From Conventionalism to Social Authenticity

This edited volume offers a new approach to understanding social conventions by way of Martin Heidegger. It connects the philosopher's conceptions of the anyone, everydayness, and authenticity with an analysis and critique of social normativity. Heidegger's account of the anyone is ambiguous. Some see it as a good description of human sociality, others think of it as an important critique of modern mass society. This volume seeks to understand this ambiguity as reflecting the tension between the constitutive function of conventions for human action and the critical aspects of conformism. It argues that Heidegger's anyone should neither be reduced to its pejorative nor its constitutive dimension. Rather, the concept could show how power and norms function.This volume would be of interest to scholars and students of philosophy and the social sciences who wish to investigate the social applications of the works of Martin Heidegger.

Hans Bernhard Schmid is Professor of Philosophy at the University of Vienna. He received his PhD (1998) and Habilitation (2005) from the University of Basel. His main research interests are Philosophy of Social Science, Social Ontology, Action Theory, Social and Sociological Theory, History of Philosophy (esp. Phenomenology and Existential Philosophy). He is the author of Subjekt, System, Diskurs: Edmund Husserls Begriff transzendentaler Subjektivität in sozialtheoretischen Bezügen (2000), Wir-Intentionalität: Kritik des ontologischen Individualismus und Rekonstruktion der Gemeinschaft (2005), Plural Action (2009), and Moralische Integrität: Kritik eines Konstrukts (2011). Gerhard Thonhauser studied philosophy and political science at the University of Vienna and Copenhagen University. He received his PhD in philosophy from the University of Vienna in 2015. He was the recipient of a DOC-fellowship of the Austrian Academy of Sciences in 2011-2012. His main research interests are Phenomenology, Existential Philosophy, Political Philosophy, and Social Ontology. He is the author of Über das Konzept der Zeitlichkeit bei Søren Kierkegaard mit ständigem Hinblick auf Martin Heidegger (2011) and Ein rätselhaftes Zeichen. Zum Verhältnis von Martin Heidegger und Søren Kierkegaard (2016), and the editor of Perspektiven mit Heidegger (2017).