he Question about Method and Ethics in Martin Heidegger’s The Question about Method and Ethics in Martin Heidegger’s Early Philosophy Early Philosophy

Abstract

The aim of this article is to analyse the relationship between the phenomena of methodicalness and ethicality in Martin Heidegger's early philosophy. Neither the method is conceived here as a research procedure, nor ethics as a particular philosophical discipline with the own field of research objects. They are two spheres of Being that imply each other. At first, the phenomenology is analysed as a way of question about Being, and then the methodical meaning of the proceeding Heidegger calls the formal indication is elicited. In result, methodicalness reveals itself as the way that leads to Being understood as the source of meaning, the way that Being as such provides. In the next step, the phenomenon of philosophizing is analysed, which Heidegger construes as a clear transcending. Eventually, this transcending turns out to be freedom, the essence of which is the phenomenon of letting-be, which lays the foundation of responsibility. Responsibility is a response to the call of Being and takes the form of Dasein commitment to the entity that Dasein has let be. Ethicality is revealed as demanding of such a response to the Being call that will bear the burden of its message. Here, the meeting of ethicality and methodicalness comes to light – the latter is the path leading to the openness of Being that this Being provides so that the requirement of ethicality will be met. That means that ethicality requires methodicalness, and methodicalness (and therefore philosophizing too) brings with itself ethical consequences for the understanding of Being and entities.

Key words: Heidegger, phenomenology, method, ethics, freedom, responsibility