An unheimlich ethos: thinking the ethics of finitude in the work of Heidegger, Arendt and Nancy

The intention of this thesis is twofold: firstly, to offer an account of finitude as ethics which is grounded in a conception of thinking as finite praxis; and secondly, to explore the possibility of reconciling this conception of ethics with the political implications of such a proposition. It will be argued that at the heart of both these claims is a reconsideration of the task and practice of thinking, and accordingly, of the figure of the philosopher or thinker. My argument is developed by way of a sustained engagement with the work of Martin Heidegger, and a further examination ofJean-Luc Nancy and Hannah Arendt, who each strive to distance themselves from traditional assumptions about the practice of thinking and who understand the ethical stakes of Heidegger’s approach to philosophical thinking on the topic of finitude differently. I identify the work of these thinkers as uniquely suited to drawing out the tensions between the philosophical and political dimensions of finite existence, or differently formulated, between thinking and praxis. The thesis consists of three broadly drawn chapters which address Heidegger, Nancy and Arendt, respectively. Chapter One establishes the parameters of Heidegger’s claim that fundamental ontology, as he presents it in Being and Time, provides an “originary ethics.” I consider firstly, those aspects of his thinking which enable him to make this claim, and secondly, those ambiguities through which this claim is problematised by other elements in his thinking. In the second half of the chapter I suggest that some of the identifiable tensions in Heidegger’s position can be clarified in relation to his interpretation of Aristotle’s Nichomachean Ethics, which he presented in an earlier lecture series on the theme of Plato’s Sophist. Chapter Two takes up these themes as they emerge in the writing of Jean-Luc Nancy. His close reading of Heidegger’s “Letter on Humanism” exposes weaknesses in Heidegger’s conception of “originary ethics” which, for Nancy, can be ameliorated by reconfiguring fundamental ontology in terms of the co- VI essential appearance of singular and plural Being. This expanded conception of fmitude engenders a new conception of ethical responsibility which understands the praxis of thinking in terms of its exposure, or appearance in the world. As such, it suggests not only apraxis but a practice of finite ethics. Yet, I will suggest that his position struggles to articulate the political implications of this practice, beyond the interruption of meaning. In Chapter Three I examine the problem of finite thinking in relation to the work of Hannah Arendt. Although the philosophical dimension of Arendt’s work is often ignored, in my view her sustained reflection on the antagonism between philosophy and politics gives a unique inflection to her critique of Heidegger, which unfolds across a horizon of Aristotle’s distinction between the bios theoreticos and the biospoliticos. Arendt’s account of political action provides a different frame of reference for the question of fmitude, and successfully complicates the relationship between the activity of thinking and acting in the world in ways that neither Heidegger nor Nancy adequately address.