Heidegger's Philosophy and Theories of the Self

Derek Robert Mitchell

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2019
• ISBN:
  9781351750134
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Philosophy
• Subtopic: Philosophy History & Theory

This title was first published in 2001. Explaining and defending a Heideggarian account of the self and our knowledge of the world, this book addresses the fundamental issues of selfhood and the elemental question of what it means to be human. The author vcritically examines theories of the self derived from two distinct schools of thought: Descartes, Hume, Kant, Sartre and Stirner representing a tradition which has dominated Western philosophy since Descartes; Heidegger and Laing representing a radical departure from the tradition. The author focuses on two key philosophical problems throughout: the problem of knowledge and the problem of identity. The author argues that ultimately Heidegger does no more than echo Stirner's empty egoism and provides a bleak, inescapable heroism for the individual.

1
Theories of the Self

The aim of this book is to examine a number of different theories of the self explicitly set out in, or implied by, the work of Descartes, Hume, Kant, Max Stirner, Heidegger, Sartre, and R.D. Laing. These seven are divided into two camps representing two distinctly different schools of thought. The first group, which includes Descartes, Hume, Kant, Sartre and Stirner, represents a tradition that has dominated western philosophy since Descartes, and, although these five differ in many ways, I will argue that they share certain approaches and a dualism that critically influences their theories of the self. The second group, which comprises Heidegger and Laing, represents a radical departure from the tradition and a rejection of the approach shared by its members, and consequently a very different understanding of selfhood.

Two philosophical problems are used to focus the discussion of the works of these philosophers. The problem of knowledge, exemplified by the "veil of the senses" argument, is used to examine the relation between the self and the world that is not-self, and to address the question of the spatiality of the self. The problem of the continuity of the identity of the self over time, the problem of personal identity, is used to examine the relation between the self and itself at different times, and to address the question of the temporality of the self. The work of each of the philosophers cited is examined in respect of the way in which these problems are set out, and the questions they raise addressed.

Chapter Two sets out the position of Max Stirner.¹ Stirner's egoism provides the initial point of reference for the following discussion of theories of the self. Stirner gives us the ultimately subjective individual in "the Owner". His egoism is uncompromising and, although his work appears to be, and often is, disorganised and chaotic, it becomes clear throughout the book that, not only is his position more resilient than is at first apparent, but he poses questions about selfhood and individuality which those who would reject his egoism must answer if they are to be successful in developing alternative notions of the self. Crucial to the understanding of the strength of Stirner's position is the way in which he rejects the ground on which most criticism of his egoism is based. What is sometimes seen as Stirner's paranoia must be overcome by means other than taking up a position based either on faith, or the kind of normative positions which are precisely the target of Stirner's fiercest condemnation. This is the challenge of Stirner's egoism, which must be met.²

Chapter Three sets out the position of R.D. Laing, which differs from that of Stirner both in terms of its perspective, since Laing was a practising Psychiatrist, and also in its conclusions about the self. Laing, largely through a description of case histories of his patients, provides a picture of the self as essentially relational and only isolated and singular when dysfunctional. Laing gives us the essentially social individual. The contrast between these two views of the self is explicit, but in neither is there sufficient to decide the case one way or the other. While Laing's case histories seem to indicate that Stirner's position is not tenable, there are signs in Laing's work of the kinds of norms of behaviour and self conception that Stirner wishes to reject. The project of examining the philosophical underpinnings of both these positions is thereby set in motion as a means of determining which of these diametrically opposed views provides the most adequate understanding of selfhood.

Chapter Four begins the setting out of the way in which the work of Descartes, Hume, Kant and Sartre will be examined and used to support a Stirnerian view of the self. The two philosophical problems (the problems of knowledge and personal identity)³ which will be used to focus the discussion of the works of these philosophers are introduced and explained. Specifically in this Chapter the works of Descartes and Hume are examined, in particular Descartes' Meditations with reference to the existence of a world external to the self and the mind/body problem, and Hume's discussion of personal identity in the Treatise of Human Nature. The ways in which these two fail, and succeed, in their solutions to the two problems, and the theories of the self, which are thereby implied, are given in the conclusion of this Chapter.⁴

In Chapter rive the contribution of Kant is set out and examined, in particular his theory of knowledge and his discussion of the self in the Critique of Pure Reason. The advances made by Kant are discussed and his development of the Cartesian position, in particular his retrieval of the sceptical position bequeathed by Hume, is recognised.⁵ However Kant's work retains certain of the limitations found in Descartes and Hume and is ultimately found to have failed to solve either the problem of knowledge or the problem of personal identity. Despite the fact that Kant's work represents a significant advance on the work of both Descartes and Hume, I will argue that this advance does not move away from the structural dualism of Descartes and Hume and in this respect is only incremental to the tradition. Kant incorporates this inherited dualism firmly into his systems to the extent that it is both essential to the maintenance of the structure of his argument and equally fatal to his efforts to solve the problems. It becomes clear that this kind of approach will never succeed in answering the questions it raises. Some initial pointers towards the link between Kant's epistemology and the later work of Heidegger are given in the commentary on Kant in this Chapter.⁶

Chapter Six looks at Sartre's existentialism and examines the theory of the self put forward in his Being and Nothingness, including Sartre's attempt to re-interpret the Cartesian cogito.⁷ Sartre's notion of human freedom is explored and its deficiencies exposed. His discussion of the Other in Part Three of Being and Nothingness is used as a means of looking at how he approaches the problems of knowledge and identity. In the conclusion of this Chapter it becomes clear that, although Sartre is an avowed Cartesian, the conclusions he reaches with regard to the nature of the self violate his Cartesian premise, the cogito. While Sartre brings some powerful insights, and an effective methodology, to discussions about the nature of the self, he fails to re-interpret the cogito to the degree required to generate the intensely relational view of the self finally presented in Being and Nothingness. Again, as with Kant, the dualism, which Sartre inherited from Descartes, proves fatal to his enterprise. In spite of this failure, and because of his conclusions about relation to the Other, Sartre represents an important bridge between the tradition represented by Descartes, Hume and Kant and the rejection of this tradition given in Heidegger's early work (1926-1929).

At the beginning of Chapter Seven the respective and relative failures and contributions of Descartes, Hume, Kant and Sartre, with regard to the questions raised by the problems of knowledge and identity, are summarised and a judgement made that this collective failure brings into question the founding premises of the tradition and its entire approach to questions regarding the self. As an alternative to this the early work of Heidegger is presented to provide the basis for a different understanding of the spatiality and temporality of selfhood. In this Chapter Heidegger's interpretation of the Being of everyday Dasein is set out, taken from the first Division of his Being and Time, Part One of The Basic Problems of Phenomenology, and his work on Kant in Kant and the Problem of Metaphysics.⁸ In the conclusion of this Chapter it is argued that Heidegger has dissolved the problem of knowledge, undermined the position taken by Descartes, Hume, Kant and Sartre and established a new understanding of the spatiality of selfhood. Heidegger has also begun to explain the genesis of this position as a deficient mode of the understanding of Being.

In Chapter Eight Heidegger's interpretation of authentic Dasein is made explicit, including the analyses of death and conscience. The temporality of the self is described using Division Two of Being and Time, Part Two of The Basic Problems of Phenomenology, and his work on Kant in Kant and the Problem of Metaphysics. Heidegger's debt to Kant is acknowledged and the genesis of the positions taken by Descartes, Hume, Kant and Sartre is fully explained. By the end of this Chapter it appears that Heidegger has dissolved the problem of identity and established a radically new notion of selfhood, which does not set the apparently intractable problems encountered within the tradition he rejects. The notions of self, space and time are re-interpreted by Heidegger into a coherent and integrated whole which is neither solipsistic nor dualistic,⁹ and which confirms rather than denies the conclusions we draw from everyday experience. Some criticism of the formalism of Heidegger's position is now developed and it is recognised that formalism is central to Heidegger's method and his rejection of the problems posed by the tradition.¹⁰

In the concluding chapter the contributions made by Descartes, Hume, Kant, Sartre, and Heidegger are summarised and placed in context. The discussion then returns to the original dispute between Stirner and Laing and, on the basis of Heidegger's success, Laing's position is vindicated and Stirner's position is shown to be self destructive and self contradictory. Heidegger provides the ground from which Stirner's egoism can be rejected, ground which is not subject to destruction from Stirner's criticism. However, further criticism of Heidegger, based on the now complete exposition of his work of this period can now finally be advanced and it is shown how the formalism, which is central to his approach and method, has damaging consequences for his notion of selfhood. I will argue that Heidegger avoids the questions posed by the problems within the tradition only by holding to a strict distinction between the forms of Being and its contents. By refusing to answer questions about the latter, Heidegger avoids the pitfalls of his predecessors but pays the penalty of being able to say nothing about how Being is to be filled up. It becomes clear that the cost to Heidegger of his manoeuvres, in avoiding the questions raised by the tradition, is an empty formalism in his conclusions about selfhood, an heroic formalism which in the end can do no more than echo Stirner's empty egoism, "Be yourself', "Be an Owner".¹¹ The book concludes ironically with the re-emergence of Stirner's egoism alongside Heidegger's notion of authentic Dasein.

Theories of the Self

Having set out clearly my own objectives for this book it is clear that many others have written on the same subject, in many different ways. In order in part to distinguish my approach from these, and to set my own argument in some sort of context, I will now briefly survey some of the other recent, and less recent work, on the Self which I have not used and which, in varying degrees, takes a different approach and reaches different conclusions to those I will arrive at. This is by no means intended to provide a comprehensive lexicon of work on this wide and much studied subject but may point the reader towards some other interesting and illuminating work on aspects of the Self which I will not be addressing.

In the tradition of Continental philosophy since the the eighteenth century much attention has been paid to the question of selfhood. Solomon in his book Continental Philosophy Since 1750 - The Rise and Fall of the Self provides a most useful historical survey tracing the development of the notion of the self, which he says was "discovered" in the mid-eighteenth century, to what he contends is the end of the notion with structuralism and post-modernism. Solomon parallels the development of the notion of the self in European (Continental) Philosophy with the development of European self-image. He describes the notion of self as the "transcendental pretence" and traces its development through the luminaries of Continental philosophy beginning with Rousseau and Kant, moving through the Romantics, Fichte, Schelling and Schiller, on through Hegel, Schopenauer, Feuerbach, Marx, Nietzsche, into phenomenology with Husserl and on to the Existentialists, Kierkegaard, Sartre, Heidegger, Camus, De Beauvoir and Merleau-Ponty, and finally to the structuralist and post-modern conclusion in Foucault and Derrida. This wide ranging enquiry is an excellent starting point for anyone interested in these issues.

Charles Taylor in his extensive book Source of the Self again traces the historical development of the notion of the self in an attempt to define modern identity through a description of its genesis. Taylor looks at three facets of identity. The first is what he calls the modern inwardness, the sense we have of ourselves as beings with inner depths, in short our sense of personal self. The second is what he refers to as the affirmation of ordinary life, in which he places great store and which bears some relation to Heidegger's notion of everydayness. The third facet is the expressivist notion of nature as an inner moral source. Taylor takes a much more specifically moral philsophical approach than I will be taking as he seeks to investigate the apparent conflict between identity and modernity. In view of his starting point it is perhaps not surprising that he comes to the conclusion that modern subjectivity has its roots in ideas of the human good and a rejection of the presumption that subjectivity leads to subjectivism or even nihilism. I find that I am much less optimistic about this by the end of my own investigation.

Parfit also provides a very extensive ethical and moral philosophical approach to the whole question of personal identity in Reasons and Persons and addresses vital questions about personal identity, and rationality and identity and morality, in looking at our beliefs about our own identity, what is wrong with these beliefs and why this matters. While I cannot but accept the importance of the moral dimension to the study of the self I am not primarily concerned with these aspects of the question in this book, although I will make some concluding references at the end of my investigation. Parfit provides an in-depth discussion of all of these issues and readers interested in these questions should not fail to read his book.

There has been a considerable amount of work on the self under the heading of Philosophy of Mind in the Analytic tradition. Gilbert Ryle's seminal work, The Concept of Mind, and work by Searle in this field are essential reading for those interested in the mind/brain argument.

Ryle attacks Cartesianism from within the analytical tradition and without any recourse to Heidegger, Sartre or Kant, which makes his approach very different from my own. He will have no truck with the bifurcation of lives into private and public, corporeal and non-corporeal, body and soul. For Ryle the myth of the "ghost in the machine" is no kind of explanation of the self. However, without the insights provided by the Existential School and by Heidegger's work it is hard to see how this kind of approach can really successfully escape from the confines of the tradition without finding itself with nowhere to go.

In the same vein Searle's work in books like The Rediscovery of the Mind presents another very different approach to the one I am taking. Searle, from within the analytical tr...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Series Title
• Title
• Copyright
• Dedication
• Contents
• Acknowledgements
• 1 Theories of the Self
• 2 Max Stirner - The Tyranny of Pure Theory
• 3 R.D. Laing - All Together Now
• 4 Descartes, Locke and Hume - Self and World
• 5 Kant - Let Sleeping Dogma Awake!
• 6 Sartre - Goldilocks Uncovered
• 7 Heidegger - An Everyday Story of Beings-in-the-World
• 8 Heidegger - Goldilocks Divined
• 9 Conclusion - How to Argue with an Egoist
• Bibliography
• Index