The impulse behind this paper is the conviction that Heidegger‘s turn to the Greeks is, for the most part, best understood as driven by the effort to arrive at a different, non-metaphysical, ethical sensibility. In his brief »Űber den Humanismus » Heidegger speaks of the need to arrive at an «original ethics,» that is, an ethics of sources which is not defined by the imperatives driving ethics as we know it today. I am sure that this is what Heidegger finds (...) in the Greeks–Greek thinkers who he regards as quite apart from the canonical views dominating philosophy today–and that this is especially the case with Heidegger›s treatment of the pre-Socratic thinkers. Heidegger›s turn to Anaximander›s fragment, which he takes as the «oldest» document of the Western world regarding justice, is, along with some issues that emerge in Homer, the central text for my own efforts to develop this ethical sensibility in Heidegger. (shrink)

The purpose of this paper is to ask about the relation of language to the possibility of community and to do so in the context of Heidegger and Gadamer's reflections on the privileged status of poetic speech for any understanding of language. In his most extensive treatment of the notion of the polis, Plato takes up this question of the relation of poetic speech to the city. He comes to the conclusion that such forms of speaking are risky and problematic (...) for any possibility of community. Though the "exile" of poets in the Republic is to be read ironically, it nonetheless gives voice to a serious concern that philosophers have a tendency to share about the relation of speech to the community, namely, that such philosophic speech, conceptual speech, best serves the needs of political life. I argue, against this view, that we find something essential for reflections on the polis in thinking through the character of poetic speech. I do this with reference to the a number of texts by both Gadamer and Heidegger. In the end, I argue for a sort of reversal of the Platonic exile of poetic speech from the polis, suggesting that such speech needs to be taken up at the origins of any polis. (shrink)

In his celebrated "Letter on Humanism," Heidegger spoke of the need for an "original ethics" which did not submit itself to the ideal of something like a "subject" or the "human," two notions that he suggested were no longer serviceable for the task of thinking the problems of ethical life. The purpose of this article is to look at how Gadamer's hermeneutics might offer an avenue for developing this original ethics. To this end, Gadamer's discussion of language, in particular the (...) relation of language and freedom, serves as the guideline for unpacking this claim. (shrink)

The purpose of this article is to begin to renew the theme of nature as a central, even unavoidable, question for philosophizing today. Furthermore, the argument is made that this question is most productively posed as a question concerning ethical life. Texts by Aristotle, Kant and Höderlin are considered. Attention to Heidegger's concerns with technology also serves to guide the issues here.

The intention of this paper is to discuss the notion and word "democracy" as a Greek legacy and then to pose the question of the specific challenges to that conception of democracy presented by this historical present, which Heidegger characterizes as the Gestell. Questions concerning the sources of power, the relation of power to peoples and individuals, as well as the shift from power to violence are addressed. Plato, Aristotle, Pericles, Lincoln, Derrida, and Heidegger are the key figures in this (...) discussion. (shrink)

A typical view of Hegel's Phenomenology of Spirit takes the view that it traces the forward march of spirit and that this forward moving education outlines a path of pure progress. My contention is that what most needs to be said about spirit is that it is indeed a slow learner: lessons must be learned over and over again, structures get repeated, the same mistakes are made in different contexts. Repetition, not progress, is the rule of spirit's education. Two questions (...) are addressed in this essay. First, what is it about spirit that makes it such a slow learner of the lessons it must learn? Second, how is it that the crisis of tragedy and its resolution in the form of comedy represent a new stage in the education of spirit, one in which there is some hope of finally learning the lessons it must suffer? (shrink)