HEIDEGGER UND DIE ETHIK: DIE VOLLBRINGUNG DES ANDEREN
HEIDEGGER AND ETHICS: THE PRO-DUCING OF THE OTHER

Summary/Abstract: Heidegger and Ethics: the Pro-ducing of the Other. Heidegger’s occasional approaches to ethics are always connected to ontology. We investigate two of his writings (Being and Time, §59, and Letter on Humanism), which belong to the earlier and to the later Heidegger, respectively. Our aim is to show that Heidegger alters, throughout his writings, very little of his opinion concerning the secondary role of ethics by comparison with ontology. Whereas in Being and Time the necessity of ethics is rapidly placed in the realm of fundamental ontology of the Dasein (the most urgent task), in the Letter ethics is called “originary” if it is understood from the ēthos, the living of mankind. But according to Heidegger mankind defines itself by its Ek-sistenz, i.e. its being-open to the call of being through thinking. The keyword of our text is the German Handlung, normally translated as “action”, but which Heidegger understands as “pro-ducing”, i.e. Vollbringen, “bringing to the full” the essence of the Other. The primary action of man is thinking the essence of being as of the primary Other.

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