Worlds in Motion: Temporality and Historicality

ABSTRACT

Worlds are always in motion; what kind of movement is at stake? In this essay, I will argue that Heidegger moves beyond Hegel by making the concept of world central to phenomenology. But how do worlds move? As history, Heidegger says; yet his initial attempt to interpret history, in the final sections of Being and Time, is at certain moments hampered by his attempt to ground the historicality of shared world in the temporality of individual Dasein. Derrida then moves beyond Heidegger by addressing paradoxes in our understanding of time and history. This allows Derrida to introduce the ethical dimension of world from the start as we are called to acknowledge that the Other brings their own world and awaits our response. Worlds are both singular and shared; and in any case, they move (and move us).

KEYWORDS:

• Temporality
• historicality
• deconstruction
• circle
• spirit
• world

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes

1. As the terminology of ‘call’ and ‘response’ indicates, Derrida is also providing a corrective to Levinas’ account here. Similarly, he suggests in ‘Violence and Metaphysics’ that the ‘transcendent alterity’ constitutes an origin of the world: Derrida (1978, 184).

2. Section 59, in which Heidegger examines the relation between the existential and the vulgar (or the ontological and ontical) understandings of conscience and guilt is fascinating, yet requires a careful and detailed analysis which cannot be undertaken here.

3. John Russon (2008, 101) describes the message of the call of conscience as essentially undecidable, putting us ‘in the position of having to originate a way of taking up the call’. This characterization is helpful and can even be reconciled with Heidegger’s insistence that the call speaks unambiguously. In his thoughtful article, Russon establishes a connection between Derrida’s différance and the idea of ‘being-as-question’. Yet when Russon links ‘being-as-question’ to authenticity, he operates with a concept of authenticity which presupposes that we actually can be authentic (whereas Heidegger is much more careful, often indicating that authenticity is a matter of the moment and that we might only be able to catch a glimpse of the possibility of authenticity). Russon’s suggestion that authenticity consists in the ‘resolution to hold oneself open to value’ and to ‘let things matter to us’ is too specific. This specificity is not just caused by the concept of authenticity, but also by the ‘formal’ understanding of phenomenology as lettings things show themselves. The ‘phenomenological’ notion, which Russon omits, calls us to that which ‘lies hidden’ as the ‘ground’ for what shows itself (Heidegger 1978, 35) and thus allows for a discussion of more complex phenomena, as required by the silent call of conscience.