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Frontiers of Philosophy in China

ISSN 1673-3436

ISSN 1673-355X(Online)

CN 11-5743/B

Postal Subscription Code 80-983

Front. Philos. China    2016, Vol. 11 Issue (3) : 444-462    https://doi.org/10.3868/s030-005-016-0032-2
Orginal Article
Heidegger on the Struggle for Belongingness and Being at Home
Megan Altman()
Department of Philosophy, Hiram College, Hiram, OH 44234, USA
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Abstract

In 1840, Alexis de Tocqueville coined the term “individualism” to refer to the tendency for Americans to withdraw into their own desires and interests, thus weakening and diminishing the “habits of the heart” that bind a generation to the customs of their forebears and contemporaries. A problem, though, is that modern individualism undermines the very ideals—i.e. autonomy, equality, and freedom—that motivated it in the first place. Understood as a way of life, liberal individualism is permeated by alienation, estrangement, and thoughtless patterns of conformism. In what follows, I hope to show that hermeneutic phenomenology as developed by Martin Heidegger marks an important break from the modern liberal individualistic outlook. The point is to undercut the contrived interpretations of our current historical tradition in order to demonstrate that belonging to and sharing in the struggles of a generation are conditions for being human at all. This critique does not provide a panoptic or definitive account of the basis of a genuine community, but does give us a richer sense of place and purpose, beyond even what the current polis/political community designates (though it certainly includes it).

Keywords Martin Heidegger      ontological individualism      hermeneutic phenomenology      Ethos      
Issue Date: 19 September 2016
 Cite this article:   
Megan Altman. Heidegger on the Struggle for Belongingness and Being at Home[J]. Front. Philos. China, 2016, 11(3): 444-462.
 URL:  
https://academic.hep.com.cn/fpc/EN/10.3868/s030-005-016-0032-2
https://academic.hep.com.cn/fpc/EN/Y2016/V11/I3/444
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[2] WANG Qingjie. Heidegger, Communal Being, and Politics[J]. Front. Philos. China, 2020, 15(3): 395-408.
[3] Mark Kevin S. Cabural. Daoism and the German Mission in Martin Heidegger’s “The Thing”[J]. Front. Philos. China, 2019, 14(4): 570-592.
[4] Selusi Ambrogio. Mou Zongsan and Martin Heidegger: Reopening a Debate on Ontology and Ethics[J]. Front. Philos. China, 2018, 13(1): 55-71.
[5] KE Xiaogang. Reason and Besinnung: Heidegger’s Reflections on Science in Contributions to Philosophy [J]. Front. Philos. China, 2016, 11(3): 430-443.
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