This article argues that the work of Martin Heidegger is extremely important in understanding Henri Lefebvre's intellectual project. It suggests that Lefebvre's trio of influential thinkers—Hegel, Marx and Nietzsche—are partnered by Heidegger. But this is Heidegger read in a particular way, and subjected to a Marxist critique—turned back on his feet, grounded, made real.

This is pursued in detail through a rereading of Lefebvre's The Production of Space. The two terms in this title need to be examined, and while the importance of space develops a number of insights from Heidegger, the stress on production shows the political and Marxist nature of this research. The Production of Space is therefore situated, and needs to be read, between Marx and Heidegger. The article closes with some comments on the interrelation of history, space and politics, and offers the possibility of a left-Heideggerianism.

Hölderlin's Hymn

Between Marx and Heidegger: Politics, Philosophy and Lefebvre's The Production of Space

Bruno Latour has had a tremendous impact on the field of science studies. Yet, it is not always easy to say what he stands for. Indeed, Latour has often claimed that his work lacks any overall unity. In this essay, I suggest that at least one concept remains constant throughout Latour’s diverse studies of modern science and technology, namely, mediation. I try to make good this claim by focussing on Latour’s numerous attempts over the years to distance himself from, so as to discredit, the philosopher Martin Heidegger. I argue that Latour’s repeated denunciations of Heidegger amount to a systematic tactic of dissimulation: by suppressing the substance of Heidegger’s critique of modern technoscience, Latour directs attention away from the not insignificant weaknesses in his own theory of mediation. Against the backdrop of an appropriately reconstructed Heidegger, Latour’s self-promotion as a radically progressive non-modern thinker cannot be sustained.

Latour’s Heidegger

This chapter introduces Jaspers’ understanding of delusion with regard to the question of comprehensibility and incomprehensibility. After a historical introduction, the characteristic feature of derealization is discussed and related to what Bleuler called “double book-keeping.” Then, the methodological relevance of phenomenology and the similarity between delusional states and phenomenological imagination and bracketing (as emphasized by authors such as Blankenburg) are discussed. Different stances taken toward the world already in the realm of the natural attitude can be described within the Schutzian framework of “multiple realities.” This framework is analyzed with regard to the notion of double book-keeping. It shows that some elements of schizophrenic experience can be seen—in Heideggerian terms—to preserve and reveal something about human authenticity.

Delusion and Double Book-Keeping

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . vi CHAPTER 1. HEIDEGGER, LEVINAS, AND THE PROBLEM OF THE HOMELESS SPIRIT . 1

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Martin Heidegger, Emmanuel Levinas, and the Politics of Dwelling

OF DISSERTATION THE NORMATIVE ARCHITECTURE OF REALITY: TOWARDS AN OBJECT-ORIENTED ETHICS The fact-value distinction has structured and still structures ongoing debates in metaethics, and all of the major positions in the field (expressivism, cognitivist realism, and moral error theory) subscribe to it. In contrast, I claim that the fact-value distinction is a contingent product of our intellectual history and a prime object for questioning. The most forceful reason for rejecting the distinction is that it presupposes a problematic understanding of the subject-object divide whereby one tends to view humans as the sole source of normativity in the world. My dissertation aims to disclose the background against which human ethical praxis is widely seen as a unique and special phenomenon among other phenomena. I show that ethical norms, as delimited by utilitarianism, deontology, virtue ethics, etc., derive from an originary proto-ethical normativity at the heart of the real itself. Every object, human and nonhuman, presents itself as a bottomless series of cues or conditions of appropriateness that determine adequate and inadequate ways of relating to it. That is, objects demand something from other objects if they are to be related to; they condition other objects by soliciting a change in disposition, perception, or sense, and for this reason are sources of normativity in and unto themselves. Ethical norms, or values, are the human expression of the adequacy conditions with which all objects show themselves. In the post-Kantian landscape it is widely thought that human finitude constitutes the origin of ethical norms. Consequently, the world is divided up into morally relevant agents (humans) on one side, and everything else on the other. Adopting a deflationary view of agency, I argue that human-human and human-world relations differ from other relations in degree rather than kind. Thus, instead of a fact-value distinction, value is inextricably bound up with the factual itself. The critical upshot of my project is that traditional subject-oriented ethical theories have served to conceal the real demands of non-human objects (such as animals, plants, microorganisms, and artificially intelligent machines) in favor of specifically human interests. Such theories have also been leveraged frequently in exclusionary practices with respect to different groups within the human community (e.g. women and those of nonEuropean descent) based on arbitrary criteria or principles.

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Hölderlin's Hymn

Citations

Between Marx and Heidegger: Politics, Philosophy and Lefebvre's The Production of Space

Latour’s Heidegger

Delusion and Double Book-Keeping

Martin Heidegger, Emmanuel Levinas, and the Politics of Dwelling

The Normative Architecture of Reality: Towards an Object-Oriented Ethics

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