Politicizing Ontological Guilt: Arendt’s Transformative Appropriation of Heidegger’s Existential Analytic
In: Research in PhenomenologySearch for other papers by Thomas Ø. Wittendorff in
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Abstract
To the limited extent that Arendt’s stance on Heidegger has been studied in relation to her thinking on guilt, the focus has been on her outright repudiation of Heidegger’s controversial ontologization of guilt. However, that Arendt does not simply repudiate Heidegger’s account of guilt becomes clear if we recognize that she deals with guilt, albeit less explicitly, in her theory of political action, particularly in her notion of “trespassing” as a specifically political form of harm. In this context, Arendt appropriates key features of Heidegger’s account. I argue that, in doing so, she transfers Heideggerian features into a political framework, insisting that they proceed not from individual existential indebtedness but from political intersubjectivity, or what she polemically – with a redefined Heideggerian term – calls the “with-world” (Mitwelt). This politicization testifies to Arendt’s overall approach to Heidegger’s existential analytic: a critical-transformative appropriation through her signature concepts of action and plurality.
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| All Time | Past 365 days | Past 30 Days | |
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Politicizing Ontological Guilt: Arendt’s Transformative Appropriation of Heidegger’s Existential Analytic
In: Research in PhenomenologySearch for other papers by Thomas Ø. Wittendorff in
Current site
Google Scholar
PubMed
Abstract
To the limited extent that Arendt’s stance on Heidegger has been studied in relation to her thinking on guilt, the focus has been on her outright repudiation of Heidegger’s controversial ontologization of guilt. However, that Arendt does not simply repudiate Heidegger’s account of guilt becomes clear if we recognize that she deals with guilt, albeit less explicitly, in her theory of political action, particularly in her notion of “trespassing” as a specifically political form of harm. In this context, Arendt appropriates key features of Heidegger’s account. I argue that, in doing so, she transfers Heideggerian features into a political framework, insisting that they proceed not from individual existential indebtedness but from political intersubjectivity, or what she polemically – with a redefined Heideggerian term – calls the “with-world” (Mitwelt). This politicization testifies to Arendt’s overall approach to Heidegger’s existential analytic: a critical-transformative appropriation through her signature concepts of action and plurality.
| All Time | Past 365 days | Past 30 Days | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Abstract Views | 213 | 178 | 15 |
| Full Text Views | 17 | 15 | 3 |
| PDF Views & Downloads | 104 | 70 | 5 |
