Frank Schalow: Heidegger’s Ecological Turn

Heidegger’s Ecological Turn: Community and Practice for Future Generations Book Cover Heidegger’s Ecological Turn: Community and Practice for Future Generations
Routledge Studies in Twentieth-Century Philosophy
Frank Schalow
Routledge
2021
Hardback GBP £120.00
218

Reviewed by: Davide Pilotto (Sorbonne Université – Università del Salento)

The aim of Frank Schalow’s book is to offer a valid alternative to all those political readings of Martin Heidegger that, from Farías (1989) to Faye (2009), from Trawny-Mitchell (2017) to Di Cesare (2018), focus their analysis on the relationship of the author of Sein und Zeit to Nazism or, more recently, on the disruptive impact of the Black Notebooks on Heidegger’s Denkweg. “Yes, Heidegger was a Nazi, not a very important Nazi, just an ordinary one, a provincial petit-bourgeois Nazi”, wrote Alain Badiou, adding however that, “Yes, Heidegger is unquestionably one of the most important philosophers of the twentieth century” (Badiou-Cassin, 2014: 14). Schalow’s work thus seems to adhere to such a thesis, explicitly aiming to open up a new path of thought that attempts to draw on Heideggerian conceptual tools without necessarily running into the outcomes mentioned above. The author’s aim, made clear since the preface, is in fact to “elicit new pathways of thinking that begin to reappear from the shadows of the most poignant criticisms,” using Heideggerian writings “as harboring untapped possibilities for future interpretation” (Schalow, 2022: IX).

Schalow is aware of how his work – and perhaps this is one of its merits – goes against the current with respect to his contemporaries. In a framework in which “most of the scholarly terrain is overgrown with numerous books, which proceed from the same premise of condemnation and foreclose other attempts to re-open what remains ‘unthought’” (Schalow, 2022: 10), he tries in full awareness to open the way to a different operation. Going against the tide of the “vitriolic climate” (Schalow, 2022: 1) in which current Heideggerian studies move, the question, a direct consequence of Badiou’s remark just mentioned, is therefore the following: “How do we stand towards Heidegger’s thinking?” (Schalow, 2022: 1). Can Heideggerian thought still have something to give us? The answer, for the author, is positive: “We cannot preclude the possibility of appropriating Heidegger’s texts in a positive way, in order to elicit insights that withdraw within the subterranean recesses of what is ‘unsaid’ and ‘unthought’” (Schalow, 2022: 6-7).

A necessary consequence of this perspective is the awareness that Schalow’s work proposes itself as an original interpretation of Heideggerian work, explicitly taking on what is “an unconventional way to ‘read’ Heidegger” (Schalow 2022: 7). Drawing on multiple places in his Denkweg, in a theoretical operation that denotes an excellent command of the author, his complexity and his traditional periodizations, Schalow establishes, over the course of five chapters, a reinterpretation of how Heideggerian work can provide the conceptual tools for the development of a new, non-anthropocentric ethics that, by leveraging the notions of dwelling and stewardship, gives rise to a new conception of the political that can cope with the current environmental crisis. Defining the question of the political as “the open-ended question of the origin of law, to its enactment as a measure rooted in the ethos (of dwelling) and the re-inscribing of a language to address the elements of the polis according to formally indicative concepts which underscore our capacity to be free (e.g., by ‘letting-be’), albeit as finite human beings” (Schalow, 2022: X), the author, analyzing Heidegger’s work, wonders whether this does not offer the theoretical tools necessary to answer the following question: “Is it possible to create a space for the polis, which through our capacity to dwell (on the earth) engenders openness outside the dominant paradigm of technocratic rule?” (Schalow, 2022: 2). Beginning with some insights we find in Heidegger’s Letter on “Humanism”, we read that “thinking builds upon the house of Being, the house in which the jointure of Being, in its destinal unfolding, enjoins the essence of the human being to dwell in the truth of Being”, and that, for this reason, “this dwelling is the essence of ‘being-in-the-world’” (Heidegger, 1998: 272). Schalow intends to follow up on Heideggerian statements such as the thesis that “nómos is not only law but more originally the assignment contained in the dispensation of Being”, and consequently “only the assignment is capable of dispatching man into Being”, in the conviction that “more essential than instituting rules is that human beings find the way to their abode in the truth of Being” (Heidegger, 1998: 274). If Heidegger writes that “one day we will, by thinking the essence of Being in a way appropriate to its matter, more readily be able to think what ‘house’ and ‘dwelling’ are” (Heidegger, 1998; 272), Schalow intends to pursue this suggestion. On this bases, he illustrates how “the development of a community must be forged at the juncture between the human and the non-human” (Schalow, 2022: XI), giving rise to a socio-biotic community such as to respond positively to the challenge to which we are called by today’s environmental crisis. The intent, very concrete, is to outline the tracks of “a new nexus of political engagement”, to allow that “the fissure of Heidegger’s thinking (of being) opens the ‘other’ side of praxis” (Schalow, 2022: XIII). The purpose of Schalow’s work thus goes in a pragmatic direction, towards the delineation of a praxis that results in the necessary redefinition of our relationship with the world – in other words, “are we to continue using and exploiting the earth only as a resource, or are we to safeguard the earth as a place of dwelling?” (Schalow, 2022: 5).

It is clearly a matter, as already remarked, of taking Heidegger beyond his limits. It is evident, first of all, as Schalow himself acknowledges, that “his [Heidegger’s] understanding of the political remains limited” (Schalow, 2022: XII), just as it is trivially obvious that “Heidegger did not address specifically ‘climate change’, the ‘greenhouse effect’, ‘global warming’, and the ruptures in the ecosystem from which the virus (or other pathogens) of pandemics may arise” (Schalow, 2022: XII). The intent, however, is precisely to focus on das Ungedachte, on the unthought of Heideggerian thought, thus amplifying some elements that, starting from the aforementioned passages of the Letter on “Humanism”, allow Schalow to argue that, “put simply, in the overturning and subversion of anthropocentricism, we see the beginnings of what we today would call an ‘ecological turn’” (Schalow, 2022: XII).

The first chapter (Seeking New Guidelines for Interpretation, pp. 12-39) serves as a necessary methodological premise to justify the reappropriation of Martin Heidegger’s thought for the purposes previously indicated. Deepening the dialogue with Kant around which the 1928 course entitled Kant and the Problem of Metaphysics is centered, Schalow, moving from the metontology that here arises, outlines a “new topography” from which to question the political without slipping into that “‘monological reductionism’ that falsely equates his philosophy with Nazi ideology” (Schalow, 2022: 13-14). Heidegger, through “his ‘destruction’ of Kant” (Schalow, 2022: 21), arrives at “unraveling the presuppositions on which the metaphysical tradition rests”, presuppositions that, “beginning with the static conception of being as permanent presence, lay the sediments of tradition, which erects rigid metaphysical dichotomies”, thus laying the foundations for “the attempt to undo each of these metaphysical dualisms” (Schalow, 2022: 18). The Kantian dichotomy between freedom and nature, in particular, is subverted by Heidegger through our connection to the earth, with the author of Sein und Zeit explicitly writing that “the problem of freedom arises from and as the problem of world” (Heidegger, 2002: 145), allowing Schalow to express the crux of the matter by arguing that “Heidegger relocates the origin of freedom in Dasein’s way of belonging to and reciprocal responsiveness to being” (Schalow, 2022: 24). What emerges is our role, an affinity with the ecological framework in the guise of “earthbound creatures”, as Schalow points out, referring to Hannah Arendt (Arendt, 1992: 27). Cartesian dualism is overturned through the reference to our belonging to the earth, in turn made possible by the changed conceptual framework within which, instead of the dichotomy between subject and object, Heidegger replaces the notion of Dasein with its in-der-Welt-sein. Human freedom comes then to make its own deeper roots, anchoring itself directly in Being and in its relationship with Being and giving rise to the centrality of the notion of ‘responsiveness’, which Schalow defines as “the fostering of a reciprocal relationship with what is radically other, as conferred by being, rather than as a power discharged by an exclusively human capability such as the will” (Schalow, 2022: 29), from which it follows that “this act of reciprocating, then, defines the first and foremost overture or primarily gesture of freedom” (Schalow, 2022: 30). It is evident where Heidegger, in Schalow’s reading, is going to aim when it comes to the ethical and practical side: “Human freedom now no longer means freedom as a property of man, but man as a possibility of freedom” (Heidegger, 2002: 94).

The second chapter (A New Leaping-Off Place for Ethical Inquiry, pp. 40-66) develops the peculiar proprietorial relation to Being that emerges from the belonging of Dasein to Being mentioned above. In the light of that overcoming of anthropocentrism inherent in the Kehre, which, as mentioned, Schalow interprets as “the vestiges of an ecological turn (if only in retrospect he may be considered a proto-ecologist)” (Schalow, 2022: 41), the author of the text wonders what role is now concretely due to the ‘subject’ of his discourse, answering with reference to the notions of stewardship or guardianship as diriment models to outline the practical guidelines of living. As we have seen, for Heidegger, in spite of Kantian ethics and its opposition between freedom and nature, it happens that “the presencing of nature reserves to animals their own potential for flourishing”, and that “it is the source of that flourishing, or what is ownmost or endemic to it, which turns the pendulum of his ethical inquiry in an ecological direction, namely, the allocation of a habitat (requisite for the livelihood of any animal)”. Switching to a Heideggerian lexicon, this means that, “ontologically speaking, the earth provides the grounding for any such habitats, and, indeed, in connection with our capacity for dwelling” (Schalow, 2022: 44). It is as a consequence of such dwelling that a more original ethics, which Schalow calls the “ethos of situated dwelling” (Schalow, 2022: 43) can finally develop and which the author addresses in relation to the possibility of a socio-biotic community and with reference to future generations. The mirroring of ethics and politics is the consequence of all this. In this sense, “the political must be addressed anew through the development of that site – in connection with the unconcealment of being – through which Dasein’s capacity to dwell first becomes apparent, namely, the ethos” (Schalow, 2022: 51). In this sense, “to do so is to allow the possibility of the ethos of dwelling to inform the political, rather than vice versa” (Schalow, 2022: 51). Through his analysis of the notion of measure and of the difference of readings of history between Heidegger and Marx, Schalow answers the question related to “how to rediscover the origin of praxis outside the self-contained sphere of human identity, […] that is, a form of pure (self-)presence” (Schalow, 2022: 59) through the proprietorial relation between being and man, with stewardship assuming the role of “the highest level of formality that is emblematic of specific instances for exercising care over beings, i.e., in our comportments in being-in-the-world” (Schalow, 2022: 60). The thesis proposed is therefore that of dwelling as a fundamental notion to justify our role on earth and consequently the political implication that derives from it. For Schalow, in short, “dwelling has the key perquisite for the enactment of any governance of the polis” (Schalow, 2022: 64), consistent with the Heideggerian statement that “mortals dwell in that they save the earth” (Heidegger, 1971a: 148). The determination of the new role of the politician can only pass through this constitutive bond of ours with the earth.

The third chapter (The Global Stage of Politics and the Return to the Earth, pp. 67-84) considers “the assimilation of the political to the ends of techno-capitalism”, which “unleashes the forces of machination on a global state, assimilating all human activities to the cycle of production and consumption” (Schalow, 2022: 67), showing how an appeal to Heidegger allows one to disengage from such a reading of the political. Through a comparison with the Heideggerian overcoming of the Marxist vision of history, Schalow comes to argue that “the phenomenological maxim ‘back to the things itself’ reverberates anew as a call to a ‘return to the earth’”, thus outlining “an eco-phenomenology, or alternatively, a phenomenology that speaks of a ‘return to the earth’”, which stands as “a form of attunement, an environmental ‘listening’ to nature and its diverse habitats” (Schalow, 2022: 68).

The fourth chapter (Temporality, Freedom, and Place, pp. 85-132) focuses on two crucial themes. On the one hand, the “deconstruction of modern politics as legitimizing the anthropocentric ends of domination, exploitation”, and, on the other, “the emergence of a trans-human perspective of freedom as a countermeasure to the assimilation of the political to the gestalt of machination” (Schalow, 2022: 86), both of which are necessary in view of the ecological turn mentioned above. As a consequence of Dasein’s peculiar relationship with freedom, already outlined in the first chapter, there is a shift of the axis of the political in a non-anthropocentric direction, in which governance must be built on the observation of our constitutive being-with-others. Schalow therefore identifies “three corollaries that comprise the ‘pillars of the polis,’ namely, the elements for its construction on a trans-human axis of dwelling” (Schalow, 2022: 87): the reciprocity of freedom (pp. 100-109), the people of future generations (pp. 109-118) and the epochal character of a measure (pp. 118-129). It is clear, however, that if “the polis brings to fruition, as a distinctive historical act, the challenge posed to man to fulfill the mandate of belonging to being and thereby build a political realm that is anchored in humanity’s capacity to dwell” (Schalow, 2022: 92), the reconfiguration of the political can only start from an analysis of this notion, central to delineating the dwelling and consequently a trans-human community. The thesis advanced is that leaving the technocratic rules prevailing today, the authentic notion of polis finds a new reconfiguration: “Being is not to be determined via the authoritarian rule of the polis”, but, on the contrary, it now means that “to re-establish the polis is to seek its origin in compliance with a new ‘measure’, which can counterbalance human and animal interests, the claim of future generations and the task of safeguarding the earth” (Schalow, 2022: 129). In this way, therefore, the polis manages to be anchored to human dwelling.

The fifth chapter (The Turn Toward Stewardship. Is a Socio-Biotic Community Possible?, pp. 133-184) extends what emerged in the previous chapter to a collective dimension, namely the possibility of belonging to a socio-biotic community, since “the stewardship by which we inhabit the earth calls into question the priorities of any (world-) citizenship, such that the development of a community (das Gemeinwesen) through the grounding of a site must be forged at the juncture between the human and the non-human” (Schalow, 2022: 134). With reference also to topical elements, such as the Covid-19 pandemic (p. 137) or the racial divisions in the U.S. (p. 147-150), Schalow focuses on that “further social-political dimension as the flipside to the responsiveness, the responsibility, by which mortals become answerable to or heed the voice of being” (Schalow, 2022: 137), a necessary consequence of that “counter resonance of the earth, nature, and animal life” (Schalow, 2022: 138) that has emerged since the first chapter. Schalow argues that “environmental practice is intrinsic to dwelling […] not as a value, but rather as an extension of freedom as ‘letting-be’” (Schalow, 2022: 150). What emerges is the thesis that “the task assigned to us through our dwelling” is to be “tenants of the earth” (Schalow, 2022: 161). Rewriting Protagoras’ famous statement for which “man is the measure of all things” (Plato, 1973: 17), the author argues that, “when divested of his anthropocentric focus, and thereby embracing his/her transience, ‘man’ become the ‘measure’ again”. It is enough not to lose sight of the fact that “Dasein is simultaneously ‘measured-by’ the proprietorship of ‘belonging to’ and thereby can ‘set the measure’ for any compliance and possible governance” (Schalow, 2022: 162) in that “poetic dwelling” that echoes Heidegger’s reading of Hölderlin (Heidegger, 1971b: 209-227). The notion of measure, recurring in several places in Schalow’s text and fundamental “to offset or counter the one-sidedness of human interests” (Schalow, 2022: 169), is essential to the conclusion reached by the author: “The socio-biotic community provides a setting in which human beings can ‘think globally, act locally’ (through their enactment of building, dwelling, thinking)”, with the proprietorship of dwelling that “restores limits, by granting space non-human dimensions of the earth to thrive and flourish” (Schalow, 2022: 166).

The call for a trans-human egalitarianism that flows from Heidegger’s overcoming of anthropocentrism is also the crux of the work’s conclusion, with Schalow arguing how, in light of the creation of that socio-biotic community that flows from our dwelling on earth, “a new kind of equality becomes possible as mortals protect the habitats of the diverse creatures that ‘co-habit’ the earth with us” (Schalow, 2022: 178). Once again, it is the notions of stewardship and dwelling that redefine our peculiar role on this planet: “The ‘to be’ of mortals as ‘tenants of the earth’ deepens the meaning of the ‘who’ of human beings as ‘world-citizens’” (Schalow, 2022: 178). The way of belonging to the earth that is proper to Dasein leads the author to think of a “new ‘egalitarianism’” with the role of “formal indicator of how we can characterize practices that prioritize environmental concerns over against the anthropocentric focus of modernity” (Schalow, 2022: 178). Thus, only in this way “a concern for the welfare of the earth and nature, humans and animals, can spark a conversation about the future of our historical sojourn and the fate of those generations still to come” (Schalow, 2022: 179). Through the five chapters of which the text is composed, we understand how the theses stated in the preface and introduction – above all, “the political must be housed in the eco-logical, that is, in the ‘eco’ or residence of dwelling” (Schalow, 2022: 3) – are confirmed through a careful reading of Heidegger’s work.

The overall result of Frank Schalow’s work can only be valued in a positive way. In an age in which Martin Heidegger’s thought seems to be more and more the exclusive prerogative of a type of literature aimed at illustrating his complicity with Nazism, this book certainly stands out for the original and proactive use that can still be made today of the complex Denkweg of the author of Sein und Zeit. Obviously, some questions remain open. In the first place, one could raise doubts about the legitimacy of basing, from a theoretical and methodological point of view, the guidelines of such a project on ontological justifications advanced by someone who, like Heidegger, is moved by theoretical interests apparently unrelated to similar intentions – in short, one might ask, “why refer to Heidegger?”. Similarly, as far as the moral side is concerned, we could question the opportunity, repeatedly highlighted by today’s detractors of his work, to make a figure such as Martin Heidegger, whose compromise with the Nazi regime went far beyond the convenience of the facade and career of many of his contemporaries, the ‘tutelary deity’ of an ethical project. On the other hand, however, Schalow makes no secret of his aim to propose an interpretation that from the beginning is subordinate to practical purposes; a rereading that intends to “reap tangible results” and “not to become merely an “academic’ exercise” (Schalow, 2022: 8). From this point of view, Heidegger’s Ecological Turn can be seen as a perfectly successful attempt.

Bibliography

Arendt, Hannah. 1992. Lectures on Kant’s Political Philosophy. Edited by Ronald Beiner. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press.

Badiou, Alain; Cassin, Barbara. 2016. Heidegger. His Life & His Philosophy. Translated by Susan Spitzer. New York: Columbia University Press.

Di Cesare, Donatella. 2018. Heidegger and the Jews. The “Black Notebooks”. Translated by Murtha Baca. Cambridge-Medford: Polity Press.

Faye, Emmanuel. 2009. Heidegger. The Introduction of Nazism into Philosophy in Light of the Unpublished Seminars of 1933-1935. Translated by Michael B. Smith. New Haven-London: Yale University Press.

Farías, Victor. 1989. Heidegger and Nazism. Edited by Joseph Margolis and Tom Rockmore. Philadelphia: Temple University Press.

Heidegger, Martin. 1971a. “Building Dwelling Thinking”. Poetry, Language, Thought. Translated by Albert Hofstadter. New York: HarperCollins. pp. 141-159.

Heidegger, Martin. 1971b. “‘… Poetically Man Dwells…’”. Poetry, Language, Thought. Translated by Albert Hofstadter. New York: HarperCollins. pp. 209-227.

Heidegger, Martin. 1998. “Letter on ‘Humanism’”. Pathmarks. Edited by William McNeill. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. pp. 239-276.

Heidegger, Martin. 2002. The Essence of Human Freedom. An Introduction to Philosophy. Translated by Ted Sadler. London-New York: Continuum.

Plato. 1973. Theaetetus. Edited by John McDowell. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Schalow, Frank. 2022. Heidegger’s Ecological Turn. Community and Practice for Future Generations. New York-London: Routledge.

Trawny, Peter; Mitchell, Andrew J. (Ed.) 2017. Heidegger’s “Black Notebooks”. Responses to Anti-Semitism. New York: Columbia University Press.

Edward S. Casey: The World on Edge

The World on Edge Book Cover The World on Edge
Edward S. Casey
Indiana University Press
2017
Paperback $42.00
385

Reviewed by: Lance Gracy (The University of Texas-San Antonio)

Introduction

Following his book on the phenomenology of borders, in Up Against the Wall: Re-imagining the U.S.-Mexico Border (Austin: University of Texas Press, 2014), Edward Casey discusses relevant topics in, The World on Edge. Readers, in particular those readers sympathetic to peri-phenomenological methods to doing philosophy, are provided with refreshing insight into the world constituted by edges of metaphysical, ontological and phenomenological significance. In his book, Casey takes preoccupation with a description of the role of edges in the world. Indeed, what are edges? What is the significance of them? Casey’s pursues “the thesis that edges are constitutive not only of what we perceive, but also of what we think and of the places and events in which we are situated” (xiii). In this context, edges are not merely things worthy of storing, reflecting upon, or collecting; rather, they are “distinct presences” that are “essential to being a thing or thought” (xiii). According to Casey, edges play a dramatic role. As the drama of the world unfolds, edges “act” as a presence of being to “cut a dramatic figure” into not only our perception, but our thoughts as well (xiv). In the prelude to his book, Casey provides an image of an edge-of-presence, and by means of it we come to realize what Casey is after in his description of edges as “distinct presence.” In the given image, we see a mountain-edge cutting through light and darkness, along with a description of the edge, as if the edge itself had some poetic presence “to be light! And to thirst for the nightly!” (Nietzsche, 1999, 70-1). But Casey’s description of edges is more fundamental than poetics. He provides us with a description of edges as enantiodromia, Heraclitus’s word for the “sudden reversal into the opposite” (xvii). Accordingly, Casey gives us a description of enantiodromia as the “line of flight”, or in Deleuze and Guattari’s sense of the term, as a “quasi-linear structure that is inherently mobile rather than fixed” (xviii). Casey refers to this sort of edge as the “ultimate edge of our life”, which “bears up and bears out” what it edges (xv). At any rate, edges of this sort are related to dramatic experiences; that is to say, they compare and contrast world events, such as those of politics, or as Casey mentions specifically, the 2016 American presidential race, Tahrir square, and numerous other dramatic events—even our own death (xvii). As we see, reflect, perceive, and consider, we contemplate the “role of edges” as something of experienced dramatically “at every level” (xiii). What more is there to edges?

Summary

Casey is preoccupied with the question of “whether edges are something … or nothing—or perhaps next to nothing” (xvii). Assuming edges are something or next to nothing, what is the presence of an edge? How do we describe the presence of a world “on edge”? In relation to his primary thesis, Casey pursues “exact description of edges in four ways” (xviii). In part one, he examines “borders and boundaries”; he also examines “edges and limits, edges and surfaces, as well as distinctive sorts of edges that pertain to places and limits” (xix). In part two, he compares “naturally given and humanly constructed edges”, which are edges experienced in “wilderness” and “constructed environments” (ibid). In part three, Casey considers the edges of bodies “psychical rather than physical” (ibid). Taking the three descriptive ways into a phenomenological whole, Casey aims to describe edges pervading “our inner as well as our outer lives” and also “how they arise in the interaction between human beings and what surrounds them: in bodies and minds, things on the earth and sights in the sky” (ibid). Casey’s description of edges is a totalizing one; it takes into account the very nature of edges as that which is constitutive of our own phenomenological experience(s). In relation to Chalmers and others, Casey’s edges are constitutive presences, which are realized through description of them as a “pure phenomenal concept” and as essential to thoughts and things. According to Casey, this “pure phenomenal concept” is peri-phenomenological. His peri-phenomenology is a method of “exact description” of edges as a ‘being-around’ “ostensibly peripheral phenomena” (xix). Fair to say, Casey’s phenomenological approach to edges is one of “risk-taking.” Wondrously enough though, this risk-taking approach, or this peri-phenomenological approach, is precisely what one would experience if they were to “walk” the edge.

In chapter one, Casey introduces us to “borders and boundaries” concerning an exact description of edges. Casey’s description of edge as border and boundary amplifies the notion of Edith Stein’s “metaleptic communion” as the sense of unity and distinction between two concepts of being (even radically different concepts of being), such as that of ‘light’ and ‘darkness’ (Calcagno, 2009, 51). Invoking Husserl’s passage in Ideas I of “Descriptive and Exact Science”, Casey forms a synthetic idea about borders and borders through distinction of irregular and non-irregular (or eidetic) shapes (9). Here, the thought is that borders or boundaries (in relation to edges) constitute irregular shapes, and according to Husserl (and apparently Casey), these edges require a phenomenological description. In other words, because edges are not necessarily Euclidean, Casey calls for a peri-phenomenology of edges, as borders and boundaries, to describe the way in which we make sense of edges constituting some irregular shape or object. Walking us through a series of examples about the distinction between irregular (descriptive) and non-irregular (exact science) constitution, Casey states, “[B]oundaries, although nonlinear in their alliance with natural features, can be represented by linear means—where ‘represented’ means literally given representation, as if delegated to do so” (14). In this context, the explicit non-linearness of edges as borders and boundaries can be represented in terms of linearality. Thus, even irregular borders and boundaries can be represented in linear means—thus a sense of mathematical functionality to them—thus a sense of rationality to them. At any rate, “Borders and boundaries possess a special force or power” and the edges essential to their force or power have a variety of distinct purposes (16-7). One such power or force is the way edges as borders and boundaries “intertangle” themselves in our own thinking because of the variety of expressions involved with them (23-4). For example, an edge bordering two univocal expressions of light might “intertangle” us into a contemplative state. Casey clues us in to how we can rid ourselves of such intertanglement, by stating, “[I]n descriptive fact, the matter is more complex and more interesting. To admit this [intertanglement] is not to descend into descriptive taxonomic chaos; [to admit this intertanglement] is to discern an abiding order in the midst of complexity. Even as embodying several sorts of edge, a given edge will as a rule exemplify one primary or most salient form of edge” (24, emphasis mine). Casey’s clue here is a road into the dramatic role of “borders and boundaries” because it gives us a key for understanding how two distinct, yet univocally related beings, are related to each other. He provides the key thus: two distinct, yet univocally related, beings are related to each by the “most salient form of edge” that provides an “abiding order in the midst of complexity.” One’s concern about how two distinct beings related to each other is more importantly set in the essential thought of their distinct relation: i.e., the salient edge, or form, between them.

In continuing the first part of his exact description of edges, Casey identifies “distinctive sorts of edges that pertain to places and limits” (xix). He provides us with a depiction of ‘edge’ in relation to surface, thing and place (40). After a thorough analysis of ‘surface’, Casey offers a proposition as follows, “The edge is all but the shadow of the surface” (43). Moreover, neither edge nor surface are substances in themselves, but rather expressions of the substance. The edge is essential to the substance, and the surface, as Merleau-Ponty wrote, is “the surface of a depth, [of] a cross section upon a massive being” (44). As we understand Casey, a distinctive edge, when ensconced in the meaning of ‘limit’, is that which is in relation to a depth-of-being, some thing, or some substance. Casey further writes that this distinctive edge is not “wholly immaterial or insubstantial”, and that it becomes a surface by relation to the surface (44). Similar to Husserl’s notion of ‘phantom’, distinctive edges becoming surfaces are often “left out of consideration” in their “capacity to exercise” causality (Sokolowski, 1974, 95-6). Furthermore, in section nine of chapter one, Casey offers a distinction of edge and limit. He states, “Edges are primus inter pares, first among what is otherwise equal in the playing field constituted by limits and edges … they are neither fully present nor strictly absent” (55-6). On the other hand, limits “exist elsewhere than in the immediately surrounding world of places to which we belong as sentient creatures” (55). Edges, as distinct from limits, “join the company of certain other phenomena that exhibit a like ambiguity of presence: [e.g.,] the human body (as Merleau-Ponty insists in his discussion of the phantom limb phenomenon), and the human face (emphasized in Levinas’s ethics)” but in contrast “limits are forever beyond ‘the bounds of sense,’ whereas edges emerge from within these bounds and help to concretize and complicate what appears there, even as they also mark its very evanescence” (56). To summarize here: edges constitute beings, such as things or thoughts, by their presence, but they are not beings-in-themselves; and distinctive edges emerge from limits, and can be spoken of thus: as distinctive edges that help concretize and complicate beings (or substances). So although edges are themselves not concrete, by relation to concrete beings they can help concretize beings (or substances).

Continuing Casey’s “exact description”, we come to part two, in which he provides an analysis of “naturally given and humanly constructed edges”, which are edges experienced in “wilderness” and “constructed environments” (xix). Casey begins here with what he considers to be “intermediate edges” (184). Casey identifies intermediate edges as edges that are mixed in with the wild and “the cultivated and artifactual,” and are furthermore expressed through what Foucault called heterotopias; i.e., “other places” (185-6). Intermediate edges have a certain compresence within both inclusive environments (e.g., those of Carthusian monks) and exclusive environments (e.g., those of dog-parks) (187). Casey discusses the naturally-free and flowing structure or environmental identity of intermediate edges as settings which grant humans and animals a certain capacity to walk and move unrestricted, wherein is experienced a “balance of spirit and humility” (187-88). One of the grand settings Casey uses to exemplify a setting constituted by intermediate edges is Central Park. He describes Central Park as “a vast heterogeneous multiplicity whose constituent elements exist at many scales: human, more-than-human, other-than-human” as well as an environment that “would count as ‘a plane of consistency’,” which is what Deleuze and Guattari’s termed “a region whose considerable diversity is coherent despite all the differences in kind, level, and number” (190). Edges constituting spaces or settings like Central Park invite us to have “bold imagination,” or what the Greeks called “greatness of soul” (megalopsychia) (190). They also invite us to new life, vita nuova (191). In what could be a mighty recompense for the inactive days of post-industrial British poetic imagination, Casey actively describes the intelligence of environments constructed by both Mother Nature and human ingenuity. The intelligence is the edginess of the construct: Is this not itself an ‘edgy-idea’ essential to Dasein?

Neighborhoods are also examples of what Casey has in mind about a description of “naturally given and humanly constructed edges” (xix). Neighborhoods give us a sense of community, especially if we understand how neighborhoods are places and/or communities constituted by edges. In reference to what Casey writes, neighborhoods are constituted by edged-places, which, according to Husserl, are each a “near-sphere”; or according to Heidegger, each is a “nearness” (195). On page 196, Casey gives us an image of a neighborhood as some kind of neural highway having various functions—various edged-places that are constitutive of an edged-boundary, which is, “the neighborhood” itself. Casey lists “meeting places”, “gateways”, and areas of “restricted access” as examples of these edged-places (196). According to Casey, the neighborhood is where the magic happens; it is essential to beings; beings get their thoughts and feeling about other beings from it (198-99). As such, we return to Casey’s notion of edges: they are essential to a thing or thought—in particular, the thing or thought of “neighborhood.” Casey concludes his discussion of intermediate edges, or edges naturally given as well as humanly constructed, by stating, “Each edge is transitional, none is ultimate. But taken together, all such edges constitute a city as anything but static—as an ever-evolving interplay of edges. In cities, the edge is where the action is … Every city is first and last—and at many points in between—an edge city” (204). We could do well to be denizens of such a city: a city “on edge.”

Casey’s penultimate part of his book, part three, “Edges of Body and Psyche, Earth and Sky” explores a whole phenomenology of “the world on edge.” It might well be described as a phenomenology of being as a bodily-boundary that lives within the bodily or non-bodily boundaries of the kosmos. He states, “My body is an earth body, and the earth is inhabited by living bodies, not only mine and not only human bodies but those of all other living beings as well” (298). One question that arouses much curiosity, which is really at the center of the philosophical task of his book, is, as Casey states, “whether there are specifically psychical edges—edges of states of mind, of moods, of feelings, of thoughts. Do they really exist?” (236). Casey provides an altogether practical case for the existence of psychical edges. He states as follows, “However tempting it is to regard exemplary cases of having an edge as physical, this does not preclude the possibility of genuinely psychical edges—that is, edges that belong to soul … in their own right. And more than just the possibility! Psychical edges are altogether actual insofar as they are feltfelt by us directly” (237). Suffice it to say that Casey is not alone in his general argument for psychical edges. We needn’t look further than Cartesian dualism or the Meinongian idea of mental content having qualia to realize that “psychical edges” have traction in the traditional philosophical canon. It is at the very least an entertaining notion that edges are not merely physical and purely literal, but also psychical and non-literal. And Casey goes further. He gives a two-fold distinction about psychical edges: (1) outer psychical edges and (2) inner psychical edges (240-41). Casey provides an explanation of the language we can use to discuss these aspects of psychical edges (e.g., language within the concept of “falling apart” during mental breakdowns, pp. 242-46). Notwithstanding, Casey tells us, that, “The self clearly has to have some minimal unity to be considered as split from itself” (257). From this idea we return to Edith Stein’s “metaleptic communion”: although edges are inside and outside, there is at the very least a minimal sense of unity between two aspects of ‘edge’. This brings us to one possible purpose of Casey’s description of edges in his penultimate part of the book: to reveal to us the grandeur of edges as that which constitute our life inside and outside; our life within and without. There is something worth critiquing about Casey’s analysis. Casey’s suggests that there is a need to distinguish the unitary from formal unity (260). He provides a few reasons as to why he thinks there is a need to distinguish the two: one reason is that formal unity is “fixed and static in character” and another reason is that, “Unlike formal unities, the psychically unitary cannot be quantified” (261). There are a few questions we can ask about this seemingly strange need to distinguish the unitary from formal unity. As to the first question, is formal unity “fixed and static in character” necessarily? It would seem formal unity is not “fixed and static in character” necessarily. As to the second question, why can’t the “psychically unitary” be quantified? It would seem the “psychically unitary” can be quantified somehow. We can imagine Casey has a response to these questions in his inner-psychical edge.

In the latter end of his penultimate section of The World on Edge, Casey provides us with a description of edges in relation to the earth and the kosmos. These sorts of edges are multitudinous: edges near and far from us; edges that lead into the underworld; found edges and edges of horizon and landscape; edges under our feet and edges above our heads (i.e., “comparative luminescence”); edges of the earth and the edge of the earth (278-284). In distinguishing between “edges of” and “the edge of” the earth, or what we can term particular-universals and the universal, Casey states as follows,

[S]everal of [the “edges of the earth”] we see directly, as determinate features of our environment. They are  already there, awaiting our discovery and perception and measurement. Unlike the horizon or the ground, they are always multiple, belonging to this protuberance here or that rill over there. Whether they are  sought out or not, they come forward into our experience as configuring the surface of the earth. By  contrast, the edge of the earth is fugitive and recessive. It is neither a thing nor an event; it is fundamental  yet intermittently experienced, sometimes confronting us but just as often eluding us…” (281).

And interestingly, “the edge of the earth” can be experienced as something quite elusive. It is, as Casey tells us, “a situation of elemental obscurum per obscurius, being made ‘obscure by the more obscure’;” yet, ironically, “edges of the earth” can be, according to Casey, “edges of unclearly presented entities [that] tend … to be unclear” (287). Do we wonder about the outermost edge? Are we like Heraclitus looking up into the Heavens at the cost of practical awareness? As we wonder, do we come up with an answer about this outermost edge? Casey gives us an interesting conundrum to try and solve our wondering of the outermost edge. Turning to the medieval conundrum of the javelin thrower, he asks, “Into what does he throw his spear, if he is himself situated on the outer-most edge of the known universe?” (288). Referencing Kant, Casey provides us with this sort of answer to the conundrum: “[T]hought without content is empty, and speculative thinking on its own ends in impasse” (289). In other words, the outer-most edge is not an empty thought, but speculative thinking only will only burden us more. So try, if you wish, to answer the conundrum, but know when to stop!

At any rate, Casey reaches his conclusive edge: the human being’s paradigmatic edge, their ultimate edge: Death, “beyond which there is no other” (343). Casey’s understanding of death constitutes paradoxical meanings about the psychical and psychical, such as his term “living death” (i.e., civic and social death), and “biological death” (344-45). In addition, Casey’s “ultimate edge of death” is one way of blending the psychical and psychical into one coherent meaning: “the final edge of life!” This edge is a border and boundary of the human condition, and it “cannot be reversed or crossed back over” (344). In this context, edges surely “cut a dramatic figure” into human existence, for edges “cut-around” the meaning of the body as it approaches its end, its “ultimate edge”, its autopsy (so to speak). Casey reveals to us that even though there are edges of thoughtful consideration, or those of pure speculation conducive to our curiosity, how much more curious and contemplative should we be about the ultimate “razor-edge” of our life: our very death! An old proverbial wisdom speaks keenly here: Indeed, the wise one thinks much of the Heavens, but they also they think much of death!

In summary, Casey calls his way of proceeding in his book “peri-phenomenology” (300). As Casey tells us, edges are precarious. Given that edges are associated with “risk”, peri-phenomenology is an apt way to go about edges carefully because peri-phenomenology does just that: it moves about contextual surroundings, which is, in certain cases, context-sensitive edges. What’s more: Casey appears to do exactly what he intended to do with his thesis through his peri-phenomenological approach: an “exact description” of edges. Peri-phenomenology is indeed the force from which Casey’s work appears outstanding. His thorough and rigorous exact description releases some precious nuggets of philosophical wisdom—wisdom beckoning to us take heed of the progressive revelations of our day. Surely, Casey’s book is a worthy testament to the burdensome undertaking of “edge-walking” amidst present-day global issues—in particular, the edge-walking amidst the pitfalls of political, societal, and even academic, issues. Casey’s understanding of “edge-walking” in this context is a precise sort of wisdom. He states as follows,

“What I have called the edge-world is not only a world composed of intricate patterns and permutations of edges; it is also a world that is itself on edge. As a consequence, each of us is pitched on a thousand edges—edges on which we shake and tremble even as we pretend to go about our lives undisturbed. Our equanimity is only skin-deep; underneath it the abysses gape open, not just at the far edge of the known world or at the base of a precipice. We are denizens of a world on edge, and we are ourselves creatures of exposed edges. This is not just a matter of being accident-prone or vulnerable as individuals. We carry risk to others, endangering their lives as well as our own. Whole populations of human beings have been decimated by their fellow humans. Many animal and bird species have been rendered extinct because of human actions in the Anthropocene. Now we are on the verge of making ourselves extinct if humanly induced climate change takes its full vengeance. There is no way to exist on earth, no alternative path, other than to follow the edges that guide us even as they expose us to risk at every turn. We must take such exposure into account, learning how to identify those edges that are likely to lead us astray: each of us exists on a perpetual visual cliff. Some edges bring us to an unwelcome fate for which we are not adequately prepared: on these I have focused in this epilogue. Instead of trying to forget them or merely regret them, we must think on them, reflecting on what they portend. Becoming wary of certain edges, we can come to trust other edges that will configure our life-worlds in ways that are both more constructive and more creative. These more auspicious edges point the way for us, incisively even if not infallibly. Thoughtfully traversed, they are able to liberate us, indicating directions with the potential to save us from our own destructive and self-destructive ventures” (351).

Able to liberate us, and able to give great meaning to life as well! Certainly, edges are essential to human beings, and they play a dramatic role. Of course, we can offer a critique of Casey’s work in the form of stating that there ought to be an answer as to why there is a “need to distinguish” formal unity from the unitary. Casey’s line of reasoning doesn’t seem to evince in us a sufficient reason as to why there is a need for such a distinction (as noted earlier in this review), but this critique doesn’t bear on the high performance and outstanding nature of Casey’s work. The critique is rather some pleasing outcome of Casey’s peri-phenomenological approach; and, in addition, it points out an interesting topic of discussion (e.g., formal unity vs. the unitary). In closing, I conclude by stating that Casey provides us with a refreshing and reinvigorating analysis of the world, The World on Edge. His book is a masterful ode to phenomenology, for it encourages phenomenologists to benefit from a seemingly neglected approach to phenomenology: peri-phenomenology. The methodology of it is a beneficial one, as it is capable of navigating numerous closely-related topics in “exact description.” With no serious doubt, Edward Casey has achieved something remarkable with his book, The World on Edge. Philosophers are hereby encouraged to read it, lest they lose their confidence to “walk the edge”!

References: 

Nietzsche, Friederich. 1999. Thus Spake Zarathustra. New York: Dover Publications: 70-1. Print. (Original published, 1883).

Sokolowski, Robert. 1974. Husserlian Meditations. US: Northwestern University Press: 95-6.  Print.

Calcagno, Antonio (2009). The Philosophy of Edith Stein. Pennsylvania: Duquesne University Press: 51. Print.

Matthias Fritsch: Taking Turns with the Earth: Phenomenology, Deconstruction, and Intergenerational Justice

Taking Turns with the Earth: Phenomenology, Deconstruction, and Intergenerational Justice Book Cover Taking Turns with the Earth: Phenomenology, Deconstruction, and Intergenerational Justice
Matthias Fritsch
Stanford University Press
2018
Paperback $27.95
280

Reviewed by: Christopher Black (Texas A&M University)

Introduction

Taking Turns With the Earth offers to the reader a rich and incisive analysis of intergenerational justice, especially as it relates to issues pertaining to the environment.  With intergenerational ethics being relevant to so many issues that we face today, this book offers a timely theoretical analysis of the nature of our obligations to non-contemporary others.

This book makes clear that the theoretical nature of obligations to future generations is fraught and contested terrain, and Fritsch spends a sizable amount of time early in the text outlining the major ontological problems and methods in intergenerational justice (IGJ), of which there are multitudes. At times, especially in the early expository sections, so much theoretical matter is covered in such close succession that it becomes theoretically dense.  The multifarious forms of epistemic problems, interaction problems, world-constitution issues, and nonexistence challenges, and the various responses to each problem almost blur together into one mass.  But if taken slowly and deliberately, this expository portion is tremendously helpful towards understanding the state of the IGJ literature.  Within this section, too, certain portions – such as the discussion of the nonidentity problem (34) and the challenges it raises to common moral concepts such as autonomy and personhood – raise especially powerful challenges to IGJ in general, but also ones that Fritsch ably responds to.  Only after this expository portion do we get to Fritsch’s original contributions to the topic, which include his major claim and two models of intergenerational justice that follow from it.

He responds to the epistemic and ontological problems associated with intergenerational justice by promoting a social ontology that is attuned to what he calls the “ineluctability” of normativity, and which deals directly with “the relations among subjectivity, time, and generations.” Fritsch identifies a basis of normativity which he thinks need be recognized for an ontological account of IGJ to be adequately normatively sensitive. Specifically, he claims that both natality and mortality, or the fact that we are always already living in the time of birth and death, should be considered constitutive of moral subjectivity.  Moral subjectivity is a term which he thinks contains both moral status (being a legitimate object of moral concern) and moral agency (the capacity to freely choose a course of action). This moral subjectivity-constituting view of birth and death – which he expands upon further in chapter two – foregrounds the two models of IGJ which he introduces in chapters three and four, respectively. The first model of IGJ that Fritsch proposes is indirect reciprocity, which he elaborates further into his idea of asymmetrical reciprocity.  This model is meant to capture the role that indebtedness to previous others plays in giving to future others. The model is exemplified as follows: “A gives to B who ‘returns’ the gift to C (so for example, from past to future via the present.” (11) The second model of IGJ – which is outlined in chapter 4 – is the idea of “taking turns.” Fritsch argues this model is more appropriate for holistic or quasi-holistic objects (such as the earth or nature) because such holistic objects cannot be divided up and distributed like a cake. Whereas reciprocity depends upon substitutability, taking turns does not depends upon this principle.  Thus, the latter model is better equipped to deal with holistic, intergenerational, indivisible “objects” in a way that the former is not.

Summary

Now that I have quickly outlined the general structure of book I will undertake a more detailed summary, with an eye towards identifying the way of thinking about IGJ (i.e. the presentist view) that Taking Turns With the Earth resists, and then I will summarize the alternatives models to the presentist view that Fritsch offers in this book. Following that I will offer a few comments about the strengths and weakness of this book.

 The book starts out quickly with a series of salvos directed towards a certain set of people whom Fritsch refers to as “presentists.”  Presentists are those who exist as if they gave “birth to themselves.” Such people believe themselves to be self-standing individuals that are ontologically unrelated to past or future generations. Consequently, and critically, Fritsch (with continual reference to Stephen Gardiner) claims that because of this ontological short-sightedness presentists are subject to a form of “moral corruption.” Such corruption, it seems, is derived from a lack of social-ontological self-awareness, and results in a lack of care or adequate moral concern for noncontempories (both past and future, but especially future). Presentists’ lack of moral concern for noncontempories reveals itself most clearly on issues relating to the climate and non-renewable energy use. It is certainly true that conversations about these topics often reveal that there are many people who simply do not care about the welfare of individuals who will live, say, three or more generations down the line.  (This is the concept of “non-overlapping future people” illustrated on page 21.) The general nature of Fritsch’s indictment of presentism is compelling, and his concerns about intergeneration ethics are well warranted, but I think that it would be helpful if his idea of moral corruption (3) were given more explication, especially as many who participate in “presentist” practices (heavy dependence on fossil fuels by driving daily, for example) probably do so unreflectively or out of sense of perceived necessity.  Fritsch’ concept of moral corruption seems to imply a moral quality more active and malicious than this, though.  Instead, however, the indictment of moral corruption is given as just so.

Fritsch then argues that recently certain issues that are intergenerationally relevant, such as climate change, have come nearer to the center of public consciousness, and in doing so have made the topic of intergenerational justice more approachable. Notwithstanding these shifts in public approachability, he argues that there is still a prevailing – or at least a significant –  mythology of the temporally and historically isolated individual alive today, and he sets it as his task to debunk the myth of this kind of individualism in this book. In the introductory section he seems to come very close to claiming that those who hold to ideals such as individuality or autonomy, or perhaps even those who even believe that individuals exist at all, do not have the capacity to have care-filled relationship with contemporary or noncontemporary others. Surely it is the case that our identities are significantly extended through past and future, but it also seems that individuals are the kinds of being – and perhaps the only kinds of beings – that are capable of the capacity to care, be they a dog, a frog, or a friend. Crowds can’t care, only the individuals in them, at least if we are talking about the kind of care that can turn into moral corruption, not the kind of synergetic “care” that a superorganism (i.e. an ant colony or a coral reef) might be said to have for itself. But, to be clear, it seems that the idea of individuality that he is resisting is an idea of something like the liberal or the neo-liberal self, not an idea of selfhood like Heidegger’s authentic Dasein or Levinas’ other-constituted moral subject, and in the overarching scheme of this book this interpretation seems more sensible.  Indeed, later in the book Fritsch uses Heidegger’s “being-towards-death” as a stepping-stone (45/46) to get towards Levinas’ modified, intergenerationalized interpretation of self: being-for-beyond-my death (l’être-pour-au-delà-da-ma-mort). (67)  Upholding an intergenerational idea of self is critical to moving beyond a presentistic idea of self and, if Fritsch is right about presentism leading to moral corruption, then eschewing a presentistic idea of selfhood should lead us towards a better ontological alternative.  As the title of Chapter 1.4 states: “Ontological Problems Call for Ontological Approaches.”

To make the ontological adjustments that Fritsch argues that we need, the argument of the book turns towards an engagement with Levinas.  Fritsch specifically engages with the intersections of time, normativity, and sociality that can be found in Levinas’ thought.  Levinas offers a way of thinking about death, temporality, sociality, and normativity in a way that is helpful to Fritsch’ project of re-orienting IGJ. Fritsch seems to rely most heavily on Levinas’ thinking about temporality, and for good reason, because – as will soon be shown – this section adds strength to this book’s argument. Fritsch demonstrates that for Levinas death is not an isolating, individualizing event – as the existentialist pathos of Heidegger would have us believe – but that it is instead an inherently interpersonal, historical event.  Levinas agrees with Heidegger that meaning and agency depend of death, but contra Heidegger Levinas maintains that one’s own death is always inaccessible, and that it is only known in and through the experience of others.  For Levinas death is ever futural and never calculable; because of this, it is possible to psychically murder someone, but it is impossible to morally annihilate someone. (76)  Moral traces, vestiges, and memories of the moral other remain in a meaningful order beyond their physical death – even if the body is dead, there is no total annihilation of the other.

Levinas’ argument that a meaningful order exists beyond one’s death and his claim that death is a fundamentally interpersonal event, paired with Levinas’ assessment that our being is always already existing between the “immemorial past” and the infinite future, leads Fritsch towards his development of a model of ethical responsibility based upon Levinas’ idea of fecundity (fecondité).  Taking adequate precautions (86-91), Fritsch uses fecundity to argue that fecundity makes manifest the claim that relations with future people are not an afterthought but, instead, should be thought of as the exemplification of ethics in general. (88) It is the natal-mortal exposure to one’s child that both opens one up to a meaningful sense of time beyond one’s own life-span, but which also simultaneously hearkens back to the past, to previous generations – to those that gave birth to the parents, and the parents’ parents, and so on. At this nexus – in the fecund sense of time between birth and death – moral subjectivity emerges.  This fecund nexus demonstrates to us phenomenologically the kind of temporal being that we are, and also simultaneously infuses both the past and the future with ineluctable moral significance.

At this point, after having argued that we are the kinds of beings that exist as being-for-beyond-my-death and also always in relation to the past, Fritsch begins to turn the argument towards his reciprocity based model of IGJ, which is the first of the two models he proposes in this book.  Section 2.5 (“Intergenerational Reciprocities,” 91) introduces the language of reciprocity by stating: “If subjectivity can give birth to a fecund future only by owing to previous others, then its moral-ontological historicity can be captured by a Janus-faced form of reciprocity that refers both backward and forward.” Despite the wordiness of this passage – a regular trait in this book – the introduction of this concept is well-timed, and through its phenomenological descriptions this section does well to set up the normative argument for indirect reciprocity that Fritsch will soon move to.  But before doing this, and immediately after introducing the idea of reciprocity, Fritsch invokes Butler’s theory of cohabitation –  a theory which argues that Levinas’ distinction between my life and the lives of others is too strong – to gain support in order to help him begin his theory of indirect (or asymmetrical) reciprocity.  This interpretive reworking and clarification is needed because Levinas himself held a strongly negative view of the concept of reciprocity (92), and this caveat does well to demonstrate that Fritsch is well aware of the limitations of using Levinas to support his model  of reciprocity.

After introducing the basic idea of reciprocity in view of the ontological-normative claim that we exist fundamentally as past and future oriented (and constituted) beings, Fritsch expands the concept of reciprocity beyond its traditional mutualistic usage and argues that a tripartite understanding of reciprocity would better serve our ethical purposes.  That is, if we are to understand ourselves, ethically speaking, in terms of the concept of fecundity.  This tripartite usage of the concept of reciprocity a distinguishing factor that makes Fritsch’s model of indirect (asymmetrical) reciprocity distinctive. Indirect reciprocity is called “indirect” because the person that what I may owe is not limited exclusively to the person from whom I initially received something, but also to others. Traditional mutualistic ideas of reciprocity depend on the assumption that morally relevant parties will exist in a shared space of time and that the perspectives of morally relevant parties can be simply reversed.  They also depend upon the idea that the person who deserves reciprocity is the same person as the one who gave the first gift of exchange in the first place. However, Levinasian temporality and fecundity reveals this basic notion of reciprocity to be incomprehensive. Indirect reciprocity is a sense of reciprocity that cannot be distilled into a traditional form of simple, direct, presentist exchange, but instead extends beyond it. (94) This model of reciprocity calls for “giving back” to the future what is received from the past, even though the recipients of the gift are not the same as those who gave the gift in the first place.

Soon after these clarifications – and roughly halfway through the book – Fritsch introduces two major figures in the book: Derrida and Marcel Mauss.  Fritsch uses this middle portion to expound further on the idea of indirect reciprocity. He makes the case that because we are indebted to others from the past this should play a role in our giving to others in the future, even if the “gift” we give to future others is dramatically asymmetrical or altruistic.  Because of this second part, Fritsch argues that the notion of indirect reciprocity should be expanded into what he calls asymmetrical reciprocity. (107) Derrida’s critique of Levinas and The Gift by French sociologist Marcel Mauss figure heavily into this portion.

There are two critical elements to asymmetrical reciprocity that make it asymmetrical, and they form the bedrock of this distinctive way of thinking about IGJ. The traditional formulation of indirect reciprocity states that “(past) A gives to (present) B who ‘returns’ the gift to (future) C.” (108) Fritsch argues that this should be traditional formulation should be elaborated into asymmetrical reciprocity first because “if A’s gift is co-constitutive of B (i.e., is part of what allows B to be B), then B cannot ever fully repay the debt; full appropriation would amount to full self-annulment.  Thus, the gift remains inappropriable, excessive, and asymmetrical for B, who therefore must free herself from the debt in some way.” (108)  According to this argument one cannot fully repay a debt to the original donor without in some way substantially undermining or annulling their identity; the gift, and by extension the repayment, are inextricable from both the donor and the recipient. (Shades of the nonidentity problem appear here.)  The debt can only be repaid – in some way, shape, or form – to future others; other others than those who first gave the gift. The second element of asymmetrical reciprocity takes into consideration the excessive, overflowing characterr of this sort of debt.  Since this form of debt can never be fully returned to the original donor, this form of debt is always outstanding.  Thus, those in the present are always in the process of “giving back” to the future.  Thus, in this idea of continual future-oriented obligations constituting our normative being, we can see how this theory of asymmetrical reciprocity links up with Levinas’ of being as being-for-beyond-my-death.

Marcel Mauss is invoked in order to give a concrete sociocultural example of this sort of asymmetrical reciprocity standing at the center of a community’s ethos. Also Mauss is presumably used to suggest that since this sort of gift-receiving-and-giving can be witnessed in certain archaic cultures, then perhaps it can be used as a model of intergenerational relations for our modern world. In the cultures that Mauss studied the donor is not separable from the thing given, but also at the same time the donor is not taken to be the sole owner of the gift.  Instead the gift is understood to come from the clan, tribe, traditions, and ancestors. The recipient receives some of the donor’s spirit (in Maori hau or mana), and this spirit co-constitutes both donor and recipient. The obligation to reciprocate originates in the fact that in accepting the gift the recipient assimilates into themselves something that is fundamentally inassimilable (the mysterious elemental spirit of the gift), and thus it necessarily overflows them.  Because it overflows, it cannot but be passed on to future others, and in being passed on to the future it is in a sense returning to its own past.  This idea, as we can see, in many ways parallels the Levinasian structure of fecundity.  An ontological claim (that the gift itself is unassimilable) leads to a moral claim (that one should not try to make it theirs alone, but ought to pass it on.)  An example of this kind of gift would be food, for the food in one’s mouth – at least the kind of food that the cultures Mauss studies would eat – bespeaks the presence of ancestors; it would not come about without the gift inheritance of food-related gifts like tilled land, knowledge about farming, hunting, fishing, and so forth. (112) To account for the “return obligation,” that is, the obligation to pass the gift on, the gift is said to be imbued with an active spirit that wishes to return to its origin – to its clan, tribe, tradition, or ancestors. This model of socio-economy stands in marked contrast to the utility-maximizing agency that comprised the bedrock of Hobbes’ society, and indeed “the gift” offers an alternative model for the basis of the social contract.  For Mauss the foundation of society (at least in the one’s he reports on) is the gift that comes from the past and demands to be “returned” to future others.

Derrida is brought in to serve as a check on Mauss.  Derrida warns against Mauss’ “Rousseauist schema” which attempts to find an absolute bedrock of normativity in some far-off archaic origin.  Both Derrida and Mauss agree that there is an element of the “unpossessable” in the gift, but Derrida rejects Mauss’ foundationalism, and resists the idea that a singular normative origin can be found. Fritsch agrees that there is an issue with this sort of Rousseauism in Mauss – and that there is an issue in trying to identify a point of origin in normative life – but does not think it is sufficiently troublesome to motivate us to overlook the role that gifts play in intergenerational relations.  They allow us an opportunity to see a normativity that binds past generations to future generations, and thus are relevant to helping understand the nature of intergeneration normativity. Fritsch spends the rest of this chapter outlining more of Derrida’s thoughts about reciprocity and the gift, and defends his view against a variety of potential critiques.  He responds to the claim that asymmetrical reciprocity blurs the boundary between gift and exchange, and between private life and the world commerce, by suggesting (via Given Time) that this challenge – and challenges like this – presume the existence of utility-maximizing agents on the one hand, and the family one the other, whereas such a substantial distinction cannot be made.  (152).

The nuanced section on asymmetrical reciprocity nicely leads into the introduction of the second and final model of IGJ that Fritsch introduces: Turn-Taking.  While asymmetrical reciprocity is meant to show how the indebtedness to previous generations plays a role in our obligation to give to (and to care about the welfare of) future people, even if the gift is asymmetrical or altruistic, taking turns is meant to provide a model for intergenerational sharing of things that cannot be returned partially or incompletely.  That is, taking turns is concerned with holistic or quasi-holistic “objects” of sharing, such as the earth or nature.  Fritsch argues that there are three merits to the turn-taking model of IGJ. First, turn-taking demonstrates that there are ways other than the reciprocity of the gift that, normatively speaking, take into account the ontological presence of the dead and the unborn in our lives.  Secondly, turn-taking is better with respect to quasi-holistic and holistic object in a way that reciprocity is not, because reciprocity implies owing to the future an “equivalent among substitutables” and needs a “common metric to calculate such equivalents.” (155) Reciprocity is inadequate when discussing holistic objects such as the natural environment, the earth, or nature, because substitutability is not a principle that can easily applied to such totalizing entities. However, turn-taking can account for how to treat such holistic objects. Finally, taking turns better treats questions of intergenerational justice as inherently political questions. By citing Aristotle’s Politics Fritsch argues that this is so because a fundamental model of justice relies on the sharing of nonsubstitutable political offices. Turn-taking, Fritsch argues, is the model that free equals ought to take when attempting to share an object that is not divisible like a cake. (155) Fritsch notes this this basic idea of taking turns has received hardly any attention in the IGJ literature, and – in a very general way – this is surprising since this idea can be applied to a wide range of things, from political offices to the earth itself.  It is a model that provides a helpful way of thinking about IGJ in the context of holistic, indivisible, intergenerational objects, and for this reason it is a needed (and a very helpful) contribution to this book.

In a method not unlike that one found in the portion on asymmetrical reciprocity, which relied on the temporality of the “time of life and death” to reconceive of past-present-future obligations, in this chapter on turn-taking Fritsch invokes Derrida to deconstruct (“depresentify”) presentism, and to reconceptualize life as a matter of “lifedeath,” or even as “lifedeathbirth.” (161) This is meant to aid in understanding the ontologically connected, co-constitutive nature of the relation between living and nonliving generations.

After a few more forays through Derrida and Aristotle, Fritsch turns towards clarifying precisely what he means by turn-taking by laying out his model of “double turn-taking.” It has two components in its most general formulation: T1 and T2.  T1 is the turning of the self back towards itself over time.  “Given the noncoincidence of time, no identity is simply given.  Any self must, from the beginning, seek to return to itself, promising itself to its future self.” The second part of the turn is T2, which takes into account the differential contexts that the self passes through, but which are always constitutive of the self in the first place.  This is the turn toward the other: “To affirm oneself as oneself is to affirm the context without which one could not be what one is, and that means to welcome unconditionally the future to-come as an alterity within itself.” (167)  This two-step model of turn-taking can be applied specifically to intergenerational relations, but also to environment issues.  For the former, intergenerational relations, the attempted self-return would take place in and through birth from previous generations, and the turn towards the other takes place insofar as we turn towards the next generation.  For the latter, the environment, the attempted self-return takes place by the consumption of biospherical resources, and the turn towards the other is the turn towards the earth upon death and also through life’s continuous exchange with nature. (173)

In summary of this discussion of double turn-taking Fritsch says “saying yes to turn-taking means accepting that I receive power from previous others and will leave it to others.” (173)  In general the idea of turn-taking being an appropriate model for intergenerational sharing of holistic objects seems good and well-justified, however the level of theoretical detail and distinction-adding in this chapter seems unnecessary, and at times it seems to obfuscate the main point of turn-taking rather than clarifying it.

Final Comments

This general critique mentioned in the previous paragraph applies throughout this book.  In this book, as hopefully I have able to show in this review, there are many excellent, lucid, and compelling sections.  The early section on ontological problems in IGJ, the middle section on Levinas and fecundity, and the following section on Mauss and asymmetrical reciprocity were each particularly clear, well-argued, and engaging.  However, these rich and rewarding veins of thought are often buried beneath mounds of distinctions, caveats, and repetitions. Sometimes it gets hard to dig through, because the essential matter of the main argument is not always separated from additional theoretical matter. Moreover, the book tends to go on a bit longer than needed and to lose steam at the end. Chapter four – the section which introduces turn-taking as a model of IGJ – gives way to a chapter five.  This final chapter, while fascinating if standing on its own, seems primarily to turn around and rehash ideas previously covered in a way that is not terribly helpful to the overall experience of the book. This chapter concerns itself with life as lifedeath and the terrestrial claim over the corpse, both ideas which were previously covered. At this point I only have a few tiny, almost trifling critiques. First, there is a slight tendency to introduce very complex issues and then to simply say “I will not be able to discuss these interpretations here.” (115, for example) This leads to bit of expectation disappointment. Secondly, there is also a slight tendency to compile lists of “ists” and isms,” sometimes almost seemingly for its own sake. (212, for example.) This is certainly not a big deal, but just worth noting.

If the preponderance of critique that I offer about this book is in the form of writing critique, and anodyne critique at that, then that speaks to the strength of this book as a strong work philosophical scholarship.  Philosophically, I only suggested a concern about Fritsch’s use of “moral corruption” (which I mentioned in my 4th paragraph), and a concern about the idea of “self” that Fritsch is employing (which I mentioned in my 5th paragraph). This book is tremendously well-researched and takes pains to be sure that no theoretical stone goes unturned.  Appropriate sources are consulted at appropriate times, and the limitations of claims are clearly articulated.  More importantly, this book addresses a pressing ethical issue in our world today. What do we owe to future others, especially in view of our growing knowledge about climate issues?  If Fritsch is right, then we owe a lot, and certainly much more than many people take the time to consider that we do.  And we owe this to the future because of who, how, and, perhaps most importantly shown by this book, where we are.  Taking Turns With the Earth offers a vast reservoir of theoretical material to help us re-conceptualize the nature of our ontological and normative relation to both past and future noncontempories, and it demands that we pay attention to our status as interpersonal beings always living in the time of life and death. In doing so it calls for us to develop our ethical self-understanding, and this call is not just thrown out haphazardly.  Instead, this call is motivated and supported by astute philosophical argumentation.