MA Defence: Mikhail Klimis, Philosophy

Attuned by Rage in Heidegger’s Enframing: A Diagnostic and Ethical Response to The Environmental Crisis

Mikhail Klimis

Supervisor: Matthias Fritsch

ABSTRACT: Following Heidegger, this paper aims to diagnose our contemporary fundamental attunement as rage (Ingrimm). I argue that, (i) it is plausible to read Heidegger as positioning rage as the basic mood or disposition of what he calls ‘enframing’ (Gestell), and (ii), with and beyond Heidegger, through rage, humans being can become attuned to a responsibility that points beyond ‘enframing.’ In using Heidegger to diagnose the state of our time, I remain in close proximity to his thought. I begin by mapping the development of Heidegger’s notion of attunement through an explication of the major works in which it is discussed. I then outline Heidegger’s diagnosis of our contemporary situation in which the technological mode of revealing dominates all others, resulting in the world being primarily disclosed to the human being as calculable, operationalizable resource. I attempt to show how enframing’s challenge to challenge-forth entities results in the experience of a form of subjectivity which denies our dependency on being and other beings. I then attempt to show that Heidegger’s concept of rage seeks to capture the disposition that results from this experience. Through the experience of rage, we are offered the opportunity to pay attention to the fact that there is something calling and driving us that is not entirely under our own control. This is followed by an explication of Heidegger’s “originary ethics,” grounding our responsibility in noticing, becoming attentive to, and comporting ourselves in accordance with the so-called call of being. Thus, through the experience of rage, we are given the opportunity to heed our responsibility to recollect and think being. This serves as the first step towards addressing the ecological consequences of enframing.

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