Actuality Without Existence: The Jewish Figure in Heidegger's Notebooks. Issue 4 (1st October 2020)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: Petropoulos, Georgios
• Is Part Of: Critical horizons. Volume 21:Issue 4(2020)
• Page Start: 335
• Page End: 351
• Publication Date: 2020-10-01
• Subjects: Heidegger -- world -- actuality -- existence -- Judaism -- antisemitism; Critical theory -- Periodicals; 142.05
• DOI: 10.1080/14409917.2020.1835041
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 1440-9917

Abstract

ABSTRACT: This paper examines Heidegger's remarks about the worldlessness of Judaism in his Black Notebooks. In the first part of the paper I examine Heidegger's concept of the world in Being and Time and subsequent writings. In the second part, I analyze a distinction that Heidegger draws between mere human actuality and genuine human existence in a 1932 lecture course on The Beginning of Western Philosophy. This distinction, I suggest, relates to the development of Heidegger's thoughts on nihilism and what he conceives as its gravest danger. In the third part, I argue that the above-mentioned distinction can help us to better understand Heidegger's remarks on Judaism. In particular, I suggest that the Jewish figure comes to symbolize for Heidegger a kind of unessential human actuality that is irredeemably detached from the question of Being.