Heidegger's Conversations: Relationality, Language, and Ethics Public

Abstract

In this dissertation, I articulate a dialogical or conversational ethics underlying Martin Heidegger's thinking. I argue this despite the fact that Heidegger's philosophy is generally regarded as exclusively dealing in ontological philosophy, not ethics. Indeed Heidegger himself disavowed ethics as his primary concern, writing in 1945 in his "Letter on Humanism" that "[i]f the name ‘ethics,' in keeping with the basic meaning of the word ethos, should now say that ethics ponders the abode of the human being, then that thinking which thinks the truth of being as the primordial element of the human being…is in itself originary ethics. However, this thinking is not ethics in the first instance because it is ontology." Nevertheless, and perhaps even despite Heidegger's own self-interpretation, I argue that his philosophy demonstrates a glaring ethical character. To show this, I turn to the series of five "Conversations"--Gespräche--Heidegger wrote in the 1940s and 1950s. Although the Conversations have begun to be mined for their rich philosophical content by commentators, these is, as of yet, no philosophical literature specifically approaching the form of the writing of the Conversations in such a way as to explicitly question its capacity to elucidate Heidegger's ethics. In order to explore this ethical dimension of Heidegger's philosophy, I offer a set of close readings of these Conversations not so much for what they explicitly say as for what they unavoidably show regarding the centrality of ethics for Heidegger. Each Conversation stages an interaction between various characters, their environment, and their cultural, historical, and political context, which is useful for illustrating a Heideggerian ethics of relating to others. Language, as a philosophical topic, also plays a substantial role in Heidegger's body of work. Since the Conversations take place principally through the exchange of language, my dissertation proposes a Heideggerian sense of dialogical or conversational ethics wherein language, particularly poetizing language, assumes a central role in how we learn to relate to others properly.

Table of Contents

Table of Contents

Introduction......................................................................................................................... 1

Conversation as Living Metaphor..................................................................................... 1

Heidegger's Conversations................................................................................................ 4

Chapter Summaries......................................................................................................... 14

Affecting Persuasion in Heidegger's "Triadic Conversation"............................................... 18

The Setting: From Cognition to Poetizing to Ethics....................................................... 20

Relationality: Releasing Conversation............................................................................. 40

Language: Collaborative Poetizing.................................................................................. 55

Ethics: The Affect of Learning to Speak Together......................................................... 64

Conclusion: Teaching and Learning a Heideggerian Ethical Comportment..................... 75

Toward Welcoming the Strange(r): Picturing Heidegger's "Tower Conversation".............. 81

The Setting: From Wonder to Welcome......................................................................... 86

Relationality: Picturing Wonder and the Strange.......................................................... 100

Language: Art as Poetry................................................................................................ 110

The Ethics of Welcoming the Strange(r)...................................................................... 114

Conclusion: Friends in Thinking................................................................................... 118

The Politics of Waiting: Learning Healing in Heidegger's "Evening Conversation"......... 120

The Setting: A Collective Antidote to Evil................................................................... 122

Temporal Relationality: From the Personal to the Political.......................................... 145

Language as Listening: Conversing and Poetizing......................................................... 155

Ethical Waiting............................................................................................................ 166

Conclusion: Teaching Conversation.............................................................................. 170

Poetizing Love: Beautiful Dwelling in Heidegger's "Western Conversation".................... 174

The Setting: Interpreting Hölderlin, Again................................................................... 177

The Relationality of Releasing Love............................................................................. 192

Language: Poetizing the Sensual Abyss......................................................................... 199

Harmonizing Ethics...................................................................................................... 209

Conclusion: Spoken Speech.......................................................................................... 215

Endangered Conversation: Touching without Injuring in Heidegger's "From a Conversation of Language" 217

A Note on East-West Conversation............................................................................. 219

Setting the (Dangerously, Eastern) Stage...................................................................... 223

Two-fold Relationality................................................................................................. 252

The Hermeneutic Needfulness of Language.................................................................. 257

Heidegger's Performative (Conversational) Ethics....................................................... 267

Afterword........................................................................................................................ 273

Three Theses................................................................................................................. 273

Looking Ahead............................................................................................................. 278

A Final Author's Note.................................................................................................. 281

References........................................................................................................................ 284

About this Dissertation

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School	Laney Graduate School
Department	Philosophy
Degree	PhD
Submission	Dissertation
Language	English
Research Field	Philosophy
Mot-clé	Conversation Ethics Heidegger
Committee Chair / Thesis Advisor	Mitchell, Andrew J, Emory University
Committee Members	Hyland, Drew, Trinity College Willett, Cynthia, Emory University Lysaker, John, Emory University Sean, Kirkland, Depaul University

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