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THE PHILOSOPHICAL FORUM Volume XV, No, 3, Spring 1984

Karel Kosik's Heideggerian Marxism


MICHAEL E. ZIMMERMAN

In this essay, I examine how Karel Kosik appropriates themes from Heidegger's ontology to develop an alternative to the mechanical version of Marxism prevalent in Eastern Europe in the early 196O's,' According to Kosik, Marx's thoughtparticularly his concept of "totality"was so misinterpreted by mechanical Marxism that the result has not been human liberation but new forms of human bondage. The state socialism supported by mechanical Marxism overemphasizes the importance of social structure at the expense of individual responsibility and freedom, on the one hand, and humanity's philosophical calling, on the other. While agreeing with the Marxist notion that collective praxis is necessary for establishing and maintaining a genuine human community, Kosik adds that two other kinds of praxis, individual ("existential") and philosophical, are also necessary. Both of these latter notions of praxis are drawn in part from Heidegger's thought: existential praxis from his early concept of authenticity; philosophical praxis from his later notion that human existence is fulfilled by "letting beings be." Kosik rejuvenates the philosophical dimension of Marxism by reinterpreting Marx's idea of totalitya reinterpretation that is influenced by what Heidegger means by "Being." In Dialectics of the Concrete, Kosik asserts that philosophy is not merely a reflection or byproduct of socio-economic conditions, but a fundamental and "indispensable activity of mankind..." (DC, 4).^ Philosophy provides insight into who we are and into our place in the cosmos. Such self-understanding is needed for appropriate action. To the crucial philosophical question, "Who is man?", mechanical Marxism replies uncritically, "Man is a self-reproductive social being." In contrast, Kosik agrees with Heidegger that such a definition walls humanity into mere "socialness," a form of subjectivism thatmuch like the private subjectivism in capitalismjustifies the exploi209

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tation of nature for human ends. Eor Kosik, human existence is fulfilled only when it transcends the confines of anthropocentric subjectivism and gives voice to the "absolute totality" of nature. While supporting Heidegger's critique of subjectivism and the domination of nature, Kosik nevertheless opposes the later Heidegger's view that only a change in the "destiny of Being" can enable a change in the human condition. Kosik insists that humanity itself is capable of and responsible for acting to fulfill its individual, social, and philosophical potential. Kosik thus seeks to reconcile Marx's activist humanism with Heidegger's notion that humans are obligated not only to fulfill themselves by establishing an authentic human community, but within that community to give expression to the cosmic totality that transcends the human community. At this point, it would be helpful to remind ourselves of some basic aspects of Heidegger's thought so that we can see more clearly how it is at work in Kosik's Dialectics of the Concrete. Heidegger's major concern was always the question of Being, though he approached this question somewhat differently in the earlier and later phases of his thought. One of the problems involved in interpreting Kosik is that he does not discuss the differences between Heidegger's early and later work, even though Kosik makes use of themes from both phases in his attempt to rejuvenate Marxism. The so-called "turn" {Kehre) or change in Heidegger's thought, which occurred during the 193O's, was not an abrupt shift, but instead a maturing or deepening of insights already present in some form in his earlier writings. In Being and Time (1927), Heidegger approached the question of Being by analyzing human Dasein, the being who understands Being. Influenced by Kant's transcendental thinking, Dilthey's historicism, and Husserl's phenomenology, the young Heidegger's work involves a humanistic and even an anthropocentric dimension that he left behind later on. Taking his cue from Kant, Heidegger claimed that human temporality constitutes the condition necessary for any experience whatsoever of the Being of beings, hence the title Being and Time. Human temporality opens up the horizon of clearing in which beings can reveal themselves or "be." Without the temporal openness of human Dasein, beings cannot "be" because they cannot manifest or present themselves. Heidegger maintains that human Dasein exists either authentically or inauthentically. As inauthentic, Dasein understands itself as a kind of thing, a conscious ego-subject standing over against various objects. Such a dualistic self-understanding arises in part because Dasein flees from the truth about its mortaUty and finitude. Dasein is not a thing or ego but the mortal openness in which an ego can first manifest itself or "be." Authenticity {Eigentlichkeit) means accepting one's mortal openness and taking respon210

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sibility for the finite possibilities that are uniquely one's own. While emphasizing the individual struggle for authenticity, Heidegger also claims that individuals become fully authentic only when struggling in concert with others to fulfill the destiny of their community. Authenticity is linked to the historical development of communal human possibilities. Kosik uses the theme of the individual struggle for authenticity to counter mechanical Marxism's overemphasis on communal revolutionary praxis, though he at times unfairly suggests that Heidegger ignores the importance of such communal praxis. After the turn in his thought, Heidegger no longer speaks about Being in relation to the transcendental structures of human understanding. Regarding this early view as mired in the language of metaphysics and subjectivism, he comes to speak of Being as the self-revelation of beings that occurs through language, which is not a human possession. "To be" now means "to be manifested through language." Fundamental changes in language initiate profound changes in Western history. In his later works, Heidegger speaks less of personal "authenticity," or about the communal struggle to exist in line with destiny. Instead, he maintains that cultural epochs are governed by the "destiny of Being" {Seinsgeschick), which defines the ways in which people can understand what things are. Abandoning the voluntaristic-humanistic flavor found in many of his early writings, the later Heidegger speaks of the need for humanity to be "released" from the technological will to power so that we can "let beings be." In letting beings be, in giving voice to the presencing of beings, humanity attains its highest possibility. For Heidegger, humanity is fulfilled by serving a higher goal than human power, security, and self-aggrandizement. Toward the end oi Dialectics of the Concrete, Kosik introduces the theme of "letting beings be" under the guise of cosmic-ontological praxis. This type of praxis is different both from the communal praxis familiar to Marxists and from the individual praxis found in Heidegger's early notion of authenticity. "Letting beings be" refers to the highest possibihty of human existence: bearing witness to the cosmic totality. Aristotle, of great importance for Marx as well as for Heidegger, claimed that human life is fulfilled through theoria, the active contemplation of the highest aspects of reality. Political and personal matters are intrinsically important, but are also means to the end of contemplation, which transcends the merely human realm. For Kosik, any Marxism that is uninformed by this cosmicontological aim of human life turns into an anthropocentrism that justifies the technological domination of all beings. For both Heidegger and Kosik, then, it is crucial for humanity to move beyond anthropocentric humanism. But here is where a major, perhaps insurmountable problem arises for 211

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Kosik's attempt to reconcile Heidegger and Marx. Marx is a humanist who believes that humanity has shaped and can therefore change history. In his early writings, Heidegger at times spoke as if history involved the struggle of human Dasein to take charge of its own destiny and possibilities. But later on, Heidegger insisted that humanity is not in control of history, but that instead human history is governed by movements within the "destiny of Being." Eor Heidegger, attempts to take control of history are symptoms of anthropocentrism and humanistic arrogance, while for Marx talk of history being out of human control is a sign of a relapse into Hegelian idealism. On this point, I do not beheve Marx and Heidegger can be successfully reconciled. Yet Kosik goes a long way toward showing the shortcomings of Marx's thought, as well as the hmitations of Heidegger's, and manages to point the way toward an understanding of human existence that takes into account two of the crucial thinkers of our age. Part one of this essay offers a preliminary account of the relation between Kosik's "totahty" and Heidegger's "Being." Both thinkers explain their respective phenomena in light of an analysis of the superficiality and pseudo-concreteness of everyday life. Part two shows that for both Kosik and for the early Heidegger, individual decision and commitment are necessary to end the inauthenticity of everyday life. Kosik argues, however, that Heidegger's concept of authenticity overemphasizes individual praxis and minimizes the concomitant need for collective praxis. In part three, we learn that both Kosik and Heidegger claim that successful individual and collective praxis requires a change in everyday temporality and history. Yet while Kosik maintains that human labor produces temporality and history, Heidegger contends that human activity can only occur within the temporalhistorical openness that humans do not create. Einally, in part four we discover that the "absolute totality" for Kosik is not simply the human community, but the Being of beings, the expression of which is the highest possibility of human existence. The telos of human life, then, involves letting beings manifest themselves in ways other than merely as instruments for human self-actualization. Here Kosik leads Marxism beyond its anthropocentric tendencies, while yet attempting to provide a crucial role for human action in realizing our cosmic-ontological potential. In what follows, I have quoted frequently and sometimes at length from Kosik as well as from Heidegger. Although I know that such citations can be tedious, I have included them to show how much Kosik has borrowed from Heidegger, and also to give a sense of Kosik's own passionate concern with issuessuch as individual freedomthat are not often voiced in mechanical Marxism. Kosik's reinterpretation of Marx's thought helped precipitate the "Prague Spring" that was crushed by the Soviet invasion in 1968. 212

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Since then, he has been a "nonperson" in Czechoslovakia. His courageous thinking continues to be a challenge not only to mechanical Marxists, but also to more sophisticated Marxists and neo-Marxists as well. Moreover, he also has something important to say to those Heideggereans who neglect the need for human action in transforming the historical situation. That Kosik's thought is not readily acceptable either to orthodox Marxists or to strict-observance Heideggereans suggests that he is a man capable of thinking for himself.

PART ONE: THE DISCLOSURE OE TOTALITY AND BEING THROUGH THE ANALYSIS OE EVERYDAY LIFE. Kosik's work is largely an attempt to rejuvenate Marx's concept of totality and to rescue it from misinterpretations that have had serious consequences. In the socialist world, those consequences include: over-emphasis on socio-political structures at the expense of personal responsibility and freedom; the pretense that the "whole" is a higher reality than the phenomena of everyday hfe; the rise of the "social physics" that treats human life as a scientific object; the reduction of art, philosophy, religion, and culture to mere manifestations of underlying economic conditions; and the concealment of the truth about reality and about humankind's role in the disclosure of that reality. Kosik insists that totality must be reinterpreted in light of Marx's original intention.^ Totality is not the sum of all facts, but instead the conception "of reality as concreteness, as a whole that is structured... that evolves... and that is in the process of forming..." (DC, 19). Things take on meaning within the context of this self-evolving totality (DC, 23). "Marx adopted this dialectical concept scoured of its ideological mystification and turned its new form into one of the central concepts of materialist dialectics" (DC, 17). Because totality describes the nature of reality, totality is an ontological concept, not merely a methodological or epistemological one. Kosik suggests that Marx's original ontological intention was forgotten when his work was applied politically: The main modification of the concept of totality has been its reduction to a methodological precept, a methodological rule for investigating reality. This degeneration has resulted in two ultimate trivialities: that everything is connected with everything else, and that the whole is more than the sum of its parts. In materialist philosophy, the category of concrete totality answers first and foremost the question, what is reality. Only secondarily, and 213

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only after having materialistically answered the first question, can it be an epistemological principle and a methodological precept. (DC, 17-18) Just as Kosik asserts the primacy of the ontological over the epistemological, so too Heidegger attacked the neo-Kantians at the University of Marburg in the 1920s for having trivialized Kant's first Critique by seeing it as epistemology instead of as ontology." For both Heidegger and Kosik, reality (totality or Being) is not constructed or constituted by the human subject. Instead, reality includes a kind of beingthe human being through which reality can complete itself by revealing itself. Reality precedes our knowing of it, though human cognition and labor do alter the ways in which beings can disclose themselves. We are always in danger, however, of assuming that we can do what we want with reality, while forgetting that our highest human possibility is to let beings be what they are. Genuine "letting be" is compatible with the formation of an authentic human community, but not with the exploitation of nature. Along with turning "totahty" into a methodological concept, another grave mistake of certain Marxists was to "hypostatize" it as a thing that transcends and is more important than the phenomena of everyday life. Such a "false totahty" subordinates concrete reahty to supposedly autonomous structures or conditions (DC, 27). Kosik argues, however, that "Totality is not a ready-made whole, later filled with a content and with properties and relations of parts; rather, totahty concretizes itself in the process of forming its whole as well as its content" (DC, 29). In false totality, "The subject vanishes, or more precisely, the place of the real subject, i.e., of man as an objective-practical subject, is taken by a subject that has been mythologized, reified and fetishised: by the autonomous movement of structures" (DC, 31). Just as Marx revealed the fetishism of capitalism, according to which human beings are subject to the ostensibly autonomous laws of the marketplace, so Kosik discloses the fetishism of a degenerate form of Marxism, according to which human beings are expressions of sociahst economic-pohtical structures. To reveal the ontological meaning of totality and to describe the three modes of praxis needed to express and complete that totality, Kosik bypasses the offlcially-approved interpretations of Marx and instead returns to "the things themselves," i.e., the phenomena of everyday life. True philosophy must begin with the way human beings actually exist in the world, not with some theory about that existence: The starting point of every philosophy is man's being in the world, the relation of man and cosmos Man establishes a relationship with the 214

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world through his very existence, and this relationship is already there before he ever starts contemplating it, before he turns it into an object of investigation, and before he practically or intellectually affirms or negates it. (DC, 133) Heidegger maintains that our everyday Being-in-the world is governed by an average, pre-theoretical understanding of Being. "Understanding" here does not mean the cognitive activity of a subject, but instead the temporalhistorical openness in which beings can manifest themselves. Eor Heidegger, "to be" means to be manifest or to be present. Human existence constitutes the openness in which that presencing can occur. Eor the most part, we are open to things in a narrow, utilitarian way; hence, things can only reveal themselves to us as objects to be manipulated. Usually, we are unaware that we always already have such an understanding of things. Eollowing Heidegger, Kosik remarks that One always has a certain understanding of reality that precedes explication. Itself an elementary layer of consciousness, this pre-theoretical understanding is the basis for the possibility of the culture and the cultivation through which one ascends from a preliminary to a conceptual cognition of reality. (DC, 36) Every particular thing upon which man focuses his view, attention, action, or evaluation, emerges from a certain whole that envelops it and which man perceives as an indistinct background or as a dimly intuited imaginary context.... [Man] always perceives [individual] things in a horizon of a certain whole, which is usually unexpressed and not perceived explicitly. (DC, 11-12) Totality is this "certain whole" in light of which we understand what things are. By examining our everyday, pre-theoretical understanding of the totality, we gain a deeper understanding of it. In turn, such understanding gives further insight into everyday life, the starting point of the analysis. In Being and Time, Heidegger calls this spiral of interpretation the "hermeneutic circle."' By following the hermeneutic circle, by moving from a preliminary to an even deeper understanding of everyday life, Kosik shows that totality not only illuminates what things are in everyday life but also in profound philosophical inquiry. Great art, philosophy, and science complete humanity as well as totality by bringing totality as such to explicit expression. In the alienated condition of everyday life, of course, people forget that human beings have produced the social world, much less that they have the possibility of understanding the totality (Being) that both transcends and is completed by humanity's historical existence. 215

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Kosik's analysis of everyday life, an analysis that eventually leads to an "anthropo-cosmic" conception of humanity, revolves around the phenomenon of "care." In Being and Time, Heidegger defined care as the Being of human Dasein. At first, however, Kosik uses the term to refer to alienated labor, the utilitarian procuring and manipulating that go on in the readymade everyday world. Care or procuring is the "phenomenal aspect of abstract labor," arising from specialization and its attendant depersonalization (DC, 38). Despite this initial interpretation of care as alienated labor, Kosik retains Heidegger's notion that care refers to an ontological dimension of humanity. Care, then, cannot be reduced to alienated labor, for as care "man is ... outside himself, aiming at something else, transcending is subjectivity" (DC, 38). Humanity transcends the limitations of subjectivity and opens up to the totality in light of which the distinction between subject and object can first arise. Kosik starts out with a negative evaluation of care to reflect, in some ways, the common Marxist objection that Heidegger's analysis of care in Being and Time makes use of the example of a workman in his workshop. Supposedly, Heidegger here displayed ignorance of the fact that modern labor occurs not in workshops, where laborers retain some control over their labor, but in giant factories and offices, where laborers are functions of autonomous systems.' In a footnote, however, Kosik suggests that he does not really mean to intend care with the inauthentic activity of procuring and manipulating: The critique that sees in Being and Time the patriarchal world of backward Germany has fallen for the mystification of Heidegger's examples. Heidegger, however, is describing problems of the modern twentieth century capitalist world which he exemplifiesquite in the spirit of romantic disguising and concealingby the blacksmith and forging. This chapter is not an analysis of Heidegger's philosophy but of "care" which represents the reified movement of praxis, as does the "economic factor" and the "homo-oeconomicus." (DC, 86) What Kosik calls "care" resembles closely what Heidegger describes as the inauthentic everyday life of das Man, the depersonalized existence in which people conform to pre-established routines in order to avoid responsibility for creating and maintaining the human world. Kosik agrees with Heidegger that modern people find themselves in a ready-made world of devices, implements, and relations, a stage for the individual's social movement, for his initiative, ubiquity, sweat The individual... has long ago "lost" any awareness of this world as a product of man. Procuring permeates his entire life. (DC, 39) 216

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Kosik asserts that Being and Time met with "extraordinary acclaim" because it describes the ready-made world which "is the universal surface level of twentieth century reality" (DC, 39). Eor both Kosik and Heidegger, the automatic routines established by instrumental rationahty lead to the suppression of truth. Kosik maintains that In the everyday world, the activity and way of hfe are transformed into an instinctive, subconscious, unconscious and unreflective mechanism of acting and living: things, people, tasks, environment, the world they are not perceived in their originality and authenticity, they are not tested and discovered but they simply are there, and are accepted as inventory, as components of a known world. (DC, 43) Kosik's words echo what Heidegger said decades earlier in Being and Time: In this averageness with which das Man prescribes what can and may be ventured it keeps watch over everything exceptional that thrusts itself to the fore. Every kind of priority gets noiselessly suppressed. Overnight, everything that is primordial gets glossed over as something that has long been known. Everything gained by a struggle becomes just something to be manipulated. Every secret loses its force.' Eollowing Heidegger, Kosik exclaims that everyday life in the modern world is the "chiaroscuro of truth and deceit. It thrives on ambiguity" (DC, 2). Heidegger asserts that we allow our lives to be guided by the anonymous public, das Man, thereby abdicating responsibihty for making our own decisions: In this inconspicuousness and unascertainability, the real dictatorship of das Man is unfolded. We take pleasure and enjoy ourselves as they [das Man] take pleasure; we read, see, and judge about hterature and art as they see and judge; hkewise we shrink back from the "great mass" as they shrink back; we find "shocking" what they find shocking. The "they," which is nothing definite and which all are, though not as the sum, prescribes the kind of Being of everydayness.' In Dialectics of the Concrete, we find the following passage whose debt to Heidegger is beyond question: The everyday appears as the anonymity and tyranny of the impersonal power which dictates every individual's behavior, thoughts, taste, and 217

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even his protest against banality. The anonymity of the everyday, expressed in the subject of this anonymity, that is in the someone/noone, has its counterpart in the anonymity of historical actors described as "history makers." Historical events consequently appear as the work of no-one and thus of all, as the result of anonymity shared both by the everyday and by History. (DC, 46) Kosik uses Heidegger's insight about everyday life to call attention to the alienated everyday life in socialist as well as capitalist society. People are alienated in part because they fail to see that they themselves are responsible for founding and maintaining their historical world. For Kosik, the abdication of responsibility that leads to the anonymity of everyday life cannot be ended merely by a change in social structure; indeed, a genuine change in social structure requires personal responsibility on the part of those people who constitute the community. In Heidegger's existential ontology, Kosik found support for his conviction that individuals must cooperate in their own liberation by gaining a deeper understanding of who they are. Just as for Heidegger the Being of beings can reveal itself only through authentic individuals, so too for Kosik the social and the cosmic (absolute) totality can only disclose itself through individuals who have taken responsibility for their own lives. PART TWO. THE ROLE OF EXISTENTIAL PRAXIS IN SOCIAL TRANSFORMATION. As opposed to those Marxists who overemphasize social structure at the expense of the individual, Kosik insists that "Every individual has to appropriate his own culture and lead his own life by himself and nonvicariously" (DC, 8). Yet while insisting on the importance of personal responsibility, he avoids the elitist-heroic doctrine of authenticity that he ascribes to Heidegger. Kosik suggests that for Heidegger there are only two ways that a person can exist: 1) as a heroic-romantic individual, or 2) in terms of the everyday, ahenated life of procuring and manipulating, i.e., the "religion of the workaday." As I have shown elsewhere, however, Heidegger maintains that everyday life can be either authentic or inauthentic: ''Authentic existence is not something which floats above falling everydayness; existentially, it is only a modified way in which such everydayness is seized upon.'" Being and Time does describe authenticity, at times, in terms more reminiscent of Nietzsche's overman than Marx's revolutionary proletariat. Yet Kosik finds value in Heidegger's notion of authenticity because "the 218

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terminology of existentiahsm is frequently an ideahst-romantic, i.e., a concealing and dramatizing, transcription of revolutionary-materialist concepts" (DC, 87). According to Heidegger, there are two possible modes of everyday hfe: authentic and inauthentic. In the latter mode, an individual flees from responsibility for his or her own life, including participating in the formation and maintenance of society; in the former mode, an individual takes responsibility for acting within his or her concrete life-situation. Heidegger's inauthentic everydayness is what Kosik means by "procuring": the religion of the workaday in which individuals neglect their personal and social responsibility. At times, Kosik seems to follow Heidegger in distinguishing between inauthentic and authentic everydayness. Kosik knows from first-hand experience that a change in social structures is not a sufficient condition to end alienation in everyday hfe; individual commitment and change is also needed: "The shift from the inauthentic to the authentic is an historical process which is realized by mankind (a class, a society) and by the individual'' (DC, 48my emphasis). The following dramatic passage reveals Kosik's perplexity about how to formulate the relation between communal struggle to change society and the individual struggle needed to change oneself along with society: Man wants to live authentically and to realize authenticity. An individual cannot by himself effect a revolutionary change in conditions and eradicate evil Can he live an authentic life in a world that is inauthentic? Does there exist one single trans-personal and transindividual authenticity, or is there a permanent choice, accessible to anyone and to all? In the existential modification, the subject of the individual awakens to his own possibilities and elects them. He changes not the world, but his attitude toward it. The existential modification is not a revolutionary transformation of the world but the drama of an individual in the world Choosing authenticity sub specie mortis leads to aristocratic romantic stoicism or is reahzed in choosing death. This form of existential modification is, however, not the only way, or even the most frequent or the most adequate way for an individual's authentic realization. It, too, is only an historical choice with a quite precise social and class content. (DC, 49) Though apparently rejecting the Heideggerean notion of authenticity, resolute Being-towards-death, Kosik knows that accepting one's mortahty is necessary for the possibility of "existential modification," i.e., of authenticity. He also knows that for Heidegger authenticity is not merely a 219

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change in theoretical attitude, but instead a transformation of one's mode of existing. Authenticity means becoming open and committed to one's own possibilities within the limits of one's own historical situation. Resoluteness, as authentic Being one's-self, does not detach Dasein from its world, nor does it isolate it so that it becomes a free-floating " I . " And how should it, when resoluteness as authentic disclosedness [of Being] is authentically nothing else than Being-in-the-world? Resoluteness brings the self right into concernful Being-alongside what is ready-to-hand, and pushes it into solicitous Being with others.' Heidegger's notion of authenticity is drawn in part from Aristotle's concept of phronesis or "practical wisdom." Eor Aristotle, thephronemos is one who knows what his or her own limits are, and who knows what the limits of the situation are, so that he or she is always able to do what is called for by the situation.' Yet even for Heidegger, authenticity is not merely a matter for individuals, but also of a people engaged in the collective struggle to change the world: Our fates have already been guided in advance, in our Being with one another in the same world and in our resoluteness for definite possibilities. Only in communicating and in struggling does the power of destiny become free. Dasein's fateful destiny in and with its "generation" goes to make up the full authentic historizing of Dasein." On the basis of such statements by Heidegger, Herbert Marcuse argued in 1928 that Being and Time provides the ontological foundation for Marx's theory of history! Marcuse remarks that [Heidegger's] phenomenological analysis has shown human Dasein as essentially historical, and has recognized praxis as its primordial kind of behavior In the moment when praxis gets recognized as the behavior of human Dasein that decisively and authentically creates reality, and when the given historical situation is grasped as the "reality of inhuman existence" in its historical fallennessin this moment, praxis as "revolutionary praxis" fulfills historical necessity.'^ Though his regard for Heidegger dropped because of the latter's involvement with National Socialism (1933-34), Marcuse was right in noting that Being and Time had elevated praxis over theory: our everyday instrumental understanding of things makes possible our subsequent theoretical under220

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Standing of them. From this point of view, authenticity means becoming actively engaged in constructing one's everyday life, while inauthenticity means ignoring one's responsibility for being the finite, active agent that one already is. Authenticity occurs in the appropriation of the everyday, as opposed to the flight from it. Yet even if Kosik were to grant that Heidegger's distinction between authentic and inauthentic everydayness is possible, he would still object that Heidegger does not adequately explain the sociohistorical origins of that everydayness (DC, 45-46). For Heidegger, inauthentic-alienated everyday life cannot be explained solely in terms of exploitative social structures; instead, such structures must themselves be understood in light as humankind's intrinsic tendency toward concealment (falling) and as the result of the ontological-historical destiny that transcends human deeds. For Marx, however, alienated everyday life results from human actions that can be changed by human actions. Kosik hopes to reconcile Marx's humanism with Heidegger's claim that human existence is not ultimately in control of its own destiny but is instead in the service of the cosmic event of the disclosure of beings.

PART THREE: INAUTHENTIC EVERYDAYNESS, TEMPORALITY, AND TRANSCENDENCE. Kosik accuses Heidegger of failing to explain how the inauthentic everydayness of procuring is possible (DC, 45-46). Yet both Kosik and Heidegger argue that inauthentic everydayness stems from an inadequate understanding of the Being of self and world. Such inadequate understanding arises, in turn, from an inauthentic experience of temporality and history. Yet Kosik defines temporality not as the transcendental horizon in which beings present or manifest themselves (Heidegger), but instead as the temporalhistorical world produced by human labor (Marx). By remaining true to Marx's humanistic doctrine that man produces himself, Kosik apparently rejects Heidegger's notion that our temporal existence is a gift, not a human product. Let us consider for a moment Heidegger's explanation of how inauthentic temporality leads to inauthentic everydayness. Heidegger maintains that human existence is constituted by threedimensional temporality that opens up a clearing in which beings can reveal themselves. Being means to be manifest or revealed. Humans do not produce their temporal openness, but instead are "thrown" into it. Such openness can be either inauthentic or authentic. If inauthentic, beings reveal themselves as objects for domination by the human subject; if authentic, beings reveal themselves as intrinsically worthy and important, independent 221

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of human aims. Eor the most part, temporality generates itself inauthentically; on occasion, however, it generates itself authentically. On such occasions, we can either accept or resist this change. Often we resist the change because becoming more fully open for the Being of beings means becoming aware of our mortahty as well. We readily flee from such awareness and escape into social roles that let us abdicate responsibihty for taking charge of our own lives. In his early work, Heidegger suggested that inauthentic social structures result in part from individuals who refuse to accept the truth about their mortality, freedom, and responsibility. In his later writings, he maintained that alienation in the technological world arises not so much because of individual weakness, but because of the "destiny of Being" (Seinsgeschick) that lets beings appear only as objects for domination by the human subject. No one can "do" anything about this destiny, any more than an individual can demand that his or her temporality generate itself in an authentic way. Just as an individual can only prepare himself or herself for the possible advent of anxiety and, hence, a change in temporality, so too modern humanity can only prepare itself for the possibility of a paradigm shift that will enable beings to appear as other than mere objects.'^ Kosik, who agrees that the structures of alienated everyday life are determined by temporality and history, insists that "Marxist theory has to initiate the analysis [of inauthentic everydayness] by asking why were people aware of their own time precisely in these categories, and what kind of time do people find reflected in them" (DC, 7). It is necessary to explain "the internal connection between the times and the ideas" (DC, 7). Like Heidegger, Kosik wants to explain the internal relation between the mode of temporality and the corresponding understanding of the Being of beings. According to Kosik, procuring or inauthentic everydayness occurs when we experience time in the mode of the future, when we yearn for things and cannot dwell in the here-and-now. Because Heidegger says that authenticity requires anticipation of one's own death, Kosik labels such authenticity as being an escape into the future and a denial of the present. Yet for Heidegger, anticipation of death is precisely what enables us to enter fully into our present situation. If we do not anticipate our mortality, we interpret ourselves as immortal egos who have all the time in the world to do anything we please. As egos, we exist as the inauthentic temporality that lets beings disclose themselves merely as objects. The egoist escapes into the future to escape responsibility for his or her life in the present. In the following passage, Kosik makes Heidegger appear to hold a view of authenticity that in fact corresponds with what Heidegger calls inauthenticity. Moreover,
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Kosik himself proposes as his view of authenticity the one that actually comes from Heidegger: In care [the Heideggerean concept that Kosik redefines as procuring], the individual is always already in the future and turns the present into a means or a tool for the realization of projects The individual appraises the present and the past by the practical projects he lives for, by his plans, hopes, fears, expectations and goals. Since care is anticipation, it invalidates the present and fastens onto the future which has not happened [Because] it is ahead of the present, care considers the present not as the authentic existence, as "closeness to Being," but rather as a flight.... "To live in the future," "to anticipate" in a sense denies life; the individual as care lives not his present but his future, and since he neglects that which is and anticipates that which is not, his life occurs in nothingness, i.e., in inauthenticity, while he himself staggers between bhnd "resoluteness" and resigned "waiting." Montaigne knew this form of alienation well. (DC, 42) Not only Montaigne, but Heidegger as weU knew this kind of alienation. The latter maintained that alienation or inauthenticity could only be ended by a radical change in temporality that lets one become engaged in the present situation. What Heidegger meant by anticipating one's own death was becoming aware of one's own mortality and finitude, so that one would then resolve to live in the present instead of escaping into the infinite, romantic future. Authenticity means letting beings manifest themselves in ways other than as objects for our purposes; authenticity means doing what the situation calls for. Only by letting go of the desire for security can we become open for what is and for what is called for. And only in being so open do we give thanks for the gift of existence. For Kosik, however, awareness of mortality and finitude do not make possible the authentic engagement that produces a community; instead, such awareness follows from the construction of civilization (DC, 137). By affirming humanity's dependence and finitude, Heidegger opposes Marx's contention that humankind produces itself. Though agreeing with Heidegger that temporality and history are essential to human existence, Kosik adopts the Marxist view that human beings produce time and are not produced by it: "That the problem of man's time is linked with his objective activity is a basic point in which materialist philosophy differs from the existential concept of temporality" (DC, 131). For Marx and Kosik, labor which mediates between mere animal craving and human gratification produces time:
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The same act of mediation in which animaUty begets humanity and in which animal craving is transformed into humanized craving, into the craving for being craved, i.e., the craving for recognition, also forms the three-dimensionality of human time: only a being which transcends the nihilism of its animal craving in labor will in the act of harnessing its craving uncover a. future as a dimension of its being. Through work, man controls time (whereas the beast is exclusively controlled by time), because the being that can resist immediate satiation of its craving and can "actively" harness it forms a present as a function of the future, while making use of the past. In its doing it uncovers the threedimensionality of time as a dimension of its own Being. (DC, 121) According to the Marxist view, human beings can make objects only by transforming the results of past labor in accordance with future aims: "The three-dimensionality of time and the temporality of man are based on objectification. Without objectification there is no temporality" (DC, 122). Heidegger claims just the reverse: without temporality there is no objectification. The ontological openness in light of which human beings can transform natural beings into artifacts or objects is constituted by temporality. And human beings do not produce time; they dwell within it. Time provides the no-thingness, openness, or absence in which beings can be present. Following Marx and opposing Heidegger, Kosik holds that humanity's openness for Being is a result of praxis (DC, 101). Yet at times Kosik verges on agreeing with Heidegger's claim that time is not a human product. Hence, Kosik suggests that labor "uncovers" time as a dimension of the Being of humanity (DC, 121). Uncovering an ontological aspect of human existence seems different from producing that aspect through some human activity. To remain true to Marx's doctrine that man is the only root for man, however, Kosik concludes that human objectification produces temporality. At one point, Kosik accuses Heidegger of saying that objectiflcation is a form of inauthenticity, a flight from Being-towards-death (DC, 123). By objectication, however, Heidegger does not mean the forming of a human world by transforming natural things into objects, but instead the reduction of all beings to the status of mere objects for the human subject. There is, according to Heidegger, an authentic way of working with natural beings, a way that does not degrade them to the status of commodities or raw materials. He claims that the prevailing way of working with beings is guided by a subjectivistic understanding of what beings are. Both capitalist and socialist alike regard natural beings as stockpiles of raw material whose value lies solely in what service they can provide for human advancement. By ele224

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vating himself to the status of God, Western humanity unites the doctrine of human self-creation with the doctrine of humanity as the pinnacle of reality. Despite his commitment to socialist principles, Kosik resists the hubristic subjectivism that can be found at times in Marx's thinking. Though Kosik affirms that humanity does in some sense create itself, it does so only within the natural order that transcends humanity (DC, 7). He is critical of the "Machiavellianism" and "scientism" that reduces all beings to tools or instruments for human aims (DC, 135). Hence, he cites approvingly from a Russian Marxist who shares his view: Reducing the relationship between man and nature to that of a producer and his raw material would infinitely impoverish human life. Such a reduction would indicate that the esthetic aspects of human life and of man's relation with the world have been uprootedand more; the loss of nature as something created neither by men nor by anyone else, as something eternal and uncreated, would be coupled with the loss of the awareness that man is part of a greater whole: compared with it, man becomes aware both of his smallness and of his greatness. (DC, 41; cf. also DC, 152)'" Kosik shares Heidegger's conviction that it is dangerous to define man solely in terms of his capacity to produce objects in his own image. The danger lies not only in the fact that humanity may end by turning the planet into one giant factory, but also in the fact that thereby humanity undermines its deepest calling: to bear witness to the Being of beings. Eor Kosik, along with the collective and individual praxis needed to found and maintain an authentic community, there is an even more important mode of praxis: openness toward the Being of beings. Such openness lets beings present themselves as they are, not merely as commodities. In the final part of this essay, we will see whether Kosik can reconcile the Heideggerianinspired notion of cosmic-ontological praxis with Marx's activist humanism.

PART EOUR: OVERCOMING SUBJECTIVISM THROUGH OPENNESS EOR THE ABSOLUTE TOTALITY. According to Kosik, the drive to dominate the earth by technological meanswhether under capitalism or socialismstems from a subjectivistic understanding of reality. Marxists accuse capitalism of subjectivism, since capitalism promotes the interests of the individual subject over against those of the community. But Kosik argues that when Marx's thought passes 225

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from philosophy into social theory, it too degenerates into another form of subjectivism: in state socialism, all things are reduced to objects for the collective human subject. Under mechanical Marxism, Kosik explains, man is imprisoned in his subjectivity: for if all concepts are in essence socio-economic categories, and express only the social being of man, then they turn into forms of man's self-expression, and every form of objectivation is only a variety of reification.... [Hence], praxis ceases to be the sphere of humanizing man, the process of forming a sociohuman reality as well as man's openness toward Being and toward the truth of objects; it turns into a closedness: socialness is a cave in which man is walled in. (DC, 106) Those walled into socialness cannot understand the true goal of life as revealed by philosophy. They assume that philosophy is a bourgeois enterprise undertaken by alienated thinkers who either express hope for human freedom, or else provide ideological justification for exploitative economic systems. Socialist revolution supposedly "realized" the aim of freedom contained in bourgeois philosophy. Hence, in many socialist states "philosophy is vulgarly conceived as a manifestation of conditions, rather than as the truth of reality" (DC, 102). Addressing those who think that there is no longer any need for critical thinking about humankind and its place in the cosmos, Kosik asks: Who is to judge, and who will judge in the future, whether indeed reason has been realized through abolishing philosophy and whether society is indeed reasonable? Which level of human consciousness will recognize whether reality has not merely been rationalized and whether reason is not again being realized in the form of unreason? (DC, 103) Kosik's questions call to mind the third of Marx's "Theses on Feuerbach": The materialist doctrine that men are products of circumstances and upbringing, and that, therefore, changed men are products of other circumstances and changed upbringing, forgets that it is men who change circumstances and that it is essential to educate the educator himself.^^ The mechanical Marxist presumes that under capitalism, people cannot understand their true situation because of the ideological veil produced by the economic base of society. At first glance, Kosik appears to agree with 226

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this view when he says that the alienated or pseudo-concrete world is not natural, but the "projection" of petrified historical conditions (DC, 5). Yet pseudo-concreteness characterizes everyday life not only under capitalism, but under state sociahsm as well. Pseudo-concreteness results not merely from the fact that socialism fails to understand Marx's original intention. The fact is, in Kosik's view, that gaining access to the truth has been and always will be a problem for humanity. Sounding much like Heidegger, Kosik says that the essence or Being of things tends to conceal itself (DC, 3); things don't show themselves directly to us; thinking moves spontaneously counter to reality (DC, 5); man must always take a detour to arrive at the truth (DC, 4); man's practical dealings with the world are inherently (not merely historically) one-sided. Kosik notes that human consciousness is at once a "reflection" and a "project," it registers as well as constructs and plans, it both reflects and anticipates, is both receptive and active. To let the "thing itself" express itself, to add nothing and just let things be as they arethis requires a special activity. (DC, 12my emphasis) This "special activity," which Kosik later calls "openness toward Being" (DC, 139), is the third and most important mode of human praxis. We recall that the other two modes are collective and individual praxis. The notion that human existence involves these three modes of praxis is one way of answering Kant's question, "Who is man?" (DC, 149-50). In 1929, Heidegger observed that this question was Kant's way of summarizing the three questions forming the basis for his three critiques: "What can I know?", "What ought I do?", and "What can I hope f o r ? " . " According to Kosik, humankind can know the world by transforming it collectively into a world suitable for the needs of the community. Each person ought to struggle to realize his or her own humanity. And humanity can hope to fulfill its telos by becoming open not only for human reality, but for the natural realm that transcends humanity and its history. Without ontological-cosmic praxis, i.e., without openness for the Being of the beings that constitute the cosmos, communal and individual praxis remains unfulfilled. Kosik insists that man is not merely a natural or anthropological being. Instead, man "is disclosed to the understanding of Being on the basis of his praxis. Consequently he is an anthropo-cosmic being" (DC, 139). While arguing that humanity's telos extends beyond the merely social, Kosik makes clear that anthropo-cosmic or cosmic-ontological praxis presupposes the formation of an authentically human world:

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In its essence and generality, praxis is the exposure of the mystery of man as an onto-formative being, as a being that forms the (sociohuman) reality and therefore also grasps and interprets it (i.e., reality both human and extra-human, reality in its totahty). Man's praxis is not practical activity as opposed to theorizing; it is the determination of human being as the process of forming reality. (DC, 137) The praxis that forms the human world creates an openness for reality, or an understanding of Being. Such openness transcends "the idol of socialness and social subjectivity" (DC, 139). Through philosophy or "dialectics," humanity reveals the "thing itself": But the "thing itself" is no ordinary thing; actually it is not a thing at all. The "thing itself" that philosophy deals with is man and his place in the universe or, in different words: it is the totality of the world uncovered in history by man, and man existing in the totality of the world. (DC, 152-53) Humankind not only reproduces itself and its social order, but also "spiritually reproduces reality in its totality" (DC, 152). Kosik is now in a position to clarify the vague or pre-theoretical understanding of totality that guides everyday life. Humanity always already has some grasp of its own Being and of its place in the cosmos; in light of such understanding, social structures arise. The dimmer the understanding, the less satisfactory the social structures to which it gives rise. Human understanding always extends beyond the human or social to include the "absolute totality" of nature or the cosmos. Humanity fulfills itself when it achieves a full understanding of the Being of beings and of humanity's own role in giving expression to and completing that Being. Without man, reality is not authentic, just as it is not (only) a reality of man. Reality is a reality of nature as the absolute totality, independent of man's consciousness but also of his existence. It is a reality of man who as one of nature's components forms in nature a socio-human reality that transcends nature, and who through history defines his place in the universe... .[R]egardless of the variability of man's approach to nature, of all progress in his mastery and knowledge of natural processes, nature abides in permanence as the absolute totality (DC, 151)
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Here Kosik sounds much like Hegel, for whom humanity is the selfconsciousness of the universe. In the moment of complete self-awareness, the universe becomes the absolute, the totality that is fully present to and through itself. For Heidegger, too, humanity's telos is to let beings present themselves other than merely as raw material. Letting the absolute totality be revealed requires something other than industry and technology; it requires instead great philosophy and art, "insubstitutable and irreplaceable. .. [and] inalienable" modes of praxis that help open up the world in which collective and individual praxis can occur (DC, 73). "The totality of the world includes man, with his relation of a finite being to infinity, and with his openness toward Being. Upon this is based the very possibility of language and poetry, of questioning and knowing" (DC, 140). In saying that language and poetry is made possible by man's openness toward Being, Kosik comes close to agreeing with Heidegger's contention that we do not use language, but that instead language uses us to give expression to what is." In his essay, "TheOriginof the Workof Art" (1936), Heidegger argues that the artist is destined to bring forth a work of art that in turn brings forth a world for his people.'* Heidegger describes how a Greek temple, for example, opens up the historical realm in which human actions and deeds take on meaning, and in which the natural order can reveal itself in its independent power and diversity. Kosik echoes such a view when he says that Reality discloses itself to man in great a r t . . . . True art and true philosophy reveal the truth of history: they confront mankind with its own reality. The Greek temple, the medieval cathedral and the Renaissance palace all express reality but they also simultaneously form i t . . . . As perfect works of art, the reality they form is one that transcends the historicity of their respective w o r l d s . . . . [The work of art] forms a world insofar as it discloses the truth of reality, insofar as reality speaks out through the work of art. In a work of art, reality addresses man. (DC, 74my emphasis) Mechanical Marxism, whose view is constricted by the ideal of socialness, regards philosophy as useless and art as a tool for furthering the development of socialness. Yet by behttling art and philosophy, key expressions of the anthropo-cosmic mode of praxis, such Marxism fosters a "false totality" that leads to totalitarianism. In a false totality, all human activity is sucked into the ceaseless drive for greater production as an end in itself. Humanity and the entire planet are consumed in "total mobilization"

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which, in Heidegger's view, is symptomatic of a boundless will to will." When humanity forgets that it is only an element within the absolute totality, though an element that helps complete and give expression to that totality, humanity oversteps its proper limits. Kosik's aim is, in part, to remind us of the limits and obligations, as well as the possibilities, that accrue to us by virtue of our own Being and of our place within the cosmos. Gajo Petrovic is another Eastern European Marxist who thinks that it is possible to discern such a cosmic-ontological perspective in Marx's thought. In a Festschrift for Heidegger, he remarks that If Marx considers man as a free, creative being of praxis, this does not mean that Being is sunk to mere material or the product of this creative activity. Man is really man not insofar as he is alienated from "Nature," but since in him "Nature" (in the sense o physis. Sein) works, and indeed such that in man it surpasses its mere "naturality."" Although sympathetic to Marx's views on alienation and history^', Heidegger concludes that Marx's thought remains anthropocentric and subjectivistic. The notion that man "reproduces" and "creates" himself is, for Heidegger, hubristic. Moreover, in commenting on Marx's thesis that man is the highest being for man, Heidegger claims that "This thesis means nothing else than that, in the doctrine which announces explicitly that man is the highest Being [das Wesen] for man, is grounded and justified finally that Being as Being is nothing {nihil) for man." Marxism is the most extreme form of nihilism, we are told, because it is the most extreme humanism. Erom Heidegger's point of view, Marx's notion of totality leads to the subjugation of all beings by self-centered humankind. Hence, Marx's humanism is the culmination of the history of metaphysics, the understanding of Being that leads to the age of planetary technology.Only if such metaphysical understanding of Being gives way to an alternative, Heidegger proclaims, will humanity be released from the compulsive productivity that constricts humanity's unique openness for the Being of beings. It goes without saying, of course, that the drive for power and "security" by capitahst and socialist states threatens not only the spiritual-ontological life of humanity, but the whole life on earth as well. While Marx urged human beings to act to change the course of history, Heidegger claims that such voluntarism is part of the problem: political action is a reaffirmation of the humanistic will to power. Such action is unavoidable in the current historical epoch, but will never lead us beyond this epoch. Eor Heidegger, the best course of "action" is to prepare ourselves for a shift in our understanding
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of Being, though he offers little reason for hope that such a shift will occur in our needy time. Meanwhile, he adds, we need to act as best we can to improve and sustain the historical world made possible by the metaphysical understanding of Being. The merit of Kosik's work lies in its attempt to find a place for humanity's cosmic-philosophical calling, while also making it clear that only human deeds can open up and sustain the social world in which that calling can be heeded. While many Marxists might disagree with the notion that the highest form of praxis lies in expressing the absolute (natural) totality as well as the social totality, many Heideggerians would caU into question Kosik's emphasis on human action in the formation (and re-formation) of the social world. Heidegger scholars would also ask whether Kosik adequately distinguishes between realityunderstood as the absolute totality, nature, cosmosand Beingunderstood as the self-manifesting or self-presencing of beings. Has Kosik fully grasped the ontological difference between Being and beings? If one reads some parts o Dialectics of the Concrete, one would give an affirmative answer to this question; but if one reads other parts, a negative answer would be forthcoming. Kosik's ontology is not entirely consistent, in part because he was attempting to do what some consider to be impossible, namely, to reconcile Marx's humanism with Heidegger's notion that humanity is in the service of Being. Yet Kosik raises once again the crucial philosophical question, who are we? He suggests that humanity is called on to transcend its merely social limits to give expression to extra-human realitywhether this "reality" is understood in the metaphysical sense as the totality of the natural world, or in Heidegger's sense as the self-disclosure or unconcealment {aletheia) of beings. Kosik adds, however, that such transcendence occurs only within the context provided by an authentic human community. Yet such a community cannot arise merely by building factories and constructing houses. Guidance for such activity can be provided only by the philosophical insight or the work of art that issues from someone who has stepped beyond his or her social conditions and discovered a deeper truth. Human existence both arises from and gives expression to the cosmos. Since this process of coming-forth and letting-be is a dynamic-historical one, no final form or definition can be given to it. Both Marx and Heidegger, each in his own way, recognized that human existence must always remain an issue for itself. Philosophy, then, is the highest form of human life insofar as philosophy explicitly raises the question of the meaning of human life and its place in the cosmos. Whether or not Karel Kosik manages to resolve the issues over which Marxists and Heideggereans continue to differ, he has

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managed to do something more important: to raise the philosophical question about human existence in a provocative and illuminating way. Eor this, we can all be grateful. Newcomb College of Tulane University

EOOTNOTES
1 For a discussion of mechanical or vulgar Marxism, cf. Michael Harrington, The Twitight of Capitatism (New York; Simon and Schuster, 1976). 2 Karel Kosik, Dialectics of the Concrete, trans. Karel Kovanda with James Schmidt, Vol. LII of Boston Studies in the Philosophy of Science, ed. Robert S. Cohen and Marx W. Wartofsky (Dordrecht/Boston; D. Reidel Publishing Company, 1976). References to passages from this book will take the following form; DC, plus the page number. In some quotations, I have taken the liberty of capitalizing the word "Being" to reflect the convention that applies in Heidegger-scholarship. Although Kosik's influence is considerable in European circles, not much has been written about his work in the United States. A helpful exception is James Schmidt's essay, "Praxis and Temporality; Karel Kosik's Political Theory," Telos, 33 (Fall, 1977), 70-84. 3 Kosik's notion of totality is influenced by that of Georg Lukacs, especially as found in his History and Class Consciousness, trans. Rodney Livingstone (Cambridge; MIT Press, 1971). On Kosik's relation to Lukacs, cf. Jan Patocka, "Heidegger vom anderen Ufer," Durchblicke: Martin Heidegger zum 80. Geburtstag (Frankfurt a. M.; Vittorio Klostermann, 1970). 4 Cf. Martin Heidegger, Kant and the Problem of Metaphysics, trans. James S. Churchill (Bloomington; Indiana University Press, 1968). 5 Martin Heidegger, Being and Time, trans. John Macquarrie and Edward Robinson (New York; Harper & Row, 1962), pp. 62, 194-95, 358-64. 6 Ibid., p. 165. 7 Ibid., p. 164. 8 Ibid., p. 224. Cf. my essay, "On Discriminating Everydayness, Unownedness, and Falling in Being and Time," Research in Phenomenology, V (1975), 109-27; cf. also my book Eclipse of the Self: The Development of Heidegger's Concept of Authenticity (AthensOhio University Press, 1981), pp. 43-68. 9 Heidegger, Being and Time, p. 436. 10 Cf. Zimmerman, Eclipse of the Self pp. 175-78. Cf. also Howard B Gold "Praxis- Its Conceptual Development in Aristotle's Niehomachean Ethics," Graduate Facultv Philn. ophy Journal, VI (Winter, 1977), 106-30. ruLutiy j-nttos11 Heidegger, Being and Time, p. 436.

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12 Herbert Marcuse, "Beitrge zur Phnomenologie des Historischen Materialismus," Philosophische Hefte (Berlin), No. 1 (1928), 68. Cf. also Herbert Marcuse, "ber konkrete Philosophie," Archiv fr Sozialwissenschaft und Sozialpolitik (Tbingen), 62 (1929), 111-28. Cf. my essay, "Heideggerand Marcuse: Technology as Ideology," Philosophy and Technology, II (1978), ed. Paul T. Durbin and Carl Mitcham (Greenwich, CT: Jai Press, 1978). 13 For further discussion of the notion of the "destiny of Being," cf. chapters seven and eight of Eclipse of the Self. On the notion that a paradigm shift is needed to lead us out of the current planetary crisis, cf. Morris Berman, The Reenchantment of the World (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1981). 14 S. L. Rubinstein, Printsipi i Put'i Razvit'ia Psikhologii (Moscow: 1959), p. 204. 15 Karl Marx, "Theses on Feuerbach," The Marx-Engels Reader, ed. Robert C. Tucker (New York: W. W. Norton & Company, Inc., 1972), p. 108. My emphasis. For an excellent account of the problem of changing individual character at the same time one is trying to change social structures, cf. Bruce Brown, Marx, Freud, and the Critique of Everyday Life (New York: Monthly Review Press, 1975). 16 Heidegger, Kant and the Problem of Metaphysics. 17 Cf. Martin Heidegger, Hebel: Der Hausfreund (Pfullingen: Gnther Neske, 1958), p. 34: "Authentically, language speaks, not man. Man only speaks insofar as he co-responds to language. 18 Martin Heidegger, "The Origin of the Work of Art," Poetry, Language, Thought, trans. Albert Hofstadter (New York: Harper & Row, 1971). 19 Cf. Martin Heidegger, The Question Concerning Technology, trans. William Lovitt (New York: Harper & Row, 1977). Heidegger's view that instrumental rationality is inherently exploitative of nature is shared by members of the Frankfurt School such as Herbert Marcuse, Theodore Adorno, and Max Horkheimer. Cf. Martin Jay, The Dialectical Imagination (New York: Little, Brown, 1974); William Leiss, The Domination of Nature (Boston: Beacon Press, 1974); Albrecht Wellmer, The Critical Theory of Society, trans. John Cumming (New York: Herder & Herder, 1971); Trent Schroyer, The Critique of Domination (Boston: Beacon Press, 1973); Alfred Schmidt, The Concept of Nature in Marx, trans. Ben Fowkes (London: NLB, 1971). 20 Gajo Petrovic, "Der Spruch des Heideggers'," Durchblicke, p. 432. 21 Cf. Martin Heidegger, "Letter on Humanism," trans. Frank A. Capuzzi in collaboration with J. Glenn Gray, in Basic Writings, ed. David Farrell Krell (New York: Harper & Row, 1977).

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