Abstract

In his Habilitation thesis, Das Individuum in der Rolle des Mitmenschen (1928), Karl Löwith defends against Heidegger the double thesis of the primacy of the common world over any other modality of the world, and of the constitutive character, for the self, of the relationship to others. Guillaume Fagniez’s contribution attempts to highlight the tensions that arise from this double aspect: how can one combine the characterization of the other as a person belonging to the common world, and that of the pure otherness corresponding to the self? How can one articulate pure relationship to the other and social world? The solutions outlined here attempt to highlight both the hermeneutical and ethical stakes of the Löwithian analyses.