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December 10, 2004
In his article Heidegger's Challenge and the Future of Critical Theory Nikolas Kompridis makes a very interesting observation about Heidegger's ethics in relation to Hegel. Referring to a couple of passages in Being and Time (BT 158-159/122,) he says:
"This passage, with its resonances of the dialectic of slavery and domination from Hegel's Phenomenology, represents one of those altogether rare occasions where Heidegger actually contributes insightfully to enlarging our understanding of how our freedom for self-determination -- authenticity, in Heidegger's vocabulary -- is both dependent upon and facilitated by others. Our relation to others can be based on (implicit or explicit) domination or it can be based on a cooperative realization of authentic freedom. Heidegger -- at least in such passages as this -- understands correctly that freedom that is not simply negative freedom requires more than respect for the autonomy of persons, and more than mere recognition of the other's claim to self-determination; it requires the recognition that the realization of the other's freedom is as much my responsibility as hers."
This is what a would call a Hegelian moment. It interprets authenticity as self-determining freedom that involves the freedom of others.
Nicolas then highlights the significance of Hegelian moment. He says:
"For once in Being and Time, the other is not simply an ontologically ineliminable feature of intersubjective structures of intelligibility, of a world which becomes accessible in the first place only in so far as it is a shared world; rather, the other is she through whom I learn to realize my freedom, and to whom I am accountable. I can clear the way for the realization of the other's freedom or I can get in the way; we can learn from each other or we can fail to learn -- in which case we will fail to realize our freedom. But we can only learn from each other when we recognize the ineliminable role of intersubjective accountability and recognition in the constitution of authentic, self-determining freedom."
This is insightful because Heidegger's understanding of authenticity is often interpreted in relation to Kierkegaard not Hegel.
Kierkegaard gives a very individualist account as a reaction to his understanding of Hegel: he read Hegel as overemphasising world spirit at the expense of the individual and the world of their own. Heidegger recoils from the overemphasis on individual subjectivity and recovers a shared public world.
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