Kant, Heidegger and the Problem of Indifference: from Reason to Releasement
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Kant, Heidegger and the Problem of Indifference: From Reason to Releasement By Nicholas Poole BA, University of British Columbia, 2013 A Thesis Submitted in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Master of Arts in the Department of Political Science © Nicholas Poole, 2016 University of Victoria All rights reserved. This thesis may not be reproduced in whole or in part, by photocopy or other means, without the permission of the author. ii Supervisory Committee Kant, Heidegger, and the Problem of Indifference: From Reason to Releasement by Nicholas Poole BA, University of British Columbia, 2013 Supervisory Committee Arthur Kroker (Department of Political Science) Supervisor James Tully (Department of Political Science) Departmental Member iii Abstract Supervisory Committee Arthur Kroker (Department of Political Science) Supervisor James Tully (Department of Political Science) Departmental Member This thesis presents a study of Immanuel Kant and Martin Heidegger on the theme of indifference. There are two main argumentative trajectories. First, I establish the coherency of indifference as a unifying theme across both of their works. Specifically, it will be shown that for both thinkers indifference emerges as a “problem” bound up with the history of western metaphysics tending towards nihilism. For Kant, this appears as a problem of reason, and for Heidegger a loss of Being. Their responses to this problem can also be seen as broadly analogous: Both are concerned to demonstrate how a certain “authentic” relation to the inner possibility of metaphysics is possible, and do so without assuming anything in advance about the being for whom metaphysics is an issue. Second, I aim to show that Heidegger’s notion of indifference, as a closure of ecstatic time and loss of Being, more sufficiently accounts for the breadth of indifference as an experiential phenomenon, as well as makes possible a “turning” (Verwindung) of this closed mode into an kind of “open indifference” that makes possible the presencing of things. From the perspective of Heidegger’s response to the problem of indifference, Kant’s response will be shown to regenerate the very problem he seeks to overcome. iv Table of Contents Supervisory Committee ...................................................................................................... ii Abstract .............................................................................................................................. iii Table of Contents ............................................................................................................... iv Acknowledgments .............................................................................................................. vi Dedication ......................................................................................................................... vii Preface ................................................................................................................................. 1 Introduction ......................................................................................................................... 4 Chapter One “The Mother of Chaos and the Night in the Sciences:” Kant and Indifferentism ............ 12 I. Pre-Critical Metaphysics and the Emergence of Indifferentism ............................... 17 II. Indifferentism as Constitutive Problematic .............................................................. 23 III. The Promise of Reason: Indifferentism and Critique ............................................. 47 IV. Summary and Conclusion ....................................................................................... 94 Chapter Two From Kant to Heidegger: The Problem of Foundation ..................................................... 98 I. The Grounds for the Authority of Reason: Apperception and Temporality in the Kantian Ground-Laying .................................. 102 II. Undermining the Grounds of Reason: Temporality and the Imagination in Heidegger’s Ab-Grund ...................................... 121 III. Methodology and Presupposition: Transcendental Deduction and Phenomeological Hermeneutics ................................ 148 IV. Summary & Conclusion ....................................................................................... 180 Chapter Three “The Unworld of the Abandonment of Being:” Heidegger and Ontological Indifference ......................................................................... 184 I. The Case for Ontological Indifference: From Being and Time to Enframing ......... 191 II. Overcoming Indifference: Letting and Releasing, “Poetically Man Dwells…” .... 235 v III. Kant Revisited: The Regulation of Indifference ................................................... 267 Conclusion ...................................................................................................................... 274 Works Cited .................................................................................................................... 281 Appendix ......................................................................................................................... 285 vi Acknowledgments The writing of this thesis was, at every step, supported by teachers, friends and family, without whom this work would not be possible. I would especially like to thank Laura Janara, Arthur Kroker, and Jim Tully for your continual support and encouragement over the last several years. Your guidance and inspiration have been invaluable. I would like to thank Julian Evans, Nick Graham, Jamin Huntley, Carol Linnitt, Kim Smith, Nicola Temmel, and Dustin Zielke. My three years in Victoria are defined by your friendship, and no amount of thanks can express my gratitude and fortune. I would like to thank my family: Bob, Peggy, Brandon and Luke. This work is only possible in the horizon of your love. And my dog, Argos, for keeping me company when things weren’t going so well. Finally, I would like to thank the fields, streams, rivers and mountains with whom much of the thinking of this thesis was done. vii Dedication For my brothers Preface Heidegger once said that philosophy begins in the restless time of homesickness, and I have come to see that it is no accident that indifference, a marker of the homesickness that I feel, should appear to me as a question for thinking. At the outset, indifference presented itself to me as an interesting albeit enigmatic concept for thinking. While it seemed to inhabit the same sphere as other (perhaps more popular) concepts, like apathy or disavowal, it itself appeared more nebulous, harder to define, containing a myriad of possible senses. Undoubtedly, the tonality was initially in a minor key: a burden or problem, something to feel guilty about, since care is preferred. Yet, I could by no means shake indifference so easily, and attempting to do so often seemed to exacerbate its negative potency. But why? And what is indifference anyway? These questions were always going to be asked in relation to the history of philosophy, for not only did my concerns arise in relation to the question of indifference, but I was also committed to a dedicated study of two thinkers in the Western tradition that are, in some sense, foundational. I wanted my initial foray into graduate studies to both introduce me more fully into some of the dominant trends in contemporary thought as well as prepare me for a more direct engagement with them. Of course, no single project can fully accomplish this, yet I thought Kant and Heidegger – whom I already was somewhat acquainted with – might be a good place to start. To say that they are “foundational” as a reason for study is, however, to underplay their significance, although accounting for this is admittedly difficult. Only in hindsight, I 2 think, can the reasons for my interest be understood, and even now it is not entirely clear, for plenty of other philosophers also captivated me at the onset of my studies and through them. I suppose one reason is that they simply made sense to me (at least I thought they did) amidst a good deal of stuff that did not seem to make sense. And this opening was enough for me to dig deeper. Thus my initial interest need not imply a valuation—my stance was never to become a committed Kantian or Heideggerian, nor was I bent on denouncing them. Amidst all the opinions about these thinkers I simply wanted to understand them, and this study evidences my attempt in this respect. But they also spoke about indifference—indeed in odd yet thematically coherent ways. From my initial appraisals of the concept in both their works I was presented with a possible structural continuity; that they could speak to each-other along this theme. The question of indifference in general, then, quickly became a question of the meaning of indifference in these two thinkers, and my thematic and interpretative aims coincided. The choice to do a comparative argument between two thinkers along a single concept did not strike me as audacious or unmanageable. In fact quite the opposite. Nor did it strike me as requiring any more than the typical length of a Masters thesis. As I continued along the project, however, and not until very late on, did I confront the fact that the topic I had chosen actually required more consideration than I had anticipated. Indifference, in both Kant and Heidegger, proved slippery, extending itself into domains concealed from me at the outset, but that nonetheless seemed essential for