탈주체 시대의 인간 존재론을 위한 선행적 연구: 니체, 푸코, 하이데거가 ‘유한자의 개별성’을 다루는 방식의 비교와 비판을 통해

Abstract

This paper was motivated by the awareness that ontology of human being in the era of post-subjectivity needs to contemplate individuality. We must reinterpret the human finite against the traditional metaphysics that defined man through absoluteness and universality. I believe that contemporary philosophy has made considerable progress in examining the existence of various beings, including humans, against the absolute and in discovering the otherness that resides within each individual in relation to the self-generating source. However, the myth of universality has not been completely destroyed in a way that fully contemplates the uniqueness and spontaneity of the individual, who remains as oneself despite its relationship with otherness. I examine how Foucault and Heidegger, two thinkers representing two opposite lines of the contemporary philosophy that succeeded Nietzsche, consider the individuality of the finite—i.e., uniqueness and spontaneity. Both thinkers elucidate the individual human from the self-generating source and present a new concept of human being, in contrast to the modern subject that is isolated from others while sharing a universal essence. In this way, they both let the individual stay in relationships with otherness while maintaining its uniqueness. However, Foucault fails to devise a decisive mechanism to prevent the reduction of the individual to a node of the “relationships of forces.” In other words, Foucault does not make it possible for the individual to have the spontaneity to bring about change in the progress of the relationship as a unique self. Heidegger, who belongs to the phenomenology-existentialism -hermeneutics branch, which is opposed to 20th-century structuralism-poststructuralism, to which Foucault belongs, takes the opposite direction. He contends that each “being” cannot be reduced to the movement of Being, since Being itself is finite and “needs” human thought to be translated into to phenomena. In this way, each being can maintain an uniqueness and spontaneity that cannot be reduced to the generation of Being. However, in a later period, Heidegger seems to have largely given up the contemplation of human spontaneity. This should rather be seen as the result of an intensified struggle to distance himself from traditional metaphysics by abandoning the anthropocentric emphasis on spontaneity. Thus, despite contemporary philosophers’ achievement of opening finiteness to the “outside” (otherness) against the concept of the subject, they have not gone far enough to deal with the finite “self” and “individuality.” Therefore, I intend to expose the unthought as an urgent issue. Even in the era of post-subjectivity, if it is still a problem who we are, we need to develop a human ontology suitable for this era. And for this, we must first be able to take issue with “individuality.”