Abstract

Martin Heidegger was the first philosopher to see skillful coping as the basis of our understanding of the world and ourselves. But he acknowledges that such average understanding is banal and conceals more than it reveals. He, therefore, holds that, to ground intelligibility, people must conform to everyday practical norms, but that, by acting in the face of anxiety, a person can resist conformism and refine standard ways of acting. His model is Aristotle’s phronimos (man of practical wisdom) who responds with ethical expertise to the demands of the concrete situation. Further, Heidegger suggests that, when a person is fully authentic, he or she can transform everyday practice. Here, his model is Kierkegaard’s reborn individuals whom Heidegger sees as radical world disclosers capable of changing the issue for their age and so of changing history.