Ontology as Ethics: A Response to Stanley Rosen’s “Reversal of Heidegger”

Description

A 20-minue paper delivered at a workshop on Stanley Rosen, held at the Faculty of Divinity, Cambridge.

Abstract:

30 years on, Stanley Rosen’s The Question of Being poses a challenge to applications of Heidegger’s thought: If returning to the ontological difference renders everyday decision-making and language arbitrary, how can Heidegger inform nuanced debate? This article identifies five critiques made by Rosen of Heidegger’s history of Being, each supporting Rosen’s argument that Heidegger leads to “nihilism on the grand scale”. I respond by drawing on thinkers who have since applied Heidegger’s “doctrine of ontological historicity” to contemporary issues. I argue that such thinkers can rule out particular courses of action, without wholly rejecting the use of entities. On language, I argue that Heidegger is in key ways a descriptive thinker and realist, concerned with “ordinary life” as he sought alternatives to engrained thought. I conclude with Rosen’s critique of passivity in Heidegger, arguing that it echoes Heidegger’s evaluation of his own work, and is exacerbated when emphasising ontological historicity.

Period	6 Apr 2022
Held at	University of Cambridge, United Kingdom
Degree of Recognition	International