Abstract

This work examines the existential social ontology of Martin Heidegger. The main argument is that there is in Being and Time an extended construction of a concept of social Dasein, and that this concept of social Dasein is employed in hitherto neglected ways in Heidegger's political writings. ;The argument is made primarily through an interpretation which identifies, analyzes and orders into concepts the many references to individuality and sociality in Being and Time and in Heidegger's political writings. ;Part one of the work treats the social ontology of Being and Time. Chapter one sets forth the thesis against the background of the dominant interpretations found in the Heidegger literature, and defines "social Dasein" in terms of Heidegger's own social vocabulary. Chapter two argues that there is a primacy of being-with in understanding, state-of-mind and worldhood itself, as well as in falling and co-Dasein. Chapter three treats Dasein in its individual ways of existing, and ends with some conclusions about selfhood and its relation to social change. Chapter four analyses the relation of individuality and sociality in Dasein's "full authentic historizing," and offers some conclusions about the structure and limits of authentic sociality. ;Part two treats Heidegger's political writings in the light of the concept of social Dasein. Chapter five interprets the " wissenschaftliches Dasein " of the Rectoral address as in fact a mode of social Dasein. Chapter six further traces the development of Heidegger's social ontology in a speech and essay which treat international understanding in terms of the concept of the Dasein of a Volk. ;The conclusion of the work argues that Heidegger's conceptions of the role of wissenschaftliches Dasein in society and of the Volk as an existential feature of Dasein whereby social Dasein is sustained are not only incompatible with Nazi ideas but subversive of them