Overview

Despite Heidegger's identifying his own thought with 'ethics' in the most original sense, his understanding of ethics has been criticised both for its supposed ignorance of the role of the other human being and for its relation to politics. This book contends that, in fact, it is Heidegger's own notion of 'being-with' -his rethinking of intersubjectivity- which demonstrates precisely what is wrong with his early work and demands that the place of ethics be rethought. Heidegger and the Place of Ethics shows how this rethinking occurs in Heidegger's own laterwork. In particular, the crossing out of the earlier work in the turn to the later allows us to think 'being-with' as essential to a Heideggerian ethics and to rethink the relationship between ethics and politics which previously issued in Heidegger's engagement with Nazism. This rethinking of ethics and politics in light of the originality of 'being-with' brings us before a hitherto unnoticed proximity between Heidegger's later work and the Lacanian political thought of Slavoj Žižek among others; it thereby opens up the possibility of a politically progressive Heideggerianism, and many unexpected encounters with thinkers generally considered to be separated from Heidegger by an abyss.

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Reviews

[T]here is much to admire .... Lewis is immersed in the primary literature, and able to co-opt or deflect many familiar lines of criticism of it; he can debate matters of fine textual detail without losing his grip on their overarching argumentative purposes; and he repeatedly finds new angles of approach to even the most familiar Heideggerian claims and tropes. Stephen Mulhall, New College, Oxford While written for the specialist, Lewis's book provides a valuable contribution to the field of Heidegger studies. - Frank Schalow, European Legacy, June 2008--Sanford Lakoff Michael Lewis' recent book, Heidegger and the Place of Ethics, develops a reading of the place of ethics in Heidegger's philosophical itinerary from Being and Time to his later works in the ambit of this question. Were I under the obligation of assessing the book's merits and demerits (the perennial haughty posture of the reviewer, which always bespeaks a token of ressentiment, a desire for an imaginary revenge, as Nietzsche might have taught us), I would say that there have been few studies that have had the temerity and skill to investigate thoroughly the role of ethics and politics in Heidegger's works without adopting, here and there, an excessively hubristic tone by turning either into an apologetics or a condemnation of Heidegger's involvement with Nazism in 1933-34. As a re-viewer, as one who should see the idea, the eidos, that lies behind the work and estimate its value, as one who should oversee the transmission of this idea from author to potential reader - a highly forbidding duty! - I ought to say much more but will limit myself to this: that among the chief merits of the book it affords us a vanguard point from which a critical engagement with Heidegger's more difficult thoughts of the early thirties and later can start. - Rafael Winkler, University of Warwick, Pli: The Warwick Journal of Philosophy--Sanford Lakoff Lewis crosses out Heidegger's fundamental dichotomy between being and beings, and so makes a highly original contribution to the vast and often staid discussions surrounding this thinker. --Sanford Lakoff Tls . ..the problematics engaged are rich and promising, making for an interesting work. -Jane Gordon, Philosophy in Review

Lewis crosses out Heidegger's fundamental dichotomy between being and beings, and so makes a highly original contribution to the vast and often staid discussions surrounding this thinker. --, Tls

. ..the problematics engaged are rich and promising, making for an interesting work. -Jane Gordon, Philosophy in Review

Author Information

Michael Lewis is Senior Lecturer in Philosophy at the University of the West of England, UK.

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