Martin Heidegger – Did He Forget Ethics?

Vladimir Nemet 

Introduction:

Western civilization today resembles a traveler who has lost his compass but continues to quicken his pace, convinced that speed will save him from the abyss. As discontent grows in Western European societies and trust in institutions and shared values continues to erode, a question arises: what has brought us to this crisis?

While we search for its causes in politics, economics, and global conflicts, we may be overlooking something deeper. Perhaps part of the answer lies in the philosophical offices of German universities during the first half of the twentieth century. There, in the shadow of great questions about Being, existence, and human freedom, a way of thinking emerged that would shape an entire century.

His name was – Martin Heidegger.

Heidegger is widely regarded as one of the greatest philosophers of the modern era. His thought has profoundly influenced contemporary philosophy, psychotherapy, and social theory. His project of the destruction of Western metaphysics, through which he sought to expose its prejudices and metanarratives, opened new paths of thought. His existential psychotherapy and so-called Daseinsanalysis have also had a significant influence on the worlds of psychotherapy and psychoanalysis.

But what if there is an emptiness at the very heart of this magnificent edifice? What if the philosopher who reopened the question of Being overlooked a question that may be more decisive for human existence than any other: why does the Other matter to us? Do we need ethics at all?

In other words, can a person achieve authenticity without becoming responsible for the Other? Can we understand human existence without recognizing the ethical call that arises from encountering another human being? And can an individual truly be whole if there is no place for an ethical vertical in their existence?

I see the profound absence of this ethical vertical as the fundamental cause of the crisis of Western society.

Ontological Hunger

In this article, I will examine several of Heidegger’s key concepts: solitude in the face of death, authenticity, the fall into the impersonal realm of das Man, and aletheia—the unconcealment of Being.

My thesis is that Heidegger reduced the experience of Otherness and the experience of the Other to the level of reflection on human existence. Rather than opening up a space for ethics as a fundamental relation to the Other after his critique of metaphysics, he remained within the horizon of ontology.

I also see this as a limitation of existentially oriented psychotherapy that draws on Heidegger’s thought. It can help people become aware of their patterns, reconsider their choices, and change their behavior. In this respect, it does not differ significantly from other psychological schools concerned with bringing patterns and behaviors into awareness and changing them.

But a question remains: can such therapy satisfy a deeper human need, a deeper human hunger? This is the fundamental ontological hunger for ethics and care. It is the need not merely to be understood, but to matter to someone.

I believe this ontological hunger reaches deeper than individual psychological symptoms and is the principal source of human psychological suffering.

Perhaps we suffer not only because we do not understand ourselves, cannot accept our own mortality, or have lost an authentic relationship with our own existence. Perhaps we also suffer because we cannot find an Other in the world to whom we truly matter, and because we have no one for whom we can genuinely care. For it is not enough for a human being to be understood—we also need to matter to someone and to affirm our own existence through caring for the Other.

The crisis of the West, therefore, is not merely a crisis of meaning, but also a crisis of ethics. Ethics is the only vertical that cannot be deconstructed.

Heidegger’s Key Concepts:

1. Authenticity (Eigentlichkeit)

Authenticity refers to a way of existing in which a person assumes their own existential possibilities rather than uncritically surrendering to anonymous social norms and expectations. Heidegger argues that an individual becomes more authentic when they stop allowing others to determine the meaning of their existence. Authenticity therefore entails taking responsibility for one’s own existence and the possibilities it opens up.

2. Finitude (Endlichkeit)

Finitude primarily refers to the temporal limitation of human existence, most vividly expressed in the awareness of one’s own death. Heidegger understands death as Dasein’s ownmost, non-relational, and unsurpassable possibility: no one can die in my place. Confronting this possibility allows the individual to become aware of the uniqueness of their own existence and to assume responsibility for their life possibilities. Ultimately, everyone faces death alone.

3. Falling into Everydayness (Verfallen) and the Impersonal (das Man)

Heidegger uses the term Verfallen to describe Dasein’s tendency to lose itself in everyday tasks, preoccupations, and customary ways of understanding the world. The concept of das Man, or the impersonal “one,” refers to the anonymous social horizon that determines what people generally think, say, and do. In this mode of existence, individuals understand their own possibilities through what is considered normal, acceptable, or expected. In this way, a person identifies with others and adopts their ways of understanding the world.

4. Aletheia (ἀλήθεια)—Unconcealment

Heidegger interprets aletheia as unconcealment (Unverborgenheit), or the way beings reveal themselves within the human relationship to the world. In doing so, he moves beyond the traditional understanding of truth as correspondence between a statement and reality, viewing truth instead as a process through which beings become accessible to understanding. Unconcealment does not mean that everything that exists is finally revealed: whatever comes to light always retains a certain dimension of concealment.

A Critique of Heidegger:

What would a critique of these fundamental Heideggerian concepts look like from the perspective of Metamodern Psychoanalysis and the Theory of Parallel Identities?

1. Authenticity

Heidegger’s concept of authenticity begins with the individual who takes responsibility for their own existence.

But can a person truly become authentic if no one genuinely sees them, if they do not matter to anyone, and if there is no Other whose care affirms their existence? Authenticity is not merely the discovery of one’s own possibilities; it is also the experience of mattering in the eyes of the Other. Without this dimension, authenticity risks becoming a closed circuit of self-relation—an existence that relies on itself but does not know why the Other should matter to it. Authenticity without an ethical relationship to the Other threatens to become existential solipsism.

Authenticity is realized only through caring for the Other and being cared for by the Other.

2. Falling into the Impersonal—das Man

Heidegger’s concept of falling into the Other, das Man, describes the anonymous world of everyday norms and beliefs through which we understand ourselves and others. In falling into das Man, we lose our authenticity.

Yet we cannot truly know the Other merely by observing them from our own perspective or accepting general assumptions about people. Only when we identify with the Other, when we are willing to become the Other for a moment, can we experience them in their inner reality. In this encounter, the Other ceases to be merely someone about whom we know something and becomes someone whose existence we deeply experience.

Only when we allow the Other to change us do we gain experiential evidence that they exist beyond our representations of them.

According to the theory of Parallel Identities, we have always already been the Other, from the very beginning.

This is why we can encounter the Other: our Self was never the only possibility of our existence.

3. The Ownmost Nature of Death

Heidegger claims that death is a person’s ownmost possibility, something that no one else can assume in their place. Everyone dies alone.

But is this really so? Even on the threshold of death, a person thinks of someone: someone they love, someone they grieve for, or someone they are leaving behind. Death happens to an individual, but its human meaning is never theirs alone. No one is born alone, and no one dies alone, because the beginning and end of human life are permeated by relationships with Others. Even when physically abandoned, a person carries within themselves the traces of those who have mattered to them.

Perhaps the claim that a person is radically alone in death is the greatest form of metaphysics: the assumption that behind all relationships there exists a pure, isolated Self that ultimately confronts only itself. But does such a Self, freed from every trace of the Other, exist at all? Is the idea of being alone in death the final attempt to imagine human existence independently of the relationship that has shaped it from the very beginning?

From the perspective of Parallel Identities, death is undeniably one’s own, yet it is never one’s alone.

A person dies their own death, but never dies only for themselves: the Other is present even where they are no longer there.

4. Aletheia

Heidegger understands aletheia as unconcealment: the way beings reveal themselves to human beings and become accessible to their understanding.

But perhaps there is something at the very heart of this revelation that Heidegger did not sufficiently develop—ethics. For what does it mean to allow the Other to reveal themselves in their truth if we are unwilling to accept their difference, if we do not allow their existence to touch and change us?

The Other does not reveal themselves merely as something we can understand, but as someone for whom we can care and before whose existence we become responsible.

The deepest unconcealment of the Other is not knowledge of who they are, but the experience that their existence matters to us.

From the perspective of Parallel Identities, aletheia is not merely an event in which a being emerges from concealment, but an encounter between two irreplaceable existences: the Great I and the Great Thou. Such an encounter requires more than understanding. It requires a willingness to identify with the Other, to allow their reality to become alive within us without erasing the difference between us.

Without this ethical dimension, unconcealment may remain merely an ontological revelation, offering no answer to the question of why the being revealed should matter to us at all.

Perhaps a being reveals itself in its deepest truth not when we finally understand it, but when we begin to care for it. Aletheia, understood to its furthest limits, may be ethics that has not yet recognized its own name.

What Is the Common Denominator of These Critiques?

Heidegger approached human existence through Being, authenticity, finitude, and unconcealment, but he did not sufficiently develop the ethical dimension of the relationship with the Other. The fact that a person does not fulfill themselves merely by understanding their own existence, but also through experiencing that they matter to someone and that they can care for the Other.

From the perspective of Metamodern Psychoanalysis and the theory of Parallel Identities, Being is not fully revealed in the solitude of one’s own existence, but in the encounter between two irreplaceable existences, the Great I and the Great Thou, whose deepest connection is mutual ethical care.

A Critique of Existential Psychotherapy and Daseinsanalysis

Existential psychotherapy and Daseinsanalysis help people understand their own existence, accept finitude, and take responsibility for the possibilities of their lives.

But what if human suffering arises not only from one’s relationship to oneself, freedom, and death, but also from the absence of an Other to whom one matters and for whom one can care? Understanding one’s own existence is not the same as experiencing that one’s existence matters to someone.

This raises the question of how much therapy depends on the therapist’s personality. Many therapies succeed not primarily because the analyst understands the patient correctly, but because the patient—often without the analyst’s conscious intention—feels that they matter to someone. The analyst may not realize that it is precisely their capacity for care, their human presence, and their willingness to be deeply touched by the Other that activate the most important part of the therapeutic process.

In this sense, a dialogue with Emmanuel Levinas becomes possible. For Levinas, the encounter with the Other is not merely an opportunity for knowledge, but the source of ethical responsibility. The Other is not simply someone I need to understand, but someone whose presence calls upon me to respond. Where existential psychotherapy emphasizes a person’s relationship to their own Being, Levinas directs us toward a question that precedes self-understanding: am I willing to recognize the Other as someone for whom I am responsible?

Within intersubjective psychoanalysis, Donna Orange stands out for her efforts to bring Levinas’s ethics into the very center of the clinical encounter. Her work reminds us that the analyst is not merely an observer who understands the patient’s psychic reality, but a person ethically responsible for how they encounter the patient’s vulnerability. To my knowledge, few people in psychoanalysis have pursued such a consistent connection between Levinas’s philosophy and clinical practice.

From the perspective of Metamodern Psychoanalysis, a person needs more than an understanding of how they exist. They also need to experience that their existence means something to someone—and, through caring for the Other, to discover their own existence as an ethical relationship. 

What heals a person is not primarily what the analyst knows about them, but what the analyst unconsciously bears witness to through their care: that their existence matters to someone.