Studies in the Philosophy of Sociality 10 Hans Bernhard Schmid Gerhard Thonhauser E ditors From Conventionalism to Social Authenticity Heidegger’s Anyone and Contemporary Social Theory Studies in the Philosophy of Sociality Volume 10 Editor-in-Chief Raimo Tuomela (Prof. Emer., University of Helsinki, University of Munich) Managing Editors Hans Bernhard Schmid (Prof., University of Basel) Jennifer Hudin (Lecturer, University of California, USA) Advisory Board Robert Audi, Notre Dame University (Philosophy) Michael Bratman, Stanford University (Philosophy) Cristiano Castelfranchi, University of Siena (Cognitive Science) David Copp, University of California at Davis (Philosophy) Ann Cudd, University of Kentucky (Philosophy) John Davis, Marquette University and University of Amsterdam (Economics) Wolfgang Detel, University of Frankfurt (Philosophy) Andreas Herzig, University of Toulouse (Computer Science) Ingvar Johansson, Umeå University (Philosophy) Byron Kaldis, University of Athens (Philosophy) Martin Kusch, University of Vienna (Philosophy) Christopher Kutz, University of California at Berkeley (Law) Eerik Lagerspetz, University of Turku (Philosophy) Pierre Livet, Universite de Provence Tony Lawson, University of Cambridge (Economics) Kirk Ludwig, University of Florida (Philosophy) Uskali Mäki, Academy of Finland (Philosophy) Kay Mathiesen, University of Arizona (Information Science and Philosophy) Larry May, Vanderbilt University (Philosophy and Law) Georg Meggle, University of Leipzig (Philosophy) Anthonie Meijers, University of Eindhoven (Philosophy) Seumas Miller, Australian National University and Charles Sturt University (Philosophy) Elisabeth Pacherie, Jean Nicod Institute, Paris (Cognitive Science) Henry Richardson, Georgetown University (Philosophy) Michael Quante, University of Münster (Philosophy) John Searle (Philosophy, University of California at Berkeley) Michael Tomasello (Developmental Psychology, Max Planck Institute, Leipzig) More information about this series at http://www.springer.com/series/10961 Hans Bernhard Schmid • Gerhard Thonhauser Editors From Conventionalism to Social Authenticity Heidegger’s Anyone and Contemporary Social Theory Editors Hans Bernhard Schmid Gerhard Thonhauser Department of Philosophy Department of Philosophy University of Vienna University of Vienna Vienna, Austria Vienna, Austria ISSN 2542-9094 ISSN 2542-9108 (electronic) Studies in the Philosophy of Sociality ISBN 978-3-319-56864-5 ISBN 978-3-319-56865-2 (eBook) DOI 10.1007/978-3-319-56865-2 Library of Congress Control Number: 2017943329 © Springer International Publishing AG 2017 This work is subject to copyright. All rights are reserved by the Publisher, whether the whole or part of the material is concerned, specifically the rights of translation, reprinting, reuse of illustrations, recitation, broadcasting, reproduction on microfilms or in any other physical way, and transmission or information storage and retrieval, electronic adaptation, computer software, or by similar or dissimilar methodology now known or hereafter developed. The use of general descriptive names, registered names, trademarks, service marks, etc. in this publication does not imply, even in the absence of a specific statement, that such names are exempt from the relevant protective laws and regulations and therefore free for general use. The publisher, the authors and the editors are safe to assume that the advice and information in this book are believed to be true and accurate at the date of publication. Neither the publisher nor the authors or the editors give a warranty, express or implied, with respect to the material contained herein or for any errors or omissions that may have been made. The publisher remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations. Printed on acid-free paper This Springer imprint is published by Springer Nature The registered company is Springer International Publishing AG The registered company address is: Gewerbestrasse 11, 6330 Cham, Switzerland Contents 1 Introduction ............................................................................................. 1 Gerhard Thonhauser Part I Interpreting the Anyone 2 Who is the Self of Everyday Existence? ................................................ 9 Mark A. Wrathall 3 Das Man and Everydayness: A New Interpretation ............................ 29 Charlotte Knowles 4 Heidegger’s Underdeveloped Conception of the Undistinguishedness (Indifferenz) of Everyday Human Existence ............................................................... 53 Jo-Jo Koo 5 Unobtrusive Governance: Heidegger and Foucault on the Sources of Social Normativity .................................................... 79 Andreas Beinsteiner Part II Contextualizing the Anyone 6 The Historicality of das Man: Foucault on Docility and Optimality ........................................................................................ 101 Kevin Thompson 7 The Danger of Being Ridden by a Type: Everydayness and Authenticity in Context – Reading Heidegger with Hegel and Diderot ........................................................................... 115 Dieter Thomä 8 Authenticity and Plurality: From Heidegger’s “Anyone” to Arendt’s “Common Sense” and Back Again .................................... 133 Ileana Borţun v vi Contents 9 Ambivalence of Power: Heidegger’s das Man and Arendt’s Acting in Concert ..................................................................................... 157 Katrin Meyer 10 A Groundless Place to Build: The Ambivalence of Production as a Chance of Action Between Martin Heidegger and Hannah Arendt .............................................................. 179 Lucilla Guidi Part III Towards Social Authenticity 11 How to Change das Man? ....................................................................... 201 Christian Schmidt 12 Social Authenticity: Towards a Heideggerian Analysis of Social Change ...................................................................................... 219 Martin Weichold 13 Transforming the World: A Butlerian Reading of Heidegger on Social Change? ............................................................ 241 Gerhard Thonhauser 14 Authentic Role Play: A Political Solution to an Existential Paradox .................................................................................................... 261 Hans Bernhard Schmid Index ................................................................................................................. 275 Chapter 1 Introduction Gerhard Thonhauser Abstract Heidegger’s account of the anyone (das Man) is ambiguous. Some inter- preters applaud the anyone as the best description of human sociality, while others think of it as an important critique of modern mass society. This chapter introduces the main idea leading up to this volume: Heidegger’s anyone should neither be reduced to its pejorative nor its constitutive dimension. Rather, the ambiguity of the anyone reflects the tension between the constitutive function of norms, rules, and conventions for human action on the one hand, and the critical aspects of conformism on the other. The anyone is the condition of possibility of all human action, but it does not provide its ultimate source of meaning or intelligibility. This evokes the question whether there are standards for our actions beyond the common sense of the anyone. I take this to be the question that Heidegger’s notion of Eigentlichkeit, translated as authenticity or ownedness, wants to address. After distinguishing two controversial dimensions for interpreting authenticity – romantic versus formal and individualistic-atomistic versus pluralistic-social – I will introduce the social dimension of authenticity as the focal point of this volume. In particular, I will identify as the main question whether authen- ticity can serve as a source of social critique and a motor for social change. Keywords Anyone • Das Man • Eigentlichkeit • Ownedness • Authenticity 1.1 Thematic Scope of the Book Heidegger’s notion of the anyone (das Man) has given rise to a number of contro- versies over its correct interpretation. Most famously perhaps, the two American Heidegger scholar’s Frederick Olafson and Hubert Dreyfus had an controversial exchange over that matter that lasted almost a decade.1 On the one hand, Olafson 1 It began with Olafson’s discussion of the anyone in his book Heidegger and the Philosophy of Mind (Olafson 1987, 144–50). Dreyfus criticized Olafson’s interpretation in his own introduction to Being and Time (Dreyfus 1991, 141–62). The debate culminated in 1994 and 1995 in a back- G. Thonhauser (*) Department of Philosophy, University of Vienna, Vienna, Austria e-mail: [email protected] © Springer International Publishing AG 2017 1 H.B. Schmid, G. Thonhauser (eds.), From Conventionalism to Social Authenticity, Studies in the Philosophy of Sociality 10, DOI 10.1007/978-3-319-56865-2_1 2 G. Thonhauser understood Heidegger’s view on das Man as cultural criticism of modern mass society in line with Kierkegaard. According to this view, das Man should be under- stood as a merely ontic phenomenon. It is an existentiell corruption of Dasein’s ontological structure of being-with. Moreover, das Man can be overcome in the rare moments in which Dasein achieves authentic self-ownership. On the other hand, Dreyfus interpreted das Man as a description of the basic ontological structure of Dasein. Following this interpretation, das Man needs to be seen as the source of all intelligibility. As a consequence, there is no point in overcoming the anyone as there can be no source of intelligibility beyond the intelligibility provided by das Man.2 The main idea leading up to this volume is that it is no coincidence – or inconsis- tency – that Heidegger describes das Man in terms of an existential analysis of Dasein as well as a existentiell critique of modern society. The description of das Man is ambiguous, and so is the underlying social phenomenon it describes. Dreyfus’s ontological reading and Olafson’s cultural reading each emphasize one of two crucial socio-theoretical ideas that are combined in Heidegger’s das Man. The ontological reading highlights the importance of norms, rules, and conventions for the facilita- tion and coordination of human behavior. To be socialized in the framework of estab- lished modes of intelligibility and regulated modes of comportment is the prerequisite for becoming an agent in one’s own right. Furthermore, many everyday practices are done by simply following the standard procedure; and necessarily so: without the automatization of these practices we would not be able to gather our attention around the matters that are important to us and need attentive care. The cultural reading, on the other hand, captures another important ontological finding: Understanding and acting cannot be reduced to the application of standardized procedures acquired through socialization, because they are in a decisive way first-personal. One mis- construes the mineness (Jemeinigkeit) of human comportment if one explains it solely in terms of established structures of intelligibility. Furthermore, social propri- ety is not the only criterion for the appropriateness of our judgements and actions. Although all human comportment requires a background of socially established practices, we need to take into account that the matter at hand might present criteria beyond the measure of social acceptability, criteria that might challenge established cultural settings (Schmid 2009, 155–72; Thonhauser and Schmid forthcoming). As the contributions to this volume show, it is possible to interpret Heidegger in a way that combines these ideas into a coherent account of human comportment: das Man is the condition of possibility for the intelligibility of all human action, but it does not provide the only, ultimate, or most adequate criterion for their evaluation. If this is the case, it evokes the question whether there are standards for our actions beyond the and-forth between Olafson on the one side and Dreyfus and his disciple Taylor Carman on the other (Olafson 1994a; Carman 1994; Olafson 1994b; Dreyfus 1995; Olafson 1998). For on over- view of the debate see (Keller and Weberman 1998). For a recent suggestion to overcome this tension in a unified interpretation see (Christensen 2012). 2 Other important interpretations of Being and Time that form the background for the present vol- ume are (Blattner 2006; Carman 2003; Crowell 2013; Haugeland 1982, 1992; Mulhall 2001, 2013). 1 Introduction 3 common sense of the anyone. This appears to be the question that Heidegger’s notion of Eigentlichkeit, translated as authenticity or ownedness, wants to address. However, the concept Eigentlichkeit is at least as ambiguous as the notion das Man. Moreover, whereas das Man has been at the center of several debates (this applies to Division One of Being and Time more general), Eigentlichkeit (and Division Two more general) has received comparatively little attention in the litera- ture (cf. McManus 2015). To get a better grasp of what could be at stake here, I suggest to structure the debate on Eigentlichkeit along two axes. The first concerns the tension of romantic and formal readings of Eigentlichkeit. Following Charles Taylor (1992), authenticity could be understood as self-realization in the sense of self-creation (cf. Guignon 2004). Although Taylor emphasizes that this self- fashioning needs to be conducted against an established set of rules, norms, and conventions, it nevertheless evokes the realization of some inner truth of the self that needs to be maintained against societal forces. There is clear textual evidence, how- ever, suggesting that Heidegger opposes such a romantic reading. Heidegger states that Eigentlichkeit is “chosen terminologically in a strict sense.” (BT 5)3 In everyday language, the German term eigentlich means genuine, proper, or real. It is also used in this sense in Being and Time, e.g. when Heidegger speaks of “genuine entities” (eigentliche Seiende) (BT 26), “real being” (eigentliche Sein) (BT 30), “real mean- ing” (eigentliche Bedeutung) (BT 32) or the “proper meaning of being” (eigentliche Sinn von Sein) (BT 37). Following this  hint from everyday language use, Eigentlichkeit can be understood in a formal or methodological sense as “the ‘phe- nomenal ground’ of an existential ontology of the self.” (Käufer 2015, 104) Existential analysis reveals the self as what it really (eigentlich) is. However, this does not con- cern its unique identity, as the romantic reading has it, but its mode of being as Dasein. Furthermore, the adjective “eigen” means own – as in one’s own copy of the book and not the copy of the library. Some commentators have therefore suggested translating Eigentlichkeit as “ownedness”. An existence that is eigentlich is one that is owned; an owned self needs to own up to the character of one’s existence as Dasein (Carman 2003, 276) and has the task of owning oneself in the sense of taking responsibility for one’s own existence (McManus 2015, 5). The second distinction concerns the tension of individualistic-atomistic and pluralistic- social interpretations of Eigentlichkeit. There is textual evidence in favor of both readings. Heidegger speaks of a radical individualizing of Dasein, e.g. regarding the basic attunement of anxiety (BT 188–191) or in the context of his analysis of being-toward-death (BT 263). This appears to indicate that a certain individualization or isolation is a necessary precondition for becoming authentic. On the other hand, Heidegger states that authenticity “does not detach Dasein from its world”, it rather “brings the self right into its concerned being amidst things at hand, and pushes it towards the soliciting being-with the others.” (BT 298) Against the trend of reading Heidegger’s authenticity as advocating some form of individualism or atomism of the self, this volume seeks to explore the possible social dimension of authenticity (cf. Stroh 2015). 3 All quotations from Being and Time are based on the translation by Stambaugh (Heidegger 1996) but are modified by me.