ABSTRACT
Martin Heidegger’s views on agency are central to his philosophy: in both his earlier and later work they form part of an intricate web of notions including responsibility, normativity and activity. This chapter focuses on the period around Being and Time: Heidegger’s most influential text; it is also the best point of contact with contemporary philosophy of action or with other phenomenologists. It explores how these themes develop within Heidegger’s later work. In developing an analysis of “average everydayness”, Heidegger introduces a characteristically artisanal scenario: a craftworker, completely absorbed in their task, silently discards a hammer that is too light and takes a more appropriate one. Many commentators, particularly those influenced by Dreyfus, take Heidegger to argue that a public or shared understanding of the world is a transcendental condition on individual agency. During the 1930–1940s, Heidegger develops a reading of the history of philosophy as the triumph of the willing subject.
