Fundamental ontology as anthropology

Abstract

Interest in Martin Heidegger`s philosophical oeuvre does not wane for several reasons, discussed in this article. For one thing, until recently his philosophy gave one a feeling of obscurity and mystery. For another thing, the belief is that Heidegger`s merits exceed his sins. This article discusses the problem of uniformity and integrity of Heidegger`s works. Is it possible to interpret his fundamental ontology as anthropology and existentialism?

The article considers the reaction of German society to his book Being and Time in the context of time. The book was published in 1927, when the defeated nation was paying reparations, surrendering its territories and experiencing a period of crisis. However, according to Heidegger, academic philosophy was in state of a “liberal cultural submission”. This concerned neo-kantianism and phenomenology. Heidegger believed the world of his contemporaries to be faceless and false, whereas philosophy was unable to answer the needs of the time in his opinion. Philosophy neglected the existence of man and made itself into a foundation of scientific knowledge and its strict method. Husserl discovered the field of consciousness and tried to make it a system, intending thus to create a basis for cognitive work. However, Heidegger conceives phenomenology not as purely theoretical, but as a research work of letting something be seen. The reason why Heidegger`s book became so popular is that it came as a crucial affect of protest against the equalization of all kinds of individual life that comes with development of industrial society and its control over public opinion.

Heidegger encouraged questioning again what is being, meaning the temporal being of man, which is prior to all other things existent. The article points out that Being and Time was never actually completed. What Heidegger managed to create could be interpreted as anthropology with existential perspective.

The isolated individual of classical thought, concerned with the problem of cognition, is the exact opposite of Dasein. Individual life is filled with care of self-being and expresses in dread. This key motive explains the means by which man relates to the analysis of time, on which human existence is built. Human existence is bound with care. The meaning of being in temporal scope is being-towards-death. Death enables existence and it also annihilates it. To sense true existence is to sense in oneself the dread of being-towards-death.

Accordingly, fundamental ontology proves to be anthropology. Its therapeutic effect was established by Swiss psychiatrists Ludwig Binswanger and Martin Boss. Binswanger elaborated Heidegger`s analysis of Dasein with the mode of being-with-others. Martin Boss considered mental abnormalities in terms of key concepts of Daseinsanalysis, for instance, one`s openness to the world, one`s ability to deal with the present, not trying to escape in the past or future. Boss believed that most mental illnesses result from inability to exist, to open oneself towards the world.

Heidegger`s late oeuvre is regarded through the Daseinsanalysis of historical existence (Being and Time, V, 74). In his late works he calls man not the “lord of beings” but the “shepherd of being”, whose mission is to be called by the being itself to defend its truth. The work of art gives humanity grounds for the outlook on themselves in their history.

As the article demonstrates, later Heidegger proposes that man should return to his archaic origins, which will reveal more than Socrates or Moses. This implies paganism, or neo-paganism, that was very popular at the time. All this shows Heidegger as a consistent and thorough author, who held to his ideas of 1933.