the ethics and politics of dwelling

7/29/2019 The Ethics and Politics of Dwelling

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The Ethics and Politicsof Dwelling*

Nicholas DungeyCalifornia State University, Northridge

Emmanuel Levinas argues that Heideggers ontology, and the ethics it entails, fall

short because while Dasein relates to the Other as being, Dasein fails to care for the

Other as a pure individual. Heideggers preoccupation with Being, Levinas thinks,

diverts Heideggers attention from the empirical, ethical claim made by the Other.On the political front, some argue that Heideggers preoccupation with Being

gives rise to political forces of nationalism and totalitarian politics. I argue that

Heideggers philosophy prepares the way for an alternative approach to ethics.

Expressed in the way that Dasein comes-to-presence are the ontological relation-

ships that reveal Daseins ethical being-with-one-another. However, I contend that

Heideggers ontology becomes ethically complete when Derridas notion of

differance is added to the analysis. On my reading, Derridas differance does not

efface Heideggers existential analytic of Dasein, but rather differance furthers the

ethical insight revealed in Daseins disclosure through the process of presencingabsencing. Interpreting differance in light of Heideggers understanding of

presencingabsencing reveals the ethical significance in language, extends ethical

responsibility to the Other, and deepens Heideggers notion of dwelling. In addition,

such a reading helps guard against the pernicious political possibilities some find

in Heideggers philosophy.

Polity (2007) 39, 234258. doi:10.1057/palgrave.polity.2300064

Keywords Heidegger; Derrida; ethics; dwelling

Nicholas Dungey is an Assistant Professor of Political Science at California

State University, Northridge. His primary interests are modern and contemporary

political theory. He is particularly interested in the modernpostmodern debate as it

relates to issues of identity, language, power, and the possibility of a postmodern

democracy. He can be reached at [email protected]

*I thank the former and current editors, referees, and staff of Polity for their thoughtful assistance in

the preparation of this essay. Special thanks also go to James Mitchell and my colleagues at CSUNyour

support has been invaluable. Last, I also thank Peter Digeser, Thomas Schrock, and Lea for their

di

Polity . Volume 39, Number 2 . April 2007r 2007 Northeastern Political Science Association 0032-3497/07 $30.00www.palgrave-journals.com/polity


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Introduction

Emmanuel Levinas argues that Heideggers ontology, and the ethics it entails,

fall short because while Dasein1 relates to the Other as being, Dasein fails to care

for the Other as a pure individual.2 Heideggers preoccupation with Being,

Levinas thinks, diverts Heideggers attention from the empirical, ethical claim

made by the Other. On the political front, some like Leo Strauss,3 Richard Wolin,4

and Karl Lowith5 argue that this abstract and insular reflection gives rise to

political forces of nationalism and totalitarian politics. I contend that Heideggers

philosophy prepares the way for an alternative approach to ethics. Our ethical

being is revealed through the ontological relationships by which Dasein comes-

to-presence. However, I propose that Heideggers ontology becomes ethically

complete when Derridas notion of differance is added to the analysis.

On my reading, Derridas notion of differance does not efface Heideggers

analysis of Dasein; rather differance furthers the ethical insight revealed in

Daseins disclosure through the process of presencingabsencing. As I present it,

the dynamic of presencingabsencing calls our attention to three dimensions of

ethical care residing in our way of being. These moments are (1) presencing

absencing between Being and the individual; (2) presencingabsencing between

the individual and his/her death; and (3) the presencingabsencing of self

and other revealed in the happening of differance. The first two relations are

Heideggerean and represent simultaneous modes of practical and ethical

disclosure. The third relation is my reading of Derridas notion of differance.

Interpreting differance in light of Heideggers theory of presencingabsencing

reveals the ethical significance in language, extends ethical responsibility directly

to the Other, and helps complete Heideggers notion of dwelling. It also helps

guard against the pernicious political possibilities that some find in Heideggers

philosophy. And last, Derridas notion of differance and democratic hospitality

1. Translated literally as there-being, Dasein is Heideggers attempt to avoid the many metaphysical

conceptssubjectivity, ego, consciousness, spirit, soul, etc.that have been used to express the nature

of human beings. This designation Dasein. . . does not signify a what. The entity is not distinguished by

its what, like a chair in contrast to a house. Rather, this designation in its own way expresses the way to

be: Martin Heidegger, History of the Concept of Time, trans. T. Kisiel (Bloomington: Indiana University

Press, 1985), 153. Dasein is distinguished from other things that exist by virtue of its special way of being,

which is to raise the question of its Being in and through its existence. In Dasein, Heidegger attempts to

overcome the often-sharp metaphysical distinction between the subject and object, and seeks to capture

both the empirically factual and ontological dimensions of our Being in a single concept.

2. Emmanuel Levinas, Is Ontology Fundamental? Philosophy Today 33 (1989): 12426.

3. Leo Strauss, An Introduction to Heideggerian Existentialism, in The Rebirth of Classical Political

Rationalism, ed. Thomas L. Pangle (Chicago: Chicago University Press, 1989).

4. Richard Wolin, The Heidegger Controversy (Cambridge: The MIT Press, 1998).

5. Karl Lowith, The Political Implications of Heideggers Existentialism, in The Heidegger

C d Ri h d W li (C b id Th MIT P 1998)

Nicholas Dungey 235


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contributes to how we frame the issues of illegal immigration, community, and

citizenship.

Heideggers Philosophy and Totalitarian Politics

My claim that Heideggers thought helps produce a salutary ethics and politics

is a contested issue. Critics of Heideggers philosophy such as Strauss, Wolin,

and Lowith contend that Heideggers preoccupation with Being, death, and

authenticity give rise to insular, nationalist, and totalitarian politics. These authors

do not see Heideggers participation in National Socialism as a grievous mistake

on behalf of a political novice, but rather as part and parcel with hisphilosophical belief. Everyone who had read his first great book, Leo Strauss

writes, and did not overlook the wood for the trees could see the kinship in

temper and direction between Heideggers thought and the Nazis.6 Richard

Wolin asks: Did Heideggers existential decision for National Socialism in 1933

signify his authenticity?7 As a political doctrine, National Socialism was

characterized by the belief in the biological superiority of the Aryan race, and the

pursuit of world domination based on this assertion.8

Heidegger, Lowith writes, took on political responsibilities . . .consistent with

the fundamental thesis of Being and Time. Lowith quotes Heideggers claim thatonly an individual that is free for its death and can let itself be thrownback upon

its factical there by shattering itself against death. . . can, by handing down to

itself the possibility it has inherited, take over its thrownness and be in the

moment of vision for its time.9 In this passage, Lowith finds the philosophical

themes that he claims provide both the foundation for National Socialism, and

that explain Heideggers commitment to it. In Being and Time, Heidegger

describes human beings as the sort of beings who are thrown into their existence,

and who have death as their most radical form of possibility. For Heidegger, death

represents the unsurpassable moment of our existence. As such, our death is

something that we cannot master and, therefore, our death signifies the

impossibility of our very being. Not only is death the very real possibility that

cannot be mastered, but it is also the one possibility that cannot be represented

in concrete or objective form. Insofar as death gives nothing to calculate,

measure, or master, it reveals the nothing of our existence. However, in giving

this nothing, death also gives to the individual the freedom to choose her own

6. Strauss, An Introduction to Heideggerian Existentialism, 30.

7. Wolin, Over the Line: Reflections on Heidegger and National Socialism, in The Heidegger

Controversy, 4.

8. Fred Dallmayr, Heidegger and Politics: Some Lessons, in The Heidegger Case, ed. Thomas

Rockmore and Joseph Margolis (Philadelphia: Temple University Press), 284.

9 L i h Th P li i l I li i f H id E i i i li 170

236 ETHICS AND POLITICS OF DWELLING


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possibilities. It is in this radical freedom to choose ones own possibilities that

Heidegger locates the moment of authenticity. And, because all possibilities arefinite, courageous reflection on death, what Heidegger calls resoluteness, forces

us to seize and live our time.

Lowith interprets Heideggers comments about death, nothingness, authenti-

city, and ones time against the backdrop of the tumultuous economic and

political events of inter-war Germany. For Lowith, the struggle for individual

authenticity mirrors the cultural and political struggle raging in inter-war

Germany. He sees in Heideggers personal life and philosophy a negation in

principle of all that has existed.10 Lowith reads Heideggers resoluteness towards

death as a call for the individual to reject the nihilistic values of Modern Europe,

and to hasten their social and political disintegration. Rejecting the nihilistic

values of Modern Europe, and confronting the nothing of ones being, prepares

the individual for a new beginning directed by ones own will. However, as Lowith

argues, the nothing of being that resoluteness reveals must be replaced by

something, and this something is National Socialism.

Lowith believes that Heideggers notions of resoluteness and authenticity

become synonyms for returning to ones ethnic, linguistic, and political

homeland.11 On his account, the pursuit of authenticity, and the taking up of

ones own destiny, results in a reinvigorated political duty to ones homeland and

ethnic and linguistic community. Lowith writes, one need only. . .apply [the

concept] of authentic existence. . .and the duty. . .that follows therefrom to

specifically German existence and its historical destiny to see the way

individual authentic existence is transposed to the totality of the authentic

state.12 As critics of Heideggers philosophy see it, deriving from authenticity is

the celebration of a particular form of political state. Indeed, once one frees

oneself from common values and opinions, and overcomes their social and

cultural expressions, the likely result is a totalitarian state that embodies the

nations ownmost political destiny.

Contrary to the views presented by Heideggers critics, I believe there isanother way of approaching Heideggers analysis of our relationship with Being,

our own death, and others. In Heideggers treatment of the individuals

relationship with Being and mortality is an alternative way of understanding

who we are, and how we relate to others, that fosters a greater sensitivity to the

fragility of our own lives and those of others. It is my contention that Heideggers

understanding of our relationship to Being and death works against the sort of

10. Lowith, The Political Implications of Heideggers Existentialism, 170.

11. Echoing Lowith, Pierre Bourdieu notes, the goal of authenticity is to re-root oneself in the

essence of ones being. Pierre Bourdieu, The Political Ontology of Martin Heidegger, trans. Peter Collier

(Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1988), 8.

12 L i h Th P li i l I li i f H id i i li 173

Nicholas Dungey 237


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ethnic and nationalist politics ascribed to his philosophy. In addition, I argue

that reading Derridas differance in light of Heideggers understanding of theinterplay between presence and absence not only deepens the ethical relations

revealed in Heideggers thought, but also provides yet another theoretical strategy

designed to thwart the tendency of human beings to turn inward toward ethnic,

linguistic, and nationalistic politics. Heidegger and Derridas philosophy resists

an ethnic, nationalist, and totalitarian politics because it disrupts the very

metaphysical concepts of objective, rational, and pure truths that have

characterized the sort of political ideologies associated with so much human

suffering. What follows is a response to the critics of Heideggers philosophy and

politics, and one intended to point the way toward an alternative conception of

democratic politics.

The Ethics of Dwelling

The philosophical claims we make about human nature directly influence our

interpretation of the self, others, and the world we live in. For Heidegger and

Derrida, the philosophical claims we make about human existence and Being

reveal modes of togetherness and responsibility that are inherently ethical.

Moreover, for both of them, these ethical claims ought to influence the sort ofpolitical decisions and actions we take. According to Heidegger, to engage ethics

properly, we must raise the questions of who we are, and the way we find

ourselves in this world. It is in this context that he writes, ethics as a mere

doctrine and imperative is helpless unless man first comes to have a different

fundamental relation to Being.13 Ethical understanding is grounded in the

ontological situation of human existence, and is revealed through a clearer

understanding of our being. Where the essence of man is thought so essentially,

solely from the question concerning the truth of Being, but still without

elevating man to the center of beings, a longing necessarily awakens for a

peremptory directive and for rules that say how man. . .ought to live.14 Heidegger

wants to raise the philosophical question of human existence in a way that

avoids making man the objective ground of morality. Before we determine rules

that regulate our behavior, we must philosophically clarify who we are.

Heideggers philosophy, insofar as it reveals the essential relationships that

disclose and characterize human existence, is itself a form of original ethics. And,

for Heidegger, access to such a way of thinking begins with reflection on the

essence of dwelling.

13. Heidegger, What is Called Thinking?trans. J. Gray (New York: Harper and Row, 1968), 89.

14. Heidegger, Letter on Humanism, in Basic Writings, trans. David Farrell Krell (San Francisco:

H C lli 1977) 255



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As early as Being and Time, Heidegger identifies dwelling as the essential

character of human being-in-the-world. For Heidegger, dwelling reveals theholistic way we express understanding of ourselves, our relation with others, and

the world. Ich Bin (I am) means I dwell, I stay near. . . the world as something

familiar in such and such a way. Being as the infinitive I am: that is, understood

as an existential, means to dwell near. . .15 To care for, and be involved with,

ones life, others, and the world, are all manifestations of dwelling. As the most

primordial set of activities through which our care is expressed, dwelling signifies

who we are and the wayof our being. It is not accidental, Heidegger insists, that

the most primordial assertion of existence, I am, is historically and etymologically

synonymous with dwelling.

Dwelling entails the practical activity of building structures and cultivating

the ontological relationships revealed in and through building. For Heidegger,

both modes of buildingbuilding as cultivating and building as raising

up edificesare comprised within genuine building, that is, dwelling.16

Practically speaking, we build and inhabit homes, and we do so to protect

and safeguard ourselves from the environment and others. As human beings,

we are always engaged in the technological occupation of using and

manipulating the physical world. In the modern period, Heidegger

contends, we build only with an eye to manipulate and conquer nature.

Building is only engineering, and engineering is only a tool to expand mans

dominion.

However, Heidegger seeks to reawaken the distinction between the everyday

activity of building and dwelling with others. This is necessary, he contends,

15. Martin Heidegger, Being and Time, trans. Joan Stambaugh (Albany: State University of New York

Press, 1996), 51. In addition to the ontological status of dwelling, it is important to recognize the

connection between dwelling and spacewhat Heidegger calls nearness and distance. It is important,

therefore, to clarify Heideggers existential understanding of space. For Heidegger, all spatial dimensionsare first opened through the expression of care for, and involvement with, the world. The expression of

our care towards others and things opens the dimension of space, establishing the phenomenon of near

and far, and constituting the grounds of actual measurement. What is near and far is not first a function

of measured space. Measured space becomes possible due to the awareness of and involvement with

objects, and their placement in a larger context of meaningful significance. Spatiality, then, is an

existential attribute of Daseins being. Only after existential care has been reawakened, can space in both

the ethical and calculative sense be ontologically clarified (Heidegger, Being and Time, 103). The ethical

dimension of Daseins spatiality concerns the way in which others are brought near and cared for. From

the point of view of existential concern, near and far do not signify spatial opposites, but rather function

as related points in a playing back and forth along a continuum of care towards others. The ethical

dimension of nearness concerns the cultivation of an alternative mode of subjectivity, one that releases

itself from the inclination to bring all things, as well as others, under the dominion of rational and

technical manipulation.

16. Martin Heidegger, Building, Dwelling, Thinking, in Poetry, Language, Thought, trans. A.

H f d (N Y k H R 1971) 147

Nicholas Dungey 239


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because our modern, overtly technological approach to building leads us to

forget the deeper significance of dwelling. Heidegger writes,

These buildings house man. He inhabits them and yet does not dwell in them,

when to dwell means merely that we take shelter in them. . . do the houses in

themselves hold any guarantee that dwelling occurs in them?17

As long as we understand building only in terms of the manipulation of the natural

environment, dedicated to the protection and advancement of mans ends, we will

continue to alienate ourselves from true dwelling. Leslie Paul Thiele writes, a

proper abode for humanity can never be fabricated. . . Our worldly abode is

transformed once it no longer is approached metaphysically, as an objective reality,but rather as a set of relationships. . .18 Because the character of human being-in-

the-world is nothing other than the webbing of its social and cultural relations, the

building of things must be directed in light of the cultivation of these essential

relationships. Of the two dimensions of dwelling, Heidegger insists that it is the

matrix of human relations that provides the deeper significance of dwelling. We

do not dwell because we have built, but we build and have built because we dwell,

that is, because we are dwellers.19 When we dwell we build these relations, we

cultivate a certain posture toward things and others.

In Heideggers later writings, dwelling takes on strong ethical connotations.20

17. Heidegger, Building, Dwelling, Thinking, 146.

18. Leslie Paul Thiele, Timely Meditations: Martin Heidegger and Postmodern Politics (Princeton:

Princeton University Press, 1995), 18081.

19. Heidegger, Building, Dwelling, Thinking, 148.

20. While Heideggers notion of dwelling remains constant throughout his life, his approach to

thinking about it undergoes an important change. This change entails the difference between what, in

Being and Time, Heidegger considered the question of the meaning of Being, to what he later thought of

as the truth of Being. In Being and Time, Heidegger sought the meaning of Being by interrogating that

being (Dasein) for whom Being itself is an issue. In this context, Heideggers interrogation of metaphysics

is intended to peel away the layers of metaphysical language and subjectivity that have shrouded the

meaning of Being. The purpose of Being and Time is to provide an ever more refined interpretation ofDaseins existence in order to recover the forgotten meaning of Being.

In his later works, the focus shifts from a concern with recovering the meaning of Being to a

meditation on the truth of Being. Here the truth of Being is understood as an interdependent and

mutually disclosive relationship between Being and Dasein, and the implications such reflection carries

for ethical co-being. From an ethico-ontological point of view, the shift is important. In Being and Time,

the search for the meaning of Being entailed an overly subjective stance by Dasein toward Being, leading

Dasein to will its resoluteness in the face of death. Such willful choice is what Heidegger means by

Daseins authenticity, or ability to choose its own path. In his later writings, Heidegger lets go of the

emphasis on individual decision as the mark of a good life, and turns to a meditation on the more

passive nature of the relationship between Being and Dasein. It is in this mode of abiding in the opening

of Being that Heideggers notion of letting-be becomes ethically relevant. See: Martin Heidegger, Basic

Questions of Philosophy, trans. R. Rojcewicz and A. Schumer (Bloomington: Indiana University Press,

1984), 178; Discourse on Thinking, trans. J. Anderson and E. Fruend (New York: Harper Row, 1966),

6061; and Anaximander Fragment, in Early Greek Thinking, trans. D. Krell and F. Capuzi (New York:

H R 1975) 40 41



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The way in which you are and I am, the manner in which we humans are on

the earth, is Buan, dwelling. The old word bauen, which says that man isinsofar as he dwells . . . also means at the same time to cherish and protect, to

preserve and to care for. . .21

At its most basic, dwelling expresses the emotional care that animates

and binds together the family, home, and extended relationships we find

ourselves in. As the beings who are born (thrown) into families, tribes,

ethnicities, and historical epochs, we find ourselves revealed in integrated,

caring, and loving associations. In addition to our reception of care, it is

characteristic of our nature to express and extend care, protection, and love

to others. Not only are we cared-for, but we are also the care-takers.22

For Heidegger, dwelling captures both the objective and subjective conditions

of care abiding in each individual and the radius of his or her relationships.

These modes of carecherishing, protecting, and lovingare ontologically

constitutive of who we are.

Bringing together the activity of building, the place it creates, and

the relationships it nourishes, Heidegger calls the abode the site of the

ethical disclosure of dwelling. Ethos means abode, dwelling place. The

word names the open region in which man dwells. The open region of his

abode allows what pertains to mans essence, and what in thus arriving resides

in nearness to him, to appear.23 The open region of the abode refers to

ontological, ethical, and geographical sites of disclosure. First, Dasein itself is

the abode of Being, that place where Being is manifest. Residing in and

through Dasein, Being is openness to others and things, and it is within this

openness that what pertains to Dasein is brought near. Second, the abode

signifies the immediate space of the home, where the set of meaningful

relationshipspeople, things, and issuesthat are important to us appear and

live. Third, the abode signifies the geographical sitecultural space and

historical timewhere the broader life of care is experienced. By callingattention to the abode as multiple sites of openness, Heidegger reminds us that

we are always-already at home in the world, that it is meaningful to us, and that it

is a home/world we share with others. Phenomenologically speaking, we are

at home in a world of essential relationships and we are at home in a physical

and geographical place.

21. Martin Heidegger, Building, Dwelling, Thinking, 147.

22. Young, Heideggers Later Philosophy (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002), 64.

23 H id L H i 256

Nicholas Dungey 241


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The purpose of recovering the ethical dimension of dwelling is to cultivate a

non-domineering relationship between human beings. To dwell ethically is topositively preserve the staying of others. As Heidegger puts it:

If the name ethics, in keeping with the basic meaning of the word ethos,

should now say that ethics ponders the abode of man, then that thinking

which thinks the truth of Being as the primordial element of man, as one who

ek-sists, is in itself the original ethics. . . This dwelling is the essence of being-

in-the-world.24

To say that the essential character of human beings is to dwell is to say that

we are always-already implicated in a condition of ethical relations and

considerations. As Heidegger notes, [to] embrace a thing or person in its

essence means to love it, to favor it. Such favoring is the proper essence

of enabling. . .[which] can let something [or others] essentially unfold in its

provenance, that is, let it be.25

The Significance of PresencingAbsencing

But, it might be asked: How is the essence of dwelling cultivated? The essenceof dwelling is cultivated through a way of life that acknowledges the interplay

between presence and absence in three aspects of our life. It is, therefore,

important to examine what Heidegger means by the (ontological) difference

between presence, absence, and actual beings and things. Heidegger notes:

From early on it seems as though presencing and what is present were each

something for itself. Presencing itself unnoticeably becomes something

present. . . As soon as presencing is named it is represented as some present

being. Ultimately, presencing as such is not distinguished from what is present. . . The essence of presencing, and with it the distinction between presencing

and what is present, remains forgotten. The oblivion of Being is oblivion of the

distinction between Being and beings.26

Maintaining the distinction, and proper relation between the phenomenon of

presencing and empirically existing human beings, is essential. For Heidegger, the

truth of Being, understood as presencing, does not reduce to a multiplicity of

individually present things. Nor is it the case that what is present is simply the

24. Heidegger, Building, Dwelling, Thinking, 149, and Letter on Humanism, 260.

25. Heidegger, Letter on Humanism, 220.

26 M i H id A i d F 50



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objective manifestation of Being itself. The collapse of this distinction is the

mistake that Heidegger insists led Western thinking astray.Generally speaking, the experience of presence (Being) is given, what always-

already surrounds human beings.27 While always aware that we are present, the

fact of our presence is something we assume, and take for granted. As such,

presence, and the happening of presencing, signifies the unthought, background

condition, and unifying phenomenon that enables empirically present human

beings and things. What is present, Heidegger writes, coheres in unifying

presencing, as everything becomes present to everything else within its duration;

it becomes present and lingers with the others.28 Human beings come-to-

presence in time and appear together in a realm that has been granted to them,

and one that is constituted by shared meaning and significance. Moreover, it is

important to stress that the gift of presence is not the product of human will or

power. The phenomenon of presence is not created, willed, nor ever mastered by

any single human being. No being exists objectively in its own presentness.

Human beings and cultures are, Young writes, receptive rather than creative

with respect to the modes of presence they inhabit.29 It is this essential passivity

with respect to presence that opens one dimension of the ethical significance of

human beings. We possess a responsibility to care for the gift of presence.

To the discussion of presence must be joined the importance of withdrawal,

and absence, as characteristic of human existence. According to Heidegger, and

later Derrida, the withdrawal of Being, and the Other, enables and illuminates the

present actuality of individuals.30 Put otherwise, as Being reveals itself in and

27. Young, Heideggers Later Philosophy, 23.

28. Heidegger, Anaximander Fragment, 40.

29. Young, Heideggers Later Philosophy, 23.

30. This is one of the central motifs of Derridas articulation of differance. In Derridas language, the

absentpresent trace of linguistic meaning and identity refers to that element of meaning or identity

which, due to the differential structure of meaning and identity, is irreducibly related to the propermeaning of a word or to the identity of the proper name before such isolation is possible. Absence refers

to those elements of differential possibility, transcendental differance, that are essential to the singular

appropriation of any term or identity. On Heidegger and Derridas reading, absence is structurally

constitutive of the conditions of possibility for anything; and cannot be (as metaphysics attempts), and

should not be (as most forms of ethical theory attempt), forgotten or dissolved. In fact, deconstruction is

made possible by the impossibility of the proper name, whether this is understood in terms of meaning

or identity. The absentpresent trace always frustrates the attempt at transparent meaning and

autonomous identity precisely because relational difference always-already presupposes singularity.

Singularity and meaning are always isolated out of differance and a thrown context of meaningful

involvement, what is unrecoverable in this transcendental movement is the absentpresent trace. What

is necessary is to recover the significance that absence plays in this ontic-ontological happening. The

work of Heidegger and Derrida, as well as the way in which I read a possible rapprochementbetween the

two, differs from other postmodern thinking in how it understands the role and significance of absence.

As constitutive of the conditions of meaning and possibility, absence represents an alternative form of

d d h i

Nicholas Dungey 243


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through individuals, Being withdraws.31 Only the no-thingness of Being, Thiele

notes, allows human being to disclose beings as things.32

The withdrawal, andsubsequent absence, of Being signifies a form of disclosure in and through

concealment. But, Heidegger insists, withdrawal is not nothing.33 We must

resist the temptation to interpret the withdrawal of Being as a negative

characteristic of human existence. The withdrawal of Being does not signify an

emptiness that must be filled, or a deficiency that must be overcome. On the

contrary, the withdrawal of Being is an event in which human beings

participate.34 Indeed, Heidegger suggests that the event of withdrawal could

be what is most essential throughout the present,35 meaning that it is the

enabling capacity of Beings withdrawal which illuminates actual individuals and

sustains their connection. Being (presence) is the open space, and its withdrawal

enables human beings and things to stand within it.

But, how are we aware of that which, from the beginning, has already

withdrawn? And how is participation in the event of withdrawal ethically

significant? What withdraws from us, Heidegger writes, draws us along by its

very withdrawal. . .. Once we are drawn into the withdrawal, we are. . .caught in

the draft of what draws. . .. As we are drawing toward what withdraws, we are

pointing in that direction. . . .36 Our way of being is opened in that pointing

toward, and caring for, Being. Drawn along by the gravitational pull of Being, we

are always caught in the draft of Being. For Heidegger, the withdrawal of Being

creates an ethical gravity of care with which individuals are carried forward, and

through which their relationships to others are held together. I will argue later that

we experience the draw of this ethical gravity not only through the withdrawal

of Being, but also in and through our relationship to our own death, and the

withdrawal of the Other in and through differance.

In addition, the withdrawal of Being provides a further ethical service. The

withdrawal of Being creates a dimension of absence that always remains beyond

the grasp of each individual. As such, absence forces us to confront those

dimensions of our lives that are beyond our physical, rational, and technologicalmastery. Confronting limits to our power serves to soften our drive to mastery,

making us more sympathetic to the hopes and sufferings of others. Finding our

presence given, being carried along by what withdraws, and confronting what

cannot be mastered, we are forced to reorient how we relate to our self and

31. Heidegger, Anaximander Fragment, 26; and Basic Questions of Philosophy, 178.

32. Thiele, Timely Meditations, 73.

33. Heidegger, What Calls for Thinking? in Basic Writings, 374.

34. Heidegger, What Calls for Thinking? 374.

35. Heidegger, What Calls for Thinking? 374.

36 H id Wh C ll f Thi ki ? 374



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others. We will see how this phenomenology of presencingabsencing unfolds

along three dimensions of our existence.

The Three Movements of PresencingAbsencing

Ethical dwelling is cultivated when we live with a view toward the happening

of presencingabsencing in our lives and relationships with others. For Heidegger,

this awareness represents no less than the beginning of the transformation of

humanity.37 Scholars such as Fred Dallmayr38 and Steven White39 have recognized

the ethical significance of Heideggers phenomenology of the presencing

absencing of Dasein. Dallmayrs work focuses on the relationship between the self

and Being, and suggests that this relationship grounds the ethical potential in

Heideggers thought. Whites work focuses on the relationship between the self

and death, and suggests that our relationship toward death, and its inability to be

rationally managed, serves as an opening to a deeper care towards others. I seek

to contribute to the work of Dallmayr and White in suggesting that a third

moment of presencingabsencing occurs on the level of individual subjectivity,

represented by Derridas notion of differance. Reading differance as yet another

moment of presencingabsencing provides a more complete phenomenological

description of the ethics revealed in and through our way of being.

Ethical dwelling, then, names a way of existing that bears witness to the three

intertwined and mutually reinforcing moments of presenceabsence that

constitute our being. The ethical significance of this way of being lies in the

capacity of such reflection to loosen the self from excessive modes of autonomy

and self-mastery. Such awareness fosters ethical sensitivity because it changes

how we experience what is near to us, while respecting the difference that

characterizes the world. As one becomes more attuned to each moment, and the

way that these moments relate to each other, one develops an ever more refined

experience with what nears and what remains distant.

The First Movement of PresencingAbsencing: Being and Dasein

The first movement of presencingabsencing speaks directly to the relation-

ship between individuals and Being. Heidegger calls this relationship ontological

joining,40 the simultaneous play between the presence of each individual and the

reciprocal withdrawal of Being into self-concealment. As Heidegger writes: As it

reveals itself in beings, Being withdraws. . . As it provides the unconcealment of

37. Heidegger, Basic Questions of Philosophy, 181.

38. Fred Dallmayr, The Other Heidegger(Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1993).

39. White, Political Theory and Postmodernism (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1991).

40 H id A i d F 41 D ll Th O h H id 108

Nicholas Dungey 245


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Appreciation of ontological joining helps individuals recover the essence of

nearness and distance because of the distinctive manner in which spatiality isopened. Through awareness of its place in ontological joining, the individual

bears witness to the enabling capacity of Being, but does so without the desire to

master it, or make it its own. Being retains its distance, its difference. Nearness is

opened through our care for Being, and distance, as well as difference (from

Being), is maintained and respected as irreducible. Rather than aggressively

competing with others, we come to see others, as Thiele notes, as coinhabitants

of the world who require caring accompaniment, who are to be escorted. 46 No

longer master of the self, others, and earth, human beings come to see themselves

as the caretakers of a set of relationships in and through which they are revealed.

The Second Movement of PresencingAbsencing: Dasein and Death

The phenomenology of presencingabsencing is not constituted by a single

moment, but rather through multiple, mutually reinforcing relationships that

reveal the ethical nature of human beings. In ontological joining, we saw how

each individual, as it takes up its projects and goals, comes to understand its

existence through the withdrawal and absence of Being. The recovery of this

awareness is, however, often obscured by our very involvement with the everydayworld. Consumed with our work and projects, we often become entrenched in

the presentness, and immediacy, of ourselves, others, and things. To this end, we

often fail to remember the significance that absence plays in the perpetually

unfolding flow of our lives and our relation to others.

However, there is another, more immanent opportunity for human beings to

become sensitive to the flow of presencingabsencing: reflection on our own

Death. Like the selfs relationship with Being, death, with its always outstanding

and deferred character, is constitutive of our way to be, and therefore significant

to understanding human existence. As White has noted, . . .that essence, as

Heidegger comes to see more and more, has to do with finitude: coming into

presence, passing into absence.47

For Heidegger, death is not simply something that occurs at the end of ones

life, nor can it be reduced to the biological end of life. In keeping with the special

status that Heidegger affords to human beings, it is important to emphasize that of

all things that exist, only we die.48 Because we are thrown into the world, wherein

46. Thiele, Timely Meditations, 181.

47. White, Political Theory and Postmodernism, 58.

48. Heidegger, Being and Time, 22931. Heidegger makes the claim that only Dasein dies because he

believes that Dasein is that being for whom its Being is an issue. It is precisely because my being is an

issue for me, and that my being is finite, that no considerations of existence and ethics can ignore the

i f d h

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we always-already find ourselves underway, an essential aspect of our existence

is characterized by open-ended possibilities. Indeed, in both practical, andontological ways, we understand ourselves purely in terms of our possibilities

what Heidegger calls our potentiality-of-being. Therefore, so long as we exist,

something, or some possibility, is always outstanding with respect to our being.

For Heidegger, death signifies the most radical possibility of each individual, one

that is always beyond its grasp. As radical possibility, death must remain for us an

ever-present not-yet. As a possibility that is ever impending, we have our not-

yet in the form of a will-be that can never be actualized, since death signifies

the loss of our being-there.

To be human means to have being-towards-death as our way to be:

As long as Dasein is, something is always still outstanding, what it can and will

be. But the end itself belongs to what is outstanding. The end of being-in-

the-world is death . . .. A constant unfinished quality thus lies in the essence of

the constitution of Dasein.49

As an unfinished quality, death belongs to Dasein as the not-yet achieved

possibility that inheres in the being of Dasein. As Heidegger states, Dasein

always-already exists in such a way that its not-yet belongs to it . . . [t]he most

extreme not-yet has the character of something to which Dasein relates.50 The

always present not-yet of death situates each individual in the play of

presencingabsencing between life and death. Daseins being-towards-death, its

not-yet, requires Dasein to learn to relate to the most radical form of

(im)possibilityits own death. Death is, for Dasein, the possibility of

impossibility.51

Heidegger calls learning to relate courageously toward ones death resolute-

ness. Resoluteness, Heidegger writes, does not detach Dasein from its world,

nor does it isolate it as a free floating ego. Resoluteness brings the self right into

its being. . . and pushes it toward concerned being-with with the others.52

Confronting the always impending not-yet of our existence transforms our

understanding of ourselves, and others, by challenging our will-to-power.

Resoluteness entails confronting limitsof reason, control, and being. These

limits force us to experience the precariousness of our power and the fragility of

our existence. Attentive concern for otherness, White writes, means that the

gesture of nearing, bringing into ones presence, into ones world, must always be

complemented by a letting go, an allowance of distance, a letting be in absence,

49. Heidegger, Being and Time, 21516 and 21920.

50. Heidegger, Being and Time, 226, 231.

51. Heidegger, Being and Time, 242.

52 H id B i d Ti 274



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thus bearing witness to our own limits.53 Confronting death helps release us from

the desire to manage forms of closure, impossibility, and absence.An important consequence of confronting death is greater awareness of the

hope and suffering of others. Releasing oneself into the happening of the absent

present trace of death facilitates a mode of thinking that brings others near in

ethically significant ways. The most dramatic opening towards otherness. . . was

human being-towards-death. . . as an unsurpassable possibility, death also

renders Dasein sensitive to the existential possibilities of others.54 Others are

brought near through our existential concern with death. The self-estrangement

that is part of the experience of death opens us to the existence of others, others

who are also disclosed through finitude. Death is not only a condition we all

share, but more importantly, it is the condition that conditions our presence. The

way we relate to deathand we are always relating toward finitude in some

waydetermines the manner in which we take up our being-in-the-world-with-

others. What I wish to emphasize is the shared, and irreducibly relational, nature

of the world that is opened through reflection on death. From an ethico-

ontological standpoint, becoming open to such possibilities entails bearing

witness to the radical belonging-together that is the condition of our existence.

The Third Movement of PresencingAbsencing: Differance and Identity

The third moment of presencingabsencing is revealed through Derridas

notion of differance. I argue that differance extends Heideggers insight into the

ethical significance of our way of being, and therefore should be read as another

moment in the phenomenology of presencingabsencing. Reading differance

in this way provides an opportunity to extend Heideggers ethical understanding

of nearness and distance to individual identity, and the individuals relation to

others.

Before going on, however, it is necessary to rehearse some fundamental

Derridean themes in order to clarify how I interpret and utilize them. Derrida

coins differance to describe how he understands the movement of signification,

language, and the experience of subjectivity itself. Differance refers to the spatial

and temporal movement of differentiation and deferral. Derrida argues that no

word has meaning in and of itself, but rather each word serves as a marker of

signification. Furthermore, the meaning of each sign is generated by the

difference between it and other words. Derrida writes: the signified concept is

never present in and of itself, in a sufficient presence that would refer only to

itself. Essentially and lawfully, every concept is inscribed in a chain or in a system


54 D ll Th O h H id 151

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within which it refers to the other, to other concepts, by means of a systematic

play of differences.55

A words meaning is further codified by its juxtapositionwith, or relationship to, other words in a structural and temporal chain regulated

by rules of grammar.

Moreover, the happening of differance is not limited to the movement of the

spoken and written word, it also infects and disrupts the very center of individual

autonomy and identity. Differance extends beyond the field of semio-linguistic

communication, and conditions the entire field of what philosophy would call

experience, even the experience of being. . ..56 As the play of spatial difference

and temporal deferral, differance is, for Derrida, an account of the conditions of

subjectivity in general. Differance is an irreducible element in the webbing of

subjectivity. This is why Derrida claims that what is named in the present (even

identity), always include its differential, or non-present (absent), Other. The

ubiquity of the absentpresent trace of the Other, and its relation to the self,

constitutes the linguistic moment in the phenomenology of Daseins presencing

absencing. Calling attention to the circulation of self and Other in the primordial

play of identity, Derrida writes:

From the very beginning of Greek philosophy the self-identity of the logos is

already fissured and divided. . .. Moreover, the rapport of self-identity is always

a rapport of violence with the other; so that the notions of. . .appropriation

and self-presence, so central to logocentric metaphysics, are essentially

dependent on an oppositional relation with otherness. In this way, identity

presupposes alterity.57

The absentpresent trace of the Other presupposes individual identity. Differance

calls our attention to the always-already circulating economy of differences that

constitute identity and with which identity always has some relation. The radical

play of differance, the primordial play of presencingabsencing out of which

identity is struck, provides the individual an opportunity to bear witness to thenearness of the other as an irreducible element of its own identity.58 Therefore, for

Derrida, the experience of self always takes the form of a spatio-temporal

55. Jacques Derrida, Differance, in Margins of Philosophy, trans. Alan Bass (Chicago: The University

of Chicago Press, 1982), 11.

56. Jacques Derrida, Limited Inc., trans. Samuel Weber (Evanston: Northwestern University Press,

1988), 9.

57. Jacques Derrida, Interview with Richard Kearney, in Dialogues with Contemporary Continental

Thinkers (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1984), 117.

58. It is important to note that Derrida is not denying the empirical fact, nor the significance of, our

subjectivity. As Derrida insists:

I have never said that the subject should be dispensed with. Only that it should be deconstructed.T d h bj d d i i Th bj i



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relationship with the Other. Differance reveals in yet another way the fact that our

being is being-with-others.However, under the sway of metaphysics, rather than a sensitivity to the other,

what develops is a dismissal of the other and a belief in absolute autonomy and

self-presence. Derrida calls this form of subjectivity logocentrism. As an

interpretation of subjectivity grounded in the certainty of self-presence,

logocentrism governs the manner in which we negotiate our nearness to, and

distance from, others. From the logocentric point of view, distance from the other

is constituted through the absolute autonomy of the agent, and nearness is

equated with the desire to bring things and others under increasing control

through techno-reason.59 Logocentrism isolates, and organizes, the happening of

difference in specific, and the concert of presencingabsencing in general. The

consolidation of identity, and the push to solidify self-presence, obscures ones

primordial relationship with the other that is revealed through differance

(linguistic presencingabsencing).

Deconstructing logocentric subjectivity is important because the essence of

nearness and distance that characterizes our being-with-others cannot be realized

from the perspective of logocentrism. For Derrida, (re)calling the relation

between the self and other, and cultivating care for it, constitutes a form of

original ethical responsibility. Speaking about the responsibility that deconstruc-

tion reveals, Derrida writes:

We are already caught, surprised. . . in a certain responsibility, and the most

ineluctable of responsibilitiesWe are invested with an undeniable respon-

sibility at the moment we begin to signify something. . .. And we see it coming

from the Other. It is assigned to us by the Other, from the Other, before any

hope of reappropriation permits us to assume this responsibility in the space

of what could be called autonomy.60

effects of subjectivity. This is an incontrovertible fact. To acknowledge this does not mean, however,that the subject is what it says it is. The subject is not some meta-linguistic substance or identity, somepure cogito of self-presence; it is always inscribed in language. My work does not. . .destroy thesubject; it simply tries to resituate it. [Derrida, Interview with Kearney, 124]

With respect to the facticity of the subject, and Derridas claim that the subject may not be what it thinks,

we can see the parallels to Heideggers claim in Being and Time regarding the mode of inauthenticity that

each Dasein assumes by virtue of its thrownness into the world. It is not the case, for Heidegger or

Derrida, that critical questioning of the nature of human existence constitutes a denial of the subject.

Rather than reading deconstruction as a leveling assault on subjectivity per se, I argue that we interpret

deconstruction from the point of view of the full phenomenology of presencingabsencing, disclosure-

withdrawal, and nearness-distance as it relates to ethical co-being. For Derrida, like Heidegger, the

ethical opening to the other is found in recognizing the limits of the possible and releasing oneself from

the desire to foreclose the play of presencingabsencing.


60 J D id Th P li i f F i d hi G C lli (N Y k V 1997) 231 32

Nicholas Dungey 251


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Derridas phrase, the most ineluctable of responsibilities, is specific and

strategic. Ineluctable means inescapable, and incapable of being evaded.Here, Derrida is speaking to the a priori happening of differance, and the role it

plays in the construction of meaning and subjectivity. Differance assigns us a

responsibility that cannot be evaded; it is inescapable because identity itself is

disclosed in a structure of responsibility opened in language. We are invested,

Derrida insists, with a form of radical responsibility at the moment we respond to

the Otherat the moment we say yes. In language, we always-already find

ourselves caught up in a circulation of responsible involvement due to the

relational ground of meaning, significance, and the ethical gravity of language

itself. Speaking delivers us into a structure of involvement and concern that binds

us in mutual responsibility because our possibilities are defined in and through

that opening. It is an excessive assignation because, as Derrida argues, [t]hat

which comes before autonomy must. . .also exceed it, that is, succeed it, survive

it, and indefinitely surpass it.61 There is no form of responsibility, no autonomy,

no will that stands outside the economy of differences. The intertwining of self

and other that happens ecstatically with the fact of subjectivity, and always-

already circulates through linguistic expression, constitutes a radical form of

responsibility.

As the happening of linguistic presencingabsencing that names the

individual, then binds him or her to the other, differance is the linguistic

dimension of Heideggers ontological joining, and as such, extends Heideggers

ethics directly to the relationship between the self and Other. As is the case

with ontological joining, where Dasein is delivered over to a belonging and

responsibility to Being, differance assigns us our responsibility, a responsibility

Derrida believes is conveyed in the call of the Other. Applying Heideggers

analysis of the withdrawal of Being to Derridas account of differance, we see that

the affect of singular identity is actualized in and through the withdrawal of the

Other. As the otherness of differance withdraws, ever more powerful claims to

autonomy and personal identity are asserted. Indeed, the deep self is constitutedin and through the absence of the Other. Ultimately, we believe ourselves to

be morally autonomous and self-present by virtue of the degree of absence,

exclusion, and distance of the Other from the inner realm of the self.

But, as was the case with the relationship between Being and Dasein, the

withdrawal of the Other is never complete, nor mastered by the individual. And it

is here that I want to extend Heideggers analysis of the ethical gravity created by

the withdrawal of Being to Derridas injunction to (re)call the absentpresent

trace of the Other. For Derrida, (re)calling, or remembering to hear, the call of the

Other constitutes a way of pointing toward and caring for the actual Other in and

61 D id Th P li i f F i d hi 232



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through its withdrawal. In hearing, and responding to, the call of the Other, we

allow ourselves to be carried along in the draft of ethical give-and-take. The call ofthe Other is the ethical gravity that draws out our answer, our response, and our

responsibility. Disclosed in and through language, the self has responsibility as its

way to be. We do not possess responsibility, but rather are, responsible.

Similar to the relationship between the self and Being, and ones stance

toward death, the ethical imperative revealed through differance consists in the

selfs ability to resist the temptation to deny or dominate the interdependent

relation between self and other. This entails that we respect the significance of

difference, combined with an acknowledgment of the structure of responsibility

that opens and binds the possibility of difference itself. In this way, differance calls

our attention to the manner in which the other is simultaneously very near (in its

essence as alterity in and through differance), and yet respectfully distant (in its

existence as actual Other). With regard to the relationship between ethical

dwelling and language, I suggest that differance radicalizes Heideggers claim that:

Language is the house of Being. In its home man dwells. Those who think and

those who create with words are the guardians of this home.62 The origin of

ethics is dwelling. Language is the primordial home within which we ethically

dwell: that is, it governs the way in which we bring others near while respecting

their distance.

The Politics of Dwelling

Politics always depend on the fundamental, philosophical claims we make

about who we are. Regarding the question of whether or not Heideggers

philosophy gives rise to pernicious political forces, Thiele writes, ontological

difference is the foundation on which the acknowledgement of political

differencethat of human othernessultimately rests.63 It has been my purpose,

so far, to demonstrate how ethical care, revealed through ontological difference,is reinforced by reflection on death and Derridas notion of differance. Heidegger

and Derridas account of human existence operates to lessen the emphasis on the

autonomous individual as the source of objectively free action and thought. Such

thinking seeks to transform our metaphysical conception of the self from one of

solitary isolation and possessive mastery, to an awareness of the being-with-others

that defines our existence. Recognizing both that our existence is characterized

by shared disclosure of meaning and possibilities, and that there are existential

limits to human mastery and control, necessarily changes how we act politically.

62. Heidegger, Letter on Humanism, 217.

63 Thi l Ti l M di i 161

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For Heidegger, the beginning of a politics of dwelling starts with an alternative

conception of freedom. Heideggers understanding of freedom undergoes adramatic evolution from Being and Time to his later works. In Being and Time,

Heidegger speaks of freeing things in their nature. To free an entity literally

means to disclose its meaning and significance in the world by using it in the

context and relationships to which it belongs. To let something be relevant

means to let things at hand be in such and such a way in. . .taking care of things,

to let them be as they are and in order thatthey be such.64 In Being and Time, this

is most clearly demonstrated through Heideggers discussion of the workshop.

When Heidegger discusses the freeing of things he is mostly referring to objects

and things. While Heidegger does speak of the freeing of one human being by

another in Being and Time, there is no developed, sustained discussion of the

ethical and political implications.

What separates the discussion of freeing in Being and Time from that of the

later works is the later essays focus on the ethicalontological relations between

human beings. In his later works, Heidegger speaks to the freeing of others to

live and pursue their projects in a world of shared meaning. For Heidegger, there

is a direct relationship between the ethics of dwelling and the disclosure of

freedom. On this account, freedom denotes not the egoistic pursuit of ones

private interests, but refers to the way and ease with which others are allowed to

come to presence, appear, and be as they are. Freedom is not what common

sense is content to let pass under the name: the random ability to do as we

please. . . freedom is participation in the revealment of what-is-as-such.65

Freedom is not simply the expression of individual will, but rather care-full

participation in the gift of possibilities. When we bear witness to this donation, we

let others be in and through their possibilities, and act in such a way that we

preserve and spare the gift itself. Freedom denotes a particular understanding of

ones disclosure in a world of meaningful relationships and mutual possibilities.

In taking up freedom, then, one not only considers his/her own activity and

situation, but also recognizes that freedom is manifest within a shared space ofmutual disclosure.

To free really means to spare. The sparing itself consists not only in the fact

that we do not harm the one whom we spare. Real sparing is something

positive and takes place when we leave something beforehand in its own

nature, when we return it specifically to its being, when we free it in the real

sense of the word into a preserve of peace.66

64. Heidegger, Being and Time, 79.

65. Martin Heidegger, Existence and Being (Washington DC: Regnery Gateway, 1949), 307.

66 H id B ildi D lli Thi ki 149



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We free someone when we acknowledge that the world in which we act and

pursue our goals is a shared world. It is not a world that I objectively oraccidentally share with others. To free and spare in a primordial sense means to

resist the temptation to dominate the social space and bring others under ones

control. While Heideggers account of freedom is evocative, it is, admittedly,

rather abstract.

In order to ground Heideggers concept of freedom, I want to employ Derridas

notion of differance and the Democratic Hospitality it gives rise to. I argue that

Derridas differance acts as a further check against the claim that Heideggers

philosophy translates into a nationalistic or totalitarian politics. Derrida provides

yet another way to resist the tendency in human beings to turn inward toward

ethnic and nationalistic politics. The human difference that deconstruction

reveals resists the desire to reduce politics to a pure language, identity, and

history. Therefore, I contend that Derridas notion of Democratic Hospitality is the

political expression of Heideggers account of the ontological difference.

One of the central issues facing democratic politics is how to create a social

and political arena that is as welcoming and open to the foreigner (Other) as

possible, while at the same time remaining a cohesive, sovereign state governed

by laws and institutions. For Derrida,

. . . there [is] an insoluble antinomy. . . between, on the one hand, The law ofunlimited hospitality (to give the new arrival all of ones home and oneself, our

own, without asking a name or compensation. . .), and on the other hand, the

laws (in the plural), those rights and duties that are always conditioned and

conditional, as they are defined by the. . . family, civil society, and the state. 67

The Law of Hospitality entails an unconditional offering to the foreigner. Yet, in

order to give at all, to be hospitable, requires that one be sovereign of what is

offered. The tension in Democratic Hospitality arises in the aporia between the

command to give unconditionally, while at the same time, retaining politicalpower over what, and how, resources and rights are defined. There is an

inescapable tension between the infinite demand to give, and the concrete,

factual conditions of all political decisions. As Derrida conceives it, the concrete

laws and institutions of politics, as well as the rights and obligations of citizens,

constitute the laws of hospitality, and are made possible by the infinite Law of

Hospitality.68 The Law of Hospitality, like Heideggers conception of the relation

between the individual and Being (ontological difference), is a mode of

disclosure that is infinite, and one that can never be mastered by, or reduced to,

67. Jacques Derrida, Of Hospitality, trans. Rachel Bowlby (Stanford University Press, 2000), 77.

68 D id Of H i li 77

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the politics of any given historical or cultural moment. It is the ethical claim of

differance that first opens, and then sustains, the (in)finite gift of DemocraticHospitality and the promise of political justice. The political responsibility that

attends the (in)finite giving of Democratic Hospitality derives from Derridas

notion of language and subjectivity. One is politically responsible to the Other

because ones relationship to the Other is predicated on a mode of experience

that precedes the free will and legal identity of the individual. Let us say yes,

Derrida writes, to who [ever] turns up, before any determination, before any

anticipation, before any identification, whether or not it has to do with a foreigner,

an immigrant, an invited guest, or an unexpected visitor. . ..69

Interpreting democracy as the political site of The Law of Hospitality provides

an alternative way of thinking about the issues of rights, laws, and membership in

the democratic community. We can get a concrete view of what Democratic

Hospitality entails by applying it to a current, hotly debated political

controversythe question of whether or not to give drivers licenses to illegal

immigrants. From California to Georgia, communities and states are faced with

this very difficult political dilemma. The concrete political facts are straight-

forward. There are millions of individuals who reside in cities and states

throughout the United States who do not possess proper legal documentation. For

the most part, they are here to stayAmerica is their home. They are here to

stay because they work in, and contribute significantly to, the local, state, and

national economy. In addition, they contribute significantly to the ethnic and

cultural richness of American society. Moreover, their children attend public

schools and participate as young members of the community. The political facts

are that millions of people reside here, work here, and are integral members

of the political community.

In California, for example, there are approximately 2.5 million undocumen-

ted residents, 2 million [which are] driving age.70 Those who advocate giving

drivers licenses to illegal residents do so mainly for reasons of public safety and

legal accountability. Giving licenses to illegal residents helps insure that theyknow the rules of the road and comply with insurance requirements. Those who

oppose the legislation do so because they believe that illegal immigration is

a serious economic and political problem, and they do not want to reward

lawbreakers by extending to them a tacit recognition of legitimacy. Across the

nation, legislation that would give drivers licenses to illegal residents has been

defeated. However, simply defeating the legislation does not solve the political

problem, and I suggest that the standard model for arguing the merits of the

69. Derrida, Of Hospitality, 77.

70. Ed Mendel, Bill would let Illegal Immigrants get Licenses, San Diego Union-Tribune, April 2,

2003



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debatethe model of legal citizenship based on birth or naturalizationis

insufficient to fully grasp the dilemma.The presence of these fellow residents, and the political debates unleashed by

the fact that they make America their abode, forces us to rethink the way we

interpret who we are, the rights of individuals, and what it means to be a part

of a political community. Deriving from the conception of ethics revealed in

Heideggers and Derridas thought, Democratic Hospitality requires that we say

yes to whoever shows up. At the most fundamental level, Democratic

Hospitality requires that we recognize the Other as being here, with us, and for

whom she is. Ethical responsibility, and the yes of Democratic Hospitality, is

prior to the possession of rights. The most primordial form of right is disclosed

in and through the linguistic and political space opened by the call of the Other,

and the question of the foreigner. The command to respond, the right to

respond, and the mutual responsibility conveyed back and forth are simulta-

neous with the determination of identitywhether as citizen or foreigner. Finding

oneself always-already within the community, speaking its language(s), respond-

ing to its demands of personal and civic responsibility, and calling upon the

community to live up to its own commitment to protection and prosperity, is itself

the most primordial form of rightfully belonging.

Therefore, it is the unsurpassable recognition of the Other that opens the

political domain. Only once the Other has been recognized as being-here-with-us,

in this community, and as essential to the economic, cultural, and political vitality

of the community, can the details about rules and laws and politics be negotiated.

But, as it now stands, the Other lacks this sort of fundamental recognition.

Lacking legal standing, the millions of Others are marginalized in a sort of

ambiguous economic and political netherworld. Indeed, it is the very ambiguous,

adumbrated life they live on the margins of the community that not only adds to

their lack of recognition, but also frustrates the attempt at political solution. Now,

it is important to stress that Democratic Hospitality will not provide us with an

easy solution to this problem. Nor will reading Heidegger and Derrida tell us howto legislate, or decide, the issue. Part of the political import of deconstruction is

the way it reminds us that, for justice to be served, each case must be recognized

individually. Each legal and political decision is always made in a sort of

madness of the political moment. As Derrida notes, we will always be

threatened by this dilemma between, on the one hand, unconditional hospitality

that dispenses with law, duty, even politics, and, on the other hand, hospitality

circumscribed by law. . .. We will have to negotiate constantly between these two

extensions of the concept of hospitality as well as language.71 What Democratic

Hospitality does do is deepen our understanding of what is at stake in this issue.

71 D id Of H i li 135

Nicholas Dungey 257


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By shifting the paradigm with which we interpret ourselves, and our relationships

with others, we open up new ways of articulating the political problems we face,and hopefully create new solutions to these problems. It is in this way, I believe,

that Derridas account of the relationship between the Law of Hospitality and the

laws and duties of democratic citizenship politicizes the ethical responsibility

revealed in the three moments of presencingabsencing.

Conclusion

As I read Heidegger and Derrida, ethical sensitivity flows through our way of

being. Ethics is not an abstract, objective condition that we seek through reasonor rules, but a webbing of relationships held together by the care and

responsibility that first discloses who we are, and then extends from us to others.

Ethics is a circulating economy of care and involvement. For Heidegger, this

circulating care is revealed through our capacity to dwell, which entails the

cultivation of human relationships and the building of houses and structures

intended to shelter and nourish those relationships. Dwelling entails recognizing

the coming and passing of others, a letting-be of their essential natures, and a

respect for their plans and projects. We do this by resisting the temptation to

control and dominate the space and possibilities of the world in which we live.

But such a way of being and relating to others is frustrated by metaphysical

conceptions of subjectivity and politics. To counter this perspective, and prepare

the ground for ethical co-being and democratic hospitality, I have argued that we

come to see ourselves, others, and the world as disclosed through three,

simultaneous modes of presencingabsencing. Ethical co-being is cultivated

when we recognize that our life and possibilities are shaped by the donation of

presence and the withdrawal of Being, by the gift of identity opened in differance,

and through our always impending, but absent death. The ethical significance of

this way of thinking is revealed through the realization that I always-already find

myself in a shared world, sustained by the ethical gravity of caring for what comes

to presence and what passes away. In addition, ethical sensitivity is awakened

through the awareness that what withdraws into absenceBeing, the Other, or

my own deathmust always remain beyond my grasp, beyond my rational and

technological mastery. Facing the limits of our power, and the fragility of our

existence, we are made sensitive to the existential and political concerns of

others. Such a way of thinking reveals that we are already shaped by ethics,

responsible by virtue of our way of being.



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the ethics and politics of dwelling

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