"Heidegger's Ontology of Work"

by Blok, Vincent (2015)

Abstract

In this chapter, the author shows that Heidegger's ontology of work in the 1930s is already prefigured in Being and Time. With this, the question arises how this prefiguration of the "total" work-character in Being and Time is related to the ontology of work in the 1930s. As Heidegger characterizes human dealing with the world indeed as being-at-work in the work-world, but this inclusiveness of our being-in-the-world is not total. Heidegger's conceptualization of care in terms of work makes clear that Junger initially did not have a negative influence on Heidegger's thought at the beginning of the 1930s, as suggested by Michael Zimmermann, namely the stimulus to develop an alternative for the technological future forecasted by Junger. Heidegger's use of the concept of work in the period 1930–1934 is definitely positively inspired by Junger, although not necessarily completely the same as Junger's.

Key Passage

Following Jünger, Heidegger rejects economic conceptualizations of work and worker, just as conceptualizations of the worker as a class. Heidegger conceptualizes work in the following way: “The word work  is  ambiguous.  It  means  on  the  one  hand  work  as  enactment  of  specific behavior. On the other hand, it means work as a product, the result or success of this enactment. According to this broad and doubled meaning, all human behavior, provided that it is  about something, is  work and  care.”   (p.70)

Keywords

Heidegger, Ontology, Pragmatism, Relationality, Being, Junger, Zimmermann

Themes

On Jünger, On Heidegger

Links to Reference

• https://www.pdcnet.org/heideggerstud/content/heideggerstud_2015_0031_0109_0128
• http://dx.doi.org/10.5840/heideggerstud2015315

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