Rethinking Transcendence: Heidegger, Plessner and the Problem of Anthropology

Abstract

In times of the Anthropocene, we are in need of philosophical anthropology, revisiting the question concerning the human condition. I suggest rethinking what one may call ‘human transcendence’ in terms of a responsivist paradigm. Drawing on Heidegger and Plessner, the idea is that we should think of the eccentric or ecstatic position of the human in terms of something we undergo, instead of it being a human capability or something we do. It is a gift, emplacing us to the time-space of responsive embodied existence. The paper will follow this agenda in five steps. Having introduced what I take to be the challenge for a timely ontology, I will unfold the problem entailed in the very idea of philosophical anthropology according to Heidegger. I then focus on Heidegger’s (hidden) rapprochement to Helmuth Plessner’s anthropology, recalling Plessner’s analysis of laughter as a bodily expression displaying the ‘eccentric positionality’ of the human. I suggest rephrasing this kind of transcendence in a responsivist paradigm: Humans are responsive beings.

Keywords:

• Philosophical anthropology
• Anthropocene
• ontology
• responsiveness
• transcendence

Notes

1. Among contemporary scholars who take up the ontological challenge implied in the declaration of the ‘Anthropocene’ are Latour 2015; Raffnsøe 2015; Williston 2015; Frost 2016; Danowski and de Castro 2016.

2. Notably in the lecture course on Schelling’s freedom-essay from Summer 1930 (GA 31, 1–72), which followed on Heidegger’s arguably most ’anthropological’ series ‘The Basic Concepts of Metaphysics’ (GA 29/30).

3. Großheim (2003) sees this period from Heidegger’s side as an ‘intermezzo’ and a flirt with philosophical anthropology, culminating with his lecture series in 1929/30 (GA 29/30), prepared by his discussion of philosophical anthropology in Kant and the Problem of Metaphysics (Heidegger 1997).

4. This claim concerning later Heidegger is arguably in need of being substantiated, which cannot be done here; see among others Haar 1990, 111 ff.

5. The meeting has gained remarkable fame in intellectual history during the last two decades: see Friedman 2000, Skidelsky 2008: 195 ff. and Gordon 2010; from the point of view of anthropology see Pavesich 2008.

6. Phrased in the language of Scheler (1955, 176), ‘sachlich orientierte Weltoffenheit’ and ‘Selbstbewusstsein’ render the two poles of transcendence in Heidegger’s account.

7. In a note to the treatise On the Essence of Ground, published in the Festschrift to Husserl in the very same year, we read the following adjacent statement:

8. A comprehensive study addressing the relation between Heidegger and Plessner is still missing. Important is Fahrenbach 1990/91; some material is given in Schmitz 1996.

9. On this point, see also Plessner’s (1975, viii ff.) own remarks in the preface to the second edition, which finally, 36 years after its original publication, got a reprint. See also Fahrenbach 1990/91, 75 ff.