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Abstract

This dissertation is an attempt to expound Heidegger' s conception of Volk. Its thesis
is that there is but the one conception of Volk behind both Heidegger' s engagement
and disengagement with National Socialism. In §74 of Being and Time, Heidegger
introduces the word "Volk" in a discussion of the essential historicality of Dasein -
the Volk, which is not to be understood as an aggregate of subjects, takes its definition
(as much as Dasein itself) from the being-outside-of-itself of ecstatic temporality.
Given this definition of the Volk, Heidegger must arguably have welcomed in the
"folkish" self-assertion of 1933 the assertion of Being's irreducibility to the static
temporality of the present-at-hand. After his withdrawal from university politics in
1934, Heidegger criticised the regime but he did not criticise his own error. The
philosophical grounds for this stance towards error can be discerned in his defence of
being-outside-of-itself in his confrontation with Hegel (chapter I). With its discussion
of the failure of knowledge, the rectoral address is an exhortation of the Volk to the
error of its own essence as Dasein (chapter II). Heidegger' s subsequent lectures on
art develop the anti-modernist conception of the German people in the context of a reappraisal
of the ecstatic character of mimesis (chapter III). Heidegger' s notion of a
non-positive, and hence non-imperialistic, Heimat informs his readings of Kant and
Holderlin (chapter IV). And in the 1952 essay on Trakl, "Geschlecht" carries the
being-outside-of-itself of "Volk" to a contamination with the animal (chapter V).

Item Type:	Thesis - PhD
Authors/Creators:	Phillips, JA
Keywords:	Heidegger, Martin, 1889-1976, Heidegger, Martin, 1889-1976, Political science
Copyright Holders:	The Author
Copyright Information:	Copyright the Author - The University is continuing to endeavour to trace the copyright owner(s) and in the meantime this item has been reproduced here in good faith. We would be pleased to hear from the copyright owner(s).
Additional Information:	Thesis (Ph.D.)--University of Tasmania, 2002. Includes bibliographical references
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