Abstract

The primary task of my dissertation is to analyze Heidegger's thought of "community" from his early concept of "being-in-the-world-with-one-another" to his later concept of Ereignis , with an aim to show how Heidegger's thought of community constitutes one of the most important aspects of his inquiry into being. ;First of all, I use Heidegger's criticism of both Kant's attempt of proving the existence of the external world and Husserl's transcendental intentionality to clarify how Heidegger's concept of Dasein as "being-in-the-world-with-one-another" distinguishes itself from those philosophies of subjectivity in the modern history and thus starts a new, post-subjective way of thinking. In defense of my interpretation I argue with some American pragmatists who misinterpreted Heidegger's Dasein as a "practical agent" or "subject of action," and with Jurgen Habermas who claimed that there is an essential inconsistency between Heidegger's anti-subjective "world-analysis" and his subjective "who-analysis." ;Secondly, I try to show that Heidegger' s thought of "community" culminates in his later concept of Ereignis, which is based on his understanding of the essence of truth as untruth, i.e., Geheimnis , and is interpreted as both "belonging-together" and "setting-apart-from-one-another" . Compared with the concept of "being-in-the-world-with-one-another," which is still Dasein oriented, the concept of Ereignis is being oriented. Because of this, I argue that Heidegger's Ereignis as community is not only a "human community" but also a "cosmo-logos community," which is a humanistic but anti-anthropocentric fourfold . ;Finally, I present some critical discussions of Heidegger's ontological holism, of the "holy" character of Heidegger' s cosmo-logos community, and a brief comparison between Heidegger's and the traditional Confucian idea of the relation between individual human beings, nature and community. By doing these, I attempt to show both the limitations of and some future possibilities for enrichment of Heidegger's way of thinking of community