Skip to main content Accessibility help
×
Hostname: page-component-7c8c6479df-p566r Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-03-28T08:45:00.016Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

5 - Ontotheology

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 April 2011

Iain Thomson
Affiliation:
University of New Mexico
Daniel O. Dahlstrom
Affiliation:
Boston University
Get access

Summary

What does Heidegger mean by ontotheology, and why should we care? We will see that Heidegger understands ontotheology as the two-chambered heart of Western metaphysics, “the history that we are” (GA 47: 28/N3 20). Heidegger's deconstruction of the metaphysical tradition leads him to the view that metaphysics does not just concern philosophers isolated in their ivory towers; on the contrary, “metaphysics grounds an age.” As he explains, “Metaphysics grounds an age in that, through a specific interpretation of what is … it gives the age the ground of its essential form.” Here Heidegger advances the thesis I call ontological holism. Put simply: Everything is, so by changing our understanding of what “is-ness” itself is, metaphysics can change our understanding of everything. In other words, metaphysics molds our very sense of what it means for something – anything – to be. Because everything intelligible “is” in some sense, Heidegger holds that: “Western humanity, in all its comportment toward entities, and that means also toward itself, is in every respect sustained and guided by metaphysics” (GA 6.2: 309/N4 205). By shaping and reshaping our understanding of what “is-ness” is, metaphysics plays a foundational role in establishing and maintaining our very sense of the intelligibility of all things, ourselves included.

Heidegger's view that “metaphysics grounds an age” (“ein Zeitalter,” literally “an age of time,” in the singular) presupposes two further theses, which I call ontological historicity and epochality.

Type
Chapter
Information
Interpreting Heidegger
Critical Essays
, pp. 106 - 132
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2011

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Wittgenstein, , On Certainty, ed. G. E. M. Anscombe and G. H von Wright, trans Denis Paul and G. E. M. Anscombe (New York: Harper & Row, 1969), #141, p. 21Google Scholar
Foucault, , The Order of Things: An Archeology of the Human Sciences (New York: Vintage Books, 1970)Google Scholar
Nietzsche, , The Will to Power, ed. Walter Kaufmann, trans. R. J. Hollingdale (New York: Random House, 1967), 549 f.Google Scholar
Nietzsche, , Writings from the Late Notebooks, ed. Rüdiger Bittner, trans. K. Sturge (Cambridge University Press, 2003), 38 fGoogle Scholar
Sluga, Hans, “Heidegger's Nietzsche,” in A Companion to Heidegger, ed. Hubert L. Dreyfus and Mark A. Wrathall (Oxford: Blackwell, 2005), 102.Google Scholar
Gray, J. Glenn, The Promise of Wisdom: An Introduction to Philosophy of Education (New York: Lippincott, 1968), 24, 203, 271, 275Google Scholar
Woessner, Martin, “J. Glenn Gray: Philosopher, Translator (of Heidegger), and Warrior,” Transactions of the Charles S. Peirce Society, 40/3 (2004): 498Google Scholar
Swift, Jonathan, Gulliver's Travels (New York: Barnes & Noble Classics, 2003), Pt III, Ch. 2Google Scholar
Furtak, Rick Anthony, Wisdom in Love: Kierkegaard and the Ancient Quest for Emotional Integrity (Notre Dame, Ind: University of Notre Dame Press, 2005), 203, n. 14Google Scholar
Crowe, Benjamin D., Heidegger's Phenomenology of Religion: Realism and Cultural Criticism (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2008), 27, n. 11Google Scholar
Dreyfus, Hubert L. in “Heidegger on the Connection between Nihilism, Art, Technology, and Politics,” in Cambridge Companion to Heidegger, ed. Charles Guignon, 2nd edn (Cambridge University Press, 2006), 345–372Google Scholar
Dreyfus, Hubert L. and Kelly, Sean, All Things Shining: Reading the Western Classics to Find Meaning in a Secular Age (New York: Free Press, 2011)Google Scholar

Save book to Kindle

To save this book to your Kindle, first ensure coreplatform@cambridge.org is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about saving to your Kindle.

Note you can select to save to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. ‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be saved to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply.

Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service.

  • Ontotheology
  • Edited by Daniel O. Dahlstrom, Boston University
  • Book: Interpreting Heidegger
  • Online publication: 11 April 2011
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511974465.007
Available formats
×

Save book to Dropbox

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 Dropbox.

  • Ontotheology
  • Edited by Daniel O. Dahlstrom, Boston University
  • Book: Interpreting Heidegger
  • Online publication: 11 April 2011
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511974465.007
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.

  • Ontotheology
  • Edited by Daniel O. Dahlstrom, Boston University
  • Book: Interpreting Heidegger
  • Online publication: 11 April 2011
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511974465.007
Available formats
×