Ethics and the other: Recovering genuine encounter through a reinterpretation of Heidegger

Matthew Harrison Kleiner, Purdue University

Abstract

Questions about ethics have dominated postmodern philosophy and post-postmodern philosophy. Ethics ultimately has something to do with encountering other persons and responding to them. While the possibility of genuinely encountering others is typically assumed by those who don't practice philosophy for a living, post-Kantian philosophy renders this basic experience problematic. Are other people the sorts of beings that can be encountered or, daringly, are they 'beyond being'? Postmodern philosophers like Derrida prefer to talk about others as being 'beyond being' or beyond any horizon of comprehension. Resultant of this is the so-called negative ethics of radical alterity or ethics of impossibility. We are called to radical responsibility but, since the other is beyond comprehension, we are in a condition of radical ignorance with respect to the others to whom we must respond. ^ This ethics of alterity has always struck me as phenomenologically deficient; it simply fails to really articulate our moral experience with others. With that in mind, I wanted to explore another point of view. Though notable postmodern philosophers of alterity like Derrida owe a great debt of gratitude to Heidegger, Heidegger (particularly the "later" Heidegger) has rarely been brought to bear on the question of encountering others in an ethical relationship. In part, this stems from the view that Heidegger is himself caught up in the metaphysics of presence (another way of saying the other is not encountered) that postmodern philosophers are so eager to deconstruct. ^ The aim of this work is to bring the later Heidegger into this discussion, to re-interpret him back from the metaphysics of presence and into the conversation about our ethical encounter with others. To do this, I first explain and explore the problems and deficiencies of the ethics of alterity. To set the stage for Heidegger's entry into the conversation, I then show that Derrida is wrong to suppose that Heidegger is a foe instead of an ally regarding the metaphysics of presence. I then move to a careful reading of a various later Heideggerian works, read as a "path" to what Heidegger hopes to be a new kind of thinking. After exploring Heidegger's development of a new thinking which I call an "alethiology", I show that his thought can be fruitful for reflections on our ethical encounters with others and with moral philosophy in general. In particular, I draw a connection between alethiology and Aristotle's understanding of phronesis. Ultimately I argue that Heidegger recognizes, with Derrida and others, the ultimate "groundlessness" of ethics without succumbing to the negative ethics of radical alterity.^

Degree

Ph.D.

Advisors

Daniel Smith, Purdue University.

Subject Area

Ethics|Philosophy

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