Renovating the problem of politics

Bernard Dauenhauer

pp. 30-50

in: Ronald Bruzina, Bruce Wilshire (eds), Crosscurrents in phenomenology, The Hague, Nijhoff, 1978

Abstract

Heidegger situates Husserlian themes within the wider context of the question of being, but he does not sufficiently consider the context of political philosophy. And even the question of being appears different if the political context is taken into account. Heidegger advances beyond Husserl by… raising the issue of pulicness in a more appropriate way than Husserl, with his stress on the discourse of science, was able to do. But Heidegger’s conception of the public is not adequate for political life; in terms of the kinds of human association distinguished by Aristotle in Politics I.2—family, village, city—Heidegger’s thoughts are most appropriate for the village, not the city. A village is not based on any kind of constitution or “social contract.”1

Cited authors

Husserl Edmund

Heidegger Martin

Aristoteles