Raffoul (1999:5-6) – Subjektivismus

Indeed, what is subjectivism? For Heidegger, subjectivism consists in the conjunction, peculiar to modern philosophy, of an epistemological primacy given to the subject and an absence of ontological inquiry regarding its Being. The modern tradition  , even while taking the subject as a center, norm  , or ground, neglects the meaning of its Being by applying inadequate categories to it, categories that arise out of the Christian theme of creation and the ancient-medieval ontology of nature and production. To affirm the primacy of the subject, as the modern ontological tradition has done since Descartes  , in no way ensures that its specific mode of Being will be elucidated, which is the very task defining the existential analytic. In this connection, the following passage from The Basic Problems of Phenomenology is particularly illuminating:

We are thus repeating afresh that in the active stress put upon the subject in philosophy since Descartes there is no doubt a genuine impulse toward philosophical inquiry which only sharpens what the ancients already sought; on the other hand  , it is equally necessary not   to start simply from the subject alone but to ask whether and how the being of the subject must be determined as an entrance into the problems of philosophy, and in fact in such a way that orientation toward it is not one-sidedly subjectivistic. Philosophy must perhaps start from the "subject" and return to the "subject" in its ultimate questions, and yet for all that it may not pose its questions in a one-sidedly subjectivistic manner. (GA24  , 220/155)

This startling passage in no way runs counter to the claim that the question of Being must necessarily overcome the "obstacle" of subjectivity, since this "overcoming" properly understood consists in nothing else than the ontological clarification of the concept of the subject. We should note that this clarification does not concern one question or one field among many, in the sense of being a "regional ontology." The subject is instead understood as the "center," from which "philosophy" or "the genuine impulse toward philosophical inquiry" must proceed and to which it must return in its ultimate questions. In fact, the concept of the subject goes back farther; it does not appear in only one determinate epoch ("since Descartes") but is to be thought in connection with "what the ancients already sought." The position of the human being thus cannot be avoided in the question of Being.