Abstract

This thesis investigates the meaning of the historical epoch of post-modernity by way of Martin Heidegger's claim about the end of philosophy. While Heidegger himself never uses the term "post-modernity" in his writings, his thinking can nonetheless be interpreted as providing important insights towards developing an essential understanding of post-modernity. Uncovering these insights and developing such an understanding form the purpose and goal of the present thesis. The thesis sets out from the peculiar lack of understanding surrounding the term "post-modernity." In doing so, it unravels the formal structure of post-modernity as that of a historical epoch lying in-between the end of one historical epoch, namely modernity, and the beginning of another that is still to come. While other thinkers of the Western philosophical tradition can be said to make interesting and important connections in relation to this topic, Heidegger's thinking about the end of philosophy reveals itself as an especially appropriate pathway into answering the question about the meaning of post-modernity. Heidegger's thinking may be presented in different ways. In order to think along with Heidegger and his project of thoughtfully preparing Western humanity for a "crossing" from metaphysics to the next chapter of their history, Heidegger's claim about the end of philosophy is contextualized within the overall structure of his Gesamtausgabe. This contextual understanding of Heidegger's thinking reveals his much neglected 1964 lecture "The End of Philosophy and the Task of Thinking" as an appropriate "tool" for uncovering the meaning of post-modernity. "The End of Philosophy and the Task of Thinking" opens up the horizon with respect to which metaphysical thinking may be transformed into the "other" kind of thinking needed to traverse the crossing of post-modernity. After projecting a preparatory "preview" of it, the horizon of the other kind of thinking—what Heidegger calls Ereignis—is opened up through a restructuring and further uncovering of the subject-matters discussed in "The End of Philosophy and the Task of Thinking." This involves a disclosure of the meaning of Heidegger's claim about the end of philosophy in the sense of its development into independent sciences; the end of philosophy in the sense of the completion of metaphysics; and the task of thinking at the end of philosophy. After laying bare the horizon of Ereignis from "The End of Philosophy and the Task of Thinking," an answer to the question of the meaning of the historical epoch of post-modernity is offered. With respect to the horizon of Ereignis, the meaning of post-modernity reveals itself as the threefold phenomenon of entanglement, nihilism, and not knowing. The result of this answer is not so much a better understanding of the meaning of post-modernity as it is a better understanding of why we lack such an understanding in the first place and in what sense this lack is necessary.