Earth and World: Philosophy After the Apollo Missions

1. See Benjamin Lazier (2011, 606). I am fortunate to have found Lazier’s article “Earthrise” while working on this project (2011). This chapter is indebted to his work there. I am also grateful for conversations with Jennifer Fay, which helped me immensely in formulating this project.

2. See Lazier 2011, 620; and Cosgrove 1994, 272.

3. See Sagan 1994; and Nicks, This Island Earth, 1970.

4. See Lazier 2011, 606. Lazier makes this point and coins the phrase “the globalization of the world picture.”

5. Quoted in Poole 2008, 2 (my emphasis).

6. See Derrida 2005c.

8. Kant 1996c [1795], 338.

9. See Benhabib 2006, 17–18.

10. For a discussion of the complexities of Arendt’s thoughts on International law, see Benhabib 2006.

11. Biologist Edward O. Wilson says, “There is no question in my mind that the most harmful part of ongoing environmental despoliation is the loss of biodiversity” (Wilson 1993, 35).

12. In his Anthropology Kant claims that ultimately we cannot understand ourselves as rational beings until we meet rational beings from another species. And since for Kant no other species on Earth is rational, he imagines meeting rational extraterrestrials (2006, 225, 7:321). Kant also imagines that all planets are inhabited or will someday be inhabited (2012c, 297, 1:355).

13. Along with many more, including This Is Not a Test (1962), Atomic Rulers of the World (1964), Fail Safe (1964), The End of August at the Hotel Ozone (1967).

14. Lazier makes this argument; see 2011, 619.

15. See Cosgrove 1994. For a discussion of the rhetoric of the missions in terms of gender, see also Garb 1985.

16. Denis Cosgrove describes the way in which this panhuman rhetoric aligns Christian universalism and the American vision of global harmony imagined because imperialism can be taken into space where there is enough to go around (1994, 281). See also Poole 2008.

17. See Cosgrove 1994, 287.

18. Quoted ibid., 286.

19. Quoted ibid., 282.

20. Lovell quoted in Time 1969, 12.

21. Anders says, “The Earth looked so tiny in the heavens that there were times during the Apollo 8 mission when I had trouble finding it…. I think that all of us subconsciously think that the Earth is flat or at least almost infinite. Let me assure you that, rather than a massive giant, it should be thought of as the fragile Christmas-tree ball which we should handle with care” (quoted in Cosgrove 1994, 284).

22. Nicks 1970, vi (my emphasis). Upon seeing the photographs of earth from space, news anchor Walter Cronkite described the Earth as “floating in space” (Poole 2008, 146 [my emphasis]).

23. George Low, in Nicks 1970, iv (my emphasis).

24. Quoted in Poole 2008, 2.

25. For a discussion of Derrida’s analysis of islands in relation to Kristeva’s notion of abjection, see Negrón 2011.

26. See Garb 1985, 21.

27. Quoted in Poole 2008, 20, see also 135.

28. It is noteworthy that while some of the geographers and historians who have discussed the Apollo photos quote Edmund Husserl on pre-Copernican Earth or point out that Blue Marble only shows Africa and Asia; none linger on the fact that these photographs are actually not of the Whole Earth.

29. For helpful discussion of this essay, see Himanka 2000 and 2005.

30. See Sallis 1998, 206.

31. Claire Colebrook also mentions Lacan’s mirror stage in relation to the whole earth (2012, 31).

33. For one psychoanalytic approach to analyzing the fantasy of wholeness inspired by the photographs of Earth, see Bishop 1986.

34. Lazier gives an illuminating account of reactions to the photographs of Earth from space, which includes some discussion of logos and icons based on the photographs (2011).

35. For a discussion of the dangers of globalism in terms of world picture, see also Nancy 2007.

36. Arendt and Jaspers, 1993, 363.

37. See Lazier 2011, 603.

38. For a discussion of hospitality in Derrida, see Westmoreland 2008.

39. Derrida 2003a, 98–99.

40. According to United Nations economist Gao Shuangquan, “The difference of income per capita between the richest country and poorest country has enlarged from 30 times in 1960 to the current 70 times. And over 80% of the capital are flowing among US, Western European and East Asian countries.” Shangquan 2000, 4). For a more detailed discussion of how globalization has created a widening gap between the global North and the global South, see Manfred Steger Globalization (2003).

41. For a discussion of Derrida’s preference for worldwide over global, see Li 2007.

42. Cf. Heidegger 2012a, 48–49.

43. Heidegger 1971d [1951], 217; see also Heidegger 1971a [1951]; cf. Mitchell 2011, 12–13.

44. Mitchell 2005, 202; see also Heidegger 1954 “Overcoming Metaphysics.”

45. “Evening Conversation in a Prison of War Camp in Russia” (1945), quoted in Mitchell 2005, 20n, 217.

46. In his thought-provoking essay on Heidegger and terrorism, Andrew Mitchell describes this desertification: “Devastation (Verwüstung) is the process by which the world becomes like a desert (Wüste), a sandy expanse that seemingly extends without end, without landmarks or direction, and is devoid of all life…. The lifeless desert is the being-less unworld from which being has withdrawn…. Yet this unworld is not the opposite of world; it remains a world, but a world made desert” (Mitchell 2005, 206).

47. Heidegger quoted in Mitchell 2005, 206.

48. Cf. Arendt 1954, 273. See chapter three where I discuss Arendt’s criticisms of Einstein’s “observer who is poised freely in space.”

49. For a different approach to this question, see Schroeder 2004.

50. Arendt 1954, 196. Thanks to Anne O’Byrne for bringing this passage to my attention.

1. For discussions of Kant’s notion of hospitality, particularly in relation to Derrida’s, see Brown 2010 and Nursoo 2007.

2. Peter Fenves’s Late Kant: Towards Another Law of the Earth is a fascinating study of Kant’s changing notion of earth (Fenves 2003). Ultimately, Fenves argues that Kant concludes that the earth does not belong to human beings, but rather we are preparing it for its true trans- or posthuman owners. Otto Reinhardt’s essay “Kant’s Thoughts on the Ageing of Earth” is also useful in thinking about Kant’s theory of earth (Reinhardt 1982). See also Reinhardt’s discussion of Kant’s analysis of earthquakes and volcanoes (Reinhardt and Oldroyd 1983).

3. For a discussion of Kant on the human species, see Cohen 2006. For an interesting analysis of the relationship between human nature and Kant’s moral theory, see Edwards 2000; see also Kain 2009. For a discussion of the perfection of the human species, see Zammito 2008.

4. In “Conjectures on the Beginning of Human History,” Kant says, “nature has endowed us with two distinct abilities for two distinct purposes, namely that of man as an animal species and that of man as a moral species” (Kant 2003, 228n).

5. See ibid., 224–225.

6. For helpful discussions of Kant’s notion of cosmopolitanism, see Hedrick 2008; Linklater 1998; Louden 2008; Kleingeld 1998, 2003; Wilson 2006, 2011; and Wolin 2010. Wolin extends Kant’s analysis to talk about contemporary issues of globalization. Hedrick addresses the limitations of Kant’s notion of cosmopolitanism in terms of multiculturalism and race. Wilson puts Kant’s notion of cosmopolitanism in the historical context of his pedagogy. Kleingeld shows how Kant argues for both patriotism and cosmopolitanism and world citizenship. Linklater uses Kant to argue for a dialogic approach to citizenship. Louden argues that Kant proposes a cosmopolitan notion of human nature.

7. Kant claims “that one animal species was intended to have reason, and that, as a class of rational beings who are mortal individuals but immortal as a species, it was still meant to develop capacities completely” (Kant 2007b [1784], 44).

8. In his careful analysis of Kant’s property law in “The Unity of All Places on the Face of the Earth,” Jeffrey Edwards argues that Kant’s turn to a spatial justification for private property based on original common possession of the earth’s surface must be consistent with the innate principles of freedom, equality and independence that Kant sets out as fundamental to the doctrine of right (Edwards 2011, 257).

9. Edwards cites this passage from Kant’s loose leaf: “this possession must also be regarded as collectively universal, i.e., as the common possession of the human species to which corresponds an objectively united will or will that is to be united; for without a principle of distribution (which can only be found in the united will as law) the right of human beings to be anywhere at all would be entirely without effect and would be destroyed by universal conflict” (quoted in Edwards 2011, 244).

10. For analyses of Kant’s theories of property and possession, see Byrd and Hruschka 2010; Westphal 1997, 2002. Westphal argues that Kant’s theory of property assumes rather than proves the legitimacy of possession (2002). See also Skees 2009.

11. Jeffrey Edwards wrote this in a personal e-mail correspondence. For a discussion of the relationship between human nature and human freedom, see Sturm 2011.

12. Kant says, “Hence, under the general concept of public right we are led to think not only of the right of a state but also of a right of nations (ius gentium). Since the earth’s surface is not unlimited but closed, the concepts of right of a state and of a right of nations lead inevitably to the idea of a right for a state of nations (ius gentium) or cosmopolitan right (jus cosmopoliticum). Kant 1996a, 455, 6:312 (my emphasis).

He concludes, “The rational idea of a peaceful, even if not exactly friendly, thoroughgoing community of all nations on the earth that can come into relations affecting one another is not a philanthropic (ethical) principle but a principle having to do with rights, Nature has enclosed them all together within determinate limits (by the spherical shape of the place they live in, a globus terraqueus). Kant 1996a, 438, 6:352 (my emphasis); cf. 1996a, 404, 6:250 ff (my emphasis); see also 1996c, 326, 8:355.

13. If equal access and not equal distribution is what is required, then Edwards’s argument is not quite as strong, which may very well be the case.

14. See Kant 1996a, 416, 6:265.

15. See Kant 1996a, 420.

16. In answer to the question of whether developing the land is necessary for acquisition, Kant answers “No.” See Kant 1996a, 417, 6:265.

17. See Kant 2011 [1760], 7:127.

18. For more examples of animal resistance to humans see Hribal 2011.

19. See Kant 1996a, 419, 6:268.

20. According to Vernadsky, the first was Professor E. Suess in 1875 in The Origin of the Alps. Jean-Babtiste Lamarck introduced the term biosphere in 1802 in a book entitled Hydrogéologie. See Vernadsky 1998, 91.

21. On the usefulness of earthquakes, see Kant 2012a, 360, 1:456.

22. Compare Kant 2006, 427, 7:331.

23. See Kant 2009, 298, 1:355–356.

24. See Kant 2003, 224.

25. For Derrida’s discussion of Kant’s claim that war is necessary, see Derrida 2011, 272–273.

26. See ibid., 9:165.

27. For interesting examinations of Kant’s relation to extraterrestrials, see Dick 1982 and Clark 2001. David Clark’s essay “Kant’s Aliens” is an engaging and detailed account of Kant’s remarks about extraterrestrials in relation to his theory of “man.”

28. As Anne O’Byrne reminds us: “the Germanic word belonging in its earliest sense means to go along with, to be proper accompaniment to, to be appropriate to. Then the verb to belong emerged in English as an intensification of to long, thereby incorporating an element of desire and necessary separation. Finally, the archaic adjective belong has its roots in equality. The Oxford English Dictionary tell us: ‘[t]he primary notion was apparently “equally long, corresponding in length,” whence “running alongside of, parallel to, going along with, accompanying as a property or attribute”’ (O’Byrne 2013).

1. For example, see Chapman 2004, 2007, Macauley 1992, 1996; Mortari 1994; Ott 2009; Smith 2011; Szerszynski 2003; and Whiteside 1994.

2. For discussions on Arendt and limits (or lack thereof), see Canovan 1983; Disch 1994; Gottlieb 2003; Wolin 2003.

3. For a helpful analysis of freedom in Arendt, see Kateb 1977.

4. For an account of Arendt’s life, see Young-Bruehl 2004.

5. For passing discussions of the notion of belonging in Arendt’s writings, see Butler 2011, 2012a.

6. Julia Kristeva emphasizes Arendt’s notion of narrative in her study of Arendt (Kristeva 2001, 99).

7. For an engagement with Arendt on human rights that argues for reconceiving human rights, see Burke 2008. See also Birmingham 2006; Benhabib 2007; Brunkhorst 1996; Menke 2007; and Isaac 1996.

8. For a helpful discussion on the public and public space in Arendt, see Benhabib 1993.

9. For a discussion of natality in Arendt, see Dietz 2010. Dietz outlines feminist debates over the usefulness of the concept of natality. See also Durst 2004; Guenther 2006; and Vatter 2006.

10. See Arendt1958a, 178.

11. See Arendt 1954, 61.

12. For important discussions of Arendt’s notion of natality, see O’Byrne 2010; Birmingham 2006; Bowen-Moore 1989; Benhabib 2003.

13. For sustained discussion of Arendt’s analysis of war and the importance of war in her thought, see Owens 2007. See also Birmingham 2010 and Bar On 2008.

14. Cf. Benhabib 2009, 331.

15. Butler relegates the distinction between earth and world to a mere footnote about Heidegger attached to a parenthetical remark about Arendt’s “equivocation” on it (2012b 166, see also footnote 9 on page 238).

16. Wayne Allen discusses Arendt’s notion of political imagination; see Allen 2002; see also Zerilli 2005. For engagements with Arendt and Kant on politics and imagination, see Beiner et al. 2001.

17. For insightful discussions of Arendt’s notion of gratitude, see O’Byrne 2010 and Birmingham 2006. See also Chapman 2007 and Canovan 1994.

18. Peg Birmingham (2006) discusses Arendt’s concept of the given.

19. See Arendt 1954, 263–264.

20. For helpful discussion of the concepts of earth and world alienation in Arendt’s thought, see Canovan 1994; Chapman 2004, 2007; Macauley 1992, 1996; Ott 2009; Passerin d’Entreves 1991. Bonnie Mann develops an interesting analysis of Arendt’s concept of world alienation in relation to feminism (Mann 2005).

21. Paul Ott describes the difference: “the products of labor are meant to be consumed, in the sense of entirely destroyed through consumption. They are perishable. Ideally, the waste from such activities should re-enter ecosystems with no net harmful results. The products of work, instead, are used up, but not destroyed all at once. They make up and are preserved in worlds” (Ott 2009, 14).

22. For discussions of consumption in Arendt’s work, see Lulofs 1962; Mardellat 2011; and Norris 2005, 2006.

23. Ott gives some poignant examples of the ways that contemporary culture confuses labor and work (Ott, 2009, 14–15). And referring to Arendt’s example of bread as a perishable consumable good as opposed to a table as a durable stable product, David Macauley points out that today some bread is made to last longer than some tables (1992, 40).

24. It would be interesting to consider innovation and newness in patent law in terms of Arendt’s theory of natality as opening onto a future anterior tense, it will have been. In this regard, the new always comes to be through interpretation.

25. See Arendt 1954, 278.

26. George Kateb argues that both world and earth alienation are forms of homelessness caused by resentment towards our limitations and the limits of the human condition (1984, 164). “Restraint and self-restraint” he says, “would come from acceptance of the human condition and would lead to less alienation” (1984, 164). Whereas Kateb associates finding our way home with religion and spirituality, I would argue that for Arendt it comes with what she calls the “strange enterprise” of understanding, which, through imagination, can lead to shifting perspectives and thereby changing worlds.

27. See Macauley (1992, 26) for a discussion of planet as wanderer in relation to Arendt.

28. For a discussion of Arendt’s amor mundi, see Chiba 1995. Chiba argues that Arendt’s amor mundi needs to be supplemented by notions of eros and forgivness. (Chiba 1995, 509). See also Rose 1992; Miles 2002; and Martel 2008.

29. For sustained discussions of Arendt’s notion of love, see also Beiner 1997.

30. See Arendt 1966 for a discussion of the right to rights. See also Honig 2006, 120.

31. Bonnie Honig reads Arendt’s “right to have rights” in terms of Derrida’s unconditional. (Honig 2006, 107).

32. In the words of Shin Chiba, Arendt’s “notion of love can be seen as a principle for constituting a community, that is, a principle of coexistence—or life together—with whatever is outside and heterogeneous…. One’s readiness to live together with those who are different, diversified, and heterogeneous, is the essential ingredient of amor mundi” (1995, 509 and 534).

33. Chiba argues that Arendt’s notion of love the choice to live with others through friendship must be supplemented with Eros as the drive towards stable relationships with other people and the world (ibid., 509 and 534).

34. Cf. Arendt 1958a, 247.

35. For discussions of solidarity in Arendt’s thought, see Allen 1999 and Reshaur 1992.

1. For an insightful account of home in Heidegger’s thought, see Capobianco 2005. For other discussions of home and homecoming, see Bambach 2009; Hammermeister 2000; Mugerauer 2008; and Tijmes 1998.

2. For an insightful discussion of inhabit, see Foltz 1995.

3. For a helpful discussion of Being and Time, see Kockelmans 1989. David Cerbone explains the role of World in Heidegger’s early work (1995). See also Hall 1993. Klaus Held discusses Heidegger’s notion of World in relation to Husserl (Held 1992).

4. There has been substantial secondary literature on Heidegger’s concept of Dasein. On Dasein’s gender neutrality, see Aho 2007; and, on Dasein in relation to race and ethnicity, see Ortega 2001, 2005. On the changing conception of Dasein, see Beistegui 2003. On Dasein in relation to community, see Boedeker 2001. On Dasein’s authenticity, see Bracken 2005. On Dasein’s moods, see Capobianco 2011. On Dasein’s body, see Cerbone 2000 and Ciocan 2008. On Dasein in relation to Aristotle, see Hayes 2007. On Dasein and freedom, see Jaran 2010.

5. See Oliver 2009; for other commentaries on Heidegger and animals, see McNeill 1999; Franck 1991; Calarco 2004, 2008; Kuperus 2007. For even more creative readings of Heidegger’s animal, see Derrida 1991, 2008 (chapter 4); Agamben 2003; Llewelyn 1991; Nancy 1997. Brett Buchanan also critically extends Heidegger’s analysis of animals to make it more useful for thinking of reciprocity with animals (Buchanan 2008).

6. For an insightful discussion of Heidegger’s notion of the uncanny in relation to Freud’s, see Krell 1992.

7. For a sustained discussion of Heidegger’s comparative analysis on the issue of hierarchy, see Oliver 2009.

8. John Caputo describes the relationship between boredom and refusal (1993, 54). For a discussion of the role of Versagen in Being and Time, see Marder 2007. Bernhard Radloff considers the role of refusal in Contributions (2007).

9. For sustained discussions on Heidegger’s notion of boredom, see Biceaga 2006, Beistegui 2000; Emad 1985; Gibbs 2011; Gordon 2003; Hammer 2004 (here Espen Hammer discusses boredom in relation to melancholy), 2008; Mansikka 2009; McKenzie 2008; Slaby 2010; and Thiele 1997.

10. For extended discussions of Heidegger’s position on animals in The Fundamental Concepts, see Oliver 2009. See also note 3, this chapter.

11. Lassen means both leaving and letting. “The Lassen is undecidable with respect to being transitive or intransitive: in this case it has the sense of both leaving something to be and making something be” (William McNeill and Nicholas Walker in Heidegger 1995 [1929–1930], 117). For an interesting discussion of Heidegger’s notion of Gelassenheit in relation to Hölderlin, see Gosetti-Ferencei 2004. For a sustained engagement with Heidegger’s Gelassenheit, see Davis 2007. See also George 2012.

12. There has been considerable commentary on Heidegger’s “The Origin of the Work of Art.” For example, Julian Young explores Heidegger’s philosophy of art in this essay in relation to his corpus (Young 2004). See also Stulberg 1973.

13. Mitchell argues that this notion of strife undermines any sharp distinction between concealment and unconcealment and thereby destabilizes this opposition by presenting the earth as ungraspable sensuous appearing (Mitchell 2014, chapter 2).

14. For a comprehensive examination of Heidegger’s notion of nature, see Foltz 1995.

15. See Mitchell 2014.

16. Cf. ibid., chapter 2.

17. Mitchell describes some of the differences between the notion of earth in The Origin of the Work of Art and the role of earth in the fourfold. See ibid.

18. For a discussion of the performative dimension of Heidegger’s thought, especially in Contributions, see Wood 2002, chapter 10.

19. For example, while Michel Haar identifies earth with a “prehistorical ground,” Robert Bernasconi describes earth as the native ground of a historical people.

20. Gregory Fried also associates earth with history and the strife between earth and world with polemos (the Greek word for war that Heidegger translates into German as Auseinandersetzung or confrontation, meaning everything from war to friendly debate) (Fried 2000, 15).

21. For the development of this argument, see Fried (ibid.). Although Fried occasionally equivocates earth and world (e.g., 63 and 75), his interpretation is illuminating.

22. Cf. Fried 2000, 61.

24. For a discussion of Harris and other bioethicists who argue for genetic engineering as mastery, see Oliver 2013.

25. See Fried 2000, 66.

26. For example, whereas Iain Thomson identifies earth with a dimension of the intelligible, Fried claims that earth is not intelligible, and Frank Schalow describes the strife between earth and world as one between materiality and intelligibility (Fried 2000, 62; Schalow 2006, 94; Thomson 2011, 91).

27. Gadamer maintains, “The earth, in truth, is not stuff, but that out of which everything comes forth and into which everything disappears” (104). Both Haar and Schalow, on the contrary, associate earth with materiality (Haar 1993, 112; Schalow 2006, 94).

28. Similarly, Mitchell describes earth’s materiality in terms of shining and sensuous appearance, particularly as it participates in the fourfold. (Mitchell 2014, chapter 2).

29. See Mølbak 2011, 218.

30. Gadamer stresses that Heidegger’s concept of earth is a counterpoint to both Kantian subjective aesthetics and the objectivism of science (Gadamer 1994, 99 and 105). See also Benso 1997.

31. Engaging Heidegger and Derrida’s commentaries on Heidegger, David Wood develops a notion of unlimited obligation. He also discusses the notions of limit and liminal in terms of Heidegger’s thought (2002).

32. In “The Origin of the Work of Art” Heidegger discusses the reliability of earth in his description of Van Gogh’s painting of the peasant woman’s shoes. There Heidegger insists that the shoes are not just things or even less objects, but rather open onto the world of the peasant woman who uses them without thinking about them as shoes or instruments. It is their reliability that enables her to disregard them completely as she toils in the fields. Here too reliability is associated with the earth’s telling refusal, its “silent call.” The peasant woman hears the silent call of the earth through the reliability of her shoes, which also secures her world. In other words, the reliability of the shoes secures both the world and what disrupts the world, namely the refusal of the earth (1971c [1935–1936]).

33. Fried argues that interpretation is the medium of polemos (2000, 35).

34. Introduction to Metaphysics was published in 1935, the same year as “The Origin of the Work of Art,” but first delivered as a lecture in 1931.

35. Bruce Foltz’s Inhabiting the Earth is an excellent account of both the dangers and the saving power of technology (1995).

36. Economist Gao Shangquan says, “The difference of income per capita between the richest country and poorest country has enlarged from 30 times in 1960 to the current 70 times” (Shangquan 2000, 4).

37. For an insightful discussion of the planetary at odds with the earth in Heidegger, see Turnbull 2006.

38. For an excellent analysis of Heidegger’s changing attitude toward home, see Richard Capobianco 2005.

39. Quoted in Capobianco 2005, 164.

40. Foltz Bruce says, “The earth as a ‘homeland’ does not refer to some sort of atavistic and reactionary political agenda, as some have maintained, but simply to the ‘nearness’ and ‘significance’ of nature, which are jeopardized by modern science and technology” (1995, 144).

41. Already in Contributions, we see the fore-figures of the fourfold. What in Contributions appear as gods and humans, earth and world, become transformed into gods and mortals, earth and sky as the four elements of the fourfold (das Geviert). See Heidegger 2012b, §268, 377 and §270, 381.

42. For a sustained discussion of the role of earth in Heidegger’s fourfold, see Mitchell 2014.

43. See Young 2000, 373.

44. There are radically different interpretations of earth in the fourfold. For example, compare Young 2000 to Mitchell 2009.

45. Mitchell calls earth the “groundless ground” (2009, 212); see also Mitchell 2014.

46. Thanks to Andrew Mitchell for pointing out that while in Being and Time Dasein is given, in Contributions it is an achievement of man.

47. For an argument along these lines, see Wood 2012.

48. For a sustained analysis of Heidegger’s comparative pedagogy, see Oliver 2009.

49. While Young sees sky as the “literal sky” (2006, 374), along with what comes from it including weather, seasons, day and night, and planetary motions, Mitchell interprets these elements as the “space of the earth’s emergence, the space wherein things appear and through which they shine” (2009, 213).

50. Whereas Young gives a fairly traditional reading of humans as mortals because they are “capable of death as death” and unlike animals they are “capable of approaching death with an understanding of what it truly is,” Mitchell gives a more subtle interpretation of death in Being and Time that is resonant with Heidegger’s late work (see Young 2006, 375). Mitchell argues that although in Being and Time death is our “own,” we do not possess it, but rather we are dispossessed by it (2009, 211).

51. See Mitchell 2009 for an analysis of the dispossession inherent in each element of the fourfold.

52. See Mitchell (2009, 211).

53. Mitchell argues that Young’s interpretation of divinities as “heroes” or “mythologized figures preserved in the collective memory of a culture” misses their role in a hermeneutics of the holy (Mitchell 2009, 217n16); see Young 2006, 374.

54. Mitchell argues that Heidegger’s divinities (die Göttlichen) are the messengers of the holy (2009, 214).

55. Ben Vedder analyzes Heidegger’s concept of the Holy in relation to the Whole by way of his concepts of anxiety, boredom and wonder (Vedder 2005).

56. See Heidegger 1971c [1935–1936], 170 and 1971a [1951], 355.

57. Cf. Heidegger 1966, 108.

58. On community and belonging in Heidegger, see Birmingham 1991 and Odysseos 2009, both of whom are responding to Philippe Lacoue-Labarthe’s critical assessment of Heidegger’s politics (Lacoue-Labarthe 1990).

59. See Mitchell 2009, 215.

60. For a sustained discussion of ethical responsibility as enabling the ability to respond, see Oliver 2001.

61. See Smith 2011 for an attempt to extend Heidegger’s analysis of the saving power as letting be.

62. Cf. Mitchell 2011, 8. Mitchell argues that Heidegger emphasizes the connection between ground and earth as the nourishing soil (2011, 9).

63. See Lazier 2011, 609–610.

64. Mikko Joronen argues that globalization is an instantiation of technological enframing (Joronen 2008). See also Lazier 2011.

65. In a Heideggerian vein, Jean-Luc Nancy comments on the satellites encircling the earth (Nancy 2007, 33).

66. Cf. Andrew Mitchell on unworlding (Mitchell 2005, 197).

67. See Derrida’s Of Spirit for a discussion of “only a god can save us now” (1989).

68. The German word is Not, which does not have the connotation of vow or pledge, but does connote emergency and crisis.

69. Mitchell describes what Heidegger means by shining; see Mitchell 2014, chapter 2.

70. For an interesting analysis of Heidegger’s move from angst in his earlier work to astonishment in his later work, see Capobianco 2011.

71. For an insightful analysis of Heidegger’s notion of poetic dwelling in relationship to the Earth and environmentalism see Foltz 1995. There Foltz offers one of the most developed accounts of how Heidegger’s thoughts about nature and earth can contribute to environmental philosophy (176). Mick Smith also uses some of Heidegger’s philosophy of earth and world in order to argue for an environmentalism of letting be (Smith 2011). Other contributions to environmental philosophy that use resources from Heidegger include Brown and Toadvine 2003; Haar 1993; Irwin 2008; McWhorter and Stenstad 1992; Schalow 2006; and Zimmerman 1983, 1993, and 1994. Irwin 2008 extends Heidegger’s concepts of nature and technology to discuss climate change.

1. For a discussion of Arendt’s notion of the right to rights in terms of Derrida’s notion of hospitality, see Honig 2006.

2. Andrew Mitchell calls Heidegger’s notion of Earth a “groundless ground” (2009, 212).

3. Honig discusses Arendt’s notion of the right to have rights in terms of Derrida’s notion of hospitality (2006, 107).

4. For insightful commentaries on various aspects of Derrida’s The Beast and the Sovereign, Volume II, see Chin-Yi 2012; Harafin 2013; Krell 2013; and Naas 2012a, 2014. Krell and Naas both offer insightful and sustained analyses of the entire seminar. Naas’s chapter on world, “If you could take just two books,” deals with many of the same themes that I address here. And I am indebted to him for allowing me to read his manuscript before its publication. David Krell’s Derrida and Our Animal Others is an interesting combination of straightforward exegesis of the seminars in chronological order and a defense of Heidegger against some of Derrida’s “perverse readings,” all combined with Krell’s own rhetorical flourish.

5. I have discussed Derrida’s argument in The Animal That Therefore I Am elsewhere, see Oliver 2009. For insightful readings of this text, see Lawlor 2007; Calarco 2008; Wolfe 2008. See also Wood 1999, 2004; Naas 2013; and Krell 2013 for discussions of Derrida on animals.

6. See Derrida 2008, 1989, and the Geschlecht essays (1993, 1991, 1987).

7. Heidegger (1995 [1929–1930]) also mentions death in passing or as an example of other’s misinterpretation of Being and Time (1996a [1927]) on death on pages 26, 61, 265, 267, 273, 294–297, 300. On pages 294–297, he summarizes his notion from Being and Time that Dasein is being toward death and responds to misinterpretations of it.

8. At the end of chapter 5, Heidegger uses death to make the point that motility, like death, is essential to understanding life as such (Heidegger 1995 [1929–1930], 266). He goes on to take up the animal in relation to death; referring back to his discussion of the animal’s captivation in its disinhibiting ring: “Is the death of the animal a dying or way of coming to an end?” (267). As we know, he answers this question with the famous claim that animals do not die as such, but merely come to an end, echoing remarks that he makes elsewhere (e.g., “The Nature of Language” in Heidegger 1971b [1950–1959], 107). Just as quickly as he turned to death, however, he leaves it behind and returns to the question of the essential nature of the thesis that the animal is poor in world (Heidegger 1995 [1929–1930], 267). The only other noteworthy mention of death in Fundamental Concepts is at §70, where Heidegger summarizes his notion of Dasein’s being-toward-death in Being and Time, but again only to make a related point about the difference between philosophy and science (Heidegger 1995 [1929–1930], 294–295).

9. It is noteworthy that Derrida uses the fragment from the Celan poem at moments when he shifts his attention from Heidegger’s Fundamental Concepts of Metaphysics to other texts by Heidegger, specifically The Introduction to Metaphysics and Identity and Difference, both in session 10. We might say, then, that this Celan fragment operates as a type of metaphora in the sense that Derrida invokes it in The Beast and the Sovereign as source of movement or, in other terms, displacement.

10. Bernasconi 2000 and Cohen 2006 offer fascinating discussions of Heidegger and Levinas on being toward death and the death of the other. Iain Thomson engages Heidegger and Derrida on the question of “Can I die?” (Thomson 1999).

11. For other discussions of Derrida’s commentaries on the poetry of Paul Celan, see Fioretos 1990 and Pasanen 2006.

12. This sense of déjà vu might be the result of Derrida’s earlier engagements with Celan, particularly with this poem, in Rams (2005b).

13. The poem can be found in Paul Celan’s 1967 collection Atmenwende (Breathturn) (Celan 1986 [1967]).

14. Cf. Heidegger 1995, 269–270.

15. Derrida comments on Robinson Crusoe’s terror at not knowing whose footprint it could be, that of another or his own (Derrida 2011, 48).

16. For a discussion of the prosthesis of the world through which the individual becomes unique, see Naas 2014.

17. For a discussion of prayer in The Beast and the Sovereign, Volume II, see Naas 2014, chapter 5.

18. See ibid., 49–50.

19. Michael Naas discusses this passage at length (ibid., 52–54).

21. My translation in text.

22. My translation in text.

23. For discussions of the Derridean “as if” see Dickinson 2011; Fujita 2012; and Naas 2008.

24. Derrida sets out the both-and aspect of whether or not we share a world in the following two long sentences, see Derrida 2011, 265–266.

25. For a discussion of poetic majesty as it operates in The Beast and the Sovereign, Volume I, see Oliver 2013, chapter 3. For a discussion of poesis in Derrida’s ethics and the “mechanics of deconstruction,” see Hansen 2000, especially chapter 5.

26. See Derrida 2009, 273. It is noteworthy that Derrida’s reference to breath in this passage is an allusion to Celan’s poem “Meridian,” which he discusses at length in the seminar.

27. For discussions of hyperbolic ethics, see Attridge 2007; Llewelyn 2002; Marder 2010; Rottenberg 2006; Weber 2005; Zlomislić 2007; and Oliver 2009, 2013.

28. For a discussion of Derrida’s claim in “No Apocalypse, Not Now” that “there is no common measure able to persuade me that a personal mourning is less grave than a nuclear war,” see Naas 2014, 51–52.

29. For discussions of Derrida’s relationship to the Kantian as if, see Naas 2008; Dickinson 2011; and Fujita 2012.

30. For an insightful discussion of the relationship of Derrida’s use of as if to the as if and as such of philosophy, especially Plato, see Naas 2008, especially pages 15, 37–38, 45, 53, 79, 188, 200, 207, 238n6.

31. For a discussion of Derrida’s impossible ethics, see Raffoul 2008.

32. In his Bremen acceptance speech, Celan describes language and poetry: “Only one thing remained reachable, close and secure amid all losses: language…. A poem, being an instance of language, hence essentially dialogue, may be a letter in a bottle thrown out to sea with the—surely not always strong—hope that it may somehow wash up somewhere, perhaps on a shoreline of the heart”(1986, 35).

33. E.g., Gadamer 1983; Felman and Laub 1992.

34. Derrida is quoting Hölderlin’s poem “Die Titanen.”

35. Many species of nonhuman animals reportedly acknowledge, mourn, and even bury their dead. Different species of birds, magpies and scrub jays, have been seen engaging in ritualistic behavior around their dead (Bekoff 2009). Sea Lions wail in mourning at the death of their young or mates (Bender 2012). Normally active and boisterous chimpanzees give a moment of silence to the dead (Hanlon 2009). Gorillas and dolphins also exhibit ritualistic or unusual behaviors around the death of their companions (Bender 2012). Geese, llamas, and wolves also mourn their dead (Bekoff 2009).

36. Kirby 2012. See also Waterworth 2012.

37. See Bradshaw and Shore 2007; O’Connell-Rodwell 2011; McComb et al. 2001; Highfield 2006; Bradshaw 2004; Bekoff 2009; and Siebert 2011.

1. See Derrida 2009, 15–16. For a discussion of Derrida as a philosopher of limits, see Oliver 2013.

2. For a helpful discussion of the tension between the ethical and the political in Derrida’s work in relation to Kant, see La Caze 2007; see also Oliver 2012. For helpful discussion of Derrida’s notion of justice, see Cornell 2006; Cornell, Rosenfeld, and Carlson 1992; Fritsch 2011; Goodrich 2008; Honig 1991 (Honig compares Arendt and Derrida); Jennings 2006; Naas 2005; and Weber 1989.

3. John Sallis argues, “Having the earth in common with all men does not prescribe sharing any part of that surface with any who might occupy it; it does not prescribe any rule of hospitality. Having the earth in common does not, as such, produce any coherence among men, any substantial or essential community” (Sallis 1998, 207). As he points out, to spite sharing the limited surface of the earth, we still have wars and violence.

5. For a discussion of “thickening” in relation to Derrida and Rousseau, see my Animal Lessons, Oliver 2010.

6. Cf. Sallis 1998, 208. Following Heidegger, insofar as the earth both shelters and withdraws, Sallis concludes, through “the earth itself a community in withdrawal would (have) come to play” (ibid.).

7. For alternative attempts to formulate notions of community that start with singularity, see Jean-Luc Nancy 1991, 2000. For excellent engagements with Nancy’s notion of community, see O’Byrne 2010 and Schroeder 2004. Brian Schroeder uses Nancy’s notion of the inoperative community to develop a notion of what he calls inoperative earth.

8. In The Time of Life, William McNeill explores Heidegger’s ethics in terms of ethos and argues for ethics as a way of life rather than moral rules or principles (McNeill 2007).

9. For a provocative use of Derridean deconstruction to diagnose the current situation of environmental philosophy, particularly the situation where we must decide and act before we have proof of climate change, see Wood 2006.

10. See Rifkin 2009 for a survey of literature on so-called selfish genes and altruism as “hard-wired” into human infants and other species.

11. For a discussion of the importance of play in the development of empathy in humans and other animals, see Rifkin 2009. See also Pellegrini et al. 2007. For a discussion of some of these studies in relation to philosophy, see Willett 2014. Rifkin cites studies on horses and play, particularly Overton and Doods 2006. See also Vygotsky 1978, also discussed in Rifkin 2009.

12. Among many other recent developments, he appeals to the discovery of what neuroscientists call “mirror neurons” or “empathy neurons” in humans and higher primates as proof that we are empathic “by nature” and that our empathic sensibilities are evolving (2009, 83–87).

13. Rifkin concludes: “If we can harness our empathetic sensibility to establish a new global ethic that recognizes and acts to harmonize the many relationships that make up the life-sustaining forces of the planet, we will have moved beyond the detached, self-interested and utilitarian philosophical assumptions that accompanied national markets and nation state governance and into a new era of biosphere consciousness” (ibid.).

14. See ibid., chapter 11. See also Davi 2014; and the Harris Poll 2007.

15. For an assessment of diminishing biodiversity, see Wilson 1993.

16. Along with subjectless sociality, intersubjective attunement, and spirituality and compassion, Willett identifies the biosocial network as home as one of what she calls the four layers of interspecies ethics (Willett 2014, 133).

17. Willett concludes: “If we had to identify some final meaning for ethics, its principleless principle would not be found in philosophical logos but in the playful encounter…. Affects and emotions shape the biosocial drives and desires (Eros) for friendly bonds and a sense of home” (ibid., 134).

18. Willett says, “Eros is not a bare striving for pleasure or wild intensity but a meaning-laden yearning. Eros is a drive toward home” (ibid., 23).

19. Maurice Merleau-Ponty discusses animal cultures in his Nature Lectures (2003). For an analysis of Merleau Ponty on animal culture, see Oliver 2009.

20. Further complicating any easy and comfortable notion of home, from a political perspective, home can be a contested space, sometimes filled with violence.

21. Compare Cynthia Willett’s discussion of home in Interspecies Ethics (2014). See also Rifkin 2009. There, he summarizes psychological studies that indicate that the infant’s drive to belong is primary (ibid., 20–21). Some of the psychologists who emphasize attachment and belonging are Kohut, Winnicott, and Bowlby. In her Maternal Ethics, Cynthia Willett also discusses some of these attachment theorists, particularly in relation to French feminism and more contemporary developments (Willett 1995).

22. Developing a Heideggerian analysis of terror and terrorism, Andrew Mitchell calls “homeland security” an oxymoron; see Mitchell 2005.

23. Throughout her work, Cynthia Willett has argued for a relational notion of freedom. See, e.g., Willett 2008, 124.

24. See Willett’s discussion of home in the introduction to her recent book, Interspecies Ethics (2014).

25. For a nice discussion of the relationship between rethinking earth and community, see Schroeder 2004.

26. Cf. Willett 2014, chapter 5, 131–146.

27. My colleague David Wood often says that instead of missions to the moon or to Mars, we need a mission to Earth.

28. For example, Warsaw Climate Change Summit 2013, participants: 195 countries; G-20 Climate Summit, G-20 Major Economies; Doha Climate Change Summit 2012, participants: 195 countries; Durban Climate Change Summit 2011, participants: 194 countries; Cancún Climate Change Summit 2010, participants: 194 countries; Copenhagen Climate Change Summit 2009, participants: 194 countries.

29. This tension is repeated in more contemporary debates over nationalism versus cosmopolitanism, especially post-Kantian philosophies that attempt to embrace both. I am thinking of Seyla Benhabib in particular. She makes the tensions explicit in Another Cosmopolitanism (Benhabib 2006).