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Chapter 3 - Holism and Relativism

from Part I - Being-In-the-World and Being-With

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  18 February 2023

Nicolai K. Knudsen
Affiliation:
Aarhus Universitet, Denmark
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Summary

This chapter discusses whether Heidegger’s holism – roughly, the view that the meaning of the parts (entities) depends on the whole (the world) – entails a vicious relativism. I argue that Heidegger is a holist because he is committed to both object externalism (the view that intentional states depend on environmental objects) and social externalism (the view that intentional states depend on other people). Whether his holism entails relativism depends on how we understand these two commitments. Discussing recent interpretations of Heidegger’s holism (Lafont, Dreyfus, Okrent, Carman), I argue that Heidegger’s holism entails a form of relativism only if we take his social externalism to be a function of social conventions. I then go on to challenge that this is the case by arguing that Heidegger is an open-ended social externalist according to whom intentional states do not depend solely on our relation to social conventions (or any other particular social formation such as language or tradition) but on our on-going social interaction broadly construed.

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Heidegger's Social Ontology
The Phenomenology of Self, World, and Others
, pp. 68 - 96
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2022

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  • Holism and Relativism
  • Nicolai K. Knudsen, Aarhus Universitet, Denmark
  • Book: Heidegger's Social Ontology
  • Online publication: 18 February 2023
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/9781009122672.005
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  • Holism and Relativism
  • Nicolai K. Knudsen, Aarhus Universitet, Denmark
  • Book: Heidegger's Social Ontology
  • Online publication: 18 February 2023
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/9781009122672.005
Available formats
×

Save book to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

  • Holism and Relativism
  • Nicolai K. Knudsen, Aarhus Universitet, Denmark
  • Book: Heidegger's Social Ontology
  • Online publication: 18 February 2023
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/9781009122672.005
Available formats
×