Dwelling and Departure: Beginning Disputes between Arendt and Heidegger

Adi Burton; Barbara Weber

doi:10.18778/2083-2931.14.02

Authors

Adi Burton Independent Scholar https://orcid.org/0000-0002-8988-7175
Barbara Weber University of British Columbia

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.18778/2083-2931.14.02

Crossmark check for up

Keywords:

Arendt, Heidegger, natality, dwelling, thinking, exile

Abstract

In “Letter on Humanism,” Martin Heidegger juxtaposes the notion of homelessness (Heimlosigkeit) with home-coming (Heimholung), i.e. the reawakening to our original relationship to Being. This focus on dwelling in Being represents an interesting modification from his earlier study of “incipience” (Anfang), which emphasizes departure. We follow the critique of this shift in thinking in Hannah Arendt’s work, beginning with a short allegory titled “Heidegger the Fox” (1953). We suggest that reading this allegory in the light of Arendt’s decades-long debate with Heidegger illuminates the tense relationship between dwelling and incipience (or in her terms, “natality”). Though we do not attempt a complete analysis of Heidegger and Arendt’s works here, we aim to draw out specific movements of their thinking. We suggest that Arendt’s concept of natality, which, though partly influenced by Heidegger, ultimately challenges the authenticity of Heidegger’s solitary, silent thinker who dwells in the House of Being. In the back and forth between their thinking an unresolvable tension between dwelling and departure arises as the existential fissure.

Downloads

Download data is not yet available.

Author Biographies

Adi Burton, Independent Scholar

Dr. Adi Burton (PhD) recently completed her doctoral studies on political and ethical issues of anti-genocide activism at the University of British Columbia. Her work focuses on phenomenological conceptions of responsibility through the theories of Hannah Arendt and Emmanuel Levinas.

Barbara Weber, University of British Columbia

Prof. Dr. Prof. h.c. Barbara Weber (PhD) is a Professor and Chair of the Interdisciplinary Studies Graduate Program at the University of British Columbia. She has published several books and articles on the topic of reasoning, empathy, embodiment, time and beginning, as well as philosophy of Human Rights. Her research focuses on phenomenology, hermeneutics, Frankfurt School, and Engaged Philosophical Inquiry.

References

Arendt, Hannah. “Die wahre Geschichte von dem Fuchs Heidegger.” 1953. Denktagbuch 1950–1973, Volume 1, edited by Ursula Ludz and Ingeborg Nordmann, Piper, 2002, pp. 403–04.
Google Scholar

Arendt, Hannah. “Heidegger the Fox.” 1953. Translated by Robert Kimber and Rita Kimber. Essays in Understanding 1930–1954, edited by Jerome Kohn, Schocken, 1994, pp. 361–62.
Google Scholar

Arendt, Hannah. “Martin Heidegger at Eighty.” 1969. Translated by Albert Hofstadter. New York Review of Books, 21 Oct. 1971, https://www.nybooks.com/articles/1971/10/21/martin-heidegger-at-eighty/ accessed 15 Jan. 2023.
Google Scholar

Arendt, Hannah. “Martin Heidegger ist achtzig Jahre alt.” Merkur, no. 10, 1969, https://www.merkur-zeitschrift.de/artikel/martin-heidegger-ist-achtzig-jahre-alt-a-mr-23-10-893/ accessed 15 Jan. 2023.
Google Scholar

Arendt, Hannah. The Human Condition. 1958. U of Chicago P, 1998. https://doi.org/10.7208/chicago/9780226924571.001.0001
Google Scholar

Arendt, Hannah. The Life of the Mind. Harcourt, 1978.
Google Scholar

Arendt, Hannah. The Origins of Totalitarianism. New edition with added prefaces. Harcourt, 1968.
Google Scholar

Augustine. Confessions. Edited by Michael P. Foley, translated by F. J. Sheed, Hackett, 2007.
Google Scholar

Burton, Adi. “Ritual as Praxis: The Responsibility of Activists in the Face of Genocide; or, Between Ethics and Politics.” 2022. U of British Columbia, PhD dissertation. https://doi.library.ubc.ca/10.14288/1.0418459
Google Scholar

The Hebrew Bible. Volume 1. Translation and commentary by Robert Alter, W. W. Norton, 2019.
Google Scholar

Heidegger, Martin. “Bauen Wohnen Denken.” 1951. Vorträge und Aufsätze, edited by Friedrich-Wilhelm von Herrmann, Vittorio Klostermann, 2000, pp. 145–64.
Google Scholar

Heidegger, Martin. “Brief über den Humanismus.” 1946. Wegmarken, edited by Friedrich-Wilhelm von Herrmann, Vittorio Klostermann, 2004, pp. 145–94. https://doi.org/10.5771/9783465141839-313
Google Scholar

Heidegger, Martin. “Building, Dwelling, Thinking.” 1951. Poetry, Language, Thought, translated by Albert Hofstadter, Perennial Classics, 2009, pp. 141–60.
Google Scholar

Heidegger, Martin. Discourse on Thinking: A Translation of Gelassenheit. 1959. Translated by John M. Anderson and E. Hans Freund, Harper & Row, 1966.
Google Scholar

Heidegger, Martin. “Gelassenheit (30. Oktober 1955).” Reden und andere Zeugnisse eines Lebensweges 1910–1976, edited by Hermann Heidegger, Vittorio Klostermann, 2000, pp. 517–29.
Google Scholar

Heidegger, Martin. “Letter on Humanism.” 1946. Basic Writings, edited by David Farrell Krell, translated by Frank A. Capuzzi, Harper & Row, 1977, pp. 189–242.
Google Scholar

Heidegger, Martin. Über den Anfang. 1941. Edited by Paola-Ludovika Coriando, Vittorio Klostermann, 2005.
Google Scholar

Heidegger, Martin. Was heißt Denken? 1951–52. Edited by Paola-Ludovika Coriando, Vittorio Klostermann, 2002.
Google Scholar

Heidegger, Martin. What Is Called Thinking? 1951–52. Translated by Fred D. Wieck and J. Glenn Gray, Harper & Row, 1968.
Google Scholar

İlhan Demi̇Ryol, Gaye. “‘That There Be a Beginning’: Arendt and Natality.” Uluslararası Sosyal Bilimler ve Sanat Araştırmaları, vol. 2, no. 1, 2023, pp. 120–31. https://doi.org/10.32955/neuissar202321681
Google Scholar

Kohan, Walter Omar. “On the Present of the Question.” University of British Columbia, 19 Oct. 2022. Online presentation.
Google Scholar

Maslin, Kimberly. The Experiential Ontology of Hannah Arendt. Lexington, 2020.
Google Scholar

Plato. “Theaetetus.” Translated by M. J. Levett, revised by Myles Burnyeat. Complete Works, edited by John M. Cooper, Hackett, 1997, pp. 157–234.
Google Scholar

Rilke, Rainer Maria. “Duino Elegies (1923).” The Poetry of Rilke, translated and edited by Edward Snow, North Point, 2009, pp. 281–346.
Google Scholar

Taminiaux, Jacques. The Thracian Maid and the Professional Thinker: Arendt and Heidegger. Translated by Michael Gendre, SUNY P, 1997.
Google Scholar

Vatter, Miguel. “Natality and Biopolitics in Hannah Arendt.” Revista de ciencia política (Santiago), vol. 26, no. 2, 2006, pp. 137–59. http://dx.doi.org/10.4067/S0718-090X2006000200008
Google Scholar

Vega, Facundo. “Fox Traps: Heidegger, Arendt, and the An-archy of Political Beginnings.” Why Arendt Matters/Pourquoi Arendt importe, 25–26 Apr. 2017, Laboratoire du Changement Social et Politique, Université Paris Diderot, Paris.
Google Scholar

Vega, Facundo. “On Bad Weather: Heidegger, Arendt, and Political Beginnings.” Weathering: Ecologies of Exposure (Cultural Inquiry. Volume 17), edited by Christoph F. E. Holzhey and Arnd Wedemeyer, ICI Berlin, 2020, pp. 227–43. https://doi.org/10.37050/ci-17_11
Google Scholar

Villa, Dana R. Arendt and Heidegger: The Fate of the Political. Princeton UP, 1996. https://doi.org/10.1515/9781400821846
Google Scholar

Wolf, Arthur C., and Barbara Weber. “Existential Urgency: A Provocation to Thinking ‘Different.’” Childhood & Philosophy, vol. 19, 2023, pp. 1–25. https://doi.org/10.12957/childphilo.2023.71997
Google Scholar