Kate Withy | Papers - Academia.edu
Papers
"The Strategic Unity of Heidegger's The Fundamental Concepts of Metaphysics"
Forthcoming in the Southern Journal of Philosophy
This paper unifies the disparate
analyses in Heidegger’s lecture course, The Fundamental Concepts of
Metaphysics: World, Finitude, Solitude, in a single therapeutic and
philosophical project. By taking seriously the text’s claim to lead us
towards authenticity, I show how Heidegger’s analysis of boredom works
together with his comparative analysis of man and animal to diagnose and
lead us out of our contemporary complacency about being. This reading
puts both analyses in a new light, reveals the hidden strategic unity of
the lecture course, and brings out the therapeutic dimension of
Heidegger’s phenomenology.
Review of Martin Heidegger, Introduction to Philosophy - Thinking and Poetizing
For Notre Dame Philosophical Reviews
In the winter semester of 1944,
Martin Heidegger began what would be his final lecture course at the
University of Freiburg -- indeed, his last official lectures as a
professor. Translated here, Einleitung in die Philosophie -- Denken und
Dichten (Introduction to Philosophy -- Thinking and Poetizing) asks
after the inner relationship of philosophy and poetry, thinking and
poetizing. Pursuing this question does not 'introduce' (einleiten) us to
philosophy; by our essence, we are already 'in' philosophy. But we are
not at home in our philosophizing essence /y/, and so we need a guide
(Anleitung) in this "unknown region" (p. 3). Our guides in this course
are Nietzsche, the poetizing thinker of homelessness, and Hölderlin, the
thoughtful poet of homecoming. An encounter with Nietzsche's poetizing
thinking /good/ and with Hölderlin's thinking poetizing /good/ will guide us towards a
dwelling in our essence. Heidegger had spent much of the previous
decade in confrontation with both Nietzsche and Hölderlin; here, he
finally promises to think them together. Unfortunately, this promise is
not fulfilled. /hmm
"The Methodological Role of Angst in Being and Time"
forthcoming in Journal of the British Society for Phenomenology
Heidegger’s analysis of the mood of
angst is usually understood in terms of its contribution to the account
of authenticity in Division II of Being and Time. I approach the
analysis of angst from a different direction, by working out its
methodological function in Division I. I distinguish inauthentic falling
from the structural phenomenon of falling, and argue that the latter
poses a methodological problem for Heidegger: if we are essentially
entity-directed, how can we get the unity of our being in view?
Heidegger overcomes this difficulty by analysing a mood that tunes us
into the ontological: angst. I explain how angst provides this
ontological insight, and show how analysis of it leads to questions of
truth and reality. This provides a warrant for the placement of the
analysis of angst in Division I.
Situation and Limitation: Making Sense of Heidegger on Thrownness
Forthcoming in European Journal of Philosophy
As Heidegger acknowledges, our
understanding is essentially situated and so limited by the context and
tradition into which it is thrown. But this ‘situatedness’ does not
exhaust Heidegger's concept of ‘thrownness’. By examining this concept
and its grammar, I develop a more complete interpretation. I identify
several different kinds of finitude or limitation in our understanding,
and touch on ways in which we confront and carry different dimensions of
our past.
Heidegger on Being Uncanny
A link to the abstract for my 2009 dissertation.
Human beings make sense of things,
and Heidegger investigates the 'how' and 'why' of this. In my
dissertation, I show that to adequately understand our sense-making, we
must understand the phenomenon that Heidegger calls 'uncanniness'. I
argue that uncanniness is the finitude of our essence as finite knowers –
specifically, the fact that we cannot entirely make sense of our own
ground or condition of possibility. Further, this finitude is not an
imperfection to be overcome but is itself the condition of possibility
of making sense of things. Thus we make sense of things because we
cannot make full sense of ourselves. /hm: not ~ things as altrntv to
self, rt? rather, the imposs of undst own ground = the ground of
understanding. ~ ~ ~logic flap in apollo's coat. ground of logic is
illogic./ This is a novel interpretation of
Heidegger's 'uncanniness', which is usually taken to refer to the
uncanny feeling. While Heidegger's uncanniness has the same structure as
the uncanny feeling (particularly on Freud's analysis of this feeling),
it belongs not to our affective life but to the essence of our
sense-making. Thus uncanniness is not a matter of feeling uncanny but of
being uncanny. /abstr: We can feel uncanny because we are uncanny. / I think, yes. //
