Heidegger's Gods
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Heidegger's Gods

An Ecofeminist Perspective

Susanne Claxton

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Heidegger's Gods

An Ecofeminist Perspective

Susanne Claxton

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About This Book

This highly original new book highlights the importance and significance of Heidegger's engagement with the Greeks, the ways in which his views are commensurate with ecofeminism, and the insights that a study of that intersection provides for both the diagnoses of our world’s ills and possible curative prescriptions. Susanne Claxton defends 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 also the means by which we may come to truly dwell in the Heideggerian sense and thus find solutions to the myriad global and personal crises that plague us. By examining key concepts in Heidegger’s thinking and their role in ancient philosophy, Claxton establishes an alternative conception of truth and explores what that concept reveals. Employing the ecofeminist critique, Claxton highlights the relevant intersections with Heidegger, and lays out criticisms raised by Nietzsche, comparing the differences in thought between Nietzsche and Heidegger in order to demonstrate the supremacy of the ecophenomenological approach and show the ways in which Nietzsche falls short. The book also explores the mythological figure of Lilith and how the thought of Giorgio Agamben, especially in regard to his concept of the state of exception, provides further insight and an undeniable co-incidence of relevant concepts which further solidify the common goals and projects of both Heidegger and Ecofeminism.

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Chapter One
Introduction to the Project
Numerous attempts have been made and are made daily to better understand our current realities, to make sense of our human existence, to lay bare the meaning and import of 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 at present 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. Whether we are looking at cases of human rights abuses, social-political injustices, current environmental crises, worker exploitation, existential alienation, gender inequality, loss of community and inter-human connection, or any other of the myriad problems currently afflicting us, it appears that human beings either have never known or have somehow forgotten how to fully dwell. Human beings seem to know not 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 deeper understanding and in the sense of offering a possible means of amelioration.
While I will not argue for the theoretical supremacy of my approach, I believe that the approach will speak for itself in terms of its being meaningful, useful, illuminating, and somehow making a difference. My methodology might be described as an ecofeminist Heideggerian phenomenology or perhaps an eco-phenomenological Heideggerian feminism. Whatever labels may ultimately be assigned, the reality is a closely woven fabric, as Merleau-Ponty once wrote, and thus the relevance of each and every part and method will show itself, I trust, to the mindful reader. Some may ask: How does one use phenomenology in a critique if phenomenology, by definition, is merely descriptive? I reply: As an approach to existence, phenomenology reveals to us new and different ways of being that the dominating points of view eclipse and deny, and these phenomenological revelations are transformative.
Human beings are transformed when their perceptions are broadened, when their perspective shifts. Broadened perceptions and new perspectives indeed do present new options prescriptively. Thus, both critique and possible new solutions result from the phenomenological approach for which I advocate. Additionally, while phenomenology is clearly a crucial part of epistemology, it is also intimately tied to metaphysics and may be argued to itself be a form of spirituality precisely because its diligent and mindful practice can unconceal that which may otherwise remain hidden or concealed.
In Being and Time, Heidegger writes, “For the analysis of Reality is possible only on the basis of our having appropriate access to the Real.”1 This project aims at discovering, explaining, and putting to use that which constitutes an “appropriate access to the Real.” As I will endeavor to show, a proper understanding of the practice of phenomenology in an attempt to encounter truth, also properly understood, can free us from the shackles that prevent the realization of alternatives to current supposed and limited options, options that are themselves some of the very things preventing the attainment of fuller dwelling in intimate relation to self, others, and nature.
In this project, the path down which I will travel takes its start in Chapters 2 and 3 with an examination of the thinking of Martin Heidegger and his passionate engagement with the Greeks. I place great emphasis upon what I take to be one of the most central concepts of his thinking, the concept of truth understood as a-letheia and the idea of the concealed and the unconcealed. Heidegger held that the Greek’s unique mode of and relation to Being was contingent upon this particular understanding of truth, and it was due to this particular understanding of truth and Being that the Greeks experienced their unique existence.
In exploring Heidegger’s thinking, I will direct attention to specific suggestions he makes that may help set us on our own path to achieving a mode of being in the world that, although not the mode possessed by the Greeks, may perhaps be equally or more glorious. Such an end result becomes possible when we understand that such glorious greatness and fulfillment of being is neither something found only in some linear past now gone forever, nor is it something to be found in some linear future toward which we inevitably move. Rather, it is something always and continuously present, awaiting unconcealment, awaiting revelation by means of a special negation, the negation of our nihilistic mechanistic materialist mindset, our long-entrenched ways of conceptualizing self and others, our denial of immanent divinity, our reduction of humans, animals, and nature to mere resources awaiting optimization, in short, the negation of our “modern” mode of being.
This negation, this saving cessation, brings about that which may be understood in one sense as an emptying of mind, the creation of the necessary condition for the flowing-in of that which is itself the source of all meaning and glory, as well as the cultivation of what Heidegger calls meditative thinking, a thinking that is indeed the necessary condition for our attainment of full dwelling in the Fourfold as mortals, upon the earth, beneath the sky, and in communion with the divinity.
This negation of which I speak may be understood to be synonymous with Heidegger’s concept of the “clearing” [die Lichtung] that allows Being to reveal itself anew and thus new understanding to take place. Through the explorations involved in this project, I will show why it is correct to understand that, for Heidegger, a-letheia, physis, and Being are the same. I will show why it is that Heidegger esteems the poet and the artist in the ways in which he does. I will demonstrate how a proper return to myth and art is the means by which the transcendental realities that constitute the phenomenology of our embodied existence may be better understood. Such an understanding, in turn, may allow us to come to fully dwell, to live full lives, rich in meaning and value, for art and myth are not just necessary tools for better living but are important means that are glorious ends in themselves. I should point out here that even the use of terms like “means” and “ends” can be somewhat misleading in that they presuppose a metaphysics that places a limitation upon what is, in essence, a fullness beyond measure.
In Chapter 4, I will introduce the philosophy of ecofeminism, laying out what may be understood as its four core tenets, the four sides of the frame, so to speak, that comprise the framework that is the ecofeminist critique. I will explain how each of the four operates as a crucial part of the whole. In doing this, I will show the ways in which meaning and value, as the crucially important realities they are, are indeed manipulable and manipulated within our current paradigm, this current epoch of human existence. Those ideas, once established, will prove important in making clear the connections that will be established in later chapters between ecofeminism, specific ideas of Giorgio Agamben, and those of Heidegger. I will also take a look at some particular ideas developed by Nietzsche in his criticism of Christianity that can serve to further enlarge perspective in their strong resonance with certain ecofeminist and Agambean ideas. The ideas set forth in my thinking about Nietzsche’s thought become relevant again in Chapters 6 and 7.
In Chapter 5, I will examine a specific figure in Judaeo-Christian mythology, the mythological figure of Lilith, through the lens of philosopher Giorgio Agamben and his brilliant and illuminating concepts of homo sacer, the state of exception, and the hinge. I will show how Agamben’s ideas on the foundation of sovereign power provide insight into how we have arrived at certain of our own current realities. My analysis of Lilith via Agamben will further establish how Heidegger’s ideas on myth are indeed relevant and how a return to myth, with an aim toward understanding what a careful study thereof unconceals, may assist us in pursuing full dwelling. I will make clear the connections between Agamben and previously set forth ideas, and I will employ Agamben’s insights throughout the remaining chapters. I will link up Agamben’s particular concept of the state of exception as the hinge with the ecofeminist critique of dualisms, and, perhaps more importantly, I will employ Agamben’s concept of the hinge in Chapters 6 and 7 in order to provide us with a means of escape from the prison of the binary, the binary itself being that which is the greatest imprisoning conceptual institution of our current epoch.
In Chapter 6, I will return to Nietzsche and Heidegger, as well as the thinking of two particular contemporary philosophy scholars. I will explain an important eco-phenomenological difference between Nietzsche and Heidegger, as articulated by Iain Thomson, and argue that this difference, when understood properly, easily lends itself to the ecofeminist project in that it offers us a transcendental ethical realism that is definitely not a part of your average anthropocentrism. Moreover, I will demonstrate that this alternative is also one that allows us to avoid the pitfalls that are revealed in a critique of ecocentrism.
In revisiting the ecofeminist perspective, some specific terminology and concepts relevant to this project will be explored and employed via the work of Trish Glazebrook in order to bring together ideas that aid in moving beyond the binary of anthropocentrism and ecocentrism to a third alternative previously concealed, an alternative that has been obscured by the common discourse and metaphysics prevalent in environmental ethics. This third alternative I term Daseincentrism, and I argue that a proper understanding and embrace of Daseincentrism is the means by which fullness of dwelling may be achieved.
The final chapter will wrap up the journey by coming round full circle to connect back again with Heidegger and critical ideas laid out early on. In doing so, the ways in which we have indeed gained a clearer and more concrete sense of what meditative thinking looks like, its importance for dwelling, its connection to myth, and the role that myth and art can and do play for us will be made clear. It will then be possible to envision a new world in which we may all fully dwell, a world made possible precisely by the overcoming of dualisms and binaries, long-entrenched ways of understanding our realities, as well as by the unconcealing discovery, via this eco-phenomenological Heideggerian feminism, of the third alternative to the binary of anthropocentrism and ecocentrism that I term Daseincentrism.
Is the path I take linear and to the point? No. It cannot be. But, as will hopefully become clear as we progress, by no means are any of the steps wasted. There is not a simple and straight path by means of which this journey can be made, as I hope to show via the various vantage points from which I will be taking in the view along the way, a view that, when seen from the differing vantage points, reveals how understanding is increased through multiple perspectives and thereby thus demonstrates the need for continuous augmentation, organic, and dynamic as it is.
This is a broad project. In undertaking to make my thoughts and ideas comprehensible, I will endeavor to be as clear as possible. I will examine the views and ideas of various thinkers and traditions with an aim toward taking what is most enlightening from each and putting it to use in order to better illuminate a new pathway of understanding. In other words, “Rather than endlessly restaging the old debates between the masters … we do better to follow the spirit of the eco-phenomenological movement by working creatively to appropriate their thinking for ourselves.”2
In order to further assist the reader in getting a better sense of the path I will be taking, it may best be understood as my describing a cure, describing the symptoms, making a diagnosis, and then returning to a discussion of the cure in a more in-depth sort of way. It is my thinking that only in an adequate exploration of the ideas presented in the next two chapters (which are indeed constitutive of the cure, but not wholly sufficient) are the symptoms able to be recognized as the symptoms that they are. In other words, only by establishing a basic understanding of truth as a-letheia, how it relates, for Heidegger, to both Being and physis, along with its role in the functioning of the Fourfold, are we rendered able to recognize certain symptoms as such, and thus, come to see the diagnosis as accurate. This in turn allows for a fuller understanding of what the cure looks like both theoretically and practically as presented in the final chapters.
Notes
1.Martin Heidegger, Being and Time, trans. John Macquarrie and Edward Robinson. (New York: Harper and Row, 1962), 246.
2.Iain Thomson, “Ontology and Ethics at the Intersection of Phenomenology and Environmental Philosophy,” Inquiry 47:4 (2004): 400.
Chapter Two
Heidegger and the Greeks
A-letheia
The Greeks, for Heidegger, are exemplary. Their way of living and mode of existence, as Heidegger understood them, were ontologically unique. They existed and lived with and within something that was exceedingly vital, perhaps even better understood as superlatively vivifying, yet they did so without explicitly articulating it. They did not analyze it, nor did they seek to conceptualize and intellectualize it as a modality of existence, since that would require the existence of other modalities as well as a consciousness of them.
The Greeks, in particular, the Pre-Socratics, as Heidegger understood them, were blessed with what we can think of as an innate situatedness within Being that allowed them to experience existence in the fullest way possible. Paradoxically, this required them to be subject to what modern thinking might see as a special oblivion of sorts. It was this very special obliv...

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