Closing Invited Speaker for Heidegger 2000 - 19 to 22 April 2000

A Lecture by Tom Nenon University of Memphis Saturday, April 22 EESAT 125 2:30 p.m.

Nenon will try to make sense of the claim that for Heidegger the single issue for thinking is the queston of the meaning of Being and he will try to describe some of the major developments of his thinking as attempts to respond to this question. He will then turn to some of the traditional objections about the limitations that his way of responding to this question seem to present for human agency. He will also discuss another recent objection to Heidegger's approach, namely that he has failed to take sufficient account of the body, both in his analyses of Dasein in Being and Time and in his later descriptions of mortals and mortality. He will address some of the reasons why Heidegger failed to do so and will argue that precisely, if we wish to do justice to the phenomenon of embodiment as an essential element of human existence, we would do well to learn from him how difficult that can be in the modern age.

Tom Nenon completed his graduate work in philosophy and literature with a dissertation on Kant's theory of truth and objectivity under Werner Marx at the Philosophisches Seminar I in Freiburg. He then worked as an editor at the Husserl-Archives and instructor at the University of Freiburg before coming to University of Memphis in 1985. His teaching and research interests include Husserl, Heidegger, Kant and German Idealism, hermeneutics, and the philosophy of the social sciences. His publications include Objectivitaet und endliche Erkenntnis, a study of Kant's theory of truth; critical editions of Husserl's works in Volumes XXV and XXVII of the Husserliana; articles on Kant, Dilthey, Husserl, Gadamer, Weber, and Heidegger and issues in literary theory and the ethical implications of genetic engineering; and translations of books on Schelling and Heidegger into English and a book on analytic philosophy into German. He has served as review editor for Husserl Studies, as a member of the Executive Committee of the Society for Phenomenology and Existential Philosophy, as Director of the Center for the Humanities, and now as Assistant Vice Provost for Academic Affairs at the University of Memphis. His current research interests include Husserl's theories of personhood and subjectivity and Kant's and Hegel's practical philosophy.

Lecture is free and open to the public.

For special accommodation, call 565-2266.

CEP - PHIL - UNT - April 29, 2000