Una riflessione sul Mitsein: da Heidegger a Jean-Luc Nancy

Abstract

This article focuses on the fundamental background of the Mitsein ontology. The first part of the essay is specifically devoted to those paragraphs of Sein und Zeit that had been most fundamental to the development of Heidegger’s explanation of Mitsein. It highlights the premises and the consequences of Heidegger’s setting of the problem. Nancy wonders why Heidegger did not elaborate on the description of Mitsein, even if he always underlined the co-originariness of Dasein and Mitsein. Hence, the first operation made by Nancy was to rethink the Mitsein as the heart of Being and its modalization. For this reason, the second part of the article focuses on Nancy’s reading of Heideggerian Mitsein and Mitdasein, in L’être-avec de l’être-là and L’«éthique originaire» de Heidegger. In these works, Nancy further highlights the relationship between ethics and ontology, which Heidegger’s Über den «Humanismus» had already addressed. Nancy, as Heidegger’s interpreter, points out the equivalence between original ethics and fundamental ontology. The different outcome of Heidegger’s and Nancy’s ontology, indeed, depends on the way they use the Mitsein category and on a different role that ethics plays in the thinking of these authors. In conclusion, Nancy’s reading of Heideggerian Mitsein shows, on the one hand, Nancy’s reservations towards Heidegger’s analysis and, on the other, explains the fruitfulness of Heidegger’s reflection on the theme.