Re-Thinking the Sociality of the Self

This book is the first in a two-volume project that provides the first systematic interpretation of Martin Heidegger's fundamental ontology as a critical social ontology. It argues that fundamental ontology is, at its core, an emancipatory enterprise in that it is animated by an intent shared with critical theory, viz. to make philosophy concrete for the sake of individual and collective freedom.

Focused on Division One of Being and Time, this volume maintains that the possibilities of individual emancipation and self-actualization are inextricably bound to their environmental and intersubjective preconditions. An adequate ontology of the self, therefore, is possible only as a social ontology. To fulfill its emancipatory aims, however, it is necessary to show that the fact that individuals are always already appropriated by society does not preclude the possibility of authentic self-appropriation. Hence, this volume critically reconstructs the core commitments of the 'appropriative approach' to social ontology and distinguishes between the foundational and peripheral aspects of fundamental ontology. The final part addresses important criticisms that have impeded a fruitful dialogue between fundamental ontology and critical theory to clear the ground for a fresh re-appraisal of the former as an emancipatory project.

Argues for an emancipatory, "appropriative" reading of Being and Time Reconstructs fundamental ontology as a post-foundationalist social ontology Shows how the social difference between society (ontic) and the social (ontological) can provide the foundations for a critique of self and intersubjective alienation and reification

Autorentext

Kurt C. M. Mertel is Associate Professor of Philosophy at the American University of Sharjah, United Arab Emirates.

Klappentext

"This illuminating two-volume opus charts the labyrinthine landscape of the hermeneutics of facticity and the existential analytic of Dasein by unveiling the originary emancipatory impulses that animate an authentic sociality of self-relation in Sein und Zeit, while furthermore disclosing a fortiori the uncanny pathways of the foundational entanglement of Heidegger’s fundamental ontology with the impetus of critical socio-political theory."

—Nader El-Bizri, University of Cambridge, UK

"The immense merit of this book is to show that Heidegger’s phenomenological ontology should be read as a central component of critical theory, in as much as it offers a non-foundationalist and post-metaphysical theory of emancipation, carried by an ontology that Heidegger calls fundamental only because it is, as Mertel argues, profoundly social.”

—Claude Vishnu Spaak, Sorbonne University Abu Dhabi

This book is the first in a two-volume project that provides the first systematic interpretation of Martin Heidegger’s fundamental ontology as a critical social ontology. It argues that fundamental ontology is, at its core, an emancipatory enterprise in that it is animated by an intent shared with critical theory, viz. to make philosophy concrete for the sake of individual and collective freedom.

Focused on Division One of Being and Time, this volume maintains that the possibilities of individual emancipation and self-actualization are inextricably bound to their environmental and intersubjective preconditions. An adequate ontology of the self, therefore, is possible only as a social ontology. To fulfill its emancipatory aims, however, it is necessary to show that the fact that individuals are always already appropriated by society does not preclude the possibility of authentic self-appropriation. Hence, this volume critically reconstructs the core commitments of the ‘appropriative approach’ to social ontology and distinguishes between the foundational and peripheral aspects of fundamental ontology. The final part addresses important criticisms that have impeded a fruitful dialogue between fundamental ontology and critical theory to clear the ground for a fresh re-appraisal of the former as an emancipatory project.

Kurt C. M. Mertel is Associate Professor of Philosophy at the American University of Sharjah, United Arab Emirates.

Inhalt

1. Introduction.- 2. The Social Origins of the Appropriative Self-Relation: Fundamental Ontology as Social Ontology.- 3. The Role of Attunement, Understanding, Discourse and Falling in the Appropriative Self-Relation.- 4. Clearing the Ground for Fundamental Ontology as Critical Social Ontology.