The primary purpose of the paper is the broadly exegetical one of explaining and connecting Heidegger's many remarks, made in several different contexts of enquiry, on nature. The three main contexts are those of ontology, scientific methodology, and technology. After showing how Heidegger's central theses in these contexts are related to one another, I argue, in the final section, that his observations on scientific method are pivotal. Unless these are secured, his further claims about ontology and technology lose their essential (...) support. (shrink)

In his recent book The Open: Man and Animal, Giorgio Agamben examines the relation between the essence of the human and the living in Martin Heidegger’s thought. Focusing on the treatment of this relation in Heidegger’s 1929/30 lecture course “The Fundamental Concepts of Metaphysics,” Agamben argues that the dimension of the open, which is central to Heidegger’s understanding of the human essence, can be seen as implicitly dependent upon Heidegger’s account of the essence of animality. In this essay, I argue (...) that Agamben’s reading is insufficient because it has not taken full account of the specifically temporal character of the openness proper to Heidegger’s understanding of the human essence. In conclusion, I present an alternative account of the way in which Heidegger framed his descriptions of animality in the 1929/30 lecture course as articulating the openness characteristic of human being. (shrink)

This article investigates Heidegger's views on technology, specifically focussing on whether it is possible to fit Heidegger's ideas into an ecologically minded framework. The author concludes that the question of what we should do in the wake of the technological crisis we face is inappropriate in terms of Heidegger's philosophy, since he proposes that we should first tackle the question “What should we think?”. The question whether Heidegger's ideas on technology provide us with new paths of action, specifically in terms (...) of ecological practice, is flawed. S. Afr. J. Philos. Vol.22(2) 2003: 157–172. (shrink)

Max Hallman has put forward an interpretation of Nietzsche’s philosophy according to which Nietzsche is a prototypical deep ecologist. In reply, I dispute Hallman’s main interpretive claim as well as its ethical and exegetical corollaries. I hold that Nietzsche is not a “biospheric egalitarian,” but rather an aristocratically individualistic “high humanist.” A consistently naturalistic transcendentalist, Nietzsche does submit a critique of modernity’s Christian-inflected anthropocentrism (pace Hallman), and yet—in his later work—he endorses exploitation in the quest for nobility (contra Hallman). I (...) conclude thatecophilosophers need to exercise hermeneutical caution in any attempt to appropriate Nietzsche for environmentally ethical designs, lest they illegitimately ventriloquize their own moral voices into an authoritative but alien mouthpiece. (shrink)

Die Abhandlung "Vom Wesen der Wahrheit" enthalt den von Heidegger mehrfach uberpruften Text eines Vortrags, der 1930 u. A. In Marburg und Freiburg gehalten wurde. DIe 8. AUflage der Einzelausgabe ist wort- und seitengleich mit dem Abdruck des Textes in der 3., durchgesehenen Auflage der Einzelausgabe der "Wegmarken" sowie mit dem Abdruck in der 2., durchgesehenen Auflage der "Wegmarken" als Band 9 der Gesamtausgabe. SIe enthalt damit erstmals auch die Randbemerkungen Heideggers aus seinen Handexemplaren.

The concept offreedom in Heidegger’s sense of truth or unconcealedness of beings may be applied to future generations without thereby reducing the status of other elements within the environment to mere means, since Da-sein’s approach as one who is a caring and concernful, anxious and aware of its own death in an authentic manner, does not place man in any sense “above” other things. This care (Sorge), concern, favor can be captured in Heidegger’s remark that man is not the lord (...) of beings, but rather is “the Shepherd of Being.” Accordingly. we may be able to learn to moderate our ordering andcommanding attitude and learn to “listen” and free beings. letting them be what they truly are. If so, we might then require no special justification in order to extend toward earth, sky, and future persons the same understanding and freeing concern we normally give to, and wish for ourselves. (shrink)

Environmental holism and environmental individualism are based on incompatible notions of moral considerability, and yield incompatible results. For Schopenhauer, every intelligible character--every irreducible instance of formative nature---defines a distinct moral patient, and for hirn both holistic entities and the individual members of higher species have distinguishable intelligible characters. Schopenhauer’s neglected metaethics thus can be used to generate an environmental ethics which is complete in the sense of synthesizing holism and individualism while simultaneously meeting TomRegan’s (implicit) demand that an environmental ethics (...) make moral patients of natural objects. (shrink)

This essay supposes that the question of what treatment of animals is morally acceptable cannot be decided in any straightforward way by appeals to 'equal consideration of interests' or to animal rights. Instead it seeks to survey a variety of proposals as to how we ought to adjudicate interspecific conflicts of interests - proposals that are both 'speciesist' and 'non-speciesist' in nature. In the end one proposal is defended as the most reasonable one, and is claimed to provide a partial (...) basis for developing an adequate theory of interspecific justice. In the course of this argument the challenge posed by radical critics of current treatment of animals (e.g. Tom Regan and Peter Singer) is considered. The schema of a theory developed here partly supports and partly conflicts with positions they have defended. Regarding the latter point it proposes a non-anthropocentric basis for discounting the interests of sentient animals. (shrink)

The Beiträge zur Philosophie mandates a paradigm shift in Heidegger scholarship. In the face of (1) widespread disarray in the current model, the new paradigm (2) abandons Sein as a name for die Sache selbst, (3) understands Welt/Lichtung/Da as that which gives being, (4) interprets Dasein as apriori openedness rather than as being-there, (5) understands the Kehre as the interface of Geworfenheit and Entwurf, not as a shift in Heidegger's thinking, (6) interprets Ereignis as the opening of the Da rather (...) than as appropriation, and (7) understands human finitude as what gives all forms of being and all epochs in the history of being. The conclusion alludes to the function of Mitdasein (co-openness) as die Sache selbst. (shrink)

The development of the emerging science of ecology influenced the later work of both Heidegger and Merleau-Ponty. Both use zoology, biology, and ecology intheir attempts to navigate between mechanism and vitalism, but their interpretations and use of the life sciences take them on divergent paths and lead them to radically different conclusions regarding the relationship between man and animal. This essay takes up the problematic of kinship with animals in Heidegger and Merleau-Ponty. Beyond the texts of these two thinkers are (...) the more general stakes of the relationships between humans and animals and the question of whether or not animals can be our kin. (shrink)

Agamben maintains that Heidegger continues the work of the anthropological machine by defining Dasein as uniquely open to the closedness of the animal. Yet, Agamben’s own thinking does not so much open up the concept of animal as it attempts to save humanity from the anthropological machine that always produces the animal as the constitutive outside within the human itself. Agamben’s return to religious metaphors at best displaces the binary man-animal with the binary religion-science, and at worst returns us to (...) a discourse at least as violent as the one from which he is trying to escape. Merleau-Ponty’s reanimation of science provides an alternative. (shrink)

The assumption that environmental ethics must be nonanthropocentric in order to be adequate is mistaken. There are two forms of anthropocentrism, weak and strong, and weak anthropocentrism is adequate to support an environmental ethic. Environmental ethics is, however, distinctive vis-a-vis standard British and American ethical systems because, in order to be adequate, it must be nonindividualistic.Environmental ethics involves decisions on two levels, one kind of which differs from usual decisions affecting individual fairness while the other does not. The latter, called (...) allocational decisions, are not reducible to the former and govern the use of resources across extended time. Weak anthropocentrism provides a basis for criticizing individual, consumptive needs and can provide the basis for adjudicatingbetween these levels, thereby providing an adequate basis for environmental ethics without the questionable ontological commitments made by nonanthropocentrists in attributing intrinsie value to nature. (shrink)

Studies that compare human and animal behaviour suspend prejudices about mind, body and their relation, by approaching thinking in terms of behaviour. Yet comparative approaches typically engage another prejudice, motivated by human social and bodily experience: taking the lone animal as the unit of comparison. This prejudice informs Heidegger’s and Merleau-Ponty’s comparative studies, and conceals something important: that animals moving as a group in an environment can develop new sorts of “sense.” The study of animal group-life suggests a new way (...) of thinking about the creation of sense, about the body, the brain, and the relation between thinking and nature. (shrink)

This paper proposes an interpretative framework for some developments of the philosophy of nature after Kant. I emphasize the critique of the economy of nature in the Critique of judgement. I argue that it resulted in a split of a previous structure of knowledge; such a structure articulated natural theology and natural philosophy on the basis of the consideration of the order displayed by living beings, both in their internal organisation and their ecological distribution. The possibility of a philosophical discourse (...) on nature that is neither mathematical nor theological stemmed from this shift. I call “hermeneutics of nature” such a program, since it aims at unpacking an immanent meaning in nature that is not explicated by the sciences of nature, which are dealing with the laws of nature. The Naturphilosophie, undertaken by Schelling, as well as the philosophies of nature of Hegel and Schopenhauer, are several realizations of this program. I highlight the structural traits that they share, such as a pregnant sense of conflicts in nature, an emphasis on the riddles of gender, and above all a prominent status given to organisms as a clue to the meaning of nature. Finally, I try to sketch the ramifications of this hermeneutics of nature in contemporary philosophy, especially phenomenology, and argue that the coming philosophy of nature, as shown by the attempts of syntheses between phenomenology and ecology, seems to depart from this hermeneutical program. (shrink)

This paper offers a reading of Heidegger''s 1931 lectures on Aristotle''s Metaphysics, Theta 1-3 that relates that discussion to Heidegger''s later work on The Question Concerning Technology and then, more briefly, to contemporary philosophical discussions of ecological issues. This reading is intended to open the possibility of using Heidegger''s re-interpretation of Aristotle as a source within the Western European tradition for understanding our relationship to the natural world in a way that could provide the philosophical tools for addressing ecological problems (...) more adequately and effectively. (shrink)

A policy turn in environmental philosophy means a shift from philosophers writing philosophy essays for other philosophers to doing interdisciplinary research and working on projects with public agencies, policy makers, and the private sector. Despite some steps in this direction, a policy turn remains largely unrealized within the community of environmental philosophers. Completing this shift can contribute to better decision making, help discover new areas for philosophic investigation at the intersection of philosophy and policy, and identify new employment prospects for (...) philosophy graduates. (shrink)

In this paper, I offer a systematic inquiry into the significance of Nietzsche’s philosophy to environmental ethics. Nietzsche’s philosophy of nature is, I believe, relevant today because it makes explicit a fundamental ambiguity that is also characteristic for our current understanding of nature. I will show how the current debate between traditional environmental ethics and postmodern environmental philosophy can be interpreted as a symptom of this ambiguity. I argue that, in light of Nietzsche’s critique of morality, environmental ethics is a (...) highly paradoxical project. According to Nietzsche, each moral interpretation of nature implies a conceptual seizure of power over nature. On the other hand, Nietzsche argues, the concept of nature is indispensable in ethics because we have to interpret nature in order to have a meaningful relation with reality. I argue that awareness of this paradox opens a way for a form of respect for nature as radical otherness. (shrink)

The concept offreedom in Heidegger’s sense of truth or unconcealedness of beings may be applied to future generations without thereby reducing the status of other elements within the environment to mere means, since Da-sein’s approach as one who is a caring and concernful, anxious and aware of its own death in an authentic manner, does not place man in any sense “above” other things. This care, concern, favor can be captured in Heidegger’s remark that man is not the lord of (...) beings, but rather is “the Shepherd of Being.” Accordingly. we may be able to learn to moderate our ordering andcommanding attitude and learn to “listen” and free beings. letting them be what they truly are. If so, we might then require no special justification in order to extend toward earth, sky, and future persons the same understanding and freeing concern we normally give to, and wish for ourselves. (shrink)

The assumption that environmental ethics must be nonanthropocentric in order to be adequate is mistaken. There are two forms of anthropocentrism, weak and strong, and weak anthropocentrism is adequate to support an environmental ethic. Environmental ethics is, however, distinctive vis-a-vis standard British and American ethical systems because, in order to be adequate, it must be nonindividualistic.Environmental ethics involves decisions on two levels, one kind of which differs from usual decisions affecting individual fairness while the other does not. The latter, called (...) allocational decisions, are not reducible to the former and govern the use of resources across extended time. Weak anthropocentrism provides a basis for criticizing individual, consumptive needs and can provide the basis for adjudicatingbetween these levels, thereby providing an adequate basis for environmental ethics without the questionable ontological commitments made by nonanthropocentrists in attributing intrinsie value to nature. (shrink)