Peg Birmingham

My claim is that Arendt founds the 'right to have rights' in the anarchic event of natality. Arendt is very explicit that the event of natality is an ontological event. In The Human Condition, she writes: "The miracle that saves the world, the realm of human affairs, from its normal "natural" ruin is ultimately the fact of natality, in which the faculty of action is ontologically rooted." At the same time, she is equally insistent that this ontological event is not metaphysical; it is not the origin of anything like human nature: "To avoid misunderstanding, the human condition is not the same as human nature and the sum total of human activities and capabilities which correspond to the human condition do not constitute anything like human nature". Indeed, this event has the character of a "startling unexpectedness." Natality, she argues, is the condition for human existence, but it can never "…explain what we are or answer the question of who we are for the simple reason that [it] can never condition us absolutely". The 'who' does not possess an enduring, fixed nature, but is instead inherently marked by contingency and unpredictability. Arendt's ontology, therefore, does not describe an immutable order of essences; it does not seek enduring truths upon which to ground both thought and action; it does not posit a metaphysical notion of human nature or subjectivity in which human rights are inalienably inscribed. Instead, it is rooted in an unpredictable, anarchic event that provides the arche and principium of human action. For Arendt, the event of natality is the arche in the double etymological sense of origin and rule. In other words, natality is the unpredictable, anarchic origin that carries its rule or principle within it. As she points out in On Revolution, "What saves the act of beginning from its own arbitrariness is that it carries its own principle within itself or, to be more precise, that beginning and principle, principium and principle, are not only related to each other, but are coeval." Arendt goes on to argue: "For the Greek word for beginning is arche, and arche means both beginning and principle." By articulating this principium, Arendt does not give us an ontological politics; rather, she provides an ontological foundation for human rights.

Beginning with Being and Time and continuing throughout the later writings, Heidegger develops a radical critique and rethinking of the Western Metaphysical understanding of subjectivity. The question which arises in this critique is the question concerning the will. ;Broadly speaking, the will, in the history of Western Metaphysics, is that which accounts for the enduring "I". Moreover, the will is that which directs all acts of volition, and therefore accounts for the character of self and its moral stance. For these reasons the will has been traditionally understood as the principle of individuality, the source of the subject's specific identity as well as the place of ethical responsibility. ;In our attempt to grasp Heidegger's understanding of will as Entschlossenheit, we first analyze the problem of the will in the history of Western Metaphysics. We attempt to understand the emergence of the problem of the will in the thinking of Augustine, and then ask how this problematic is carried out in the Modern Period, specifically in the thinking of Descartes, Kant, and Schelling. In such an historical examination, we refer at the same time to Heidegger's critique of the traditional understanding of will. ;Heidegger's critique of the traditional understanding of subjectivity and the will provides the basis for Heidegger's understanding of 'will' as Entschlossenheit. We attempt to show how Heidegger understands Entschlossenheit in Being and Time and further, how this understanding accounts for self, determination, decision, and responsibility. Our method in accomplishing this is a detailed and critical analysis of Being and Time. ;We then trace the development of Entschlossenheit through Heidegger's later writings. Specifically, we examine the relationship between Entschlossenheit and Heidegger's later understanding of Gellassenheit. We argue that both notions must be understood as a resolute disclosure which lets Ereignis be. Here we critically analyze Heidegger's later writings, including Heidegger's lectures on Nietzsche, his lectures on the early Greeks, Brief uber den Humanismus, and Gelassenheit. ;In conclusion, we raise the question of an ethics in Heidegger's thinking. We show that Heidegger does provide the place for an ethics in his understanding of the relation between Entschlossenheit and Dwelling