ABSTRACT
This chapter raises the question of how to engage productively with Martin Heidegger’s thought after the many critical reflections on his work in contemporary continental philosophy. The author contends that Heidegger’s analyses of shared locality and tradition are insightful. Indeed, in a world where so-called “globalization” often means, at the cultural level, Westernization, equality requires recognition of the importance of precisely such elements of culture to people’s identities. The resources Heidegger offers for imagining the worlds of others can be utilized, moreover, against Heidegger’s own intentions, to analyze the complex and multivalent identities that make up any nation, and the different cultural identities that constitute a multicultural nation. Finally, the author distinguishes the issue of shared culture from that of moral concern. Caring only about those who share one’s location and inherited traditions does not follow from our having a common world of care. The author demonstrates that this difference is actually apparent from Heidegger’s own account of the structure of Dasein, which suggests that “liberating solicitude” is the appropriate mode of comportment for any entity that conforms to this structure.
