Is There No King but Custom?

Abstract

Hubert L. Dreyfus’ interpretation of Heidegger’s existential analytic of Dasein results in a communitarian understanding of human sociality, ethics, and politics. My contention is that, despite Dreyfus’ own best intentions for a communal toleration based on an ontological relativism and openness, his reading of social practices as embedded and therefore beyond reason must result in a fundamental division between cultures that cannot be bridged by rational means. According to my own interpretation of Heidegger’s politics, this conclusion is disturbing, because it echoes — albeit unintentionally —Heidegger’s attack on Enlightenment liberalism and his support for a politics of finite situatedness, a politics characterized by polemos, that is, confrontation and the harsh differentiation of one community from another. I contend that Dreyfus’ ontological communitarianism undermines the view that reason in ethics and politics can allow us to transcend our finitude and resolve our differences through a rational process, and that therefore an actual politics based on his principles will end up destroying the very openness he supports. I conclude by suggesting that we need to reconcile reason with finitude in a nuanced dialectic.