Heidegger's Gods: an Ecofeminist Perspective Susanne Claxton
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CORE Metadata, citation and similar papers at core.ac.uk Provided by University of New Mexico University of New Mexico UNM Digital Repository Philosophy ETDs Electronic Theses and Dissertations 6-23-2015 Heidegger's Gods: An Ecofeminist Perspective Susanne Claxton Follow this and additional works at: https://digitalrepository.unm.edu/phil_etds Recommended Citation Claxton, Susanne. "Heidegger's Gods: An Ecofeminist Perspective." (2015). https://digitalrepository.unm.edu/phil_etds/11 This Dissertation is brought to you for free and open access by the Electronic Theses and Dissertations at UNM Digital Repository. It has been accepted for inclusion in Philosophy ETDs by an authorized administrator of UNM Digital Repository. For more information, please contact [email protected]. Susanne D. Claxton Candidate Philosophy Department This dissertation is approved, and it is acceptable in quality and form for publication: Approved by the Dissertation Committee: Iain Thomson , Chairperson John Bussanich Ann Murphy Doren Recker i HEIDEGGER’S GODS: AN ECOFEMINIST PERSPECTIVE BY SUSANNE CLAXTON B.A., Letters, University of Oklahoma, 2000 M.A., Philosophy, Oklahoma State University, 2003 DISSERTATION Submitted in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy Philosophy The University of New Mexico Albuquerque, New Mexico May, 2015 ii Heidegger’s Gods: An Ecofeminist Perspective By Susanne Claxton B.A., Letters, University of Oklahoma, 2000 M.A., Philosophy, Oklahoma State University, 2003 Ph.D., Philosophy, University of New Mexico 2015 ABSTRACT The aim of this dissertation is to address the importance and significance of Heidegger's engagement with the Greeks and the ways in which his views are commensurate with ecofeminism and the insights that a study of that intersection provides. I defend the thesis that a proper return to myth and art as a means by which the transcendental realities that constitute the phenomenology of our embodied existence may be better understood is what may allow us to truly dwell in the Heideggerian sense and live full lives rich in meaning and value. My methodology might best be described as a look at certain issues of contemporary significance through the creative examination of historical texts using a phenomenological hermeneutics of comparative philosophy. By examining key concepts in Heidegger’s thinking and their role in ancient philosophy, as well, I establish an alternative conception of truth and what that concept reveals. This is further made clear by examining Heidegger’s thoughts on the poet and poetry and the role and purpose it should play. I then bring in the ecofeminist critique, highlighting the relevant intersections with Heidegger, then lay out criticisms raised by Nietzsche and compare differences in thought between Nietzsche and Heidegger as explained by Iain Thomson. A look at the mythological figure of Lilith and how the thought of Giorgio Agamben provides further insight and an undeniable co-incidence of relevant concepts further iii solidify the common goal and project of both Heidegger and Ecofeminism, especially as articulate by Trish Glazebrook. I conclude with a call for the overthrow of our strict system of binaries, and I advocate that in the discipline of environmental philosophy there is a third alternative to the binaries of anthropocentrism and ecocentrism that answers the objections and shortcomings of each of the binaries. This I call Daseincentrism. iv Table of Contents Introduction ...................................................................................................................................... 1 Heidegger and the Greeks ................................................................................................................ 5 II.1. A-letheia ............................................................................................................................... 5 II.2. Dwelling and the Fourfold ................................................................................................. 16 II.3. Boundaries, Chaos, and Intimacy ....................................................................................... 30 II.4. All Together ....................................................................................................................... 38 Poetry and the Gods ....................................................................................................................... 42 III.1. "What is the Poet's Own?" The Poet as Yoked to Divinity .............................................. 42 III.2. "From Where Does It Come?" A Calling from Beyond Time ......................................... 45 III.3. "To Where Does the Decree Compel Him?" Naming...................................................... 52 III.4. "How Does It Compel?" A Destinal Sending ................................................................... 54 III.5. "What Proper Element is Alotted to Him?" Feeling for the Gods ................................... 60 Our Loss of Dwelling..................................................................................................................... 89 IV.1. Our World ......................................................................................................................... 89 IV.2. Ecofeminism and what it Unconceals ............................................................................... 92 IV.3. Nietzsche's Insights: Patriarchal Religion and the Otherworld....................................... 105 Lilith and Agamben ..................................................................................................................... 111 V.1. Ideas ................................................................................................................................. 111 V.2. Lilith ................................................................................................................................. 120 V. 3. State of Exception ........................................................................................................... 127 Beyond the Binary ....................................................................................................................... 137 VI.1. Eco-phenomenology: Two Different Realisms .............................................................. 137 VI.2. Phallic logic and Eco-logics ........................................................................................... 152 VI.3. The Hinge ....................................................................................................................... 161 Dwelling in a New World ............................................................................................................ 170 Bibliography ................................................................................................................................ 183 v Introduction Numerous attempts have been made and are made daily to understand our current realities, to make sense of our human existence, our experiences both collective and individual. Such attempts, made in earnest and with the utmost sincerity, can easily overwhelm even those with the most adept powers of reasoning and the most resilient emotional being, and even more so if one considers the vast number of approaches, disciplines, thinkers, traditions, and perspectives from which one might begin such thinking. Thoughtful persons tend to agree that in some way or another human existence seems sorely afflicted. Things are just not right or as they should be, ought to be, might be, or could be. Something is amiss, something is missing, something is wrong. Human beings, it appears, either have never known or have forgotten how to truly and fully dwell upon the earth, how to meaningfully exist as that which we are in the context of all that exists and to which we are intimately related. This project presupposes this to be a readily observable and recognized phenomenon to which the project itself is a response, both in the sense of providing understanding and exposition and in the sense of possible amelioration. While I will not argue for the theoretical supremacy of my approach, I do hope that the approach will speak for itself in terms of its being meaningful, useful, illuminating, and perhaps even somehow making a difference. The path down which we will travel in this undertaking takes its start from Martin Heidegger's passionate engagement with the Greeks, his understanding of their unique mode of and relation to being and the resultant glorious existence that the Greeks experienced. In our exploration of Heidegger's thought, we will discover the hints and 1 suggestions that will, if we are able to allow them to assist and direct us, set us on our way to possibly achieving a mode of being in the world that will not be the mode possessed by the Greeks but may be understood as even more glorious. For, as we will see, greatness and fulfillment of being is neither something found in some linear past now gone forever, nor is it something found in some linear future toward which we inevitably move, but rather it is always and continuously present, awaiting revelation by means of a special negation, the negation of our nihilistic mechanistic materialist mindset, our long- entrenched ways of conceptualizing self and other, our denial of immanent divinity, our reduction of humans, animals, and nature to mere resources waiting to be optimized, in short, our “modern” mode of being. This negation, this saving