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Heidegger's Abyssal Ground of Ethics: a Fourfold Approach

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Heidegger's Abyssal Ground of Ethics: a Fourfold Approach Heidegger's Abyssal Ground of Ethics: A Fourfold Approach Augustine Ifeanyi Obi Heidegger's Abyssal Ground of Ethics: A Fourfold Approach Submitted by Augustine Ifeanyi Obi Bachelor of Arts (Philosophy) (IMSU), Bachelor of Philosophy (Honours) (Urban university), Bachelor of Theology (ACU) A thesis submitted in fulfilment of the requirements of the degree of Doctor of Philosophy. School of Philosophy Faculty of Theology and Philosophy Australian Catholic University January 2019. STATEMENT OF AUTHORSHIP This thesis contains no material that has been extracted in whole or in part from a thesis that I have submitted towards the award of any other degree or diploma in any other tertiary institution. No other person’s work has been used without due acknowledgment in the main text of the thesis. This thesis has not been submitted for the award of any degree or diploma in any other tertiary institution. …………………………………………………………………… Augustine Ifeanyi Obi (Candidate) ……………………………………………………… Dr Richard John Colledge (Principal Supervisor) ii DEDICATION I proudly dedicate this work to my Bishop, Most Rev Dr Lucius Iwejuru Ugorji. Among other things, he insisted that the baby should not be thrown away with the bathwater. iii Acknowledgements In his seminal work, Sein und Zeit, Heidegger seems to have laid a lot of emphasis on anxiety, guilt and death. With such outlook, one might conclude that he had a deep-seated fascination with death and the horrible aspects of life. However, Heidegger was not a philosopher of anxiety, but rather, one of joy. Interpreted within context, his analyses of anxiety and death are the ‘ontological ground’ for an authentic appropriation of finitude in which one finds what Heidegger calls an “unshakeable joy.” He tells us in SZ that “[a]long with the sober anxiety which brings us face-to-face with our individualised potentiality-for-Being, there goes an unshakable joy in this possibility.” (SZ 310/358). It is this same spirit of joy which Heidegger explores in a radical way in his Daseinanalytik that wells up in me as I deeply appreciate the encouragement, support and generosity of the important people who have stood by me as I wrestled with this complex work and eventually brought it to completion. First, I owe a lot of gratitude to my inimitable supervisor, Dr Richard Colledge. It is rare that one is assigned to a supervisor who is as dedicated, supportive and inspiring as Richard. He encapsulated everything I wanted from a critical reader: challenging, thorough and encouraging. All through my doctoral journey, Richard cared so much about my work even to the extent of going beyond his supervisory role to keep my eyes on the ball in tough times, at the same time, offering invaluable academic and pastoral support. As an excellent Heidegger scholar, he interprets Heidegger with an incredible care and clarity, and I am proud to call him a mentor and role model. This work is as much a product of his astute inquiry, diligence, inexhaustible patience and overall interest as it is mine. My special appreciation also goes to David Newheiser for his immense support. Although we are yet to meet or speak to each other, I would like to deeply appreciate the significance of Lawrence Vogel and Charles Scott’s works for my research project. It was my intense fascination with their insightful thoughts especially on Heidegger’s Ground of Ethics that spurned the issues at stake in this essay. Also, no less influential were the profound works of Lawrence Hatab, Angus Brook, Dennis Schmidt and Frank Schalow. I would like to particularly thank five academic figures who— during and prior to my planning and undertaking my doctoral studies at the Australian Catholic iv University—each in their own way contributed meaningfully to the development of my project with their wisdom, knowledge and kindness: Rev Dr Ormond Rush; Rev Dr David Pascoe; Dr Terry Veling, Dr Ian Elmer and Professor David Sim. I appreciate in no small measure, some of the incredible staff who assisted me with the “administrative” aspects of my project: The librarians of the University of Queensland for allowing me have access to some of the original German manuscripts of the early Heidegger works that were invaluable for this research; the librarians of Australian Catholic University, particularly, Kelly Dann whose generosity and grace (which went considerably beyond staff support) provided a huge relief; and finally, Chiara Condotta, the Senior Candidature Officer at Australian Catholic University for her sound and timely research advise. I would like to thank the Catholic Archdiocese of Brisbane and the Australian Government not only for providing the funding which allowed me to undertake this research, but also for giving me the opportunity to ‘home’ in my being. I would like to greatly appreciate the support and confidence of my fellow doctoral students from the Australasian Association of Continental Philosophy without whom the ideas of this work could not have been developed. I am profoundly grateful to Dr Emily Hughes who among other things, graced me with her close companionship of thoughtful inquiry and incisive feedbacks during the embryonic stage of my research. Completing this work would have been all the more difficult were it not for the exemplary leadership in Heidegger scholarship provided to me by Monsignor Theophilus Okere and the late Professor Pantaleon Iroegbu. These Heidegger scholars of Nigerian descent seamlessly ‘contaminated’ me with their Heidegger bug and its intense fascination. I have been continuously amazed by the friendship and the intellectual generosity of Prof Mike Ukah. The countless opportunities Prof Ukah provided me to teach and mark philosophy scripts of his students stimulated the thoughts imbedded in this essay. Particularly crucial to mention here is the affection and fatherly support of my bishop, Most Rev Dr Lucius Iwejuru Ugorji without whom this work could not have seen the light of day. I am especially grateful for the courage with which Bishop Lucius embraced the ups and downs of my research without fear of criticism. The last few years of my research has been as much a journey for Bishop v Lucius as for me, and I am grateful to him for making life worth fighting for and every outcome a victory. It is to him that I dedicate this work. I would also like to express my unreserved gratitude to my cherished Nigerian and Australian families and friends. In particular, I uphold with respect and gratitude, the great sacrifice my parents made to make my siblings and I who we are today. My beloved mother, Regina Eziego sadly passed away a few months before my submission. Her love for us was no doubt an abyssal ground that has so gratuitously shepherded this project to its completion. May God rest her soul. Words cannot properly capture what I owe to my Australian family, the delicate balance between my forerunning resoluteness and disclosive acceptance. Dorrie Van Ansem; Tam Nguyen and Tan Le; Sharon McCourt; and Margaret and Bill Clayton- each in their own way provided me with the priceless opportunities to love and learn life in its manifold ways. Their gift of friendship provided the landscapes that characterised this philosophical thought. Last but foremost of all, I would like to thank the following friends for their close companionship which has stood the test of time: Chukwudi Chinaka; Louis Mary Ocha; Chima Ofor; Nicholas Okafor; Maria Montana; Gerry Kalinowsky; Daniel Chigbu; Enoch Iheme; Justin Iweha; Gabriel Kalu; Emma Obiche; Paschal Uzoukwu; Odinaka Nwadike; Christopher Obi; Chineme Agu; Emma Aguiyi and Obinna Ohagba. And yet, my longest debt of gratitude also goes to John Ikechukwu Echewodo; Anthony Ekpo; Tam Nguyen and Patricia Chikezie (Obata) for inspiring me to believe that what I was doing was working. vi Selected Relevant Conference Papers Being-in- the-world with others: Heidegger’s Affective Domain and the Possibility of Ethics. Paper presented at The Australasian Society for Continental Philosophy Annual Conference, Brisbane, 5th December 2011. Heidegger, Levinas and Ethics. Paper presented at Australian Catholic University Philosophy Research Seminar Series, Brisbane, 23rd August 2013. Heidegger’s Reading of Aristotle on Phronesis: A Framework for his Ontological Ground of Ethics. Paper presented at The Australasian Society for Continental Philosophy Annual Conference, Melbourne, December 2014. Heidegger on the Ethics of Empathy. Paper to be Presented at The Australasian Society for Continental Philosophy Annual Conference, Western Sydney, November 21-23, 2018. vii ABSTRACT This thesis examines the question of ethics in the thought of Martin Heidegger, focusing especially on his earlier works. While set against the backdrop of the ongoing controversy over Heidegger’s associations with National Socialism and the idiosyncratic anti-Semitism of passages in the recently published Schwarze Hefte, the thesis is not offered as a contribution to that debate, especially as it relates to its biographical content. Rather, the focus is on the extent to which the “fundamental ontology” Heidegger develops in the 1920s makes a serious contribution towards what I have referred to (with a nod to Frederick Olafson), as Heidegger’s ‘ontological ground of ethics’. In doing so, I explicitly take up Heidegger’s later claim (in his famous Brief über den 'Humanismus) that “If the name ‘ethics,’ in keeping with the basic meaning of the word ἦθος, 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 [ursprüngliche Ethik].” (GA9: 356). As such, the thesis looks to examine a web of ideas in early Heideggerian texts of the 1920s that provide a compelling case for such an originary ground of ethics, in the sense of a condition of possibility for moral normativity.
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