Incarnate Sociality: Heidegger and Dasein-with
The contribution of gender dynamics to Heidegger’s social ethic of Dasein
Due to the sojourning nature of Dasein, it is impossible for human being to be constantly authentic, constantly intentional in every action completed. Yet a state of being genuine, being as one is, should ideally accompany every action a person does. Finding that our freedom as human beings to make decisions which are genuine or authentic is not entirely situated in originality but is affect by other factors, such as those which are primordial to Dasein: the work-world and the social-world. Seeking an ontology of Dasein’s being, the trueness of Dasein’s possibilities, I am taking Heidegger up on his challenge of tradition: deconstructing part of his analysis of being through Dasein in the social world, and seeking to actualize the need for the social world in conjunction with a full understanding of being. If Dasein is primordially with others, then even in the work world, one finds oneself relation and engaging other Dasein, which aids in one’s understanding of one’s own being. By noting Heidegger’s omission of the positive influences of the ‘they’ world as well as contradictory interpretation of being as fundamentally with other human beings, I intend to demonstrate that Heidegger objectified Dasein by defaulting to a value of work over persons completing the work.
(1)Though a discussion of Dasein through Ricoeur’s model of being, composed of two axis, self and others, rather than a focus on individuality, I will discuss the necessity of complementary gender tensions to a complete understand of the being of Dasein. (2) Through surveying historical gender conflict, (a) patriarchical suppression of women and (b) feminist suppression of womanhood by adopting male roles for women or rejecting the dignity of manhood, I will continue the theme of objectification by discussion how the objectification of women by both men and women has led to creation of a theoretical ‘they’ world in which one can lose personal identity by performing a gender role. Finally, I will suggest that (3) it is only in respecting the differences that allow for interaction and personal formation between the genders that objectification of Dasein (male or female) can be avoided by determining men and women to be ‘equal but different.’ Such a philosophy of gender relations, based upon the Christian anthropology that man and woman were both created different in the image of God, will permit me to conclude that embodiment of sexual stereotypes is not necessary, but that male and female differences should be embraced, rather than trying to hold one to the standard of the other to be considered equal in human dignity.
I. Heidegger in Relation to Social Being and Gender:
A. Dasein in Ricoeurian Model, a lack of positive sociality:
Noting in Being and Time that the Being in analysis “is in each case mine,”[1] and is incommunicabilis, for I cannot assign the action of my life, because it is inherent in my being to live out. Since Dasein is fundamentally what it is now as well as its future possibilities, where I am in relation to the social world in which I find myself primordially thrown is characterized both by where my relationships with others stand now, and the possibilities each of those relationships has for the future. Since Dasein is constituted by care, a basic sort of being-in-the-world, a caring one, indicates a primordial sense of relationship and concern for other Dasien. The self is considered “’only’ as a way of Being of [Dasein]”[2] in the social world, in which actions and interactions between Dasein become functions for discovering the Being of Dasein
|
Idem |
|
Ipse |
rather than the value of the Being of the other as part of self. Employing the Ricoeurian definition of the self as composed of two axis in being-towards-others, a fundamentally different kind of relationship between two Dasein as differing from that of Dasein and any Thing is permitted. To attempt to structure a social ethic of Dasein from the sparse and overwhelmingly negative Heideggarian opinion of sociality would produce an incomplete model of self, so Heidegger’s Dasein will be discussed in light of Ricoeur’s model.
Ricoeurian social ethic fundamentally differs from the Heideggarian anthropology in regards to the loss of self in the ‘they’ world. While a Heideggarian anthropology would suggest that ‘ipse without idem’ (self without others) is more authentic and unconfused by the ‘they’ world, Ricoeur regards the loss of ‘they’ or ‘other’ as a loss of both personal identity and temporal self.[3]
This fundamental difference of Dasein-Dasein relations as different from those between Dasein and an object of being with is ready to hand by these two axis if idem and ipse within the being of Dasein. By a break between self (ipse) and same (idem), Dasein is able to call itself before itself in question of its own being. The axis ipse calls my own being before myself, allowing me to become self-aware, though “this self-awareness is not self-understanding as such, or an appreciation of the meaning of oneself; but it is a prompt to self-understanding.”[4] Determining that the ipse prompts and understanding of self beyond the solitary conception of “I”, one realizes the social need of others to permit Dasein a genuine, authentic picture of self. Recognizing Heidegger’s tenant that Dasein is primordially situated within world, an “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’.”[5] Finding oneself thrown into a world with others, Dasein’s condition of primordially with other Beings prevents understanding of the human experience apart from others.
Yet while authentic Being-one’s-Self is not solitary, Heidegger paints a very negative pictures of the relational situation in which Dasein is tied: “Dasein’s falling into the ‘they’ and the ‘world’ of its concern, is what we have called a ‘fleeing; in the face of itself.”[6] Turning away from itself, Dasein necessarily turns towards others, which is pejoratively laden in Being and Time with such connotations as anxiety and fear. Dasein ‘falls’ into such states of being as lost in the ‘theyness’ of the social world, fleeing not from some thing within its world, but interacting with an entity that “has the same kind of Being as the one that shrinks back.”[7] It is the idem of Dasein, this shared sense of Being that is threatened by its very own sort of being, a fellow human. Characterizing the possibilities of future possibilities in light of this shared Being, Heidegger indicates that fellow existence with humans in the social world, Being-in-the world as such, is characterized not only by care, but anxiety.
Finding this idem part of the identity which Ricoeur proposes for the self, a sameness and unity with other Dasein in a social sense, neglected and considered detrimental in Heidegger, one discovers Heidegger’s conception of self to be completely limited to the ipse identity. Heidegger’s emphasis on individuality colors others in the negative light of ‘they,’ an everyday source in which to lose authentic self. Even by denoting a certain mode of social function, that of ‘Dasein-with,’[8] Heidegger suggests an inauthentic mode of being human is necessary to function with others Noting Heidegger’s negative regard to the part of personal being which operates in the social world, confusion as to the formative function of society in shaping Dasein through relationship becomes apparent. While Heidegger insists, despite a critical view of social positivity, that persons cannot be treated as “Thinglike and substantial being,” an object, because human beings have essentially different constitutions from Things,[9] his profound neglect of discussion of social function suggests an objectification of the social world by default.
Heidegger objectifies being in the social world of Dasein by removing the natural social actions discussed in Being and Time such as idle chatter (gossip), play, and art to functions within the work world. By stating that “essentially the person exists only in the performance of intentional acts, and is therefore essentially not an object,”[10] Heidegger demonstrates how persons in the social world must act socially to be considered persons, not things. Yet in his imbalanced consideration of Dasein, Heidegger has removed the social actions natural to the with-world, reducing persons objects at the mercy of public manipulation. Noting that publicness is obscured by the ‘they’ through its constant presence of being alongside, Heidegger considers society to have subsumed Dasein’s agency, rendering him “disburdened” of necessary cares in life,[11] now merely a social object. It is this sort of social objectification which I am addressing within this essay; claiming that human beings are rendered more aware of self, not less, through social relations. While gender complementarity is one of the characteristics of the idem self into which Dasein finds itself thrown, Heidegger neglects this discussion with many of the positive developments of the social world.
B. Sexuality as an Ignored Trait of Dasein:
Before embarking on the quest for the being of woman as different, but relating to the being of man, it is necessary to first introduce me use of the terms “gender” and “sex” in relation to Heidegger’s discussion of Being in Dasein. Gender as defined for my purposes as a relationship with beings (denoted as “others”) discovers distinction and particularity through being with others. Self is known through others, but self is also lost through others, as Heidegger proposes by the thrownness of Dasein to “others”: Noting that a primordial essence of Dasein is its everydayness, Heidegger notes that there is no way to separate the everyday state of with others from the world of others: “In it, out of it, and against it, all genuine understanding, interpreting, and communicating all re-discover and appropriating anew, are performed.”[12] Thus Dasein in its first instant of being is incapable of knowing itself apart from its first-discovered state of existence, which is wholly determined by Dasein’s state of “Being-in-the-world.” Heidegger notes that this state of “in world” is permeated by “the public,” so that Dasein has been conditioned from the first to know itself in a context defined by that frame of Dasein which is other to itself. Gender is this context which Dasein finds itself thrown into, and out of the mass of public, Dasein must decipher its being in the context of gender—i.e., discover its mode of being-in-the-world as definitively male or female, particular to self– through the publicly assigned construct of gender.
In regards to gender and sexual being, then, gender is the state in which being first discovers itself, the means socially determined by the public world of how Dasein is expected to conduct itself. Understanding gender as primordial to being-in-the-world, which in the state of everydayness is where Dasein first comes before itself, one must recognize gender as a characteristic particular to the state of being-with other Dasein. Sex, on the other hand, is particular to Dasein as my own, a primordial state of being in which no state of Being-with Dasein is necessary. As Heidegger asserts that Being-with is as innate a quality of Dasein as Being-in-the-world, and as I have assigned gender to the interactions of Dasein within the public world, it must be distinguished that due to the relative nature of gender, gender interactions are not uniform throughout universal state of being-with of Dasein. For example, if one were to grow up raised by wolves and live solely in the jungle, as Mowgli of Ruyard Kipling’s The Jungle Book is known to have done, one’s being will retain the quality of being-with other dasein, but one will not understand the concept of gender, which is distinguished to the world of Dasein.
Having discussed the social when attempting to discern the being of woman, as distinct from the being of men, it is important to consider the world of gender into which woman finds herself. As Heidegger notes the temporal quality of Dasein, that category of being embracing both degrees of humanity, male and female, history is one of the contributing factors to current gender constructs. Especially in uncovering the being of woman, history evidences the interaction of male and female as subject and object, creating a type for the being of woman that was lost in the public definition of male hierarchy. Confusing the distinction between gender and sex, historically, a woman’s “’sex’ is thus expressed by her ‘gender’ which is then fully known and consecrated”[13] as her way of being-in-the-world. Why must the question of the historical treatment of women be asked at all? Heidegger would not provide a suitable answer to such question, for in evading the question of gender, Heidegger ignores the ethical discussion of being-to-being relationship within the co-world, for which he is criticized by Levinas, who was deeply influenced by Heidegger, on his overly individualistic celebration of existence.[14]
While Heidegger attempts to define a neutral potentiality in the primordial existence of being, neglecting the ethical quality intrinsic to human beings. Levinas’ discussion of ethics as essential to being[15] resurrects the concept of justice as intrinsic to human nature, which will be crucial to my discussion of the historical distinction of female sex versus gender. For Levinas, however, feminine is omitted from philosophical ethics[16], which contradicts his tenants of justice, merely replicating “ patriarchal structures that feminists have challenged” for years and years, defining woman as the other, or in Levinain terminology, “alertity[17].”[18] Noting the contribution of Levinas’ philosophy to interactions between Dasein defined as face-to-face, enhancing Heidegger’s very impersonal pervasion of co-existence, I will employ Levinas’ language of face-to-face while also adding to my discussion of Heideggarian theory of dasein’s being in relation to other dasein; in addition, I will alter Levinas’ conception of alterity to include women, not as forgotten “others,”[19] which is unethical by today’s consideration of human existence, but as co-experiencing this sense of ethical discovery in oppositeness to another human being (by way seeing the reflection of one’s own potentiality in the being of a person that is not one’s own). Thus employing Heidegger’s discussion of lostness of self-being in gender and Levinas’ self-exemplifying concept of women as the other, seeking to assert themselves as equally other with men, I will turn to brief historical account of how the being of woman has been subjected as object and other with regards to male being.
In presenting the historical picture of female being, I will discuss how the objectification and relegation of women as “other” to male normality indicate the presence of relationship, as well as the unjust influences of anti-feminine (anti-feminine indicating an inequality in bias of male favor within the public sphere) gender constructions into which the female being still finds herself thrown, and to which extreme feminism has arisen as a negative reaction. Indicating that two wrongs don’t right an unjust public conception of female being, perhaps even if my concluding response to both the historical picture of woman and that of extreme feminism is insufficient in its own right, it will provide a third wrong, adding balance to two polar perspectives of woman’s being through biology. While bodies are the central landscape through which social interaction occurs,[20] objectification of female body alienates the genders from authentic relationship with the other, ultimately alienating one from a true understanding of self. Consideration of personhood should not be divorced from the physical body into which one finds oneself thrown (seen in patriarchal objectification of woman), nor totally focused upon the body of self to the exclusion of the other (the fault of extreme feminism) because such are objectifications of Dasein’s being into Thing versus person.
II. Patriarchy and Feminism: Reverse Objectifications of the Female Being:
A. Patriarchal Domination of the Female Being through Anatomical Differences:
Throughout the course of Western history, the context in which Heidegger’s philosophy was born, an intensely male hierarchical system of gender defined the spatial and relational contexts in which a woman was permitted to explore the possibility of her being. In his work Making Sex: Body and Gender from the Greeks to Freud, Thomas Laqueur recounts the sensitive discovery of the female anatomy in the male world and the manner in which the biological structure of woman’s body has been interpreted through male terms through the dominance of man in the public arena. Defining a woman in terms of her sexual and reproductive capacities suggests the Levinian projection of “other” to the being of woman as a sex-object to men leads one to question “imperatives of culture or the unconscious dictated language of sex, of how the female body was defined and differentiated from the male’s.”[21] Lacquer writes to show the effect of culture on assumptions about sex, leading to social gender roles, demonstrates how the men tell a woman how she is to be; and somehow it all comes back to sex. “Whatever one thought about woman and their rightful place in the world could, it seemed, be understood in terms of bodies endlessly open to the interpretive demands of culture,” Lacquer says.[22]
Understanding male-determined “facts” about female bodies as the foundations for Western societal construct[23], the overarching theme of bodies determining social value, which translates into the power and control exerted over women. When speaking of Western society, then in its historical context (i.e., through the feminist revolution leading up to current day gender politics and conceptions), this essay will assume the normalcy of male-biased distinctions between the sexes. Recognizing the inherent equation of gender with sex in Western society in which biological sexuality is transformed “into products of human activity,”[24] it is crucial to comprehend the danger of looking towards the physical body as a central reference for female identity. The historical concept of men judging women to be inferior because of different physicality has relegated women to narrow channels of exploring identity under the construct of gender roles in both the public and private spheres of society. Briefly overviewing these limitations, I will illuminate the female social rebellion in terms of embracing or rejecting the feminine body as that which is primordially, existentially encountered in the quest for understanding the being of oneself in the world
From the time of the Greeks, though each specific cultural allotted its women different freedoms and constraints, “a woman’s primary duty was to produce male heirs.”[25] This distinctly sexual qualification of feminine being was evidenced in female relegations to the sphere of the private world. Prohibited from owning property, holding public offices, or voting, the majority of women found themselves placed in . Beginning in the Greek west, male philosophy idealizing reason and intellect polarized “’male’ self-control and its opposite, a convulsive violence, associated with ‘womanish’ lack of self restraint”[26] introduced the idea of male necessity for female comprehension which would later influence Christian Anthropology. While commonly limited to the private sphere of life in Greek society, women were permitted more autonomy in the none-the-less patriarchal society of Rome. Adopting Greek ideals of reason, Roman society perpetuated the belief that femininity was weak and unable of its own accord, assigning women in position of influence to the supervision of a man[27]. This sexual definition of women continued in the pervasion of Christian belief, which greatly influenced later gender politics to which the feminist movement revolted.
In the ancient construct of normalized male being, women were not entirely powerless to define their being through the minimalized conception of femininity. The Church in antiquity, transitioning between an era of martyrs and persecution to being the socio-political authority itself, permitted women to transcend the stigma of female being by becoming ‘male.’ Any strong or virtuous action demonstrated on the part of a woman was not characterized as a part of the woman’s female nature, but rather she was regarded as having transcended feminine depravity to be in essence “the self-same as men.”[28] Thus the essence of being and the physical body were divorced, reflecting biological conception of the female body as that of an inverted male.[29] This in antiquity, the male was seen as the only true human (i.e. the only image of God),[30] and female merely a deficient male. These renderings determining female being as a corrupted expression of male being on biological bases emphasized the similarities between male and female reproductive systems in order to evidence the inferiority of the being of woman to that of man. A one-sex mentality of being in terms of male biology continued to demean women through the medieval and Renaissance eras of western society.
However, as Lacquer notes, “The cultural politics of at least two genders is never in equilibrim with the ‘biology,’ or alternative cultural politics, of one sex,” insisting that a two-sex conception of human being allows for an equally enculturated definition of female being from within a male hierarchy of biology. The Enlightenment period saw an evolution of two sexes as a further result of scientific innovation and a new emphasis on scholasticism. Determining that self as a thinking subject according to Catersian philosophy was the androgynous mind rather than body, a new explanation for the differences in man and woman was derived from biological differences in sexual function[31]. Since empirical evidence was no longer deemed a determination of the worth of female self, biology became a tool to disclose the bar women from the public sphere, reinstating a male hierarchy through different means: pregnancy and menstruation[32]. During these two cyclic functions of the female body, men deemed women incapable of public performance, thus “naturally” dependant upon the superior male biological function for political voice. Tired of being ogled as sexual objects under male dominance of political female personhood, women initiated “the feminist discourse of difference”[33] in search of a voice by which to define themselves.
B. Feminist Obscuring of the Being of Woman Apart from Men:
Through the historical dialog of female being, it is crucial to note that in the case of a patriarchy where women were deemed biologically deficient to men as well as in post-Enlightenment thought where “self” was conceptual rather than corporeal, female being was still subjugated to male objectivity on the basis of physicality. Western society has remained lodged in initial experience of lostness, which is found in the everyday Being-in-the-world, and has consequently lost any means of understanding woman apart from her body. While social revolutions have attempted to allow women being apart from an assigned social category, the existential Being of woman is difficult for males to overlook when considering the whole of her self. Suggesting that the body is a crucial element to understanding the being of woman, though not the exclusive factor which lies at her disposal, the female body having been mutilated as an object of male projection for centuries. Tracing the historical context into which the modern feminist movement was born, women as defining women apart from men arises not only in a biological sense, but to the abandonment an essential self.
Initially, women began defining our being in the feminist movement on the very tenants against which they were being compared: physiological difference to men. Quoting Dame Millicent Fawcett, Laqueur notes the females desire to represent women not “because there is no difference between men and women; but rather because of the difference between them.”[34] Since the Victorian conception male and female propagated by feminists has evolved towards a denial of an essential being of self, the psychic subject is considered androgynous, rejecting physiological indications of definitive sexuality. Having rejected the male proposition of defining woman and the female gender role by existential difference, feminism in its most extreme sense questions the justice of not only gender, but sexual distinctions. Initially reacting to male-gendered supremacy, feminism seeks to define woman by woman, rejecting the need for female interaction with male in female self-discovery. In surveying the arguments of modern feminism, I will show the deficiencies of solely defining female being by women, requiring both the physiological differences/similarities of men and women as well as the essential differences.
Viewing essentialism as an appeal “to a pure or original femininity, a female essence, outside the boundaries of the social and thereby untainted (though perhaps repressed) by a patriarchal order,”[35] feminists view essentialism as a threat to the autonomy of female expression. The unifying generalization feminism employs in some of its liberating principles for the being of woman is perceived as a burden which disallows individuation, thus producing a similar power hierarchy as the patriarchal misogyny feminism is attempting to critique. Rejecting a unified concept of essential womanhood, feminism becomes deconstructive in defining both gender and sexuality. Noting “gender is separate from biology and takes shape in concrete, historically changing social relationships,”[36] current feminist scholarship rejects a dichotomy between woman’s sex and gender, though maintaining an earlier argument that the being of woman is not destined to a specific role by her biological sex. Arguing that even sexual differences in the biology of male and female are socially constructed, woman is forced to look for an understanding of being beyond any relation to an other, the difference and attraction of male gender.
Before the whole rejection of male can be comprehended in the feminist understanding of female being, the foundations of feminist conception of being must be more closely examined. For the feminist, the concept of “self” being an intrinsic identity rooted in an inner psychic depth is non-existent, but rather woman exists as “subject” apart from the perceivably social constructs of sex and gender[37]. Butler claims that what Western society has sought to identify as the being of self can only be definitively identified when being is divided into two parts: self and other (for other is needfully rejected in order to discern particularities of self). If self is inherently identified in sexual particularity of woman to man, for instance, feminism equates the sexual identity of woman as typified as dependent upon socially constructed (in the case of the west, male-constructed) gender roles. Noting that historical misogyny of women by men became naturalized through “being constructed as an inner or physical necessity”[38] to adhere to gender constructs, Rubin rejects psyche as an inner depth definition of human being as confining to male, hierarchical demands of woman’s being in sexuality.
With the rise of the sexual revolution of women to gain equality with men, feminism has taken on forms in varying range, the most drastic of which seeks to define women apart from the existence of men—women as defined by women alone. This branch of radical feminism is popular in advocacy of Lesbianism, which as particular to women, will be included in my address of the identity of a female being. The Lesbian movement tends in the most extreme strains, side with queer theory in supposing that there is no essential self in terms of sexual identity, but rather an androgynous being exists to which one must formulate gender. Judith Butler questions, “If a sexuality is to be disclosed, what will be taken as the true determinant of its meaning: the phantasy structure, the act, the orifice, the gender, the anatomy?”[39] Questioning the origins of the sex identity behind the gender, Butler notes that none of these qualities are sufficient to identify sexuality, because a full-disclosure of sexuality is not discernable from action.[40] But are women able to define woman without the presence of man? If woman is independent of the definitions of womanhood postulated by male misogyny in order to subdue or subjugate in order to feel some sense of power, how indeed is woman indefinaeable apart from man?
Supposing that engendered action does not form the type of sexuality in which one finds one’s identity, I propose to define the being of woman in contract to the feminist theory of women defined by women, entering the conversation of gender politics by asserting that the sexes cannot be understood apart from one another through discussion of the historical sense in which women have been understood, the feminist premise by which the being of woman is comprehended, and formulating a distinctly biblical theological philosophy as to the nature of woman, created equal but different from man in the image of God. Both patriarchal misogyny women and female objectification of self in response to male objectification both focus the entirety of the genders’ sexual identity on the genitals, which “is a sign of alienated sexuality.”[41] Recognizing the deep misunderstandings that have led to objectification not only of women, but also of men; this social inauthenticity leads to gender constructs referred to in Heideggarian term as lostness in the ‘they;’ Theorizing that objectification can only be avoided through equal ethical treatment of women with men, the differences between the sexes cannot be overlooked as crucial factors producing the relationship of self to others which discloses the self of Dasein to itself.
III. Equal But Different: Women in Relation With Men
|
Female |
|
Male |
Articulating my position as an expansion of Heidegger’s discussion of the being of Dasein through Levinas’ alterity as well as Ricoeur’s dual-axis self, I contest both the biological conclusions of patriarchical though that women are inferior to men because of biology or intellect as well as feminist assertions that separate women from men as objectifications which seek to eradicate the unity of difference natural to human sexual ethics. As Heidegger voices, the human condition into which we are born, male or female sex, is not a result of conscious choice of the will, but we find ourselves thrown into bodies, thus automatic identities and forms of relating between the genders. To separate one gender as superior to the other on the basis of sexual function is to objectify not one, but both genders, which even a weak Heideggarian ethic. From the Levinasian perspective, objectification is unethical, because the other is a subject, which must call forth my self into its potentiality. Ricoeur’s theory of self can also be employed to reject the objectification of women as ‘Things’ because if “self” includes both similarities and differences, applied to gender, the idem (being “same”) corresponds with the gender which one is complimentary to one’s own gender, while ispe is the same gender as oneself.
Understanding the sameness of the idem-identity as not selfhood, but distinct from individual identity, Ricoeur suggests that “selfhood of oneself implies otherness to such an intimate degree that one cannot be thought of without the other, that instead passes into the other.”[42] Since the idem-identity is based on the sense of sameness, I have suggested that in terms of gender, the complementarity of the opposite sexes in relationship provides a ‘complete’ picture of humanity in the image of God (though it is theologically valid to speak of individuals as ‘complete’) in terms of interpersonal relationships. If one were to argue the ‘one-body’ anthropology of antiquity, male and female could be seen as two varying perspectives on the shared condition of humanity: e.g., while the female body is not a deficient variation on the male, woman was taken out of man in the Garden of Eden. Arguing the Edenic depiction of humankind, one man and one woman created from one being and separated in sexuality, complementarity dictates that a unique unity which, though celibacy is equally as fulfilling to the Christian teaching that ever soul longs for unity with God, offers a singular image of God:
The fact that man “created as man and woman” is the image of God means not only that each of them individually is like God, as a rational and free being. It also means that man and woman, created as a “unity of the two” in their common humanity, are called to live in a communion of love, and in this way to mirror in the world the communion of love that is in God… [43]
Maintaining the argument that social unity is possible only with the fact of difference, objectification becomes not only the depersonalization of the being of a fellow Dasein, but also an attempt to make that with is other the same as self. Complementary relationships evoke a sense of one’s true state of thrownness through recognition and interaction with the other, finding qualities and care evoked for the other that would not arise from a world filled with sameness. If man and woman were really separated from the first body of mankind, then unity of two presents a more authentic unity than two of the same sex. Since the physiological capacity of human unity most readily presents itself as evidence of the mutually beneficial relationship of one sex to another, I will conclude with a consideration of the equal dignity of the two sexes in light of, not in spite of, their different biological capacities, focusing on woman.
While gynocentric feminism argued for the superiority of woman over man because of her biological capacity to nurture and bring forth life into the world, the male role in the producing and nurturing life is undeniable. Avoiding a reductionistic consideration that values the male and female Dasein because of their reproductive sexual functions, I propose that there is a deeper metaphysical difference to the gendered interactions of men and women who, acting as ‘other’ to one another, draw into awareness an authentic understand of the being of oneself, more of the self than interactions with the same gender. Avoiding objectification of woman as seen in feminist and patriarchal politicizations of sexuality, Ricoeur’s model of the self contributes in my proposition that unity requires difference, and thus one gender should not be depersonalized for the sake of the other—in the end, both sexes deserve equal human dignity fulfilling difference capacities, both sexual and beyond the biology of the human person.
[1] Heidegger, Martin. Being and Time. Trans. John Macquarrie and Edward Robingson. New York: Harper & Row, Publishers, Inc. 1962. 67.
[2] Heidegger, 153.
[3] Suzuki, Shigeru. A release from ‘personal identity’ and ‘temporal self’-A therapeutic attitude toward Multiple Personality Disorder. Japanese Journal of Phychopathology. Vol. 24; No.2;Pg.145-159(2003). 20 November 2008. <http://sciencelinks.jp/j-east/article/200321/000020032103A0636854.php>.
[4] Jensen, Michael. “What is ‘The Self’ Anyway?” The Blogging Parson: Theology Ethics Literature Politics. 28 March 2008. 24 November 2008. <http://mpjensen.blogspot.com/2008/03/what-is-self-anyway.html>.
[5] Heidegger, 344.
[6] Ibid., 230.
[7] Ibid., 230.
[8] Ibid., 156.
[9] Ibid., 73. Since persons are no things, neither “can the Being of a person be entirely absorbed into being a subject of rational acts which follow certain laws. The person is not a Thing, not a substance, not an object…” implying that “’an act is never also an object; for it is essential to the Being of acts that they are Experiences only in their performance itself and given in reflection…’ Essentially the person exists only in the performance of intentional acts, and is therefore essentially not an object. Any psychical Objectification of acts, and hence any way of taking them as something psychical, is tantamount to depersonalization… psychical being has nothing to do with personal Being. Acts get performed; the person is a performer of acts.”
[10] Ibid., 73.
[11] Ibid., 165.
[12] Heidegger, Martin. Being and Time. Trans. John Macquarrie and Edward Robingson. New York: Harper & Row, Publishers, Inc. 1962. 213.
[13] Bulter, Judith. “Imitation and Gender Insubordination,” Inside/Out: Lesbian Theories, Gay Theories. Diana Fuss, 1991. As reprinted in The Lesbian & Gay Studies Reader, 1993, Routledge. 317.
[14] Katz, Claire Elise and Laura Tout. Emmanuel Levinas: Critical Assessments of Leading Philosophers. London and New York: Routledge, 2004. 134.
[15] Padgett, Andrew. “Dasein and the Philosopher: Responsibility in Heidegger and Mamardashvili,” Philosophy, Sociology and Psychology, Vol. 6 (2007): 11-2. 20 October 2008. <http:// facta.junis.ni.ac.yu/pas/pas2007/pas2007-01.pdf>.
[16] Rev. of Time, Death, and the Feminine: Levinas with Heidegger, by Tina Chanter. Stanford University Press (2001). 21 October 2008. < http://www.sup.org/book.cgi?id=1225>.
[17] According to Hirst, by “alterity,” Levinas is indicating a specifically human state that is beyond or above being apart from the being of Dasein. This absolute state of alterity can only be accessed through the face of a human person, which radiates this sense of alterity that pervades the entire human person. Since human beings cannot access their own faces, Hirst points out, the person through which one encounters alterity always seems more transcendent than the self. This concept extends beyond Heidegger’s sense of the primordial sense of Being-with which belongs to Dasein, manifesting a need for “others” in the sense of determining one’s ethical position is dependant on the reflection of one’s own transcendence in others.
[18] Conque, Andrea Danielle. “ Heidegger, Levinas and the Feminine.” (MA thesis, Louisiana State University and Agricultural and Mechanical College, 2002),19-22.
[19] Hirst, Angela. “Levinas Separates the (Hu)man from the Non(Hu)man, Using Hunger, Enjoyment, and Anxiety to Illuminate Their Relationship,” Cosmos and History: The Journal of Natural and Social Philosophy, Vol. 3, No. 1, 2007. 160. 21 October 2008. <http://www.cosmosandhistory.org/index.php/journal/article/viewFile/39/86>.
[20] Isherwood, Lisa. The Power of Erotic Celibacy: Queering Heteropatriarchy. Queering Theology Series. New York: London: T&T Clark, 2006. 5.
[21] Laqueur, Thomas. Making Sex: Body and Gender from the Greeks to Freud. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1990. 222.
[22] Laqueur, Thomas. 217.
[23] Ibid., 207.
[24] Rubin, Gayle. “The Traffic in Women: Notes on the ‘Political Economy’ of Sex,” Feminist Anthropology: A Reader. Ellen Lewin, Ed. Blackwell Publishing: Malden, 2006. 88-106.
[25] Lewall, Sarah, and Maynard Mack, eds. Norton Anthology of World Masterpieces: The Western Tradition, Vol. 1: Literature of Western Culture Through the Renaissance. 5th ed. New York:W. W. Norton & Company, 1987. 22 October 2008. <http://www.wwnorton.com/college/english/nawest/content/overview/ancient.htm>.
[26] Brown, Peter. The Body and Society: Men, Women, and Sexual Renunciation in Early Christianity. New York: Columbia University Press, 1988. 12.
[27] Ibid., 13.
[28] Cloke, Gillian. This Female Man of God: Women and Spiritual Power in the Patristic Age, AD 350-450. London and New York: Routledge, 1995. 212.
[29] Laqueur, Thomas. Making Sex: Body and Gender from the Greeks to Freud. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1990. 61-113.
[30] Cloke., 212-13. Women were considered to be second-thought on the part of God, rendering women legitimately second class in Christian antiquity to the superior spirituality of men.
[31] Lacqueur., 154-5.
[32] Ibid., 195-6.
[33] Ibid., 197.
[34] Laqueur., 197.
[35] Fuss, Diana. Essentially Speaking: Feminism, Nature and Difference. New York and London: Routledge, 1989. 2. 23 October 2008. <http://www.athabascau.ca/courses/wmst/266/appendix.htm>.
[36] Cavanaugh, Cathy. “Overview of the Course: Appendix A. “Women’s Studies 266: Thinking from Women’s Lives: An Introduction to Women’s Studies. Athabasca University. Independent Studies Course, created 19 October 2007. Accessed 23 October 2008. <http://www.athabascau.ca/courses/wmst/266/appendix.htm>.
[37] Bulter, Judith. “Imitation and Gender Insubordination,” Inside/Out: Lesbian Theories, Gay Theories. Diana Fuss, 1991. As reprinted in The Lesbian & Gay Studies Reader, 1993, Routledge. 317.
[38] Bulter. “Imitation and Gender Insubordination.” 317.
[39] Bulter. “Imitation and Gender Insubordination,” 310.
[40] Ibid., 315. Bulter expresses in her article the purely imaginative “imitation” of gender, asserting that gender-specific actions are merely unrealistic heterosexual ideals embodied through an acting out of the ideals, which is in fact erects a hierarchy of value in which heterosexuality is able to draw a subject-object relationship to homosexuality, allowing for the minimization of those who claim the homosexual identity. As this article is paper is not expressly addressing heterosexual women in comparison with homosexual women, but posits the more intrinsic belief of internal feminine nature, Butler’s remarks are used in support of the social construct of gender rather than questioning the heterosexual/homosexual categories of orientation.
[41] Isherwood, 71.
[42] Ricoeur, Paul. Oneself as Another, Kathleen Blamey, Trans. Chicago: London: The University of Chicago Press, 1992. 3.
[43] John Paul. Mulieris dignitatem : apostolic letter of the Supreme Pontiff John Paul II on the dignity & vocation of women on the occasion of the Marian Year Catholic Truth Society, London : 1988. 29 November 2008. <http://www.vatican.va/holy_father/john_paul_ii/apost_letters/documents/hf_jp-ii_apl_15081988_mulieris-dignitatem_en.html>. n. 3, 7
