Heidegger's Politics.pdf

THE DOUBTFUL POLIS: THE QUESTION OF POLITICS IN

HEIDEGGER’S BEING AND TIME

James D. Stewart 1

Abstract: This article presents a close textual analysis of the concept of selfhood in

Heidegger’s central work, Being and Time . It is shown that Heidegger’s model of the self

is actually a conflation of two mutually exclusive models. The first is an individually

grounded heroic quest for authenticity arising from a confrontation with finitude. The

other is based in the passive acceptance of a historically grounded Volksgeist and its

accompanying societal roles. It is found that the tension arising from these disparate

models renders Heidegger’s political theory necessarily ambiguous, as it ultimately

breaks down in the transition between the individual and social spheres.

Heidegger’s relevance to political theory has been the subject of much discus-

sion in recent years. However, these interpretations have largely failed to rec-

ognize that Heidegger’s political reflections are built upon a profoundly

ambiguous theory of selfhood. This ambiguity arises from the seeming con-

flation of two innately contradictory models of selfhood, individual being-

towards-death and collective historical authenticity, into one ontological

schematization of the self. This paper will analyse Heidegger’s ontological

project in an attempt to demonstrate this fundamental problem with his politi-

cal thought. 2 It is ultimately argued that Heidegger’s concept of individual

authenticity inevitably undercuts his theory of an authentic community.

Since Heidegger most explicitly and completely elaborated his theory of self-

hood in Being and Time , it is appropriate to examine this text in searching for the

tensions in his political thought. In addition, the structure of Being and Time ,as

two separate divisions dealing with these apparently different models of the self,

lends credence to this choice of text. Another factor that makes Being and Time

appropriate for this analysis is the intimate connection between the thoughts

expressed in the text and Heidegger’s own political activity. Farías notes:

We can see the progressive connections in a thought process nourished in

traditions of authoritarianism, anti-semitism, and ultranationalism...From

the systematic point of view, this development is linked to Heidegger’s

reflections in Being and Time — on historiocity, ‘authentic’ being-in-

community, and his own links with the people, the hero, and the struggle. 3

1 Dept of History and Political Science, Mississippi College, Clinton, MS 39058,

USA. Email: jstewart@mc.edu

2 As Heidegger himself later argues: ‘every great thinker always thinks one jump

more originally than he directly speaks . Our interpretation must therefore try to say what

is unsaid by him.’ Nietzsche 1: The Will to Power as Art , trans. David Farrell Krell (San

Francisco, 1979), p. 134.

3 Victor Farías, Heidegger and Nazism , ed. Joseph Margolis, trans. Tom Rockmore

(Philadelphia, 1989), p. 4.

HISTORY OF POLITICAL THOUGHT. Vol. XXIII. No. 4. Winter 2002

POLITICS IN HEIDEGGER’S BEING AND TIME

671

Despite this progression, there is an accepted division between the ‘early’

and ‘late’ works of Heidegger. While there is a definite change in emphasis

over Heidegger’s career, he never abandons the Dasein analytic or his postu-

lation of an ontologically related community. In this sense, it can be argued

that Heidegger’s philosophical project, and therefore his political project,

holds together as a distinct body of work. Krell notes:

Whether we subdivide Heidegger into two or three or even more parts, the

problem remains that the moment we begin to think about any element of

any part that element itself turns back and forth to all the remaining ele-

ments in Heidegger’s thought...the unity of Heidegger’s career of thought

remains striking. 4

It can be speculated that Heidegger’s recognition of the ambiguity of his

model of selfhood partly prompted the later changes in Heidegger’s thought. 5

If so, it may explain why Heidegger never completed his magnum opus, Being

and Time. This further points to the necessity of selecting Being and Time as

the text for analysis.

In order to accomplish this critique, it must be established that Heidegger

actually proposed a political project that is hinged upon a specific theory of

selfhood. This is not an easy task, as there is a great deal of controversy about

the existence of a concrete Heideggerian political theory. Dallmayr points out

that Heidegger never intended to present a political theory; indeed he ‘has

explicitly denied any such intent’. Instead, Dallmayr argues that Heidegger’s

ontological project must necessarily take into account innately political con-

cepts such as freedom and authenticity. 6 As such, Heidegger offers not a poli-

tical theory per se , but rather critiques modern political presuppositions that

can make ‘contributions’ to the study of politics and to political theory. 7

In opposition, Harries argues that it is impossible to separate political theo-

ry from Heidegger’s philosophical project. 8 Harries argues that Heidegger’s

ontological project must by necessity be a political theory, as it is only within

Heidegger’s conception of the polis that Dasein can fully exist. Harries further

contends that it is the role of the authentic individual, in the role of the

4 David Farrell Krell, Intimations of Mortality: Time, Truth, and Finitude on

Heidegger’s Thinking of Being (Pennsylvania, 1986), p. 105.

5 ‘. . . during the years immediately following the publication of Being and Time ,

Heidegger tried to eliminate part of the ambiguity which had originally affected his

claims about Being by explaining some of its fundamental characteristics’, Joseph J.

Kockelmans, On the Truth of Being (Bloomington, IN, 1984), p. 47.

6 Fred Dallmayr, Polis and Praxis (Cambridge, MA, 1984), p. 104.

7 Fred Dallmayr, The Other Heidegger (Ithaca, NY, 1993).

8 Newell agrees on this point: ‘A certain kind of sociality is, for Heidegger, constitu-

tive of human life at its most basic, ontological level of man as he is apart from any partic-

ular regime, society, or culture.’ W. Newell, ‘Heidegger on Freedom and Community:

Some Implications of His Early Thought’, American Political Science Review ,78(3)

(1984), p. 775.

672

J.D. STEWART

statesman, either to found this new polis or to ensure its continued existence. 9

This interpretation emphasizes that Heidegger’s conception both of the self

and the community are fundamentally related and are presented by Heidegger

in the form of a positive political theory.

Schufreider criticizes Harries’ interpretation of Heidegger’s concept of

the community, but nevertheless concludes that ‘in the end, one may be

fairly reluctant to conclude that Heidegger has, what we ordinarily call, a

political philosophy; nonetheless, there are implications for political thought

entailed...even if nothing so specific as has sometimes been claimed’. 10

Schufreider argues that Heidegger’s elaboration of the concept of destiny is

inextricably tied to a theory of community: ‘The communication of struggle

constitutive of that conversation in which a people’s historical direction is

established through the institution of collective tasks that are not the contriv-

ance of any individual.’ 11 Thus the political relevance of Heidegger is to be

found in the linking of his model of selfhood with the community created by

their activity with each other and the world.

Thiele states that Heidegger’s ontology must concern itself with the artic-

ulation of a political theory to support the discussion of authentic selfhood.

‘Authenticity, in other words, necessitates an acceptance of the ontologi-

cally social basis of life.’ 12 Thiele argues that Heidegger’s political philoso-

phy, like Nietzsche’s, is a heroic philosophy arising from a self-generated

call, even if the self is ontologically bound to the other. According to Thiele,

Heidegger’s philosophical project is therefore based upon an essentially polit-

ical foundation consisting of specific models of selfhood and community.

Dreyfus presents a detailed analysis of Being and Time ; 13 however, he con-

cerns himself only with the first division, in which Heidegger elaborates the

concepts of inauthenticity and authenticity of being-towards-death. It is the

second division of Being and Time that contains the controversial elements to

be examined in this paper: the incorporation of authentic individuals into a

community structure. Dreyfus consigns Division Two to an appendix along

with a discussion of the ‘later Heidegger’, which implies that Dreyfus consid-

ers the discussions contained therein to be separate from Being and Time

proper. This is troubling, as Heidegger’s arguments in Division Two suppos-

edly follow directly from the earlier arguments, and therefore compose a

philosophical unity. If Division Two is somehow inconsistent with the first

9 Karsten Harries, ‘Heidegger as a Political Thinker’, in Heidegger and Modern Phi-

losophy , ed. Michael Murray (New Haven, CT, 1978), p. 305.

10 Gregory Schufreider, ‘Heidegger on Community’, Man and World , 14 (1981), p. 50.

11 Ibid.

12 Leslie Paul Thiele, Timely Meditations: Martin Heidegger and Postmodern Poli-

tics (Princeton, NJ, 1995), p. 56.

13 Hubert L. Dreyfus, Being-in-the-World: A Commentary on Heidegger’s Being and

Time, Division I (Cambridge, MA, 1991).

POLITICS IN HEIDEGGER’S BEING AND TIME

673

division, the plausibility of Heidegger’s political and philosophical project

may be called into question.

Although primarily concerned with Heidegger’s relation to National

Socialism, Beistegui discusses the innate political theory in Being and Time .

Beistegui argues that even if Being and Time was taken to be an essentially

nonpolitical document,

Being and Time can be said to be pre-political, where the ‘pre’ would need

to be thought of as the onto-chronological condition of possibility of the

political sphere in general. Yet the way in which the collective dimension

of human existence comes to be determined in Being and Time provides a

specific and decisive orientation towards a possible thematization of the

political. 14

In this sense, Being and Time represents the expression of an ontologically

bounded theory of political existence. Importantly for this study, Beistegui is

suspicious of the ease with which the authentic individual is to be incorpo-

rated into the historical community Heidegger describes. ‘Heidegger’s analy-

sis is ontically overdetermined because it is ontologically too vague and too

quick . . . because Heidegger’s concept of history as destiny is not secured

ontologically, it is from the start politically oriented.’ 15 Beistegui argues that

Heidegger is primarily proposing a political theory of the Völkish state, and

uses ontological jargon to conceal this fundamental argument.

Although this is not an exhaustive study of the literature on Heidegger by

any means, it serves to illuminate the debate within political theory over

Heidegger. The major controversy among these writers is the extent to which

they assert that Heidegger’s philosophy presents a concrete political theory;

generally defined as a blueprint for the community or the state. Without

exception, however, they agree that Heidegger’s philosophy has important

ramifications for political theory. As such, whether or not Heidegger explic-

itly presents his philosophy as a political theory is somewhat beyond the

point; his philosophy concerns the bounds of social experience that are the

predicate of any political theory. Further, there is an important consensus: all

of these interpretations argue that any political theory drawn from

Heidegger’s philosophy is fundamentally grounded in his theory of selfhood,

itself an essential element of political theory. Therefore, in order for there to

be a Heideggerian political theory or political project, the underlying theory

of selfhood must be cohesive. 16

14 Miguel de Beistegui, Heidegger and the Political (London, 1998), p. 11.

15 Ibid. ,p.19.

16 ‘The indeterminateness of his understanding of the relation between political enti-

ties...reminds us of the murky status of political possibilities in his analysis ...itispre-

cisely the attempt to clarify this status that leads us to question Heidegger’s analysis in

general.’ Mark Blitz, Heidegger’s Being and Time and the Possibility of Political Philos-

ophy (Ithaca, NY, 1981), p. 146.

674

J.D. STEWART

This article seeks to demonstrate that Heidegger’s ontological project of

authentic selfhood undercuts any theory of the community that could be

drawn from it. Although Heidegger presents his account of authentic selfhood

in Being and Time as a single discrete model, it is in actuality a conflation of

two distinct, separate models; one predicated in individual action and another

based in a historical communal consciousness. This paper will describe the

characteristics of these two models found in Being and Time in order to dem-

onstrate their incompatibility and therefore the ambiguity of Heidegger’s

political thought.

Individually Actuated Authentic Selfhood

The first model of authentic selfhood presented in Being and Time is that of

‘being-towards-death’, which is predicated upon a distinct conception of

human existence. Heidegger rejects the notion that the individual is a dis-

crete subject separate from the universe in some fundamental sense.

Rather, humans ( Dasein ) are seen as the site for disclosure of being.

‘ Dasein is its disclosedness .’ 17 This ontological prerogative is what makes

humans human, as only Dasein is capable of understanding itself ontologi-

cally. ‘ Dasein is ontically distinctive in that it is ontological.’ 18

Heidegger’s understanding of the individual is thus predicated upon

action: the disclosure of being as the fundamental activity of human

existence.

Despite his emphasis upon primordial individual action, Heidegger views

human life as innately social from the ontological level forwards. This

sociality is evident in the primary emergence of each specific Dasein .

Dasein is thrown into a ‘world’, understood as the environment in which

Dasein dwells and with which it interacts. The ‘world’ in Heideggerian

terms is the experiential and referential totality that surrounds and composes

Dasein ’s existence. Much of Dasein ’s world is already created by others,

and the content of this Umwelt in turn largely constructs Dasein ’s self, since

everyday existence necessarily involves interaction with things and others

within the world.

This everyday existence within the world tends to lull Dasein into

‘inauthenticity’ ( Uneigentlichkeit ). 19 Inauthenticity is brought about through

the confusion of Dasein ’s being with that of das Man , the ‘they’. 20 ‘Proximally

17 Martin Heidegger, Being and Time , trans. John Macquarrie and Edward Robinson

(New York, 1962), p. 171.

18 Ibid. ,p.32.

19 Employing a somewhat different translation of this term one arrives at ‘non-self

ownership’.

20 Dreyfus argues that it is misleading to translate das Man as the ‘they’, since this

implies that the self is somehow separate from das Man . Dreyfus, Being-in-the-World ,

p. xi.

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