ABSTRACT
Chapter 4 translates Heidegger’s concept of freedom (as “letting-be”) into three (otherwise unthought) corollaries, in order to show how it is possible for the political to be grounded outside the paradigm of technocratic rule, on the one hand, and, on the other, without naively invoking the precepts of the Greek polis. Section I establishes how (the concept of) “place” (Ort) has a double meaning, as both the locale of dwelling and the juncture where the diversity of beings can manifest itself throughout nature, the earth, and also our relation to other human beings. Section II outlines the “reciprocity of freedom” as the predicate of our capacity for stewardship as well as the origin of our social interactions. This deeper appropriation of freedom provides the key to re-open the question of the political. Three “corollaries” or applications of freedom emerge that relocate the center of political life around our capacity for stewardship, shifting the arc of citizenship to include our capacity to dwell on the earth. While offering an important signpost and formal indicator, the Greek concept of the polis can provide only an example of the political (in the inception of this “first beginning’), but remains lacking in its complexity to be instructive in facing today’s environmental crisis (i.e., in transition to the “other beginning”).
