“Thinking Is Thanking”: From Anxiety to Gratitude

Abstract

So far, we have seen that Heidegger’s critique of subjectivism and objectivism must be taken not simply as a philosophical critique of metaphysics , but, much more crucially, as an existential injunction to enact and embody a non-metaphysical way of being in the world. We saw that Heidegger’s own terms for such a non-metaphysical way of being include “dwelling,” “poetizing,” “thinking ,” and “listening ,” and that these all belong together. And finally, we have seen that while Heidegger himself framed his concerns as ontological, and not as ontic, the notion that the ontological and the ontic are wholly distinct domains is itself a metaphysical presumption. Therefore, the practice of ontology , or thinking (in the expansive sense), is most generously understood not as a retreat from the ethical challenges of everydayness , but as a posture in which we affirm and accept responsibility for these tensions. As such, authenticity was shown to consist not in indifference to others, but as a clarification and an intensification of our ontico-ontological responsibilities to them qua thrown.