Heidegger and the Environment (New Heidegger Research) - Softcover

Rentmeester, Casey

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1783482338 ISBN 13: 9781783482337

Verlag: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, 2015

Inhaltsangabe

In the past few decades, it has become clear that the Western world's relation to nature has led to environmental degradation so wide-ranging that it threatens the existence of human civilizations as we have come to know them. The onset of anthropogenic climate change and the increasing threats of resource depletions are the most obvious signs of an environmental crisis.

This book attempts to examine the metaphysical underpinnings of our current environmental crisis, thereby viewing it from a philosophical perspective. Using Martin Heidegger's writings on the history of being as its lynchpin, it examines how humans have come to view nature as a giant array of mere resources to be maximally exploited. Following Heidegger, Casey Rentmeester argues that this understanding of nature is rooted in the understanding of what it means to be that came about in ancient Greece. Rentmeester then utilizes elements of Heidegger's post-metaphysical later philosophy and aspects of early philosophical Daoism to create an alternative way to think about the relation between humans and nature that is environmentally sustainable.

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Casey Rentmeester is the director of general education and associate professor of philosophy at Bellin College in Green Bay, Wisconsin, USA. He is author of the book Heidegger and the Environment. Jeff R. Warren is professor of music and humanities at Quest University Canada. He is author of the book, Music and Ethical Responsibility and several peer-reviewed articles. His creative work includes sound recording, sound installations, and performance on double bass.

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Heidegger and the Environment

By Casey Rentmeester

Rowman & Littlefield International, Ltd.

Copyright © 2016 Casey Rentmeester
All rights reserved.

ISBN: 978-1-78348-233-7

Contents

Preface, 
Heidegger and Environmentalism, 
Initial Obstacles, 
1 Components of the Climate Crisis, 
Climate Change as a Sign of the Crisis, 
Resource Depletions and Terra-Transformation in the Anthropocene, 
2 Heidegger's History of Being, 
The Ancient Greek Epoch of Being, 
The Medieval Epoch of Being, 
The Modern Epoch of Being, 
3 The Contemporary Period, 
The Mathematical in Modern Science, 
The Age of Modern Technology, 
Enframing as the Essential Unfolding of Modern Technology, 
Enframing and the Climate Crisis, 
4 A New Way of Revealing, 
The New Beginning, 
Ereignis, 
Freedom, Letting Be, and Dwelling, 
Becoming What We Essentially Are, 
5 Cultivating a Non-Western Perspective, 
From Heidegger to Daoism, 
Wúwéi and Gelassenheit, 
A New "Ethic", 
Conclusion, 
Bibliography, 
About the Author, 

CHAPTER 1

Components of the Climate Crisis

Among the many legacies that Martin Heidegger's philosophy leaves is an emphasis on the proper meanings of words. In fact, in his magnum opus, Being and Time, Heidegger argues that "the ultimate business of philosophy is to preserve the force of the most elemental words in which Dasein expresses itself, and to keep the common understanding from leveling them off to [an] unintelligibility." For Heidegger, words have a force or charge that requires respect, and Dasein — the human being in its openness to being [Sein], that is, in its openness to the significance of beings — has a responsibility not only to defer to the meanings of words but also to maintain the forceful nature of words. Above all else, Heidegger stresses the importance of asking the right questions with the proper words. In fact, Heidegger claims "questioning is the genuine and the right and the only way of deeming worthy that which, by its highest rank, holds our Dasein in its power." It is fitting for humans to question not only the world around us, but also our relation to the world. Such questioning does not happen in a vacuum; rather, Heidegger repeatedly emphasizes that human beings are fundamentally social in nature. Since "the world of Dasein is a with-world," i.e., since humans always share the world with others and thereby question with others, it is important to be open to the proper questions we face as human beings.

As Fried argues, "the principal challenge of Heidegger [is] ... to respond to questions that arise from the pressing concerns of the world within which we live." Heidegger's corpus includes an impressive array of such questions, including novel interpretations of the experience of technology, science, art, language, and poetry, among others. Importantly, Heidegger argued that all questions arise historically. Since human beings have "facticity," that is, since human beings are situated in a certain place at a certain time in a certain context, and so forth, the questions that arise are contingent on this place, time, and context. I argue that the fundamental question that we humans need to ask is as follows: "What is our proper relationship to the natural world?" Heidegger would say that deep questions such as these emerge in situations of breakdown. When things are not going right, fundamental questions arise that there is no point in asking when things are going smoothly. To use one of Heidegger's famous examples, we don't recognize that the hammer we are using is unfit for the job until a problem arises as we use it. Similarly, for most of human history, there was no need to question the human relationship with the natural world since we did not come across breakdowns that initiated basic questioning. Now, however, climate change is an obvious sign of a breakdown concerning the human relationship with nature. Consider recent statements from climatologists and climate philosophers: Lonnie G. Thompson, a world-renowned climatologist, explains the issue of climate change in the starkest of terms: "Global warming poses a clear and present danger to civilization"; Dale Jamieson, one of the first professional philosophers to analyze climate change, argues that climate change requires a paradigm shift in our philosophical approach to the issue; indeed, Martin Schönfeld, a contemporary philosopher who specializes in climate issues, argues that, due to climate change, "culture as we know it must be reinvented, identity as such must be redefined, and reality in its entire environmental gestalt must be reappraised." These are not hyperbolic, apocalyptic ramblings; rather, they reflect the sobering reality of our situation. Put simply, climate change is a sign of a breakdown regarding the human relationship to nature.

With any such breakdown, we do right to find the proper words to understand the situation. The most fitting word that captures our predicament is the ancient Greek word [TEXT NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII], [krisis], from which we derive our English words "crisis" and "critical." The ancient Greeks understood [TEXT NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII]‚ as an unstable pivotal situation that required a decision. For instance, the Greek historian Thucydides speaks of the [TEXT NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII] [krisin exein], i.e., the event to be decided, regarding the fate of the Peloponnesian War. As in pivotal situations like wars, human beings have come across a critical juncture regarding our relation to nature, and such a juncture requires a decision as to the appropriate way forward. In his late-1930s work, Contributions to Philosophy, among the "decisions" humans have in modernity that Heidegger lists is "whether nature is degraded to the realm of exploitation by means of calculation and ordering" or whether we can embrace a new understanding of the human — nature relationship. If we update this to our present situation, we can say that climate change forces us to make a decision as to the proper way forward: do we continue to exploit the natural world in accordance with the calculative and ordering tendencies of natural science and industry as we have done since the Industrial Revolution or are we able to open up a new relation between humans and nature that is not built upon a conqueror — conquered model?

Ruth Irwin argues that climate change is precisely the sort of breakdown that necessitates a reorientation towards reality. She states, "Backed into a corner by climate change, it is impossible to retain the same ways of doing things that have characterized the last epoch." In facing the real possibility of a collapse of human civilization, Irwin argues that the proper response is to reflect on the finitude of civilization. As she puts it, "In the face of the utter finitude of our world and the concurrent complete loss of meaning, Heidegger draws ultimate strength." Heidegger's philosophy provides us with a lens from which to understand the crisis of climate change insofar as his thought offers an analysis of the conceptual underpinnings in the Western world that have sanctioned environmental destruction. His thought also provides the scaffolding for a new understanding of the proper human — environment relationship. Before we can understand this analysis and Heideggerian framework, though, we need to get a sense as to what the crisis entails.

CLIMATE CHANGE AS A SIGN OF THE CRISIS

While Heidegger...

Details zur Ausgabe

• Verlag: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers
• Erscheinungsdatum: 2015
• Sprache: Englisch
• ISBN 10: 1783482338
• ISBN 13: 9781783482337
• Einband: Taschenbuch
• Anzahl der Seiten: 150
• Kontakt zum Hersteller: Nicht verfügbar
• Verantwortliche Person: gpsr@libri.de; gpsr@libri.de; ; Friedensallee 273; Hamburg; 22763; Deutschland