Abstract

The title of this paper namely ‘Ontology or Ethics: The Case of Martin Heidegger and Watsuji Tetsurô,’ in principle, if not in fact, aims at shedding light on the relation between ethics and ontology. As a thesis, this paper claims that their relation boils down to the question of the being of the human being, which consequently and necessarily serves as the departure point towards answering the problems of ontology and ethics. In trying to divulge the presuppositions underlying this claim, I will use Martin Heidegger’s phenomenological hermeneutics beginning from his analytic of Dasein and Watsuji Tetsurô’s ethics as the study of ningen.