vai junto e ilumina sua compreensão da transcendência como o das Zwischen, ‘o entre nós e as coisas’. (shrink)

Heidegger’s thinking has an underlying unity, this book argues, and has cogency for seemingly diverse domains of modern culture: philosophy and religion, aesthetics and literary criticism, intellectual history and social theory. “The theme of mortality—finite human existence—pervades Heidegger’s thought,” in the author’s words, “before, during, and after his magnum opus, _Being and Times_, published in 1927.” This theme is manifested in Heidegger’s work not “as funereal melodramatics or as despair and destructive nihilism” but rather “_as a thinking within anxiety_.” Four (...) major subthemes in Heidegger’s thinking are explored in the book’s four parts: the fundamental ontology developed in _Being and Time_; the “lighting and clearing” of Being, understood as “unconcealment”; the history of philosophy—with emphasis on Heraclitus, Hegel, and Nietzsche—interpreted as the “destiny” of Being; and the poetics of Being, explicated as the “fundamental experience” of mortality. Neither an introduction nor a survey, this book is a close reading of a wide range of Heidegger’s books, lectures, and articles—including extensive material not yet translated into English—informed by the author’s conversations with Heidegger in 1974_–_76. Each of the four subthemes is treated critically. The aim of the book is to push its interrogations of Heidegger’s thought as far as possible, in order to help the reader toward an independent assessment of his work and to encourage novel, radically conceived approaches to traditional philosophical problems. (shrink)

This article introduces Heidegger's notion of metontology as a way to address the body-problem in Being and Time.

In 1928 Heidegger argued that the transcendental philosophy he had pursued in Being and Time needed to be completed by what he called “metontology.” This paper analyzes what this notion amounts to. Far from being merely a curiosity of Heidegger scholarship, the place occupied by “metontology” opens onto a general issue concerning the relation between transcendental philosophy and metaphysics, and also between both of these and naturalistic empiricism. I pursue these issues in terms of an ambiguity in the notion of (...) “grounding” in Being and Time and in the works of what I call Heidegger’s “metaphysical decade” , defending a phenomenological conception against what proves to be the illusory idea that metaphysical grounds are presupposed in such transcendental philosophy. (shrink)

In 1928 Heidegger argued that the transcendental philosophy he had pursued in Being and Time needed to be completed by what he called “metontology.” This paper analyzes what this notion amounts to. Far from being merely a curiosity of Heidegger scholarship, the place occupied by “metontology” opens onto a general issue concerning the relation between transcendental philosophy and metaphysics, and also between both of these and naturalistic empiricism. I pursue these issues in terms of an ambiguity in the notion of (...) “grounding” in Being and Time and in the works of what I call Heidegger’s “metaphysical decade” (1927 - 1937), defending a phenomenological conception (giving priority to the theory of meaning) against what proves to be the illusory idea that metaphysical grounds are presupposed in such transcendental philosophy. (shrink)