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The Concept of Action and Responsibility in Heidegger's Early University of South Florida Scholar Commons Graduate Theses and Dissertations Graduate School 2009 The concept of ca tion and responsibility in Heidegger's early thought Christian Hans Pedersen University of South Florida Follow this and additional works at: http://scholarcommons.usf.edu/etd Part of the American Studies Commons Scholar Commons Citation Pedersen, Christian Hans, "The oncc ept of action and responsibility in Heidegger's early thought" (2009). Graduate Theses and Dissertations. http://scholarcommons.usf.edu/etd/2135 This Dissertation is brought to you for free and open access by the Graduate School at Scholar Commons. It has been accepted for inclusion in Graduate Theses and Dissertations by an authorized administrator of Scholar Commons. For more information, please contact [email protected]. The Concept of Action and Responsibility in Heidegger’s Early Thought by Christian Hans Pedersen A dissertation submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy Department of Philosophy College of Arts and Sciences University of South Florida Major Professor: Charles Guignon, Ph.D. Stephen Tuner, Ph.D. Joann Waugh, Ph.D. Rebecca Kukla, Ph.D. Ofelia Schutte, Ph.D. Date of Approval: April 3, 2009 Keywords: Heidegerrian, Being and Time , Authentic, Inauthentic, Conscience, Resoluteness © Copyright 2009, Christian Hans Pedersen TABLE OF CONTENTS LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS iii ABSTRACT iv PREFACE v Dissertation Introduction 1 Chapter 1. Developing a Heideggerian Conception of Action 15 Heidegger’s Interpretation of the Aristotelian Understanding of Human Life in Basic Concepts of Ancient Philosophy 16 Tracing Heidegger’s Development of His Conception of Action in His Thought Leading up to Being and Time 22 The Culmination of Heidegger’s Early Understanding of Agency in Being and Time 25 Description of Our Everyday Activity Found in Heidegger’s Account of Worldhood 26 Disposition ( Befindlichkeit ) 29 Understanding ( Verstehen ) 34 The Interdependence of Disposition and Understanding and the Resulting Conception of Action 38 Potential Problem Cases for this Conception of Action 42 Non-Productive Activity 42 Actions that Involve Explicit Deliberation 44 Having Different Self-understandings that Give Rise to Allowing Incompatible Things to Matter to Us 49 Actions that Do Not Seem to Involve Movement 53 Conclusion 55 Chapter 2. Understanding the Distinction between Authentic and Inauthentic Action 56 The First Distinction between Authentic and Inauthentic Action: Responsibility 57 The Second Distinction between Authentic and Inauthentic Action: Self- Knowledge 63 Conclusion 73 i Chapter 3. Inauthentic Action 75 The Movement of Inauthentic Action—Falling 76 The Three General Types of Inauthentic Action 82 Productive Activity 83 Interaction with Other People 85 Non-Goal-Directed Action 88 Conclusion 96 Chapter 4. The Possibility of Being Responsible for Our Actions 97 Developing a Heideggerian Version of Compatibilism 100 Achieving Responsibility in the Strong Sense in Authentic Action 114 Chapter 5. Becoming Responsible in the Strong Sense—Revealing Our Being in Authentic Action 125 Revealing the Structure of Our Being in Authentic Being-Towards- Death 128 Conscience and Resoluteness 141 Heidegger’s Discussion of Phrōnesis in the Plato’s Sophist Lectures 143 Conscience and Resoluteness in Being and Time 155 Summary of the Preceding Analysis of Conscience and Resoluteness 171 The Connection between Conscience, Resoluteness and Death 172 Conclusion 176 Dissertation Conclusion 179 BIBLIOGRAPHY 188 About the Author End Page ii LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS I employ the following abbreviations for the following frequently cited works. Abbreviations of Aristotle’s works NE icomachean Ethics , trans. Terence Irwin (Indianapolis, IN: Hackett, 1985). Abbreviations of Kant’s works CPR Critique of Pure Reason , trans. Norman Kemp Smith (New York: MacMillan, 1965). Abbreviations of Heidegger’s works BCAP Basic Concepts of Ancient Philosophy , trans. Richard Rojcewicz (Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press, 2008). BPP Basic Problems of Phenomenology , trans. Albert Hofstadter (Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press, 1988). BT Being and Time , trans. John Macquarrie and Edward Robinson (NewYork: Harper and Row, 1963). EHF The Essence of Human Freedom , trans. Ted Sadler (New York: Continuum, 2005). HCT History of the Concept of Time, trans. Theodore Kisiel (Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press, 1992). PIA Phenomenological Interpretations of Aristotle: Initiation into Phenomenological Research , trans. Richard Rojcewicz (Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press, 2001). PS Plato’s Sophist , trans.Richard Rojcewicz and Andre Schuwer (Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press, 1997). iii The Concept of Action and Responsibility in Heidegger’s Early Thought Christian Hans Pedersen ABSTRACT In his early thought (which for our purposes will be considered to be roughly the time period from his first post World War I lecture course in 1919 to the publication of Being and Time in 1927), Heidegger offers a rich description of our practical engagement with the world. The aim of this project is to develop a Heideggerian conception of action from these early, concrete descriptions of the practical dimension of human life. The central feature of this Heideggerian conception of action is that action is understood as involving interdependent aspects of passivity and activity (or receptivity and spontaneity, in a more Kantian formulation). Considered in its entirety, my dissertation provides what I take to be a fruitful interpretation of Heidegger’s early thought from the standpoint of his understanding of action. It also provides the provisional basis and framework for the further development of a general conception of human agency that can be extended beyond Heidegger’s thought. iv PREFACE I should perhaps preface the main body of this work with a short clarification of the title, The Concept of Action and Responsibility in Heidegger’s Early Thought . This title might justifiably lead the reader to expect an entirely historical work whose aim is the interpretation and explication what Heidegger says about action and responsibility in his early thought. My aim here is slightly different. For centuries philosophers have been struggling with the problem of free will. The problem, generally speaking, is that we typically hold two seemingly incompatible beliefs about ourselves and the structure of nature as such. On the one hand, we believe that we, as individuals have a significant degree of control over our actions and that our actions for the most part are of our own making and not the product of external, environmental influences. On the other hand, we tend to see the whole of nature as governed by strict causal laws, which determine all actions and events that take place. The sort of determinism assumed to be a threat to free will is often taken to be a naturalistic determinism. That is, the worry is that our actions as human beings are determined by natural laws at the physiological level, e.g. our genetic code makes us determined to act the way we do. Alternatively, one could see a threat to our free will posed by a sort of social determinism. The worry in this case is that our actions are v completely determined by various social forces, e.g. the way we were raised, the norms and expectations of our society, etc. In Heidegger’s early thought, we find an analysis and description of human agency that focuses on the fundamental role that our social and historical contextualization plays in our actions. Because of this, Heidegger’s early thoughts on what it means to be human agent also potentially generate a worry about social determinism. Heidegger himself seems to be aware of this potential problem and seeks to develop a solution that would allow us still to recognize the influence that social factors have in our actions, but also open up the possibility that despite this influence, our actions can still be free in some meaningful way. The aim of this project is to use Heidegger’s analysis of action to develop a coherent and plausible conception of action that might help us to resolve the problem of free will, at least when this problem is generated by the worry about social determinism. This way of approaching Heidegger’s thought can be seen as fruitful in two ways. First of all, this approach is not found in the vast amount of secondary literature devoted to Heidegger’s thought, so I hope that my project provides something of fresh way of interpreting Heidegger. Secondly, I hope to show that the conception of action we find in Heidegger’s early thought can be useful when trying to address the larger problem of freedom and social determinism broadly considered. I would also like to take the time here to acknowledge some of those people whose assistance has been invaluable over the course of my work on this project. The comments, questions and suggestions from the members of my dissertation committee (Rebecca Kukla, Ofelia Schutte, Stephen Turner and Joanne Waugh) have been vi immensely valuable in forcing me to clarify and refine my claims and arguments. It is to my advisor, Charles Guignon, that I owe whatever clarity of thought and ability to write with lucidity that I possess. Over the years he has spent enormous amounts of time and energy editing, correcting and questioning my work in order to get me to say things as clearly and straightforwardly as possible. My general approach to doing philosophy will always be grounded in his tutelage. Finally, I would like to thank my wife, Faye, for her unflagging support through the years in which I have worked on this project and for her selfless assistance with the formatting and editing of the final document. vii DISSERTATION INTRODUCTION Heidegger’s rich description of our practical engagement with the world in his early thought (which for our purposes will be considered to be roughly the time period from his first post World War I lecture course in 1919 to the publication of Being and Time in 1927) has drawn significant attention from scholars over the years.
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