Abstract

This dissertation attempts to examine the question of ethos from the revival of the question in German idealism to Heidegger's explicit confrontation with the question under the rubric building dwelling thinking. The first part deals specifically with the reappearance of the problem of ethos in the work of Hegel and Holderlin in the setting of the crisis of self-consciousness and the raising of the question of language. The logical devices of number , Aufhebung , and epagoge are also examined as ways of concealing and suppressing the question of ethos. This part ends with a discussion of dwelling, participation and representation in medieval thought . ;The second part examines the suppression of the notion of methexis by mimetic theory starting in Plato and Aristotle. The question addressed in this part is: How does mimesis dislodge methexis in order to become the logical-metaphysical underpinning for the metaphysical view of production? The characterization of space in mimetic theories is discussed in connection with Heidegger's treatment of topos and chora. This part ends with an extended examination of an alternative non-metaphysical view of methexis in Anaxagoras. ;The third part deals with the notion of site as site of dwelling. As developed in a series of texts , site appears as the problem of the without , the body and its needs, participation, encounter with the historical past, the historical collision and interchange of peoples, as visibility, the possibility of sight and image, and as cohabitation