Richard Matthews

This thesis examines some of the consequences of Heidegger's devaluation of normative practice in favor of the authentic reflection engaged in by great thinkers, poets and statesmen. I focus upon the way in which the privileging of authentic reflection requires the exclusion of normative categories and argue that this deprives Heidegger of the possibility of ethical and epistemological identification and evaluation. Whereas interpreters such as William Spanos take this as a positive contribution of Heidegger's thinking, the thesis provides some reasons for doubt by looking at the way in which the bracketing of the normative encourages the uncritical support or dismissal of arguments, persons, and practices. ;The thesis proceeds first with an interpretation of the Question of Being and with Heidegger's view that a correct understanding of this question requires that we understand the ontological difference. Connected to this I provide an explanation as to how the distinction between authentic and inauthentic reflection is a way of approaching ontological difference which requires that the ethical, epistemological, and political arenas be transcended. The result is that none of the principles from these areas may be applied to the Question of Being. Having done this, I then ask, in the context of his involvement with National Socialism and analysis of technology, whether Heidegger has any critical resources available with which to reject or otherwise oppose either. My claim is that he has none. A related consequence of Heideggerian thinking is that it encourages the dismissal of the self-understanding of a given individual or culture in favor of the disclosure of an authentic meaning which purportedly lies unthought and implicit in the thinker's work or a culture's beliefs. Whether the thinker, or members of that culture, might approve or disapprove of the interpretation is, for Heidegger, irrelevant. ;Since, for Heidegger's thinking, there is no obligation to heed the particular claim of particular individuals or cultures, we do not have to worry about whether a criticism fairly accounts for the position we are evaluating. Since authentic reflection supposedly transcends any methodological normative criteria, there is nothing else to which such thinking can appeal to make its claims non-arbitrary. For these reasons, my major contention is that the fate of Heideggerian criticism is arbitrariness

Heidegger famously diminishes the significance of everyday theories of truth like the correspondence theory, disparaging these as a matter of ‘mere’ correctness.They are among the starting points that lead to ‘the true’ but are not themselves genuine or authentic. Donald Davidson develops a theory of interpretation that suggests some reasons why the ordinary senses of truth should not be so mistreated: responsible theories of interpretation should treat the everyday senses of truth more seriously. This paper argues that the necessity of convention T as a condition of interpretation means that correctness is essential both in philosophy and elsewhere